Latest news with #AlviseArmellini
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Italian Catholic Church reports higher number of abuse cases in 2023-2024
By Alvise Armellini ROME (Reuters) -Italy's Catholic Church on Wednesday reported a rise in the number of suspected victims of abuse, mostly at the hands of priests, with 115 cases over the course of 2023-2024. The figure, which includes as many as 21 children under 10 and 35 "vulnerable adults," compares with 89 alleged victims reported for 2020-2021 and 54 for the year 2022. The suspected cases were linked to 67 alleged perpetrators, including 44 priests, 15 members of religious orders and eight laypersons, a report by the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI) showed. The global Catholic Church has been shaken for decades by scandals involving paedophile priests and the covering up of their crimes, triggering a crisis that is among the major challenges facing newly elected Pope Leo XIV. Italy is one of the countries whose local bishops have been more reluctant to confront the issue, compared to other churches in Europe and North America. The CEI has published reports on abuse since 2022, limited to the period from 2020. Other national churches, and even a single Italian diocese, have published research stretching back decades. Italian bishops collect data on abuse from listening centres they have set up across the country, where people can flag cases involving themselves or others, obtain psychological or spiritual help, or ask for information. But out of 103 such centres covered by Wednesday's report, around two-thirds had zero people reaching out to them during 2023-2024, suggesting a reluctance to turn to them. Among the alleged cases reported, CEI said, there were 36 instances of inappropriate behaviour or language, 25 of inappropriate touching, 19 of sexual harassment, 11 involving sex, and three of grooming via social media or the internet. The Italian church also said that just over half of the alleged abuse cases that were reported to its centres were committed in 2023-2024, with the rest dating from further back in time.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pope Leo says he will make 'every effort' for world peace
By Alvise Armellini VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Leo XIV, the first American to head the global Catholic Church, pledged on Wednesday to make "every effort" for peace and offered the Vatican as a mediator in global conflicts, saying war was "never inevitable". Leo, who was elected last week to succeed the late Pope Francis, has made repeated calls for peace in the early days of his papacy. His first words to crowds in St Peter's Square were "Peace be with all you". He returned to the issue while addressing members of the Eastern Catholic Churches, some of which are based in conflict-ridden places such as Ukraine, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq and often face persecution as religious minorities. "The Holy See is always ready to help bring enemies together, face-to-face, to talk to one another, so that peoples everywhere may once more find hope and recover the dignity they deserve, the dignity of peace," Leo said. "War is never inevitable. Weapons can and must be silenced, for they do not resolve problems but only increase them. Those who make history are the peacemakers, not those who sow seeds of suffering," he added. Pope Leo warned against the rise of simplistic narratives that divide the world into good and evil. "Our neighbours are not first our enemies, but fellow human beings," he said. On Sunday, the pontiff called for an "authentic and lasting peace" in Ukraine, a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all Israeli hostages held by militant group Hamas, and welcomed the fragile ceasefire between India and Pakistan. Leo spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday in his first known conversation with a foreign leader as pope. He offered to facilitate peace talks as world leaders come to his inauguration mass, the Ukrainian leader said. Zelenskiy hopes to be present for the event in St Peter's Square on May 18 and is ready to hold meetings on the sidelines, the Ukrainian leader's chief of staff Andriy Yermak told Reuters on Tuesday.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Yahoo
Bologna's leaning tower to be stabilised by late 2028, mayor says
By Alvise Armellini ROME (Reuters) - A leaning medieval tower in the centre of Bologna that was cordoned off due to the risk of its collapse is expected to be stabilised and restored by late 2028, the northern Italian city's mayor said on Tuesday. Like the more famous Tower of Pisa, the 12th-century Garisenda tower has leaned for centuries, as the ground on which it was built gave way soon after its construction. In October 2023, however, the area immediately surrounding the 48-metre structure, where the taller Asinelli tower (97 metres) is also located, was closed off. Presenting repair plans, Mayor Matteo Lepore said the process of stabilising the tower would allow the area to be reopened in 2028: a more optimistic target date than the 10-year time frame he initially gave in 2023. "It is a world-unique project, if anything, because ours is a world-unique tower," he said during a press conference, flanked by engineering experts. The Garisenda is a much-loved landmark, mentioned in Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" and "Le Rime", as well as in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's "Voyage to Italy" and Charles Dickens' "Pictures from Italy". The tower is expected to be reinforced using machinery and expertise previously tested on the Tower of Pisa. The project is expected to cost nearly 20 million euros ($22 million), Lepore said, with financing coming from local, regional and European Union funds, as well as private donations. Under the plan presented on Tuesday, which still requires approval from Italian art heritage authorities, two plinths will be erected next to the tower, topped with metal pylons reaching to a height of about 20 metres. Polyester bands attached to the pylons will wrap around the tower to gently counter its tendency to lean south and eastwards, the experts said, adding that the foundations will meanwhile be strengthened through injections. The Garisenda and Asinelli towers bear the names of the influential medieval families that built them. The Garisenda was originally about 60 metres tall, but it was lowered in the second half of the 14th century to improve its precarious stability. ($1 = 0.9003 euros)
The Star
11-05-2025
- General
- The Star
At least three die, including two children, in Libya-Italy crossing, NGO says
ROME (Reuters) - At least three people have died, including two children aged 3 and 4, in a Mediterranean sea crossing from Libya to Italy, a German sea rescue charity said on Sunday, adding that it had rescued 59 survivors. The migrants were intercepted on Saturday on a rubber boat floating adrift south of the Italian island of Lampedusa that had been spotted by a surveillance aircraft of the EU border agency Frontex. "By the time (we) reached the rubber boat at around 4.30pm (1430 GMT), it was too late to help some of the people," the RESQSHIP charity said in a statement. "Two bodies of infants aged 3 and 4 were handed over to us," the charity quoted one of its paramedics identified only as Rania as saying. "They had died the day before, probably of thirst." A man was found unconscious and declared dead after attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful, RESQSHIP said, adding that it was told by survivors that another migrant had drowned on Friday after going overboard. Many of the survivors, who were taken to Lampedusa, suffered chemical burns from salt water and fuel, the group said. Two children and four adults in critical condition were handed over to the Italian coast guard to be brought ashore more quickly. The rubber boat had set off from the port of Zawiya in western Libya on Wednesday, but its engine failed after one day of navigation, leaving the migrants on board exposed to wind and weather, the NGO said. Lampedusa lies between Tunisia, Malta and the larger Italian island of Sicily and is the first port of call for many migrants seeking to reach the EU from North Africa, in what has become one of the world's deadliest sea crossings. Almost 25,000 migrants have died or gone missing on this central Mediterranean route since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration, including around 1,700 last year and 378 so far this year. (Reporting by Alvise Armellini; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Factbox-'I still consider myself a missionary' - Pope Leo XIV in past interviews
By Alvise Armellini VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - U.S. Cardinal Robert Prevost, who on Thursday was elected as the new leader of the Catholic Church taking up the name of Leo XIV, is a soft-spoken figure who has shunned the limelight during his priestly career. The 69-year-old from Chicago has served as a missionary in Peru and has given few media interviews. However, he spoke to Vatican News in May 2023, upon his appointment as head of the Vatican department that oversees bishops' appointments, and to RAI Italian public television before the conclave. Here are some extracts from those interviews: ON HIS FAMILY BACKGROUND: "I was born in the United States ... But my grandparents were all immigrants, French, Spanish ... I was raised in a very Catholic family, both of my parents were very engaged in the parish." (RAI) ON CONSIDERING DROPPING PLANS FOR PRIESTHOOD: He talked with his father about "very concrete things, doubts that a young man may have (such as) 'perhaps it is better (that) I leave this life and I get married, I have children, a normal life". (RAI) ON BEING PROMOTED TO A TOP VATICAN JOB IN 2023: "I still consider myself a missionary. My vocation, like that of every Christian, is to be a missionary, to proclaim the Gospel wherever one is." (Vatican News) ON HOW TO BE A BISHOP: "We are often preoccupied with teaching doctrine, the way of living our faith, but we risk forgetting that our first task is to teach what it means to know Jesus Christ and to bear witness to our closeness to the Lord." (Vatican News) ON CHURCH DIVISIONS: "Divisions and polemics in the Church do not help anything. We bishops especially must accelerate this movement towards unity, towards communion in the Church." (Vatican News) ON THE CHURCH AS AN INSTITUTION: "Too many times we have allowed the Church to become an institution in part or in its entirety... One thinks of the Vatican, the Holy See, there are institutional dimensions, but that is not the heart of what the Church is and must be." (RAI) ON WOMEN BEING APPOINTED AS MEMBERS OF THE VATICAN'S DICASTERY FOR BISHOPS, AN INNOVATION BY POPE FRANCIS: "On several occasions we have seen that their point of view is an enrichment." (Vatican News) ON THE DUTY OF BISHOPS TO ACT AGAINST SEX ABUSE: "We cannot close our hearts, the door of the Church, to people who have suffered from abuse. The responsibility of the bishop is great, and I think we still have to make great efforts to respond to this situation that is causing so much pain in the Church. It will take time." "In any case, silence is not an answer. Silence is not the solution. We must be transparent and honest, we must accompany and assist the victims, because otherwise their wounds will never heal. There is a great responsibility in this, for all of us." (Vatican News) ON FINANCIAL CHALLENGES FOR THE CHURCH: "The (late) Pope (Francis) has told us that he wants a Church that is poor and for the poor (...) Personally, I am not of the opinion that the Church should sell everything and 'only' preach the Gospel in the streets. However, this is a very big responsibility, there are no one-size-fits-all answers." (Vatican News) ON THE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA "Social media can be an important tool to communicate the Gospel message reaching millions of people. We must prepare ourselves to use social media well." "(There are) situations where we really have to think several times before speaking or before writing a message on Twitter, in order to answer or even just to ask questions in a public form, in full view of everyone. Sometimes there is a risk of fuelling divisions and controversy." (Vatican News) (Writing by Alvise Armellini; Editing by Diane Craft)
