"When the communism comes back..."

I was reading that BRICS is currently composed of ten full members, which in some way reminds me of the biblical prophecy of the ten kings who will give their power to the Antichrist. I don’t believe that the bloc itself represents the reign of the Antichrist, which, in my view, will be the remnant of one of Israel or the Church's enemy empires. However, I think this could fulfill the Garabandal prophecy about Russia taking control of the whole world. If the countries within the bloc were to unite in a global response to free themselves from dependence on the dollar, it could lead to the economic downfall of Western nations, sparking various civil wars in the West, especially in those countries that have legalized abortion, and in France, whose capital is referred to as Babylon in one of St. John Bosco’s prophecies.

 

Russia jails doctor for criticising Ukraine campaign during appointment

 

Catholic priest charged for treason in the Putinist protectorate of Belarus.



Belarus: Catholic priest charged for treason
Father Henryk Akalatovich, who was arrested a year ago, is on trial for treason although charges remain unknown.

By Vatican News

In Belarus, a Catholic priest, 64-year-old Father Henryk Akalatovich, has been accused of alleged state treason, and is due to stand trial in a district court in the capital, Minsk.

According to the Belarusian human rights organization, Vyasna, the trial is scheduled to begin on November 25.

The reasons behind the treason charge, which could result in a prison sentence of 7 to 15 years and a heavy fine, are not known.

Long pretrial detention

Fr Akalatovich, of Polish origin, was born in Belarus and holds Belarusian citizenship. Ordained as a priest in 1984, he served as the parish priest of St. Joseph's Church in the Valozhyn district, Minsk region, until his arrest on November 16, 2023.

During his lengthy pretrial detention, there have been concerns about his health. Shortly before his arrest, he underwent surgery for an abdominal cancer.

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Source: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/churc...-catholic-priest-trial-treason-detention.html

 

Catholic priests face new pressures after nuncio departs [the Putinist protectorate of] Belarus

Clergymen carry candles during the annual feast of the Icon of the Mother of God procession July 5, 2019, in the village of Budslav, Belarus. Since the government's enforcement of the Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations law in December 2023, which restricted educational and missionary activity by churches and require all parishes to reapply for legal status, clergy in Belarus have been deleting their social media profiles to avoid arrest, according to church sources. (OSV News photo/Vasily Fedosenko, Reuters)

Clergy in Belarus are deleting their social media profiles to avoid arrest, according to church sources, as local parishes face pressure under a new religious law.

“With church communities required to re-register, all are vulnerable to new restrictions,” explained Natallia Vasilevich, coordinator of the ecumenical Christian Vision organization, referencing a recent law that requires all parishes to reapply for legal status and restricts educational and missionary activity by churches.

“Priests can be arrested and see their parishes deprived of legal status, if they post or share anything deemed extremist. This is why they’ve been asked by their bishops to cease social media activity,” the lay theologian said.

She spoke as two more senior clergy faced charges of distributing “extremist material” under Article 19:11 of Belarus’s Code of Administrative Offenses.

In an OSV News interview, Vasilevich said official monitoring agencies had checked social media records as part of an independent media purge, often keeping screenshots, forcing many priests to close their accounts rather than spend time editing them.


Oblate Father Andrzej Juchniewicz, pictured in an undated photo, who is chairman of Major Superiors, Delegates and Representatives of Institutes and Societies of Apostolic Life in Belarus, and Oblate Father Pavel Lemec were detained by civil authorities May 8, 2024, and two days later given 10-day and 15-day detention, respectively. Both priests work at the northeastern Vitebsk Diocese’s sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima at Shumilina. (OSV News photo/courtesy CatholicBY)

She added that Catholic clergy were also impeded from discussing “personal and confessional problems” with parishioners, knowing their private telephone messages could be checked by police.

A number of organizations are inviting the faithful to pray for persecuted Christians throughout the month of November, as more than 365 million believers in Christ worldwide suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination, according to a 2024 report by the advocacy group Open Doors.

Belarus was placed on the 2024 World Watch List by Open Doors for the second time since 2023.

The pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need said in its country overview, “Most human rights, including religious freedom, are endangered due to the authoritarian nature of the government in Belarus.”

A prominent lay Catholic confirmed that clergy had been warned not to criticize officials in Belarus, where the disputed August 2020 reelection of Alexander Lukashenko for his sixth term as president was followed by harsh repression and international sanctions.

“Sanctioning protests or questioning state actions in maintaining public order — all of this, it’s been made clear, is subject to checking,” said Artiom Tkaczuk, a social worker now living in neighboring Poland.

“Although we may regret the times we’re having to live through, I nevertheless remain full of hope as a believer. For Christians, there are no worse or better times — just ever-present challenges, social injustices and human weaknesses.”

Father Yuri Barauniou, rector of the Heart of Jesus Parish at Krulevshchina, near Vitebsk, was detained for 10 days in October for “storing and distributing extremist materials,” while Father Andrei Keulich, head of the Mogilev deanery, was held a day later on the same charge at Gorki’s Our Lady Parish.

In an Oct. 31 report, Christian Vision said an elderly Catholic pensioner, Emma Stepulenok, who was recently freed from a two-year jail sentence, had been charged during the same month, along with a Catholic history teacher from Uzmeny and two other female Catholics.

It added that Pyotr Rudkovsky, exiled Catholic former director of the Belarusan Strategic Studies Institute, had also been accused of “terrorist activity” after being sentenced in absentia to 11 years’ imprisonment.

The report said 36 Roman and Greek Catholic clergy had been “subjected to … persecution for political reasons” since 2020, alongside 21 Orthodox and 29 Protestant pastors.

Two Catholic priests have been recognized as political prisoners by the Belarusan rights group, Viasna, which was awarded the United Nations General Assembly’s annual Human Rights Prize in December 2023.

Oblate Father Andrzej Juchniewicz, chairman of Major Superiors, Delegates and Representatives of Institutes and Societies of Apostolic Life in Belarus, has been detained since May 8 in connection with “actions on the internet.” Meanwhile, 70-year-old Father Henrykh Akalatovich, from Valožyn, was detained in November 2023 for “treason against the state,” and has since suffered a heart attack and undergone gastric cancer surgery.

Tkaczuk said he feared Western societies were “showing signs of fatigue” toward the Belarus “political crisis,” adding that — with new arrests made daily — the country’s Catholic church could do little to help Father Juchniewicz and other prisoners.

“While I’m sure these issues are discussed privately by the bishops, any public statements will always face a severe, immediate reaction,” the lay Catholic told OSV News.

“The church hierarchy in Belarus appears to be sticking to a survival strategy to get through these hard times — keeping their distance from the authorities and focusing on strictly religious activities,” he said.

The Catholic Church makes up a 10th of the 9.4 million inhabitants of Belarus, a former Soviet republic, where 1,287 political prisoners are incarcerated as of Nov. 11, including Viasna’s founder, Ales Bialiatski, who won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.

Under the new Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations law, signed in December 2023 by Lukashenko, educational and missionary activity by churches is restricted, while all parishes must re-register by July 2025 or face liquidation.

Fears of new church restrictions follow the departure after a Sept. 15 farewell Mass of the Vatican’s Croatian nuncio, Archbishop Ante Jozic.

Tkaczuk said he believed Archbishop Jozic had succeeded in “reassuring the authorities” while “helping the church find its way in a new reality” during his four years in Belarus.

“Although much remains concealed in the archives, he also worked for the release of political prisoners — what his nunciature lacked was any warmth towards people,” the lay Catholic told OSV News.

Vasilevich added that Catholic priests now languishing in jail were only “a few examples of many suffering people,” adding that she counted on the international community to continue “sending strong messages daily” to Lukashenko’s government, demanding an end to repression.

“The brutal images of war in Ukraine, with missiles devastating whole cities, has made Belarus’s plight seem less important. But prisoners are suffering and dying here — these aren’t political matters, but issues of life, justice and dignity.”

The spokesman for Belarus’ Catholic bishops’ conference, Father Yuri Sanko, did not respond to questions emailed Nov. 4 by OSV News.

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Source: https://catholicreview.org/catholic-priests-face-new-pressures-after-nuncio-departs-belarus/

 

Prayers for Catholics in Belarus!

 

Chinese Bishop Focused On Adapting Faith to Communist Party Ideals, Shanghai Catholics Say
A recent analysis published by USCIRF asserts that the CCP’s “sinicization of religion” policy consistently violates the internationally protected right to freedom of religion.

Shanghai Bishop Joseph Shen Bin speaks to Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin at a Vatican conference on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (photo: Fabio Gonnella / EWTN)

A Chinese bishop with a history of support for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) emphasized in a recent diocesan seminar the socialist state’s influence over the Church more than the Vatican’s, according to Catholics who attended the bishop’s talks.

Bishop Joseph Shen Bin of Shanghai, who was illicitly installed as bishop by Chinese authorities in 2023 and brought into communion with the Church by Pope Francis a year later under the Vatican-China deal, was featured as a speaker at a Vatican conference in May, where he promoted a “Chinese-style modernization” of the Church in line with socialist ideals.

Shen recently gave a diocesan seminar Nov. 4–6 about “Sinicization of Religion in Shanghai.” According to a report from Bitter Winter, Shanghai Catholics who attended the bishop’s seminar said he “did not discuss at all the Vatican Synod [on Synodality] nor Pope Francis and his recent documents.”

Instead, several sources said, Shen “focused on ‘sinicization,’ which as it is now clear does not mean adapting religion to Chinese customs but to the CCP’s [Chinese Communist Party] ideology.”


“An optimist could object that Bishop Shen Bin did not explicitly tell Shanghai Catholics ‘not’ to listen to the pope’s teachings, which oppose the CCP’s ideas on key matters such as abortion and the role of religion in society. But for a bishop ignoring the pope and his documents in such solemn events is tantamount to rejecting them,” reported Bitter Winter, a publication that focuses on Christian persecution in China.

Since coming to power in 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping has mandated the “sinicization” of all religions in China — a move the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has called “a far-reaching strategy to control, govern, and manipulate all aspects of faith into a socialist mold infused with ‘Chinese characteristics.’”

Shen in his November seminar reportedly also emphasized the need for stricter cooperation with the United Front Work Department, which is in charge of controlling and supervising “official” religion in China.

A recent analysis published by USCIRF asserts that the CCP’s “sinicization of religion” policy consistently violates the internationally protected right to freedom of religion. The term sinicization means to conform to Chinese culture, but the policy essentially subordinates faiths to “the CCP’s political agenda and Marxist vision for religion,” according to the report.

Chinese officials have ordered the removal of crosses from churches and have replaced images of Christ and the Virgin Mary with images of Xi, according to the report. They have also censored religious texts, forced members of the clergy to preach CCP ideology, and mandated the display of CCP slogans within churches.

Shen has gone on the record numerous times in support of Xi’s program of sinicization of religion, saying in 2023 that sinicization is “a signpost and a direction to adapt to the socialist society as well as an inherent rule and a fundamental requirement for the survival and development of the Catholic Church in China itself.”

He went on to emphasize that Catholic teaching should “align” with the party’s ideology.

“The policy of religious freedom implemented by the Chinese government has no interest in changing the Catholic faith but only hopes that the Catholic clergy and faithful will defend the interests of the Chinese people and free themselves from the control of foreign powers,” Shen said in his May speech at the Vatican, where he appeared alongside Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

In China, Catholic priests are reportedly only allowed to minister in recognized places of worship in which minors under the age of 18 are not allowed to enter. Religious groups in China have been barred from conducting any religious activities online without first applying and receiving approval from the provincial Department of Religious Affairs.

The CCP’s efforts to control religion are not limited to Catholics but also extend to Protestants, Muslims, Taoists, Buddhists, and adherents of Chinese folk religions. Chinese officials also suppress the Falun Gong religious movement.

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Source: https://www.ncregister.com/cna/chin...communist-party-ideals-shanghai-catholics-say

 

A pastor killed, another one wounded in Russian attack in Mykolaiv [Ukraine]
A Russian drone attack killed a Seventh-day Adventist priest Artur Kucheriavenko and wounded his father, fellow pastor Vladyslav Kucheriavenko in Solonchaky, Mykolaiv Oblast. The attack came as they were delivering humanitarian aid.

More information here: https://bukvy.org/en/a-pastor-killed-another-one-wounded-in-russian-attack-in-mykolaiv/

and here: https://ugcc.ua/data/glava-ugkts-vy...o-pastora-vnaslidok-rosiyskogo-obstrilu-5976/

 

Religious sites destroyed or damaged during two years of Putin's special denazification operation in Ukraine, according to the Workshop for Academic Study of Religion NGO:

Sources:
https://uoc-news.church/2024/11/29/...zheno-317-religijnix-objektiv-upc/#2024-11-29
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=611795154845521&set=p.611795154845521

 

I had a dream last night of an explosive fire at a church I was at set in like a monastery. As I was entering the premises it went off and I had to run through side doors - then I met people coming out who had been injured many with faces peeling from being burnt. Not a pleasant experience even is a dream but the reality must be a million times worse.

 

Scary... When I try to imagine the vision of the girls of Garabandal on the nights of screams, images like that come to mind or of Catholic priests and lay people being murdered as in the communist persecution during the Spanish Civil War.

 

https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1863009545858998512?t=GNEV4QaWLJheRLy1hCOzMA&s=19

 

Donbas Catholics: At Risk of Extinction

Bishop Maksum Ryabukha

In the Donbas territories now under Russian control, Catholics are living through dark times, considered by the authorities to be traitors won over by the Western cause. In a deadly conflict often devoid of any rationality, exile is the obvious choice for many.

The Greek Catholic Church is Ukraine's third largest religious denomination, accounting for 7% of the population and mainly concentrated in the west of the country.

Persecuted by Stalin since 1945 and made official again in the 1990s, after the collapse of the USSR, this Eastern Church reunited with Rome has condemned in the strongest terms the “special military operation” launched by the Russian Federation in 2022, while striving to maintain a relationship with the “Orthodox” communities undermined by divisions.

A balancing act that puts Catholics living in the largely Russian-controlled Donbas region on the front lines: “We have already lost more than half our parishes, and with the advance of the Russian army, dozens of other churches have recently been evacuated,” Bishop Maksym Ryabukha confides to Giacomo Gambassi for Avvenire on October 28, 2024.

Interviewed by the newspaper run by the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), the new Archiepiscopal Exarch of Donets’k—equivalent to a residential bishop, the prelate was appointed by the Synod of Bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church on October 17, 2024—Bishop Ryabukha describes the daily life of the faithful in a diocese cut off by the front line and largely controlled by Moscow.

The Exarch of Donets’k describes a tense situation in the Catholic villages that are under bombardment: “There are no sacred furnishings left, no furniture, no benches in the churches of Pokrovsk, Myrnohrad and Kostiantynivka, three places toward which the Kremlin battalions are heading in an attempt to complete the conquest of Donets’k oblast,” he explains.

The clergy are not abandoning the faithful, many of whom have chosen the solution of exodus: “Our priests remain close to the population and visit refugees who have left their homes.” Bishop Ryabukha can no longer set foot in more than fifty percent of the occupied exarchate.

On the scene, the Greek Catholic Church is being made to pay dearly for its support for the Ukrainian power, which the Russian-speaking majority see as treachery: in the territories that have chosen Russia, the Church in communion with Rome has been banned.

“Those who openly say they are Catholics disappear: some are shot; others are imprisoned. You don't have the right to profess your faith freely. Our faithful repeat: 'We resist, but it's like being locked up in a prison,'” the Exarch of Donets’k reveals.

Little consolation for the prelate, two of his priests—Fathers Bohdan Geleta and Ivan Levytskyi—were released thanks to mediation by the Holy See after spending more than a year and a half behind bars, accused of hiding weapons, a charge they have always denied.

“Their account of their captivity shows how the power of prayer was a vital support for them in resisting the inhumanity they experienced in Russian jails,” Bishop Ryabukha emphasizes.

For several weeks now, Ukrainian forces have been struggling in the east of the country, facing more numerous and better-armed Russian soldiers. On October 27, Moscow claimed a new advance in the Donets’k region.

For Kyiv, which had hoped to divert Russian troops away from its territory by launching a surprise offensive in the Russian region of Kursk at the beginning of August, the situation is disillusioned as winter sets in.

Lucid, Bishop Ryabukha sums up the situation: “We know that the war is going to end. But we want it to happen as soon as possible, and with a peace that is under the sign of justice.”

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Source: https://fsspx.news/en/news/donbas-catholics-risk-extinction-48908

 

By mistake, I posted this article in the wrong thread... My apologies, it has now been corrected.