Thursday 10 March 2022
1 – “Kirill is closely linked to the Kremlin,” analyzes an Italian professor
2 – “There’s no place I’d rather be,” says President of Caritas Ukraine who’s giving aid on the frontline
3 – The flowers of a Dominican in the hell of Kiev
4 – Abuse: an appeal to the Italian bishops
5 – How Silicon Valley’s ‘Techtopia’ turned work into religion~
“Kirill is closely linked to the Kremlin,” analyzes an Italian professor
We should not expect from Patriarch Kirill an explicit condemnation of the war waged by Russia, although from a Christian point of view, the Patriarch of Moscow must be affected. This is the analysis of Italian professor Enrico Morini, a specialist in the history and institutions of the Orthodox Church. According to him, it is Patriarch Kirill’s very strong link with President Putin that prevents him from condemning the war; a link based on a shared model of society, which is different to the values promoted by the West. Moreover, the Russian Church, which is still trying to rebuild itself after the communist era, needs this closeness to power, according to the professor. While the war is upsetting the balance of the Orthodox world, Professor Morini confides that it is still difficult to predict the consequences of the conflict on Ukrainian Orthodoxy. “We can hypothesize a transfer of faithful – and perhaps even the passage of some bishops from the Russian jurisdiction of Onufryi to the autocephalous jurisdiction of Epifanyi, because of the general anti-Russian exasperation of the population,” he analyzes, without pronouncing himself on the extent of this transfer.
Avvenire, Italian
“I can’t say there isn’t fear, there’s fear and there’s tension, and your emotions go up and down, but there’s nowhere else I’d want to be right now,” Tetiana Stawnychy, president of Caritas Ukraine, tells Crux. She’s on the front lines helping thousands of Ukrainian families trying to flee after the Russian invasion that began two weeks ago. The American is the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants who fled the country during World War II. She explains that everyone in the local population has experienced “some form of trauma” following the numerous explosions. In addition to providing basic supplies such as food, water, medicine and a place to sleep, Stawnychy said that one of the greatest needs in the next phase of the conflict will be “psycho-social support.”
Crux, English
The flowers of a Dominican in the hell of Kiev
Joroslaw Krawiec, a Dominican friar based in Kiev, is regularly sending letters to the Swiss readers of Cath.ch to tell them about life under the bombs. He tells them about the terrible living conditions of his fellow citizens but also about the acts of generosity and sacrifice that he observes or that people tell him about. He insists in particular on the work of the drivers who play an essential role on a daily basis and take big risks. Among them are nuns and priests. “They go to places devastated by war to bring humanitarian aid. They go even if they know that the road back may be cut off. They go, even at the risk of being shot at,” he says. He also explains how Women’s Day, March 8, a national holiday in Ukraine, was celebrated by many Ukrainians. The Dominican friar himself did not hesitate to buy 12 yellow tulips and chocolates, despite the huge queue and the prohibitive prices, for those he considers heroines: the “women behind the counter,” who allow the country to eat and live while the men defend it with weapons in their hands.
Cath.ch, French
Abuse: an appeal to the Italian bishops
In a letter, 40 Italian theologians call on the Italian Episcopal Conference to react vigorously to the “radical questions” posed by abuse, “not only on the origin of this evil, the care of victims and the need for redemption, but also on the exercise of power and the odious link between the abuse of bodies and the abuse of consciences.” “What we all look at today with painful amazement is precisely the inability of the ecclesial body to become aware of evil and to confront it,” they lament, inviting the ecclesiastical authorities not to be afraid to confront the gaze of civil society. Alluding, without naming it, to the CIASE report in France, these theologians ask the Italian bishops to set up “a commission that knows how to take on the task of intelligently listening to the victims and responsibly caring for the wounds of the ecclesial body, those that we have long hidden from our own eyes.”
Settimana News, Italian
How Silicon Valley’s ‘Techtopia’ turned work into religion
Sociologist Carolyn Chen analyzes how high-skilled workers have disinvested from organized religion and are instead finding belonging, identity, purpose and transcendence at the office in her new book “Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley.” She spent five years interviewing tech workers at Google, Facebook and other companies and managers who have invested in health and spiritual well-being services for their employees. Chen explains that this “worshiping” of work has led to people disinvesting “from social institutions, churches, synagogues, neighborhoods, schools, civic associations.” Additionally she says pastors or spiritual leaders who offer services to these companies find themselves “secularizing the teachings to make them fit the goals of the workplace,” which she warns “changes the religious experience.”
Religion News Service, English
And today we celebrate...