Rome & the World: mummies repatriated to Peru from Vatican Museums

Tuesday 18 October 2022
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1. The Church in Spain launches a portal for the protection of minors
2. Three ancient mummies repatriated from the Vatican to Peru
3. Cardinal Romero: “the small Church of Morocco bears witness to the Council”
4. Is Pope Francis’ synodal extension a plan, or a punt?
5. The new word invented by Pope Francis
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1The Church in Spain launches a portal for the protection of minors

The Spanish Episcopal Conference has created the web portal “Paradarluz” (meaning “to shed light”) to offer an overview of the work carried out by the Church in Spain for the protection of minors and the prevention of abuse. The site also hopes to facilitate contact with the dedicated offices that have been set up in the dioceses, religious congregations, and other Church institutions, by offering a direct line of communication. A total of 202 offices have been set up – 60 in dioceses and 142 in congregations – to receive reports of abuse and to establish protocols for action and formation in order to protect minors and prevent abuse. The site also contains an extensive bibliographic list of documents on these crimes, protocols created by dioceses and religious institutions, as well as press materials. Cardinal Juan José Omella, Archbishop of Barcelona and President of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, acknowledges in the letter of presentation of the portal that the work carried out by the Church in Spain “is never enough in the face of suffering,” but he explains that the site aims to help the whole of society to “become aware of the decisions that have been taken and those that we are ready to take.” The Church in Spain began its journey in dealing with this issue in 2010, by adopting the first protocols of action. It has since improved over the years by updating legal norms related to these crimes within the framework of canon law and in connection with the Holy See. Spain is one of many European countries conducting an independent investigation into abuses committed within the Church. Other examples are France and Portugal.

Omnes, Spanish

2Three ancient mummies repatriated from the Vatican to Peru

Three ancient mummies kept at the Anima Mundi museum – the ethnological gallery within the Vatican Museums – have been repatriated to Peru. In a ceremony on October 17, the president of the Governorate of the Vatican City State, Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, and the Peruvian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cesar Rodrigo Landa Arroyo, signed a document formalizing the act. This event is to be understood in the context of a project of repatriation of human remains from the museum, explains Vatican News. Since 2010, the Vatican structure has been pursuing a policy in consideration that human remains are not works of art or collectibles. The first result of this policy was the repatriation of human remains from Ecuador. Subsequently, a collaboration was initiated with Peru to return these undated mummies, which were discovered at an altitude of 3,000 meters in the Peruvian Andes, along the course of the Ucayali River, a tributary of the Amazon. The Anima Mundi Museum was created by Pope Pius XI in 1925, after a large-scale exhibition in the Vatican on the theme of the missions. At that time, more than 100,000 works from all over the world were sent as gifts to the pontiff. Peru also participated in the initiative by sending a number of artifacts representative of the country’s culture and civilization, including the three mummies in question.

Vatican News, Italian 

The Salesian Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero, Archbishop of Rabat, Morocco, assures that interreligious dialogue is one of the fruits of the Second Vatican Council, which took place 60 years ago and changed the face of the Church. Pope Francis gives a boost to continue on this path, he explains.

Salesianos, Spanish 

Pope Francis has added another year to the global synod process. Is it a matter of slowing the pace or delaying the inevitable?

The Pillar, English

In his homily on October 11, the Pope used a word that does not exist in Italian dictionaries: “indietrismo” (roughly translated as going backwards). However, everyone understood very well what the Pontiff meant, argues a journalist from Informacion de la Comunidad.

Infodecom, Spanish