Vatican unveils anime mascot for Jubilee
THE Vatican has launched a mascot, “Luce”, for the 2025 Jubilee, for which the theme is “Pilgrims in hope”. The Holy See will also participate in the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, next year. “Luce”, drawn anime-style, ties the two events together, Vatican News explains. She has a missionary cross, staff, and boots dirty from walking. In the run-up to the year, the Dicastery for Evangelisation is hosting concerts and exhibitions, including a display of various rare icons from the Vatican Museum in Sant’Agnese in Agone.
Bishop has message for COP29 leaders in Baku
LEADERS at the COP29 summit in Baku, which begins on Monday, should recognise that action on climate change is “inseparable from the health of the whole creation”, the Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham Usher, the Church of England’s lead bishop for environmental affairs, said this week. “It’s essential that climate and biodiversity goals align,” he said. “The anticipated climate finance commitments . . . will be vital to rebuild trust and support the world’s most vulnerable communities. However, investments in biodiversity conservation, restoration, and environmental protection are futile if climate change continues to advance at the current pace.”
Christian corruption demands regulator, Indian judge says
THE High Court of Tamil Nadu, in India, has said that Christian organisations and their finances should be regulated by a statutory government body, as is already the case for Hindu and Muslim institutions, Crux reports. Among reports of “mismanagement” were allegations that churches holding properties worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and running medical and educational institutions, were guilty of “misappropriation of funds and illegal sale of properties”, resulting in legal disputes. Justice N. Sathish Kumar spoke of “a danger of the depletion of funds by vested individuals who are in authority without a regulatory framework for church endowments”, Crux reports.
Gafcon rebukes Archbishop Welby over podcast
THE Gafcon Primates Council has repeated its call for “personal repentance” by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the wake of his comments about same-sex relationships on the podcast The Rest is Politics (News, 25 October). In a statement issued on Thursday of last week, they said: “While he may claim not to have changed the doctrine of marriage, the Archbishop of Canterbury has demonstrably changed the doctrine of sin, by promoting the sanctification of sin by means of a divine blessing. This is in clear breach of Holy Scripture . . . and in clear breach of Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which rejected, ‘homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture,’ and which the Archbishop as recently as 2022 declared to be the teaching of the Anglican Communion, including the Church of England.” They expressed their support for the organisation the Alliance “as they seek to stand firm in defence of biblical marriage within the Church of England” (News, 7 July 2023).