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Political upheavals East and West

23 Feb 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The instructions from the Book of Leviticus are clear and simple this Sunday: “Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any of your people. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” In countries as far apart as Ukraine and Venezuela, however, upheaval and violence are the rule this week.Renewed clashes took place Wednesday between protesters and Ukrainian riot police just hours after the ex-Soviet republic saw the worst violence in decades and as the European Union said it would hold "extraordinary" talks on the crisis amid a deteriorating situation that has killed at least 25 people.Just before midnight Wednesday Ukraine's president had declared a truce in his nation as well as the start of negotiations aimed at not only preventing further bloodshed but also forging a lasting peace. The short-lived cease-fire, however, crumbled Thursday as gunfire erupted in Independence Square, the center of anti-government protests.Nearly half a world away a student demonstrator died of a bullet-wound on Wednesday in the fifth fatality from Venezuela's political unrest, as imprisoned protest leader Leopoldo Lopez urged supporters to keep fighting for the departure of the socialist government.Tensions have risen in Venezuela since Lopez, a 42-year-old Harvard-educated economist, surrendered to troops on Tuesday after spearheading three weeks of often rowdy demonstrations against President Nicolas Maduro's administration. "Today more than ever, our cause has to be the exit of this government," he said, sitting next to his wife in a prerecorded video to be released if he were arrested. "Let's fight. I will be doing so.""I've hardly been in office for 10 months and for 10 months this opposition has been plotting to kill me, topple me," responded Maduro. "For how long is the right wing going to hurt the nation?"Homily hint: Reconciling differences is one of the most difficult of human tasks. Perhaps that is why Jesus went to such dramatic lengths when he spoke of loving one's “enemies.” He knew that sometimes it takes an action as dramatic as that to move human hearts made stony by division and conflict. Make a start with the “enemy” closest at hand, whoever that may be! Sources: Articles by Tomas Sarmiento and Daisy Buitrago for Reuters, Olga Rudenkofor USA Today, and Nick Paton Walsh, Greg Botelho, and Victoria Butenko for CNN

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Ukraine in pain

27 Apr 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

We hear this Divine Mercy Sunday that the psalmist "was hard pressed and was falling" when the Lord reached out with assistance. The nation of Ukraine is hard pressed and at risk of falling into civil war. United States Vice President Joseph Biden arrived in Kiev Monday, a day after a deadly checkpoint shooting in eastern Ukraine, to signal U.S. support for the government and to look for ways out of the increasingly tense showdown with Russia.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the U.S. of being behind the political upheaval in Ukraine and said Moscow would respond if its interests came under attack. The crisis, now in its fourth month, has dragged Russia's relations with the West to their lowest point since the Cold War.In the eastern part of the country, pro-Russian armed separatists have seized about a dozen public buildings and are defying Kiev's authority. Russia justified its intervention in Crimea earlier this year by saying it had to defend Russians living there. In eastern Ukraine some people hold Russian passports.Ukraine called on Moscow to pull troops back from the border, saying it feared pro-Russian separatists could use their proximity to provoke a Russian invasion.Lavrov's ministry, in a separate statement, accused the U.S. and the interim government in Kiev of a "distorted interpretation" of an international accord, signed in Geneva last week, under which illegal armed groups in Ukraine are to disarm and give up buildings they have occupied. Russia said that applies not only to the pro-Russian separatists in the east but also to groups in Kiev whose protests helped bring Ukraine's new government to power.A further escalation could lead to damaging economic sanctions and raises the risk of a disruption to the Russian gas supplies on which Europe depends.Homily hint: The world still seems stuck in “hate your enemy” mode rather than Jesus’ radical call to “love your enemy.” Peacemakers around the world call on all nations involved to use their diplomatic skills to work out solutions to ethnic tensions simmering in Ukraine. The alternative would be to subject millions of innocent people to pain and hardship that could be avoided. Make the peace! Sources: Articles by Pavel Polityuk and Alastair MacDonald for Reutersand Andrew Roth and Neil MacFarquhar for the New York Times

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Downed airliner heightens Ukraine crisis

27 Jul 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field,” says Jesus in this Sunday’s gospel. In a significant movement to end the standoff after the crash last week of Flight 17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that left its victims strewn in open fields, Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine agreed Monday to allow the bodies of 298 people that lay for days in a field to be evacuated.After days of obstruction, the separatists also agreed to surrender the flight recorder boxes of the Malaysia Airlines jetliner downed by a surface-to-air missile last week. But witnesses reported that separatists had tampered with the crash scene and removed portions of the downed plane.Bodies of some of the victims and the flight recorders were delivered by a lumbering freight train on Tuesday to Kharkiv, a city controlled by the central government, completing the initial phases of an agreement with pro-Russian rebels negotiated by Malaysia.But international anger was still swelling over the mistreatment of the victims, the pilfering of their belongings, and the removal of possible evidence that could determine the weapon used to destroy the plane. In addition, discrepancies emerged about the precise number of bodies recovered from the crash site.U.S. officials have assessed that pro-Russian rebels were responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, but they now believe it's likely the rebels didn't know the plane was a commercial airliner when they opened fire, U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday. The officials have determined that Russia bears some responsibility for the incident because of its support for the rebels, but they haven't been able to determine exactly who fired the missile, whether Russian military were at the site, or whether the Russians were directly responsible for launching the missile.Homily hint: Respect for mortal remains is a fundamental mark of a civilized people. Behind the headlines and the political strife are the grieving families who have suffered doubly—first in losing their loved ones in this horrific act, and now in learning of the terrible way in which bodily remains have been treated at the crash site. May their nightmare end quickly so they may properly grieve their great loss. Source: Articles by Andrew Higgins and Rick Gladstone for The New York Times and Josh Levs, Kyung Lah, and Holly Yan for CNN

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Separatist elections pain Ukraine

09 Nov 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The psalmist this Sunday speaks of how God’s city is secure and its living waters cheer the inhabitants. Rebel separatists, in secure control of key Russian-speaking cities of eastern Ukraine, cheered the results of rogue elections last weekend in which their leaders predictably emerged victorious. Kiev and the west denounced the elections as a sham and warned Moscow of consequences if Russia formally recognizes the elections. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called an emergency meeting of his security chiefs for Tuesday to discuss new ways of dealing with the separatist challenge, which could create a new "frozen conflict" in post-Soviet Europe and further threaten the territorial unity of Ukraine, which lost control of its Crimean peninsula in March when it was annexed by Russia.The Ukrainian president denounced the vote as an "electoral farce," saying it violated a bedrock deal struck in early September in the Belarusian capital Minsk intended to pave the way for a settlement of the separatist problem. His sentiments were echoed by the White House, which condemned what it called illegitimate, so-called “elections” and warned Russia that economic penalties will increase if Moscow continues to violate the Minsk deal.Calling for “adjustments” to be made in the way he handled the east, Poroshenko said he intended to scrap law that would have offered “special status” to areas in the east including those controlled by the rebels. The special status law envisaged allowing the Donetsk and Luhansk regions to run their own affairs and also offered separatist fighters freedom from prosecution.Kiev says the Minsk agreement provided only for election of local officials under Ukrainian law, and not for separatist ballots aimed at bringing in leaders of breakaway entities who seek close association or even union with Russia.Homily hint: Efforts at peace appear to have broken down in eastern Ukraine, but continued conflict will only lead to increased suffering. It is time for religious leaders in both Ukraine and Russia to speak with one voice for peace and reconciliation. Surely there are alternatives to continued bloodshed. Source: An article by Thomas Grove and Richard Balmforth for Reuters

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For January 1: Year of pain in Ukraine

28 Dec 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The gospel for today’s solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary speaks of how all were amazed at the child she had borne, who on this eighth day “was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” Separatists in eastern Ukrainian have been fighting a battle for independence most of this year, having even given regions they control new names such as the Luhansk People's Republic and the Donetsk People's Republic. From the end of February 2014, demonstrations by pro-Russian and anti-government groups took place in major cities across the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian uprising that ousted a pro-Russian government. During the first stage of the unrest, Crimea was annexed by the Russian Federation after a crisis in the region, Russian military intervention, and an internationally criticized referendum. Protests in Donetsk and Luhansk escalated into an armed separatist insurgency. This led the Ukrainian government to launch a military counter-offensive against the insurgents, which resulted in the ongoing war. During the course of the unrest, the United States, followed by the European Union, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, and Japan began to sanction Russian and Ukrainian individuals and companies that they said were related to the crisis. The Russian government responded in kind with sanctions against some American and Canadian individuals. With the unrest continuing to escalate, the European Union and Canada imposed further sanctions in mid-May and again in November. On July 17, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH-17 was shot down while flying over eastern Ukraine, resulting in the deaths of all 298 aboard and severely heightening tensions. U.S. intelligence officials confirmed that the crash was caused by a surface-to-air missile near Ukraine's border with Russia. Russia has continued to deny allegations from western countries that it played any direct role in the conflict in Ukraine, which has claimed more than 4,317 lives. President Vladimir Putin said that Russia "poses no threat to anyone" and would "resist efforts to draw it into geopolitical intrigue." Repeated peace efforts have faltered, though at year-end a crisis in the value of the Russian ruble seems to have brought increased pressure on Putin to see a negotiated solution. Peace talks were opened once again as the year closed. Homily hint: Borders are always precarious zones when the adjoining countries are at odds. Cities and neighborhoods often exhibit similar tensions, right down to the level of neighbors who may dispute their property lines. Humans are territorial, but Jesus transgressed such human barriers regularly—reaching out to and conversing freely with women, Samaritans, tax collectors, and prostitutes. Be a border crosser and bring the world a little closer together. Source: Articles by Michael Birnbaum for The Washington Post, BBC News, Radio Free Europe, Wikipedia, Doug Stanglin and Gary Strauss for USA Today, and Associated Press

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Ukraine’s pain gains leaders’ attention

15 Feb 2015 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Jesus this Sunday reaches out to mend the breach between the “clean” and the “unclean” by healing a leper. Huddling for cease-fire talks in Belarus, the leaders of France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine struggled to close the widening breach between armed forces loyal to Ukraine and those backed by Russia. Heavy fighting continued as both sides tried to make gains on the ground to put pressure on their opponents across the table. Homily hint: All war is tragic but civil war—pitting city against city, family against family, neighbor against neighbor—is particularly grievous. Pray for a swift end to hostilities so that the really hard work can begin—peacemaking. For more on Ukraine cease-fire talks, see: Leaders hold Ukraine peace talks as fighting surges; Leaders grapple over Ukraine deal behind closed doors in Minsk

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Ukraine beats a hasty retreat in conflict

22 Feb 2015 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The psalmist turns to the Lord in time of trouble and is filled with the joy of salvation. There was no salvation for Ukrainian forces in trouble in the embattled town of Debaltseve, who chose a risky overnight breakout rather than surrender as they abandoned the town to Russian-backed militants. President Petro O. Poroshenko sought to cast the retreat in a positive light, but the loss of the town was clearly a devastating setback for the army at the hands of the separatists. Homily hint: Hopes ignited by last week’s cease-fire agreement between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists were damaged by the ongoing fighting in Debaltseve. Peacemakers must nonetheless carry on here as in the many other conflict zones in the world. While we pray for world peace, let’s start the process by making peace within our own families and communities. For more on the conflict in Ukraine, see: Ukrainian Soldiers’ Retreat From Eastern Town Raises Doubt for Truce; Ukrainian forces quit besieged town after rebel assault

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Polio reappears in Europe

06 Sep 2015 - Preaching the News for Sunday

One of Jesus’ many healing miracles is front and center in this Sunday’s gospel. In the age of vaccines many once deadly diseases have been tamed. Unexpectedly, however, two children in southwestern Ukraine have been paralyzed by polio, the first outbreak of the disease in Europe since 2010, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, in a setback for a global eradication campaign. The outbreak occurred because only half of Ukrainian children are immunized against polio, and the risk of further spread within the country is high. Homily hint: When conflict breaks out around the world, children invariably suffer. Let us redouble our efforts for peace and commit our resources to world health so that children no longer suffer from preventable diseases. For more on the outbreak of polio, see: Ukraine outbreak brings polio back to Europe, WHO says

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