The motives behind the theft from the church remain unclear, sparking intense speculation and concern among the mission's congregation and the wider community.

The US bishops who approved a pastoral framework for Indigenous ministry just days ago are among those keen to hear more.

Removal by stealth

The almost 2.5-metre Apache Christ icon had hung behind the altar under a crucifix since 1989. Painted by Franciscan Friar Robert Lentz, the icon depicts Jesus as a Mescalero holy man. Its Apache inscription translates as "Giver of Life".

Lentz says it was created with "substantial consultation and collaboration with the Apache community".

Both the Apache Christ and the Gervase Peso Spirit Dancers were taken from St Joseph Apache Mission on the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico on 26 or 27 June.

The icon's detailed, hand-crafted frame was disassembled and left behind.

At the same time, the parish's sacred vessels - Pueblo pottery and Apache baskets - were replaced with brass.

Shock and distress

The artworks' disappearance was discovered as shocked parish staff and volunteers opened the church on June 27.

The parish priest, Father Simeon-Aguinam, "did not like anything to do with our Native culture" said a parishioner.

"It was a shock to our summer youth catechism teachers and attendees to enter the church and be greeted by an empty space where the 'Apache Christ' icon once stood" says volunteer youth minister and catechist AnneMarie Brillante.

The New Mexico State Council of the Knights of Columbus is also upset.

The Knights' state deputy says any Knights of Columbus involved in the icon's removal "were acting on their own behalf" and "not ... in the capacity of Knights of Columbus".

Restoring the work

A week after the artworks' disappearance, the Mescalero Apache Tribe announced their return.

On 3 July they said "it is with profound joy that we announce that the paintings ... have been returned to the tribe and ... will be returned to their locations in the church".

The icon has been damaged, reports say.

Who did it?

The mission's website says those responsible were the pastor, members of the Knights of Columbus and the Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces. Bishop Peter Baldacchino is said to have approved their removal.

Brillante posted an audio recording of a June 27 phone call she had with Deacon John Munson from Las Cruces diocese.

He said the icon had not been stolen - "just removed".

Brillante argued they stole the icon because it belonged to parishioners. Munson insisted it belonged to the Church.

Lentz clarified he gave the icon to the people. The fact that the priest led men from Alamogordo in its removal "only adds to the shame" he said.

The diocese didn't offer a reason and Simeon-Aguinam couldn't be reached for comment.

Church leaders are trying to meet with Baldacchino who has never visited St Joseph Apache Mission despite several invitations.

Mescalero Tribal Police say they have "taken a report" and are investigating.

Source

• OSV News
• UCA News
• ABQ News

Carl Anderson (pictured meeting Pope Francis) made the comments while delivering a lecture for the St John Paul II Institute of Culture in the Polish pope's alma mater, the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas.

"The Church does indeed hold within herself the future of the world. That future depends in so many ways on the degree to which each of us can build an authentic culture of Christian witness," he said.

Anderson, who served as Supreme Knight from 2000 to 2021, said that it is still important to "resist efforts to cancel two millennia of Christianity in the West".

Now is also the time to look ahead to how Christianity can be "reintroduced" to secular societies, he added.

"My experience in leading more than 2 million members of the Knights of Columbus and their families tells me that regarding a life of Christian witness, the harvest may be more plentiful than we know. The problem may not be so much that the workers are few, but that we have called so few to come forward to lead such lives", Anderson added.

He added that he believed that what was needed was to provide "structure, formation, guidance, empowerment,and opportunity to the laity, especially at the parish level."

"And most importantly calling our fellow Catholics to a better understanding of the Christian state of life, the vocation of the laity, and the call to discipleship," he said.

"We are a pilgrim Church, and the implications of this reality are many. But surely one implication is that we remain faithful to our fellow pilgrims along the way — to keep faith, especially with those who have given their lives in places like Auschwitz, Aleppo, Nineveh, and now Kyiv," he said.

Sources

Catholic News Agency

The legislation aims particularly to help groups targeted for genocide by Islamic State militants.

It enables financial and technical assistance for the humanitarian, stabilisation and recovery needs of former and current religious minority residents of Iraq and Syria.

In addition, the act enables the US State Department - in collaboration with other federal agencies and other entities, including faith-based groups - to conduct criminal investigations.

It also enables them to apprehend individuals identified as alleged IS members and to identify warning signs of genocide and threats of persecution.

"In recent years, IS has committed horrifying atrocities against religious and ethnic minorities in Syria and Iraq, including Christians, Yazidis, Shia and other groups," Trump says.

Trump says the legislation directs US assistance to persecuted communities.

In addition, it will enable government agencies to help groups that are investigating and prosecuting what he calls Islamic State's "despicable acts."

Officials of the Knights of Columbus took part in a signing ceremony at the White House.

"The legislation signed today again reminds us of America's earlier efforts to aid victims of genocide - Christian communities targeted by Ottomans a century ago and Jewish survivors of Shoah," Supreme Knight Carl Anderson says.

With the bill now law, he says "America speaks with bold moral clarity and political unanimity."

The Chairman of the US bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace, Archbishop Timothy Broglio says the new law is a "critical" measure and "a signal of hope for the critically vulnerable of this region."

Source

• NZ Herald
• Crux Now
• Image: Crux Now

"These criteria are inconsistent with the policy and practice of student organisation recognition at Gonzaga University, as well as the university's commitment to non-discrimination based on certain characteristics, one of which is religion," the university said.

Continue reading

One wonders, however, if an accountant would reach the same conclusion.

When it comes to the financial dimension of Catholic life, there are certainly some deep pockets out there. Just to offer a few examples:

• The University of Notre Dame, America's flagship Catholic university, has an annual budget of $1.2 billion and an endowment estimated at $7.5 billion.
• The Archdiocese of Chicago last year reported cash, investments and buildings valued at $2.472 billion.
• The Knights of Columbus has more than $85 billion of life insurance in force, with $8 billion in annual sales.
• In Rome, the Institute for the Works of Religion, known popularly (if, some say, inaccurately) as the "Vatican Bank," administers assets in excess of $6 billion.
• American Catholics drop more than $8 billion every year into the Sunday collection plate, which works out to more than $150 million a week.
• In Germany, the Catholic church netted $8.8 billion in 2010 from the national "church tax," allowing it to remain the country's largest private employer after Volkswagen.

Simply ticking off those dollar amounts, however, two points are easy to miss. Read more

Sources

• John L Allen Jr in National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Web Gallery of Art