Zoom-bombings have been making headlines across the country this spring, and Penn State is no exception to the increase in security threats and breaches. To address these recent incidents in Zoom meetings, University-wide Zoom default setting changes will be implemented on May 11.

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CNA Staff, Mar 31, 2020 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- Local media in Nicaragua are reporting that despite the nation’s bishops’ conference suspending Mass and prohibiting large gatherings, the mayor of Granada is going ahead with an annual pilgrimage that the bishops had canceled.

For more than 150 years, Catholics in Nicaragua have venerated an image of Jesus del Rescate (Jesus of the Rescue) in Popoyuapa, near the city of Rivas. The image represents the crowning of thorns and the flogging of Christ.

Normally there is an annual pilgrimage to the image, which pilgrims make by wagon and on foot, during the "Week of Sorrows" that marks "the final stretch" of the time of Lent, according to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner.

However, the bishops have said that this year it will not be possible to carry it out in the traditional way, given the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Nevertheless, Julia Mena, mayor of Granada, has organized and funded a group of pilgrims to do the pilgrimage, providing them with food and personal hygiene supplies, according to the Nicaraguan news website Confidencial. The priest at the shrine told Confidencial that he has “no plans to receive the pilgrimage.”

The Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference has not commented publicly on the matter.

Nicaragua has five confirmed cases of COVID-19. The government has not yet decreed any kind of alert or emergency regarding the pandemic, nor has it ordered a suspension of classes, Confidencial reports.

The country’s Ministry of Health has maintained that the internal movements of travelers arriving from countries with outbreaks of coronavirus would not be restricted, La Prensa reports.

President Daniel Ortega has been president of Nicaragua since 2007, and oversaw the abolition of presidential term limits in 2014.

The Church had suggested that elections, which are not scheduled until 2021, be held this year, but Ortega has ruled this out.

Ortega was a leader in the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which had ousted the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 and fought US-backed right-wing counterrevolutionaries during the 1980s. Ortega was also leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990.

CNA Staff, Apr 21, 2020 / 11:00 am (CNA).- The Archbishop of Halifax-Yarmouth in Canada has offered prayers for the victims of a weekend shooting rampage in a small town in Nova Scotia, including a member of the country’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police. 

In a letter addressed to the commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) dated April 20, Archbishop Anthony Mancini of Halifax-Yarmouth expressed condolences for the death of Constable Heidi Stevenson, a 23-year veteran of the force. 

“I wish to express on my behalf, as Archbishop of Halifax-Yarmouth, and in the name of Catholic faithful, our sincere condolences on the loss of life of Constable Heidi Stevenson,” said Mancini. 

“Her death in the line of duty indicates the highest sacrifice that one can make on behalf of the citizens she served,” he added. The archbishop said that he would be praying for her family, and for the officers of the RCMP who are mourning her life. 

In a video message posted on Tuesday, April 21, Mancini offered condolences, prayers, and assurances to the people of his archdiocese after, according to police, denture-fitter Gabriel Wortman went on a 14-hour shooting attack which spread across Saturday and Sunday.

“These last few days have been a shock, as we have all been affected by the useless and premature death of so many of our fellow citizens,” he said. “Try as we will to understand this tragedy, it remains incomprehensible. We are experiencing a great sense of loss, frustration, and even anger,” he added. 

As of Monday morning, 18 people have been confirmed to have been killed by the shooter, making it the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history, stunning a province which typically sees fewer than 15 homicides total per year. 

Authorities have not yet determined a motive for why the 51-year-old denture fitter committed the attack. The suspect is now deceased, although it has not yet been determined how he died. 

Mancini acknowledged that the existing circumstances related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has made the grieving process more complicated.

“This loss of life comes upon us at a time when we are already weighed down by the threat of the coronavirus. In this time of mourning, we ought to be able to come together to experience the comfort of community care and its support. Yet here we are, in isolation in order to stay safe, making the present circumstances even more tragic,” he said. 

The archbishop encouraged people to use “technological means” to offer support to each other throughout the grieving process, and reminded Nova Scotians that “love is greater than tragedy and death.”

“I wish to extend to all the families and friends of those who have died our prayers and our expression of solidarity,” he said. “In this time, when we celebrate the resurrection, it is good to recall that death is not the last word.”

Mancini also suggested that his flock pray for “the growing number of COVID-19 victims” and “for those on the front lines doing all they can to protect us--the doctors, the nurses, and of course, the police.”

CNA Staff, Apr 29, 2020 / 04:30 pm (CNA).- Venezuela’s prolonged social, political and economic crisis has only been compounded by the coronavirus pandemic, the archbishop emeritus of Caracas, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, charged Tuesday.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, Venezuela has been marred by violence and social upheaval under the socialist administration of Nicolas Maduro, with severe shortages of food and medicine, high unemployment, power outages, and hyperinflation. Some 4.5 million Venezuelans have emigrated since 2015.

In response to the threat of the virus, the government imposed a nationwide stay at home order March 17. According to government statistics, to date there have been 329 cases of COVID-19 with ten deaths. The country is ill prepared to handle the crisis, with chronic shortages of medical supplies, and many doctors have left the country.

“The national reality is terrible,” and the government has no answers, Urosa said in an April 28 statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

While the cardinal acknowledged the lockdown has prevented the spread of the virus, he pointed out that “the quarantine has hurt a great many people because the economic, social and logistical conditions in the country weren’t taken into account,” including “the extremely serious problem of the gasoline shortage for transport, especially for food.”

In some cases, crops are rotting in farmers’ fields due to lack of fuel to transport them to market.

Especially hard hit, the cardinal said, are “informal” workers who are paid off the books,  and who are now  “barely surviving,” and only with “the help of family members, social organizations and the Church.”

On April 25, Venezuelan vice president Delcy Rodríguez announced state intervention and oversight of several food supply companies in order to control the prices of 27 products for 180 days.

Urosa criticized the intervention, calling it “an extremely serious mistake, since it will probably result in greater shortages. Price controls are acceptable, but intervening in efficient businesses is not. The government can’t even manage to supply gasoline.” “The state-run petroleum industry has collapsed, and now Venezuelans’ food is in danger!” 

 “The current government doesn’t have any answers for such elementary things such as the extremely serious problem of the gasoline shortage” and runaway inflation. “In the last 40 days, the dollar has doubled in value, which is undoubtedly the fundamental cause of the spike in prices,” the cardinal said.

Urosa decried political persecution, which “has gotten worse since March because amid the quarantine, the government has ramped up the repression. During these weeks the government has jailed, even without due process, many political activists, especially from the inner circle of Juan Guaidó, president of the National Assembly and leader of the Venezuelan opposition.”

Guaidó declared himself the nation's interim leader Jan. 23 last year following Maduro’s inauguration for a second term. Maduro won a May 2018 presidential election, which was boycotted by the opposition and has been rejected by much of the international community. The United States was swift to recognize Guaidó as interim president, eventually followed by over 60 countries. Both the National Assembly and the Venezuelan bishops' conference declared Maduro's reelection to be invalid.

With the military firmly in support of Maduro, however, opposition protests calling for his resignation have failed to oust the leader.

On March 30, Guaidó charged that the Maduro regime had unleashed a new wave of harassment against his close collaborators. Andrea Bianchi, the wife of close associate Rafael Rico, was kidnapped, beaten and then left naked on a highway. Two others, Rómulo García and Víctor Silio were also picked up and later charged with possession of marijuana and a handgun.

The NGO Venezuelan Program for Education-Action in Human Rights reported that during the state of emergency, 34 people have been arbitrarily arrested and attacks against politicians, journalists and healthcare workers have increased.

“The bishops have always strongly criticized the political repression by the government and once again I call for the release of all political prisoners. They are even in greater physical danger because of the pandemic situation we’re going through,” Urosa stressed.

On March 26, “the Trump administration unsealed sweeping indictments against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and members of his inner circle on narcoterrorism charges, a dramatic escalation in the U.S. campaign to force the authoritarian socialist from power,” even offering “a $15 million reward for information leading to his capture or conviction,” the Washington Post reported.

In response, the Maduro regime activated a plan against the Venezuelan opposition called “Operation Bolivarian Fury.”

The archbishop emeritus denounced these recent “threats of violence by the government against Venezuelans. Maduro himself has spoken of a supposed ‘Bolivarian fury’ as a threat against members of the Venezuelan opposition in case of international problems. That’s illegal, unconstitutional and unacceptable from every point of view. That threat of violence is intolerable.” 

The cardinal said the government has used the quarantine simply as an opportunity to strengthen its social and political control.

On April 25, the Maduro regime placed shipping containers on the Caracas-La Guaira highway to prevent demonstrators from other cities who have been protesting the shortages of food, water and electricity in other cities from getting to the capital.

“Why restrict the right to free transit?” the cardinal asked.

The Maduro regime also blocked the highway in February 2019 to prevent humanitarian aid from entering the country from Colombia.

Guaidó charged April 24 on Twitter that “a dictatorship of corrupt and incapable people has brought us to a crisis where farmers are losing their crops while families are starving to death in the barrios. They turned the richest country in the region into a hell. They’ll leave here, the sacrifice has been enough already.”

As signs of hope, Urosa pointed to ongoing work of Caritas Venezuela and the creative ways the clergy has reached out to the faithful through social media. “Our message is one of encouragement, trust in God, solidarity and hope in this dark hour,” he said.

 Catholics “have an unshakeable faith in God who is love,” who had died and risen and “has shown us the merciful face of God.” “We’ll come out of this,” the archbishop said, “the suffering we are experiencing has united us closer to God and opens to us the gates of heaven.”

The archbishop encouraged Venezuelans to always stand in solidarity with each other and “to be the face of God to those in need. God is love and is with us. Let us join ourselves to him and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy in this painful hour.”

 

A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner. It has been adapted by CNA.

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