Welcome to Thursday. Catholic clergy in Belarus face continued sanctions under authoritarian rule of the president. It was a year like no other, making NCR's choice for Newsmaker of the Year particularly challenging, writes NCR executive editor Heidi Schlumpf.
When two priests were arrested in Belarus last week amid continued protests against the authoritarian rule of President Alexander Lukashenko, there were fears of a full-scale campaign against the minority Catholic Church.
Jesuit Fr. Viktar Zhuk and Greek Catholic Fr. Alyaksei Varanko, both from Vitebsk near Belarus' northeastern border with Russia, were confined under house arrest a day later, but were told they faced charges of "participating in unauthorized events."
They were only the latest Catholic clergy to face sanctions, three months on from the forced exile of their church's veteran leader, Minsk and Mohilev Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz.
"There's real repression here now — the authorities are shocked at the level of Catholic engagement and struggling to contain it," Kaciaryna Laurynenka, a Catholic theologian teaching church history and canon law in Vitebsk, told NCR. "There were hopes last summer that everything would change radically in a month or two if enough people took to the streets. Today, it's difficult to foresee what will happen. But if you're active as a Catholic, you can expect trouble."
You can read more of the story here.
More background:
When it came time for NCR staff to brainstorm ideas for our "Newsmaker of the Year," we had to recognize that 2020 is, indeed, a year like no other, writes NCR executive editor Heidi Schlumpf.
Schlumpf notes that 2020 was the year of coronavirus, with more than 300,000 of our fellow Americans and another 1.3 million fellow humans losing their lives to the disease. It was also a year of reckoning on racial justice, of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other victims of police violence and of protests in the streets demanding change. And it was an election year, likely the "most consequential election of our lifetimes," she writes.
In our church, it was the year of the McCarrick report, and of Pope Francis' third encyclical, which challenged populist nationalism, unbridled capitalism, just war teaching and the death penalty.
"So, as we considered Catholics who personify the news of this most unusual year, we had a long list," Schlumpf writes.
You can read more of Schlumpf's column here.
More background:
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Final thoughts
NCR Forward members are invited to an hour-long Advent retreat at 2 p.m. today. Join Sr. Julia Walsh, a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration, and ValLimar Jansen, a composer and performer, to talk about the journey from chaos to faith as we enter the fourth week of Advent. Become an NCR Forward member today to get access to this special event.
Until Friday,
Stephanie Yeagle
NCR Production/Online Editor
[email protected]
Twitter: @ncrSLY
