Dossier articles from the past 3 months
They live today almost the way they could have lived one or two hundred years ago, and this way differs a lot from that of their neighbours. We look at the main traits of their culture by analyzing the fundamental stages in a person’s life: birth, puberty, marriage and death. Birth. It is remarked with…
Read moreTravelling around the Gumuz region we did not see specific place for worship. Of course they have explicit acts of worship, but these are few and not particularly elaborate. They do not require a specific place, specific people to carry them out, special clothes or a precisely set ritual. And yet it would an error…
Read moreChanges go very fast. There are many agents responsible for these changes. The first is the government and its laws and programmes of development, which in a society that had been regulating itself by ancestral traditions, has a tremendous impact. The Gumuz have been living so far on their primitive farming of ‘slash and burn’,…
Read moreWe have travelled for 500 kms in northwest Addis Ababa. First, it was along the road which joins the capital with Bahr Dar, up to Injibara (or Koso Berr). Then, in Injibara we turned straight west in the direction of Sudan. After leaving Chagni behind, the last town of the Amhara Region on that road,…
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The 13 May 2019 elections in the Philippines have been correctly seen most of all as a referendum on the Duterte presidency, half way through his mandate. In this regard it was a confirmation, and not only because the opinion polls that accompanied the long-drawn-out results showed that around had 80% preferred the president. The…
Read moreThe tension between the presidency and the ecclesial hierarchy has considerably affected baptised Filipinos. The general elections that brought Rodolfo Duterte to power on 30 June 2016, and this was the choice of the majority of Catholics, have not been substantially rejected by them; on the other hand, the contemporaneous adherence to presidential policies and…
Read moreBut who is Rodrigo Duterte? A person with a judgemental mentality, partly due to his previous profession as a prosecutor, 74 years old and with a deserved reputation as a womaniser, despite being married with four children. For 24 years – 1998 to 2016 – Rodrigo Duterte, with firmness and almost without interruption, was mayor…
Read moreWith a Catholic population of over 80% of its 100 million inhabitants, the Philippines has a special character. With an identity that is due equally to ancient colonisation from Spain and more recent colonisation by the United States, it is, from the usual Asian viewpoint, an outpost of Westernisation in the Orient. The archipelago, in…
Read moreInterregional migration, or the movement of people between geographic sub regions, is also a key feature of migration patterns on the continent. In 2017, Eastern and Western Africa were the regions from which most African migrants originated. Middle Africa recorded a strong increase with regard to international migrant stock, as the absolute number doubled, with…
Read moreAfrican bishops are aware that, when there is a massive movement of people, the countries that receive these displaced people may feel threatened. All too often the belief is that newcomers compete for scarce resources and this brings immigrants and refugees to be driven away, resented, or despised. The African bishops pointed out that ordinarily,…
Read moreGlobally, in 2017, there were around 258 million international migrants, approximately 3.4% of the world population. Only 35% was from the south to the north of the world. The same trend was encountered in Africa: more than half (19,359,848 about 53.4%) of Africa’s international migrants in 2017 have remained on the continent, while 16,906,580 (46.5%)…
Read moreAfrican migration patterns do not happen in a vacuum. Rather, they are situated within major trends on the global stage that have also affected the continent, namely climate change and environmental degradation and conflict. Environmental changes or disasters have also been associated with permanent migration. There have been attempts to relocate populations from areas that…
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When asked how a farmer’s daughter who became a Catholic nun ended up as one of Brazil’s most influential refugee advocates, Sister Rosita Milesi, 79,…
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Vusi was an honest man and a hard worker. He had cleared a large piece of moorland and turned it into a beautiful fertile field. He…
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On 24 November, the Solemnity of Christ the King, on the occasion of World Youth Day in the Particular Churches, in St. Peter's Basilica the traditional…
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