VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis is traveling to once-strong bastions of Christianity in the heart of Europe to try to reinvigorate a Catholic flock that is dwindling in the face of secular trends and abuse scandals that have largely emptied the continent’s magnificent cathedrals and village churches.

Francis stops first Thursday in Luxembourg, the European Union’s second-smallest country, with a population of some 650,000 people, and its richest per capita. Torrential downpours are expected, days after the 87-year-old pope canceled his audiences because of a slight flu.

He seemed in fine form at the Vatican on Wednesday, during his general audience on the eve of the trip, but his respiratory health is a constant concern and his medical team will be on hand.

After meeting with Luxembourg’s political leaders, Francis will speak to the country’s Catholic priests and nuns. The venue is the late-Gothic Cathedral of Notre Dame, which was built in the early 1600s by Francis’ own Jesuit order and stands as a monument to Christianity’s long and central place in European history.

Francis is likely to dwell on Europe’s role past, present and future — particularly as war rages on European soil — during his visits to Luxembourg and Belgium, where he arrives later Thursday and stays through the weekend.

The trip is a much-truncated version of the 10-day, 1985 tour St. John Paul II made through Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands, during which the Polish pope delivered 59 speeches or homilies and was greeted by hundreds of thousands of adoring faithful.

In Luxembourg alone, John Paul drew a crowd of some 45,000 people to his Mass, or some 10% of the then-population, and officials had predicted a million people would welcome him in Belgium, according to news reports at the time.

But then as now, the head of the Catholic Church faced indifference and even hostility to core Vatican teachings on contraception and sexual morals, opposition that has only increased in the ensuing generation. Those secular trends and the crisis over clergy abuse have helped lead to the decline of the church in the region, with monthly Mass attendance in the single digits and plummeting ordinations of new priests.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said that by traveling to the two countries, Francis will likely want to offer “a word to the heart of Europe, of its history, the role it wants to play in the world in the future.”

Immigration, climate change and peace are likely to be themes during the four-day visit, which was organized primarily to mark the 600th anniversary of the founding of Belgium’s two main Catholic universities.

In Luxembourg, Francis has a top ally and friend in the lone cardinal from the country, Jean-Claude Hollerich, a Jesuit like the Argentine pope.

Hollerich, whom Francis made a cardinal in 2019, has taken on a leading role in the pope’s multi-year church reform effort as the “general rapporteur” of his big synod, or meeting, on the future of the Catholic Church.

In that capacity, Hollerich has helped oversee local, national and continental-wide consultations of rank-and-file Catholics and synthesized their views into working papers for bishops and other delegates to discuss at their Vatican meetings, the second session of which opens next week.

Last year, in another sign of his esteem for the progressive cardinal, Francis appointed Hollerich to serve on his kitchen cabinet, known as the Council of Cardinals. The group of nine prelates from around the globe meet several times a year at the Vatican to help Francis govern.
…

…

Madrid — Mexican president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum angered Spain on Wednesday by barring its King Felipe VI from her swearing-in ceremony, accusing him of failing to acknowledge harm caused by his country’s conquest of Mexico five centuries ago.

The decision prompted Spain to boycott the event altogether, with its Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez calling the Mexican decision “inexplicable” and “totally unacceptable.”

Mexico’s outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in 2019 sent a letter to the king asking that he “publicly and officially” acknowledge the “damage” caused by the 1519-1521 conquest, which resulted in the death of a large part of the country’s pre-Hispanic population.

“Unfortunately, this letter was never replied to directly, as should have been the best practice in bilateral relations,” Sheinbaum said in a statement.

Mexico had in July invited just Sanchez to the swearing-in ceremony on October 1, the statement added.

The Spanish foreign ministry said in a statement that the government “has decided not to participate in the inauguration at any level.”

“Spain and Mexico are brotherly peoples. We cannot therefore accept being excluded like this,” Sanchez said later in a news conference on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. “That is why we have made it known to the Mexican government that there will be no diplomatic representative from the Spanish government, as a sign of protest.”

Mexico published the guest list a week ago for the inauguration of Sheinbaum, who will be the country’s first woman president following her left-wing ruling party’s landslide June election victory.

King Felipe VI was not on the list, which includes regional leftist leaders, as well as U.S. first lady Jill Biden.

Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles told journalists in Madrid on Wednesday: “The head of state, the king of Spain, always attends all swearing-in ceremonies and therefore we cannot accept that in this case he should be excluded.”

While Mexico and Spain have close historical and economic links, relations between the Latin American nation and its former colonial ruler have been strained since Lopez Obrador — an ally of Sheinbaum  took office in 2018.

He has frequently complained about Spanish companies operating in Mexico and twice declared during his mandate that his country’s relations with Spain were “on pause”.

Madrid has rejected his demand for an apology for the events of the Spanish conquest five centuries ago.

Sanchez said on Wednesday, without elaborating, that Spain had “already explained its position on the subject.”

The socialist premier expressed “great frustration” at Sheinbaum’s decision, saying that he considered Mexico’s leaders to be “progressive” like his government.
…

…

HELSINKI — A zoo in Finland has agreed with Chinese authorities to return two loaned giant pandas to China more than eight years ahead of schedule because they have become too expensive for the facility to maintain as the number of visitors has declined.

The private Ahtari Zoo in central Finland some 330 kilometers north of Helsinki said Wednesday on its Facebook page that the female panda Lumi, Finnish for “snow,” and the male panda Pyry, meaning “snowfall,” will return “prematurely” to China later this year.

The panda pair was China’s gift to mark the Nordic nation’s 100 years of independence in 2017, and they were supposed to be on loan until 2033.

But since then, the zoo has experienced several challenges, including a decline in visitors due to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s war against Ukraine, as well as an increase in inflation and interest rates, the facility said in a statement.

The panda deal between Helsinki and Beijing, a 15-year loan agreement, had been finalized in April 2017 when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Finland for talks with then-Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. The pandas arrived in Finland in January 2018.

The Ahtari Zoo, which specializes in typical northern European animals such as bears, lynxes and wolverines, built a special annex at a cost of about $9 million in hopes of luring more tourists to the remote nature reserve.

The upkeep of Lumi and Pyry, including a preservation fee to China, cost the zoo $1.7 million annually. The bamboo that giant pandas eat was flown in from the Netherlands.

The Chinese Embassy in Helsinki noted to Finnish media that Beijing had tried to help Ahtari solve its financial difficulties by urging Chinese companies operating in Finland to make donations to the zoo and supporting its debt arrangements.

However, declining visitor numbers combined with drastic changes in the economic environment proved too high a burden for the smallish Finnish zoo. The panda pair will enter a monthlong quarantine in late October before being shipped back to China.

Finland, a country of 5.6 million people, was among the first Western nations to establish political ties with China, doing so in 1950. China has presented giant pandas to countries as a sign of goodwill and closer political ties, and Finland was the first Nordic nation to receive them.
…

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis took the unusual decision Wednesday to expel 10 people — a bishop, priests and laypeople — from a troubled Catholic movement in Peru after a Vatican investigation uncovered “sadistic” abuses of power, authority and spirituality.

The move against the leadership of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, or Sodalitium of Christian Life, followed Francis’ decision last month to expel the group’s founder, Luis Figari, after he was found to have sodomized his recruits.

The decision was announced by the Peruvian Bishops Conference, which posted a statement from the Vatican embassy on its website.

The statement was astonishing because it listed the abuses uncovered by the Vatican investigation that have rarely been punished canonically with such measures, and the people responsible. According to the statement, the Vatican investigators uncovered physical abuses “including with sadism and violence,” sect-like abuses of conscience, spiritual abuse, abuses of authority, economic abuses in administering church money and the “abuse in the exercise of the apostolate of journalism.”

The latter was presumably aimed at a Sodalitium-linked journalist who has attacked critics of the movement on social media.

Figari founded the movement in 1971 as a lay community to recruit “soldiers for God,” one of several Catholic societies born as a conservative reaction to the left-leaning liberation theology movement that swept through Latin America, starting in the 1960s. At its height, the group counted about 20,000 members across South America and the United States. It was enormously influential in Peru.

Victims of Figari’s abuses complained to the Lima archdiocese in 2011, although other claims against him reportedly date to 2000. But neither the local church nor the Holy See took concrete action until one of the victims, Pedro Salinas, wrote a book along with journalist Paola Ugaz detailing the twisted practices of the Sodalitium in 2015, entitled “Half Monks, Half Soldiers.”

An outside investigation ordered by Sodalitium determined that Figari was “narcissistic, paranoid, demeaning, vulgar, vindictive, manipulative, racist, sexist, elitist and obsessed with sexual issues and the sexual orientation” of Sodalitium’s members.

The investigation, published in 2017, found that Figari sodomized his recruits and forced them to fondle him and one another. He liked to watch them “experience pain, discomfort and fear” and humiliated them in front of others to enhance his control over them, the report found.

Still, the Holy See declined to expel Figari from the movement in 2017 and merely ordered him to live apart from the Sodalitium community in Rome and cease all contact with it. The Vatican was seemingly tied in knots by canon law that did not foresee such punishments for founders of religious communities who weren’t priests.

But according to the findings of the latest Vatican investigation, the abuses went beyond Figari and included harassing and hacking the communications of their victims all the while covering up crimes committed as part of their official duties.

The highest-ranking person ordered expelled was Archbishop Jose Antonio Eguren, whom Francis already forced to resign as bishop of Piura in April over his record, after he sued Salinas and Ugaz for their reporting.

The Vatican, in the statement, said the Peruvian bishops join Pope Francis in “seeking the forgiveness of the victims” while calling on the troubled movement to initiate a journey of justice and reparation.
…

HELSINKI — Finland will return two giant pandas to China in November, more than eight years ahead of time, as the zoo where they live can no longer afford their upkeep, the chair of the zoo’s board told Reuters on Tuesday. 

The pandas, named Lumi and Pyry, were brought to Finland in January 2018, months after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the Nordic country and signed a joint agreement on protecting the animals. 

Since its founding in 1949, the People’s Republic of China has sent pandas to foreign zoos to strengthen trading ties, cement foreign relations and boost its international image. 

The Finnish agreement was for a stay of 15 years, but instead the pandas will soon go into a month-long quarantine before they are shipped back to China, according to Ahtari Zoo, the pandas’ current home. 

The zoo, a private company, had invested over 8 million euros ($8.92 million) in the facility where the animals live and faced annual costs of 1.5 million euros for their upkeep, including a preservation fee paid to China, Ahtari Chair Risto Sivonen said. 

The zoo had hoped the pandas would attract visitors to the central Finland location but last year said it had instead accumulated mounting debts as the pandemic curbed travel, and that it was discussing a return. 

Rising inflation had added to the costs, the zoo said, and Finland’s government in 2023 rejected pleas for state funding. 

In all, negotiations to return the animals had lasted three years, Sivonen said. 

“Now we reached a point where the Chinese said it could be done,” Sivonen said. 

The return of the pandas was a business decision made by the zoo which did not involve Finland’s government and should not impact relations between the two countries, a spokesperson for Finland’s foreign ministry said. 

Despite efforts by China to aid the zoo, the two countries in the end jointly concluded after friendly consultations to return the pandas, the Chinese embassy in Helsinki said in a statement to Reuters. 
…

Athens — Greece and Turkey will explore whether they can start talks aimed at demarcating their maritime zones, Greece’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

Neighbors Greece and Turkey, both NATO allies but historic foes, have been at odds for decades over a range of issues from airspace to maritime jurisdiction in the eastern Mediterranean and ethnically split Cyprus.

An agreement on where their maritime zones begin and end is important for determining rights over possible gas reserves and power infrastructure schemes.

Tensions have eased in recent years and both countries agreed last year to reboot their relations, pledging to keep open channels of communication and work on the issues that have kept them apart.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan met on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday and discussed bilateral ties, according to statements from the Turkish presidency and the Greek foreign ministry.

“The two leaders tasked the foreign ministers to explore whether conditions are favorable to initiate discussions on the demarcation of the continental shelf and exclusive economic zone,” Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis said.

Foreign ministers from the two countries will start preparations for a high-level meeting to take place in Ankara in January, the Greek prime minister’s office said.
…

…

WARSAW, Poland — Climate change has made downpours like the one that caused devastating floods in central Europe this month twice as likely to occur, a report said on Wednesday, as its scientific authors urged policymakers to act to stop global warming.

The worst flooding to hit central Europe in at least two decades has left 24 people dead, with towns strewn with mud and debris, buildings damaged, bridges collapsed and authorities left with a bill for repairs that runs into billions of dollars.

The report from World Weather Attribution, an international group of scientists that studies the effects of climate change on extreme weather events, found that the four days of rainfall brought by Storm Boris were the heaviest ever recorded in central Europe.

It said that climate change had made such downpours at least twice as likely and 7% heavier.

“Yet again, these floods highlight the devastating results of fossil fuel-driven warming,” Joyce Kimutai, a researcher at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute and co-author of the study, said in a statement.

“Until oil, gas and coal are replaced with renewable energy, storms like Boris will unleash even heavier rainfall, driving economy-crippling floods.”

The report said that while the combination of weather patterns that caused the storm – including cold air moving over the Alps and very warm air over the Mediterranean and the Black Seas – was unusual, climate change made such storms more intense and more likely.

According to the report, such a storm is expected to occur on average about once every 100 to 300 years in today’s climate with 1.3 degrees Celsius of warming from pre-industrial levels.

However, it said that such storms will result in at least 5% more rain and occur about 50% more frequently than now if warming from pre-industrial levels reaches 2 C, which is expected to happen in the 2050s.
…

Joe Biden used his final presidential address before the U.N. General Assembly to urge unity in the face of challenges that include conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from New York.
…