Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s Secretary of State, has signed a message in the Pope’s name for International Literacy Day.

“The Holy Father calls upon political decision-makers, educators and the general public to appreciate more deeply the vital role played by literacy in the building of a more educated, fraternal, supportive and peaceful society,” said Cardinal Parolin.

He added, “Echoing the words of St. John Paul II, he [Pope Francis] trusts that ‘people, freed from fear and the threat of potentially apocalyptic armed conflicts, will learn not to oppose one another but to intensify the bonds of fraternity uniting them, thanks to the means of communication offered by modern civilization.’”

The bishops of Ghana told the faithful that they have a “collective responsibility in ensuring a peaceful, transparent, and fair electoral process.”

“Political discourse should be rooted in constructive dialogue and a commitment to the common good,” they continued, in a letter issued two months before the nation’s general election. “We call on all parties to avoid inflammatory rhetoric and to respect the laws governing elections and political conduct.”

The West African nation of 33.9 million (map) is 74% Christian (16% Catholic), 18% Muslim, and 8% ethnic religionist.

Sister Josée Ngalula, the first African woman appointed to the International Theological Commission, discussed her research on sexual abuse, especially the abuse of consecrated men and women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Sister Ngalula told the National Catholic Reporter that “I was very surprised to hear from the responses that there were females among the perpetrators of abuse, both on other females and on men. I therefore had to correct the rumor that in Africa only women suffer.”

However, “abuse by clerics accounted for over 80% of cases, including clerics abusing nuns and clerics abusing young male religious under their authority,” she said. “In this context, clerical abusers generally consider the laity and nuns as a flock of ‘subordinates’ who are spiritually dependent and called primarily to obedience.”

Pope Francis visited a school for disabled children in Timor-Leste (East Timor), as part of his apostolic journey to four Asian nations.

There, he said:

When Jesus talks about the final judgment, he says to some people: “Come with me,” but he does not say: “Come with me because you were baptized, because you were confirmed, because you were married in the Church, because you did not lie, because you did not steal.” No, he says: “Come with me because you took care of me.”

Jesus says: “Come with me because you took care of me when I was hungry, and you gave me food, when I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, when I was sick, and you visited me,” and so on. I call this the sacrament of the poor. A love that encourages, that edifies, that strengthens.

“And that is what we find here: love,” the Pope continued. “Without love, this makes no sense. This is how we come to understand the love of Jesus, who gave his life for us. We cannot understand the love of Jesus unless we start to practice love.”

The remains of the Servant of God Cardinal Grégoire-Pierre XV Agagianian (1891-1975) are being transferred from Rome to Lebanon, two years after the beginning of his beatification cause.

Born in a part of the Russian Empire that is now Georgia, Cardinal Agagianian was Patriarch of the Armenian Catholic Church from 1937 to 1962 and prefect of the Congregation for Propagation of the Faith from 1962 to 1970. Venerable Pius XII named Agagianian a cardinal when he was only 50.

The return of the cardinal’s remains to Lebanon, where the Armenian Catholic Church is headquartered, “will represent an opportunity to unite Lebanese of all confessions, promoting national unity and interreligious dialogue,” said the current Patriarch, Raphaël Bedros XXI Minassian.

Cardinal Louis Raphaël I Sako, the Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, has accused five of his brother bishops of fomenting disunity and has referred the case to a higher ecclesiastical court.

Cardinal Sako, 76, previously threatened unilateral sanctions against the bishops after they declined to attend a synod and a spiritual retreat. The Pillar reported that Chaldean Catholic clergy view the referral of the matter to an ecclesiastical court as an act of de-escalation.

A leading Vatican diplomat said on September 10 that the Holy See “deplores the fact that cluster munitions continue to be produced, stockpiled, transferred and, even worse, used in armed conflicts, inevitably causing more victims and contaminating more land.”

Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, apostolic nuncio and Permanent Observer to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva, Switzerland, made his remarks at a UN meeting on the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The majority of the world’s nations have ratified the anti-cluster munitions treaty—but several major powers, such as the United States, China, Russia, and India, have not.

Archbishop Balestrero called on signatory nations to live up to the Convention’s obligations and—without mentioning Lithuania by name—lamented the Baltic state’s recent withdrawal from the treaty.

“The deadly legacy of cluster munitions continues to haunt many innocent victims who have suffered the cruelty of conflicts,” the prelate added. “In this regard, as a family of nations, we should consider assistance to victims as a shared responsibility.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting the Second Vatican Council, teaches that “every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation” (n. 2314). Likewise, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church calls for the “banning of weapons that inflict excessively traumatic injury or that strike indiscriminately” (n. 510).

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The Roman Martyrology commemorates the martyrs Saints Protus and Hyacinth (d. 257). They were Romans by birth, brothers and servants in the house of St. Basilla. They were burned alive around 257, during the persecution of Valerian and Gallian. St. Hyacinth is unique among Roman martyrs in that his epitaph and grave in the cemetery of Basilla on the Old Salarian Way were found intact in modern time (1845); in it were the charred bones of the martyr, who had been put to death by fire. Part of the empty tomb of St. Protus was also found.

Metropolitan Kliment of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) was assaulted and beaten on the street in Kiev on September 10.

Officials of the OCU said that the attack was obviously premeditated, and the bishop had been targeted. The OCU is an autonomous body, not affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church.

Metropolitan Kliment was driven out of his see in Crimea when Russian troops took over the region in 2014. He was in Kiev for international meetings aimed at securing the restoration of Crimea to Ukrainian government control.