✣ Highlights from the week online
So why does Meghan have to be baptised? The news that Meghan Markle will be baptised before she marries Prince Harry next spring proved confusing for many newspapers. The Evening Standard got into trouble when it tried to explain why Meghan Markle had to go through the ceremony. Its report, later taken down, said it was because she was a Protestant. But as Giles Fraser, as vicar, tweeted: “Dear @EveningStandard. The Church of England is Protestant. Henry VIII, etc.” American blogger Terry Mattingly asked why, if Markle was already a Protestant, she was being baptised. “I have never heard of anyone being re-baptised in order to be confirmed as an Anglican.” An unexpected boom in conversions At ncregister.com, Fr Mitch Pacwa claimed that “We are in a time of the first ever mass conversions of Muslims.” Speaking to Patti Armstrong, Fr Pacwa, an expert on the Middle East, said he had begun hearing about the phenomenon more than 10 years ago, on Al-Jazeera: “They were reporting on the mass conversions of Muslims – as many as 6-8 million – in sub-Saharan, Africa, and they have repeated the warning every year,” he said. “I’ve confirmed it with Africans I know who have told me again and again about conversions in places like Nigeria, Uganda, Mali … that’s why Boko Haram has become so active. They are actually quite scared and trying to terrorise. But the very act of terrorising people has ended up with people becoming more disgusted with Islam.” It was possible, Fr Pacwa said, that Islam’s growth had already peaked. Puerto Rico’s faith amid great suffering On his blog, Cardinal Seán O’Malley described “joy amongst the suffering” in Puerto Rico, which he recently visited. In the aftermath of the recent hurricanes, agriculture has suffered especially. “It was a coffee growing region, and now so much of that has been destroyed. I also understand that about 60,000 businesses have closed.” Hospitals and schools have also ceased to function; many people are emigrating. In response, Catholic charities have been “so proactive in getting food and water out to people, particularly in the rural areas”. Cardinal O’Malley was also struck by the traditional practices of Puerto Rican Catholicism, especially in rural areas. At a newly- ordained priest’s first Mass, “a number of parishioners brought up gifts for the new priest. One woman was wearing a sort of habit, indicating that she made a promise (a ‘promessa’) and her promise was to the Blessed Mother, but others would be to St Anthony or another saint. Then, for a number of months or a year, they wear a garment to indicate that they’ve made this promise.” The priestly ordination, “in the midst of all their sufferings”, was “a consolation and source of joy for the community”.
