Sept Installation Mass for Father Bill McEvoy — St. Law- rence, Easton

CNS PHOTO/FAYAZ AZIZ, REUTERS

A man wades through floodwaters trying to salvage his belongings following heavy rains during the monsoon season in Charsadda, Pakistan, Aug. 28.

CRS gets aid to first families devastated by Pakistani floods

By Mark Pattison Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The initial aid from Catholic Relief Services in response to the devastating floods in Pakistan has gotten to families that need it most.

About 2,300 families have received cash assistance from CRS, said Megan Gilbert, a CRS spokeswoman.

The cash can help those families buy food and water and make repairs to flood-damaged homes, Gilbert said.

CRS is working with the Pakistani government and local partners, including Caritas Pakistan, to meet the most urgent needs of the people impacted by the persistent heavy rains in the provinces of Sindh and Baluchistan.

The toll continues to climb. There were 1,191 confirmed dead as of Aug. 31 as a result of the flooding, and the number of Pakistanis who have lost their homes to the flooding is nearing 1 million. An estimated 2 million have been displaced, and one-third of the country’s territory is believed to be under water.

The rains and flooding began in July and have continued to hammer the country on the Asian subcontinent for more than a month.

“The people living in the districts I visited were already marginalized,” said Gul Wali Khan, CRS emergency response coordinator in Pakistan, in a message to his CRS colleagues in the United States. “Now they have become even more vulnerable in terms of their shelter and livelihoods. With the impact of the flood and the rain, we have seen people lose the food they planned to use over the next few months.”

“With winter coming, we need to make sure people are able to get to places like markets,” said a separate message from Mohammed Adam Hamid, acting CRS country manager in Pakistan. “The other issue is clean water. The usual water supplies have been damaged or are unreachable, which means people have to walk double or triple the distance to collect water.”

Subsistence farmers have been especially hard hit, as the seeds they had planted for their crops were washed away in the ongoing deluges. “People who depend on rain-fed agriculture lost everything,” Khan said. “The seeds they planted are all gone. Normally the people in these areas borrow from shopkeepers and traders, and now they will go further into debt.”

While flooding has affected Pakistan from time to time in the past, the scope of this year’s rainfalls is vast. The toll exacted on infrastructure in Sindh and Baluchistan, where 86% of those affected by the flooding live, has been immense. Two key canals in the provinces were breached, the first time that had happened since 2012.

In assessments of 25 communities in those provinces, CRS and one of its Pakistani partners, Community Development Foundation, found that 72% of water systems are damaged or destroyed and 79% of people have no food left. Moreover, roads and bridges have been washed away, making access to and from impacted areas challenging. Nearly 1,800 miles of roads have been damaged as well as 129 bridges and shops.

Where the water has receded, families are clearing debris and mud from their homes and protecting livestock from mosquitoes, which were a main killer of large animals in the 2011 flooding.

After the cash handouts, CRS plans to provide shelter, restore livelihoods and access to clean water.

CRS highlights the dire needs in Pakistan on the homepage of its website, https://www.crs.org, with a button to click on urging, “Help Families Now.”

CNS PHOTO/YASIR RAJPUT, REUTERS

Pakistanis reach out for food aid following heavy rains during the monsoon season in Sehwan, Pakistan, Sept. 1, 2022. Catholic Relief Services is working with partners to distribute aid for thousands affected by floods that have devastated the region.

Pope praises Gorbachev’s commitment to progress

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis offered his prayers and praise for former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who died at age 91 Aug. 30 in Moscow after a long illness. In a telegram sent to Gorbachev’s only child, Irina Virganskaya, the pope conveyed his “heartfelt condolences” to her, all family members and those “who saw him as an esteemed statesman.” The Vatican published the telegram Aug. 31. The pope expressed his spiritual closeness during “this moment of sorrow for the death of your honorable father, Mikhail. Recalling with gratitude his far-sighted commitment to harmony and fraternity among people, as well as to the progress of his own country during an era of important changes,” the pope offered his prayers of suffrage, “invoking eternal peace for his soul from the good and merciful God.” Gorbachev was known for his policies of “glasnost” (openness) and “perestroika” (restructuring) that set the stage for the breakup of the Soviet Union and the return of religious freedom.

Sister Suellen freed after five months of captivity

NEW ORLEANS (CNS) — Marianite Sister Suellen Tennyson, who was kidnapped from the convent of her educational and medical mission in Yalgo, Burkina Faso, in early April, has been found alive and is safe after nearly five months of captivity, a congregational leader of the Marianites said Aug. 30. “She is safe,” Marianite Sister Ann

Sister Suellen Lacour said. “She is

Tennyson on American soil, but not in America. She is safe.” She said Sister Suellen was recovered Aug. 29 and the Sisters in the congregation have spoken to her. “She eventually will get back to the United States,” she added. Sister Ann told the Clarion Herald, archdiocesan newspaper of New Orleans, that she spoke with Sister Suellen by telephone. At least 10 armed men were involved in the attack in which Sister Suellen, 83, was abducted, the Marianites of Holy Cross said in an electronic newsletter at the time of the abduction. Since then, there had been no news of her whereabouts or condition.

Order of Malta gets new constitution, code

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — For the unity and greater good of the Knights of Malta, Pope Francis has promulgated a new constitution and code for the order, appointed a provisional sovereign council and called for an extraordinary general chapter to be held at the start of the new year. The Sovereign Order of Malta has been involved in a process to revise its constitution and to promote its spiritual renewal since 2017 with the help of the pope’s special delegate, Cardinal Silvano Tomasi, who had been working closely with the order. After the pope held a private audience with a delegation of the order Sept. 3, the Vatican published the papal decree announcing changes to the order’s leadership and the promulgation of the new constitutional charter and code, which all went into effect the same day.