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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Sep-16-2005
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Homosexuality question for seminary visitations sparks flap
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Of 56 questions that will serve as the framework for apostolic visitations of U.S. Catholic seminaries this academic year, one -- "Is there evidence of homosexuality in the seminary?" -- sparked a big media flap in mid-September. One of the main purposes of the visitations is to assess how well U.S. seminaries are preparing their students for a lifelong commitment to celibacy as priests. "The church is trying to put out a very clear signal" that those seeking ordination "must embrace a life of celibate chastity," said Father Stephen J. Rossetti, president of St. Luke Institute, a facility in the Washington suburbs that specializes in treating priests and religious who suffer addictions or behavioral, emotional or psychological problems. "The question of homosexuality is an important one," he told Catholic News Service Sept. 16. He said there is a need to determine when it is appropriate and when it is not to ordain someone who is homosexually oriented.
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Vatican official decries lack of public funding for Catholic schools
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The lack of public funding for religiously sponsored schools in the United States is an injustice and an "incredible anomaly" in the world, a Vatican education official said Sept. 14. Archbishop J. Michael Miller, secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education, said Europeans "are absolutely amazed at the situation in the United States," one of the few nations in the world that provides little or no public funding for the education of children in religiously run schools. That policy puts the United States "in the company of Mexico, North Korea, China and Cuba," he said. Citing "the enormous contribution to society made by Catholic schools," he said providing public funding for that service is a matter of distributive justice. Archbishop Miller, a Canadian who was president of St. Thomas University in Houston for six years before his appointment to the education congregation in 2003, was the keynote speaker at a conference on Catholic elementary and secondary education held at The Catholic University of America.
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Houma-Thibodaux, other Louisiana dioceses take in student evacuees
HOUMA, La. (CNS) -- The Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux and the other Catholic dioceses in Louisiana have made a commitment to do everything in their power to accommodate Catholic school students from the New Orleans Archdiocese who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Thousands of school-age children from Louisiana and Mississippi have been placed in schools in cities all across the country in the wake of the devastating storm. "One of the most important issues for us was to be accepting and gracious to those parents who were looking to place their children in our schools," said Sister Immaculata Paisant, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Houma-Thibodaux Diocese. "These families have been through so much and we wanted to be as sensitive to their needs as possible," she told the Bayou Catholic, the diocesan newspaper. According to Sister Immaculata, a member of the Congregation of the Marianites of Holy Cross, the diocese's 10 elementary schools have registered 584 new students and its three high schools have registered 362 new students.
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Bishops urge court to affirm Nebraska's same-sex marriage ban
ST. LOUIS (CNS) -- Catholic bishops in 21 dioceses in seven states have joined in a friend-of-the-court brief seeking the reversal of a ruling that the Nebraska Constitution violates the U.S. Constitution by defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The brief filed with the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in St. Louis, represented the Catholic conferences of Nebraska, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri and the dioceses of Rapid City and Sioux Falls, S.D., and Little Rock, Ark. There are no state Catholic conferences in South Dakota or Arkansas. Also participating in the brief were Family First and Families for America, Nebraska-based family-advocacy organizations that joined the Nebraska Catholic Conference in a coalition supporting Initiative Measure 416 in 2000. The initiative, which was approved by 70 percent of Nebraska voters, amended the state constitution to read: "Only marriage between a man and a woman shall be valid or recognized in Nebraska. The uniting of two persons of the same sex in a civil union, domestic partnership or other similar same-sex relationship shall not be valid or recognized in Nebraska."
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Study examines link between radio indecency, ownership concentration
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A new study on radio indecency notes the "striking" fact that 96 percent of the fines levied by the Federal Communications Commission for indecency were against the United States' four largest radio chains. The 96 percent figure, the study added, was twice as big as the combined audience, 48 percent, of all the radio stations owned by those chains. "In contrast, all the other radio stations in the nation were responsible for just four of the total of 101 FCC indecency violations," said the study, titled "Ownership Concentration and Indecency in Broadcasting: Is There a Link?" "They were responsible for just 4 percent of all FCC radio indecency violations, a fraction of their national audience share" of 51.4 percent, and an even smaller fraction of the 88 percent of the U.S. radio stations they own, said the study, jointly issued in September by the Center for Creative Voices in Media, Jesuit-run Fordham University in New York and Free Press, a journalism advocacy organization.
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WORLD
Church and politics: Throughout the world, variations on a theme
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The theme of church and politics was a big part of last year's U.S. presidential election campaign, but a recent look around the globe shows the United States holds no monopoly on the issue. On questions involving the family in Europe, religious freedom in Asia, corruption in Africa and economics in Latin America, church leaders have shown up on the political radar in recent weeks. In Italy, where political parties are preparing for elections next spring, the head of the center-left coalition, Romano Prodi, came out in support of legal rights for long-term unwed couples -- provoking a storm of objections by the Vatican and Italian church leaders. A different kind of dynamic was being played out in Brazil, where church leaders organized some of the biggest protest rallies in August and September against corruption in government and inaction on social programs. In Africa, Sudanese and Ugandan church leaders joined military and tribal chiefs Sept. 1-4 in a southern Sudanese village to explore ways to end civil strife in northern Uganda. In Asia, meanwhile, the church was awaiting word on whether China would allow four Catholic bishops to attend the October Synod of Bishops at the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI appointed them synod members in early September.
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Pope says sacred reading of Scripture could help spiritual life
ROME (CNS) -- The ancient tradition of "lectio divina" or sacred reading of Scripture should be promoted as a way to enrich the spiritual life of the church, Pope Benedict XVI said in an address to biblical experts. "The church must always renew and rejuvenate herself" through "the Word of God, which never gets old or expires," he said. The pope urged a renewal of this ancient tradition, saying he was convinced it would "bring a new spiritual springtime to the church if promoted effectively." The pope's message came in a Sept. 16 address at his summer residence of Castel Gandolfo to some 500 biblical experts, scholars and pastoral leaders attending an international conference in Rome. The Catholic Biblical Federation and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity sponsored the congress commemorating the 40th anniversary of "Dei Verbum," the Second Vatican Council's document on Scripture and revelation.
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In some parts of world, Catholics don't have easy access to Bible
ROME (CNS) -- Forty years ago, through "Dei Verbum," a document on Scripture and divine revelation, the Second Vatican Council strove to emphasize the important role of Scriptures in the life of the church and put the Bible back in the hands of the faithful. While many experts at an international congress in Rome agreed that great strides had been made, they said there were still parts of the world, especially developing countries, that do not have wide or easy access to the Bible. At the Sept. 14-18 congress sponsored by the Catholic Biblical Federation and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, some biblical experts laid part of the blame on lingering poverty and some pastors' reluctance to promote the use of the Bible. Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, said, "In many places the cost of the Bible is beyond the reach of the average Catholic." In general this is because "the so-called 'Catholic Bibles' are imported from abroad and are much more expensive than the highly subsidized Protestant Bibles," he said in his Sept. 15 address.
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Church worker doubts value of new Chilean domestic violence law
SANTIAGO, Chile (CNS) -- A domestic violence law scheduled to take effect Oct. 1 will stiffen prison terms for aggressors and broaden the definition of potential victims, but at least one church worker who aids abused women has little hope the new legislation will provide more protection or improve women's plight. The new law, approved unanimously Sept. 6 after seven years in Congress, considers domestic violence a crime and not a misdemeanor, like the current legislation. Also, for the first time, systematic or habitual physical and psychological abuse will be penalized with prison terms of up to 540 days. Domestic violence resulting in serious injuries will be punished with 10- to 15-year sentences. "We are going to punish and reject domestic violence with much harsher sanctions than those applied in cases of common delinquency. A victim of violence within the family or the home is not the same as a victim of violence on the streets," said Cecilia Perez Diaz, Chilean minister of women's affairs.
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PEOPLE
In Rome, priest highlights publications of Iraqi biblical center
ROME (CNS) -- Gently touching the books and magazines that were arranged in stacks or colorful fanlike patterns, an Iraqi priest pointed to some past and recent publications coming out of Iraq's only center dedicated to biblical studies. At a Sept. 14-18 international congress in Rome dedicated to sacred Scripture, Syrian-rite Father Pios Zuhair Affas manned a booth to showcase some of the works published by the Biblical Studies Center of Mosul, located in northern Iraq. He proudly flipped through a recent magazine issue and explained they were now printing it on glossy paper instead of "photocopying" on heavy newsprint paper as they did for their earliest issues. "In six years we have published 21 editions of our magazine and seven books all on biblical subjects," he told Catholic News Service Sept. 15.
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Deirdre McQuade named pro-life spokeswoman for U.S. bishops
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A woman who has worked for the National Institutes of Health, Feminists for Life and a Midwest diocese has been chosen as the U.S. bishops' new spokeswoman on pro-life matters. Deirdre McQuade, who holds master's degrees in both philosophy and theology from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, took up her new post as director of planning and information in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities in early September. In addition to being spokeswoman, McQuade will be responsible for planning major outreach and advertising campaigns for the secretariat. She served most recently as a grant program analyst in the Office of Research on Women's Health at NIH. In 2003, she was national program director for Feminists for Life, overseeing the organization's college outreach program. From 1999 to 2002, she directed the Office of Pastoral Research in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., where she also served as an ecumenical officer.
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Zierten, longtime Catholic press photographer, dies at age 74
HUNTINGTON, Ind. (CNS) -- Longtime Catholic press photographer John A. Zierten, who spent more than three decades on the staff of Our Sunday Visitor, died Sept. 11 in Cincinnati after a long illness. A memorial service was to be held Sept. 17 at the First Church of the Nazarene in Huntington. Funeral and burial details were not available. He was remembered by colleagues as a warm and courageous journalist who always relished the opportunity to capture a story within a picture -- and would travel to the ends of the earth to do so. "John had a passion for his craft and a love of adventure that made him one of the best field photographers in the Catholic press for many years," said Greg Erlandson, president of Our Sunday Visitor Publishing in Huntington. During his long career at Our Sunday Visitor, he traveled to Asia, Africa, Central and Latin America and throughout the United States covering stories for the national Catholic weekly newspaper.
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