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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Oct-28-2005
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Palm Beach diocesan center holds up well to Hurricane Wilma
PALM BEACH, Fla. (CNS) -- Amid escalating frustration over dwindling supplies of gasoline, ice, food and water in south Florida following Hurricane Wilma, officials of the Diocese of Palm Beach reported good news. The Pastoral Center in Palm Beach Gardens has electricity, phones, computers and little damage except for a broken water line and fallen trees on the property. Even though the basic policy is to remain closed if government offices and schools are closed, church officials were considering opening the center by Oct. 31 if water was restored. "We still have to make an assessment," said Father Charles Notabartolo, vicar general/moderator of the curia. "Gas could be a concern for many. It is a real mess. According to the news, some may not have power until Nov. 22." Reports from parishes throughout the five-county diocese were coming in slowly as power and phones were restored in areas.
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Catholic agency responds to those hardest hit by Wilma -- the poor
IMMOKALEE, Fla. (CNS) -- Like many residents of Immokalee, Debara Milton didn't have a lot to call her own prior to Hurricane Wilma, other than a job at one of the local tomato-packing houses and a roof over her head. After Wilma tore through the agricultural town in the early hours of Oct. 24, she and many other residents now have even less. "All the panels were torn off my trailer on one side," she said while standing in line outside Guadalupe Social Services Oct. 26. Two of the windows also were blown in and the front door was damaged and, of course, there is no electricity or running water. If that weren't enough, it looks like this season's tomato crop was wiped out, meaning that she may not have a job waiting for her when power returns to the area. "I don't know what we're going to do," she told The Florida Catholic, newspaper of the Venice Diocese. "I got no work, I got no money. I may go to the labor pool in Naples, if they'll take me."
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Bishops to address place of professional lay ministry in church life
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- This fall the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops plans to issue a major resource document on lay ecclesial ministry, a phenomenon of growing importance in the church. When the bishops meet in Washington Nov. 14-17, they will vote on the proposed document, "Co-workers in the Vineyard of the Lord: Resource for Guiding Development of Lay Ecclesial Ministry." The introduction calls the document a "pastoral and theological reflection on the reality of lay ecclesial ministry," an "affirmation of those who serve in this way," and an attempt to pull together the current "best thinking and practice" in that field. The proposed document discusses the appropriate human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral formation of those who seek to engage in lay ministerial leadership in the church. It also addresses the role of lay ecclesial ministers in the church community, their relationship to the church's ordained leaders, guidelines and procedures for authorizing lay people to enter such roles and concerns that should be dealt with in the ministerial workplace.
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Collection at Los Angeles parish yields gift for Katrina victims
BATON ROUGE, La. (CNS) -- The second collection taken up at St. Lawrence of Brindisi Church in the Watts section of Los Angeles, earmarked for Hurricane Katrina victims, was not much different from the thousands of other collections at Catholic churches across the country. St. Lawrence is an inner-city church of 3,000 families, about 80 percent Hispanic and 20 percent African-American. They are people of "very modest means," said Capuchin Franciscan Father Peter Banks, St. Lawrence pastor. The normal parish collection is about $6,000, but on this weekend, the second collection amounted to $7,000 -- plus one stunning gift left by an anonymous donor: a woman's wedding ring that eventually was sent by Father Banks to a New Orleans church that was hit by floodwater 8 feet deep after Katrina. The ring was in an envelope along with a note in Spanish which said: "For the victims of the hurricane. I did not bring any money. But this should be of some value. It is with all of my heart."
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Archivists work to save parish sacramental records from mold, mildew
BATON ROUGE, La. (CNS) -- Although all of the records and artifacts most vital to the Archdiocese of New Orleans were saved before Hurricane Katrina struck Aug. 29, many of the individual parishes' sacramental records were lost or badly contaminated. Charles Nolan, archivist for the New Orleans Archdiocese, and his counterpart in the Baton Rouge Diocese, Emilie Leumas, have been working feverishly to save the recovered records. They anticipate a new set of document preservation procedures will rise from the mold and mildew. "All the sources we know of on a national level (pertaining) to records recovery for conservation when things are wet say to do (certain things) within the first 48 hours," Leumas said. "Well, our records have been wet for 48 days or more, and there is no playbook for this." There is no proven process to salvage items that have been ravaged by a combination of murky water, heat and humidity that accumulates in closed quarters.
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New study finds lay ecclesial ministry still growing in United States
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A new national study reports that there are now nearly 31,000 paid lay parish ministers and more than 2,000 others who work in parish ministry at least 20 hours a week on a volunteer basis. It found that since 1990 there have been major improvements in pay for the paid ministers. It also found striking advances since 1990 in the involvement of dioceses in the training, screening, certification and commissioning of lay parish ministers, in providing them with continuing education and in setting employment standards and salary ranges for them. "For the first time in the history of our country, there are more paid professional lay ministers in our parishes than there are priests," said Father Eugene F. Lauer, director of the National Pastoral Life Center in New York, which conducted the study. It was commissioned by the Committee on the Laity of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and funded by the Lilly Endowment.
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USCCB attorney opposes over-the-counter sales of morning-after pill
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Approval of over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill known as Plan B "would be injurious to many -- children and adults, as well as health care providers and professionals," the U.S. bishops' top attorney said in comments to the Food and Drug Administration. Mark E. Chopko, general counsel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in an Oct. 27 letter to the FDA that even if the federal agency were to approve over-the-counter sales of the "emergency contraception" pill only to adults, it could not guarantee that minors would not obtain the pill, to the possible detriment of their health. Chopko was responding to an FDA request for public comment on its pending decision on a petition from Barr Laboratories, the maker of Plan B, to permit both prescription and over-the-counter sales.
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WORLD
Pope says Catholics, Jews must give common witness of faith
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI said Catholics and Jews not only must respect and understand one another, they must give the world a common witness of faith in God and in his commandments. In a message read at a Vatican commemoration of the 40th anniversary of "Nostra Aetate," the Second Vatican Council declaration on relations with non-Christians, Pope Benedict called for "an ever more compelling shared witness." The pope particularly urged joint efforts for the protection of "the sanctity of life, the promotion of human dignity, the rights of the family and the need to build a world of justice, reconciliation and peace for future generations." The Oct. 27 event, sponsored by the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, looked at progress made in Catholic-Jewish dialogue and on paths to follow for the future.
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Pope condemns sexual violence against women, culture that fuels it
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI condemned sexual violence against women and the hedonistic and profit-hungry culture that fuels such exploitation. He also called on Christians to help alleviate the suffering of asylum seekers and refugees as well as to work for "just treatment for migrant women" who often lack workers' rights and protections in their employment as housekeepers, hotel maids, or caregivers for the elderly or sick. In his first message for the annual World Day for Migrants and Refugees, Pope Benedict highlighted the changing face of migrants today, noting that more and more women were crossing "the border of their homeland alone in search of work in another country." The text for the 2006 message, titled "Migrations: A Sign of the Times," was released during an Oct. 28 press conference at the Vatican.
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Vatican assembles women to discuss impact of poverty, war
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- To discuss the impact of poverty and war on women and women's contributions to development and peace, the Vatican assembled an international group of women. The Oct. 28-29 seminar at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace included only three male speakers, including Cardinal Renato Martino, council president, who welcomed the 77 participants. "We will stop to look at the face of today's women," he said. "Much more than the face of men, in many parts of the globe, theirs is a face marked by misery, poverty, exploitation, violence and the lack of any elementary respect for the basic rights of the human person." The 17 women who were scheduled to address the seminar included government officials from Africa, Europe and Latin America, U.N. officials, scholars, educators and women directly involved in serving refugees, people living with AIDS and women who had been trafficked.
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PEOPLE
Beatification again delayed for French priest
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI gave his approval for the beatification of 25 church figures in October and November, but French Father Leon Dehon was not among them. A Vatican panel named by the pope was continuing to study whether anti-Semitic writings and speeches by Father Dehon should disqualify him from being declared "blessed." Church sources said the Vatican commission had met once in June to take a first look at arguments for and against beatification and then to "reflect prayerfully" on them. The commission, which includes four high-ranking cardinals, planned more meetings for this fall, the sources said. The case is highly unusual because Pope John Paul II had approved Father Dehon's beatification and set a date for the ceremony, but died before it could be carried out. Pope Benedict put the beatification on hold after publicity about Father Dehon's writings on Jews prompted protests from French bishops, the French government and some Jewish groups.
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Chaplain calls his work on Hill a balance of contemplation, action
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Father Daniel Coughlin said his work on Capitol Hill as chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives is the "balance of contemplation and action, prayer and reflection, words and listening" he has longed for his whole life. "I wrestle with angels at times to create prayer that will lift controversy to resolve and inspire differences to seek the common good," he said Oct. 26 at a reception where he received the 2005 Distinguished Service Award from the Washington Theological Union. "In pastoral care of members and those around them, I have uncovered depths of public service, the highest motivations and contemporary suffering that the public will never know or appreciate," he added. Washington Theological Union, a Catholic graduate school of theology and ministry, honored the priest for "his commitment and dedication to pastoring at the parish level and at the highest levels of government."
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Rwanda, Belgium agree to transfer priest's case to Brussels
KIGALI, Rwanda (CNS) -- The Rwandan and Belgian governments have agreed to transfer the case of a Belgian priest accused of helping to mastermind the 1994 genocide from Kigali to Brussels. However, Father Guy Theunis, a member of the Missionaries of Africa, still faces a hearing before a Rwandan court in early November, although an exact date had not been set by Oct. 28. Officials from the Rwandan ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs were unavailable for comment, but a Belgian official in Kigali, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Murigande signed the agreement late Oct. 27. Father Theunis, who worked in Rwanda from 1970 to 1994, was arrested in early September in the transit lounge of Kigali International Airport on his way back to Brussels from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He was accused of complicity in genocide because he reproduced quotations from various publications, including some published in the extremist anti-Tutsi magazine Kangura, in the intellectual journal Dialogue, of which he was editor.
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Police arrest two underground priests in China's Wenzhou Diocese
HONG KONG (CNS) -- Two underground priests in eastern China's Wenzhou Diocese were detained by public security officers after celebrating a Mass to mark the end of the Year of the Eucharist. On Oct. 27, police arrested the Wenzhou vicar general, Father Shao Zhumin, and Father Paul Jiang Sunian, chancellor, reported UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand. The two priests and five other priests, all of the same underground church community, had celebrated a Mass for about 600 Catholics at Yongqiang parish. After the Mass, Father Shao, some other priests, nuns and lay Catholics went to a restaurant for dinner. Public security officers seized Father Shao when he approached the counter to order food, while the other Catholics waited inside a room, the sources told UCA News Oct. 28. Alerted to the arrest, the lay Catholics quietly escorted the other priests out of the restaurant through a kitchen door to prevent their arrests, the sources said. Father Jiang, who did not join the group for dinner, headed back to his parish, according to the sources, who said public security officers took him into custody when he stopped at a toll booth.
END
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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