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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Apr-7-2006
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
At Catholic prayer breakfast, bishop urges battling moral relativism
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- From commonly used language to societal priorities, the "moral relativism" decried by Pope Benedict XVI often seems to be the only way to cope with modern times, said Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison, Wis., urging participants at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast April 7 to work against that tide. In a program that also included remarks by President George W. Bush, the Vatican's representative in Washington and the priest who is supervising the reconstruction of Catholic schools in New Orleans, Bishop Morlino's keynote address warned about the "dictatorship of relativism" and described what he said are the "members of the junta" and the enforcement mechanisms they employ in maintaining that dictatorship. He said the mass media and "those who pander to polls" keep society focused on relativism. They employ inconsistency between civil laws and practices and the use of language which hides the true meaning of certain activities to keep people from applying the moral standards of natural law to everyday life, he said.
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Found 'Gospel of Judas' paints alternate portrait of Jesus' betrayer
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A gnostic writing long thought to have been lost, the Gospel of Judas, was put on display April 6 at the National Geographic Society in Washington. The document, a third-century Coptic translation of what had originally been written in Greek before 180 A.D., paints Judas in a more sympathetic light than his well-known role as Jesus' betrayer in the canonical Gospels. In it, Jesus said Judas would "exceed all" of the other disciples, "for you will sacrifice the man that clothes me" -- a reference to Judas' impending betrayal of Jesus. It is also an allusion to gnostic belief that held the spirit in higher esteem than the body, and that, through the liberation of Jesus' body, his spirit would be freed. The Gospel of Judas was mentioned in a book condemning heresies that was written by St. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, France, in 180 A.D. The find was touted at an April 6 press conference as one of the three most significant discoveries of sacred writings of the past century, along with the Dead Sea Scrolls, thousands of fragments of biblical and early Jewish documents discovered between 1947 and 1956, and the Nag Hammadi Library, a collection of 50 texts found in Egypt in 1945.
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U.S. cardinal supports new probe into Mexican cardinal's 1993 killing
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The 1993 murder of a Mexican cardinal was drug-related, warranting a reopening of the investigation by Mexican authorities, said Washington Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick at a congressional hearing. He also asked the U.S. government, which is holding several Mexican suspects and witnesses in the case, to aid Mexican authorities in the investigation. Cardinal Juan Posadas Ocampo of Guadalajara, Mexico, was "a martyr in the war against drugs," said Cardinal McCarrick April 6 in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations. The initial Mexican ruling that Cardinal Posadas was accidentally killed in a crossfire between rival drug gangs was "a travesty of justice," said the U.S. cardinal. The House subcommittee has been pressuring the U.S. Justice Department to explain why it does not want to allow Mexican authorities to question the Mexican suspects and witnesses it is holding or to turn them over to Mexican authorities.
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Do General Motors' woes portend things to come for U.S. industry?
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The adage, at least a half-century ago, was "What's good for General Motors is good for the country." That was when GM made half of the cars sold in the United States. But now the worry could be: As goes General Motors, so goes the country. Today, GM sells only a quarter of all U.S. cars. Its stock price is lagging, its bonds have been reduced by Wall Street to junk status, and it is close to being outsold worldwide by Japanese automaker Toyota. In response, GM has tried zero-interest financing, employee discounts to all buyers and lower sticker prices, all of which have proven to be, at best, temporary fixes to sluggish sales. GM could have learned from the steel industry's upheaval a dozen years ago, according to Joseph Ezzie, an economics professor at Walsh College in North Canton, Ohio, an hour's drive from Lordstown, Ohio, where GM produced the Chevrolet Vega, one of the most derided cars of the 1970s. "The steel industry went exactly the same route, and the auto industry should have learned this 12, 13 years ago," Ezzie said.
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WORLD
Pope tells youths Nazi brutality helped him decide to become a priest
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In a meeting with young people, Pope Benedict XVI said he decided to become a priest after witnessing the brutality of the Nazi regime in his native Germany. While his vocation came naturally to him, the pope said he had to seriously ask himself about priestly celibacy and had doubts about whether he could be a simple pastor to simple people. The pope's reflections, the most personal since his election to the papacy a year ago, came during a question-and-answer session April 6 with some 40,000 Rome youths in St. Peter's Square. The annual pre-Easter event included songs, dance, prayers and testimonials. This year it also featured short film clips of Pope John Paul II, who initiated the youth meetings many years ago. Pope Benedict, seated in a chair in the late-afternoon sun, fielded questions from young people on topics like science and faith, sexuality and marriage and the development of his own vocation.
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Papal preacher says even committed believers struggle to follow Jesus
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Even the most active, committed Christians must struggle each day to convert and to follow Jesus more closely, said the preacher of the papal household. Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, offering a Lenten meditation to Pope Benedict XVI and top Vatican officials April 7, said that while conversion from nonbelief to belief is primary conversion is an ongoing process. With nonbelievers, he said, "Christ is outside and knocks on the doors of the heart in order to enter. But when it comes to successive conversions -- from one state of grace to a higher state, from tepidness to fervor -- the opposite happens: Christ is inside and knocks on the doors of the heart in order to get out." The "heart of stone" that the Bible condemns can describe not only those who refuse to believe in God and in the immensity of God's love demonstrated in the death and resurrection of his Son, Father Cantalamessa said.
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Jesuit scholar says Gospel of Judas does not merit name 'Gospel'
ROME (CNS) -- The Gospel of Judas was unimportant to most Christians when it was written hundreds of years ago and it is unimportant today, said a Jesuit professor who has convoked a series of ecumenical studies of the historical Jesus. Jesuit Father Gerald O'Collins, a longtime professor of Christology at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University, said the text, like the gospels of Mary Magdalene and Philip, "does not merit the name 'Gospel.'" The National Geographic Society unveiled the document April 6, posting a copy of it on the society's Web site, www.nationalgeographic.com, and releasing English translations of portions of the text. "A 'Gospel' is a literary genre -- established by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John -- focusing on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus," Father O'Collins said. While including events supposedly related to the life of Jesus, the Gospel of Judas and the others really are texts "attempting to bolster the importance" of the personalities they are named after, not of Jesus, the priest said. "They are not summaries of the good news," he said.
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At Vatican Museums, a new way of looking at old things
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The problem with being a 500-year-old museum is that the science of collecting and displaying pieces has changed dramatically. To celebrate its half-millennium, the Vatican Museums has decided not to host special temporary exhibits, but to focus on restoring, rearranging or reopening significant pieces of its permanent collection and opening new collections. One of the Vatican Museums' new collections is composed of the smallest items that once belonged to the Pio-Christian Museum: a collection of sculptures, epigraphs and sarcophagi from the catacombs of Rome. The collection includes more than 1,000 medals, cameos, etched or gold-painted glass, ivories, oil lamps and bronze or silver cups and bottles found in the catacombs of Rome and surrounding towns. While they are not famous masterpieces, "the objects are signs of deep personal devotion, of martyrdom and of conversion -- this is the value, the beauty they still transmit today," said Francesco Buranelli, director of the Vatican Museums.
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U.S., Canadian Catholics tour Rome to honor lives of church women
ROME (CNS) -- A group of female Catholics from the United States and Canada headed to sacred sites in Rome to honor the lives of women who played important roles in the early life of the church. The March 30-April 8 pilgrimage, sponsored by the U.S. Catholic coalition FutureChurch, also aimed to show that some archaeological sites suggest women held positions of leadership in the early church, perhaps serving as bishops and priests who celebrated the Eucharist. The itinerary included visits to Rome's ancient catacombs and early Christian churches to view frescoes and mosaics that depicted women apparently wearing priestly vestments and celebrating the Eucharist. Inscriptions on tombs or artwork referred to some women as presbyters or bishops. Sister Christine Schenk, a Sister of St. Joseph and founder of FutureChurch, organized the tour with Dorothy Irvin, a Catholic archaeologist who has a doctorate in theology from Tubingen University in Germany.
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Giant pyramid found under hill Mexican Catholics use on Good Friday
MEXICO CITY (CNS) -- Archaeologists have discovered a giant 1,500-year old pyramid directly below the site where Mexico City Catholics have been re-enacting the crucifixion of Christ for more than 150 years. What was long thought of as a hill overlooking the city turns out to be a dirt-covered pyramid measuring 165 yards on each of its four sides. Squatters have even built houses on the hill, destroying part of the pre-Columbian structure. The pyramid, located on the capital's south side, was built by the same people who built the mysterious city of Teotihuacan around A.D. 400-500, and its base is about the same size as that archaeological site's famous Pyramid of the Moon, researchers said. The ruins of Teotihuacan lie an hour's drive northeast of Mexico City. On Good Friday, more than a million people will flock to the hill in the Iztapalapa neighborhood to watch local the annual re-enactment of Christ's final hours, when a man chosen to portray Christ is hung from a cross atop the hill.
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PEOPLE
Josephinum professor joins staff of Institute for Priestly Formation
OMAHA, Neb. (CNS) -- Deacon James Keating, associate professor of moral and spiritual theology at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, has joined the staff of the Institute for Priestly Formation in Omaha. Beginning July 1, he will be developing and directing programs for seminary personnel at the institute, located at Creighton University. Father Richard Gabuzda, director of the institute, said Deacon Keating's "outstanding academic credentials and his years of seminary experience will enable him to be of great assistance to seminary personnel." Ordained a deacon for the Diocese of Columbus in 2001, Deacon Keating has been on the faculty at the Josephinum since 1993.
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USCCB official named to head Faith & Politics Institute in Washington
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Father J. Cletus Kiley, a priest of the Chicago Archdiocese who has headed the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Priestly Life and Ministry since 1997, has been selected as president and CEO of the Faith & Politics Institute in Washington. The interfaith, bipartisan institute provides opportunities for spiritual reflection by members of Congress and their staff through weekly small-group discussions, retreats and pilgrimages. Father Kiley, who begins his new work June 1, also has served in recent years as the chief staff person for what was known until last year as the U.S. bishops' Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse. It is now known as the Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People. In that role, Father Kiley participated in the formulation of the bishops' national policy on clergy sex abuse, helped to create the National Review Board and Office of Child and Youth Protection, and developed and coordinated training workshops for the bishops and key staff in implementing the policy.
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For Milwaukee man, passionflowers symbolize his own resurrection
MILWAUKEE (CNS) -- The exotic passionflower is said to tell the Easter story of Christ's crucifixion, but for a Milwaukee man the flower is also a symbol of his personal resurrection. Dick Wuchte's journey to the Catholicism of his youth had several detours, but eventually brought him to the northwest side of Milwaukee, where he moved next door to a devout Catholic and prolific gardener, Marion Wicen, in 1978. He had little interest in Wicen's pride and joy, thriving passionflowers which bloomed on the east side of her house each summer, or in her faith life. But both remained a constant. Wuchte, 59, returned to the church after a 30-year absence sparked by pain from the Vietnam War and addiction. He's now fully recommitted to his faith, and said that has made all the difference. Wicen died in November 2004, but last summer Wuchte said her passionflowers bloomed more vigorously than ever. With the permission of Wicen's family, Wuchte has planted cuttings from her plants in hopes his yard will be graced with the flowers that seem to tell the story of Christ's crucifixion. And Wuchte knows the story doesn't end with the crucifixion. He said he is proof that a resurrection follows.
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Australian Catholics fight rain, flooding during cyclone recovery
SYDNEY, Australia (CNS) -- The town of Innisfail's population of 19,000 was wet and exhausted as emergency workers fought monsoonal rain and flooding in early April in their attempt to restore services to the remote top end of Australia. Two weeks after Cyclone Larry cut a swath of destruction across the Johnston Shire with winds gusting over 180 miles per hour, the area along the Great Barrier Reef was a national disaster zone. Father Frank Gordon of Innisfail said the cyclone's impact March 20 was "like being on a sailing ship on a stormy sea. One minute we were on the top deck, the next down below." He told Catholic News Service by telephone that inside the Good Counsel Parish rectory, he and Father Barry Craig were busy for four hours "closing windows that kept blowing open, trying to secure them, putting towels over them where the glass blew out. We were just waiting for the roof to go -- but gratefully it held on."
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Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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