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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Nov-14-2007
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Bishops overwhelmingly approve politics document, bulletin insert
BALTIMORE (CNS) -- In what several bishops called "a watershed moment" for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the full body of bishops overwhelmingly approved a document intended to help Catholic voters form their consciences on a variety of issues before the 2008 elections. "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility From the Catholic Bishops of the United States" was approved on a 221-4 vote Nov. 14, the last public day of the Nov. 12-15 USCCB fall general assembly in Baltimore. The bishops also endorsed a shorter document, designed as a parish bulletin insert, by a 221-1 vote. Prepared by a task force made up of the chairmen of seven USCCB committees, the document underwent more than a dozen drafts and was still heavily amended during the meeting and immediately before the Nov. 14 vote. The longer document rejects politics based on "powerful interests, partisan attacks, sound bites and media hype" and calls instead for "a different kind of political engagement."
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Bishops finalize Iraq statement, urge new directions in war, policy
BALTIMORE (CNS) -- Some U.S. policymakers "seem to fail to recognize sufficiently the reality and failures in Iraq and the imperative for new directions," warned the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in a new statement on transition in Iraq. "As pastors and teachers, we are convinced that the current situation in Iraq remains unacceptable and unsustainable," the document says. The statement issued Nov. 13 by the conference president, Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., reiterates the bishops' insistence that the transition of U.S. forces out of Iraq should take into account moral issues, such as minimizing the loss of human life, addressing the humanitarian crisis in Iraq, the situation of refugees and the protection of human rights, especially religious freedom. The statement bemoans the "political and partisan stalemate in Washington" that it described as a parallel to the "dangerous political stalemate" that blocks reconciliation in Iraq.
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Teens called to simple acts of stewardship in new statement
BALTIMORE (CNS) -- The U.S. bishops in a new statement are calling teenagers to be disciples by performing acts as simple as assisting with liturgical ministries, giving up the cost of a movie ticket to support the poor, or visiting people who are alone. In "Stewardship and Teenagers: The Challenge of Being a Disciple," approved in a 198-6 vote Nov. 14 during their annual meeting, the U.S. bishops spelled out in simple language what young people can and should do to share their "time, talent and treasure." The text is intended to be circulated as a brochure. A Spanish-language version of the brochure also will be published; it is called "Coresponsables de los dones de Dios en mision." Bishop Robert J. Baker of Birmingham, Ala., who chairs the Ad Hoc Committee on Stewardship, said the Spanish version is not a translation, but was written originally in Spanish to better reflect language suited to young people.
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Bishops agree to music guidelines, Lenten readings, weekday rituals
BALTIMORE (CNS) -- In a series of quick votes Nov. 14, the U.S. bishops approved new guidelines for the use of music in worship, English- and Spanish-language rituals for the celebration of weekday Liturgies of the Word, and revised Lectionary readings for Lent. The documents, presented by Bishop Donald W. Trautman of Erie, Pa., outgoing chairman of the Committee on the Liturgy, prompted little discussion as the bishops wrapped up the public part of their Nov. 12-15 fall general meeting in Baltimore. The music document, called "Sing to the Lord: Music in Divine Worship," was accepted by the bishops in a 183-22 vote, with three abstentions. It had originally been proposed as a document that would have required Vatican approval and would have been binding on bishops in their dioceses. But Bishop Trautman said the committee decided to recommend the document only as a guideline for bishops, not as "normative law." Members of the U.S. bishops' conference nevertheless took a keen interest in the document, proposing nearly 400 amendments to what was the committee's 11th draft.
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Victims of human trafficking need more help, Catholic official says
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Although the United States has made progress in addressing human trafficking, more needs to be done to help trafficking victims, particularly children, said a U.S. Catholic official in testimony before a House committee. "From the Catholic perspective, human trafficking represents a scourge on the earth which must be eradicated," said Anastasia Brown, director of refugee programs of Migration and Refugee Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. She applauded the efforts already made to stop human trafficking, such as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, which Congress reauthorized in 2003 and 2005. But in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Oct. 31, she stressed that trafficking victims need "access to a continuum of services in order to attain self-sufficiency and restored mental and physical health." Most victims of trafficking are "commonly linked by poverty and lack of opportunity" and are sold into bondage as prostitutes, domestic workers and child laborers, she said.
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Christian meditation finds a sanctuary at Georgetown University
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In the oldest building on the campus of the United States' oldest Catholic university, Christian meditation has found a place to take root. The structure -- also the smallest building on the Georgetown University campus -- is now home to a meditation center that had for two years before been based in a pair of adjoining row houses one block from campus. In the center, organized meditation is offered twice a day, although students, faculty and staff can walk into the building at all hours for some moments of silent meditation. "Ma-ra-na-tha," counseled Benedictine Father Laurence Freeman, a native Briton, at one recent midday meditation session. He was instructing those present to say the ancient Greek invocation for "Come, Lord" to themselves, inside their heads slowly and evenly, without putting emphasis on any syllable. "The best way to learn is to practice," Father Freeman said, as the meditation session had a few first-timers.
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WORLD
Aging population poses new set of challenges, say Vatican officials
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The world's rapidly aging population poses a whole new set of challenges, in particular the pastoral care of elderly sick people, Vatican officials said. "This is the most important stage of life, because from here humanity opens itself to eternal life," said Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan. "Giving pastoral care to the sick in this phase means opening the door for them in the name of the Lord." Cardinal Lozano, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, spoke at a Vatican press conference Nov. 14. The council was sponsoring a Nov. 15-17 conference on pastoral care of the elderly sick, with international participants from health, scientific and religious fields. The cardinal cited statistics showing that the world's population age 65 and over is 390 million today, but is expected to rise to 800 million by 2025.
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Pope, at audience, encourages Christians to read Bible
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- To know God and to know how to live their lives, Christians must read the Bible, Pope Benedict XVI said. "Drawing close to the biblical texts, especially the New Testament, is essential for believers because 'ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ,'" the pope said, quoting St. Jerome. At his Nov. 14 weekly general audience, the pope continued a talk begun the week before about the importance of the teaching of St. Jerome, the fourth-century doctor of the church. Reading the Bible teaches believers the way they are to live their lives, the pope said, but the Scriptures must be read in a spirit of prayer and must be understood the way the church understands them. "For Jerome, a fundamental criterion for the interpretation of Scriptures was harmony with the magisterium of the church," he said. Pope Benedict said the books of the Bible "were written by the people of God, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit," so "only in harmony with the faith of this people can we understand the sacred Scripture."
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Priest says missionary evictions from Eritrea have to do with control
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The expulsion of 14 Catholic missionaries from Eritrea has less to do with religion than with the government's attempts to control every aspect of life within the country, said Father Giuseppe Cavallini. Father Cavallini, a Comboni missionary like six of the Catholic personnel told to leave Eritrea, said the early November expulsion order follows similar measures taken against foreign staff members of a variety of charities and nongovernmental organizations. Under the pretext that Eritreans should be running projects in Eritrea, nongovernmental agencies providing food, education and health care face serious restrictions in the country, he told Vatican Radio Nov. 10. "But anyone who knows the reality of Eritrea knows that these people who are expelled cannot be replaced easily," said Father Cavallini, editor of Nigrizia, a Comboni mission magazine.
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Global Christian leaders announce hope for Christian unity
LIMURU, Kenya (CNS) -- Top Christian leaders -- including evangelical and Pentecostal representatives -- recommitted themselves to working for Christian unity after an international meeting that had been planned for nine years. The Global Christian Forum brought a broad spectrum of Christians from diverse churches to Limuru, 30 miles northwest of Nairobi, in early November. The 245 participants represented the traditional Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican churches and included a large Catholic delegation led by Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Top evangelical and Pentecostal leaders from every continent and representatives of Bible societies, the YMCA and YWCA also participated. Evangelical and Pentecostal churches generally had declined to take part in previous ecumenical gatherings, but they produced almost half the participants at the forum, which included discussions on what God is doing in Christian churches and new trends in Christianity.
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Catholics in Georgia welcome Orthodox attempts to mediate peace
WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- Catholic representatives in Georgia have welcomed Orthodox attempts to mediate in the current crisis and insisted Catholics would not take sides. "We will have to see what happens, but the Orthodox church can clearly play an important role by assisting dialogue and acting independently of any vested interests," said Father Rolandas Makrickas, an official at the Vatican's Tbilisi-based nunciature, in a telephone interview Nov. 14 with Catholic News Service. Father Andrzej Graczyk, vicar general in Tbilisi, told CNS Nov. 13, "The Catholic Church is a very small presence in Georgia, and it's always dangerous for us to speak on political issues here. "The Orthodox church is much more active and influential, so its appeals will certainly have an effect," he said. Catholics make up less than 2 percent of Georgia's population, and Orthodox make up more than 83 percent.
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Cardinal calls it 'breakthrough' that Orthodox discuss authority
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The "real breakthrough" in a new Catholic-Orthodox dialogue document lies in the fact that the Orthodox were willing to discuss how authority was shared and exercised on a universal level in the early church, said Cardinal Walter Kasper. The cardinal, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, spoke with Vatican Radio Nov. 14 about the document on the unity of the church and how authority is shared and exercised on a local, regional and universal level. After finalizing the document during a meeting in Ravenna, Italy, members of the dialogue commission planned to release the text Nov. 15. But a Web site associated with the Russian Orthodox Church, whose delegation abandoned the Ravenna meeting, published the text in late October.
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Church workers say Zimbabweans still at great risk of contracting HIV
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- Church workers expressed skepticism about the significant drop in the HIV rate in Zimbabwe and said people are still at great risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. The drop could be a result of AIDS awareness campaigns that "have been widespread and comprehensive," said Alouis Chaumba, head of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe. But extreme poverty in the southern African country and the "desperation of people to make ends meet" could cause the rate to rise again, he said in a Nov. 10 telephone interview with Catholic News Service from the capital, Harare. The HIV rate in Zimbabwe over the past four years has dropped from 18.1 percent to 15.6 percent, with the decrease mainly seen among people between the ages of 15 and 49, the Zimbabwean government announced in early November.
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As visas expire, few Arab priests travel freely in Holy Land
JERUSALEM (CNS) -- As Israeli-granted multiple-entry visas expire, Arab priests and seminarians in the Holy Land increasingly are facing the dilemma of not being able to return to their jobs if they leave to visit home. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem is predicting dire consequences if the Israeli policy of denying one-year multiple-entry visas to Arab religious remains the same. An internal memo noted that if the policy is not canceled by June, the patriarchate will lose most of its clergy, the seminary will be closed and many parishes will be left without priests. Father Humam Khzouz, chancellor of the Latin Patriarchate, said that almost a year ago priests and religious -- including seminarians -- from Lebanon, Syria and Iraq were denied one-year multiple-entry visas. In August, the policy of denying such visas was extended to priests and seminarians from Jordan and Egypt, Arab countries with which Israel has signed peace agreements and has diplomatic relations. Father Khzouz said the Latin Patriarchate includes Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan and Cyprus, and the priests must be free to travel throughout the diocese in order to serve the church.
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PEOPLE
Bishops elect Cardinal George as new president
BALTIMORE (CNS) -- The U.S. bishops Nov. 13 elected Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago as their president and Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., as their vice president. Using an electronic voting system, the bishops voted on the second day of their Nov. 12-15 fall general meeting in Baltimore. Cardinal George won on the first ballot with 188 votes, or 85 percent. He is completing his three-year term as vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. After a president was chosen from among 10 candidates, the remaining nine became the slate of candidates for vice president. There were three rounds of voting for vice president. Two votes included all nine remaining candidates and the third vote was between the top two: Bishop Kicanas and Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of Milwaukee. Bishop Kicanas won with 128 votes; the archbishop received 106. Bishop Kicanas was conference secretary; he was elected to the post in November 2006, so the bishops had to vote for a new secretary. On Nov. 14 they elected Bishop George V. Murry of Youngstown, Ohio. He received 114 votes. The other candidate, Archbishop Dolan, received 112.
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Regis Philbin donates game show winnings to Catholic alma mater
NEW YORK (CNS) -- Television personality Regis Philbin recently demonstrated that the education he received at a Catholic high school in the Bronx served him well. He won $175,000 on the Fox TV program "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" and announced on the air that he would donate his winnings to Cardinal Hayes High School. The episode, which aired Nov. 1, featured celebrities answering questions targeted at the fifth-grade level to win up to $1 million for charity. This is not the first time Philbin has donated game-show earnings to his former high school. Last year, he gave the school his $50,000 prize from winning "Celebrity Jeopardy" on another special episode for celebrities to win cash for their favorite charities. Philbin, a member of the class of '49 at Cardinal Hayes, went on to graduate from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and has been generous to both schools. In 2000, he donated $500,000 to Cardinal Hayes to renovate the auditorium. He also led the 1995 and 1999 capital campaigns that funded a $7 million endowment and the updating of school facilities. He is honorary chairman of the current capital campaign, "Our Future -- Your Hands."
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African refugee outreach program gets $1 million Opus Prize
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Opus Prize Foundation, in partnership with The Catholic University of America, awarded a $1 million prize Nov. 8 to a Tanzanian organization founded by Brother Constant Goetschalckx that educates refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. Brother Goetschalckx, a member of the Brothers of Charity from Belgium who is known as Brother Stan, said he sees the prize as a "sign that God is continuing to go the journey with us." The money will be "transformational," added Anthony Buatti, a senior at Catholic University who has traveled to Tanzania as the university's representative. He spoke at the campus dinner where Brother Goetschalckx accepted the award. The two other awards finalists -- Father John Adams, president of So Others Might Eat in Washington, and Vincentian Father Norberto Carcellar, executive director of the Homeless People's Federation Philippines -- each received an award of $100,000.
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Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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