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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Jan-16-2008
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Anniversary event for unity week held in chapel where it began
GARRISON, N.Y. (CNS) -- The Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement opened the 100th anniversary celebration of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity by convening Jan. 13 for a service in Garrison in the same tiny chapel where the first observance was held in 1908. "The whole notion of Christian unity has changed since then," said Atonement Father James Gardiner, but it is still based on Jesus' prayer "that they may all be one ... that the world may believe that you sent me" in the Gospel of St. John. "We don't know exactly what Jesus had in mind," said Father Gardiner. "Different groups of Christians will have different visions of unity. We don't know what it will look like. We're praying for a gift from God and we can't predetermine God's will." Father Gardiner traced the history of the Christian unity movement. He said in the early days "it was fueled by 'return theology', the idea that everyone would return to the Roman fold. The scholarship has changed and now we pray for the unity that Christ wills, when Christ wills and in the manner that Christ wills. We're praying for unity, not uniformity." The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is traditionally observed Jan. 18-25.
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Honoring Mother Lange seen as fitting way to mark Black History Month
BALTIMORE (CNS) -- More than 30 years before the Emancipation Proclamation, Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange fought to establish the first religious order for black women and the first black Catholic school in the United States. To honor the 126th anniversary of their founder's death, the Oblate Sisters of Providence have planned a Feb. 3 Mass of Thanksgiving to be celebrated by Cardinal William H. Keeler, the retired archbishop of Baltimore, in Our Lady of Mount Providence Convent Chapel in Catonsville. Oblate Sister M. Virginie Fish said the sisters see honoring Mother Lange as a fitting way to kick-start National Black History Month, which is observed every February. "For so long, no one ever heard of Mother Lange, but now she is getting her just due," said Oblate Sister John Francis Schilling, president of St. Frances Academy, the school founded by Mother Lange. "She was someone who saw the need for things before others did and took the risks to make them happen.
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Black Catholic pro-life apostolate sponsors 'Rosary Across America'
NEW YORK (CNS) -- The New York-based National Black Catholic Apostolate for Life urged all U.S. Catholics to participate in its annual "Black Catholic Rosary Across America for Life" Jan. 22 to mark the 35th year since the Supreme Court legalized abortion virtually on demand. "We will be praying for the end of abortion and all acts of violence against the sacredness of life! For peace throughout the world and especially in our communities. For the unity and sanctity of the family," Franciscan Father James Goode, the apostolate's founder and president, said in a Jan. 14 announcement. Last year more than 20,000 people participated and organizers were praying "even more will come on board this year," he said. The rosary was planned to coincide with the Jan. 22 March for Life in Washington and other related events, including a Jan. 21 vigil Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
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WORLD
Pope says never stop praying, asking God for Christian unity
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI asked Catholics to participate in the Jan. 18-25 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, praying that God would help Christians witness together the gift of salvation in Christ. The theme of the 2008 celebration is "Pray Without Ceasing," an invitation that the pope said he wanted to make his own and address to the whole church. "Yes, it is necessary to pray without ceasing, asking God with insistence for the great gift of unity among all the Lord's disciples," he said Jan. 16 at his weekly general audience. "May the inexhaustible force of the Holy Spirit move us to a sincere commitment to the search for unity so that we can all profess together that Jesus is the one savior of the world," the pope said. In his main audience talk, Pope Benedict continued his series on the life and teaching of St. Augustine, focusing on his efforts to keep Christians united, fight heresy, comfort victims of war and prepare for his own death.
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To preach effectively, have passion for Gospel, says U.S. archbishop
ROME (CNS) -- Preaching effectively in U.S. multicultural communities hinges upon believing passionately in God's word and his universal plan of salvation, Atlanta's archbishop told U.S. seminarians studying in Rome. "If the preacher truly, deeply, passionately embraces the word," then the word of God "will find a home in the hearts of those who listen," said Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta. "The word itself and the graced hearts of the listeners will adapt the preaching so that it becomes hearable in a given context," he said Jan. 13 during the 2008 Carl J. Peter Lecture at Rome's Pontifical North American College. The annual lecture seeks to foster preaching skills for seminarians preparing to serve in parishes. The African-American archbishop's talk was titled "Preaching in a Multicultural Church -- Highlighting the Latino, African-American and Asian Communities." The archbishop said a priest's main task is proclaiming the word of God.
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In undelivered speech, pope urges scholars, students to seek truth
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Even before protests led him to cancel his visit to Rome's Sapienza University, Pope Benedict XVI knew there would be some people who questioned why the leader of the Catholic Church should be delivering a formal address to a secular university. In the text prepared for his suspended Jan. 17 visit, the pope wrote that he would speak as a "representative of a community that safeguards a treasure of knowledge and ethical experience that is important for all humanity," and he encouraged all involved in the university to seek the truth. The Vatican published the remarks the pope had prepared for his visit a few hours after a group of Sapienza students attended the pope's Jan. 16 general audience to show their support. The students held up signs saying "University students are with you" and another saying that, because the pope was not going to the university, the university was coming to him. Pope Benedict's visit to the university was canceled after 67 professors wrote a letter protesting his visit on charges that the pope was "hostile to science" and after a group of students threatened to demonstrate while he was speaking.
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Western bishops tell Vatican of their concerns about Holy Land
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Fresh from visiting Christian communities in Israel and the Palestinian territories, a group of bishops from North America and Europe expressed their concerns about the situation in the Holy Land to top-level Vatican officials. While the bishops wished to keep the specifics of their discussions confidential, Auxiliary Bishop William Kenney of Birmingham, England, told reporters topics included the Israeli separation wall, the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Bishop Joan Vives Sicilia of Urgell, Spain, also told reporters that Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem, who also traveled to Rome, asked the Vatican to establish a worldwide day of prayer for the Holy Land. Both bishops spoke to reporters during a Jan. 16 press conference at Vatican Radio headquarters. Stephen Colecchi, director of the Office of International Justice and Peace for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told Catholic News Service the Jan. 16 closed-door meeting with Vatican officials ran almost an hour. Colecchi, who accompanied the bishops in the Holy Land and Rome, called it "a very substantive meeting."
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Franciscan says new Holy Land center will assist Catholic media
JERUSALEM (CNS) -- The Franciscans in charge of caring for the holy sites in the Holy Land have set up a multimedia center to assist Catholic television and radio stations reporting on the region from a religious perspective. The multimedia center includes fiber-optic technology allowing live satellite broadcasts, and the Franciscans are asking television and radio broadcasters to concentrate on religious news and the holy sites and refrain from political reporting, said Franciscan Father Athanasius Macora, superior of Terra Santa College, where the center is located. The center, four years in the making, was inaugurated Jan. 12. "We are trying to focus on things that other people are not doing," said Father Macora, who is also a spokesman for the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, which cares for the holy sites. "We have put some serious resources into this." He told Catholic News Service: "The mass media doesn't talk much about the Holy Land, only in a certain context of political violence. There is no coverage of the holy places." For example, he said, very few people know there is a Catholic Arab community in the Holy Land.
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PEOPLE
Cardinal Lehmann resigns as head of German bishops' conference
COLOGNE, Germany (CNS) -- After 21 years as head of the German bishops' conference, Mainz Cardinal Karl Lehmann has resigned as its president, but will continue to serve as bishop of Mainz. The 71-year-old cardinal announced Jan. 15 he made the decision after being hospitalized for cardiac arrhythmia in December. His resignation will be effective Feb. 18, after the next conference meeting, where his successor will be elected. Tributes came from his fellow bishops, as well as from prominent Germans. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a Lutheran, said that she had many deep conversations with Cardinal Lehmann. "He always accompanied us politicians in our work, even in the process of making difficult decisions," she said. The leader of the Social Democrats, Kurt Beck -- who is also prime minister of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, which includes Mainz -- said, "As a brilliant theologian, with his humanity and his humor, he has often been able to reconcile different views."
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Armed men kill Oblate priest in southern Philippines
COTABATO, Philippines (CNS) -- An Oblate priest was shot to death when he resisted armed men trying to take him from his southern Philippine mission, said the congregation's Philippine superior. Father Jesus Reynaldo Roda, 53, was praying in the Notre Dame of Tabawan School chapel late Jan. 15 when armed men "barged in" and tried to take him away, said Father Ramon Bernabe, who heads the Philippine province of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. In a written report to the Asian church news agency UCA News Jan. 16, the provincial said Father Roda "struggled and resisted" efforts to take him and "explicitly said that he preferred to be killed right there and then." Witnesses reported that Father Roda was beaten, then shot dead, and "the armed men also took some valuables from his office before fleeing." Initial reports said the men forced Omar Taup, a male Muslim teacher from the school, to leave with them.
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Vatican official named archbishop of Indian diocese
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has named Msgr. Felix Machado, undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, as head of the Diocese of Nasik, India, and given him the personal title of archbishop. The appointment of the 59-year-old Indian archbishop-designate was announced by the Vatican Jan. 16. Long involved in dialogue with Hindus and with Sikhs, he has served as undersecretary of the Vatican office since 2000. Born in Remedy, near Mumbai, he studied at Mumbai's St. Pius X Seminary and at the Catholic University of Lyon, France. From 1970 to 1976, he was part of the French-based Taize ecumenical community. He was ordained a priest in 1976 for the Archdiocese of Mumbai, becoming a priest of the Diocese of Vasai when it was created in 1998.
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Former Vatican official gets four years in prison for molesting boys
OTTAWA (CNS) -- A former Vatican official has received a four-year prison sentence for sexually molesting 13 boys. After the judge found him guilty of indecent assault against one victim in a Pembroke, Ontario, courthouse Jan. 14, Msgr. Bernard Prince, 72, pleaded guilty to 12 charges of indecent and sexual assault. The abuse took place between 1964 and 1984, usually at Msgr. Prince's cabin on a lake in the Pembroke Diocese. Ordained for the diocese in 1963, Msgr. Prince spent his early years serving in two parishes. When he was charged in 2005, the retired monsignor was living near Rome. He had joined the Roman Curia in 1991 and served as an official of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. He had also served as president of Canada's Pontifical Mission Society and as president of Canada's Canon Law Society.
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