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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Jan-25-2008
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Protection urged for the poor in pending economic stimulus bill
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- As Congress prepared to weigh an economic stimulus bill brokered by House leaders and the Bush administration, the U.S. bishops' conference urged the treasury secretary to protect the poorest families from financial hardship. House leaders and President George W. Bush Jan. 24 announced a $150 billion package of cash payments to poor and middle-class workers and easier tax write-offs for some businesses. The proposals are intended to stimulate the economy, which financial analysts, including the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, have warned is heading toward recession. "While their voices are not always heard, poor people have compelling needs that should have a priority claim on our consciences and on the choices and investments which you will make," wrote Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., in a Jan. 23 letter to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. The bishop said such an approach makes practical sense, because the poorest segment of the population "will most likely use this money short-term within the economy." Bishop Murphy heads the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He quoted the testimony of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to the House Budget Committee, saying "there is good evidence that cash that goes to low- and moderate-income people is more likely to be spent in the near term."
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Pro-life message resounds long after march participants return home
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- When the tens of thousands of participants at the annual March for Life returned to their homes, some after longer bus rides than others, many of them put away their placards, marching gear and talking points for another year. But not all of them. A number of the participants who traveled great distances and braved cold temperatures to come to Washington to voice their opposition to legalized abortion were ready to jump right back to volunteering, praying or working for the cause that brought them to the Jan.22 march in the first place. Those who lobby in Washington for pro-life efforts were no exception -- they certainly got right back to work after attending the march that marks the anniversary of the 1973 Roe decision legalizing abortion. Two days after the march, Richard Doerflinger, associate director for the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, told Catholic News Service that his office had a full slate of issues it planned to closely monitor in the months ahead. For starters, the secretariat was supporting an amendment to the Indian Health Care Improvement Act expected to go before the Senate any day. The bill would restrict the federal funding of abortion through the Indian Health Service except to save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape of a minor or incest with a minor. The federal agency is responsible for providing health services to American Indians and Alaska's native peoples.
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Southwest Liturgical Conference gathering links Eucharist, justice
TUCSON, Ariz. (CNS) -- Eucharistic justice calls everyone "to see ourselves and all others in the same light in which the Father sees us," said Atlanta Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory in remarks prepared for the Southwest Liturgical Conference study week in Tucson. Because of a snowstorm, Archbishop Gregory did not make it to Tucson for the Jan. 16-19 gathering but his remarks were delivered by Tucson Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas. About 1,200 people from Texas, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Oklahoma and elsewhere were in attendance. The agenda featured workshops on a variety of topics and the performance of a play titled "The Line in the Sand," which dramatized the plight of Mexicans seeking a better life in the U.S. The theme of the 46th annual study week was "Eucharist and Justice: Walking in Charity and Peace." In his prepared remarks, Archbishop Gregory repeated the words said at each Mass: "Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed." "That prayer should remind us that we are recipients of the favor of the Lord and none of us approaches the banquet of life based upon our own merits," he said. "The Eucharist is an invitation to reconsider how the Father's love has been poured out into all of our lives."
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Archbishop criticizes bills removing time limits on sex abuse suits
MADISON, Wis. (CNS) -- Two bills before the Wisconsin Legislature that would expand or remove the statute of limitations for child abuse cases "will kneecap or even eliminate" church ministries to the needy and punish innocent Catholics for years to come, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of Milwaukee told a state Senate committee Jan. 16. The archbishop was among several witnesses speaking out against the proposed legislation at a public hearing in Madison by the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Corrections and Housing. The Senate bill, SB 356, and its counterpart in the Assembly, AB 651, would repeal the statute of limitations for all future civil suits filed by childhood sexual abuse victims and open a three-year grace period for filing lawsuits now barred by current statute of limitations. Wisconsin increased the statute of limitations for child abuse crimes in 2004, allowing a victim to bring suit against his or her abusers or other guilty parties until his or her 35th birthday. The Catholic Church had backed that legislation. In his Jan. 16 testimony, Archbishop Dolan said he represented "a church that is ashamed" of past actions by a minority of priests but also "a church that, with the help of its people, has risen to leadership on this issue." "In the past, the church was, at times, an example of what not to do; now we are looked to as a model of what to do," he said.
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Bishop urges Catholics to study about St. Paul, celebrate his life
WILMINGTON, Del. (CNS) -- In a pastoral letter on "Celebrating the Year of St. Paul," Bishop Michael A. Saltarelli of Wilmington has called on the faithful in his diocese to discern "how best to study, pray and celebrate the life, inspired writing, spirituality and missionary spirit of St. Paul." He issued the pastoral in anticipation of the worldwide observance proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI. It will run from June 28 of this year to June 29, 2009. In a 5,000-word letter to the people of the Diocese of Wilmington released on the eve of the Jan. 25 feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, the bishop offered six themes to consider for the Pauline year's observance: Paul's conversion experience and our personal conversion; living and praying Christ; praying, studying and living the inspired word of God; lifting high the cross of Christ; rekindling a love for the Eucharist and the church; and the universal call to holiness and mission. He also suggested 10 ways to observe the coming Pauline year -- from studying church teachings to participating in parish devotions, discussions and pilgrimages to exploring Pauline themes in film and art.
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CNS' Origins fully searchable online with documents from 1971-present
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Every document published by Origins, the documentary service of Catholic News Service, is now accessible online. The four-year digitization process of transferring printed texts online was completed in January. The fully searchable database at www.originsonline.com now includes more than 8,500 articles dating back to 1971 when the service began. Origins editor Edmond Brosnan said the documentary service "literally gives the full story on any given topic in church life" and has been "a vital resource for information about the church" since it began. "With this digitization project, subscribers now have access to every important church document stretching back 37 years," he added. The project was funded in part through a grant from the Catholic Communication Campaign and supervised by the CNS library and information services department. It involved scanning hard-copy texts, reformatting, proofreading and sending prepared texts to the CNS operations department to be loaded into the database. The documentary service, published 47 times a year, is a resource for educators, students, pastors, journalists and parish staff members. Subscribers can receive the print edition, the print edition and access to the Origins archive or Origins online only.
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WORLD
Vatican official says Christians must recover spiritual inspiration
ROME (CNS) -- Divided Christians need to recover the original spiritual inspiration of the ecumenical movement, always ensuring that it is grounded in a desire to proclaim salvation in Jesus Christ more effectively, said Cardinal Walter Kasper. Mergers to form a mega-Christian church are not the goal, said the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Precisely because it takes denominational differences seriously, "spiritual ecumenism suffers from the wounds caused by the divisions within the church," the cardinal said at a Jan. 24 ceremony at Centro Pro Unione, a dialogue and study center operated by the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement. The friars, whose founder, Father Paul Wattson, began the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 100 years ago, presented their Christian Unity Award to Cardinal Kasper's council and to the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. The award recognized the two offices for their 40 years of joint work organizing, planning and promoting the week of prayer worldwide. The Rev. John Gibaut, a Canadian Anglican and director of the Faith and Order Commission, said the week of prayer is a concentrated occasion to gather the prayers for the unity of the church that are offered continuously around the world, either implicitly when the Our Father is recited or explicitly in the eucharistic prayer.
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All ecumenism is local: Christian unity begins at the grass roots
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In Rome, like in any other diocese, the search for Christian unity is fueled by the prayers and friendships of neighbors and their local pastors. Each year the bishop of the Diocese of Rome -- the pope -- hosts other Christian leaders at a Jan. 25 prayer service marking the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. But the faithful of his diocese have a full schedule leading up to the final night. Father Marco Gnavi, director of the Rome diocesan office for ecumenical affairs, said, "Rome is a unique diocese ecumenically, first of all because of the presence of the pope, but also because of the variety of Christian communities represented and because of the numbers of centers and movements that focus on unity." One of those is the Centro Pro Unione, a dialogue and study center operated by the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, the group that gave birth to the week of Christian prayer 100 years ago in Garrison, N.Y. Father James Puglisi, director of the center and minister general of the order, said the week of prayer began as a local observance, and its celebration naturally depends on local circumstances, including how many different Christian communities are present in a given city and how well their members get along during the year. The grass roots "is where the unity of the church is being built up through concrete pastoral initiatives that promote collaboration, respect for one another and recognition of one another as brothers and sisters in Christ," he said.
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Bishop says Turkish officials fail to discuss plans for Pauline year
WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- A church official in Turkey said the country's authorities are failing to consult about plans for the 2,000th anniversary year of St. Paul's birth in the southern city of Tarsus. "Although government representatives from Ankara have been here, they haven't spoken to me," said Bishop Luigi Padovese of Anatolia, Turkey. "Our own preparations are well advanced, so they need to know about our plans. But they haven't announced any decisions, so everything still looks uncertain." Bishop Padovese told Catholic News Service in a Jan. 25 telephone interview that he had asked the mayor of Tarsus to provide facilities for pilgrims and rooms for priests to prepare for services. "But I said we need a church above all, since people will be coming here not just as tourists, but also to pray," the bishop said. The city's 12th-century St. Paul Church currently is a state-owned museum. "I think the central Turkish government is well disposed toward us. But we must know what they're doing," he said. Pope Benedict XVI convoked 2008-09 as a special Pauline year and said the celebrations should have a special ecumenical character.
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Pope says Christian unity moved by prayer, Holy Spirit
ROME (CNS) -- Comparing ecumenism to a ship, Pope Benedict XVI said it would "never have left the port if it had not been moved by a broad current of prayer and pushed by the breeze of the Holy Spirit." Joined by the Rev. Samuel Kobia, a Methodist minister and general secretary of the World Council of Churches, and representatives of the Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, the pope presided over a Jan. 25 evening prayer service concluding the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The 2008 observance marked the 100th anniversary of the week of prayer, which was begun in New York by the communities that became the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement. It also marked the 40th year that the theme for the celebration and its materials for prayer and reflection have been prepared jointly by the World Council of Churches' Faith and Order Commission and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Rev. Kobia told the pope and congregation that modern ecumenism was born of prayers both for peace in the world and for unity among Christians.
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Australian cardinal criticizes proposed carbon tax on babies
PERTH, Western Australia (CNS) -- Australian Cardinal George Pell of Sydney has criticized the Australian Medical Association for publishing a letter by a professor of medical obstetrics advocating a tax on children for their carbon footprints. "I am not sure what is more extraordinary -- that an obstetrician could hold such a view or that a leading medical journal could publish such a view," Cardinal Pell said. He said the concern "for the physical ecology of the world is not always matched by a similar concern for the moral ecology of our societies." "But either way, this is a striking illustration of where a minority, neopagan, anti-human mentality wants to take us," he said in Seoul, South Korea, in mid-January, as he accepted an award from the Archdiocese of Seoul for his anti-abortion work. His remarks were reported by The Record, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Perth. Cardinal Pell said such "extreme environmental proposals are expressions of modern society's deep confusion about the place and value of the human person in the world." "They should be warning bells for us," he added.
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Priest says Egyptian merchants selling goods fill Gaza's streets
JERUSALEM (CNS) -- The streets of the Gaza Strip were full of Egyptian merchants selling their wares following the Jan. 25 breach of the Gaza-Egyptian border, said a priest in Gaza. The Egyptian merchants gave the area a festival-like atmosphere, hawking goods not seen in the Palestinian territory for ages, but it was all at an inflated price, said Msgr. Manuel Musallam, pastor of Holy Family Church. "Our streets are full of Egyptians. It is crowded in the streets like the time of the feasts," he said. "But people can buy only things they can consume in one or two days. That is not a solution. This can't bring stability." News agencies reported tens of thousands of Palestinians -- facing a blockade from Israel -- poured across the border into Egypt to stock up on supplies. Msgr. Musallam said many brought back items not readily available in Gaza, such as chocolates or televisions. Since the militant Islamic group Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in June, Gaza's border with Egypt normally has been closed. But Israel tightened the closure of its border to the Gaza Strip and temporarily banned imports, including the fuel necessary to run Gaza's power plant, following a sharp increase in the number of rockets Palestinian militants fired into Israeli border towns. After Egypt began repairing the border breach, Palestinian militants bulldozed another hole in the chain and concrete fence.
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Church law frees people to follow Christ, pope tells canonists
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Far from being a list of restrictions, church law frees people to follow Christ, Pope Benedict XVI told participants in a congress on canon law. The church recognizes that the nature and function of its laws are to pursue its aim of achieving the salvation of people's souls, he said. Therefore, the pope said, it is important "that such laws be loved and observed by all the faithful." "Church law is, first of all, 'lex libertatis:' law that makes us free to follow Jesus," he said. The pope made his remarks during a Jan. 25 audience with some 700 participants in an international congress on canon law. The Jan. 24-25 congress, organized by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, marked the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of the new Code of Canon Law in 1983.
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Korean archbishop declares alleged Marian visionary excommunicated
SEOUL, South Korea (CNS) -- A South Korean archbishop said an alleged Marian visionary and her followers have been excommunicated automatically. Archbishop Andreas Choi Chang-mou of Kwangju issued the decree Jan. 21, saying "for Christians' healthy faith life and the unity and communion of the church, I declare as such, though my heart grieves." The decree was released to all dioceses and media Jan. 23, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News. The Kwangju Archdiocese issued directives in 1998, 2003 and 2005 banning Catholics from visiting and participating in ceremonies in Naju, South Korea. The Korean bishops' conference supported the archdiocese. Archbishop Choi said he met with Julia Youn, 60, and her husband in Naju in 2003 to warn them against promoting the alleged apparitions and later gave her a final warning in 2005, but they did not modify their actions. The excommunication was not imposed by judgment but automatically results from an action that places one outside the community of faith, Archbishop Choi said. "Rather, they speak as if the Holy Father approves them," the archbishop said. "They libel me, the Korean bishops and the Korean church through their publications and the Internet."
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Christian, Muslim leaders urge people to uphold religious freedom
AMMAN, Jordan (CNS) -- More than 250 Christian and Muslim leaders from the Middle East called for all people to uphold religious freedom and allow access to holy places for all believers. The short document was signed by participants in the third international conference sponsored by the Jordanian Interfaith Coexistence Research Center, under the patronage of Jordan's King Abdullah II. The leaders also called for respect for all beliefs, including not desecrating religious symbols sacred to other religions. Among the signers were Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem, Melkite Catholic Patriarch Gregoire III Laham of Damascus, Syria, and Armenian Apostolic Archbishop Sebouh Sarkossoam of Tehran, Iran. Muslim representatives came from the Palestinian territories, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Israel and Jordan.
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PEOPLE
Jesuit general: Order is close to pope, making differences painful
ROME (CNS) -- The obedience, affection and common mission binding the Society of Jesus to the pope are solid, unchanging and the reason why differences can be so painful, said the new superior general of the Jesuits. Father Adolfo Nicolas, elected Jan. 19 to head the world's largest Catholic men's order, told reporters, "The Society of Jesus has always been, from the beginning, and always will be in communion with the Holy Father, and we are happy to be so." Meeting journalists Jan. 25, he said, "If there are difficulties, it is precisely because we are so close." Like a married couple, he said, the Jesuits and the pope are bound to one another and committed to working together for the good of the church and the world. "Only those who love each other can hurt each other," he said. From time to time difficulties arise, "but this is normal."
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