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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Mar-18-2008
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Nuncio says pope comes to strengthen faith, hope, love of U.S. church
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- When Pope Benedict XVI celebrates his first papal Mass in the United States, it will be a "familial" gathering at the apostolic nunciature in Washington, said the Vatican ambassador to the United States, Italian Archbishop Pietro Sambi. The pontiff also will celebrate his 81st birthday that day, April 16. Archbishop Sambi said the approximately 30 staff members at the nunciature are "all excited to have this morning" with the pope. He also said he hopes the message U.S. Catholics get from the papal visit is "one of the things that the pope pronounced the first day after being elected pope: Don't be afraid. Jesus Christ takes away nothing from you, but he will enrich you." Aside from a meeting with President George W. Bush and a major U.N. address the pope will deliver April 18, the papal trip is first and foremost "a pastoral journey," said Archbishop Sambi. The pontiff "comes to strengthen the faith, the hope and love of the Catholic Church in the United States," the archbishop said, adding that he hopes the pope's visit will "bring a new wind of Pentecost ... a new springtime" to the U.S. church.
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Speakers say U.S. should let workers go back and forth across border
MARYKNOLL, N.Y. (CNS) -- Speakers at a Maryknoll forum said a just and humane U.S. immigration policy would allow people to cross borders to work for a guaranteed just wage, when work is available, and then return home freely. Such a policy would give urgent attention to the root causes of involuntary migration, be national in scope and draw a clear distinction between national immigration policy and national security policy, they said, and would provide more legal routes to immigration than currently exist. But it's not likely to happen any time soon, concluded the three panelists who addressed the topic "Faces of Immigration" at the forum, held March 12 and attended by 140 people. Marie Dennis, director of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, said there has been a "flurry of legislative proposals" in Congress recently that "are largely very restrictive and focused on enforcement and building a wall." She said that despite the bleak prospects for the imminent passage of comprehensive national immigration laws "the legislation itself is insignificant; what is important is the conversation around the legislation. It is the debate and dialogue that will shape the legislation."
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Archbishop Burke starts process to dismiss priest from clerical state
ST. LOUIS (CNS) -- Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis said March 5 that he must proceed with the canonical process of dismissing dissident priest Father Marek Bozek from the clerical state because he has refused to return to his home diocese to be reconciled with the Catholic Church. A priest of the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Father Bozek was suspended in December 2005 by his bishop for abandoning his assignment and his diocese to take a job as pastor offered to him by St. Stanislaus Kostka Corp. at its church in St. Louis. St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish was suppressed by the archdiocese over the governing board's refusal to bring parish structures into conformity with canon law. The corporation that runs it is considered to be functioning outside the communion of the church. In December 2005, Archbishop Burke declared that the six members of the lay board and Father Bozek were excommunicated. On March 5 Father Bozek was scheduled to attend a hearing with Archbishop Burke and two canon lawyers assessing the case. In a press conference just before the meeting, the Polish-born priest announced that he would not attend.
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WORLD
Mideast churches' leaders discuss Christian emigration from Lebanon
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNS) -- An unprecedented wave of Christian emigration from Lebanon is upsetting the country's demographic balance, said participants at a conference of Christian leaders. Approximately 35 percent of Lebanon's total population in 2005 was Christian; that number does not reflect the Christians who emigrated after the war between Hezbollah militants and Israel in the summer of 2006, according to the most recent statistics announced at the mid-March conference. In 1965, Christians represented 55 percent of the population. The "weakness of the Christian presence in Lebanon today is a source of anxiety," said Cardinal Nasrallah P. Sfeir, patriarch of the Maronite Catholic Church. "Lebanon as a message (of coexistence) is threatened," he warned. "The presidency is vacant, the parliament blocked, downtown is vacant and the Christians are leaving the country," he said.
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Thousands pack Rome basilica to pay last respects to Focolare founder
ROME (CNS) -- Thousands of people from dozens of nations, a variety of Christian denominations and several other religious traditions packed into Rome's Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls to pay their final respects to Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare movement. In a message read at her March 18 funeral, Pope Benedict XVI told the mourners, "Many are the reasons for giving thanks to the Lord for the gift he gave the church in this woman of fearless faith." The congregation's thanks was expressed with loud, sustained applause that accompanied the measured pace of the six men carrying her coffin on their shoulders from the basilica's entrance to a carpet at the foot of the altar. Lubich, 88, died March 14; the Focolare movement, which she founded in the 1940s, now involves more than 2 million people in 182 countries.
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Church leaders say rape is used as weapon of war in Congo
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- Women are afraid to work alone in the fields in many parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where rape is used as a weapon of war, said religious leaders and Catholic aid workers. Leaders of the religious congregations working in eastern Congo's Katanga province said they "cannot remain silent" in the face of "all kinds of violence, repeated cases of sexual abuse, and the total lack of respect for the lives of our brothers and sisters." Sexual violence "has escalated, reaching alarming rates, and is considered by many experts to be the real weapon in this war that obliges the people to leave the land they live on," the major superiors said in an early March statement. "It seems clear" that rape is being used as a "terrible weapon" to "annihilate an entire population," they said.
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Hong Kong church commission urges China to stop suppressing Tibetans
HONG KONG (CNS) -- The Hong Kong Diocese's Justice and Peace Commission urged China to stop its suppression of demonstrators and media in Tibet. "We protest that the Chinese government uses force to suppress the (Tibetan) demonstrators and forbids Hong Kong reporters to cover unrest in Tibet," the commission said in a March 18 statement. Or Yan Yan, commission spokeswoman, told Catholic News Service March 18 the commission asked the Chinese government to stop all forms of suppression in Tibet and to enter into dialogue with the Tibetan people. "We ask the Chinese government to ensure that its people may enjoy ... civil rights as stated in its constitution and to allow (the Tibetan) people to enjoy autonomy and to respect their religion and culture," Or said. She added that the commission would protest at the Chinese government office in Hong Kong March 19.
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PEOPLE
Hong Kong cardinal: Way of the Cross gives voice to living martyrs
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI wanted the voice of today's living martyrs, especially Catholics in China, to be heard at the Way of the Cross, said the author of this year's meditations. The pope asked Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong to write the commentary and prayers for the March 21 Good Friday evening service at Rome's Colosseum. The cardinal, who long has been outspoken on the lack of full religious freedom in mainland China, said this was the pope's way of bringing attention to Asia and involving "the faithful of China, for whom the 'Via Crucis' is a devotion" many hold close to their hearts. "The pope wanted me to bring to the Colosseum the voice of those faraway sisters and brothers," he wrote in the introduction to the mediations and prayers released by the Vatican in Italian March 18. The 64-page booklet was illustrated with 20th-century Chinese Christian art from the Society of Divine Word's archives.
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Iraqi archbishop appealed for help in letter released after his death
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The kidnapped archbishop of Mosul, Iraq, recently found dead there, had asked for prayers for Iraqi Chaldean Catholics and said he would be the last person to leave Mosul. "We are asking for your prayers to remove this cloud from our country and our church," said Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, in a Jan. 18 letter to the New York-based Catholic Near East Welfare Association. The letter, which the association sent to Catholic News Service March 17, referred to a series of church bombings in Mosul in early January. "We want to stay in our beloved land, despite the situation and the sufferings, especially after these last bombings," said Archbishop Rahho. The archbishop asked for support from the association and said that "as a result of immigration, violence, kidnappings, bombings and unemployment" the church's revenue had declined by more than 25 percent.
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Office promoting JPII's sainthood cause seeks testimonies in English
ROME (CNS) -- The office in charge of promoting Pope John Paul II's sainthood cause is looking for English speakers who have a story to tell about their meeting with the late pope, their prayers for his intercession or graces received after asking for his help. In a March 17 statement, the Rome diocesan office for the sainthood cause said English submissions to the cause's Web site were seriously falling behind those in Italian, Polish and French. The Web site -- www.vicariatusurbis.org/Beatificazione/English/credits.htm -- also has space set aside for testimonials in Spanish and Portuguese. A spokeswoman for the office said: "It does not have to be a miracle or something extraordinary. We would like to hear and share stories about an encounter or a grace received or a hope. "This part of the site is very active in other languages, but few English speakers seem to know we have a site and a magazine where they can send these things," she said.
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