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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Jun-16-2008
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Unresolved liturgy debate, stem cells, abuse key topics for bishops
ORLANDO, Fla. (CNS) -- A lively and intense debate over a 700-page translation of part of the Roman Missal dominated the public sessions of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' spring general assembly in Orlando June 12-14, but the bishops failed to come to a conclusion about the fate of the liturgical text. With much less discussion, they approved a 2,000-word policy statement calling embryonic stem-cell research "gravely immoral"; directed their Committee on Doctrine to begin revising guidelines for Catholic health care institutions on medically assisted nutrition and hydration; designated Sept. 26, 2010, as National Catholic Charities Sunday; and voted to replace the more formal "vosotros" with the more familiar "ustedes" in Spanish-language Masses in the U.S. The bishops gathered in Orlando also heard an interim report from researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice on the causes and context of child sexual abuse by priests and began a confidential dialogue with representatives of half of the nation's priests on issues that arose during and after the sex abuse scandal.
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Catholic leaders urge Congress to make trade pacts with poor nations
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- U.S. Catholic leaders have urged Congress to give countries such as Haiti and Bolivia continued preferential consideration when making trade policy. During a June 12 hearing before the U.S. Senate's Finance Committee, Oblate Father Andrew Small, foreign policy adviser for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said existing preferential trade programs for Haiti and Bolivia have helped to provide jobs in the two countries, both of which have staggering unemployment and citizens who live in abject poverty. The USCCB supports the long-term extensions of a global trade policy that gives preference to poor nations for moral and economic reasons, Father Small said in his testimony before the Senate panel. "The moral measure of any society is how it cares for and gives preference to its most vulnerable members," he said. "In a special way, our trade preference programs specify and express this link between trade and development, a link that can benefit from closer scrutiny by this committee."
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Poverty has become political issue, says Catholic Charities official
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Poverty represents different things to different people. "For us, it's a moral issue," said Candy Hill, senior vice president for social policy and government affairs at Catholic Charities USA. But for others, poverty has become "a political issue -- to be only identified with one political party or the other, when we could all be working together to fight poverty," she said. Hill made her remarks during a June 12 congressional forum on poverty that featured at least eight members of the House, who did more listening than talking. "I'm more used to sitting in an audience listening to congresspersons," not the other way around, said Imam Malik Mujahid of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, another speaker at the forum. "The Lord hears the cry of the poor," Hill said, adding that the phrase has taken on additional meaning as a Catholic liturgical song in addition to being part of Psalm 34. "But I would suggest that some of us here built double-paned windows, and we can't hear the cry of the poor." Rather than engage in foreign military adventures to secure other nations' borders, she added, "we need to secure our own nation."
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Freedom of speech can come at a cost, say panelists
MINNEAPOLIS (CNS) -- At a June 7 panel at the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis on past successes in challenging media owners unresponsive to the public, veterans of long-ago battles offered their perspective. Missing on the panel was one person, not often regarded in his day as a media activist, who never got a chance to grow old: Medgar Evers, murdered at age 37 in 1963 after his appearance on Jackson, Miss., television station WLBT. The station was challenged on its biased coverage of the black community, and after a long battle the station agreed to give airtime to a black person to address the situation. Evers was chosen to do it, and the appearance made him a marked man. "The cost of challenging broadcasting in Mississippi wasn't theory," said TV journalist and panelist Randall Pinkston. "It cost Medgar Evers his life." WLBT's practices would later become the focus of a license renewal challenge by the United Church of Christ. The challenge, itself challenged in court, ultimately gave groups such as religious denominations legal standing to challenge a broadcast license renewal.
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Los Angeles bishops reiterate opposition to same-sex marriage
LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- As same-sex couples prepared to marry in California, the seven bishops of the Los Angeles Archdiocese reiterated that they "cannot approve of redefining marriage" as anything but the union of "a man and a woman in a committed relationship." The brief statement signed by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and his six auxiliary bishops was issued hours before California counties were to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples under a ruling of the California Supreme Court. The court ordered the ruling to become final June 16 at 5 p.m. Condemning "all forms of violence, scorn and hatred -- whether subtle or overt -- against men and women who are homosexual," the bishops said some of the benefits sought by same-sex couples "can already be obtained without regard to marital status." Among those they cited were joint property ownership and designation as a beneficiary in a will or as a health care decision-maker for a person who is declared incompetent.
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Religious, rights groups applaud Supreme Court in habeas corpus case
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Leaders in the human rights and anti-torture movements said the June 12 U.S. Supreme Court decision defending the right of habeas corpus for detainees at the U.S.-run Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba is a hopeful sign that upholds American values for anyone accused of even the most heinous offenses. At the same time, they expressed concern the court's narrow 5-4 decision may be limited in scope, leaving detainees in detention centers around the world with no access to the courts while continuing to expose all detainees to interrogation techniques that some consider torture. The United States opened the prison Jan. 11, 2002, at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo saying it was beyond the reach of American courts. The June 12 ruling marked the third time the court has decided in favor of detainee rights since 2004. Habeas corpus is the right of a person to appear in a court of law to answer the charge made against him. It places the burden of proof on those detaining the person to justify the detention.
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Embryonic stem-cell research immoral, unnecessary, bishops say
ORLANDO, Fla. (CNS) -- Declaring that stem-cell research does not present a conflict between science and religion, the U.S. bishops overwhelmingly approved a statement June 13 calling the use of human embryos in such research "gravely immoral" and unnecessary. In the last vote of the public session of their June 12-14 spring general assembly in Orlando, the bishops voted 191-1 in favor of the document titled "On Embryonic Stem-Cell Research: A Statement of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops." "It now seems undeniable that once we cross the fundamental moral line that prevents us from treating any fellow human being as a mere object of research, there is no stopping point," the document said. "The only moral stance that affirms the human dignity of all of us is to reject the first step down this path." Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., introduced the document on behalf of Philadelphia Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, who was not at the Orlando meeting.
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Catholic advocates push for rights for immigrant detainees
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- While a wave of media attention has only recently put a critical eye on conditions at immigrant detention facilities, Catholics have long been advocates for immigrant detainees. "Care is being premised on whether they have a document (to be in the country legally). If not, we sweep them up in a raid, without an attorney," without their medicine and without their family, said Jesuit Father Thomas Greene, a priest and research fellow for the Jesuit Social Research Institute at Loyola University in New Orleans. "We want humane treatment of everybody," he said. A subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee met June 4, the second time in less than a year it met to examine medical treatment of immigrant detainees in government facilities. Since 2003, more than 80 detainees have died in the custody of or shortly after leaving an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement facility.
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Music video is top prize for winner of songwriting competition
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (CNS) -- A video directed by the maker of music videos for such recording artists as U2, Pearl Jam, INXS and Nine Inch Nails is the top prize for the winner of a songwriting competition associated with the forthcoming movie "Henry Poole Is Here." The contest is being sponsored by Overture Films, Lakeshore Records and the online social networking site MySpace. The competition is open to users of MySpace who are at least 18 years old. Users can enter the contest online at www.myspace.com/henrypooleishere; the site includes more details on the contest as well as a trailer of the film. The title of an entrant's song has to be "Henry Poole Is Here." The entry deadline is June 20, and the winner will be announced July 15. The movie is about a man who leaves his fiancee and his business behind to spend what he figures to be the last days of his life in solitude -- until someone sees a mysterious image on the stucco walls of his house that seems to have miraculous powers.
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WORLD
Cardinal: Eucharistic congress helps Catholics examine life's purpose
QUEBEC CITY (CNS) -- When people pause and question the purpose of their lives, they "yearn for a spiritual answer," said Slovakian Cardinal Jozef Tomko at the opening Mass of the 49th International Eucharistic Congress. "So many people are moving here and there -- 6.5 billion people busy working to improve their living conditions," said Cardinal Tomko, Pope Benedict XVI's representative to the congress. Why are "we plunged on this road," he asked the crowd of more than 10,000 cardinals, bishops, priests, nuns and laypeople from around the world gathered for the June 15 Mass in Quebec City's hockey arena. A eucharistic congress "allows us to encounter" these questions and "examine the meaning of our life and death," said the cardinal. "What does it mean to be the gift of God" and what is the Eucharist, he asked, referring to the theme of the June 15-22 congress, "The Eucharist, Gift of God for the Life of the World."
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Vatican approves statutes for Neocatechumenal Way
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican has given final approval to a set of statutes for the Neocatechumenal Way, confirming the movement's unique approach to adult evangelization but insisting on close ties with local bishops and parishes. The statutes, consigned to leaders of the movement June 13 after several years of review, also introduced a new way of distributing the Eucharist during their liturgies. Kiko Arguello and Carmen Hernandez, the Spanish founders, welcomed the approval and said it would launch the movement on a new wave of evangelization. At a press conference June 13, the 69-year-old Arguello told how he initiated the movement in 1964 among Gypsies, the homeless and others living on the margins of society. He described the Neocatechumenal Way's mission as a "battle" to reach young adults and said in the early years it encountered frequent resistance by church leaders. "This battle we've fought has now been confirmed by the Holy See. This is very important, that this pope has approved this. It's amazing, it's fantastic," he said.
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Pope would like Tridentine Mass in each parish, Vatican official says
LONDON (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI would like every Catholic parish in the world to celebrate a regular Tridentine-rite Mass, a Vatican cardinal has said. Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos also told a June 14 press conference in London that the Vatican was writing to all seminaries to ask that candidates to the priesthood are trained to celebrate Mass according to the extraordinary form of the Latin rite, also known as the Tridentine Mass, restricted from the 1970s until July 2007 when Pope Benedict lifted some of those limits. The cardinal, who was visiting London at the invitation of the Latin Mass Society, a British Catholic group committed to promoting Mass in the Tridentine rite of the 1962 Roman Missal, said it was "absolute ignorance" to think that the pope was trying to reverse the reforms of the Second Vatican Council by encouraging use of the rite. Later in the day, Cardinal Castrillon celebrated the first pontifical high Mass in the Tridentine rite in London's Westminster Cathedral in 39 years. The event drew a congregation of more than 1,500 people, including young families. None of the English or Welsh bishops attended.
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Pope urges world community to help Cameroon out of poverty
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI called on the world community to help Cameroon break its "vicious circle of underdevelopment and extreme poverty." He also denounced the world's arms traffickers, urging them to reflect upon the consequences the lucrative industry had on the lives of innocent people. The pope made his comments in a June 16 audience with Cameroon's new ambassador to the Vatican, Antoine Zanga. Cameroon's government, like that of all nations, must seek to ensure social and economic stability for its citizens, the pope said. He urged authorities to invest in small projects that promote local entrepreneurship and fight more effectively against illegal weapons trafficking and corruption. But while the people of Cameroon must commit themselves to working for the common good, the pope said the international community also should guarantee economic policies that could "contribute to breaking the vicious circle of underdevelopment and extreme poverty" in Cameroon.
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Pope visits Adriatic port, renews appeals for Mideast peace
BRINDISI, Italy (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI renewed appeals for peace in the Middle East while visiting a southern Italian port city that serves as a United Nations' logistics base supporting humanitarian missions. During a June 14-15 pastoral visit to the southern coastal city of Brindisi in the "heel" of Italy, the pope highlighted the role this Adriatic port city has played in linking the East and West and hosting the U.N. base. "I, therefore, wish to renew the Christian message of cooperation and peace among all peoples, especially between those who are situated along this sea, an ancient cradle of civilization, and those of the Near and Middle East," he said before praying the Angelus June 15. He repeated a call he made during his April 18 speech to the United Nations in New York in which he asked nations to find ways to pre-empt or mediate conflicts through diplomacy and dialogue. International aid should not be seen as "an unwarranted imposition or a limitation of sovereignty. On the contrary, it is indifference or failure to intervene that do the real damage," he said.
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Iraqi refugees, Israeli-Palestinian tension await new Latin patriarch
JERUSALEM (CNS) -- The influx of Iraqi refugees into Jordan as well as continuing Israeli-Palestinian tensions are two of the major concerns the incoming Latin patriarch of Jerusalem said he will face after his June 22 installation. Archbishop Fouad Twal, who has been coadjutor of the Latin Patriarchate for nearly three years, called the area of Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories "the heart of the Latin Patriarchate," which also includes Cyprus. His remarks were published June 15 on the Web site of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. The Holy Land deserves particular attention, the archbishop said, because it includes two-thirds of the patriarchate's faithful, half of whom are of Palestinian origin. Jordan in particular will garner his attention, he said. "In spite of its stability, this part of the diocese is also in crisis, especially economic crisis, with the influx of Iraqi refugees," he said. "Christian emigration has started to strongly affect the Jordanian population, too. We must work, as we do here, to give them hope, reasons to hope, to remain Christians in the Middle East."
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PEOPLE
Cardinal Foley calls friend Russert 'one of the greatest journalists'
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- U.S. Cardinal John P. Foley had lunch in Rome with Tim Russert and his family June 11, renewing ties of friendship that went back 24 years. Two days later, the 58-year-old Russert collapsed and died of a heart attack back in his NBC office in Washington. Cardinal Foley, shocked and saddened like many others, said journalism had lost one of its best. "It's the loss of one of the greatest journalists in the United States, if not the greatest. He was always kind and gracious, but he always got revealing material from people," Cardinal Foley told Catholic News Service. The cardinal thought so highly of Russert that he tried to help him get a papal interview -- first with Pope John Paul II and then Pope Benedict XVI. He thought Russert's persistent questioning style would have highlighted the message of both pontiffs. "He was always respectful of the individuals he was interviewing, but he didn't let them off the hook. He always went for the truth and went for an illuminating answer," he said.
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Lebanon prepares for beatification of Capuchin Franciscan priest
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNS) -- Martyrs' Square, in recent years known for political protests, will be the scene of the June 22 beatification ceremony of Lebanon's Father Jacques Haddad, a Capuchin Franciscan who worked tirelessly to help the poor and the sick, regardless of nationality or religion. An estimated 15,000 people -- including many non-Christians -- are expected for the noontime ceremony. Bells across the Lebanese capital will herald the event. Sister Marie Makhlouf, superior of the Franciscan Sisters of the Cross, the order founded by Father Haddad in 1933, said the ceremony should "be a unifying event." In addition to starting the religious order, Father Haddad, or Abouna Yaacoub, his name in Arabic, founded numerous hospitals, hospices and schools. Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Saints' Causes, will celebrate the beatification Mass. Cardinal Nasrallah P. Sfeir, patriarch of the Maronite Catholic Church, will concelebrate. Lebanon's new president, Michel Sleiman, is scheduled to attend, along with other Christian and Muslim politicians.
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Poor need love, relationships, says founder of L'Arche communities
QUEBEC CITY (CNS) -- The poor and the marginalized are crying out for love and relationships, not just generosity and ideas, said the Canadian founder of communities for people with developmental disabilities. Jean Vanier, founder of the International Federation of L'Arche Communities and author of books on compassion and human fragility, told the 49th International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec City June 16 that Christians are called to be like Jesus, with their hearts open to all the poor and disadvantaged. But opening up to a relationship with the marginalized is frightening, he said, because doing so will destroy the walls that separate people and fill in the gap that separates the rich and poor. "In our world there is a lot of generosity," but there must be relationships and love, he said, adding that "to be like Jesus, we have to be able to wash the feet of one another." Vanier was one of several lay witnesses addressing the June 15-22 congress.
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Russert remembered for his fondness for church, faithfulness
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- NBC News Washington bureau chief and "Meet the Press" moderator Tim Russert, who died June 13 at the age of 58, was remembered for his warm lifelong ties to the Catholic Church and his support for Catholic education as well as for his career covering politics. Russert collapsed at work, suffering a heart attack. An active Catholic whose promise to God to never miss Sunday Mass if his son was born healthy took him to churches around the world, Russert spoke often and fondly of his Catholic school education and of the role of the church in his life. In an interview with Catholic News Service shortly after he took the helm of "Meet the Press" in 1991, Russert said he enjoyed the somewhat unusual position in Washington public life of being a Catholic who wore his faith proudly. In "official Washington and television news there aren't all that many practicing Catholics," he said, and when he first came to Washington people kidded him about it. They grew to accept and respect him for it, Russert said.
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