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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Jul-30-2008
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
ICE head touts common ground with church, avoids talk of differences
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, had to know she was stepping in front of a potentially challenging audience when she agreed to speak to the 2008 National Migration Conference, co-sponsored by four Catholic organizations that aid refugees and immigrants. Even at 7:30 in the morning, a majority of the 850 participants in the conference -- most of whom work in church-based programs for immigrants and refugees -- made their way to the meeting room July 29 to hear Julie Myers, assistant secretary for ICE in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Dozens of hands shot into the air in response to a call for questions from the audience as Myers concluded remarks that touched on her efforts to deal with illegal immigration "in a humane way." She also spoke at length about the church's shared interest with ICE in cracking down on human trafficking and in preventing people with a record of human rights violations from settling in the United States.
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Migration workers making plans to respond to government raids
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- While it's probably not imminent, Helen Vasquez and the staff at the Guadalupe Center in Huntingburg, Ind., are getting ready for an immigration raid. With 10,000 Hispanic immigrants in the counties of Dubois, Spencer and Daviess in the Diocese of Evansville, Ind., Vasquez expects that the factories and farms where many of them work are in the cross hairs of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Vasquez is well aware of the turmoil that families and communities from Massachusetts to California have experienced in the aftermath of recent ICE raids. She's thankful that southwest Indiana has not been targeted yet. But she expects it's only a matter of time before ICE makes its move. "The potential for a raid is very big," she told Catholic News Service July 29 during the 2008 National Migration Conference in Washington. "So it's very important to us to be prepared." Vasquez, a retired federal employee who now works as a consultant in family-based immigration, has been among a small contingent of faith-based workers in the area three hours south of Indianapolis who have spent the last year developing a raid-response plan.
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House passes resolution calling for end to rights violations in China
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Nine days before the opening of the Olympics in Beijing, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution calling for an end to human rights violations in China. The resolution, passed July 30, urged the Chinese government to "cease repression of Tibetan and Uighur citizens" and called on the Chinese government to enter into discussions with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader. The resolution included two amendments proposed by Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., regarding the release of political prisoners and forced abortions for the purpose of population control. Smith, a Catholic human rights activist and member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, submitted a list of the names of 734 Chinese political prisoners and demanded their release. Dozens of Catholics, including five bishops, were named on the list. All are affiliated with Chinese Catholic communities not registered with the Chinese government. The House resolution addressed human rights violations committed by China in the Darfur region of Sudan and in Myanmar.
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Iowa town stretching resources to help families hurt by ICE raid
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Father Richard Gaul, from St. Bridget's Parish in Postville, Iowa, said that in the more than two months since the largest single-business immigration raid in history hit their town, the situation for many people has gone from bad to worse. Hundreds of families are in a state of flux, he said. They're unable to work, unable to leave the United States for financial reasons or while awaiting legal proceedings. Meanwhile, they're separated from fathers, mothers and spouses who are in jail or immigration detention, said Father Gaul. He was in Washington July 24 to meet with members of Congress. Accompanying him was Father Paul Ouderkirk, the officially retired but still active former pastor of St. Bridget's. Father Gaul is the sacramental priest at the parish, meaning he responsible for administering the sacraments. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville May 12, arresting nearly 400 people and charging more than 300 with felony criminal counts relating to the use of false IDs.
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WORLD
Vatican foundation looks to expand donor base to North America
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Officials with the foundation established by Pope John Paul II to assist the indigenous and poor farmworkers of Latin America expressed hope to expand its donor base in order to help more people. Since it was established in 1992, the Populorum Progressio Foundation has distributed grants totaling more than $24 million, almost all of which has been donated by the Italian bishops' conference and Italian Catholics. "The foundation is reflecting on the possibility of involving benefactors from the American continent," including North America, "in order to increase and diversify its sources of income," said a July 28 press statement. The statement was released at the Vatican after the foundation's administrative council met July 9-11 in Guadalajara, Mexico, and approved grants totaling just over $2.1 million to be distributed among 200 projects.
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Priests must spread Gospel where people live, work, says cardinal
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Priests cannot fulfill their missionary mandate by staying in their rectories and churches waiting for people to come to them, said Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, president of the Congregation for Clergy. "It is also necessary to rise up and go to where people and families dwell, live and work," the cardinal said in a letter to priests marking the Aug. 4 feast of St. John Vianney, the famed French parish priest. "When priests move, the church moves," said the cardinal, emphasizing the importance of a priest's example in getting every Catholic parishioner to take seriously his or her obligation to share faith in Jesus. The mandate to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth still requires foreign missionaries, he said, but missionary work also must take place where, despite the fact that Christianity has been present for centuries, the faith of many people has weakened or is nonexistent.
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Church to investigate healings credited to British nun's intercession
LONDON (CNS) -- The unexplained healings of two people from serious illnesses will be investigated as possible miracles that could give Britain its first female saint in more than four decades. A man suffering from cancer and a woman with a brain injury from a fractured skull recovered from their conditions after their families prayed to Sister Elizabeth Prout, founder of the Sisters of the Cross and Passion, who worked with poor women and children in 19th-century Manchester, England. Sister Anne Cunningham, the Manchester-based superior general of the Passionist sisters, was scheduled to fly to Chile in August to interview the people involved in the healings and their doctors. If Sister Anne believes the healings might be the result of Sister Elizabeth's intercession, then she will ask Catholic leaders in Chile to set up tribunals to gather evidence formally, said Passionist Father Paul Francis Spencer, postulator of Sister Elizabeth's sainthood cause.
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Vatican official: Anglican Communion must stay true to Scriptures
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Anglican Communion needs to find a way to affirm the dignity of all people and encourage the active role of women in the church while remaining faithful to the Christian tradition and Scriptures, said Cardinal Walter Kasper. The cardinal, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, spoke July 30 at a session for bishops attending the Anglican Communion's Lambeth Conference, which is held once every 10 years, in England. Offering "Roman Catholic Reflections on the Anglican Communion," the cardinal told the bishops he spoke "as a friend" representing a church committed to dialogue with Anglicans and praying that the Anglican Communion does not split as a result of differences over ordaining women and over homosexuality. The ordination of women bishops, the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of an openly gay bishop in some Anglican provinces are seen as practices that will make Roman Catholic-Anglican unity impossible, in addition to straining relations among Anglicans. The text of his presentation was published in the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.
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Vatican laicizes Paraguayan bishop elected president
ASUNCION, Paraguay (CNS) -- The Vatican has laicized a bishop elected Paraguayan president, allowing him to take office in August without violating church law, said the papal nuncio to Paraguay. "The pope has granted him the loss of his clerical status ... he's a layman now," said Archbishop Orlando Antonini, the papal nuncio, at a press conference July 30. Fernando Lugo, who became known as "the bishop of the poor," was elected president of Paraguay April 20 after campaigning against corruption and for greater equality for the country's indigenous people and poor peasant farmers. When Lugo takes office Aug. 15, he will end the more than 60-year rule of the Colorado Party. "This is the first case within the church in which a bishop receives a dispensation," said Archbishop Antonini. "Yes, there have been many other priests the pope has left in the status of layman, but never a member of the hierarchy until today."
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Politics, drought contribute to Palestinian, Israeli water shortage
BEIT JALLA, West Bank (CNS) -- The picturesque skyline of Beit Jalla, with its church towers, traditional stone homes and modern apartment buildings, is marred by the slew of square water tanks dotting the rooftops like little metal soldiers. People buy the extra storage tanks to stock up on water when it is provided. But there comes a point when a roof can no longer support the weight of any more tanks. Sometimes people must purchase water from private companies, which is expensive. Recently even the private companies have not had water to sell, some Beit Jalla residents said in mid-July. Beit Jalla residents are lucky, said Musa Abu Hashhash, a field worker for the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. Some 200,000 other West Bank residents must buy water regularly despite its steep cost, because they only have running water about once every six months. In the dry Middle East, rain falls only during the winter months of December, January and February, and after four years of almost droughtlike winter weather, the water supply is dangerously low.
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Human rights report details water crisis in Palestinian territories
JERUSALEM (CNS) -- The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has warned of a grave water shortage in the West Bank and said average water consumption in Israel is 3.5 times that in the West Bank. In a report released in early July, B'Tselem said the chronic water shortage is due in large part to Israel's "discriminatory policy" in distributing the joint water resources in the West Bank and the limits it places on the Palestinian Authority's ability to drill new wells. Israel provides 80 percent of Palestinian water. According to figures reported by B'Tselem from the Palestinian Water Authority, 52 million-90 million cubic yards are needed to meet the needs of West Bank Palestinians each year. Per capita consumption of water in the West Bank stands at 17 gallons a day, about two-thirds of the World Health Organization's recommended minimum amount. In parts of the northern West Bank, water consumption is one-third the WHO minimum. Per capita, or per person, usage includes water for livestock, laundry, etc.
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PEOPLE
Benedictine nuns in Indiana help employees with cost of gas
EVANSVILLE, Ind. (CNS) -- Theresa Lampert said she was "pleased and blessed" when she found out the Sisters of St. Benedict of Ferdinand would help pay for her gas to get back and forth to work. Lampert, a certified nursing assistant, helps provide nursing care for members of the Benedictine community. Now, the community is helping pay for her daily round trip of about 39 miles from her home to the Benedictines' monastery in Ferdinand. The religious community has begun a temporary program to help pay the amount above the baseline cost of $3 per gallon. To determine the cost of gas, they will use the average retail price for the Evansville area on the last day of each month, as listed on AAA's media Web site for retail gasoline prices. To establish the number of gallons each employee uses to commute, the sisters will assume they average 20 miles per gallon and use the distance between the employee's home and the monastery as given on the Rand McNally Web site. The Benedictine sisters currently have 73 employees -- 49 are full time and 24 part time.
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Immigrant stories plant seeds of justice, author tells advocates
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Novelist Edwidge Danticat believes that behind every migrant in the world there is a story worth telling. Stories of suffering. Stories of sacrifice. Stories of seeking a better life. Stories that should be told again and again so they are never forgotten. Danticat, who emigrated from Haiti to the United States as a 12-year-old in 1981 to be with her parents, has made it her life's work to tell those stories. She urged a July 29 luncheon audience during the 2008 National Migration Conference, sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other organizations working on immigration concerns, to tell the stories of migrants too. "The lives of others constantly do spill into ours," Danticat told the gathering of representatives of national and diocesan Catholic Charities and Migration and Refugee Services and legal advocates who work with immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
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'Iron Friar' who is triathlete evangelizes as he swims, bikes, runs
RYE, N.Y. (CNS) -- Atonement Father Dan Callahan evangelizes underwater. And on a bike. And while he's running. All on the same day. And he helps recovering alcoholics and substance abusers at the same time. Father Callahan, 57, is known as the "Iron Friar" for successfully completing 12 daylong triathlons since 1997. Most recently, he finished the Ford Iron Man USA competition July 20 at Lake Placid in 14 hours and 43 minutes. Three inches of rain fell while he swam 2.4 miles in Mirror Lake, biked 112 miles through the Adirondack Mountains and ran a 26.4-mile road marathon. In a telephone interview from Toronto, where he is associate pastor at St. Joan of Arc Parish, Father Callahan told Catholic News Service that his goal in competing is "always to finish, enjoy the pizza, be healthy and go to work the next day." Father Callahan uses the annual race at Lake Placid as an opportunity to evangelize and to raise funds for St. Joseph's Rehabilitation Center in Saranac Lake, where he once served as a pastoral counselor and spiritual director.
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Palestinians express frustration over lack of water in summer heat
BEIT JALLA, West Bank (CNS) -- The temperature had not yet risen that July morning when Agnes Abed Rabbo looked out her living room window and saw her neighbor hunched over, hauling a heavy load of water bottles and water coolers up the steep road to his house. "He looked exhausted, bent over those bottles," Abed Rabbo, who is Catholic, recalled later in the morning. "I felt sorry for him." But Issa Zuarob, 62, is not alone in his almost daily quest for water. He and his neighbors struggle with the yearly summer water shortage, which has become a way of life for Palestinians for almost 20 years. The problem has gotten worse over the past few years, but this year it is dramatically worse due in part to poor winter rainfall. Sometimes when people run out of water they take drinking water from neighbors who have more water tanks or who own wells. Zuarob had gone to his son's house, about half a mile away, to fill up on water.
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Atlanta Catholic school grad to compete in Olympic swimming event
ATLANTA (CNS) -- The video camera was on in swim coach Terry Blish's office at Marist School in Atlanta, and all day teachers, friends and teammates stopped by to record words of encouragement and good luck to alumna Kathleen Hersey. "All her teachers have been coming over, even the ones who hate athletics," said Blish with a laugh. "Kathleen transcended any of that." They were sending gold-medal wishes to Hersey, 18, an All-American swimmer and 2008 Marist graduate who will compete in the women's 200-meter butterfly at the Olympic Games in Beijing. Blish planned to send a DVD of everyone's good wishes to Stanford University, where Hersey was training prior to the Aug. 8-24 games.
END
Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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