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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Aug-15-2008
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Democrats' platform wording on abortion wins both praise, criticism
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A draft of the Democratic Party platform section on abortion that adds language about supporting alternatives such as adoption and reducing the number of unintended pregnancies was hailed as an important improvement by some and derided by others as "adding a good thing to an evil position." In an Aug. 12 teleconference hosted by the evangelical organization Sojourners, Catholic and Protestant religious leaders called the changes to the platform "a real step forward" and "an excellent example of the possible" that moves the party toward a position they said abortion opponents can support. They also said they still object to the party's unequivocal endorsement for legal abortion and the platform section's suggestion that anyone would ever "need" an abortion. But the platform committee's consultation with abortion opponents and the effort to represent at least some of their views was described as "a historic and courageous step," by the Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church in Orlando, Fla., and former president of the Christian Coalition. Others who did not participate in the teleconference or the drafting process, however, disagreed. They said while they appreciate the additions dealing with support for pregnant women and parents, the rewording actually made the section worse, because it eliminated phrasing from the 2004 version of the platform that said abortion should be "rare."
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Campaign '08: How do candidates' health reform plans measure up?
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The two major presidential candidates agree on at least one thing: health care reform must be a high priority for the next administration. But when it comes to the details, much of the common ground between Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama falls away. In their 2007 document on political responsibility, "Faithful Citizenship," the U.S. bishops said any efforts to reform the health care system must respect human dignity and protect human life; meet the needs of the poor and uninsured, including pregnant women, unborn children, immigrants and other vulnerable populations; protect the conscience rights of Catholics and Catholic institutions; and provide effective, compassionate care for those with HIV and AIDS. "All people have a right to health care regardless of where they work, where they come from or how much money they have," said Kathy Saile, director of the Office of Domestic Social Development in the bishops' Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development, in a commentary on health care and "Faithful Citizenship."
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Catholics urged to take message on disabilities to new generation
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The 30th anniversary of the U.S. bishops' pastoral statement on people with disabilities offers an opportunity to acquaint a new generation of bishops and young people with the document's message, according to speakers at an Aug. 13 "Webinar." "I'm not suggesting you take on a whole new line of work," said Peg Kolm, director of the Office for Ministry to Persons With Disabilities in the Archdiocese of Washington. "But you need to take this work to the next generation in a partnership year." Janice Benton, executive director of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability, said many in the disabilities community viewed the November 1978 pastoral statement as "our Declaration of Independence." The document said there "can be no separate church for people with disabilities" but only "one flock that follows a single shepherd." The hourlong Web-based seminar sponsored by the National Catholic Partnership on Disability brought together catechists, parish advocates, directors of disability ministry and others at more than 200 sites across the United States.
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Cost of Catholic schools' hot lunches going up as food prices rise
ST. PAUL, Minn. (CNS) -- Students at St. Thomas More School in St. Paul will pay 20 cents more for each hot lunch this year because of rising food prices. The new $2.50 lunch will cost families only an extra dollar per week, but the additional expense combined with other economic factors, such as increasing gas prices, still concerns the school's principal, Pat Lofton. Several Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are adding 15 to 20 cents to lunch prices this year because of higher food costs. According to the U.S. Labor Department, food prices have increased 5 percent in the last year. Across the country, how Catholic schools administer lunch programs varies. Some schools team with local public school districts. Others hire private companies. Some have cooks that prepare entire meals on-site from scratch. Many schools, like St. Thomas More, are part of the National School Lunch Program and offer free or reduced lunches subsidized by the federal government.
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Displaced Katrina victims among those facing hardships in Baton Rouge
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- When Wendy Hellinger gets a phone call from someone needing help paying a utility bill, she knows it's usually dire. But it wasn't always this extreme. Hellinger, human services consortium coordinator for Catholic Charities in Baton Rouge, La., used to get calls from people when they thought they might lose their utilities. But in recent months, at least a third of the calls for utility assistance that she receives are from people who have already had their power cut off because they failed to make their monthly payments. "I ask every caller, 'Are your lights on now?'" she said. "It's scary. I'm not sure what's going to happen to them. Some of them are at the end of their ropes. Their lights and water are off and many are getting eviction notices," Hellinger told Catholic News Service Aug. 8. She fields calls from local poor residents and more recently from working-class residents, too, who are unable to manage skyrocketing utility bills. Hellinger also gets about 50 calls a day from displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina. Although Katrina's Aug. 29, 2005, landfall is no longer headline news, its impact still reverberates in areas such Baton Rouge, where many New Orleans' residents fled after the flooding. The civil entity of East Baton Rouge Parish absorbed a net gain of 25,000 people after hurricanes Rita and Katrina.
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WORLD
Mexican church leaders discuss death penalty after kidnapping case
MEXICO CITY (CNS) -- As Mexicans discussed reintroducing the death penalty as punishment for kidnapping, several Catholic leaders said capital punishment would not solve Mexico's crime problem. Archbishop Jose Martin Rabago of Leon said there are "no easy solutions" in the fight to stop the kidnappings in the country. During Mass in Leon Aug. 10, he denounced the recently revived discussion on the death penalty. Calls for reinstating capital punishment -- only two years after it was formally abolished -- resurfaced in early August after the kidnapped 14-year-old son of a businessman was killed by his captors. In reaction to the public outcry, Mexican President Felipe Calderon suggested the country restore his old initiative to make capital punishment applicable only to the most heinous crimes. Mexicans, fed up with the high crime rate and abductions for ransom, are divided on the issue.
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Heaven is God, not an imaginary place, Pope Benedict says
CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) -- Heaven is not an abstract idea or an imaginary place, but heaven is God, Pope Benedict XVI said. Celebrating an early morning Mass Aug. 15, the pope said the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary "urges us to raise our gaze toward heaven, not a heaven of abstract ideas nor an imaginary heaven created in art, but the true reality of heaven which is God himself. God is heaven." During the Mass in the small parish Church of St. Thomas, located on the main square in Castel Gandolfo, the pope said that while Mary's assumption is "totally unique and extraordinary" it also assures believers that their destiny, like hers, is to be with God forever. God is "our goal, he is the dwelling place from which we came and toward which we are called," the pope told about 200 people who had crowded into the church, while hundreds of others watched on a large screen erected in the square.
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Vatican Library makeover to include fireproof bunker for manuscripts
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican Library's makeover will include construction of a fireproof bunker for manuscripts and a climate-controlled room for precious papyrus fragments, the head of the library said. In addition, the library is reclaiming as a reading room the finely decorated Sistine Hall, which has been used in recent times for Vatican Museums' exhibits. Cardinal Raffaele Farina, prefect of the Vatican Library, gave a progress report on the remodeling project in an interview Aug. 15 with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. The work, which began in 2007, is expected to be completed by 2010, when the library will reopen to scholars. The project includes the restructuring of three floors of the 16th-century library building, which houses laboratories dedicated to manuscript restoration and photo archiving. An external elevator will connect the floors. This summer employees finished the painstaking work of packaging the library's 75,000 ancient manuscripts and transferring them to protected storage areas inside the Vatican, the cardinal said.
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Hong Kong church group uses Olympics to note China's rights abuses
HONG KONG (CNS) -- The Hong Kong Diocese's justice and peace commission has used the occasion of the Beijing Olympics to highlight China's human rights violations. On Aug. 13, the commission demonstrated outside the Chinese government's liaison office in Hong Kong and placed an envelope containing a statement addressed to the Chinese government on the iron railings in front of the office, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News. The statement urged the government to improve human rights, allow greater religious freedom in the mainland and honor the promises on human rights and press freedom it made when it applied to host the Aug. 8-24 Olympics. The statement included a list of people detained as a result of trying to protect local residents' farms and houses, which Chinese officials took over for construction work relating to the Olympics. It also listed human rights activists such as Hu Jia, sentenced to three years' imprisonment after being charged with subversion.
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PEOPLE
Religious witness always has had role in public life, says archbishop
DENVER (CNS) -- Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said that "religious witness has always had a vigorous and positive role in American public life, including the nation's political life." It's what the Founding Fathers "intended, and that's the way it should be," he said. He made the comments in an interview with the Denver Catholic Register, the archdiocesan newspaper, about his new book titled "Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life." In the book, he talks "about the right role of Catholic faith in American public life." Published by Doubleday, it hit bookstores Aug. 12. "Democracies need people of moral conviction. (Pope) John Paul II said that, and so did George Washington," the archbishop said. "Free societies thrive on public moral debate, and they need a moral consensus to survive. They need to stand for something. And that 'something' needs to be something more than the latest flat-screen television."
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Whistle while you wait: Vatican employees have heavenly health system
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A Vatican employee who regularly stands in line for 15 or 20 minutes at the Vatican pharmacy said, "I whistle while I wait." The monsignor knows that when he gets to the counter to collect his prescriptions, the cost will be the equivalent of 75 cents for each of the drugs his Vatican doctor ordered. He comes from a country with socialized medicine and said the Vatican's health service "is what we were striving for." He said, "It's much faster, it's much less expensive and it's the most thorough medical care I've ever had." The doctors' office along with a laboratory, a walk-in clinic and first-aid stations are all located inside the Vatican. The pope is covered by the health system, but usually his doctors make house calls. Unless they are sick, cardinals and bishops go to the clinic, but their waiting room is separate from the one for lay employees and priests.
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Pope invites Lutheran theologians to discussion about Jesus
ROME (CNS) -- As Pope Benedict XVI continues work on the second volume of his book about Jesus of Nazareth, he has asked two Lutheran theologians and some of his former students to discuss with him issues he will be writing about. Martin Hengel and Peter Stuhlmacher, both retired professors of New Testament studies from the Protestant theology faculty at the University of Tubingen, Germany, said they have been invited to lecture Aug. 30 at the meeting at the pope's summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome. The Aug. 29-31 meeting is the annual gathering of the pope's former doctoral students, known as a "schulerkreis" (student circle). Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, began the annual meetings with his former students in 1978. Hengel told Catholic News Service in Rome Aug. 12 that although he was having health problems he hoped to attend the meeting in Castel Gandolfo. He already has sent participants an outline of his talk, which he titled "Questions About the Historical Jesus of Nazareth: Considerations After Writing a Book on Jesus." Stuhlmacher told CNS his task will be to "try to demonstrate how Jesus himself understood his passion and death."
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