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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Jan-30-2009
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Obama administration gets advice from Catholic social thinkers
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The near collapse of the world's financial institutions in September 2008 propelled President Barack Obama to the White House, but also will likely constrain what he is able to accomplish on his agenda for change, a Georgetown University professor said in a presentation at The Catholic University of America. "The Obama administration's 9/11 has already occurred," said Jesuit Father John Langan, professor of Catholic social thought at Georgetown. "It both gives and takes away." He was one of four panelists assessing the new administration in its early days and Catholic social teaching as it relates to domestic and global concerns in a Jan. 29 program. Father Langan said that regardless of what transpires on Capitol Hill and at the White House, the church must continue to advocate for the poor and prod officials to remember the needs of the unemployed and those in danger of losing their homes during debates on how to best to foster an economic recovery. "Simply preserving the institutional structure of the financial community is not enough," he said.
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Cardinal 'mystified' at reported federal probe into abuse cases
LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles said he is "mystified and puzzled" at reports that a federal prosecutor is investigating whether he and the archdiocese violated a federal law against scheming "to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services." The Los Angeles Times and the New York-based Wall Street Journal reported Jan. 29 that U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien is personally involved in the investigation. The similar stories cited anonymous sources who said a grand jury convened by O'Brien is looking into whether Cardinal Mahony and other church leaders committed fraud by inadequately handling cases of priests who sexually abused minors. The U.S. attorney's office has declined to comment. Two press releases from the archdiocese Jan. 29 questioned the motives of those who released the information anonymously and called for an internal investigation of the leak from the U.S. attorney's office.
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New archbishop says installation a 'graced' moment for all Catholics
DETROIT (CNS) -- The installation of a new bishop is a "graced moment not just for him but for his particular church and all her members as well," said Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron, installed as the new head of the Detroit Archdiocese Jan. 28. In his first homily, alternating between English and Spanish, Archbishop Vigneron called his installation an opportunity for the entire local church, numbering 1.4 million Catholics, to renew its Christian identity. More than 200 priests from throughout the archdiocese and more than 25 bishops from throughout the country were at his installation Mass at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Detroit. The bishops included his predecessor, Cardinal Adam J. Maida, as well as Cardinals Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles and Francis E. George of Chicago and retired Bishop John S. Cummins of Oakland, Calif., whom then-Bishop Vigneron succeeded to head that diocese. Archbishop Vigneron's Jan. 5 appointment to succeed Cardinal Maida meant a homecoming for him: He is a native of Mount Clemens and was ordained as a priest for the Detroit Archdiocese in 1975.
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Tuition collection agency for 14 Catholic schools declares bankruptcy
LIVINGSTON, N.J. (CNS) -- A New Jersey-based agency that collects tuition payments for Catholic schools in New Jersey, Texas and New York has declared bankruptcy leaving 14 schools with a $3.6 million shortfall. Tuition Program Inc. filed a bankruptcy petition Jan. 12 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey, according to a story in The Star-Ledger daily newspaper in Newark. The tuition company, based in Livingston, was designed by Catholic parents in 1985 as a way to streamline tuition collections for parish schools. The company lost money in stock investments and also owes Wachovia Bank $867,000, according to court documents. Tuition Program collected payments from parents and in turn paid the schools each month. The agency invested the funds prior to making payments to schools. The schools owed payments by the Tuition Program were relying on their dioceses to loan them the funds to cover their losses.
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The deeper one's faith, the greater one's generosity, cardinal says
BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. (CNS) -- Noting that churchgoers' generosity to charity has declined in recent decades, U.S. Cardinal John P. Foley told a Catholic donors group that "generosity is related to faith; the greater and deeper our faith, the greater will be our generosity." In an address Jan. 29 to a meeting of Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities, or FADICA, Cardinal Foley, grandmaster of the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher, recalled his childhood and young adult years when even children commonly tithed a percentage of their allowance or other earnings to their churches and other charities. An advance copy of the text of his speech was released by his Vatican office. "What has happened in the years since the 1950s," when people like his parents "gave easily," he asked. He recalled his mother and father donating "at least 10 percent and as much as 20 percent of their income to the church, depriving themselves of new coats or a new car because they knew that the Little Sisters of the Poor or the Dominican sisters who cared for those dying of cancer needed the help much more than either of them needed a new coat."
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Brain death raises questions, from Minnesota to Washington to Vatican
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Don't talk to Raleane "Rae" Kupferschmidt about brain death. The 66-year-old woman from Lake Elmo, Minn., was declared brain dead nearly a year ago after a massive cerebral hemorrhage. She was removed from a ventilator, following her wishes, and her family took her home to die. But when Kupferschmidt began responding to family members, they rushed her back to the hospital, where she regained what her husband called "98 percent" of her earlier vigor. In late September she experienced another health crisis and went into a coma. Although doctors were not as hasty to term it brain death this time, they offered little hope of her survival -- a prediction she defied again in October. "I keep thinking that (God) saved me a second time so I could inspire people and let them know they shouldn't give up, even when things look hopeless," she told the Stillwater (Minn.) Gazette in a Jan. 13 interview. Coincidentally, the newspaper's interview with Kupferschmidt took place the day after the President's Council on Bioethics issued "Controversies in the Determination of Death," a 144-page white paper on what the council prefers to call total brain failure.
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Bishop's remarks on Holocaust strain US Jewish-Catholic relations
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Strained Jewish-Catholic relations are being felt beyond the Vatican and Israel as U.S. rabbis express their displeasure with Pope Benedict XVI's decision to lift the excommunication of a traditionalist bishop who has minimized the severity and extent of the Holocaust. "It has been very hurtful to our Jewish partners," said Father James Massa, executive director of U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. "They've been calling us for answers for what this means. The mood is very tense." The Chief Rabbinate of Israel Jan. 27 postponed indefinitely a March meeting with the Vatican in protest over the pope lifting the excommunication of British-born Bishop Richard Williamson, who has claimed that reports about the Holocaust were exaggerated and that no Jews died in Nazi gas chambers He was one of four bishops of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X whose excommunication was lifted by the pope Jan. 21. The pope Jan. 28 renewed his "full and unquestionable solidarity" with the Jews and condemned all ignorance, denial and downplaying of the brutal slaughter of millions of Jewish people during the Holocaust. According to a letter posted on his blog Jan. 30, Bishop Williamson apologized to Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos for "having caused to yourself and to the Holy Father so much unnecessary distress and problems."
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Catholic colleges' spirit of service leads graduates to Peace Corps
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Jesuit-run Georgetown University has created a culture that helps students understand that serving others and being committed to something larger than themselves is important in life, according to one school official. "Service is part of what it means to go to Georgetown. Part of our tradition is engagement with the larger community," said Kathleen Maas Weigert, executive director of the university's Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service. So the fact that each year many Georgetown undergraduate alumni -- along with their counterparts from a number of other Catholic colleges and universities -- volunteer for the Peace Corps should come as no surprise. On Jan. 12 the Peace Corps released its annual list of top volunteer-producing U.S. colleges and universities in 2008. Georgetown University in Washington was the fifth-largest producer of Peace Corps volunteers among private colleges and universities. Of all medium-size colleges and universities, it was the ninth-largest producer of volunteers.
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WORLD
Christian refugees probably will not return to Iraq, bishops say
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Despite signs of a new season of hope on the horizon in Iraq, the vast majority of Iraqi Christian refugees will probably not return to their homeland, said two U.S.-based Chaldean Catholic bishops. "No one in the United States will go back to Iraq or the Middle East because the future for children, (opportunities for) education and life are better here," said Chaldean Bishop Ibrahim N. Ibrahim. Also, experience has shown that once people have overcome the initial difficulties of adapting to a new culture, "no one will convince them to change it again" and rip up those freshly laid roots, said Chaldean Bishop Sarhad Y. Jammo. Bishop Jammo heads the Eparchy of St. Peter the Apostle of San Diego, Calif., and has under his care Chaldean Catholics in the western U.S., while Bishop Ibrahim heads the Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle of Detroit, the diocese for Chaldean Catholics in the eastern United States. The two Iraqi-born bishops spoke to Catholic News Service Jan. 28-29 while they were in Rome for their "ad limina" visits to the Vatican to report on the status of their dioceses.
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Christians must show world that unity is possible, pope says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- United in their baptism and their faith in Jesus, Christians have an obligation to show the world that differences in language and culture do not have to lead to division and violence, Pope Benedict XVI said. "The world needs a visible sign" of unity, the pope told members of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The pope met Jan. 30 with the commission members, who represent the Catholic Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church, Coptic Orthodox Church, Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Syrian Orthodox Church, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and Eritrean Orthodox Church. Each of the churches involved in the dialogue brings the richness of its own traditions along with a commitment "to overcome the divisions of the past and to strengthen the united witness of Christians in the face of the enormous challenges facing believers today," the pope said. While united spiritually as disciples of Christ, he said, Christians also are called to be united visibly as one church.
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Libraries publish detailed catalogue of Vatican's Hebrew manuscripts
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Vatican-Israeli cooperation has resulted in improved access to a written -- and often illustrated -- history of Jewish faith and scholarship, Christian-Jewish cooperation and disputes, as well as Christian curiosity about Judaism. After almost 10 years of intense work, the Vatican Library and National Library of Israel's Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts have published a detailed and descriptive catalogue of the more than 800 Hebrew manuscripts and books held in the Vatican Library. The Vatican Library and the Israeli Embassy to the Holy See hosted a formal presentation of the catalogue Jan. 30 and offered the public a glimpse of four of the most important manuscripts. Mordechay Lewy, the ambassador, said the manuscripts -- dating from the ninth century to the present day -- document "the history of the relationship of the Vatican and the Jewish community" as well as highlight the importance of the written word for "preserving and passing on knowledge from generation to generation, guaranteeing the continuity of the tradition and the survival of Jewish identity."
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Sri Lankan bishop joins hunger strike urging protection of civilians
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (CNS) -- Bishop Thomas Savundaranayagam of the war-torn Diocese of Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka has joined 300 Christian and Hindu hunger strikers urging action to protect civilians caught in the ethnic conflict. Bishop Savundaranayagam also appealed separately to the country's president and Tamil rebels for the safety of people trapped in the combat zone, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News. A statement the diocese's justice and peace commission released Jan. 29 said more than 400 civilians had been killed and more than 1,400 injured there since mid-January. A protest fast outside the diocese's cathedral Jan. 28 drew Anglican bishops, Catholic and Church of South India priests, nuns and others, including members of Hindu organizations. They meditated, prayed and appealed for the international community to intervene. "It is the time to express our solidarity. ... People who may be Hindu or Christian in the war zone -- they are our brothers," Subramaniam Paramanathan, a Hindu, told UCA News in a telephone interview from Jaffna Jan. 29.
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Vietnamese Catholic welcome US bishops from California
HUE, Vietnam (CNS) -- Vietnamese Catholics welcomed 18 visiting American bishops, priests and laypeople on Tet, the Vietnamese lunar new year. Archbishop George H. Niederauer of San Francisco and Bishop Tod D. Brown of Orange, Calif., led a delegation to visit Phu Cam Cathedral in the Archdiocese of Hue Jan. 26, the beginning of the three-day Tet festival. Archbishop Etienne Nguyen Nhu The of Hue welcomed the visitors and thanked them for praying for the local church during Tet, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News. "We would like to wish all of you a new year full of 'phuc,' 'loc' and 'tho,' which means happiness, blessing and longevity," Archbishop The told the visitors. He noted that during the festival, local people traditionally visit each other and offer these wishes, UCA News reported. Archbishop The said local Catholics are grateful to the Catholic Church in the United States for providing pastoral care for Vietnamese-Americans, many of whom fled Vietnam after communists reunified the country in 1975. Archbishop The also urged local Catholics to pray for Catholics in the United States to live their faith bravely.
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PEOPLE
Indian archbishop: Orissa government is needed to first stop tensions
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The government of Orissa state in eastern India needs to put a halt to Hindu extremists terrorizing Christians, said Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar, India. Religious leaders from India's historic faiths must be brought into dialogue on the issue, Archbishop Cheenath said in a Jan. 29 interview with Catholic News Service in Washington. Grass-roots efforts at reconciliation also are required. But until government officials "really go after the people who perpetrated the crime ... which has not taken place," Archbishop Cheenath said, "there will be little hope of settling the matter." Extremist Hindu-led rioting and violence that began in Orissa state in August and lasted about seven weeks displaced 50,000 people, mostly Christians. The violence claimed more than 60 lives. Christians make up less than 3 percent of India's population, the archbishop said. The archbishop was in Washington to address a forum at the headquarters of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The forum was sponsored by the bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace.
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Vatican orders study of women religious institutes in United States
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Vatican has initiated an apostolic visitation of institutes for women religious in the United States to find out why the numbers of their members have decreased during the past 40 years and to look at the quality of life in the communities. The announcement was made Jan. 30 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington by Sister Eva-Maria Ackerman, a member of the American province of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George. She will assist Mother Mary Clare Millea, a Connecticut native who is superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, an international religious institute that has its headquarters in Rome. Cardinal Franc Rode, prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, appointed Mother Clare as the apostolic visitor. The cardinal sent letters detailing the task to both the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, the two major organizations representing heads of women's religious orders in the U.S.
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Indian police file charges against 10 men for rape of Orissa nun
BHUBANESWAR, India (CNS) -- Local police have filed charges against 10 men for the rape of a Catholic nun during the anti-Christian riots in Orissa state in August, but church people said they expect more charges. The Asian church news agency UCA News reported that charges were filed against the men Jan. 29. Father Alphonse Baliarsingh, vicar general of the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Archdiocese, said Jan. 30 that "at least some justice can be expected." But he noted that the police have "not yet arrested the main culprit," the one who actually raped the nun Aug. 25, a day after Hindu extremists unleashed a wave of terror against Orissa Christians that lasted seven weeks. The violence claimed 60 lives and displaced 50,000 people, mostly Christians. Father Baliarsingh said the police have made assurances they would arrest a few more people involved in the crime against the 28-year-old nun. "We expect the main culprit (to be) arrested soon," the priest said.
END
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