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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS May-15-2009
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Polls find more Americans call themselves 'pro-life' than 'pro-choice'
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Less than four months into President Barack Obama's term, opinion polls are finding that Americans are taking a dramatic turn toward greater opposition to abortion. A poll conducted May 7-10 as part of the annual Gallup Values and Beliefs survey found that a majority of Americans (51 percent) described themselves as "pro-life" with respect to the abortion issue, while only 42 percent said they were "pro-choice." The results were made public May 15. It marked the first time since Gallup began asking the question in 1995 that more respondents said they were pro-life than pro-choice, and was a shift of 7-8 percentage points from a year earlier, when 50 percent said they were pro-choice and 44 percent said they were pro-life. Obama is a strong supporter of keeping abortion legal. Some groups that promote abortion have said his November 2008 election was a mandate to expand access to and federal funding of abortion. A separate Gallup Poll Daily survey conducted May 12-13 found that 50 percent of Americans described themselves as pro-life and 43 percent as pro-choice.
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Senators urged to keep voucher program that helps low-income families
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The District of Columbia's public schools "didn't get bad overnight, and they are not going to get better overnight," a student from a Washington Catholic high school said May 13, urging Congress to continue funding a program that helps low-income families send their children to local private schools. Ronald Holassie, a sophomore at Archbishop Carroll High School, was one of two students who testified at a Senate hearing about the importance of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, now in jeopardy since Congress voted to cut funding in March. On May 6, President Barack Obama proposed more funding for students who are already in the scholarship program, but not for new students. The program gives annual scholarships of up to $7,500 to low-income families that allows them to choose a private school for their children. Until the district's public schools improve, students need Opportunity Scholarships, said Holassie, himself a scholarship recipient and the district's deputy youth mayor for legislative affairs.
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Notre Dame head praises graduating seniors for decorum amid debate
NOTRE DAME, Ind. (CNS) -- In a letter to Notre Dame's graduating seniors, Holy Cross Father John I. Jenkins praised them for their decorum during the weeks of debate surrounding the university's choice of President Barack Obama as commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient. "I have never been more proud than I have been watching the way you've conducted yourselves over the past several weeks," he wrote in a May 11 letter. He noted "in many cases the debate has grown heated" and added that the students' own debate about the school's May 17 graduation ceremonies has had "an extra dimension." He said in the letter, "You have discussed this issue with each other while being observed, interviewed and evaluated by people who are interested in this story. You engaged each other with passion, intelligence and respect. And I saw no sign that your differences led to division." Copies of it were circulated by students and published on several blogs, including the May 13 blog of Jesuit-run America magazine, www.americamagazine.org. "You inspire me," Father Jenkins said. "We need the wider society to be more like you; it is good that we are sending you into that world on Sunday."
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Religious convictions crucial to US public debate, archbishop says
NEW YORK (CNS) -- Religious convictions must play a role in public debate if America is to remain true to its founding principles, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver told a New York audience May 7. "American public life cannot work as its founders and framers intended if we stick religion in the closet like a dangerously eccentric in-law," the archbishop said in his acceptance speech for the Canterbury Medal, presented annually by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. "America doesn't need to be a 'Christian' country," he added. "But it can't survive without being a nation predisposed and welcoming to religious faith." Archbishop Chaput expressed concern about remarks President Barack Obama made in his inauguration speech about restoring "science to its rightful place" during his administration. He said Obama and his supporters have "stressed his religious credentials many times," and said the president's faith is "one of the factors that made him attractive to voters last fall." The archbishop said, "But from a believer's point of view, that makes the president's confusion about the 'rightful place' of science -- not just in his inaugural remarks, but in many of his words and actions since then -- even more curious."
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Church, government have long history of collaboration serving public
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In a letter responding to the concerns of Ursuline Sister Marie Therese Farjon about whether the government would interfere with the work her nuns had been doing among the poor in New Orleans, the U.S. president assured her the order could count on "all the protection which my office can give it." "The principles of the Constitution and the government of the United States are a sure guarantee ... that your institution will be permitted to govern itself according to its own voluntary rules, without interference from the civil authority," he wrote in a May 15 letter. The year was 1804; the president, Thomas Jefferson. That early affirmation that the U.S. government would not interfere in the way a religious institution operates takes on a new meaning these days. While the Obama administration revamps the program of outreach to faith-based and neighborhood organizations, societal changes including the increased acceptance of same-sex marriage are leading church-based agencies to push for conscience clauses that protect faith-based institutions and their employees from requirements that conflict with religious teachings. At a May 6 meeting of diocesan directors of Catholic Charities agencies outside Washington, several directors voiced worries about potential conflicts as more states legalize same-sex marriage, for instance. "That could affect our role in providing adoptions and foster care," said one diocesan director.
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WORLD
Pope asks Holy Land Christians to unite to preach hope, peace
JERUSALEM (CNS) -- Standing before Christ's empty tomb, Pope Benedict XVI urged Christians in the Holy Land to bury their differences so they could preach hope and peace with one voice. "The church in the Holy Land, which has so often experienced the dark mystery of Golgotha, must never cease to be an intrepid herald of the luminous message of hope which this empty tomb proclaims," the pope said May 15. The pope reached the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on the last day of his eight-day pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Entering the church with a crush of security officers, clergy and photographers, Pope Benedict knelt down and kissed the Stone of Unction, where tradition holds that Jesus' body was prepared for burial. With a choir chanting in the background, the pope walked to the tiny chapel believed to be the site of the tomb. He stooped down to enter the chamber alone and remained there in prayer for several minutes.
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Pope urges peace, two-state solution as he leaves Holy Land
JERUSALEM (CNS) -- Amid billowing Israeli and Vatican flags, Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed his friendship with both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, acknowledging the Palestinians' right to an independent state as well as Israel's right to exist in "peace and security." "Let there be lasting peace based on justice, let there be genuine reconciliation and healing," the pope said May 15 before boarding his chartered jet at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. "Let the two-state solution become a reality, not remain a dream. "Let peace spread outward from these lands; let them serve as a 'light to the nations,' bringing hope to the many other regions that are affected by conflict," he said. Following an eight-day pilgrimage that received a lukewarm reaction in the Israeli media and praise in the Palestinian press, Pope Benedict attempted to assure the Israelis of his friendship. "No friend of the Israelis and the Palestinians can fail to be saddened by the continuing tension between your two peoples. No friend can fail to weep at the suffering and loss of life that both peoples have endured over the last six decades," he said.
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In Holy Land, pilgrim pope delivers religious, political challenges
JERUSALEM (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI's eight-day visit to the Holy Land was a biblical pilgrimage, an interfaith mission and a political balancing act all rolled into one. It was also a gamble. In a region hardened by decades of conflict and simmering social and religious tensions, there was no guarantee of success. The long-range verdict is yet to come on this "pilgrimage of peace," but the pope certainly delivered a clear and challenging message to his diverse audiences in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories May 8-15. That alone was an achievement. The common theme that tied his events together was that God acts in human events, and that believers have a duty to make religion an effective force for good in a region suffering from war, mistrust and misunderstanding. To Christians, the pope focused on the hope brought by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. On his final day in Jerusalem, he summed up his message, saying that the empty tomb "assures us that God can make all things new," that peace is really possible and that long-standing hostilities can be overcome.
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Pope's pediatric hospital: Making a big impact helping tiny patients
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Of the thousands of hospitals the Catholic Church owns or operates, one has a very special patron. Known as "the pope's hospital," the Bambino Gesu Children's Hospital belongs to the Vatican. Under the aegis of the Vatican's Secretariat of State, it's the only children's hospital in Rome. And the hospital has gained worldwide recognition for its quality care, cutting-edge research, Christian ethics and charitable outreach to five continents. This year Bambino Gesu, Italian for "baby Jesus," is celebrating the 140th anniversary of its birth. From its humble beginnings as a 12-bed ward in a family home to 800 beds in a modern hospital complex, the pope's hospital has a lot to celebrate. Founded in 1869 by Duchess Arabella and Duke Scipione Salviati, it became the first pediatric hospital on the Italian peninsula. In 1887, the facility was transferred to its current location within the 15th-century convent of St. Onuphrius, on the Janiculum Hill behind the Vatican. There it quickly grew. According to hospital registry records, it served some 1,000 patients in 1907. Today more than 1.1 million visits are registered each year.
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Canadian Catholic physicians discuss threats to conscience rights
OTTAWA (CNS) -- Physicians cannot be forced to violate their consciences but can be punished for respecting them, a professor from Montreal's McGill University told a group of Canadian Catholic doctors. Douglas Farrow, associate professor of religious studies at McGill, acknowledged that conscience rights are under threat in North America, but urged the physicians gathered in Ottawa to "avoid the language of coercion" when speaking of the threats. "Don't concede in your speech what you hope not to concede when you face the test," he said May 9 during a three-day conference, "Conscience and the Physician." Farrow also asked doctors not to abandon fields like obstetrics and gynecology, to adhere to Hippocratic principles and to inform themselves of the differences between Catholic and utilitarian ethics. He reminded them to remember the Great Physician, "who has power to save body and soul alike, and to silence critics. Don't just be doctors, then, however well-educated," he said. "Be people who are recognizable as having been with Jesus."
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PEOPLE
On plane to Rome, pope says he found desire for peace in Holy Land
ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT TO ROME (CNS) -- Flying back to Rome after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Pope Benedict XVI offered an instant analysis of his eight-day trip. He told reporters aboard his El Al chartered jet May 15 that the visit to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories took him to the roots of Christianity and left him with three major impressions. The first, he said, was that he found among Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders a strong desire for cooperation and dialogue -- not as something motivated by political circumstances but seen as a demand of the common faith in God. "To believe in the one God who created all of us ... and to believe that God is love and wants love to be the dominant force in the world implies this necessity of dialogue and collaboration," he said. The pope said he also found a very encouraging ecumenical climate on his stops in the Holy Land, where a multitude of Christian communities live. The third impression, he said, was a yearning for peace.
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Prayers offered for assaulted priest and alleged assailant
SINTON, Texas (CNS) -- In an example of the church's prayerful response to violence within its own community, the people of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Sinton gathered in prayer with Corpus Christi Bishop Edmond Carmody May 10 for their parish priest and his alleged assailant. Father Shaji Varghese, administrator of Our Lady of Guadalupe, was stabbed nine times, beaten and kicked allegedly by David Rodriguez after morning Mass at the church May 8. As of May 15, Father Varghese, 42, was reported to be in stable condition at a local hospital and was expected to make a full recovery. Rodriguez, 36, was arrested shortly after the attack and remained in custody. Father Varghese, a native of India, has served at the parish for a year and a half. A diocesan press release stated Rodriguez is "mentally disturbed" and a parishioner of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In his homily during the Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, which also was rededicated because of the violent act that took place there, Bishop Carmody offered his sympathy, prayers and love to the people because of the traumatic experience they had suffered. He asked them to pray for Father Varghese and Rodriguez "that they both may be healed. We will bear no animosity toward anyone as it would separate us from the Lord."
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Copyright (c) 2009 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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