|
|
|
|
News Briefs
|
NEWS BRIEFS Jan-4-2010
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Two dozen U.S. bishops could retire for age reasons in 2010
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Up to 24 U.S. bishops, including two cardinals, could retire because of age this year. There are 11 active U.S. bishops, including one cardinal, who have already turned 75. Thirteen more will celebrate their 75th birthday in 2010. At age 75 bishops are requested to submit their resignation to the pope. Cardinal Bernard F. Law, archpriest of St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome and a cardinal since 1985, turned 75 Nov. 4, 2006. A former bishop of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Mo., he was archbishop of Boston from 1984 until his resignation from that post in 2002 in the wake of controversy over his handling of cases of clergy sex abuse there. He was named to his Rome post in 2004. Turning 75 on April 19 this year is Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia. Born in Los Angeles, he was ordained an archbishop in 1985 while serving as head of the school that educates future Vatican diplomats. He returned to the United States in 1994 to become archbishop of St. Louis, holding that post until his appointment as archbishop of Philadelphia in 2003. He was elevated to the College of Cardinals that same year. Pope Benedict XVI, like his predecessor Pope John Paul II, often asked cardinals to stay on the job after they reached the age of 75. Even when a cardinal retires in his 70s, he remains an active member of the College of Cardinals, eligible to enter a conclave and vote for a new pope, until age 80.
- - -
'Say on pay' gaining traction in corporate responsibility circles
WASHINGTON (CNS) --The effort to give stockholders a "say on pay" -- determining the compensation packages of companies' top executives -- is gaining ground among those who track corporate responsibility issues. In 2009, 38 publicly traded companies said they would address compensation issues, according to Julie Tanner, assistant director of socially responsible investing for Christian Brothers Investment Services. Some of the stances were willing gestures by the companies involved. Other companies saw the writing on the wall regarding executive pay in a slumping economy and pledged to adjust pay packages. Still others resisted. At Cisco Systems, the technology corporation, shareholders forced a vote on the issue for the second year in a row, but prevailed in 2009, garnering 51.4 percent of all shares voted. The issue has also picked up steam in Washington, where government officials rescued financial firms through its Troubled Assets Relief Program, and joined the outcry when some of the bailed-out firms were still producing hefty bonus packages for its top executives. In a Dec. 30 telephone interview with Catholic News Service from Christian Brothers Investment Service headquarters in New York, Tanner said public pressure sometimes leads companies to do the right thing.
- - -
Ecological reforms, new practices save energy, cash at Oregon school
PORTLAND, Ore. (CNS) -- An Oregon Catholic school is turning its century-old campus into a lean, green sustainability machine. At Holy Redeemer on Portland's north side, students joined volunteers and teachers in a project to dig up 2,500 square feet of old playground pavement. That exhausting effort will allow rainwater to soak into the ground and nourish newly planted native vegetation, as opposed to washing blacktop-borne pollutants into streams and the nearby Columbia River. Another newly uncovered area will be a 7,500-square-foot community garden. Pavement-busting is just one of dozens of efforts at ecological reform at the 100-year-old school, which serves a racially diverse neighborhood. "We're doing what we can to bring the school into the 21st century," said John Baggenstos, facilities manager at Holy Redeemer for the past two years. "Of course, there isn't much money. You're either rich or creative, I guess." Baggenstos and a committee of teachers and parents are continuing a drive for ecological advances that began with construction of a new classroom building in 2005. Pope John Paul II Hall, which includes a library and science lab, was the first K-8 Catholic school building in the nation to win certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Across campus in the lunchroom, an effort to reduce waste caught students' attention starting last year. After training and a set of incentives -- free dress passes and some sweet treats -- the youngsters took only a week to cut noontime trash from seven cans per day to one. Now it's a habit.
- - -
Catholic Medical Mission Board gets grant to fight HIV/AIDS in Sudan
NEW YORK (CNS) -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have given a five-year, $5.9 million grant to the New York-based Catholic Medical Mission board to fight the spread of HIV and AIDS in southern Sudan. The project's goals are to reduce the incidence of new HIV infection through testing and counseling, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, and behavior change to prevent sexual transmission of the virus. The program will also improve care and support to people living with HIV or AIDS and strengthen the local capacity in Sudan's Western Equatoria state to deliver health services related to HIV and AIDS. The Catholic Medical Mission Board is partnering with World Vision on the program, called the Anisa Project; anisa means "together" in the Zande language spoken in southern Sudan. The Catholic Medical Mission Board will lead the in-country project implementation. HIV and AIDS programs administered by the Catholic Medical Mission Board reached 69,786 women with counseling and testing in high-prevalence countries in the last fiscal year. The programs also provided prescription medication for HIV prevention in pregnancy to 1,940 women who tested positive, and tested 1,495 HIV-exposed infants. In addition, the program provided HIV counseling to 11,198 men and reached another 53,184 men, women and children with antiretroviral treatment, plus 120,001 people with HIV clinical care and support.
- - -
WORLD
Pope begins new year with call for respect for creation, trust in God
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Having respect for every human being and for all of creation as God's handiwork and having trust in God's overwhelming love are the keys to peace and to a better future, Pope Benedict XVI said. Marking the new year with the celebration Jan. 1 of the feast of Mary Mother of God and of World Peace Day and with Angelus recitations Jan. 1 and 3, Pope Benedict reminded Christians that God's promises require a response. "The divine plan is not accomplished automatically, because it is a plan of love and love generates freedom and asks for freedom," he said during his Angelus address Jan. 3. While God's kingdom of peace and justice already is being realized on earth, he said, "every man and woman is responsible for welcoming it into his or her own life day by day. So 2010 will be better or worse to the extent that people, accepting their own responsibility, learn to collaborate with the grace of God." "There are problems in the church and in the world, as well as in the daily lives of families, but thanks to God our hope does not depend on improbable prognostications and even less on economic forecasts. Our hope is in God," he said. The pope also spoke about personal responsibility Jan. 1 when he was commenting on the theme he chose for World Peace Day 2010: "If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation."
- - -
Papal secretary visits pope's Christmas attacker
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI's personal secretary visited the woman responsible for knocking the pope down during a Christmas Eve Mass. Msgr. Georg Ganswein, papal secretary, visited Susanna Maiolo at the psychiatric hospital in Subiaco, outside of Rome, where she was transferred Dec. 25. The papal secretary made the private visit to Maiolo "to show her the Holy Father's interest in her situation," the papal spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said in a written statement Jan. 3. While the Vatican did not specify when the visit occurred, the Italian daily Il Giornale said Msgr. Ganswein met with Maiolo Dec. 31. The newspaper said the monsignor brought her a rosary and told her that the pope had forgiven her and believed she hadn't meant any harm. It added Maiolo, a dual Italian-Swiss citizen, had previously received extensive psychiatric care in Switzerland. The Vatican statement said the legal proceedings against Maiolo, which were being carried out by the Vatican's judicial system, would continue until it came to a conclusion.
- - -
High court rules Malaysian Catholic weekly can use the word 'Allah'
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (CNS) -- The High Court in Kuala Lumpur ruled that a national Catholic weekly can use the word "Allah" to refer to God and that the Home Ministry's order banning certain uses of the word was illegal. The court also declared Dec. 31 that the word "Allah" is not exclusive to Islam, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News. "We welcome the court's decision very much as, in the long term, it will be not only good for (the) Herald but for others as well," said S. Selvarajah, one of a team of four lawyers involved in the church's challenge of the ban. Malaysia's Muslims were divided over the decision, and on Jan. 4 the Home Ministry lodged an appeal. Although media reported some protests, Prime Minister Najib Razak called for calm and said the matter needed to be resolved through the courts. In 2007 the Home Ministry issued a blanket ban on the use of the word "Allah" in all non-Muslim publications. Archbishop Murphy Pakiam of Kuala Lumpur, publisher of the Herald, challenged it in a case that began last February.
- - -
PEOPLE
Outspoken cardinal who pushed for peace in Northern Ireland dies at 92
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Cardinal Cahal B. Daly, the former primate of all Ireland and an outspoken critic of paramilitary violence and poverty in Northern Ireland, died Dec. 31 at the age of 92. In a telegram released Jan. 2, Pope Benedict XVI recalled the cardinal's "long years of devoted pastoral service to the church" and expressed gratitude for his "sustained efforts in the promotion of justice and peace in Northern Ireland." His death leaves the College of Cardinals with 183 members, 112 of whom are under age 80 and therefore eligible to vote in a conclave. Cardinal Daly was best remembered for his contribution to ecumenical relations at a time when sectarian violence increased in Northern Ireland. As the former bishop of Down and Connor -- the Northern Ireland diocese which includes the province's main city of Belfast -- he witnessed firsthand the bloodshed waged by the Irish Republican Army. At his installation as archbishop Armagh and primate of Ireland in 1990, he called on the IRA to end its strategy of terror and urged a government-sponsored "new deal" to aid economically depressed Catholic neighborhoods in west Belfast.
- - -
American Astronomical Society honors former Vatican Observatory head
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Veteran astronomer Jesuit Father George V. Coyne was honored by the American Astronomical Society for his work in building a Vatican-sponsored summer school for young astronomers and promoting discussions on the intersection of religion and science. Father Coyne, retired director of the Vatican Observatory, received the George Van Biesbroeck Prize at the opening of the society's 215th general meeting Jan. 4 in Washington. The honor included a citation and a cash prize. In presenting the honor, society president John Huchra cited Father Coyne's work with the Vatican Observatory Summer School, which brings 25 graduate students to the observatory's headquarters in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, every two years for a month of intensive research. Huchra also said Father Coyne's efforts to bring scientists and religious leaders together to discuss the intersection of religion and science has led to greater understanding in both fields. Father Coyne, who turns 77 Jan. 19, continues to shape the work of the observatory as president of the Vatican Observatory Foundation, which raises funds and develops awareness of the research undertaken by the church's team of a dozen astronomers. "The prize means a lot to me personally," Father Coyne told Catholic News Service. "It recognizes the Vatican Observatory as a research institute."
- - -
Catholic corporal steps up to tend to spiritual well-being of company
COMBAT OUTPOST SPIDER MONKEY, Afghanistan (CNS) -- Like all Marines, Cpl. Matthew Munoz is there for his buddies, but the 23-year-old also has stepped forward to help tend to the spiritual well-being of his comrades in arms. Munoz is second in command for his squad of about 14 men; he is assistant patrol leader with the Marines' 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, Alpha Company, Weapons Platoon at this combat outpost deep in Afghanistan's Helmand province -- Taliban territory. He also serves as the company's Catholic lay leader, combining his Catholic faith and special training provided by a military chaplain to serve as a faith presence for Catholics and non-Catholics at the camp where the men sleep in unheated tents, have no showers, and use plywood with holes over barrels as toilets. There's no shortage of razor wire, sandbags and dust, and the cocoa-colored earth is deep in mud where pools of water formed from the last downpour. Temperatures surpass 130 degrees in summer and fall below freezing in winter. Munoz told Catholic News Service that when his "very religious" mother and devout Catholic father separated, he went with his father to San Diego. At age 15 he entered the Catholic Church during the Easter Vigil at San Diego's St. Mary Magdalene Church. He prayed more, joined the parish youth group and became an altar server. When his father died, and he moved in with his aunt, Teresita Munoz, in Coos Bay, Ore., where he continued as an altar server and graduated a semester early from high school. "I enlisted a week after graduating," the 6-foot, 200-pound Marine recalled.
END
Copyright (c) 2010 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
CNS · 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017 · 202.541.3250
|
|
|
|
