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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Feb-4-2011
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Obama, astronaut, Chilean mine survivor talk about prayer during crises
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- It is his faith in God, particularly "that biblical injunction to serve the least of these, that keeps me going and that keeps me from being overwhelmed," by the challenges of his office, President Barack Obama said in remarks to the National Prayer Breakfast Feb. 3. "It's faith that reminds me that despite being just one very imperfect man, I can still help whoever I can, however I can, wherever I can, for as long as I can, and that somehow God will buttress these efforts," he said at the annual gathering in Washington. Also among speakers who talked about the role of faith during personal crises were a survivor of last year's Chilean mine disaster and astronaut Mark Kelly, husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman shot during a neighborhood event in Tucson Jan. 8. Obama told of getting strength from prayer for everyday challenges -- like for patience when sending his 12-year-old daughter, Malia, off to her first dance "where there will be boys" -- as well as for the issues he faces as president. "I pray for my ability to help those who are struggling," he said. "Christian tradition teaches that one day the world will be turned right side up and everything will return as it should be. But until that day, we're called to work on behalf of a God that chose justice and mercy and compassion to the most vulnerable. We've seen a lot of hardship these past two years. Not a day passes when I don't get a letter from somebody or meet someone who's out of work or lost their home or without health care," he continued.
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Court decisions, congressional actions challenge health reform law
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The health reform law passed last year faces continuing challenges in the courts, Congress and at the administrative level within the federal government. In a lawsuit involving 26 states, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson threw out the entire Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as unconstitutional because of the section requiring all Americans to have health insurance by 2014 or face government penalties. "I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the act with the individual mandate," Vinson wrote in a 78-page opinion. "That is not to say, of course, that Congress is without power to address the problems and inequities in our health care system. ... The principal dispute has been about how Congress chose to exercise that power here." The Florida judge's Jan. 31 ruling followed a December decision by a federal judge in Virginia that the individual mandate was an unconstitutional expansion of government power. The law appears headed ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court for a decision. Two other judges had earlier ruled that the individual mandate was constitutional. But the president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association believes the law will ultimately be affirmed and "we will all benefit" from the law by bringing 32 million uninsured American under the health insurance umbrella and making other improvements in the U.S. health system through provisions of the law. Sister Carol Keehan, a Daughter of Charity who was one of the staunchest supporters of the health reform law, acknowledged in a Feb. 3 telephone interview with Catholic News Service that the law still faces "some pretty significant journeys before it is all settled."
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Archdiocese sets aside burial site for victims of Philly abortionist
PHILADELPHIA (CNS) -- For the defenseless victims of Dr. Kermit Gosnell's West Philadelphia abortion clinic, there may yet be dignity in death. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has set aside a potential grave site in the recently opened infant section of All Souls Cemetery in West Brandywine and is now seeking contributions for a burial fund. The grand jury estimated that "hundreds" of late-term babies were born alive and killed in Gosnell's clinic then stored in jars and containers, some in a freezer. Robert Whomsley, director of the archdiocese's Catholic Cemeteries Office, said he is "prepared to receive these children and bury them in whatever way the archdiocese decides." Philadelphia Auxiliary Bishop John J. McIntyre said, "Every effort will be made to identify the babies as individuals and bury them that way. If there are body parts, we would probably bury them in a dignified manner, in one coffin." Besides providing dignity in death, Bishop McIntyre said the burial offer is "testimony to the church's respect for all human life from the moment of conception to natural death. If we can move people's hearts through this story to see the true sacredness of all human life, then we can say that these infants did not die in vain," he said. No funeral can take place until Gosnell has been tried and exhausted his appeals. Until then, the babies, and parts of infants, must be held as evidence. The process could take months or even years.
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Religious coalition objects to upcoming hearings on Muslim extremism
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A coalition of 51 religious and civil rights groups in the United States are urging congressional leaders to stop upcoming House hearings on Muslim extremism or at least focus the inquiry more broadly by examining violence "motivated by extremist beliefs in all its forms." The hearings, scheduled to take place in February, are coordinated by Rep. Peter King, R- N.Y, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, in response to complaints he said he has received from law enforcement officials describing Muslim leaders as uncooperative in terror investigations. King has claimed that 80 percent of American mosques are run by extremists, a figure strongly disputed by Muslim leaders and scholars. "Singling out a group of Americans for government scrutiny based on their faith is divisive and wrong," the coalition said in a Feb. 1 letter addressed to House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. The letter compared the upcoming congressional investigation to "hearings held in the 1950s by then-U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy" and said that "dark chapter in our history taught us that Congress has a solemn duty to wield its investigatory power responsibly." The coalition's letter acknowledged that the United States faces a number of serious threats but it said they are not from members of one particular racial, religious or political group. The group advised the Committee on Homeland Security to "focus on keeping us safe, rather than engaging in fear-mongering and divisive rhetoric that only weakens the fabric of our nation and distracts us from actual threats."
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The new civility: Congress may be fickle, but others take up challenge
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- If the elected leaders won't lead, perhaps it takes preachers and educational institutions to do the job. The emotional pledge by members of Congress to return to a more civil way of dealing with their opponents -- made amid the stunned national reaction to the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Jan. 8 -- may not survive the winter, if some early backsliding is an indication of the gesture's viability. But others around the country are taking the idea seriously and are pursuing ways to help the new civility take hold permanently. A spirit of bipartisan camaraderie was evident in Congress during President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Jan. 25, as Republicans and Democrats eschewed their traditional seating arrangement. Democrats and Republicans sat together, eliminating the usual spectacle of half the room standing for partisan applause lines while the other party's senators and representatives sit solemn-faced. The atmosphere in the House chamber this year was different, no doubt due in part to the seating arrangements, which included political opponents lining up cross-party "dates" to sit with for the speech. But it also was indicative of a speech by Obama that avoided the red-meat partisan phraseology that has marked past addresses by both Republican and Democratic presidents. It wasn't long, however, before the rhetorical knives were back out of their sheaths, with comments flying back and forth after the speech, such as a Republican congressman calling Obama a socialist in his Twitter feed and a spokesman for a leading Democrat saying the Republicans' intention is to end Social Security and Medicare. Meanwhile, in the small Colorado town of Central City, the Rev. Sarah Freeman, vicar of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, was putting the finishing touches on an interfaith community prayer service for political peace. On Jan. 26, scores of people came out on a frigid night to pray at St. Paul's in a service that featured prayers and readings by leaders of four of the town's six or seven churches.
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Bishop hopes settlement brings healing to survivors, renewal to church
WILMINGTON, Del. (CNS) -- Bishop W. Francis Malooly said he hopes and prays that the Diocese of Wilmington's recent settlement with survivors of clergy sexual abuse will begin the healing process for survivors and help the church "emerge purified and renewed." The diocese late Feb. 2 reached an agreement to pay survivors of sexual abuse by priests more than $77.4 million to settle nearly 150 claims of abuse. The agreement will end pending lawsuits against the diocese and several parishes and commits the diocese to give to survivors its files on sexual abusers. The agreement, pending approval of all creditors and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, could bring to an end by this summer the Chapter 11 process the diocese began in October 2009. The diocese declared bankruptcy to settle the cases filed by the survivors in a "fair and equitable way," while continuing the ministries of the church. "It is our hope and prayer that the settlement's monetary and nonmonetary terms will begin the healing process for clergy sexual abuse survivors," Bishop Malooly wrote Feb. 3 in a letter to the people of the diocese. The bishop noted that the $3 million judgment against St. Elizabeth Parish that was awarded last December will be paid from the settlement, "sparing the people of St. Elizabeth's this tremendous financial burden." The $77.4 million settlement is $3.4 million higher than the amount the diocese offered in a settlement plan Jan. 10. The additional millions were at the heart of the current negotiations, said diocesan attorney Tony Flynn. "We were able to bridge that gap with funds from insurance and by caps on attorneys' fees to minimize the costs going forward." The insurers agreed to add about $1.4 million to the settlement's trust fund, he said.
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European Catholic theologians call for end to celibacy, other changes
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- More than 140 Catholic theologians from universities in Austria, Germany and Switzerland called for the church to end priestly celibacy, ordain women and allow laypeople to help select bishops, among other changes. The 143 professors said their appeal Feb. 4 was made in response to the clergy sexual abuse scandals that surfaced in Europe in 2010 and that they no longer could remain silent in the face of what they say is a lingering crisis within the Catholic Church. The theologians, who also called for the church to welcome same-sex couples and divorced and remarried couples, said their statement was issued to open a discussion about the future of the church. "We have the responsibility to contribute to a new start," the statement said. "It looks like we struck a nerve," said Judith Konemann, a professor from Munster and one of the signatories, reported the German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung. Most of the changes sought by the theologians have no chance of being adopted since the church considers them nondebatable issues. The church teaches that it has no right to ordain women to the priesthood, and it teaches that any sexual activity outside of marriage, understood to be between a woman and a man only, is sinful.
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WORLD
Pope's prayers: Could Internet increase spread of intentions?
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- If the pope used Twitter or Facebook to rally people together to pray for one intention, how many millions of prayers could be raised to heaven within minutes? In some countries, Facebook and the Internet already are being used by the Apostleship of Prayer to build community and distribute the pope's monthly prayer intentions. But in most places in the world, when the pope makes a special public appeal for prayers, people hear about it only through the Catholic media. For 167 years, members of the Apostleship of Prayer have begun each day offering their lives to God and praying for the needs of the universal church and the intentions of the pope. The offering and the prayers are the basic membership requirements, and in most places the apostleship has "no registration, no groups, no fees, no special meetings," so no one really knows how many people belong. Jesuit Father Claudio Barriga, who oversees the organization from the Jesuit headquarters near the Vatican, said he estimates there are about 50 million people fulfilling the membership requirements in the apostleship and its youth wing, the Eucharistic Youth Movement. The Jesuit said he was in Vietnam in January and discovered that there are Apostleship of Prayer groups in every diocese with an estimated 1 million involved. A government-approved bishop in mainland China reported that there is a group of people who makes the offering and prays for the pope's intentions each day in his cathedral, Father Barriga said. In the United States, he said, "it's mainly a digital community" thriving through the use of the website www.apostleshipofprayer.org -- which includes links to a daily audiovisual meditation posted on YouTube -- and through both national and parish-based Facebook pages.
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Pope cannot be organ donor, Vatican official says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- As a cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI was a card-carrying organ donor. But the card became invalid when he became pope, according to his personal secretary. The issue arose when a German doctor recently began promoting organ donation by citing the pope's enlistment in the organ-donor program more than 30 years ago. The Vatican asked the doctor to stop using the pope as an example, and the pope's secretary, Msgr. Georg Ganswein, explained the reasons in a letter. "While it is true that the pope has an organ donor card, it is also true that, contrary to some public affirmations, the card issued in the 1970s became ipso facto invalid with Cardinal Ratzinger's election to the papacy," the letter said, according to Vatican Radio. Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, told reporters that the most evident reason a pope could not donate organs was that, in a sense, "his body belongs to the whole church." He said the church's tradition that a pope's body be buried intact also reflected the possibility of future veneration. "That takes nothing away from the validity and the beauty of donating one's organs," the archbishop added. Other Vatican sources said church officials were worried that the publicity in Germany about the 83-year-old pope as an organ donor might create "unrealistic expectations" when the pope dies.
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Church in El Salvador hopeful on Obama's visit
ROME (CNS) -- El Salvador's leading churchman hopes President Barack Obama's upcoming visit to the country will set the stage for a "radical reform" on immigration issues. "We expect that in the dialogue between the president of the United States and our authorities, there is respect for our sovereignty and freedom, and that in the business of the welfare of our country, the development and commercial growth of the nation is considered," Archbishop Jose Luis Escobar Alas of San Salvador told reporters. "The meeting should not stop at the maintenance of good diplomatic relations, but must deal with the emigration issue. From this visit should come a solid promise for the benefit of our immigrant brothers," the archbishop said. His remarks were reported Feb. 2 by the Vatican missionary news agency Fides. Among other topics, Obama and Salvadoran officials are expected to discuss El Salvador's efforts to create social programs and jobs to slow the migration of its citizens to the United States. Fides cited estimates of about 2.5 million Salvadorans currently living in the United States. Obama, who will be making his first visit to South America, plans to visit El Salvador March 21-25, and then travel to Brazil and Chile.
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Pakistani archbishop angered by withdrawal of bill on blasphemy law
LAHORE, Pakistan (CNS) -- The head of the Catholic Church in Pakistan expressed outrage at the government's decision to withdraw a private member's bill proposing changes in the country's blasphemy law, calling it "an act of surrender." Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha of Lahore, president of Pakistan Catholic Bishops' Conference, told the Asian church news agency UCA News: "It's a mistake giving in to pressure by Islamic parties. The government has totally caved in and there seems no prospect of changes in the controversial legislation in the near future." Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told the National Assembly Feb. 2 that the government never intended to change the law and had disbanded the committee reviewing it. The premier also said that Sherry Rehman, the senior Pakistan People's Party leader who introduced the bill, had decided to withdraw it. The decision comes in the wake of the recent assassination of the governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, who was a vocal critic of the blasphemy law. News reports indicated Rehman had received death threats for introducing the bill. "I have no other option but to abide by my party's decision," Rehman said Feb. 3. "The bill was not aiming to repeal the law, but to better protect our great Prophet Mohammed's name against injustices. Policies to please extremists will be harmful."
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Fate of Christians, Muslims tied in Middle East, scholar says
ROME (CNS) -- Christians and Muslims are involved together in the democracy and reform movements bubbling up around the Middle East and members of both communities will gain from their success and suffer if they are violently suppressed, said a leading Lebanese Muslim scholar. With demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt, simmering unrest in Yemen and government changes in Lebanon, "I am both worried and hopeful," said Muhammad al-Sammak, adviser to the chief mufti of Lebanon and secretary general of Lebanon's Christian-Muslim Committee for Dialogue. Al-Sammak, whom Pope Benedict XVI invited to speak to the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East in October, met with journalists Feb. 4 at the Rome headquarters of the Community of Sant'Egidio, a lay organization active in interreligious dialogue for peace. "It is true that the situation of Christians in the Middle East is not good," al-Sammak said, adding that the region's governments must do more to protect the religious minorities in their midst. One concrete proposal for accomplishing that, he said, is a "fatwa" -- an Islamic legal opinion -- declaring that in Islam and for a Muslim "harming a Christian is like harming a Muslim and attacking a church is like attacking a mosque."
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Australian bishops pleased by new policy governing Afghan refugees
PERTH, Australia (CNS) -- Australia's Catholic bishops praised the Australian and Afghanistan governments for signing a deal they hope will be "a shift away from ineffective and cruel policies of deterrence to control forced migration." The two governments signed a Memorandum of Understanding Jan. 17 with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. In a Feb. 4 statement, the Australian bishops' Migrant and Refugee Office expressed the hope that the agreement represents "a more proactive approach which addresses the underlying issue of war and instability in Afghanistan." The bishops said that people smuggling activities cannot be controlled by returning unsuccessful asylum seekers to Afghanistan. "The message is lost on people who are desperate and have no other choice," the statement said, and urged the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Chris Bowen to guarantee "beyond doubt" that those who are returned to Afghanistan will be protected from violence and persecution. "Australia is paving the way for the rest of the international community to start sending refugees back to Afghanistan. To do so would likely escalate the situation," the statement said. Australia's current system for processing excised offshore asylum claims is "not sufficient to accurately justify the return of unsuccessful applicants," the statement said. "It is vitally important, due to the uncertain and dangerous situation still present in Afghanistan, that Afghans claiming asylum be given the opportunity to have the merits of their case reviewed," the bishops' office said.
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Overcrowded conditions lead church to urge changes in prison policy
LIMA, Peru (CNS) -- A Feb. 3 riot in Lima's San Pedro Prison left one inmate dead, less than two months after a fight between rival groups in San Miguel Prison in Santiago, Chile, led to a fire in which 81 inmates died. The prison in the Chilean capital housed nearly twice the number of inmates it was designed to hold, while San Pedro's stark, concrete buildings, built for about 3,000 men, now house some 8,000. San Pedro, Lima's largest prison, also is dangerous, a school for crime, a public health hazard and a place where inmates essentially govern themselves, according to Ricardo La Serna, a member of the prison ministry leadership team at the Peruvian Conference of Bishops' Social Action Commission. "None of this has happened by accident," La Serna said. "The country's public policies have not addressed this well." Prison populations have climbed steadily in recent years throughout Latin America, partly because of rising crime rates, but also because of stiffer sentences for recidivism and for activities that formerly were not considered crimes, such as protests that block highways. The result is overcrowded facilities that are "designed to keep people from escaping" but do little to change behavior, prepare inmates to resume life outside the walls or provide them with basic services while incarcerated, La Serna said. Because Latin America's prisons are chronically short-staffed, inmates devise their own system of order, in which crime kingpins may demand payment from prisoners further down the pecking order. Disputes over power lead to riots such as those in San Miguel and San Pedro. Amid the chaos, church workers provide education, health care and legal aid, treating inmates as human beings. Their work "is not only a testimony of faith, it is demanded by the human principles of society," La Serna said.
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PEOPLE
Minister says Catholic social teaching 'great resource' for all faiths
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, the Christian citizens' anti-hunger lobby, may be one of the most ardent supporters of Catholic social teaching among non-Catholics. "I follow Catholic social teaching really closely. I study Catholic social teaching a lot more devoutly than many Catholics do," said the 62-year-old Lutheran minister with a laugh. "I just think it's a great resource, not just for the Roman Catholic Church, but for all -- certainly all Christians." Rev. Beckmann picked up the World Food Prize late last year on behalf of Bread for the World. It was the first time an organization had won the prize. "The World Food Prize has given me opportunity to talk to lots of people," Rev. Beckmann said. "Since the World Food Prize, I've been on 6,000 radio stations, I've been on national TV seven times." In a great coincidence of timing, his latest book, "Exodus From Hunger," was also published, giving him yet another platform to wage the fight against hunger and poverty.
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