At home in the cemetery
Residents take a bath inside a cemetery in Manila,
Philippines, Oct. 21. Many poor urban dwellers make their homes in
public cemeteries, converting abandoned tombs and mausoleums into
houses. The local government planned to move out the hundreds of people
who live in the cemeteries before the feast of All Souls, Nov. 2,
when Catholics visit the graves of their relatives.
CNS PHOTO/CHERYL RAVELO/REUTERS
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New Havana cathedral
A worker paints on the roof of a newly built
Russian Orthodox cathedral in Havana, Oct. 15. Cuban President Raul
Castro attended the Oct. 18 dedication of the cathedral.
CNS PHOTO/ENRIQUE DE LA OSA/REUTERS |
Logic of market called immoral
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Although many nations may be tempted to cut
development aid in the midst of the international financial crisis, the
crisis itself shows that an economic system focused only on making money
for financial investors is bound to fail, said Cardinal Renato Martino.
The cardinal, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace,
invited a dozen economics and development experts to the Vatican Oct.
23 to discuss how the financial crisis will affect development. The discussion
was led by Oscar de Rojas, director of the Financing for Development Office
in the U.N.
Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
Parish in China buys ‘come and see’
ads
TIANJIN, China (CNS) — St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Tianjin has
been placing advertisements in newspapers, inviting people to “come
and see” the Catholic Church. Since the ads were placed in four
dailies in mid-August, the cathedral has received about 20 phone calls
every day inquiring about the Catholic Church or catechism classes. The
ad read “An encounter with Xikai,” without mentioning religion
or the Catholic Church. Church sources said Catholic leaders had been
advised to avoid using words like “Catholic” or “catechism”
during the Beijing Olympic Games.
British lawmakers pass embryology bill
LONDON (CNS) — The British House of Commons has passed a controversial
bill that would allow scientists to create human-animal hybrid embryos
for experimentation. However, the government refused to allow time for
debate on amendments that would have liberalized abortion laws —
including extending the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland —
so the amendments were not attached to the Human Fertilization and Embryology
Bill.
The bill, which passed in the House of Commons 355-129 on Oct. 22, includes
a provision to legalize so-called “savior siblings” who provide
perfectly matched tissue to help to cure sick children, and it abolishes
the legal requirement to consider a child’s need for a father during
in vitro fertilization treatment. It allows human-animal hybrids to be
created as long as they are destroyed within two weeks.
The proposals have been opposed vigorously by Catholic leaders in Britain.
Scholars seek to delay Pius XII’s sainthood cause
WASHINGTON (CNS) — A group of Christian and Jewish scholars is calling
for the sainthood cause of Pope Pius XII to be put on hold. The American,
Canadian and European scholars said they believe more extensive study
is still needed to look into claims that Pope Pius did not do enough during
World War II to protect Jews from the Holocaust.
“The Vatican will not achieve credibility on the question of Pius
XII’s wartime record by relying solely on the work of defenders
of Pius XII,” the statement said. “We therefore respectfully
urge Catholic authorities to continue a hold on a consideration of Pius
XII’s beatification/canonization until all relevant archival material
is made available and scrutinized.”
Polish archbishop denies being communist informer
WARSAW, Poland (CNS) — A prominent Polish archbishop has denied
claims he acted as an informer for the communist-era Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa,
or secret police. Archbishop Henryk Muszynski of Gniezno said he never
signed any secret police documents and felt “painfully shocked”
when recently he was shown documents by the Church’s historical
commission listing him as a secret collaborator since 1984.
Archbishop Muszynski told Poland’s Catholic information agency,
KAI, that he had been required to meet with communist regime agents as
a condition for obtaining a passport to travel abroad in the 1970s and
had later faced pressure from the secret police. “I was placed under
surveillance, interrogated and induced to collaborate, but I never agreed
— instead, I encountered various forms of repression,” he
said. “I wish to declare with total resolution that I never consented
to any form of SB cooperation, whether verbal or written. Nor did I agree
to any meeting voluntarily or at my own initiative. They were all either
necessary or forced on me.”
Publisher to release book of pope’s works
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Over the next eight years, the German publishing
giant Herder and the Pope Benedict XVI Institute of Regensburg, Germany,
will offer the public “The Complete Works of Joseph Ratzinger.”
The works, almost all of which were completed before his election in 2005,
reflect the pope’s personal theological thought and not the magisterial
teaching of the Church.
Salesian Father Giuseppe Costa, director of the Vatican Publishing House,
which controls the copyright of all the written work of the pope, said
discussions already are under way with the U.S.-based Ignatius Press to
publish English translations of the volumes.
Lay ministers, deacons show Church vibrancy
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (CNS) — James Davidson, a Catholic sociologist of
religion from Purdue University in Indiana, believes it’s inaccurate
to interpret the shrinking number of priests and a decrease in the number
of men and women joining religious communities as a general decline in
the Catholic Church. Instead, he said, rising numbers of deacons and lay
ecclesial ministers point to a Catholic Church that is vibrant, though
perhaps one that will be led in a different way in the future.
Davidson presented a range of data and offered his conclusions during
a recent workshop at the National Religious Vocation Conference convocation
in Louisville. “The strength and vitality of the Catholic Church
is in its laity,” he said.
Pax Christi honors bishop for efforts to save river
SAO PAULO, Brazil (CNS) — Brazilian Bishop Luiz Cappio of Barra,
who has led hunger strikes to protest a project to divert the Sao Francisco
River, was this year’s winner of the Pax Christi International Peace
Award. Bishop Cappio said he would share the award with those who have
worked to “defend the river.”
Bishop Cappio has been working for more than 30 years with the villages
located along the Sao Francisco River. In 1993-94 he walked from the river’s
source to its mouth, bringing to light its precarious state and rallying
communities that use the river to fight for the body of water.
Protected status urged for Haitian refugees in U.S.
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Though President George W. Bush may not be able
to officially act on a request by the U.S. Catholic bishops that he grant
Haitians temporary protected status for the next 18 months for humanitarian
reasons, a Department of Homeland Security official said federal efforts
have been implemented to provide nationals from that Caribbean country
with tools to remain in the U.S. for the moment.
The bishops sent a letter to Bush Oct. 9 asking that he grant Haitians
currently in the U.S. temporary protected status, or TPS, which permits
nationals of a designated nation who are living in the U.S. to reside
in this country legally and to qualify for work authorization.
Vatican decision against teachers’ union upheld
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Bishop Joseph F. Martino of Scranton, Pa., did
not violate civil or Church law when he refused to recognize the diocesan
teachers’ union, a Vatican congregation has ruled. The Scranton
Diocese Association of Cath olic Teachers appealed to the Vatican Congregation
for Catholic Education seeking recourse against the bishop for stating
in January that he would no longer recognize the group as a collective
bargaining unit.
At the time, the bishop said the diocese was replacing the 30-year-old
union with an employee relations program designed for teachers and support
staff including aides, administrators, office staff, cafeteria staff and
maintenance personnel. The Vatican decree states that “canon law
does not prohibit the bishop’s action” and that fair labor
policy and wages can be guaranteed by means other than a labor union.
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