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In
memory of
deceased migrants
Clemente Vargas, 25, helps place white wooden crosses on the U.S.-Mexico
border wall in Tijuana, Mexico. Last month, volunteers put up 5,100
crosses in memory of undocumented migrants who have died since 1995
crossing into the U.S. Vargas, a Mexican citizen , said he had hopes
to go to the U.S. in search of work.
CNS PHOTO/DAVID MAUNG |
Speaking at Food Security Summit
Pope Benedict XVI shakes hands with U.N. Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon at the U.N. World Summit on Food Security Nov. 16 in Rome.
Opulence and waste are unacceptable when hunger — the cruelest
form of poverty — continues to rise, Pope Benedict XVI told
world leaders at a summit.
CNS PHOTO/L’OSSERVATORE
ROMANO via CATHOLIC PRESS PHOTO
|
Kidnapped priest freed
Irish Columban Father Michael Sinnott, 78, weeps
while speaking to reporters in Zamboanga, Philippines, after his Nov.
12 release from kidnappers who stormed his missionary house in Pagadian
City, Oct. 11, and took him away at gunpoint. Philippine President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo met him at an air base in Manila following
his release.
CNS PHOTO/REUTERS |
Vatican denounces loss of crucifixes
in Italy’s schools
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican said it experienced “surprise
and sorrow” when a European court ruled that the crucifixes hanging
in Italian public schools violate religious freedom. The European Court
of Human Rights ruled Nov. 3 that the crucifixes hanging in every public
classroom in Italy were “a violation of the freedom of parents to
educate their children according to their own convictions and of the religious
freedom of the students.”
Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, reacted to the decision saying,
“The crucifix has always been a sign of God’s offer of love
and a sign of union and welcome for all humanity. It is sad that it is
being considered a sign of division, exclusion or limitation of freedom.
That is not what it is and that is not the common feeling of our people.”
Campaign renews call to close Guantanamo
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Religious leaders have renewed their call to
Congress seeking the immediate closure of the U.S. military prison at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The prison “is the symbol of our country’s
violation of our deepest values” and must be closed immediately,
the group of more than 40 religious leaders said in a Nov 12 letter sent
by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture to the Democratic and
Republican leadership of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Closing the prison now rather than later will allow the country to begin
to heal spiritually and “put an end to this dark and errant chapter
in our history,” the leaders wrote.
Bishops rebuke cartels for murder, corruption
CUAUTITLAN IZCALLI, Mexico (CNS) — The Mexican bishops’ conference
rebuked narcotics-trafficking cartels for their murderous ways and demanded
that Mexico’s politicians crack down on the corruption and impunity
that permits the illicit drug industry to flourish.
The bishops’ Nov. 12 letter — a long-anticipated response
to the issue of violence in Mexico — also called on all Mexicans,
including senior Catholic leaders, to take responsibility for abating
the drug- and crime-related violence that has claimed more than 13,000
lives over the past three years.
Vatican hopes U.S. will lift Cuba embargo
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican consistently has criticized the
U.S. embargo against Cuba and hopes the Obama administration will lift
the restrictions, recognizing the fact that they cause untold suffering
for the Cuban people, said Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president of
the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. The embargo “undeniably
has a negative influence on the life of the people,” Archbishop
Celli told Vatican Radio Nov. 13 following a visit to Cuba.
Rabbi says Pope Pius not a Nazi collaborator
NEW ORLEANS (CNS) — The “historically false and malicious
view” in a recent best-selling book of Pope Pius XII as a collaborator
with Adolf Hitler in the extermination of millions of Jews during the
Holocaust is refuted by the facts, said a rabbi who is a professor at
Ave Maria University in Naples, Fla.
Rabbi David Dalin, author of “The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How
Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis,” said British author John
Cornwell’s characterization of Pope Pius “as the most dangerous
churchman in modern history, without whom Hitler might never have been
able to press forward with the Holocaust,” belies the facts. “In
fact, nothing could be further from the truth,” Rabbi Dalin said
in a lecture at Tulane University.
Calls for justice after principal beheaded
MANILA, Philippines (CNS) — Bishop Martin Jumoad of Isabela in the
violence-torn southern Philippines called for justice for a school principal
beheaded by kidnappers and said a long-term solution to the region’s
problems must be found. The bishop ruled out negotiations with those responsible
for the principal’s death.
“If we dialogue with them, then it is as if we are saying it’s
partly OK to do what you did,” he said over church-run Radio Veritas
846. Criminals must be “arrested right away,” Bishop Jumoad
insisted.
Gabriel Canizares, an elementary school principal in Patikul, Sulu, was
kidnapped Oct. 19. His severed head was found in a truck at a gas station
Nov. 9. Members of Abu Sayyaf, a militant Muslim group seeking a separate
state for the minority Muslim population in the southern Philippines,
are believed responsible.
Salvadorans mourn 130 killed in flooding
SAN SALVADOR (CNS) — Salvadorans observed three days of national
mourning for the 130 people who died in floods and landslides caused by
Hurricane Ida, Nov. 6-8 More than 13,000 Salvadorans who lost their homes
were in shelters Nov. 10. In Nicaragua, at least 8,000 people were displaced
by the storm.
Suspect charged for murder of N.M. nun
GALLUP, N.M. (CNS) — Authorities have charged an 18-year-old man
in connection with the death of Blessed Sacrament Sister Marguerite Bartz,
who was found dead in her Navajo, N.M., home Nov. 1. Reehahlio Carroll
was charged with the “unlawful killing of a human being with malice
aforethought.” He was charged in accordance with federal laws governing
Native American nations.
The suspect was arrested by authorities of the Navajo Nation when he was
discovered driving the vehicle Sister Marguerite had used. She had served
St. Berard Parish in the Navajo Nation since 1999.
Provision for Anglicans not seen anti-ecumenical
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The establishment of special structures for
Anglicans who want to enter into full communion with the Roman Catholic
Church absolutely is not a signal of the end of ecumenical dialogue with
the Anglican Communion, said the Vatican’s chief ecumenist.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting
Christian Unity, said the establishment of the “personal ordinariates”
— structures similar to dioceses — was a response to repeated
requests from Anglican individuals and groups, who saw their hopes for
full Anglican-Roman Catholic unity blocked by the acceptance of women
priests and bishops, the ordination of openly gay bishops and the blessing
of homosexual unions in some provinces of the Anglican Communion.
In an interview published in the Nov. 15 edition of L’Osservatore
Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Cardinal Kasper said that the papal provision
is not anti-ecumenical.
“To think, as some commentators have said, that the pope made this
decision just to ‘expand his empire’ is ridiculous,”
the cardinal said.
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