Grief in Ciudad Juarez
Family members mourn at the casket of Sergio
Hernandez in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, June 9. A U.S. Border Patrol agent
shot and killed the 15-year-old June 7 after a group trying to illegally
enter the U.S. threw rocks at the agents at an international bridge
near downtown El Paso, Texas.
CNS PHOTO/ALEJANDRO BRINGAS/REUTERS
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Remembering martyred priest
Young women carry a relic of Blessed Jerzy Popieluszko
through the streets of Warsaw, Poland, June 6. Blessed Popieluszko,
who was murdered by communist police agents in 1984, moved a step
closer to sainthood during a Mass celebrated by Archbishop Angelo
Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes. More
than 3,000 priests and 95 bishops were among those who attended the
ceremony.
CNS PHOTO/MICHAEL WARGIN/EAST
NEWS VIA CATHOLIC PRESS PHOTOS |
U.S. included in rankings for
human trafficking
WASHINGTON (CNS) — The United States is included in the State Department’s
annual report on human trafficking for the first time in the report’s
10-year history.
“We have an involuntary servitude problem now just as we always
have throughout history,” said Ambassador-at-Large Luis CdeBaca
of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking
in Persons.
He told journalists June 14 that putting the United States in the report
was common sense, “as we work toward a lead-by-example diplomacy.”
“The United States is a source, transit and destination country,”
for trafficked men, women and children, the report stated.
Archbishop to Congress: Keep ‘don’t
ask, don’t tell’
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese
for the Military Services has urged Congress not to repeal the policy
banning gays from openly serving in the military. “Sacrificing the
moral beliefs of individuals” in response to “merely political
considerations is neither just nor prudent especially for the armed forces
at a time of war,” he said in a statement posted June 1 on the archdiocese’s
website.
He said Catholic military chaplains have expressed concern about the possible
repeal of the 1993 legislation widely known as “don’t ask,
don’t tell” and have requested guidance about what to do if
it is lifted. The archbishop said the effect “has the potential
of being enormous and overwhelming” and stressed that “nothing
should be changed until there is certainty that morale will not suffer.”
Haitian peasants challenge Monsanto’s seed donation
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Advocates for Haitian peasants said a U.S.-based
company’s donation of up to 475 tons of hybrid vegetable seeds to
aid Haitian farmers will harm the island-nation’s agriculture. The
advocates contend the donation is being made in an effort to shift farmer
dependence from local seed to more expensive hybrid varieties shipped
from overseas.
Haitian farmers and small growers traditionally save seed from season
to season or buy the seed they desire from traditional seed markets. However,
an official from the St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. told Catholic News Service
that the seed is simply a donation to the Haitian government. The first
two shipments — 135 tons — of hybrid varieties of corn, cabbage,
carrot, eggplant, melon, onion, spinach, tomato and watermelon arrived
in Haiti during the first two weeks of May.
Hispanics better represented among deacons than priests
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Hispanics are better represented among the nation’s
permanent deacons than in the U.S. priesthood, although neither group
is as diverse as the U.S. Catholic population, according to a new survey
by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University
in Washington.
Commissioned by the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated
Life and Vocations, the survey found that 14 percent of deacons are Hispanic
or Latino, compared with 3 percent of U.S. priests and about 26 percent
of the U.S. Catholic population over 35, the minimum age for ordination
to the diaconate. In other racial and ethnic categories, however, portraits
of the U.S. diaconate and priesthood were similar, according to the CARA
report.
Kerala bishops seek shift in Church feasts
COCHIN, India (CNS) — The Catholic bishops in Kerala state —
the heartland of Christianity in India — have called for austere
and more spiritual celebration of Church feasts. “The feasts are
becoming less spiritual and more pompous and commercial. We need to take
corrective steps,” Syro-Malabar Archbishop Andrews Thazhath, secretary-general
of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council, said. “The spiritual
dimension of the feast is often lost in the eagerness to make the feasts
colorful,” added the Trichur archbishop.
The bishops urged the nearly 5 million Catholics in Kerala to be conscious
of environmental pollution caused by fireworks, traffic jams and huge
processions and arcades. Over the years, feast celebrations have become
more colorful and competitive in Kerala — where Christian account
for 19 percent of the state’s 35 million people — with parishes
trying to outdo each other with colorful lighting, fireworks, live bands
and processions. The feasts also become an occasion for heavy drinking.
Concerns expressed on World Cup gambling
HONG KONG (CNS) — A 65-year-old Jesuit soccer fan has warned people
against getting caught up in betting on the World Cup, which began June
11 in South Africa. “Gambling is no good in itself,” said
Father Robert Ng Chi-fun, who teaches moral theology at Holy Spirit Seminary
College. Gambling on soccer matches could also lead to cheating, he said.
The Asian church news agency UCA News also reported staff at a Caritas
counseling center is worried about betting during the tournament. It is
often “a catalyst for gambling,” said Joe Tang, director of
the Caritas Addicted Gamblers Counseling Center. The center saw a 20 percent
rise in counseling cases during the 2006 World Cup, he said.
Bishops to back Aquino’s anti-corruption pledge
MANILA, Philippines (CNS) — Philip-pine bishops say they will back
the anti-corruption campaign of newly elected President Benigno Aquino
III, but they also warned him to keep his election promises. The Philippine
Congress proclaimed Aquino as the country’s 15th president and Jejomar
Binay as vice president June 9, almost a month after the first nationwide
automated elections.
Throughout his campaign, the 50-year-old Aquino pledged to improve human
rights, reduce corruption and enforce stricter policies on taxes and duties.
Aquino is the son of assassinated Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. and the late
President Corazon Aquino.
Fund honoring slain nun gives to Navajo school
WASHINGTON (CNS) — The Navajo Nation’s oldest operating K-12
school is the first recipient of the Sister Marguerite Bartz Fund, which
honors a nun who was found dead Nov. 1, 2009, after an alleged burglary
at her home on the Navajo reservation.
St. Michael Indian School in Window Rock, Ariz. received a $41,451 grant
from the fund, founded by The Catholic Church Extension Societyl to honor
the late Sister Bartz and to support the work of women religious and their
ministries in the poorest and most isolated regions of the country.
Chinese authorities raze city’s only Catholic church
HONG KONG (CNS) — The only Catholic church in Ordos, in China’s
autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, was destroyed the night of June 7,
and the priest and lay leader were detained by police. The demolition
is believed to have been carried out pursuant to a court order, reported
the Asian church news agency UCA News.
The agency reported that when parishioners arrived for morning Mass June
8, they found a pile of rubble littered with pieces of the altar and discovered
a 16-foot cross in another pile of rubble. On June 9, parishioners set
up camp near the ruins to try to prevent new construction on the site.
The 170-square-yard Dongsheng Church, which served a community of about
1,000 Catholics, was legally registered with the government in May 2009.
However, the local government recently demanded the demolition of the
church to make way for a new road.
Mother Teresa sainthood cause awaits new miracle
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (CNS) — Father Brian Kolodiejchuk of the Missionaries
of Charity, postulator for the sainthood cause of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta,
said her cause is “still waiting for one more miracle” for
her to be declared a saint. “So far, there hasn’t been one
case that is strong enough to pass the medical board” of the Vatican
Congregation for Saints’ Causes, he said. “But we’re
still hoping and praying.”
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