Work With Vatican To Fill Vacant Bishop’s Post, Cardinal Urges China Officials

In a letter to the Chinese government, a Vietnamese cardinal has suggested, among other things, that to fill the vacant bishop's post in Beijing, candidates could be nominated from among the mainland Chinese bishops.

Cardinal Jean Baptiste Pham Minh Man of Ho Chi Minh City sent a letter dated May 22 to two officials from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA).

Church sources said the officials led a seven-member delegation that visited the cardinal-archbishop at his official residence in early March and engaged in a closed-door meeting.

The 73-year-old cardinal said in his letter that the visit from Liu Haixing, deputy director-general of the Chinese foreign ministry's Department of European Affairs, and Wang Zuo'an, SARA deputy director, left him with very good impressions.

"This could be regarded as a bridge of communion between me and the Catholic Church in your country," Cardinal Man wrote.

A church source in Vietnam told UCA News in late May that the letter, written in both Chinese and Vietnamese, was sent to Beijing through the Chinese consulate general in Ho Chi Minh City.

However, as of May 31, there has been no reply from the Chinese government, the source said.

According to a copy of the letter that UCA News obtained on May 28, Cardinal Man said he wished to visit China. He said he had originally hoped to lead some priests, religious sisters and laypeople to make a courtesy visit to the two Chinese officials as well as ailing bishops in Beijing and Shanghai in early April.

"It is a pity that I could not visit the Beijing bishop before he died," he said, referring to Bishop Michael Fu Tieshan of Beijing, who died April 20 of lung cancer at the age of 76.

The church source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told UCA News on May 28 that the Chinese consul general had expressed hoped the cardinal could visit China as a guest, but said "that would require an invitation" from a person or an organization on the mainland.

Though the cardinal has suggested an invitation from the Bishops' Conference of the Catholic Church in China (BCCCC) and has exchanged letters with Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian of Shanghai, he still has had no reply from the BCCCC, the source said.

Cardinal Man has told Bishop Jin he hopes to make his planned trip to Beijing and Shanghai in late September or October, the source added.

A sense of what transpired in the March meeting between the cardinal and the Chinese officials can be gleaned from the cardinal's letter, in which he offers some suggestions for the good of the Chinese people, the Catholic Church in China and the "glorious relations" between China and the Holy See.

The prelate suggested that "the best way" to solve the leadership succession issue in the Beijing Diocese is for the BCCCC, "not any other organization," to call for a meeting of all mainland bishops and have them nominate candidates chosen from bishops who are presently in office.

This can be done, he said, after bishops reflect, pray, discuss and understand more about each other.

Then the Holy See will submit its list, from among these candidates, to the Chinese government for its opinions. Once the Chinese government gives its consent, the Holy See would appoint the new Beijing bishop, he continued.

The cardinal said he believed that if the Chinese bishops could "pray quietly and freely, exchange views, and face no pressure, threat of domination or control," they would be able to make decisions in the long-term interest of the Chinese people and the Catholic Church in China.
"With enough confidence in the people and the Catholic Church, the Chinese government can create favorable conditions for harmony among the Chinese people, communion within the China Church, and exchanges with the Vatican and every organization in the world," he wrote.

And these would contribute to the country's long-term social progress and stable development, the cardinal added.

Meanwhile, Bishop Jin of Shanghai told UCA News on June 1 that Cardinal Man had indeed written to him and proposed to visit China in October.

"I sincerely hope he will come. I will give him a warm welcome and hope he can share with us his experience of the Vietnam Church," the 91-year-old prelate said.

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Pope Canonises 2, Beatifies 327

POPE Benedict XVI today authorised two new sainthoods and 327 beatifications, the Vatican said.

The Pope recognised a new miracle by an Indian nun, Anna Muttathupandathu, who had previously been beatified in 1986 by Pope John Paul II.

The woman, who went by the name Alfonsa dell'Immacolata Concezione, will now be canonised.

A new miracle has also been recorded for Narcisa De Jesus Martillo Moran, an Ecuadoran woman beatified in 1992.

Those authorised for beatification today include Italian priest Antonio Rosmini; Endrina Stenmanns of Germany; Maria Anna Donati of Italy; and Maria Merkert, who was born in Silesia, which lies primarily in modern-day Poland.

Another 323 have been recognised as martyrs or as having heroic vitrues and will be beatified, including 127 people killed in 1936 during the Spanish civil war.

There were 188 religious and nonreligious members of the Society of Jesus killed in Japan between 1603 and 1639 eligible for beatification, as well.

The list of those gaining beatification also includes Francesco Jagerstatter, an Austrian Catholic who refused to enrol in Hitler's army and who became a symbol of Austrian resistance against the Nazis.

Beatification, officially the Catholic church's recognition that a dead person has entered Heaven and can intercede on behalf of those who pray in their name, is the first step towards declaring sainthood.

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Intelligent Design Has Place In Science Lessons, Says Church Of England

The row over teaching the theory of intelligent design in science lessons was reignited today by the Church of England's new head of education.

The Rev Jan Ainsworth, who is responsible for more than 4,600 CofE schools, said intelligent design could form part of discussions in science lessons under the heading of history of science.

Intelligent design - the argument that living species are too complex to have evolved through Darwinian natural selection and must have a "designer" - is dismissed by the vast majority of scientists.

Ms Ainsworth told the Times Educational Supplement: "While it is not something I would subscribe to, it is a recognition that there are different ways of looking at the evidence.

"You would get howls of protest from the scientific community, which would say there is absolutely no place for it in the curriculum. But you could do it in history of science," she added, pointing out that religious education lessons in CofE schools include discussions of different beliefs.

The church today hastened to play down the significance of her comments.

The long-running battle between creationists and Darwinists over teaching evolution in schools in the US - dating to the 1925 "Monkey Trial" in Tennessee - has spilled over into the UK in recent years.

Earlier this year the government instructed schools in England not to use teaching materials promoting creationism and intelligent design circulated by the privately-funded group Truth in Science.

Ms Ainsworth's comments follow a long-running row over claims that some of Tony Blair's flagship city academies teach creationism in science lessons. The prime minister has dismissed concerns over the issue.

A spokesman for the Church of England said Ms Ainsworth was "simply representing the fact that some schools currently discuss intelligent design within the context of lessons exploring how our understanding of science has developed historically".

He continued: "Ms Ainsworth was not suggesting that intelligent design should be taught as a scientifically-based theory, but merely stating that some schools do include the topic on their history of science curriculum, and that she does not propose to prevent them from doing so."

"She believes that schools should take a lead from the national curriculum, and use discretion in enhancing this with discussions about the theory of intelligent design where appropriate," he added.

The Christian thinktank Ekklesia criticised Ms Ainsworth for flirting with intelligent design which was "creationism masquerading as science" and "appallingly bad theology".

Creationism includes a belief that all forms of life have always existed in their present form, and that the world was formed in 4004 BC, rather than 4,600 million years ago as scientists believe. Intelligent design is less explicit about God creating life and does accept the greater age of the Earth.

In the US there have been robust battles over the teaching of evolution and creationism in schools. This year the Kansas school board banned creationist teaching in science lessons.

In 2005 intelligent design was roundly condemned in a court judgment as a purely religious theory, which should not be taught in American schools under the constitutional separation of church and state.

The case was brought over the teaching of intelligent design in schools in Dover, Pennsylvania.

Last year, the world's leading scientific institutions issued a joint statement calling on schools to stop denying the facts of evolution.

The national science academies of 67 countries warned that scientific evidence about the origins of life was being "concealed, denied, or confused".

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Pope Spends Evening Visiting Vatican Civil Servants

Pope Benedict XVI spent a breezy spring evening with the Vatican's civil servants -- gardeners and judges included -- thanking them for their work, praying with them and encouraging them in their faith.

The first appointment May 31 was an early evening visit to the governor's palace of Vatican City, where the pope blessed a new 1,012-pipe organ in the palace chapel before addressing employees outside.

"Besides competence, professionalism and dedication," working in the Vatican also requires "a serious commitment of evangelical witness," Pope Benedict said.

The governor's office runs Vatican City State and is responsible for the motor pool, the police and fire departments, the Vatican Museums, the gardens and buildings, postal service, stamp and coin office, grocery store, health service and a court that deals with both civil and penal matters, usually involving minor infractions such as parking violations.

Pope Benedict thanked those who "work in the different sectors of our little state, from the most visible to the most hidden. I am aware of and appreciate each day the fruits of your commitment and your competence."

The Patrons of the Arts of the Vatican Museums, a predominantly U.S. group, joined the Vatican employees for the event.

The pope said their generosity "gives splendid witness to the beauty of the faith, expressed so richly in the works of art you have generously helped to restore."

Later in the evening, after the sun had set, Pope Benedict joined many Vatican employees and members of the public marking the end of May, the month dedicated to Mary, with a candlelight rosary procession through the Vatican gardens.

The pope joined the crowd at the Vatican's replica of the grotto of France's Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes."I entrust to Mary the little community that lives and works in the Vatican," he said.

Pope Benedict spoke about the day's feast, marking the Blessed Virgin Mary's visit to her pregnant cousin Elizabeth."Jesus had just begun to form in Mary's womb, but his spirit already had filled her heart; the mother had already begun to follow her divine son" by setting out to visit her cousin who was in need, the pope said.

"Every gesture of genuine love, even the smallest, contains within it a spark of the infinite mystery of God," he said, because God is love.

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How Secularists, Not Immigrants, Target Church-Run Schools (Contribution)

MULTI-CULTURAL, multi-faith Ireland must have multi-faith, multi-cultural schools. But how many, and who wants them?

The question of our schools has reared its head again this week because of difficulties in Dublin West. The population there is growing so fast, the existing schools (just like the rest of the local infrastructure) cannot keep up with demand.

The result is that Catholic schools in the area can't cope with demand from Catholic parents and even though they are accommodating children from non-Catholic and non-Christian homes, many children from those homes have nowhere to go.

As an emergency response to this, the Department of Education has, oddly, asked the Catholic Church to act as a patron for a new school that will open this September. How can this be? Why on earth would you ask the Catholic Church to act as a patron to a new school intended in large part for non-Catholic children?

Educate Together is up in arms. Educate Together schools are multi-denominational. They are aimed at children of all faiths and none. They provide moral and spiritual education which exposes all pupils to all the major faiths, although parents can have their children opt out of these classes if they wish. Therefore, Educate Together sounds like it would have made the perfect patron for this new school.

Certainly this has been the knee-jerk reaction of the chattering classes who regard Educate Together schools as a wonderful antidote to all those awful, exclusive, "closed-minded" denominational schools, the Catholic ones especially.

Our chattering classes firmly believe - nay, it is an unquestioned article of faith - that our present, overwhelmingly denominational school system does not reflect modern Ireland, and so it must change. Who, other than a slack-jawed yokel, could believe otherwise?

Well, quite possibly a lot of those newly-arrived migrants. We hear a lot about how Ireland is becoming multi-faith, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural.

Actually, the extent of the change is often greatly exaggerated. We are becoming ever more multi-ethnic, and somewhat more multi-cultural, but more multi-faith? Not really, not according to the new Census.

What Census 2006 tells us is that 87pc of the population is still happy to describe itself as Catholic. The number of people living here has grown by a massive 300,000 since Census 2002, but the percentage of Catholics in the population has hardly budged despite this, and despite all the immigration.

Why is that? It's because the majority of immigrants are Catholic.

Think of all those Poles and Filipinos and Nigerians. Most of the rest are Christian, consisting mainly of Protestants and Evangelicals of one sort or another, or else are members of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, which are very close theologically to the Catholic Church.

What about members of the non-Christian religions? Hindus and Buddhists now number 6,500 each and Muslims 35,500. Between them, that's only about one per cent of the population.

In other words, Ireland isn't really becoming more multi-faith. In fact, immigration might even be making us more Christian, more religious, and even more Catholic, because many immigrants are much more fervent in their faith than we are.

What, therefore, is really driving the push for a greater number of non-denominational and multi-denominational schools? It isn't all those migrants, except in atypical areas like Dublin West where plenty of non-Christian migrants live.

No, it's all those lapsed Catholic parents who have become thoroughly secularised and can't bear the idea that they must send their children to a Catholic school because it's the only one available.

Very well, that is their prerogative. No, it's more than that. It's their right. No matter which angle you approach it from, it suits no-one to have these secularised, maybe anti-Catholic parents feeling obliged to send their children to Catholic schools.

It doesn't suit them and it can't suit the Catholic school either because suddenly it finds itself having to accommodate parents who would rather be sending their children elsewhere. With the best will in the world, this has to have a corrosive effect on the ethos of the school.

The only answer to this is to build more schools, or if necessary and if it's not too wild an idea, sub-divide existing ones if some suitable agreement can be made with the Catholic Church, or whichever is the relevant denomination.

However, those who are driving for big changes to our school system should stop hiding behind all those migrants and insisting that the changes they want are really in the interests of immigrants.

In most cases migrants are happy with our denominational school system because most migrants are Catholic or Christian.

The real pressure on Church schools, therefore, isn't coming from migrants, it's coming from our own home-grown secularists. Let's not pretend otherwise.

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The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.

Sotto Voce

Lincoln Catholic Diocese Threatens Arrest Of Petitioners

Officials from the Lincoln's Catholic diocese have asked the Lincoln Police Department to arrest members of Call to Action Nebraska if they follow through on their plan to deliver a petition against Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz today.

The petition criticizes Bruskewitz for his refusal to participate in the church's annual nationwide audit to determine whether dioceses are compliant with church policies on sexual abuse.

The Lincoln diocese is the only one in the nation that declines to participate.

Some 1,000 Catholics nationwide signed the petition, Call to Action members say.

Bruskewitz has said that anyone who belongs to Call to Action, a group that favors such changes in the church as allowing married priests and women priests, is excommunicated.

Monsignor Tim Thorburn, vicar general of the Lincoln Diocese, said he asked the police to arrest Call to Action Nebraska members who appeared on church property because of past disturbances that he didn't want repeated.

"On two previous occasions, they have disrupted Mass," Thorburn said. "They're welcome to protest on the sidewalk, but not on church property."

Members still may deliver the petition this afternoon, said Call to Action Nebraska President Rachel Pokora.

"We were just going to go in and hand them the petition, maybe make a statement and then go down to the spot where we were planning the prayer service," she said. "So it does seem like a fairly extreme response."

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Money Crunch Hits Catholic Group

The lay group created to give anguished Roman Catholics a voice as the clergy sex abuse crisis unfolded five years ago is now in a crisis of its own, dealing with a budget deficit and infighting among its leaders.

Voice of the Faithful is projecting a $100,000 deficit in the next fiscal year following a drop in the number of major donors, according to an account of a group leaders' meeting which is posted on Voice's Web site.

Board chairman William Casey said that the group has had trouble adjusting to a long-term strategy as the short-term anger over the scandal has subsided.

"When an emergency and a crisis occurs, people just want to help, they want to do something," Casey said. "But two years out, four years, five, 10 years out, how do you keep that going? ... Trying to struggle to figure that out is a real challenge."

The group is also facing what Casey called a "crisis in leadership" due to infighting, difficulty respecting each other's positions and trouble reaching consensus on decisions, according to the notes of his remarks at a leadership conference in April.

In an interview, Casey acknowledged the problems, but said his remarks should not be interpreted as "the building's on fire," but as part of a normal reassessment of Voice and its goals.

The Newton-based group was founded in 2002 amid outrage over the scandal, which began in Boston after documents showed church leaders for decades shuttled molester priests among parishes and concealed their crimes.

Despite resistance from church officials — some refused to let Voice meet on church property — the group established 120 chapters nationwide. It counts 35,000 members in the U.S. and worldwide, though anyone can join by simply filling out a short form on the group's Web site.

The anger that inspired new members and motivated contributors has since diminished, along with the frequency of news stories about the church's problems.

Meanwhile, there are signs that Catholics are increasingly supportive of church officials.

A recent poll by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate indicated about 60 percent of Catholics are "somewhat" or "very" satisfied with the leadership of the U.S. church.

Boston College theology professor Thomas Groome said that leaves Voice struggling to convince Catholics it is still relevant, though he believes it is. Another obstacle, he says, is the Catholic tendency to submit to the church hierarchy.

"There's a deep, ingrained instinct in Catholics that father still knows best, and father will do best," Groome said. "Some of that was disabused in the abuse crisis, but still, there's a lot of that still around. ... It could diminish (Voice's) support."

Despite its problems, Voice of the Faithful has drawn up an ambitious agenda — outlined in its new "Campaign of Accountability" — to bring broad child protection and financial reforms to the U.S. church.

Among its goals: Full and regular disclosure of financial records at dioceses nationwide, similar to reforms initiated in Boston, and the suspension or retroactive elimination of statute of limitations laws that prevent clergy sex abuse survivors from filing suits.

But the group has just two full-time employees, including an executive director position that's been vacant since February (an interim director is filling in), and some part-time employees for administrative tasks.

The rest of the organization is volunteer, including an 11-member board of trustees, a 26-member regional council and a four-person executive team.

Staffing's been part of its problem, said Mary Pat Fox, the group's president. As the furor over the scandal waned, the group's small work force had no one to cultivate the group's major donors, some of whom have fallen away.

Voice recently committed $50,000 to hire a part-time development officer, and also will increasingly target its rank and file members in fundraising. In the meantime, it has roughly $160,000 in reserves to cover the projected deficit.

Fox and Casey also said the passion of grass roots volunteers has been occasionally misdirected, sometimes at causes the group was not created to take up — such as ordination of women — or in focusing too much on how the group should be run and achieve its goals.

"You can spend all your time looking for perfection, and making less progress," Casey said.

A new "Statement of Identity" reaffirms the group's mission to support abuse survivors, faithful priests and reforms that will increase lay involvement and leadership accountability.

The group is poised to rebound, Fox said, but it needs to see some success in its initiatives, and it also needs to continually show Catholics why Voice of the Faithful is important.

"If the only voice that you heard on the Catholic church was from the hierarchy, that would be a problem," she said.

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The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.

Sotto Voce

Catholic Schwarzenegger To Terminate Religious "Interference"

Describing himself as a "very dedicated Catholic", California Governor Arnold Schhwarzenegger is backing stem cell research initiatives, saying that religion should not interfere with government policy.

The Star reports that Governor Schwarzenegger is attempting to stare down anti-abortion opponents of stem-cell research with a warning to leave religion out of politics and health.Schwarzenegger, in Toronto to sign accords with Premier Dalton McGuinty on collaborating with Ontario to fight cancer and curb climate change, said saving lives is paramount.

"I always said that you should not have your religion interfere with government policies or with the policies of the people," the former action film superstar turned politician told hundreds of people at the MaRS Discovery District research centre.

"I am a Catholic and a very dedicated Catholic, but that does not interfere with my decision-making because I know that stem cell research, the way we are doing it in California ... is the right way to go and will save, very quickly down the line, lives and cure a lot of these illnesses," he said.

After signing a deal with McGuinty for a new joint research initiative between California and Ontario scientists, Schwarzenegger recounted his personal interest in the subject.

"I have a father-in-law, Sargent Shriver, who has Alzheimer's," he said of the 91-year-old husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister of late US president John F Kennedy.

"Now, Sargent Shriver, I'll tell you was one of the most brilliant minds in the world. He was working under the Johnson administration, the Kennedy administration, started the Peace Corps, the Jobs Corps, like I said, brilliant, brilliant," the governor said.

"Today, he does not even recognise his wife," he said. "Alzheimer's is a terrible disease and this is why I am so very passionate about supporting (research)."Abortion foes are against stem-cell research because microscopic embryos, usually donated by fertility clinics, are destroyed in the process.

McGuinty, a fellow Catholic praised by Schwarzenegger for his "fantastic" support for the research, said he understood those with religious or ethical concerns."I would argue ... there's one moral imperative that transcends all faiths, all culture and all traditions, it would be this fundamental desire to relieve pain and suffering and death where we find it," said the premier, who announced $30 million from the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research will be earmarked for the Cancer Stem Cell Consortium of researchers here and in California.

"I'm confident we can strike the right balance between respecting people's sensitivities and ... we have some laws in the books here in Canada that ensure that."

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The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.

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Pope: Pakistan, Safeguard Religious Freedom Of Minorities

Safeguard religious freedom, especially for the minorities, defence against violence and terrorism, promotion of political and human rights and the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women: in Benedict XVI’s view these are the main challenger which face Pakistan on its journey towards becoming a democratic nations, respectful of the person.

Today’s presentation of the letters of credence by the new Pakistani Ambassador to the Holy See Ms. Ayesha Riyaz, gave the Pope the opportunity to reiterate those principals which the Catholic Church sees as fundamental for a just and peaceful coexistence between peoples.

“Our common goal of fostering peace and justice in the world to secure a better future for mankind – he said - can only be accomplished when there is genuine cooperation between peoples, religions and nations”.

As such the Pope expressed his appreciation of Pakistan’s decision to commitment to work together with the international community to bring greater stability to your region and to protect innocent lives from the threats of terrorism and violence.

“The road to national and international security is long and difficult. It takes great patience and resolve. Notwithstanding the obstacles encountered along the way, all efforts to keep open the pathway to peace, stability and hope should be encouraged and promoted”.

The Pope also underscored the Catholic Churches particular commitment to furthering education in Pakistan, “regardless of faith”. “Christians and Muslims both worship the One God, the Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. It is this belief that moves us to unite minds and hearts as we work tirelessly for peace, justice, and a better future for mankind”.

Then facing the question of religious freedom in the country, often openly impeded, the Pope affirmed that “A robust democratic society depends on its ability to uphold and protect religious freedom—a basic right inherent in the very dignity of the human person. It is therefore essential to safeguard citizens who belong to religious minorities from acts of violence. Such protection not only accords with human dignity but also contributes to the common good. During an era in which threats against religious freedom are becoming more ominous throughout the world, I encourage Pakistan to bolster its efforts in securing freedom for people to live, worship, and perform works of charity according to the dictates of their conscience and with immunity from intimidation”.

The theme of religious freedom was also a key note of Benedict XVI’s general address to other ambassadors presenting their credentials together with the Pakistani diplomat today.

“No-one - said the Pope - should be discriminated against our pushed to the margins of society because of his or her convictions or religious faith, which are fundamental elements of human freedom. Societies are honoured according to their protection of these essential rights, thus displaying their care for the dignity of each human being.

Moreover, true religious conviction can never be a cause for division or violence within the human community. Rather it is at the very heart of human conscience that each person is a brother to be protected and nurtured”.

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The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.

Sotto Voce

Vatican Slow On Clergy Complaints

The Vatican has received 1,000 paedophilia complaints against clergy since 2001 but only 10 cases have been taken up by the Church tribunal for serious offences, a weekly magazine said.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican are regularly accused of moving paedophile priests from parish to parish rather than hand them over to the law or imposing Church sanctions.

The Panorama magazine, which is owned by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, said that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which receives the complaints, was headed by cardinal Joseph Ratzinger for 24 years before he became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.

"Trials launched these past six years have numbered barely more than 10. And they are veiled by the utmost secrecy because even the verdicts are never made known," Panorama said.

A BBC documentary "Sex, crimes and the Vatican" about paedophile priests was shown on Italy’s RAI network.

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Church Adopts Sex Abuse Policy

It appears the Roman Catholic diocese of London is listening to Rev. Charles Sylvestre's victims.

This week, letters were sent to the women abused as children by the disgraced priest announcing the church will adopt some of their ideas in a new, long-awaited sexual abuse policy.

The suggestions came from a meeting of survivors in Chatham last month.

Sylvestre, 84, died in prison last January just three months into his three-year sentence for 47 counts of indecent assault on girls in his parishes over four decades.

The draft policy is still not complete, after the diocese was advised the scope had been limited to child sexual abuse and not all sexual misconduct.

In Rev. John Sharp's letter to the victims, he said there's also a stronger shift towards prevention.

The letter from Sharp, head of the diocese's sexual abuse committee, says two key suggestions from the victims will be adopted:

- A protocol for receiving complaints "that is sensitive to needs of the complainant." The first contact would not be a priest, but a trained person, perhaps a survivor of sexual abuse, who would continue to communicate with the complainant.

- The "Two Deep Rule," requiring a priest to have another adult with him when meeting a child alone in confession or elsewhere.

Sharp says "your feedback has helped us broaden our scope in developing a policy" to prevent sexual misconduct in the church.

Chatham-Kent Crown Attorney Paul Bailey, who prosecuted Sylvestre, said the "two-deep rule" is "unprecedented."

"It's an excellent strategy," he said, used by many child-centred organizations such as minor hockey and the scouting movement.

"I'm really hoping other members of the Canadian Catholic Conference of Bishops will see this and use it as a template for its own actions."

Diocese spokesperson Ron Pickersgill said it's hoped the draft sexual abuse policy and code of conduct will be out by the end of June.

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Russian Converts To Catholicism Are Particular Cases, Not Proselytizing Policy Result - Catholic Archbishop

The ordinary of the Archdiocese of the Mother of God in Moscow Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz reaffirmed that the Roman Catholic Church does not aim at ‘recruiting’ those Russians who were baptized as Orthodox.

‘As for the notorious proselytism, I officially state that the Catholic Church does not pursue a proselytism policy in Russia,’ Kondrusiewicz told Echo Moskvy radio.

According to him, when some Orthodox Russians convert to Catholicism it is not due to an official policy, and ‘we do not want it to be like that.’

‘Of course, we ask each person, why he or she does not want to be baptized or married in the Orthodox Church since he or she is Russian. That we always do. But if the person decides for himself, what can we do? Nothing, because it is his or her human right,’ the archbishop added.

He recalled a Vatican II statement, according to which ‘the Orthodox Churches possess the same means of salvation as the Catholic Church.’‘When I enter an Orthodox church I am aware that there is the Blessed Sacrament on the altar, so I kneel and venerate it as if it were in a Catholic church. It is holy for me,’ Kondrusiewicz said.

The Roman Catholic canon law, he said, allows the Roman Catholic to receive Confession and Communion from an Orthodox priest if there is a serious need, such as if no Catholic priest is available.

Today in Russia there are nearly 270 Catholic priests of whom 30 are Russian citizens.

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Sotto Voce

By Hook Or By Crook (Italy & RC Church)

AS ITALY'S bishops concluded their general assembly on May 25th, some may have reflected on an irony in their situation.

In a secular age, and 13 years after the collapse of the Christian Democratic party that used to represent their interests in politics, the church wields more direct influence in Italy than at any time in 40 years.

Over the past three years, church leaders and their parliamentary allies have fought three big battles and lost none.

In 2004 a cross-party group of lawmakers drastically restricted the scope of a law on fertility treatment. A year later, the head of the church in Rome, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, deftly foiled a bid to broaden the law in a referendum (he asked the faithful to abstain, robbing the vote of its quorum).

And in February, when a former prime minister, Giulio Andreotti, now a life senator and ever the church's political man, nudged Romano Prodi's centre-left government close to defeat, the coalition dropped as a priority its plan to extend legal rights to unwed couples, including gays.

Under Cardinal Ruini's successor, Angelo Bagnasco, Italy's prelates are preparing for a fight against a law to allow living wills, which set out how people wish to be treated if they can no longer communicate with doctors themselves.

At the general assembly, Archbishop Bagnasco's deputy, Giuseppe Betori, claimed that such wills represented “a dangerous slide towards something like euthanasia”.

Vatican officials say Pope Benedict is determined to stop Italy following Spain under the Zapatero government, which legalised gay marriage and made other social reforms at odds with Catholic teaching.

The pope sees Italy as uniquely emblematic of Roman Catholicism and thus ideal ground for an attack against the creeping secularisation of Europe. Italy's contorted politics may make this easier.

The Prodi government's hold on power is feeble (and became feebler this week after it took a drubbing in local elections, especially in the north). It depends on unelected life senators for its majority in the upper house and so is vulnerable to even a small rebellion on its own side.

This includes a tiny Christian Democratic party, the UDEUR, and a band of traditional Roman Catholics in the otherwise liberal Democracy and Freedom party, who are known to the media as the “Theo-Dems”. Were they to vote against the government on any measure distasteful to the bishops, they could join the centre-right opposition in bringing it down.

That may seem odd. After all, Silvio Berlusconi, the opposition leader, is eminently secular. Before entering politics, his friendships were mostly with Socialists, not Christian Democrats.

He is divorced and had three children by his present wife before their (civil) marriage. Only one of the four parties in the coalition government that he led until last year was particularly Catholic: the Union of Christian Democrats.

But, argues Stefano Ceccanti, a law professor who helped to draft the law on unmarried couples, “the centre-right is very weak ideologically and it finds unity in agreeing with the church”.

Italian conservatives shrink from free-market liberalism. The creeds that gave them their ideological underpinnings—fascism and Christian Democracy—have been discredited.

Championing Catholic causes now helps both to woo Catholic voters and to divide Mr Prodi's heterogeneous coalition, which stretches from the Theo-Dems to Trotskyists. Conservatives, including non-believers, also consider a church led by Pope Benedict to be a stout bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism.

On other issues, too, there is an overlap between the views of the centre-right and those of the church. Ezio Mauro, editor of the daily La Repubblica, has accused Cardinal Ruini of pulling the church to the right.

Indeed, the bishops' most passionate defender in recent months has been another daily newspaper editor, Giuliano Ferrara of Il Foglio, a former Berlusconi minister who is an atheist.

“Without being a Catholic”, he says, “I think many Catholic things.”

How far can the bishops go to impose Catholic views on society? Church leaders often behave as if Italy were still as homogeneously Catholic as in the days when every Italian home had a crucifix above the marital bed and a black-and-white television from which Pius XII would occasionally bestow a restrained wave.

After church groups rallied several hundred thousand people to a family day in Rome on May 12th, Archbishop Bagnasco declared smugly that it was “society expressing itself in an unequivocal way”.

Yet today's Italy has one of the world's lowest birth rates, thanks to near-universal defiance of Vatican teaching on contraception. A quarter of young cohabiting couples are unmarried.

Church sociologists insist that the share of Italians attending mass at least once a month remains steady at 50%, but a study publicised in February suggests that the true figure is lower (23% in the patriarchate of Venice, where the research was conducted).

“The whole of society is not Roman Catholic,” says Marcello Vigli, a lay activist and veteran of the Christian Social movement. “So you cannot impose by law what the hierarchy considers to be right. Otherwise, you start to become a confessional society.”

To Giuliano Ferrara of Il Foglio, such a view is pure hypocrisy. “If the church has a right to say what it thinks, it also has a right to be on the political scene. What it does not have is a right to coerce.”

Many Italians would agree. But some argue that it does, in practice, coerce. In March Archbishop Bagnasco's office in effect told those politicians who consider themselves Catholic to vote against granting legal rights to unmarried couples.

His supporters retort that he was merely reminding lawmakers of church teaching; and that, in any case, the bishops' position coincided with the dominant social view (47-45% against the bill, said a poll in another daily, Corriere della Sera).

But Archbishop Bagnasco's warning caused deep resentment among supporters of the measure, all the more so after he appeared to bracket them with apologists for paedophilia and incest.

Soon after that remark, threatening graffiti appeared on the door of his cathedral in Genoa.

He then received an envelope containing a bullet and the symbol of the Red Brigades' terror group.

He has now been given an armed police guard.

Addressing the bishops' assembly, Pope Benedict said that “the Catholic faith and the church's presence remain the great unifying factor of this beloved nation”.

Of late, it has not always seemed that way.

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Sotto Voce

Pope To Canonise New Saint For Ireland

The Pope is to canonise a new Saint for Ireland in a ceremony at St Peter's Square on Sunday.

President Mary McAleese will be among hundreds of Irish pilgrims who will travel to Rome to see Pope Benedict XVI declare a new Saint for Ireland.

Blessed Charles of Mount Argus, who was born in Holland, spent most of his life ministering in the south Dublin suburb of Mount Argus, and will be canonised in an open-air ceremony on Sunday morning.

Other guests set to attend the ceremony include the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Vincent Jackson, the Garda Commissioner, Mr Noel Conroy and the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, who was Actor for the Cause of Blessed Charles.

Saint-To-Be Was Much Loved Around Dublin

Blessed Charles was a much-loved figure in the capital and around Ireland at the turn of the last century for his devotion to the sick and healing.

Born John Andrew Houben in Mustergleeen, Holland in 1821, he joined the Passionist Order at the age of 19.

Transferred first to England, he came to Mount Argus just as it was being founded and travelled around Ireland raising funds to help build it.

He grew to love Dublin and its people and spent his time working with the ill and dying in the community.

Irish people travelled from all over the country to meet Blessed Charles when word of his tremendous healing power spread.

His funeral in January 1893 drew thousands of people to Mount Argus, where he lay in state for five days.

His remains were moved to a Shrine in the Church in 1949.

Today, people still regularly visit the relic of Blessed Charles in Harold's Cross.

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The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.

Sotto Voce

Dutch Shock Over Gay AIDS Rape Gang

A gay gang that allegedly raped victims lured on the Internet, drugged them and infected them with the AIDS virus has shocked the Netherlands and raised questions over its liberal sex culture.

Health Minister Ab Klink on Thursday called the case "horrible", as the press splashed the news across its front pages.

The matter came to light Wednesday, when police said they had arrested three seropositive homosexual men two weeks ago after four victims, men aged 25 to 50, accused them of rape and premeditated bodily harm.

Ronald Zwarter, the police chief in the northern town of Groningen, where the alleged crimes took place, said two of those arrested, a couple aged 48 and 33, had confessed.

"Their stated motive was that it excited them -- and also that, the more HIV-infected people there were, the better their chances of unprotected sex," he said.

"They considered unprotected relations to be 'pure'."

A fourth man who allegedly supplied the three suspects with several litres of the date-rape drug GHB and ecstasy tablets was also arrested.

The gang risks up to 16 years in prison.

According to police and prosecutors, eight more victims have come forward since the case was publicised.

Officials said the three seropositive men invited gays contacted on the Internet to private homosexual orgies.

When the victims turned up, they were allegedly given ecstasy and GBH (which is undetectable when mixed in drinks), leaving them helpless and, in some cases, with no memory of what happened.

The three suspects -- one of whom is a male nurse -- were said to have raped the men, and even injected some of them with a mix of their contaminated blood.

The case has deeply unsettled the Netherlands, and caused it to cast a hard look at its easygoing views on sex, with some figures suggesting that frequent homosexual orgies posed a public health risk.

"That homos organise orgies is nothing new, but this is something else. This is unimaginable," said Frank van Dalen, the president of a gay rights group called COC.

He stressed that the illegal use of GHB (gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid) -- known on the street by such nicknames as "Easy Lay, "Gay Home Boy" and "Liquid Ecstasy" -- also posed a danger in heterosexual circles.

Said Henk Krol, the editor of a homosexual magazine titled Gaykrant: "These people were drugged, it's therefore rape, pure and simple. It's shameful, disgusting and terrifying. Those who did this are crazy."

Health officials pointed to a recent rise in the number of HIV infections in Groningen -- from 14 in 2005 to 25 last year, out of the town's total population of 185,000 -- as significant.

"This doesn't mean that the rise is entirely explained by the orgies... but it's probable that part of the rise has been caused by them," Marco Ter Harmsel, of Grongingen's municipal health service, told the Dutch newspaper DRC.

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Sotto Voce

China May Ban Catholics From 2008 Olympics

China's Ministry of Public Security has issued a directive listing 43 categories of 'unwanteds' who are to be investigated and may be barred from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Falun Dafa Information Centre reports.

The banned groups will include members of religious groups not sanctioned by the state, including the underground Catholic and other Christian churches; "key individuals in ideological fields," "counter-revolutionary" figures, the Dalai Lama and all affiliates, "individuals who instigate discontentment toward the Chinese Communist Party through the Internet," and certain types of "handicapped" persons.

Members of the indigenous religious group Falun Gong would be barred, as would "family members of deceased persons" killed in "riots" -- a euphemism for events such as the Tiananmen Massacre -- and Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province, which the regime brands "national separatists."

Foreign athletes, members of the media, Olympic staff members, referees, sponsors, dignitaries, and the International Olympic Committee itself, will all be investigated, to determine whether they fall into any of the 43 categories.

According to AsiaNews, up to 50 Roman Catholic bishops and priests are in prison or otherwise prevented from carrying out their ministry in China.

In theory Chinese law guarantees a degree of religious freedom, but the Communist government forbids all worship outside state-backed "patriotic" religious groups which it effectively controls.

China broke links with the Vatican soon after the Communists took sole control of the country.

During the 1950's the government expelled foreign clergy and established its own state approved "Catholic church", the China Patriotic Catholic Association, which pledges loyalty to Beijing rather than the Pope.

Despite continual harassment and arrest of its priests and members, the Roman Catholic Church in China claims an estimated eight million worshippers, double the total for the government approved body.

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Disclaimer

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The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.

Sotto Voce

Genoa's Mayor, Archbishop Headed For Clash On Abortion?

Genoa's Mayor Marta Vincenzi has threatened legal action against a hospital that has stopped providing abortion services.

In a letter to the Galliera Hospital, which ended abortions two months ago, the mayor said that health-care institutions have an obligation to provide legal services.

The head of the hospital’s administrative council is Genoa's Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, the president of the Italian Bishops Conference.

The hospital’s statutes indicate that the Archbishop of Genoa is to head the institution.

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The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.

Sotto Voce

Presbyterian Gets Top Catholic Church Post

The Catholic Church in Ireland has appointed a Presbyterian as the head of its child protection unit.

Ian Elliot, Director of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in Belfast, is to become the first Chief Executive of the Church's National Board for Child Protection.

When he takes up his duties in a month's time, he will have completed two years on secondment to Northern Ireland's civil service where he has led a major reform programme for child protection services.

Church sources say he is the first non-Catholic to be appointed to such a senior post in Irish Catholicism.

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The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.

Sotto Voce

British Catholic Schools Targetted For Refusing to Implement School “Anti-Homophobic” Bullying Policies

Catholic schools in Britain are under attack by the government at the urging of homosexual lobbyists for refusing to bow to pressure to implement “anti-homophobic” bullying policies in schools.

A report by a Commons Select Committee to the Department for Education and Skills singles out Catholic schools for refusing to implement regulations.

Education Secretary Alan Johnson told gay activists that the government is preparing guidelines for schools to address what was identified in the report as “faith-based” homophobic bullying.

At a meeting with Stonewall, the gay lobby group that brought about the notorious Sexual Orientation Regulations passed earlier this year, Johnson told activists that he hopes to make a presentation at the group’s upcoming conference in July.

The report, published March 27, recommends that the Department“introduces a requirement for schools to record all incidents of bullying along with information about the type of bullying incident.” The British government is explicitly collaborating with the homosexual movement in aiming at the Catholic Church’s stand against sexual immorality.

In preparation for the report that will inform the guidelines, the Department of Skills and Education commissioned research from Stonewall into “faith-based” bullying in schools. In a committee hearing, Jim Knight, Minister of State for Schools accused the Catholic Church of “faith-based bullying”.

“Whatever the setting,” Knight said, “whatever the ethos, whoever the external partner to a school might be, school might be, if they have got one, be it the Catholic Church or anybody else. We should not tolerate bullying in any from, we should not tolerate people not respecting the difference that people have and I think that applies to homophobic bullying.”

The bullying issue is being used openly as a wedge issue to attack Catholic and other faith-based institutions.

Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) says, “Such is the level of homophobia in the Catholic Church that its schools should be taken from it and returned to the community sector.”

GALHA's secretary George Broadhead said, “We've seen homophobia in Catholic circles rising at a terrifying rate over the past few months. The Pope is almost hysterical on the topic and the British Catholic hierarchy is constantly agitating to retard gay rights. What chance have gay pupils got in schools which are run by an organisation that hates them?”

“For the sake of these children and for the community at large which should be protected from the promotion of bigotry in schools, the Catholic Church should be stripped of its educational establishments.”

Stonewall is the UK’s most successful homosexual lobby group, having hosted Prime Minister Tony Blair at its victory banquet after the passage of the SOR’s.

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Disclaimer

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The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.

Sotto Voce

Latin American Catholic Bishops Vow to Stem Exodus to Evangelical Churches

Roman Catholic bishops from Mexico to Chile pledged Wednesday to reach out to the faithful in a bid to stem the exodus in Latin America to evangelical churches, a main theme of Pope Benedict XVI's recent visit to the region.

Closing a three-week meeting of Latin American bishops, Catholic leaders said their biggest mission is to hold on to church members as droves leave to become evangelical Protestants.

Church leaders and priests need to "get up and go out, and not wait around in their parishes" for the faithful to come to them, said Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy and Sao Paulo's former archbishop.

Hummes said the church will not engage in a war of faith or get involved in conflicts with Protestant congregations, but will embark on a "continentwide, great evangelical mission" to reach out to the faithful, especially in the sprawling slums of Latin America's cities where Protestants have been particularly effective in attracting converts.

The bishops, however, did not give specifics on how they would go about reinvigorating the church. They prepared a 200-page report summing up their findings, and its contents will be disclosed only after it is reviewed by Benedict, probably in June.Benedict opened the bishops' meeting on May 13 at the tail end of a five-day visit to Brazil, the world's largest Roman Catholic country.

The pope acknowledged that the church, still the dominant faith in the region, is rapidly losing ground to evangelical Protestant churches who have been successful at attracting poor Latin Americans to their ranks in recent decades.

He also urged bishops to mold a new generation of leaders, saying Latin America needs more dedicated Catholics at high levels in government, the media and at universities.

Nearly half the world's 1 billion Catholics live in Latin America, but Pentecostal churches are enjoying explosive growth, promising divine intervention to lift parishioners from lives of misery in a region where the divide between rich and poor is among the worst on the planet.

Brazil's census shows the percentage of citizens characterizing themselves as Catholics plunged from 89 percent in 1980 to 74 percent in 2000, while those calling themselves evangelical Protestants rose from 7 percent to 15 percent.

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Sotto Voce

Green Bomber Militias Threaten Zimbabwe Catholics: Ncube

Bulawayo Archbishop Pius Ncube says that Government-backed "Green Bomber" militias are seeking to intimidate voters ahead of Zimbabwe elections next year with Catholics around the country also facing threats.

Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, a long time critic of Mugabe's government, said that the attacks by the militias were part of a strategy of intimidation ahead of next year's presidential and parliamentary elections, IRIN reports.

"The Green Bombers (militias from youth training centres) are being used to go around to strike fear in voters so that, come next year, they will be forced to vote ZANU-PF," Ncube said, referring to the governing political party of President Robert Mugabe.

Ncube said members of his church were being harassed throughout the country and recounted a recent incident in the south-western border town of Plumtree where he had prevented ZANU-PF militias from gatecrashing a meeting he was holding with priests in the area.

He said a priest was subsequently arrested in Wedza, Mashonaland Central, for distributing the pastoral letter while members of his congregation were also detained for questioning by state security agents.

In Mashonaland East province, traditionally a ruling party stronghold, parishioners are opting to stay at home rather than attend church after militias threatened them for distributing the pastoral letter.

"They [militias] are accusing us of being members of the MDC [Movement for Democratic Change] and working to topple the government. "It's no longer safe to worship because the militias treat you as enemies," said 55-year-old Fr Tirivafi Haka, who declined to use his real name, a church leader in Murewa, about 90km east of the capital, Harare.

Meanwhile, in Australia, the National Council of Churches National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission (NATSIEC) has added its voice to the call for a free and democratic Zimbabwe after learning of the atrocities perpetrated in the African nation, the Catholic Leader reports.

NATSIEC executive secretary Graeme Mundine said in a statement it was evident that there was a problem with the lack of democratic process in the country."Zimbabwe is also experiencing large scale poverty within the country, which particularly affects our Indigenous brothers and sisters," he said.

NATSIEC has asked its representative to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Peter Smith, to make representations on the issue of Zimbabwe.

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Sotto Voce

Pell Accuses Redfern Catholics Over "Intimidation, Harassment"

With Redfern parish priest Fr Gerry Prindiville taking leave from the troubled inner Sydney parish, Cardinal George Pell has hit out at "sad and shameful attitudes" by parishioners whom he accuses of mounting a "program of intimidation, harassment and disturbance".

Cardinal Pell said that parish members treated their parish like an unruly political branch meeting, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

But parishioners say Cardinal Pell has appointed conservative priests insistent on "imposing an alien and hostile form of religion and liturgical worship" and has ignored their pleas to intervene.

Parishioners have taken their complaints against the priests of the Spanish-based Neocatechumenal Way to the Vatican.

They say the priests have called Aborigines heathens, subjected churchgoers, particularly women, to bullying and verbal abuse, and withheld Holy Communion.

"Ours is a parish that is hurting and Cardinal Pell's failure to hear and respect our concerns is a measure of his lack of pastoral care," said one parishioner, Elisabeth Burke.

Cardinal Pell confirmed that Fr Gerry Prindiville, who had struggled to gain the support of parishioners, has taken leave and been replaced by Fr Clesio do Nascimento Mendes.

Both are missionaries of the Neocatechumenal Way, installed by Cardinal Pell four years ago.

Cardinal Pell told the Herald that parish priests and lay missionary families at Redfern were making progress.

"But as a priest and bishop for 40 years I have never encountered anywhere the level of rudeness and disruption often foisted on worshippers at Mass. Interjectors seem to regard Mass as something like an unruly branch meeting of a political party."Reverence for the sacred appears extinct among the agitators ... These are sad and shameful attitudes," he said.

But parishioners say that they were rebuffed in their offer to reopen communications with the new parish priest.

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Sotto Voce

Abortion Kills "Two Dunblanes A Day": Scottish Cardinal

As the United Kingdom marks 40 years since the 1967 Abortion Act, Edinburgh Cardinal Keith O'Brien has slammed the "pack of lies" behind the law saying that abortion in Scotland now kills the equivalent of two classrooms of children or two Dunblane massacres a day.

The International Herald Tribune reports that Cardinal O'Brien also said yesterday that lawmakers who support Britain's abortion legislation should not take part in Holy Communion or remain full members of the church.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien called on his flock to "boycott" politicians who did not condemn the "unspeakable crime" of abortion. He made the remarks during a sermon in Edinburgh.

"In Scotland, we kill the equivalent of two classrooms of children every day, that's two Dunblanes a day," the cardinal said in reference to the Dunblane elementary school massacre in 1996 when 16 children were murdered by a gunman.

Speaking to politicians he said, "I speak most especially to those who claim to be Catholic. I ask them to examine their consciences and discern if they are playing any part in sustaining this social evil.

Cardinal O'Brien warned Catholic lawmakers not to cooperate because of the barrier "such co-operation erects to receiving Holy Communion."

"I call on you (the faithful) to hold these elected representatives to account," he said. "For those (lawmakers) unwilling to give this support we must be unwilling to give our vote."

The sermon to mark the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act came two days after official figures showed abortion on the increase, from 12,603 in 2005 to 13,081 in 2006.

"In those 40 years the loss of life has been staggering. Around 7 million lives have been ended as a consequence of that one piece of legislation - the scale of the killing is beyond our grasp."

"In Scotland we kill the equivalent of a classroom full of school children every day," Cardinal O'Brien said, according to Catholic News.

He also lamented the way that the 1967 law was presented. "We were told that backstreet abortions were killing women and had to be decriminalised. We were told abortion would only be used in extreme cases. We were told medical scrutiny would be rigorous. We were told a pack of lies and misinformation masquerading as compassion and truth."

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Pope Forgot His Passport

On their recent trip to Brazil, Pope Benedict and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone did not bring their passports, Brazilian newspapers report, resulting in airline Alitalia being fined for allowing undocumented foreigners travel to Brazil.

A respected Brazilian newspaper columnist insists the pope did not have it with him when he landed in Sao Paulo, but high-ranking officials from the Vatican to Brazil's presidential palace aren't commenting, PR Inside reports.

Merval Pereira, who writes for Rio's O Globo newspaper, reported Tuesday that the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, also showed up in Brazil without his passport.

The two were allowed to enter the country, but Pereira said the government found a way to penalise the oversight without causing a stir.

It quietly fined Italian airline Alitalia SpA for allowing the two foreigners to travel without documentation to Brazil.

Pereira did not cite a source for his report, but it came a day after another Brazilian columnist also said the pope arrived in Brazil for his 9-13 May visit without his passport.

On Wednesday, federal police in Sao Paulo who oversee passport control at the airport where the papal plane landed declined comment.

Asked about the case, an officer who would not give her name in keeping with department policy said "that information is secret".

According to Pereira, federal police were not sure what to do after the pope was greeted by Silva and authorities learned that Benedict and Bertone did not have their passports.

The Brazilians settled on fining Alitalia an undisclosed amount, Pereira reported.

The Nuncio formally protested the fine with Brazil's Foreign Ministry, the columnist said.

The foreign ministry on Wednesday said it would not comment.

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The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.

Sotto Voce

Terrorists Sack & Occupy A Convent In Baghdad

Terrorists, believed to be Shiites, yesterday occupied the Convent belonging to the Chaldean Sisters of the Scared Heart in Baghdad. Sources in the capital in contact with the nuns denounced the event to AsiaNews.

The Angel Raphael convent lies in the Mikanik area of the oppressed Dora quarter where for months now a ferocious anti Christian campaign of persecution has been unfolding.

The only two sisters who still lived in there tell that a group of terrorists broke into the building during their absence; on their return they found the convent had been sacked of all its goods and turned into a base for military operations.

According to anonymous sources, in all probability, Shiite militants are behind the attack; as they too join Sunnis in their anti-Christian campaign.

Two days ago a letter signed by the Mahdi Army, linked to the radical leader al Sadr, which imposes the Islamic veil on Christian women in Baghdad.

Today a spokesperson for the group in Najaf, denied all involvement with the message, yet according to priests on the round, the situation is “very worrying”.

Sources maintain that the attack on the convent, “could be in response to the Chaldean, Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly’s condemnation of the attack on the Sunni Abdul Qader Al Dilani mosque”, which took place on May 28th in the capital.

The leader of the Chaldean Church in fact joined the Council of Christian Churches in Iraq in denouncing the episode as an attack against “all Iraq and all Iraqis without exceptions, capable of undermining national unity and fomenting division and discord”.

Security in places of worship and for the Christian community will be at the centre of the Chaldean Churches Synod, which opens its first session today in the northern city of al Qosh.

Tomorrow the Vatican Nuncio, Msgr. Francis Chullikat, is expected in Erbil, in Kurdistan.

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(POSTING 1,900)

Muslim Can Renounce Faith As Set Out By Sharia

“A Muslim can renounce his faith but the way one leaves a religion is set by the religion itself, in this case Sharia law”.

Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim, has stepped into the heated debate which has arisen in the aftermath of the Federal Court ruling on the Lina Joy case.

May 30th, two of three judges, rejected the Christian convert’s appeal, to have the National registrar cancel the word “Islam” from her documents, given she is no longer a Muslim.

The countries highest court has referred the decision to the Islamic Court, whom the Registrar is asking to, declare the woman an apostate in order to modify her documents.

In fact two legislations exist in the country: Islamic and constitutional, which are often conflicting.

In the case of Lina Joy this is evident: the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion; Islamic law punishes conversion to another religion.

Now more than ever the religious minorities ins Malaysia feel threatened and denounce the imposition of the Sharia even in the case of non Muslim citizens.

As reported in the daily newspaper The Star, the Chief Justice strongly supported Federal Court verdict explaining: “To say that she is not under the jurisdiction of the Sharia Court – because she no longer professes Islam – is not appropriate, (in so far as) the way one leaves a religion is set by the religion itself”.

He said a mere statutory declaration that one has renounced Islam is not sufficient to remove the word “Islam” from a Muslim person’s identity card, “This is because apostasy is an issue dealing with Islamic laws”.

Meanwhile Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi today clarified that “no political pressure influenced the Federal Court Judges’ decision, while admitting that the issue of non Muslims and Islamic courts needed to be dealt with, but exclusively by the government.

The Christian community has longed appealed to the authorities to reaffirm the supremacy of the Constitution over Islamic laws.

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Disclaimer

No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.

The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.

Sotto Voce

Chaldean Church Opens Its Synod In Northern Iraq

The Chaldean Church Synod opens today June Ist and will last for an entire week.

The meeting of Iraq’s Church leaders will take place in the Chaldean monastery of al Qosh, near Mosul, Northern Iraq.

The Procurator for the Chaldean Church to the Holy See, Msgr. Philip Najim, has told AsiaNews that “despite security concerns, the Patriarch and bishops chose to hold the synod on national soil to send a strong signal of solidarity to the entire community, to let them know that we are present and that their lives are dear to us”.

The last Synod was instead held in Rome in November 2005.

“The issue of the security of the community, halved by forced emigration, will be at the heart of the Synods’ discussions”, says Msgr. Najim.

According to anonymous sources in Baghdad, particular focus will be given to the problem of “the numerous Christian families forced onto the streets after Islamic extremists expropriated all of their worldly possessions”.

Msgr. Najim also revealed that the future of the Babel College (the only faculty of theology in the country, which has been transferred to the capital of Kurdistan) and the conditions of diocese in Iraq and the entire Middle East will also be discussed.

Bishops of the Chaldean Diaspora will also be present in al Qosh, “they are coming from the United States, Canada, Australia and Lebanon” .Msgr. Francis Chullikat; the Apostolic Nuncio to Iraq will also attend the summit.

On the issue of whether security problems will prevent some prelates from travelling to the North the procurator replies that “when the Patriarch convokes the Synod all bishops are obliged to attend, in accordance with the Cannon Law of Oriental Churches”.

The al Qosh meeting will also be an opportunity to draw world attention to the tragic conditions of Iraq’s Christians, who are being subjected to a veritable campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Yesterday in Stockholm, Sweden where a large community of the Iraqi Chaldean Diaspora resides, over 1000 people took part in a demonstration march through the city centre to Parliament, carrying banners “Don’t kill Iraq’s Christians”.

Swedish parliamentarians also took part in the march, launching an appeal for greater protection of Christians in Iraq.

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Disclaimer

No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.

The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.

Sotto Voce