Pandemic declared
Students at St. Gabriel’s College school
in Bangkok, Thailand, leave the school June 11 after five students
were confirmed as having the H1N1 flu virus. The World Health Organization
that same day declared the global outbreak of the virus a pandemic,
the first in 41 years.
CNS PHOTO/VORAPOJ SHINGHA/UCAN
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Ambassador to Mexico
Cuban-born U.S. diplomat Carlos Pascual has
been nominated as ambassador to Mexico. Pascual, a 1976 graduate of
Bishop Amat High School in La Puente, CA, is vice president and director
of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Pascual
holds a BA from Stanford University and a master of public policy
degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
CNS PHOTO/THE TIDINGS |
Priest, seminarians shot dead
en route to retreat
MEXICO CITY (CNS) — A Mexican priest and two seminarians were shot
dead June 13 while traveling to a religious retreat. They were passing
through Ciudad Altamirano, in a region of Guerrero state that has been
rife with social conflicts and, in recent years, drug-cartel violence.
The slayings continued a trend of Catholic officials working in remote
areas inadvertently being engulfed in Mexico’s ongoing war on drug
cartels — a crackdown that has resulted in more than 10,000 deaths
since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006.
Guerrero judicial officials did not immediately release any information
on the crimes that claimed the lives of Father Habacuc Hernandez Benitez
and seminarians Eduardo Oregon Benitez and Silvestre Gonzalez Cambron.
Media reports said the men were shot in the back with high-caliber weapons
commonly used by cartel henchmen.
Bishops call for migration summit
TECUN UMAN, Guatemala (CNS) — Bishops from the U.S., Canada, Mexico
and Central America called on their governments to convene a regional
summit to assess the causes of migration and to work out a regional plan
for cooperation on migration and development. The bishops’ statement
described the combination of political opportunities created by the change
in the White House and urgency fed by the global economic crisis and the
increased role of organized crime in human trafficking.
Cardinal decries death at Holocaust museum
WASHINGTON (CNS) — The president of the U.S. bishops’ conference
called the June 10 shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum that
left a security guard dead “appalling.” James von Brunn, identified
as an 88-year-old Holocaust denier and white supremacist, opened fire
in the Washington museum and fatally shot guard Stephen Johns, 39.
The shooting “was a deplorable act of violence and a violation of
a hallowed space in our nation’s capital,” said Cardinal Francis
E. George of Chicago in a statement released June 11 by the U.S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops in Washington. “This tragic incident only serves
to reinforce the need for continued education throughout society against
bias of every kind, but most especially racial and religious prejudice,”
he said.
Late Iraqi archbishop honored with peace award
NEW YORK (CNS) — Chaldean Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, of Mosul,
Iraq, was honored posthumously with the 2009 Path to Peace Award in New
York. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, apostolic nuncio to the United Nations
and president of the Path to Peace Foundation, presented the award. The
foundation was established to support the work of the Vatican’s
mission to the United Nations.
Archbishop Rahho pushed for tolerance among Iraqis following the start
of the Iraq War. He was kidnapped and killed after a prayer service in
2008
Church protests tax on non-Muslims
BANGALORE, India, (CNS) — Church officials in Pakistan are opposing
a tax being imposed on minority Christians, Hindus and Sikhs under the
influence of Islamic militants in parts of troubled North-West Frontier
province bordering Afghanistan.
A statement signed by Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha of Lahore, president
of the Pakistan Catholic Bishops Conference, condemned the imposition
of “jazia,” or Islamic tax, on 700 non-Muslim families who
are being forced to pay 1,000 rupees ($12.50) per person annually in the
impoverished mountain region where they have been living for decades.
“We demand that the government should make a clear stand that Pakistan
(is) a democratic country which could not allow such discrimination and
economic injustices to the religious minorities who are equal citizens
and not a conquered people,” the statement said.
Excommunication for former Zambian priest
LUSAKA, Zambia (CNS) — A former Catholic priest from Zambia who
is an advocate of optional celibacy for clergy and the ordination of women
has been excommunicated from the Catholic Church. Bishop George Lungu
of Chipata, president of the Zambia Episcopal Conference, announced the
excommunication of Father Luciano Anzanga Mbewe June 9.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith took the
action because Father Mbewe entered into schism for establishing the Catholic
Apostolic National Church of Zambia.
Pro-life leaders lament abortionist’s murder
WASHINGTON (CNS) — There is growing concern that the May 31 murder
of a Kansas abortion doctor in his church may tarnish the image of the
pro-life movement, at a time when it appears a slight majority of Americans
have embraced the cause. Leaders in several pro-life organizations also
said public proclamations that the doctor who performed late-term abortions
“got what he deserved” and “reaped what he sowed”
by people who “claim to be pro-life” advocates don’t
help the movement.
Dr. George Tiller, 67, of Wichita, Kan., was fatally shot while serving
as an usher at the city’s Reformation Lutheran Church during Sunday
morning services. Pro-life groups and the U.S. Catholic bishops quickly
denounced the murder, saying that such violence is contrary to their respect
for all life, from conception to natural death.
Prayers at cathedral for airline crash victims
PARIS (CNS) — Families and friends of the 228 victims of Air France
Flight 447 processed into Notre Dame Cathedral carrying candles in memory
of those who lost their lives in the Atlantic Ocean. Paris Cardinal Andre
Vingt-Trois led an interfaith gathering that included Orthodox, Protestant,
Jewish and Muslim officials. The June 3 service was organized by the Archdiocese
of Paris and Air France. Among those in attendance were French President
Nicolas Sarkozy and former President Jacques Chirac.
At a similar interfaith service at Candelaria Church in Rio de Janeiro
June 4, Brazilians prayed for the victims during a June 4 interfaith service.
Rio’s Auxiliary Bishop Antonio Dias Duarte and representatives of
seven other religious denominations were at the service, which approximately
500 family members and friends of victims attended.
Earlier, Pope Benedict XVI sent his condolences and apostolic blessing
to the families of passengers and all those affected when the flight,
en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, disappeared from the radar between
the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha and Cape Verde Islands, off
the African coast, May 31.”
Bishop asks Nigeria parties to stop fighting
LAGOS, Nigeria (CNS) — Bishop Gabriel Dunia of Auchi, Nigeria, has
asked warring parties in the Niger Delta to put aside their weapons and
allow peace to return to the region. The bishop’s June 9 appeal
came on the heels of a report that Nigerian soldiers had uncovered two
graves containing the bodies of 12 Nigerian troops who had been missing
for nearly a month.
Bomb threats on Church institutions in Pakistan
LAHORE, Pakistan (CNS) — A Catholic Church center in Pakistan’s
cosmopolitan eastern city of Lahore has been threatened with a suicide
bomb attack, one of a series of intimidating messages given to Christians
as the country’s security crisis worsens. The threat was delivered
June 10 to a Christian woman who lives next to Rabita Manzil, National
Catholic Center for Social Communications. The center includes the offices
of the Workshop Audio Visual Education studio, Radio Veritas Asia’s
Urdu service and the UCA News.
Christians have received similar threats in other parts of the country
as fighting between government troops and Taliban militants continues.
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