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Pope
visits Czech Republic
Pope Benedict XVI shakes hands with Czech President Vaclav Klaus after
the pope celebrated an outdoor Mass in Stara Boleslav, Czech Republic,
Sept. 28. Sept. 28, the feast of St. Wenceslas, the patron saint of
the country.
CNS PHOTO/MAX ROSSI/REUTERS |
Muslims pray at Capitol
Nearly 3,000 Muslims from around the United States gather outside
the U.S. Capitol Sept. 25 for “jummah,” a congregational
prayer held on Fridays. Christian evangelists both during and after
the event chanted slogans and used large banners urging the Muslims
to accept Christ as their savior.
CNS PHOTO/DANIEL SONE
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Kennedy replacement is grandnephew
of cardinal
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Paul Kirk, a longtime confidant of the late Sen.
Edward Kennedy who will fill Kennedy’s seat in the Senate until
a January special election, is the grandnephew of Boston’s first
cardinal, Cardinal William O’Connell. Gov. Deval Patrick Sept. 24
signed fast-tracked legislation that allowed him to fill the post on an
interim basis and announced his appointment of Kirk. He was sworn into
the Senate the next day by Vice President Joe Biden.
Kirk said he does not intend to run in the January race. He is currently
the chairman of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.
Viet officials use force on protesting Catholics
HUE, Vietnam (CNS) — Government authorities in central Vietnam are
building a wall around a former parish-run catechetical building, and
police have used force to prevent hundreds of Catholic protesters from
reaching the site. Around 400 parishioners tried to stop the construction
around Lang Co elementary school, near Loan Ly church in Thua Thien-Hue
province’s Phu Loc district. Police and security officers hit them
and dragged them out of the school compound. Police also blocked the road
outside the church and other paths leading to the school building.
Father Paul Ngo Thanh Son, pastor of Loan Ly parish, said local Catholics
built the three-room school building in 1956. The parish used it for basic
education and catechesis of local children. In 1975, when the country
was reunified under communist rule, the government confiscated the building
and used it as an elementary school on weekdays but allowed the parish
to continue teaching catechism there to children on Sundays.
Father Son said that on Sept. 9 and again Sept. 12, local officials asked
the parish to stop catechism classes. They prevented children from attending
the classes Sept. 13, when the parish started a new catechism course.
Rooms were locked and plainclothes police officers videotaped and took
photos of students, he said.
K of C leader named to Vatican bank panel
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The head of the Knights of Columbus has been
named by Pope Benedict XVI to a five-member council that supervises the
activities of the Vatican bank. Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson, who heads
the 1.7 million-member fraternal organization, was among three new council
members announced by the Vatican.
The pope also named a new president of the council, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi,
an Italian banker and a professor of financial ethics at the Catholic
University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, and a new vice president, Renaldo
Hermann Schmitz, a retired German business manager.
The Vatican bank, known formally as the Institute for the Works of Religion,
was established in 1942 and is used by Vatican agencies, church organizations,
bishops and religious orders around the world. It offers currency exchange
services and interest-bearing accounts and, like all banks, has an investment
portfolio.
Bishops urge health reform for all immigrants
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Though Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville
Centre, N.Y., concedes there’s no political will in Washington to
include undocumented immigrants in health care reform, he believes it’s
the country’s moral obligation to ensure that everyone in the nation
receives proper medical care.
“I agree that there is a special problem with those who have entered
here without the permission of the United States, and that has to be looked
at,” said Bishop Murphy, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development. “But
that’s a problem unto itself.”
Most U.S. bishops who have spoken publicly about health care reform have
said that one of the richest countries in the world should find a way
to guarantee that everyone within its borders has access to medical care.
Oregon Catholics seek end to death penalty
PORTLAND, Ore. (CNS) — The drive to repeal the death penalty in
Oregon has gained vigor, with Catholics in key roles. “We need to
share our Catholic teaching with courage and clarity,” said a memorandum
sent to parishes recently by Mary Jo Tully, chancellor of the Archdiocese
of Portland.
Tully has joined other lay Catholics on the board of Oregonians for Alternatives
to the Death Penalty. With statements from the catechism, Pope John Paul
II, the U.S. bishops and most recently Portland Archbishop John G. Vlazny,
Oregon Catholics are being urged to oppose execution as an affront to
the sanctity of life as well as an ineffective and expensive public policy.
Notre Dame leader forms pro-life panel
WASHINGTON (CNS) — With President Barack Obama’s controversial
May commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame several months
past, the president of the Indiana school has forged ahead with plans
for a national discussion on abortion.
Holy Cross Father John I. Jenkins has announced the formation of a task
force “on supporting the choice for life,” and he has pledged
to lead a Mass for life in Washington this coming Jan. 22, the anniversary
of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized
abortion nationwide. This Mass for life would also coincide with the annual
March for Life in Washington.
Father Jenkins’ decision to invite Obama to deliver the commencement
speech and present him with an honorary law degree set off a firestorm
of criticism by at least 70 U.S. bishops, and ignited a national debate
on the university’s status as a Catholic institution.
Critics of Obama said his support of legal abortion and embryonic stem-cell
research made him an inappropriate choice to be commencement speaker at
a Catholic university. Father Jenkins’ supporters countered that
Notre Dame was not condoning Obama’s support for legal abortion
or embryonic stem-cell research, and that students at the university should
be honored to have the first black U.S. president speak during their graduation.
Sudanese bishop seeks help to stop guerrillas
LONDON (CNS) — A Sudanese bishop has appealed for international
help to stop roving bands of guerrillas kidnapping and murdering villagers
in his diocese. Bishop Edward Hiiboro Kussala of Tambura-Yambio, Sudan,
said his government appeared powerless to prevent attacks by members of
the Lord’s Resistance Army, a guerrilla force based in northern
Uganda.
In one case guerrillas stormed into a Catholic church in Ezo and desecrated
the Eucharist, the altar and the building before abducting 17 people,
mostly in their teens and 20s. He said the attack was part of a cycle
of violence that could only be broken with international cooperation.
Pius XII honor sought at Yad Vashem memorial
ROME (CNS) — An effort to add the name of Pope Pius XII to the official
list of people who helped protect Jews during the Holocaust is gathering
steam and is supported by Pope Benedict XVI, the project’s main
promoter said.
Gary Krupp, president of the Pave the Way Foundation, a nonsectarian organization
that seeks to reduce religious conflict, said he had gathered thousands
of documents to support his proposal that the wartime pope be named as
Righteous Among the Nations.
The title is conferred by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem
after a scholarly exam of the life and actions of non-Jews who risked
their lives to hide or in some way rescue Jews from Nazi persecution during
World War II.
Krupp, an American Jew, said he did not know if the unusual idea had a
chance of succeeding. Pope Pius has long been accused of indifference
with regard to the Nazi regime and the plight of European Jews. The Catholic
Church has strenuously defended him, saying that he worked quietly behind
the scenes and was responsible for saving the lives of many Jews.
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