Vatican official hopes new amniotic stem-cell research proves correct
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- The Vatican's top health care official expressed hope that U.S. researchers would be proven correct in asserting they could obtain medically useful stem cells from amniotic fluid. Mexican Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, told Vatican Radio Jan. 8 there would be no ethical problem with using cells from amniotic fluid as long as the procedure did not place the pregnant woman or her baby in danger. "The ethical problem" with stem-cell research, he said, always has surrounded cells obtained by destroying human embryos. In a study reported Jan. 7, scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston said the amniotic fluid surrounding a child in the womb can be the source of medically useful stem cells. The U.S. research, Cardinal Lozano told the Italian newspaper La Stampa, "is a discovery for which we can rejoice. I congratulate the researchers who have demonstrated how it is possible to make medical progress without damaging embryos."

Maryknoll Productions premieres documentary on human trafficking
MARYKNOLL, N.Y. --- A new documentary looks at the underbelly of illegal immigration, including the black-market trade in human beings. "Lives for Sale" premieres on PBS stations in January 2007. Check local listings for airdates. The documentary's executive producer, Maryknoll's Larry Rich, says the production hits at the heart of the current immigration debate. "The same grinding poverty that drives people to risk dying of thirst in the desert in search of a job in the U.S. is the reason people will expose themselves to the danger of being enslaved," he said. "Both are born of desperation."

Each year more than one million people risk their lives attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in search of a better life and to escape devastating poverty. "Lives for Sale" juxtaposes the "American Dream" with the perilous journey followed each year by desperately poor Central Americans and Mexicans. Women are especially vulnerable to a black market that preys on human beings. According to Rich, human trafficking is now the third largest illegal industry on the planet, after drugs and arms smuggling. To see an excerpt, visit www.livesforsale.com.

Catholics, evangelicals discuss nature of authority
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- The U.S. Evangelical-Catholic Dialogue studied the nature of authority, especially in Scripture, at a three-day meeting last October in St. Paul, Minn. Father Michael J. Keating, a professor of Catholic studies at the University of St. Thomas, which hosted the meeting, and Dennis W. Jowers, a theology professor at Faith Seminary in Tacoma, Wash., presented major papers on the topic from Catholic and evangelical perspectives. A press release reporting on the meeting was issued Jan. 4 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington. In his presentation Father Keating focused on the idea of development of a historically based religion and discussed development in Scripture itself and in early Christianity. Jowers focused on the doctrine of the formal and material sufficiency of Scripture, the teaching that all things necessary for life and salvation are taught in the Bible.

Warsaw archbishop's resignation prompts Vatican embarrassment, relief
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- The resignation of Polish Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus of Warsaw has prompted embarrassment and disappointment in the Vatican, along with a sense of relief that Pope Benedict XVI did not allow the awkward drama to continue a single day longer. In an official statement, the Vatican praised the "humility" of Archbishop Wielgus, who resigned Jan. 7, two days after admitting he had once cooperated with the secret police of Poland's former communist regime. Privately, however, several Vatican officials expressed irritation that the archbishop had apparently not been fully frank about his past from the beginning. They also questioned how the Vatican's normally exhaustive vetting process broke down in one of Eastern Europe's most important episcopal appointments. "When Msgr. Wielgus was nominated, we knew nothing about his collaboration with the secret police," Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops, bluntly told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. On Jan. 8, Father Janusz Bielanski resigned as rector of Krakow's Wawel Cathedral, the burial place of Poland's kings and queens and a landmark of church history. Father Bielanski also had been accused of cooperation with communist-era secret police. Meanwhile, a former aide to Pope John Paul II, Polish Father Adam Boniecki, said whoever had "disinformed" Pope Benedict about Archbishop Wielgus should suffer consequences. In December, the Vatican press office said Pope Benedict had shown "full confidence" in the new Warsaw archbishop, after Vatican officials took "account of all his life circumstances, including those connected with his past."

Bishop says more U.S. strikes on Somalia would make things worse
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- While he has said for years that terrorists were hiding out in Somalia, the apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Mogadishu said more U.S. airstrikes would only make things worse. Bishop Giorgio Bertin of Djibouti, who also oversees the church in Somalia's chaotic and violent capital, spoke to the Vatican's Fides news agency Jan. 9, the day after a U.S. Air Force gunship fired on suspected al-Qaida terrorists in southern Somalia. "Prudence must guide all human activities, and it is even more important when taking action in a country like Somalia," Bishop Bertin said. "This act risks throwing more fuel on an already explosive situation." The bishop added, "I do not think this attack reinforces the support of Somalia's population for the fragile government of transition and for Ethiopia," which helped the transitional government regain control of the country in late December and early January. A Pentagon official told The New York Times late Jan. 8 that a U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship operating from a base in Djibouti fired on suspected al-Qaida terrorists in southern Somalia, causing multiple casualties.

Denver Archdiocese settles 15 abuse cases for close to $1.6 million
DENVER (CNS) --- The Judicial Arbiter Group said Jan. 4 that the Denver Archdiocese has reached a mediated settlement with 15 of 19 victims of childhood clergy sex abuse who participated in the mediation process. Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said he was "deeply grateful" to the mediators "and I sincerely hope that each of the 19 individuals who participated begin to truly heal." The settlements ranged from $30,000 to $150,000 and totaled $1,585,000, the Judicial Arbiter Group said in a press release. Archbishop Chaput said in addition that "we have settled claims of three other individuals who approached us directly and who did not file a lawsuit to have their claims considered." He did not reveal the amount of those settlements. He said that in the mediation process "I made myself available personally to listen to each person who desired my presence as they described the incidents that led to the filing of their lawsuits. Through this process I personally met with 18 plaintiffs."

English cardinal calls for revival of traditional practices of piety
LONDON (CNS) --- Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor of Westminster, England, called for the revival of the traditional Catholic practices of piety. Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said he lamented the decrease in acts of piety such as fasting, abstinence, Stations of the Cross, praying the rosary and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament because they are a "good means of deepening our faith." The cardinal said the acts, as well as confession, which is also in decline, were "truly part of Catholic tradition and devotion and are a nourishment to our faith, and I would encourage them," he said in a letter read at Masses Jan. 7 in the Archdiocese of Westminster. He said there are many other ways in which Catholics "can develop those practices which are truly rooted in Catholic tradition" and bring them closer to Jesus.

Collection for church in Latin America takes place Jan. 27-28
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- "Forming Disciples, Building One Church" is the theme of the 2007 national Catholic collection for the church in Latin America. In most U.S. dioceses the collection will be taken up at parish Masses the weekend of Jan. 27-28. The collection "enables the local Catholic churches throughout Latin America and the Caribbean to support the formation of disciples of Jesus Christ across generations, cultures and vocations," said Auxiliary Bishop Jaime Soto of Orange, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on the Church in Latin America. Last year U.S. Catholics donated $6.5 million to the collection, and the bishops' Secretariat for the Church in Latin America oversaw the distribution of $7 million to 485 projects. Msgr. Carlos Quintana Puente, executive director of the secretariat, said one project in 2006 was a continent-wide grant of $250,000 to the Latin American bishops' council, CELAM, to help fund preparations for the fifth-year assembly of Latin American bishops coming up this May.

Man arrested on arson charge after two-alarm blaze inside church
RICHMOND, Calif. (CNS) --- A man was arrested after setting an altar ablaze Jan. 5 at St. Cornelius Church in Richmond in the Oakland Diocese and telling a choir rehearsing there at the time that he would burn down the church. Police arrested Robert Mills, 40, of San Pablo. He was being held on suspicion of arson, said Richmond police Sgt. Shawn Pickett. Police said Mills has a history of violent criminal activity. After the fire was set, parishioners followed Mills to a park, where he jumped a fence into an apartment yard and was apprehended by police. The church, across the street from Richmond's City Hall, suffered minor fire damage and heavy smoke damage in what developed into a two-alarm blaze, a Richmond Fire Department spokesman said. Firefighters had the flames under control within 17 minutes of the second alarm.

Pope calls deceased Congolese cardinal 'eminent son of Africa'
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- Congolese Cardinal Frederic Etsou-Nzabi-Bamungwabi of Kinshasa, who died Jan. 6 of pneumonia in a Belgian hospital, was an "eminent son of Africa" who devoted his life to preaching the Gospel and serving the African people, Pope Benedict XVI said. The cardinal, 76, had been hospitalized for complications related to diabetes. Pope Benedict sent telegrams of condolence to the Catholics of Kinshasa and to the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to which the cardinal had belonged. Cardinal Etsou-Nzabi-Bamungwabi was known as a leading voice for reconciliation in his own war-torn nation, the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, and throughout Africa's Great Lakes region. A memorial Mass for Cardinal Etsou-Nzabi-Bamungwabi was scheduled for Jan. 9 in Brussels, Belgium. His body was to be flown to Kinshasa Jan. 11 where a memorial Mass was scheduled for Jan. 14 with the funeral Mass and burial to follow Jan. 15.