WASHINGTON (CNS) --- As the Senate prepared to open two weeks of debate on immigration reform legislation in mid-May despite lacking a bill around which to shape the discussion, Catholic and other immigration advocates were troubled by some of the proposals they had heard. After no viable bill seemed to be on the horizon despite months of behind-the-scenes negotiation among Senate Democrats, Republicans and the White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said May 11 that he was prepared to reintroduce a bill approved by the Senate last year as a starting point. That bill died at the close of the 109th Congress in December after negotiators failed to reconcile it with a vastly different immigration bill approved by the House. Kevin Appleby, director of migration and refugee policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he is particularly troubled by proposals he has seen for a new immigration bill that would change the basis for preference in immigration from reuniting family members to favoring employment-based visa applications.
Vatican tones down papal remarks on pro-abortion Catholic politicians
SAO PAULO, Brazil (CNS) --- Pope Benedict XVI's comments on excommunication for pro-abortion Catholic politicians touched on huge and sensitive issues --- so sensitive that the Vatican issued a toned-down version of his remarks the following day. Speaking with journalists on the plane taking him to Brazil May 9, the pope left the impression that he agreed with those invoking excommunication for Catholic legislators in Mexico City who had voted in April to legalize abortion. When reporters pressed the pope on whether he supported the excommunication of the Mexican deputies, he answered: "Yes, this excommunication was not something arbitrary, but is foreseen by the Code (of Canon Law). It is simply part of church law that the killing of an innocent baby is incompatible with being in communion with the body of Christ." Referring to Mexican bishops, the pope continued: "Therefore, they did not do anything new, surprising or arbitrary. They only underlined publicly what is foreseen in (canon) law, a law based on the church's doctrine and faith, on our appreciation for life and for human individuality from the first moment." On May 10, the Vatican press office released the official transcript of the pope's 25-minute session with reporters. The pope's opening "yes" to the direct question about excommunication had disappeared, and so had the references to Mexican bishops.
Pope OKs stricter norms for mandatory feast days in church calendar
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- Pope Benedict XVI has approved stricter guidelines for determining which saints will be remembered with mandatory feast days. The General Roman Calendar, the universal schedule of holy days and feast days for the Latin rite of the Catholic Church, is so packed that more selectivity is needed, according to new norms and a commentary published in the official bulletin of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments. The pope determines who makes the universal calendar based on recommendations from the congregation, the commentary said. And, according to the new norms published in the bulletin in mid-May, those recommendations will be more difficult to obtain. "A saint can be inserted in the general calendar because of the significant and universal importance of his or her spiritual message and effectiveness as an example for a broad category of members of the church," said the norms, approved by Pope Benedict in December.
Prayers were louder than the tornado, says Kansas parish secretary
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- When Helen Rule saw the remains of her home after it was torn apart by the May 4 tornado that whipped through Greensburg, Kan., she was more overwhelmed by the fact she had survived than by the actual devastation. "I don't know how I lived through it," she told Catholic News Service May 11 from her cell phone outside a Wal-Mart in a neighboring town. Other than two walls, nothing is standing in Rule's house. Rafters fell into the middle of the living room, which now also contains a large barrel and some neighbors' mailboxes. On the night of the tornado, the 70-year-old secretary at St. Joseph Parish in Greensburg could do nothing but huddle in the hallway. Rule, who uses an oxygen tank, was unable to get to her cellar space when she heard the all too familiar tornado alarm. She has heard reports the tornado touched down for seven minutes, but at the time she said it "seemed like forever." New reports said the twister was more than a mile wide with winds exceeding 200 mph. About 95 percent of the town was destroyed, including St. Joseph Church.
Rev. Jerry Falwell dies; founded Moral Majority, led religious right
LYNCHBURG, Va. (CNS) --- The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the Baptist preacher who founded the Moral Majority and Liberty University and led the religious-political conservative movement known in the 1970s and '80s as the New Right, died May 15 at age 73. Rev. Falwell, who had a history of heart problems, collapsed in his office at the university and was rushed to Lynchburg General Hospital, where efforts to revive him failed. Ordained a Baptist minister in 1956, he founded the Thomas Road Baptist Church in his hometown. He almost immediately started a half-hour radio broadcast, which grew by 1971 into a national television show with an audience estimated in the millions. In 1979 he formed the Moral Majority to reverse what he and many others saw as a growing immorality in American life, politics and public policy. The New Right or Religious Right, as it was also dubbed, was a loose coalition of conservatives, Catholic pro-family groups and fundamentalist evangelicals largely united around opposition to such things as abortion, pornography, homosexuality, the Equal Rights Amendment, gun control, sex education and the ban on school prayer, and around support for family values, strong national defense and arms superiority over the Soviet Union. Many of those who shared some or all of Rev. Falwell's political views did not share his religious fundamentalism. His political influence peaked in the late 1980s, but he remained a notable public figure until his death.
Sainthood congregation recommends Pope Pius XII be named venerable
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- Members of the Congregation for Saints' Causes met May 8 to consider the cause of Pope Pius XII and apparently voted to recommend that Pope Benedict XVI formally declare him venerable. Passionist Father Ciro Benedettini, vice director of the Vatican press office, confirmed the congregation had met, but since the result of the vote still had to be presented to the pope he would not say May 9 what the result was. However, Jesuit Father Peter Gumpel, who has spent years officially shepherding the cause through its various stages, told Catholic News Service May 11 that the vote was "unanimous and totally positive." Father Gumpel said 13 cardinals and archbishops took part in the May 8 discussion and urged the pope to declare that Pope Pius heroically lived the Christian virtues. The German Jesuit said he confirmed the result with four congregation members and "it is absolutely false that some cardinals had asked for a delay." |