Archdiocesan office urges care in Immigration Department raids
LOS ANGELES --- Decrying the spreading of fear in the immigrant community by Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that target alleged immigrant criminals, the archdiocesan Office of Justice and Peace's Justice for Immigrants Task Force issued a statement Oct. 15 asking that care be exercised "so that these raids do not include law-abiding, peaceful immigrants."
The complete statement:
"As we journey in hope together as a Catholic Church of U.S. citizens, residents, and recently-arrived immigrants, we face challenges together with the love and faith that bind us together as one family in Christ.
"Recent operations by the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Los Angeles region, while targeting immigrants charged with crimes and/or involved in criminal gang activity, have served to intensify and spread an atmosphere of fear among our immigrant community, and have given rise in some media to the false impression that, as a whole, immigrants are a threat to our society.
"Immigrants from all corners of the world, many of whom have families with U.S. citizen children, are invested daily in hard, honest work to provide for themselves and their loved ones and to contribute to our American life, economy, and culture. Yet these, our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, are deportable according to current immigration law if their sole infraction is not to have obtained legal authorization to work in the U.S.
"We recognize the need for ICE to apprehend those who are a threat to society, but ask that care be exercised so that these raids do not include law-abiding, peaceful immigrants. We stand in solidarity with the overwhelming majority of immigrants who are law-abiding and in these trying times continue to give the best of themselves to support their families and communities."
Pope completes second encyclical, meditation on Christian hope
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- Pope Benedict XVI has completed his second encyclical, a meditation on Christian hope, Vatican sources said. The text, tentatively titled "Spe Salvi" ("Saved by Hope"), is about 65 pages, sources said Oct. 16. No release date has been set for the document.
The working title comes from St. Paul's letter to the Romans, in which he wrote: "For in hope we have been saved." The encyclical is said to explore the Christian understanding of hope, with reference to modern philosophy and the challenges of disbelief. The pope worked on the encyclical this summer, when he had time to write during his sojourns in northern Italy and at his villa outside Rome. At the same time, he was working on a third encyclical that deals with social themes, Vatican officials said.
The pope published his first encyclical in late 2006. Titled "Deus Caritas Est" ("God Is Love"), it called for a deeper understanding of love as a gift from God to be shared in a self-sacrificial way. The pope spoke about the importance of the virtue of hope in 2005, when he addressed Mexican bishops on their "ad limina" visits to Rome.
"Confronted by today's changing and complex panorama, the virtue of hope is subject to harsh trials in the community of believers. For this very reason, we must be apostles who are filled with hope and joyful trust in God's promises," the pope told the bishops.
In introducing a section on hope, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit."
Gabriel Awards to honor founder of Walden Media
HOLLYWOOD --- The 42nd annual Gabriel Awards, honoring media programming that provides insight into the human spirit, will be presented in more than 40 categories of radio, television and film production Oct. 26 at the Directors Guild of America.
The Gabriels are sponsored by the Catholic Academy for Communication Arts Professionals whose members are media professionals working in the Catholic community.
The Gabriel Personal Achievement Award, presented to individuals whose work and careers have provided outstanding leadership in promoting the ideals of the Gabriel Awards to the broadcasting community, will go to Micheal Flaherty, founder and president of Walden Media, producers of the "Chronicles of Narnia" films. The Gabriel Personal Achievement award is sponsored by Family Theater Productions and presented by the Catholic Academy.
Catherine Hicks, co-star of television's "7th Heaven," is the co-host for the ceremony. For additional information contact Sue West at the Catholic Academy, admin@catholicacademy.org or (937) 458-0265, or Father Ron Schmidt at schmidt.re@gmail.com.
Catholic, Orthodox finish work on document on church authority
RAVENNA, Italy (CNS) --- Despite the absence of Russian Orthodox representatives, the international Catholic-Orthodox theological commission finished work on a document about church structure and authority. In a statement issued at the end of the Oct. 8-14 meeting in Ravenna, the commission said it had completed work on its document, "The Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences of the Sacramental Nature of the Church: Ecclesial Communion, Conciliarity and Authority in the Church." The document is expected to be published before the end of 2007, a participant told Catholic News Service. It examines the biblical foundations for seeing the church as a sacramental presence in the world and how responsibility and authority are exercised on the local, regional and universal levels. The commission's Oct. 14 press statement said the next phase of the dialogue would focus on "the role of the bishop of Rome in the communion of the church in the first millennium."
Speakers: Infertile couples have options other than hi-tech measures
ROME (CNS) --- Married couples seeking help in overcoming infertility or recurrent miscarriages should know that there are less invasive and possibly more effective methods than assisted reproductive technologies, said a number of participants at a Rome conference on fertility. Costly methods such as in vitro fertilization and other high-tech reproductive technologies are not the only option out there even for non-Catholic couples desperate to have a child, they said. Some 13 specialists in gynecology, obstetrics, moral theology and bioethics spoke at an Oct. 12 conference titled "Fertility: Catholic Vision," sponsored by Rome's San Carlo General Hospital and the Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University's bioethics department. Many people mistakenly think just because the church does not condone artificial reproduction --- methods that bring about reproduction outside the marital act --- that it does little to help couples coping with infertility, said Dr. Mariavita Ciccarone, head of San Carlo's center for the study and prevention of infertility. But many Catholic doctors and institutes are at the forefront of offering ways to combat the underlying causes of infertility, making it "possible for couples to (improve) fertility in Catholic clinics and have results," she told Catholic News Service.
Vatican suspends priest after hidden camera films sexual advances
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- The Vatican suspended an official from his job and opened an investigation after the priest was secretly filmed making advances to a young man. The official, Msgr. Tommaso Stenico, insisted that he was not gay. In a statement Oct. 14, he said he was only pretending to be homosexual in order to research a suspected gay campaign against priests. Msgr. Stenico, 60, is one of three section chiefs at the Congregation for Clergy. He is the host of a catechetical TV program, has written many religious books and has his own Web site. The scandal erupted in early October when the Italian network La7 broadcast a program on gay priests. One segment, filmed through a hidden camera, showed an appointment between a Vatican monsignor and a young man, in which the priest leads the young man to his Vatican office and implies that he doesn't think homosexual acts are sinful. |