Pope expresses deep sadness over cyclone's destruction in Myanmar
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- Pope Benedict XVI expressed deep sadness and "heartfelt sympathy" after hearing news of "the tragic aftermath" of Cyclone Nargis, which killed tens of thousands in Myanmar. News agencies reported May 6 that more than 22,000 people had been killed and 41,000 were missing after the cyclone's heavy rains and winds of up to 120 mph swept over southern Myanmar May 3. The cyclone damaged at least three major cities, including Yangon, the capital of Myanmar and its largest city. In a telegram sent on behalf of the pope by the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Pope Benedict said he was praying for the victims and their families and called for "divine strength and comfort upon the homeless and all who are suffering." A copy of the telegram, addressed to Archbishop Paul Zinghtung Grawng of Mandalay, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Myanmar, was released by the Vatican May 6. The pope said he was "confident that the international community will respond with generous and effective relief to the needs" of cyclone victims.
Update: Settlement process
LOS ANGELES --- Several parishes of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles have made donations toward assisting in the payment of settlement costs incurred in the financial resolution of the clergy sexual abuse lawsuits against the archdiocese, officials said. The diocese made its payment in December on negotiated settlements announced in December 2006 and July 2007. Catholic News Service reported this week that several high schools of the archdiocese have been put up as collateral to secure loans to help the archdiocese pay its share of the $720 million settlements with victims of clergy sexual abuse. Archdiocesan spokesman Tod Tamberg said the properties helped secure $175 million in loans late in 2007 to pay most of the diocese's portion of the settlements. Daniel Murphy in Los Angeles, scheduled for closure at the end of the school year in June because of declining enrollment, was one of those put up for collateral. None of the others are going to close, Tamberg said. "They are all going to continue to function, as they have for many years, for decades to come."
Experts: Church must address role of Internet in identity, community
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- The Catholic Church and particularly its social teaching must begin to grapple with the potential and the problems posed by the Internet, particularly when dealing with questions about personal identity, community involvement and solidarity, several social scientists said. Members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, meeting at the Vatican May 1-7, explored how solidarity and subsidiarity can come together to promote the common good. As part of their discussion, they looked at the role of the market economy and the state in promoting the exchange of goods, but also at the role played by communities and groups that support people, give them identity and teach them how to contribute to society. For an increasing number of people, computers are the way they connect to the communities where they test and forge their personal identities and where they express their creativity and contribute to the production of goods, several academy members said at a May 6 Vatican press conference.
God made pre-humans into people, Vatican newspaper says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- While apes evolved naturally into pre-human creatures, it was the will and desire of God that turned them into humans, an article in the Vatican newspaper said. "The formation of human beings necessitated a particular contribution by God, though it remains that their emergence was brought about by natural causes" of evolution, it said. The article, published in the May 5-6 edition of L'Osservatore Romano, was written by Italian evolutionary biologist Fiorenzo Facchini. The article said that, "when the biological conditions necessary for supporting a being capable of reflective thought were attained, the will of God, the creator, freely desired it, and man came to be." The article posed the question: Does this mean that humans evolved from chimpanzees? "No, it might be better to say that at some point God willed a spark of intelligence to light up in the mind of a nonhuman hominid and thus came into existence the human as a being, as a subject capable of thought and the ability to decide freely," it said.
Church recognizes 17th-century Marian apparitions in France
LAUS, France (CNS) --- The Catholic Church has officially recognized 17th-century Marian apparitions to a 17-year-old peasant girl in a southern Alpine village in France. "Three centuries have passed since Benoite Rencurel testified ... about what Christ and Mary, his mother, had revealed concerning God's love for men, as well as his infinite mercy and his appeal for conversion," Archbishop Georges Pontier of Marseille, France, said during a May 4 Mass at the Marian basilica in the town of Laus. "Here, as in Lourdes, as in La Salette, as in Fatima, we see Mary pursuing her mission to reveal her son and invite us to do all he tells us," he told more than 6,000 people at the Mass. A decree recognizing the "supernatural origin of the apparitions and of facts lived and recounted by the young shepherdess" between 1664 and 1718 was read at the Mass by Bishop Jean-Michel di Falco Leandri of Gap, France.
Doctor calls spirituality key to dying patient's quality of life
SAN FRANCISCO (CNS) --- Medicine shrinks from caring for the spiritual needs of dying patients, even though spirituality is what most people yearn for most at the end of life, Franciscan Brother Daniel Sulmasy, a physician and philosopher, told an audience at the University of San Francisco April 28. Doctors tend to ignore spiritual care or back away from it out of fear of inadequacy or invading patients' privacy, Brother Sulmasy said. Often they think they are helping, but underserve patients by turning spiritual questions into technical problems, he said. For dying patients, the impulse is the reverse, he said: The terminal patient whose spiritual life is outstanding despite great physical distress reports having an outstanding quality of life. The split is so large that a new model for medical education may be needed, he said. The model would integrate biological, social and spiritual issues in training doctors. Doctors should be mindful that patients' spiritual questions are fundamental --- deeper than the biological, moral and ethical issues that concern clinicians and hospital ethics advisory boards, said Brother Sulmasy, who holds the Sisters of Charity chair in ethics at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York.
Washington archbishop says denial of Communion is up to local bishops
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- Following criticism that high-profile Catholic politicians who support keeping abortion legal were permitted to receive the Eucharist during the U.S. papal Masses in Washington and New York, Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl reiterated that such an action should be left to the discretion of the bishop heading an individual lawmaker's diocese. In the archbishop's April 30 column in the Catholic Standard, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington, he does not agree with those who say he supersede the authority of an individual bishop when dealing with public figures from those jurisdictions who serve in the District of Columbia. "A decision regarding the refusal of holy Communion to an individual is one that should be made only after clear efforts to persuade and convince the person that their actions are wrong and bear moral consequences," he said. "Presumably this is done in the home diocese where the bishops and priests, the pastors of souls, engage the members of their flock in this type of discussion." An April 28 column by syndicated columnist Robert Novak criticized Archbishop Wuerl and Cardinal Edward M. Egan of New York for inviting to the papal Masses U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Sens. John Kerry, Christopher Dodd and Edward M. Kennedy and former New York mayor and GOP presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani, all Catholics who have supported keeping abortion legal and all of whom were reported to have publicly received Communion. |