2014-12-19T11:08:00+00:00

New Delhi, India, Dec 19, 2014 / 04:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The rise in attacks by Hindu radicals against members of minority religions in India, primarily Christians and Muslims, is drawing concern across the country, with many calling for more concre... Read more

2014-12-19T09:16:00+00:00

New Haven, Conn., Dec 19, 2014 / 02:16 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Knights of Columbus is joining forces with the New Haven Police Department in the Coats for Kids initiative to make winter a little warmer for children and families in need this year. &... Read more

2014-12-19T07:03:00+00:00

Vatican City, Dec 19, 2014 / 12:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican's committee on communications has finished its third round of visits to Vatican media branches, and will likely discuss the outcomes of the visits in their next meeting, due to take place in January. The committee has completed its rounds of visits to Vatican media branches, and also started collecting opinions and suggestions from journalists and Catholic agencies who deal often with Vatican news. With the wish to improve the system of the delivery of news and to rationalize expenses, the members of the committe made an on-site visit to the Holy See press office Dec. 17. According to a source who took part in the meetings, “the committee proved to be very attentive to the needs of the Holy See press office, and tried to understand how the work of the Holy See press office may be enhanced.” “Unlike the members of the Pontifical Commission of Reference for the Economic and Administrative Structure of the Holy See/Vatican City State (known with the Italian acronym of COSEA), the committee showed that cutting expenses is not their sole desire, but that that before all else they want to find an effective way of sharing information from the Vatican,” the source maintained. During the next meeting, in January, the members of the committee will likely discuss the outcomes of their visit, and will start analyzing in-depth the responses of communication experts and journalists on their desk. In the offing, there is the need for a comprehensive reform of  Vatican media, with a possible unification of the three major Vatican media outlets – Vatican Radio, Vatican Television, and L’Osservatore Romano – under a single digital platform. Until now, the Vatican outlets have depended directly on the Vatican State Secretariat, but some of the proposals for Curia reform on the desk of the members of the Council of Cardinals suggest the creation of an ‘ad hoc’ Secretariat for Communications within the Roman Curia. The notion of the establishment of a third Secretariat has however been seemingly discarded, while the idea of putting all communications under the Pontifical Council for Social Communications remains on the table. Read more

2014-12-19T02:09:00+00:00

Louisville, Ky., Dec 18, 2014 / 07:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Father Ronald Domhoff, a priest of the Archdiocese of Louisville, has returned to ministry after being cleared of sexual abuse allegations. The priest was pastor of St. Peter the Apostle Chu... Read more

2014-12-19T00:14:00+00:00

London, England, Dec 18, 2014 / 05:14 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.K. Supreme Court has ruled that midwives in charge of delivery wards are not exempt from assisting in the procurement of abortions – prompting warnings that the decision will have significant consequences for medical personnel opposed to the procedure. “Today's decision sadly makes it likely that senior midwives who refuse to kill babies will be forced to leave the profession,” Paul Tully, general secretary of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said Dec. 17. “This will affect anyone who objects to abortion, of any religion or none. It will create a second-class status in midwifery for those who only deliver babies and don't kill them,” he said. Tully's group helped fund the legal case of Catholic midwives Mary Doogan and Connie Wood, who were coordinators at a labor ward at a Glasgow, Scotland hospital. They challenged the National Health Service Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board’s requirement that they delegate, supervise and support staff who were performing abortions. The two women said a right to opt-out of providing abortions was upheld by the U.K.'s 1967 Abortion Act and the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court of Session in Edinburgh in February 2012 initially ruled against them. In April 2013, appeal court judges ruled in their favor, saying “right of conscientious objection extends not only to the actual medical or surgical termination but to the whole process of treatment given for that purpose.” However, the Supreme Court in London sided against the two midwives, BBC News reports. Lady Hale, Deputy President of the Supreme Court, said that Parliament, when it wrote its legal protections, did not have in mind hospital managers or administrators or “the caterers who provide the patients with food and the cleaners who provide them with a safe and hygienic environment.” “Yet, all may be said in some way to be facilitating the carrying out of the treatment involved,” she said about Monday's decision. In the judge’s view, “participation” in an abortion means “taking part in a 'hands-on' capacity.” Doogan and Wood said they were “extremely disappointed” with the verdict, adding that they “can only imagine the subsequent detrimental consequences that will result from today's decision on staff of conscience throughout the U.K.” They said the ruling makes the conscience clause in practice “meaningless for senior midwives in a labor ward.” The number of abortions at their hospital’s labor ward was “a tiny percentage of the workload” and their conscientious objections could have been accommodated “with minimal effort,” they added. Tully warned that the ruling could particularly affect junior midwives. “They could easily be placed in an impossible situation by pro-abortion superiors, and would be unable to receive promotion to a more senior role without fear of being required to violate their consciences,” he said. The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) sided with the NHS board, saying they were “deeply concerned” about extensions of the right to conscientious objection. Tully said that the ruling also declared that the Abortion Act’s conscience clause does not apply to general practitioners or hospital doctors who may be asked to prescribe abortion drugs. “We anticipate that this will lead to renewed efforts by health officials to force doctors who have a conscientious objection to abortion either to compromise their respect for human life or to leave the profession,” he continued, adding that the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children will “support and encourage doctors to resist any such bullying approach.” Read more

2014-12-19T00:02:00+00:00

Vatican City, Dec 18, 2014 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The announcement that the US and Cuba will enjoy warmer relations follows more than 50 years of Vatican diplomacy, which was ramped up by St. John Paul II during his 1984 visit to nearby Puerto Rico. The Church’s commitment for Cuba has a twofold path: on one side, the relations that bishops, especially from the US, had with Cuba, thus ‘de facto’ creating a bridge between two worlds divided by the embargo; and on the other side, the Holy See's diplomatic effort, backed by St. John Paul II. Cuba is the only communist nation with which the Holy See never broke off diplomatic relations. The US broke off its ties with the island in 1961, and during the October 1962 missile crisis St. John XXIII wrote to both John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khruschev to avert a war. And the American ecclesiastical hierarchy had always been in touch with the Cuban bishops: In 1972, the US bishops' conference backed the 1969 request by Cuban bishops to end the U.S. embargo against Cuba, and in 1985, American and Cuban bishops conference exchanged a visit. During the 1980s, the Archdiocese of Boston became one of the most prominent actors in the scene of U.S.-Cuba relations. Cardinal Bernard Law, then Archbishop of Boston, strongly supported the opportunity of a new diplomatic tie between Cuba and the U.S., and advocated against the embargo. Cardinal Law visited Cuba in 1985 and 1989, and on both occasions he met Fidel Castro. Under Cardinal Law’s administration, the Boston Archdiocese started its own aid-plan to Cuba. On the Vatican side, the main actor of the reapprochment between the Holy See and Cuba was Cardinal Roger Etchegaray. Then president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Etchegaray made his first trip to Cuba in 1989, and spent nine days there, between Christmas and the New Year’s Day. Cardinal Etchegaray’s Cuban tour was capped by an intimate meeting with Castro during Christmas week. The meeting underscored an easing of tensions between Church and state in the officially atheist country, where practicing Christians and Jews have been objects of government repression for almost 30 years. During the meeting, Castro made no secret of his eagerness to welcome the Pope, partly because a visit would burnish his fading international image and partly because he believed John Paul II saw eye to eye with him on many of the world’s secular problems, such as disarmament, Third World debt, and poverty. Cardinal Etchegaray met Fidel Castro once again, in December 1993. In the meantime, the Cuban bishops had released the message “Love endures all things”, which marked a turnabout on the Church’s approach to the regime. The Cuban bishops substantially proposed to Castro and to his opponents – included the political refugees exiled in the U.S. – to open a political dialogue for a peaceful national reconciliation. The message was one of the hot issues of the dialogue between Cardinal Etchegaray and Fidel Castro. They both stressed they backed peace, reconciliation and the end of the U.S. embargo. It was probably after that visit that Fidel Castro changed his attitude toward the Catholic Church. Castro seemed to accept the role of the Holy See as a credible partner for dialogue about the future of Cuba. At the same time, the regime abated restrictions on the Church. St. John Paul II backed an active, although secret, diplomatic process toward Cuba, and this process had been put into effect at the beginning of the 1990s and developed through a series of high level meetings between the Holy See and Cuban administration officials. On July 12, 1994, Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, then Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for the Central America, had a private meeting with Fidel Castro in the Holy See Nunciature in Cuba. After the meeting, Castro spent two hours at the nunciature, chatting with Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, Archbishop of Havana, created cardinal by St. John Paul II in October 1994, and the first Cuban cardinal created after the revolution. Back in Rome, Cardinal Gantin reported to St. John Paul II about the improvement of the religious atmosphere in Cuba, and he also recounted that Castro would more than properly welcome a papal visit. Cardinal Gantin told the Pope that “generally, the country urges big transformations, and these latter seem to have begum, albeit on a smaller scale”, and that “the acceptance of the Church, with its features of service to Truth and Peace, can already be a meaningful change for the Cuban government.” In 1996, Fidel Castro was received by St. John Paul II in the Vatican, a signal that the dialogue was  strengthened. This was the climate that led to St. John Paul II's historic visit to Cuba in 1998. The first Pope ever to step foot in Cuba, St. John Paul II said in Havana that “Cuba needs to open herself to the world, and the world needs to draw close to Cuba.” During the trip, St. John Paul II spoke about family and youth, and criticized both socialist society as well as the neo-liberal capitalism. A new way was open in Holy See – Cuba relations. Ten years later, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, visited Cuba to celebrate the 10th anniversary of St. John Paul II’s visit, and he met with Raul Castro, who in the mean time had replaced his brother Fidel at the helm of the country. During a meeting with journalists, Cardinal Bertone stressed, “there is seemingly the opportunity to open doors: Raul knows well the people’s difficulties, what they miss, their aspirations.” Benedict XVI's trip in 2012 marked a step toward a new opening of Cuba to the world. Raul Castro was often at the Pope's side, showing his desire to update Cuba and to give importance to the visit. Cuba needs the Church to find a way out of history, and to continue to strenghthen relations with the United States. The diplomatic work is also favored by the fact that Archbishop Angelo Becciu, deputy to the Secretariat of State, has been apostolic nuncio to Cuba, and he helped organize Benedict XVI's trip. This is the path that brought to historic choice of re-opening US-Cuba relations. Pope Francis has become a main actor in this story, and his final commitment was decisive. But he also, in the end, harvested the fruits of a diplomatic work that went on throughout 50 years. Read more

2014-12-18T23:14:00+00:00

Jackson, Miss., Dec 18, 2014 / 04:14 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- New archaeological evidence about Israel and Judah at the time of King David and King Solomon undermines some skeptics who claim that biblical accounts are wrong to say the time period was advanced enough to have an organized state. Jimmy Hardin, associate professor at Mississippi State University’s Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures, said that the find of six official clay seals dating to the 10th century B.C. “lends general support to the historical veracity of David and Solomon as recorded in the Hebrew biblical texts.” The find took place at Khirbet Summeily, a dig site east of Gaza in southern Israel. The clay seals, known as bullae, were used to stamp official documents. “Our preliminary results indicated that this site is integrated into a political entity that is typified by elite activities, suggesting that a state was already being formed in the 10th century B.C.,” said Hardin, co-director of the Hesi Regional Project engaged in the archaeological work. Hardin’s findings have been published in the December 2014 issue of Near Eastern Archaeology, Mississippi State University said. The article says that the material culture of the site, in aggregate, shows “a level of political-economic activity that has not been suspected recently” during the time period. “Some text scholars and archaeologists have dismissed the historic reliability of the biblical text surrounding kings David and Solomon, such as recorded in the Bible in the books of Kings and Second Samuel,” Hardin said. “The fact that these bullae came off of sealed written documents shows that this site – located out on the periphery of pretty much everything – is integrated at a level far beyond subsistence,” he added. “You have either political or administrative activities going on at a level well beyond those typical of a rural farmstead.” The bullae do not have writing. They appear to be the only known bullae from the 10th century, he said. Hardin said researchers chose the dig site to try to determine the differences between Philistia and Judah and why there was a border in the area at the time. “We're trying to learn what was the process by which these political entities were created. Within that larger question, you have a number of questions about whether the archaeological record matches the historical record from the texts, and if it disagrees, how do we reconcile the two,” he said.   Read more

2014-12-18T21:29:00+00:00

Washington D.C., Dec 18, 2014 / 02:29 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholic bishops in the U.S. and Cuba rejoiced at the historic announcement of a new relationship between the countries, while some U.S. leaders warned the policy shift could have negative cons... Read more

2014-12-18T11:01:00+00:00

Bangui, Central African Republic, Dec 18, 2014 / 04:01 am (Aid to the Church in Need).- The Catholic Church in the Central African Republic continues to work for peace and reconciliation within the country, with its leading bishop visiting and reaching out to displaced Muslims. Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalainga, the president of the bishops' conference and archbishop of the capital city of Bangui, recently visited a camp where former members of the Seleka rebel militia, most of whom are Muslim, are housed along with their families.   For several years, the fighters of this now-dissolved militia have committed many atrocities, targeting especially the Christian population of the country. Archbishop Nzapalainga was accompanied during his visit by representatives of Catholic aid agencies, who brought food and hygiene articles into the camp as well as medical aid. During his visit, Archbishop Nzapailanga emphasized God’s mercy, saying, “here in this camp there are men, women and children living. For me, as a man of God, they are children of God whom he has created in his image and to whom I am obliged to reach out.” He went on to explain that he could not remain inactive in the face of the misery in the camp: "I have therefore appealed to all the Christians of the Catholic Church that it is time to come to the aid of our brothers and sisters. For when we go to church we receive the power of God to help our brothers and sisters in need." The archbishop spoke with the former rebels and listened to their needs. The ex-Seleka fighters are worried about their reintegration into society and expressed uncertainty about the future of their children. Archbishop Nzapalainga appealed to them not to resort to arms again. Ahead of his visit, in their Advent pastoral letter, the bishops conference appealed to Catholics in the Central African Republic to work for reconciliation. "Even if a genuine and lasting peace is a gift of Christ, nonetheless it depends on each one of us also,” they wrote.   The bishops also appealed to the government of their country, which is still racked by internal division: "We call upon the government, with the help of the international community, to establish security for all its citizens, to fight against impunity, restore the authority of the state and so strengthen the social cohesion, dialogue and peace." The bishops then expressed their concern at the growing levels of banditry in the country, noting that “the people continue to remain subject to armed groups.” The security situation in the Central African Republic remains highly unstable. There are continuing and repeated outbreaks of violence.  According to the UN, more than 852,000 people are still displaced, having been forced to flee their homes – a figure that corresponds to one-fifth of the total population of the country. In 2015, the transitional president, Catherine Samba-Panza, is due to hand over the reins of government to an elected successor. However, observers are now assuming that the elections will not take place in February, as planned, but in the second half of the year.  Oliver Maksan writes for Aid to the Church in Need, an international Catholic charity under the guidance of the Holy See, providing assistance to the suffering and persecuted Church in more than 140 countries. www.churchinneed.org (USA);www.acnuk.org (UK);www.aidtochurch.org (AUS); www.acnireland.org (IRL);www.acn-aed-ca.org (CAN) Read more

2014-12-18T09:39:00+00:00

Washington D.C., Dec 18, 2014 / 02:39 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As millions of displaced Iraqis are caught in the dead of winter, the international community has a long way to go to cover their basic needs, according to a panel testimony before Congress las... Read more



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