News Briefs
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Maryland Senate committee hears testimony on same-sex marriage measure
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (CNS) -- Framing his support for same-sex marriage in the context of respect for human dignity, Gov. Martin J. O'Malley testified before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Jan. 31 in favor of a bill that would legalize gay marriage. Supporters of traditional marriage, however, countered that marriage is an institution that has preceded law, and should not be altered. "We all want the same thing for our children," O'Malley said, "the opportunity to live in loving, caring, committed and stable homes protected equally under the law." Father Erik Arnold, pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Ellicott City, asked lawmakers in Annapolis to recognize that the family, "based on the marriage of a man and woman, is a natural institution that is prior to the state. As such," he said, "the reservation of marriage to the union of one man and one woman is a fact of nature -- not a social prejudice." Father Arnold pointed out that the state has not defined marriage. Instead, he said, it has recognized what was already in existence. "The role of the state has been to acknowledge the wonderfully unique contribution that a husband and a wife make to the building up of our society, to the well-being of our children and our next generation," he said. The evening before the hearing, hundreds of pro-marriage supporters converged outside the Statehouse in Annapolis, passionately calling on state lawmakers to oppose legislation that would legalize same-sex marriage. Speakers at the rally, sponsored by the newly formed Maryland Marriage Alliance, repeatedly led the crowd in chants that declared marriage to be a union of "one man and one woman."
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CPA leader says Catholic press key to covering religious liberty issues
CHICAGO (CNS) -- Catholic Press Month, celebrated in February, "comes at a particularly critical moment" this year, said Greg Erlandson, president of the Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada. The nation's Catholic bishops "have made clear their concern with recent government regulations and the threat such regulations pose to religious liberty," said Erlandson, president and publisher of Our Sunday Visitor in Huntington, Ind. The Catholic press provides the vehicle for the bishops' message to reach Catholics, he said in a statement released by the Chicago-based press association. "It is during challenging times like these that we can best recognize the great blessing that is the Catholic press," he said. "It is critical that Catholics not only have access to sound news coverage and commentary, but that they hear directly from their leaders on the issues of the day and have the resources to see their world through the eyes of faith. Only the Catholic press gives Catholic leaders a voice with which to be heard by their people -- unmuted, uncensored and independent of the preconceptions and prejudices of too many secular media outlets," he added. Erlandson said the CPA "believes strongly" that its members' newspapers, magazines, newsletters, books and blogs are "the most effective adult education tools to reach Catholics, and that they do so more efficiently than any other communications means outside the Sunday homily."
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WORLD
US court drops suit state insurance officials brought against Vatican
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A federal court in Mississippi Feb. 2 dismissed a 10-year-old lawsuit accusing the Vatican of complicity in a scheme to bilk more than $200 million from insurance companies. The state insurance commissioners of Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas had filed the lawsuit in 2002 charging the Vatican and Msgr. Emilio Colagiovanni of racketeering and fraud. Jeffrey S. Lena, an attorney for the Holy See, noted in a statement that the dismissal "was not the result of any settlement agreement," and that the insurance commissioners had requested the court's action "of their own accord. The end of the lawsuit demonstrates that "all too frequently there's an inappropriate jump, based on an incomplete record, made between what people thought happened and what happened," Lena told Catholic News Service. The commissioners claimed that Msgr. Colagiovanni and the Holy See had aided financier Martin Frankel in purchasing small, ailing insurance companies, whose assets he then siphoned off, leaving them unable to pay claims. "The plaintiffs knew that the Holy See never received any money" from Frankel's scheme, but chose to sue anyway, Lena said. Lena noted that a federal court in Connecticut, using the appropriate procedures of international law in 2001, sought and obtained the Vatican's cooperation with an investigation of Frankel's scheme. The Vatican provided that court with relevant sworn testimony by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, then-prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops. But the plaintiffs in the Mississippi case never made any such attempt, Lena said. The case itself followed a pattern of negligence by the insurance regulators, "who allowed Frankel's nine-year scheme to persist unabated" despite "highly unusual and improbable investment activities" and other "red flags" raised by the Frankel and his associates, Lena said in his statement.
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Thousands of Rwandans want church help to stay in Zambia
LUSAKA, Zambia (CNS) -- About 6,000 Rwandan refugees in Zambia want the Catholic Church to help stop the state plans to repatriate them and instead to regularize their Zambian citizenship. The refugees also want the bishops' conference to remind the government to respect their human rights and their right to choose where to settle, as indicated in documents by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Speaking in Lusaka Jan. 29 at the launch of a wide-ranging bishops' pastoral letter, the coordinator of the Rwandan refugees in Zambia, Kazuba Rwasibo Equide, asked the bishops to quickly intervene and stop the government's plans before they are implemented. "The Catholic Church, world over, has a history of caring and providing for refugees. We equally appeal to you to stop the government from sending us back to Rwanda," Equide said. "We are in constant touch with friends and family members back home, and we know that the situation is not yet very conducive for us to return," he said. The Zambian ministry of home affairs announced recently it would join the UNHCR to repatriate Rwandan refugees because the situation in their country has normalized after decades of inter-ethnic violence and the 1994 genocide.
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With Mass, tears, prayers, Nigerians bury victims of Christmas bombing
MADALLA, Nigeria (CNS) -- Officials of the Archdiocese of Abuja celebrated Mass for 18 victims of the Christmas bombings at St. Theresa Catholic Church, then buried the remains within the church grounds. Abuja Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan told about 2,000 people gathered at the church Feb. 1 that "those who killed others, either in the name of their faith or ideology, are murderers.'' He called on Christians in Nigeria, St. Theresa parishioners and those who lost loved ones in the bomb blasts to forgive those who ordered the killings and to not consider revenge. The Islamist group Boko Haram took credit for a series of Christmas attacks, in which more than 40 people were killed. Families, sympathizers, mourners and relatives of the deceased shed tears during the Mass when they saw the victims' coffins inside the church. "Beyond forgiveness, let us pray for the conversion of those who have allowed themselves to be used by the devil to perpetrate such a diabolic act, targeting and killing innocent men, women and children," Archbishop Onaiyekan said. He asked for constant prayers for those in charge of security of Nigeria, that they "will have the wisdom to know how best to tackle the problem on our hands and the courage to do what needs to be done.
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Faith cards ID English, Welsh Catholics in case of accident
MANCHESTER, England (CNS) -- English and Welsh bishops are producing a million "faith cards" to identify the holders as Catholics in the event of an accident. The credit card-sized items will be distributed during February and March throughout all dioceses, including the Bishopric of the Forces and the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. The Department for Evangelization and Catechesis of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales announced Jan. 31 the cards should serve "as a reminder that all baptized are invited to know and share their faith." On one side, the card features a space for the owner to sign a clear statement that he or she is a Catholic. The cards also feature a list of six things that Catholics are called to do: pray, share with others the joy of knowing Jesus Christ, celebrate the sacraments regularly, "love my neighbor as well as myself," "use the gifts that I have been given wisely," and "forgive as I have been forgiven." Along the bottom of the card is a sentence that reads: "In the event of an emergency, please call a Catholic priest." The reverse of the card features a quote from Blessed John Henry Newman, the 19th-century English cardinal, about the individual vocation that God has given to each person.
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Creating cardinals: Ceremony features something old, new, borrowed, red
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Something old, something new, something borrowed and something red will be part of the mix Feb. 18 when Pope Benedict XVI creates 22 new cardinals. The general format of the consistory has been maintained, but the ceremony has been modified and will include the use of prayers borrowed from ancient Roman liturgies. And, of course, red will be the color of the day as the new cardinals are reminded that they are called to give their lives to God and the church, even to the point of shedding their blood. Tradition and innovation, solemnity and festivity, high honor and a call to sacrifice are key parts of the creation of new cardinals. The hushed moment when a churchman kneels before the pope and receives his red hat as a cardinal contrasts sharply with the mood in the Apostolic Palace that same evening when the public -- literally anyone who wants to come -- is invited in to congratulate the new cardinals. Pope Benedict will create the new cardinals in the morning during an "ordinary public consistory" in St. Peter's Basilica. That same evening, the Bronze Doors will open and the public will be allowed to swarm up the Scala Regia -- the royal stairway -- and into the Apostolic Palace to meet and greet the new cardinals. A "consistory" is a gathering of cardinals with the pope. According to canon law, an ordinary consistory is called for consultation or for the celebration "of especially solemn acts," such as the creation of new cardinals or a vote approving the canonization of candidates for sainthood. And, in fact, the consistory Feb. 18 will include both. Immediately after the new cardinals are created, all the "princes of the church" are scheduled to vote on several new saints, including Blessed Marianne Cope of Molokai and Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, Msgr. Guido Marini, master of papal liturgical ceremonies, told Catholic News Service Feb. 1.
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Strong bond with God is defining quality of religious life, pope says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Strengthening one's relationship with God must be the highest priority and most defining quality of religious life, Pope Benedict XVI said. Celebrating vespers with members of religious orders Feb. 2, the feast of the Presentation of the Lord and the World Day for Consecrated Life, the pope said the day was a way of bringing greater attention to the witness of faith of religious men and women worldwide. In his homily during the evening service in St. Peter's Basilica, Pope Benedict said the day was also an important occasion for religious to "renew your intentions and rekindle the feelings that inspire the giving of yourselves to God." The evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience, he said, "strengthen faith, hope and charity," and bring people closer to God. "This profound connection to the Lord, which must be the overriding and defining element of your existence, will renew your bond to him and will have a positive influence on your particular presence and form of apostolate," he said. Pope Benedict told religious that they will be "credible witnesses for the church and the world today" through their charisms, their faithfulness to church teaching and witness to the faith.
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Kerala church commission pushes for declaring alcoholism as sin
BANGALORE, India (CNS) -- Catholic prohibitionists in India's Kerala state have proposed making alcoholism a sin in the nation's largest Christian enclave. "Alcoholism is a serious problem in Kerala, and we have to take tough measures to counter it," Bishop Sebastian Thekethecheril, chairman of the Temperance Commission of the Kerala Catholic Bishops' Council, told Catholic News Service Feb. 1 during the general assembly of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India in Bangalore. More than 100 Temperance Commission delegates from 30 dioceses met in Kerala Jan. 29 and drafted a policy that says anyone who consumes alcohol moderately should be kept away from the church at all levels -- from teaching catechism to parish committees and any other nominated or elected post. Delegates also want church officials to refuse donations from Christians in the state's thriving alcohol business. The draft policy was to be presented to the bishops' assembly for consideration. Alcoholism is seen as the root of increasing suicides, divorces and road accidents in Kerala, where more than 6 million Christians account for 19 percent of the population. Liquor trade is the highest revenue contributor in Kerala, which also has highest rate of alcohol consumption in India. The state's road accident rate is more than twice the national average. This had earlier prompted the Kerala church to declare that drunken driving is a sin and it should be confessed. "When our own people are very into drinking, we have a duty to draw them away (from liquor) with whatever measure that is possible," said Bishop Thekethecheril.
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PEOPLE
Cardinal Bevilacqua, retired Philadelphia archbishop, dies at age 88
PHILADELPHIA (CNS) -- Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, retired archbishop of Philadelphia, died Jan. 31 at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, where he resided. According to the Philadelphia Archdiocese, he died in his sleep at 9:15 p.m. He was 88. The archdiocese said he had been battling dementia and an undisclosed form of cancer. Cardinal Bevilacqua headed the archdiocese from February 1988 to October 2003. "I was greatly saddened to learn of the death of my predecessor Cardinal Bevilacqua," said Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia. "I encourage all Catholics in the archdiocese to join me in praying for the repose of his soul and that God will comfort his family as they mourn his loss. Cardinal Bevilacqua has been called home by God; a servant of the Lord who loved Jesus Christ and his people. Cardinal Bevilacqua's death comes at a time when the archdiocese is facing extraordinary challenges," he said. "During this difficult period, I invite all of our people to come together in prayer for a renewal of our church and her mission." Following a private viewing at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Archbishop Chaput will receive the cardinal's body at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia in the early evening Feb. 6, with a public viewing to follow. A public viewing will precede the funeral Mass Feb. 7. Archbishop Chaput will celebrate the Mass, and Msgr. Louis D'Addezio will be the homilist, The rite of committal will follow in the crypt below the main altar. Pope Benedict XVI mourned the death of the cardinal, expressing his "heartfelt condolences" in a telegram sent to Archbishop Chaput.
Copyright (c) 2012 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops