“Who is my Neighbour?”: A Statement issued by the Catholic Bishops of Australia
Sydney, Australia, Sep.20,2007(CINS/Fides) - A Statement on the themes of justice, development and peace has been issued by the Catholic Bishops of Australia in view of Social Justice Sunday on 30 September which the local Church celebrates every year. The Statement, titled this year “Who is my Neighbour?”, is prepared by the Bishops' Commission for Social presided by Bishop Christopher Sauders of the diocese of Broome.
The Statement is call to reflect on “diversity” in the community, in order to see “in every face the holy face of Christ”, insisting on multiculturalism, typical of Australia, as a source of enrichment and calling all Australians to show solidarity with those who are poor and marginalised and in need of help.
In these times “of hunger, war, terrorism and disease we are called to help our others and not act as people unable to share prosperity, ”, Bishop Saunders says in the introduction. Citing the passage in the Gospel of Luke which introduces the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10, 29-37), Bishop Saunders urges Australians to ask themselves the same question and to reflect on the answer Jesus gives.
In his letter to present Social Justice Sunday Statement, Archbishop Philip Wilson, President of the Bishops' Conference says, "Australia and Australians have a responsibility to be good global citizens: we have responsibilities beyond our national borders. This year's Social Justice Sunday Statement is a call for us Australians to act more in the interest of our neighbours who do not share our prosperity and security, an invitation to consider the way we live and as individuals and as a nation”. The Archbishop says the statement focuses on global issues of social justice which Australians can help to face in order to promote common good.
Catholics teach Muslims natural family planning
Maguindanao, Philippines, Aug.23,2007 (CINS/AsiaNews) – A group of lay Catholics have decided to dedicate themselves to promoting natural family planning methods among the Philippine Muslim community, in order to control the rising population without going against the beliefs held by the two religions.
The group began its campaign in Maguindanao, southern Mindanao province, where the percentage of Muslim faithful reaches 90 percent of the total population. From here, it hopes to carry its work to the rest of the country, in order to tackle the problem of birth control without falling back on artificial birth control methods, which are promoted by many parliamentarians.
A well known and much appreciated method – known as the “Billings ovulation method” – is in fact based on the analysis of the female ovulation cycle and allows for the differentiation of the fertile period from the sterile period.
The project is lead by a Catholic nun, Mary Catherine Sumapal, who explains : “It is quite normal in this part of the world to see girls as young as 13 who are married, This results in them having a child almost every year, which is hard to bare. Now thanks to natural family planning, we can hope to avoid the more common problems linked to pregnancy”.
French Catholics,Jews join in mourning Cardinal Lustiger
Paris,France,Aug.11,2007(CINS/CWN) - Paris bade farewell to the late Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger on August 10, with a funeral in the basilica of Notre Dame preceded by the recitation of the Kaddish, the traditional Hebrew prayer for the dead.
Archbishop André Vingt-Trois of Paris presided at the funeral service for the beloved cardinal, who was born of Polish Jewish parents and converted to Catholicism at the age of 14. Cardinal Lustiger, an influential figure in Catholic Europe who had been a close friend of the late Pope John Paul II (bio - news), died on August 5 at the age of 80. He had served as Archbishop of Paris from 1981 until his retirement in 2005.
Cardinal Lustiger had always expressed pride in his Jewish roots, and frequently visited the synagogue to pray Kaddish for his mother Gisele, a Holocaust victim who died at Auschwitz. As the cardinal was buried in the crypt of Notre Dame, a plaque was placed at his grave bearing a message in verse that Cardinal Lustiger himself had written. The message reads in part:
Becoming a Christian
Through faith and baptism,
I have remained a Jew
As did the Apostles.
The rites for Cardinal Lustiger began in the square outside Notre Dame, with relatives praying the Kaddish and sprinkling soil from the Holy Land over the coffin, in accordance with the cardinal's wishes. Then the procession moved into the basilica, where more than 2,500 mourners heard Archbishop Vingt-Trois describe his predecessor as a "spiritual master."
Among the many French leaders at the funeral at the funeral were President Nicolas Sarkozy-- who had interrupted his vacation in the US to attend-- and Prime Minister Francois Fillon.
Hong Kong diocese issues revised version of papal letter to China’s Catholics
The Vatican issued the papal letter in traditional and simplified Chinese translations on June 30. The revised text was published two weeks later in the July 15 issue of Kung Kao Po, the diocesan Chinese weekly.
In addition, 30,000 booklets of the revised text in traditional Chinese characters and another 30,000 in simplified characters were printed for free distribution. The booklets were distributed in all Hong Kong parishes.
According to Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong, the Vatican’s Chinese text contains many mistakes. The revision is to "help those (Chinese) who don't know foreign languages understand the letter's original intentions," he told UCA News in mid-July.
He reportedly discussed the Vatican's Chinese translation with his auxiliary, Bishop John Tong Hon, and retired Cardinal Paul Shan Kuo-hsi of Taiwan. Both agreed the Chinese translation "is hard to understand and contains mistakes."
A mainland bishop told UCA News the Vatican's Chinese translation is acceptable for mainland Catholics who are familiar with Church terminology.
However, some government officials told him they have difficulty understanding its "unusual" sentence structure and words. "Such a translation could undermine the Catholic Church's image," added the bishop, who requested anonymity.
The cardinal decided to see what could be done and spent a week revising the translation with experts. One expert, Anthony Lam Sui-ki, senior researcher of the diocese's Holy Spirit Study Centre, told UCA News that the revised text is clearer, more coherent and conceptually more accurate.
Cardinal Zen said he hopes local Catholics will bring copies to their relatives and friends on the mainland. The diocese will also send copies to the Chinese government via the central government's Liaison Office, he said.
The 76-year-old prelate presided over three evening sessions, July 16-18, at three parishes here to explain the papal letter's content and context, and to answer questions.
According to Cardinal Zen, the letter has its origins in a document prepared by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in 2002.
Cardinal Zen told the July 18 session that the papal letter has great significance for mainland bishops, who are "very lonely and seldom meet with or know what bishops of other dioceses think." He added that the letter could serve as a common reference point when they deal with government officials.
"After reading it several times attentively, one realizes how precious this letter is,” the cardinal said. “Then one will be eager to have more people, especially mainland Catholics, read it."
POPE: Divorced Catholics must be welcomed in parishes
Vatican City, July 26,2007 (CINS /CNS) -- Divorced and civilly remarried Catholics who suffer because they cannot receive Communion must be welcomed in parishes as Catholics who witness to the importance of the Eucharist, Pope Benedict XVI said.At the same time, he said, if a priest, acting out of compassion for their suffering, gives them the Eucharist, he risks undermining the dignity and indissolubility of the sacrament of marriage.
"We all know that this is a particularly painful situation," the pope said July 25 during a meeting with about 140 priests, religious and deacons from the Valle d'Aosta region where he was vacationing.
The pope added that he knew the issue could get complicated and said, "Given these people's situation of suffering it must be studied."
The meeting, which was closed to the press, lasted about two hours. The pope's opening remarks and responses to questions from the priests were transcribed and published July 27 in the Vatican newspaper.
"The pope is not a prophet," he told the priests. "He is infallible in very rare circumstances, as we all know."
Therefore, he said, in trying to find ways to spread the Gospel, to strengthen the faith of Catholics and to help the suffering, "I share your questions. I, too, suffer."
Asked specifically about ministry to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, Pope Benedict told the priests, "None of us has a ready-made solution, including because each person's situation is different."
"I would say that a particularly painful situation is that of those who were married in the church, but were not really believers and did so just for tradition, and then finding themselves in a new, nonvalid marriage, convert, find the faith and feel excluded from the sacrament," he said.
Pope Benedict said that when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he asked several bishops' conferences and experts to study the problem, which in effect was "a sacrament celebrated without faith."
He said he had thought that the church marriage could be considered invalid because the faith of the couple celebrating the sacrament was lacking.
"But from the discussions we had, I understood that the problem was very difficult" and that further study was necessary, he said.
Pope Benedict said that Catholics must keep two things in mind: First, that even if divorced and civilly remarried Catholics cannot receive the Eucharist, they are part of the church and are loved by Christ; and second, that suffering out of love for God and for the church is "a noble suffering."
While participating at Mass without receiving Communion is not optimal, he said, "it is not nothing; it is involvement in the mystery of the cross and resurrection of Christ."
"Given that it is the sacrament of the passion of Christ, the suffering Christ embraces these persons in a special way and communicates with them in a different way," he said. "They can feel embraced by the crucified Lord who falls to the earth and dies and suffers for them and with them."
Priests and parishioners must share the suffering of those excluded from the Eucharist, he said, but they cannot act in a way that casts doubt on the unbreakable bond of sacramental marriage.
"We know that the moment we give in out of love, we harm the sacrament itself, and its indissolubility appears weakened," Pope Benedict said.
In his opening remarks and in response to several questions, the pope focused on the need to help people understand the dignity of suffering when it is undergone out of love for God or for others.
The Christian faith, he said, involves giving oneself to the community of the church, a community that promises each believer that he or she will never be left alone in suffering and that calls each Catholic to reach out to others.
The pope said he understands the exhaustion of priests who care for numerous parish communities and the suffering of those who continually encounter people who do not seem to want or need to hear the Gospel they preach.
But the Gospel call is to continue to preach, to spread the word and have faith that God will bring it to fruition, he said.
The modern Western culture of "rationalism closed in on itself" has made it very difficult for people in those countries to believe in God and in the church, he said.
"And if it is difficult to believe, it is even more difficult to offer one's life to the Lord to be his servant," which accounts for the lack of priestly vocations, the pope said.
"This certainly is a suffering tied to our moment in history, a moment when generally we see that the so-called mainline churches appear to be dying. This is happening especially in Australia and also Europe, but not so much in the United States," he said.
Pope Benedict said faith is not "a package of rules that we load onto our shoulders like a heavy backpack."
"In the end, faith is simple and rich: We believe that God exists, that God is important. But what God? A God with a face, a human face. A God who reconciles, who defeats hatred and gives the strength of peace which no one else can give," he said.
Pope Benedict ended by thanking the priests for their questions, "which help me to reflect on the future."