"Pray for Us. Pray for Iraq" - Cardinal Delly
Vatican City, Nov 28, 2007 (CINS /CNA).- At a Mass at Saint Peter's Basilica on Saturday elevating twenty-three clerics to the cardinalate, Pope Benedict XVI created the first Iraqi cardinal, VOA News reports.
The Pope expressed special concern for all Iraqis in his sermon. He said that by calling the Patriarch of the Chaldean Church Emmanuel Delly to the College of Cardinal s he wanted to express his spiritual closeness and affection for the Iraqi people. He called for the Church to reaffirm her solidarity with Iraqi Christians and asked God to bring peace and reconciliation to all Iraqis.
After the Mass, Cardinal Delly told well-wishers in Saint Peter's Square that it was a very happy day for him and "for all people, especially for Iraq." He repeated the Pope's call for prayer, saying "pray for us, pray for Iraq and for [the] population of Iraq."
The Chaldeans, who have one of the most ancient rites of the Church, are Iraq's largest Christian group but their numbers are in decline. Many Iraqi Christians have fled the country since the war began in 2003 to escape the sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Several Iraqi churches have been bombed and priests have been among those kidnapped and killed.
Cardinal DiNardo: Annapolis summit, an opportunity that can't be missed
- The recently created Cardinal Daniel N.DiNardo has said in an interview that both the Israelis and the Palestinians need to treat tomorrow's Annapolis peace summit as an “opportunity that cannot be missed”.In an interview to be published in tomorrow's daily edition of L'Osservatore Romano, the Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, who was made a cardinal this past Saturday, said that the Church in the US is responding to the Pope’s call to pray for the fruits of the Annapolis summit. The conference will bring together Jews, Palestinians and Syrians for peace talks.
DiNardo related that, “parish communities as well as individual Catholics are praying, at the request of the bishops, so that the summit will become a concrete opportunity for peace between the Israeli and the Palestinian peoples.”
Cardinal DiNardo said that prayer “has a great value, especially for the future. We have been called to persevere in prayer, trusting in God our hope for peace to come in the next weeks and months. We hope that the conference of Annapolis may promote further fruitful dialogues for peace in the region.”
During the interview, Cardinal DiNardo also said that his appointment as cardinal was received “with gratitude, stun and surprise. For Texas it has been a great joy, which crowns the explosive growth of the local Church in the last 20 years.”
Pope urges 23 new Cardinals to be “servants” of love
Vatican City, Nov.24,2007 (CINS/AsiaNews) – The Catholic Church has 23 new Cardinal s. A suggestive ceremony, comprising over 100 crimson robed cardinals and hundreds of bishops, to the tones of Latin formulae and song marked there entrance into what was once referred to as the Roman clergy and what today represents the universality of the Church. Love, dedication, loyalty, service: these are the virtues which the Pope said must characterise the works of those whose very vestments symbolise the commitment to serving the Gospel “to the spilling of blood”, as is recited in the Latin formula which they all swear.
This vocation was made all the more poignant by both Benedict XVI and newly elected cardinal Leonardo Sandri in their addresses, when they evoked the sufferance of Christians across the world but especially in Iraq, the violation of religious freedom and the offences against human dignity.
A solemn ceremony held in St Peter’s basilica marked Benedict XVI’s second Public Ordinary Consistory for the creation of cardinals – as it is officially referred to. A rite during which the Pope “creates” a new cardinal and bestows on him the biretta, that is the cardinals hat as well as his “title” or titular Church which is found in Rome. Thus they formally become part of the Roman Clergy whose duty it is to elect the pope. Tomorrow, during the mass which the newly created cardinals will celebrate together with Benedict XVI, they will be given their cardinal’s ring.
Today as the Pope noted, “times have changed and the great family of Christ’s disciples are spread throughout the continents”. “The diversity of the members of the College of Cardinal s – he continued – by their geographic and cultural origin highlight this while at the same time they underline the changing pastoral demands to which the Pope must respond. The universality, the Catholicity of the Church is well mirrored in the College of Cardinal s”. In fact, with the new appointments it is composed of 201 members, 120 of whom, having yet to turn 80, could take part in conclave to elect a new pope. Of the 201 cardinals, 104 are European, 20 North American, 34 South American, 18 African, 21 Asian, and 4 from Oceania. The Asian come from India (6), Philippines (3), Vietnam (2), Korea (2). Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Syria, China, Taiwan, Lebanon and Iraq have one each. Two of the new cardinals are from Asia, Oswald Gracias and Iraqi Emmanuel III Delly.
In reference to the latter, the Pope spoke of “Iraq’s dear Christian communities”. “These brothers and sisters in the faith – he continued –are feeling with their own flesh the dramatic consequences of an enduring conflict. By calling the Patriarch of the Chaldean Church to enter into the College of Cardinal s – he added – I intend to my spiritual closeness and affection for that population. Let us together reaffirm the solidarity of the whole Church with the Christians of that beloved land and invoke from the merciful God the coming of longed-for reconciliation and peace for all the peoples involved”. Shortly before, Card. Sandri had also evoked the “tears and blood” and the “painful exodus of the many Christians from which Abraham once departed”.
Benedict XVI reminded all of the newly created cardinals that “every true disciple of Christ may aspire to one thing only: the sharing of Christ’s passion, without any claim to recompense. The Christian is called to assume the condition of the servant, following in the footsteps of Jesus that is, freely and disinterestedly spending his whole life for others. It is not the quest for power and success, but the humble gift of self for the good of the Church that must characterise all our actions and every one of our words. True Christian greatness consists not in domination, but in service”.
“Dear brothers –he then said- in becoming part of the College of Cardinal s, God asks of you and entrusts you the service of love: love for God, for His Church, for your brothers and sisters with the maximum dedication, usque ad sanguinis effusionem, as the formula for the imposition of the biretta reads and as the crimson colour of your vestments show. You are the Apostles of God who is Love and witnesses of evangelical hope: this is what the Christian community expects from you”.
Cardinal Walter Kasper on Ravenna Final Document
The Vatican’s Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity will issue the final document from the October Ravenna meeting of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, entitled: “The Ecclesiological and Canonical consequences of the Sacramental nature of the Church”.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Vatican Council who led the Catholic delegation at the meeting spoke to us about the main issues contained in the document. Countering recent speculation that it deals with the question of primacy, he described recent advances in Orthodox Catholic relations as a first step in a long road:
“Now the real breakthrough is that for the first time the orthodox were ready to speak about the universal level of the church and also on the universal level we have synodality of course, but also an authority – it means a primate which is of course according to the old order- the taxis of the ancient church, the bishop of Rome”.
But continued the Cardinal “we must be clear this is only a first step, this is only a basis, it does not solve all of the problems which are between the orthodox and the Catholic Church, we have to go on to clarify the details, we will speak next time about the role of the bishop of Rome, in the first millennium, then we have to go on to the second millennium where we have the first and second Vatican Council”. “This” – concludes Cardinal Kasper – “will not be an easy dialogue and then we can see where we will be after these steps…and this will be a long probably humanly speaking, a long and also a difficult way but not to exaggerate what we have achieved now its important a first step a basis not more and we hope with god’s help and prayers of many faithful we can go on this ecumenical pilgrimage with the orthodox churches”.
Cardinal oppose lesbians from having test-tube babies without men
London, UK, Nov.23, 2007 (CINS /CNA) - The archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor has expressed strong opposition to a new bill making it easier for lesbian couples to undergo fertility treatment.Cardinal oppose lesbians from having test-tube babies without menThe Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill, soon to be debated in the House of Lords, recognizes same-sex couples as legal parents and removes the requirement that IVF clinics consider the "need for a father" when evaluating an unborn child's welfare.
In a letter to The Times, the Cardinal said: "The Bill proposes to remove the need for IVF providers to take into account the child's need for a father when considering an IVF application, and to confer legal parenthood on people who have no biological relationship to a child born as a result of IVF."
"This radically undermines the place of the father in a child's life, and makes the natural rights of the child subordinate to the desires of the couple. It is profoundly wrong," he wrote.
Ben Summerskill, chief executive of the gay rights group Stonewall, said the Bill merely extends the rights already available to heterosexuals.
But the cardinal has allies among pro-family activists opposing the bill. Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said the legislation would drive a "nail in the coffin" of the traditional family.
The bill also permits experiments on human-animal hybrid embryos.
Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor called on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to allow Labor members of both Houses of Parliament to have a free vote on the bill.