CHURCH NEWS

BRIEFLY Pope:Solidarity, Subsidiarity Reflect the Trinity “The solidarity that binds the human family, and the subsidiary levels reinforcing it from within, must however always be placed within the horizon of the mysterious life of the Triune God, in whom we perceive an ineffable love shared by equal, though nonetheless distinct, Persons.” The Pope affirmed this when he addressed participants in he plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences Catholic roots fight Hollywood nonsense: Jon Voight Academy Award-winning actor Jon Voight said the strong Catholic roots instilled in him by his mother have helped him overlook much of the “nonsense” of Hollywood. “It is a relief in Hollywood to have some spirituality,” Voight told CNS . “You are protected from all the nonsense. You keep your spirituality by doing good deeds.” After a period of spiritual-seeking in the mid-1980s, Voight said, he rediscovered the lessons learned as a young child from his mother and became involved in using his celebrity status to help others, including American Indians, drug addicts, the homeless, Vietnam veterans and farmers. He also has been a spokesman for almost 20 years for Chabad’s Children of Chernobyl, a medical relief programme for Russian Jewish children still affected by the fallout from the 1986 explosion of the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, Ukraine. Voight was in Israel to show his support for the Chernobyl children’s programme.( CNS ) MASSIVE MEXICAN PROTEST FOR LIFE Luis Mauricio Saldaña Ayala, executive secretary of the Mexican Bishops’ Committee on the Laity, announced this week that all dioceses in the country would be promoting a nation-wide pro-life protest on May 25. Plans for the protest were drawn up during the National Gathering of Diocesan Lay Councils, which took place April 4-6 in the city of Cuernavaca. “During those days of work and reflection, we focused on issues of national interest, such as the right to life from conception to natural death,” Ayala said. Leaders at the event decided to organize a pro-life march on May 25 and to request the support of all the Mexican bishops. The purpose of the event is to “publicly and openly” express support for human life, “from the moment of conception and in all of its stages,” as a living and coherent commitment “by those of us who believe in the marvelous gift of human life,” Ayala stated. (CNA) POPE REAFFIRMS TRUTH ABOUT MARRIAGE AND FAMILY One day after California overturned a ban on same-sex marriage, the Holy Father has firmly stated that only marriage between a man and a woman is moral. After California’s Supreme Court came to a 4-3 decision overturning the state’s law preventing homosexuals from being recognized as married, the Pope said, “The union of love, based on matrimony between a man and a woman, which makes up the family, represents a good for all society that can not be substituted by, confused with, or compared to other types of unions,” he said. “The union of love, based on matrimony between a man and a woman, which makes up the family, represents a good for all society that can not be substituted by, confused with, or compared to other types of unions,” he said. He continued by speaking of the rights of the traditional family, “founded on matrimony between a man and a woman, the natural cradle of human life.” Mention of the need to defend the family is not uncharacteristic for Pope Benedict, but his statement takes on particular relevance following the California ruling. SISTERS OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD WELCOME THE NEW ACT SIGNED BY BUSH The Sisters of the Good Shepherd welcome the signing of the Consolidated Resources Act of 2008 (S.2739) into law as their organization advocates and works for the women in trafficking. Since 1999, several Sisters of the Good Shepherd have been working in a shelter for women on the island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, a commonwealth of the United States under the banner National Advocacy Center ( NAC). The shelter is run by Karidat, the local Catholic social services agency. The Sisters noticed the growing need for assistance to women who are fleeing human trafficking- the tragedy of modern day slavery. These women struggle desperately to survive their ordeal of being held captive and exploited, and the Sisters gather resources to serve them once they are able to reach safety. A large part of the struggle these women face is immigration. The women have no safe place to begin a new life due to the difficulties in the immigration system. The law becomes significant after the Sr. Mary Stella Mangona travelled to Washington, D.C. from Saipan with a survivor of trafficking to testify before Congress the dismal situation of workers in February of 2007. The National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd has been advocating for the passage of the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008 which includes a piece of legislation to reform immigration. The Sisters of the Good Shepherd feel that this law, signed on 9th May 2008 by the President, will have a positive effect on the lives of the women and will help prevent future instances of human trafficking. The Sisters of the Good Shepherd are a Roman Catholic order of women religious founded by St. Mary Euphrasia with the mission to promote the dignity of women and girls as well as the individual worth of every person. The Sisters are in 70 countries throughout the world, including the US. For more information see the NAC website at www.gsadvocacy.org CATHOLICS RALLY FOR ALL WORSHIP PLACES TO BE ‘WAR-FREE ZONES’ Recent shelling around a Catholic shrine has spurred Sinhalese Catholics to call on the government and Tamil rebels to spare all worship places from hostilities. More than 300 clergy, laypeople and Religious rallied at Fatima Church in central Colombo on the evening of April 22. Centre for Society and Religion (CSR), a Church-run NGO, had organized the combined protest and prayer service. As the Catholics walked 200 meters from the church to the main road, they carried banners and sang hymns calling for places of worship of all religions to be free from war. Reports on conditions in the war zones in northern and eastern Sri Lanka say many Buddhist, Christian, Hindu and Muslim worship places either have closed or attract few worshippers, since people fear to visit or travel to them. Bishop Rayappu Joseph of Mannar, in a statement, asked Catholics all around the country to fast and pray to protect the Shrine of Our Lady of Madhu, located in his diocese. Shelling recently damaged the shrine, 220 kilometers north of Colombo, and its revered Marian statue has been moved to a safer place. BRAZIL’S LEGALIZED ABORTION BILL UNAIMOUSLY REJECTED Brazilian lawmakers unanimously voted to reject a new law that would have legalized abortion in the country. Brazil’s Social Security and Family Commission unanimously voted to reject a new law that would have legalized abortion in the country. All 33 members of the commission voted against the law that would have made killing the unborn, for any reason, legal throughout pregnancy. Lawmakers who wanted the debate on the new law to continue into a fourth round withdrew from the hearing after there was not enough support from a majority of members. Amidst widespread protests for and against the law, the hearing was closed. The organization Defesa da Vida said “Representative Jose Aristodemo Pinotti, together with Representative Cida Diogo, initially said they would vote in favor of the law.” Pinotti justified his position by arguing that the number of abortions has decreased in the countries where it has been legalized. Defesa da Vida said such arguments were misleading and that data from countries in developed world, such as Britain, Spain, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada show that after being legalized the number of abortions grew instead of diminishing.” The pro-life organization noted that since 1970 Pinotti has also been a member of the Population Council, which belongs to the Rockefeller Foundation, and was established in 1952 to spread international population control. The foundation currently seeks to spread abortion around the globe. . DEFEND THE FAMILY: POPE Upon receiving representatives of the Forum of Family Associations and the European Federation of Catholic Family Associations today, the Holy Father addressed the needs of the family while bringing to mind the words of Pope John Paul II, “the future of humanity passes by way of the family.” Pope Benedict addressed the representatives participating in the conference entitled: “Alliance for the Family in Europe, associations in the leading role,” recalling how the conference aims to raise “the awareness of political leaders and public opinion on the central and irreplaceable role that the family plays in our society.” The Holy Father also noted that 2008 marks the 40th anniversary of Paul VI’s Encyclical “Humanae vitae,” and the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of the “Charter of the Rights of the Family,” presented by the Holy See in 1983. The Charter of the Rights of the Family is “principally addressed to political leaders” but it is also directed at families. The charter “offers those invested with responsibility for the common good a model and a point of reference upon which to base appropriate political legislation for the family” while encouraging families to “come together in the defense and promotion of their rights.” Benedict XVI emphasized the family’s importance by citing John Paul II, “the Pope of the family,” who said that “the future of humanity passes by way of the family.” Pope Benedict added that all of Biblical history is “an expression of a story of love, a story of alliance with God and with mankind. This is why the story of love and union between a man and a woman in the alliance of marriage was taken up by God as a symbol of the history of salvation.” Turning to consider the difficulties facing families in the modern world, the Pope noted that in families today, “we hear a cry for help, often an unconscious one, which clamors for a response from civil authorities, from ecclesial communities and from the various educational agencies.” This must be recognized through a “common commitment to support families by every means available, from the social and economic point of view.” Among the initiatives of the conference, the Holy Father praised the family-friendly fiscal policy, which aims to “promote family-related policies that give parents a real possibility of having children and bringing them up in the family.” Exhorting members of the conference to “help families to be a visible sign of this truth, to defend the values which are written in human nature itself and which are therefore common to all humanity: life, the family and education. These are not principles deriving from a (particular) confession of faith but from the application of a justice respectful of the rights of each human being,” Concluded the pontiff. BRIEFLY Serving all people Pope Benedict XVI explained that with faith, it is possible to see that “the heavenly and earthly cities interpenetrate and are intrinsically ordered to one another, inasmuch as they both belong to God the Father.” The Pope affirmed to the pontifical academy that “you can be assured that your discussions will be of service to all people of good will, while simultaneously inspiring Christians to embrace more readily their obligation to enhance solidarity with and among their fellow citizens, and to act upon the principle of subsidiarity by promoting family life, voluntary associations, private initiative, and a public order that facilitates the healthy functioning of society’s most basic communities.” Pope encourages media professors to teach skepticism, not cynicism Students preparing for a career in communications must learn to be skeptical, especially when the public good is at stake, but they also must be helped to avoid becoming cynical, Pope Benedict XVI told communications professors. “Nourish and reward that passion for truth and goodness that is always strong in the young. Help them give themselves fully to the search for truth,” the pope said in a May 23 address to participants in a meeting sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. While discussing the specifically Catholic mission of their educational programmes, the best ways to respond to rapid changes in the field of communications and how to educate future media professionals in ethical values. (CNS)

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