Thursday, 16 February 2012 14:50

ROME (CNS) — Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan of New York said Feb. 13 that President Obama’s revision to the contraceptive mandate in the health reform law did nothing to change the U.S. bishops’ opposition to what they regard as an unconstitutional infringement on religious liberty.
“We bishops are pastors, we’re not politicians, and you can’t compromise on principle,” said Cardinal-designate Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “And the goal posts haven’t moved and I don’t think there’s a 50-yard line compromise here,” he added.
“We’re in the business of reconciliation, so it’s not that we hold fast, that we’re stubborn ideologues, no. But we don’t see much sign of any compromise,” he said.
“What (Obama) offered was next to nothing. There’s no change, for instance, in these terribly restrictive mandates and this grossly restrictive definition of what constitutes a religious entity,” he said. “The principle wasn’t touched at all.”
Announced Feb. 10, Obama’s revision of the Department of Health and Human Services’ contraceptive mandate left intact the restrictive definition of a religious entity and would shift the costs of contraceptives from the policyholders to the insurers, thus failing to ensure that Catholic individuals and institutions would not have to pay for services that they consider immoral, Cardinal-designate Dolan said.
For one thing, the cardinal-designate said, many dioceses and Catholic institutions are self-insuring. Moreover, Catholics with policies in the compliant insurance companies would be subsidizing others’ contraception coverage.

Thursday, 19 January 2012 14:39

WASHINGTON—The annual national Collection for the Church in Latin America will be the weekend of Jan. 21-22. The Catholic Diocese of Wichita contributes to this collection through United Catholic Stewardship. As an example of the work supported by the collection, the poster image for the 2012 collection features some children about to receive their first communion. In 2011 the collection assisted 770 children from San Blas parish in El Pozón, near Cartagena, Colombia, to prepare for their First Eucharist.
The collection supports pastoral projects in Latin America and the Caribbean that encourage and enrich the lives of the Catholics there. Many communities rely on the help from the CLA Collection to sustain the faith development of their parishioners.

Thursday, 19 January 2012 13:36

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The direction the courts will take with other cases related to religious employment is far from clear, but the Supreme Court’s Jan. 11 ruling opens a whole track of possibilities.
The decision in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC held that fired teacher Cheryl Perich could not sue under federal disability discrimination laws, because the Michigan Lutheran school where she worked considered her a “called” minister.
Writing for a unanimous court, Chief Justice John Roberts said the government cannot require a church to retain an unwanted minister because doing so “intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs.”
Anthony Picarello, general counsel and an associate general secretary for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told Catholic News Service Jan. 13 that the ruling is rich with potential for mining material on a wide variety of religious rights issues. But more immediately, two cases involving Catholic dioceses that are pending before the Supreme Court ask related questions.

Thursday, 19 January 2012 13:35

Letter objects to treating same-sex unions ‘as if they were marriage’
WASHINGTON (CNS) — A letter signed by more than three dozen U.S. religious leaders objects to the specter of religious groups being forced to treat same-sex unions “as if they were marriage.
Altering the civil definition of ‘marriage’ does not change one law, but hundreds, even thousands, at once,” said the letter, “Marriage and Religious Freedom: Fundamental Goods That Stand or Fall Together,” released Jan. 12.

Pope says selfishness, individualism fed economic crisis
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The economic crisis should push people to look at the values reflected in their civic life and prompt an honest evaluation of whether citizens are working together to promote justice and solidarity, Pope Benedict XVI said.
Addressing the mayor of Rome and the presidents of the province of Rome and region of Lazio Jan. 12, the pope said citizens need to “recover values that are at the basis of a true renewal of society and that not only favor economic recovery, but also aim at promoting the integral good of the human person.”

Eucharist gives strength to those who are weak, pope says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Eucharist sustains those who are tired, worn out or lost in the world and transforms human sin and weakness into new life, Pope Benedict XVI said.
Speaking at his weekly general audience Jan. 11, the pope focused on Jesus and the Last Supper, where he instituted the Eucharist, “the sacrament of his body and blood. Jesus’ gift of himself anticipates his sacrifice on the cross and his glorious resurrection,” the pope said.

Thursday, 05 January 2012 12:49

CHICAGO (CNS) — Television viewers across the country will get a glimpse into the rich history, culture and tenets of the Catholic faith this fall when 90 public television stations across the country air episodes of a series called “Catholicism” that was developed by a Chicago priest.
The series is hosted by Father Robert Barron, who runs the Chicago-based Word on Fire ministry. It includes 10, hourlong DVDs, leader and group study guides and a 300-page stand-alone book of the same title. Episodes also will be broadcast on the Eternal Word Television Network.
The priest’s goal was to show the history and treasures of the Catholic Church. The series was filmed in high-definition and spans more than 50 locations in 15 countries.
The global media ministry Word on Fire — which aims to “educate and engage the culture” — pitched all 10 episodes of “Catholicism” to PBS, but the network opted to run four shows: the revelation, God becomes man; the mystery of God; Mary, the mother of God; and Peter and Paul as missionaries. (Check local listings.)
No money was exchanged under the agreement, Father Barron said, and Word on Fire will promote the full DVD set and program at the end of each episode.

Thursday, 05 January 2012 11:51

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI will meet with Cuban President Raul Castro, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and bishops and Catholics from the region when he visits Mexico and Cuba March 23-28.
He will also deliver a message to the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean as well as pray at the shrine of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre in Cuba.
Vatican Radio released the pope’s itinerary as detailed by the Mexican and Cuban bishops’ conferences Jan. 2.
The pope will visit three cities in the state of Guanajuato in central Mexico; the Vatican spokesman had said Pope Benedict would not visit Mexico City because of the elevation — 7,900 feet above sea level — but the towns in Guanajuato are each about 5,900 feet above sea level.
In Cuba, he will make stops in Santiago de Cuba and the capital, Havana.

Thursday, 05 January 2012 11:49

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI has established a U.S. ordinariate for former Anglicans who wish to become Catholics and named a married former Episcopal bishop to head it.
The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter — functionally equivalent to a diocese, but national in scope — will be based at a parish in Houston. It will be led by Father Jeffrey N. Steenson, the former Episcopal bishop of the Rio Grande who was ordained a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, N.M., in February 2009.
The establishment of the ordinariate and the naming of its first leader were announced by the Vatican Jan. 1.
More than 100 former Anglican priests have applied to become Catholic priests in the ordinariate and 1,400 individuals from 22 communities have expressed interest in joining. In fall 2011, the members of St. Luke’s in Bladensburg, Md., and St. Peter of the Rock Community in Fort Worth, Texas, were received into the Catholic Church with the intent of joining the ordinariate.

Thursday, 05 January 2012 11:46

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Using high-tech lasers shooting pulses of ultraviolet light, Italy’s national research agency succeeded in reproducing on linen cloth colorations similar to those seen on the Shroud of Turin.
The enormous technical difficulty in achieving the positive results also makes it highly unlikely that the shroud is a fake from medieval times, the agency said.
The Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, or ENEA, spent five years looking for ways to recreate the micro-thin, yellow-sepia toned colorations that form the image of a man on the Turin shroud, said the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, Dec. 29.
According to tradition, the 14-foot by 4-foot Shroud of Turin is the linen burial shroud of Jesus. The shroud has a full-length photonegative image of a man, front and back, bearing signs of wounds that correspond to the Gospel accounts of the torture Jesus endured in his passion and death.

Thursday, 05 January 2012 11:45

Vatican agency says at least 26 church workers killed in 2011
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — At least 26 Catholic pastoral workers were killed in mission lands or among society’s most disadvantaged communities, although they were more often the victims of violent crimes than persecution for their faith, said a Vatican news agency.
Each year, Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, publishes a list of pastoral workers who died violently. The 2011 list was released Dec. 30.
The agency said that over the course of the year, it registered the deaths of 18 priests, four religious women and four laypeople. Twenty-five church workers were killed in 2010 — a figure down from an unusually high number of 37 workers murdered in 2009.
For the third consecutive year, the Americas, particularly Latin America, registered the most murders with the death of 13 priests and two laypeople.