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NEWS BRIEFS May-13-2008

By Catholic News Service

U.S.

Church moves to help families after Iowa's largest immigration raid

DAVENPORT, Iowa (CNS) -- The arrest of more than 300 employees at an Iowa meatpacking plant has left countless families in a "state of terror" and once again shows the need for comprehensive immigration reform, according to Archbishop Jerome G. Hanus of Dubuque. "Some of the weakest members among us are bearing the brunt of the suffering, while legislators and other leaders, as well as many of us in the general public, have failed to give this issue the priority that it deserves," the archbishop said in a statement following the largest immigration raid in the state's history. In a statement posted on its Web site, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said its agents executed a criminal search warrant May 12 at Agriprocessors Inc. in Postville for evidence relating to aggravated identity theft, fraudulent use of Social Security numbers and other crimes, as well as a civil search warrant for people illegally in the United States. The plant is in the Dubuque Archdiocese. Scrambling to assist the many people affected by the raids is the newly formed Immigrant Safety Network, which aims to improve services and communications in response to such a raid. It is comprised of numerous social service agencies in the Des Moines area, including Catholic Charities of the Des Moines Diocese.

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Immigration protection extended to workers in Northern Marianas

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Human traffickers were dealt a blow May 8 when President George W. Bush signed a law that extends U.S. immigration law protections to workers in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands. An advocate for the workers told Catholic News Service that with the protections immigrants from China and other Asian countries will be less likely to become victims of fraud when they are recruited to work in the U.S. commonwealth, which is a group of 15 small islands about three-quarters of the way from Hawaii to the Philippines just north of Guam. Good Shepherd Sister Carol McClenon, interim national coordinator of the National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, said a provision of the Consolidated Natural Resources Act will reduce the likelihood that workers will end up in prostitution or in other abusive work situations. Sister Carol, who returned to the U.S. last summer after working for four years at a domestic violence shelter in the commonwealth, said the difficulty stemmed from unscrupulous employers who recruit workers for one type of work only to force them into another setting.

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Directive from Archbishop Flynn ends lay preaching at Mass

NEW HOPE, Minn. (CNS) -- Father Terry Rassmussen, pastor of St. Joseph Church in New Hope, finished the reading, closed the Book of the Gospels and stepped away from the ambo. From the congregation, Ginny Untiedt stepped forward. Clad in a white robe, Untiedt bowed as Father Rassmussen laid his hands on her head and blessed her. She walked to the ambo and began preaching for the last time. As many as 29 parishes in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis have used lay preachers at Mass during the past 25 years. In January Archbishop Harry J. Flynn instructed pastors to discontinue the practice. He gave the date of his retirement as head of the archdiocese -- May 2 -- as the time by which parishes should develop "a pastoral plan" to end lay preaching at Mass. Pope Benedict XVI accepted Archbishop Flynn's resignation on his 75th birthday May 2; 75 is the age at which canon law requires bishops to turn in their resignation. As coadjutor, Archbishop John C. Nienstedt automatically became head of the archdiocese.

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Handwritten, illuminated Saint John's Bible nearing completion

COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. (CNS) -- Thomas Edison once said that genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration. The inspiration for The Saint John's Bible may have been kindled by a few, but the perspiration generated in bringing this work of genius and art into being glistens worldwide. Across the ocean in Wales, Donald Jackson, senior scribe to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's Crown Office, has been leading a team of calligraphers and artists who are copying the divinely inspired scriptural text and illustrating it. The work is expected to be completed by the end of 2009. Planning for the Bible began in 1996, and in 1998 the Benedictine monks of St. John's Abbey and University in Collegeville commissioned Jackson to be the project's artistic director. The Saint John's Bible is believed to be the first handwritten, illuminated Bible commissioned by a Benedictine monastery in 500 years.

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Catholic-Muslim dialogue looks at U.S. interreligious education

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Interreligious education was the focus of the Mid-Atlantic Muslim Catholic Dialogue conducted April 23-24 in Washington. The meeting explored teaching about different religions in private and public institutions. According to a May 9 news release, it was a follow-up to a 2007 meeting during which a speaker described the development of a Muslim-Catholic educational exchange between the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Council of Islamic Societies of Greater Chicago. In the April meeting, Father Gregory Fairbanks, a faculty member at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Pa., and director of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's Office for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, presented a curriculum for ecumenical and interreligious training required by Catholic seminaries and recommended for clergy and lay leaders. Father Fairbanks cited documents of the Second Vatican Council and other, more recent church documents. He highlighted U.S. Catholic pastoral concerns, including interreligious marriages, social justice cooperation or tensions, and the education of non-Catholic children in Catholic schools.

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Ten Commandments seen as basis for secular arguments on modern issues

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Catholic and Jewish presenters at an April 30 interfaith consultation held in New York pointed to the Ten Commandments as the basis for secular arguments on contemporary social issues. Abortion, embryonic stem-cell research and same-sex unions are among the issues that could benefit from such an approach, according to papers presented during the consultation. A May 7 news release from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reported details of the meeting, which focused on religion and public morality in U.S. society today. The Catholic-Jewish consultation, which meets twice a year, includes representatives of the USCCB, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis and the Rabbinical Council of America. Both Catholics and Orthodox Jews view judicial and legislative efforts to broaden the definition of marriage to include same-sex unions as harmful to both family life and the common good of society. Consultation participants recently drafted a statement, defending marriage between one man and one woman, which is expected to be published in the coming weeks.

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WORLD

Chinese priests work around disruptions to assess quake damage

CHENGDU, China (CNS) -- Chinese priests had to work around disrupted telephone systems and damaged roads as they tried to assess the damage from the May 12 earthquake centered under Sichuan province. Responding to appeals for aid and prayers on Catholic Web sites, Catholics across China have begun donating money and clothes to help survivors, the priests told the Asian church news agency UCA News. The magnitude 7.9 earthquake, which hit just after midday May 12, had its epicenter beneath Wenchuan County in Sichuan province. Wenchuan is less than 60 miles northwest of Chengdu, the provincial capital. By May 13, government officials reported more than 12,000 people had been killed in the quake, but the death toll was expected to rise. Officials said in one city alone more than 19,000 people were buried in the rubble. Father Simon Li Zhigang, administrator of the Chengdu Diocese, told UCA News May 13 that he could not reach by phone the priests serving in Wenchuan and Beichuan. About 100 Catholics live in Wenchuan and several hundred more in Beichuan, he said.

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Archbishop applauds government for fund to resettle displaced Kenyans

NAIROBI, Kenya (CNS) -- The retired archbishop of Nairobi applauded the Kenyan government for launching and raising money for a special fund to assist the resettlement of people internally displaced after the country's postelection violence. Archbishop Raphael Ndingi Mwana'a Nzeki, chairman of the government's humanitarian committee that sponsored the fund, told Catholic News Service May 12 it was a step "in the right direction." The archbishop said he hoped special attention would be given to displaced mothers and children. "There are mothers who must be given special attention in terms of food for their families, children who are sick and need special medical attention as well as education. All this should be prioritized," said Archbishop Ndingi. In the violence after the country's disputed Dec. 27 general elections, more than 350,000 Kenyans were displaced inside the country. Government sources told CNS in mid-May that 150,000 still were living in camps for internally displaced people.

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Pope authorizes indulgences for Hong Kong Catholics praying for China

HONG KONG (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has authorized the granting of a plenary indulgence to Catholics in the Hong Kong Diocese who pray a novena to Our Lady, Help of Christians or say special prayers for the church in China. The diocesan vicar general, Father Dominic Chan Chi-ming, told the Asian church news agency UCA News that Pope Benedict, at the request of Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong, has offered the indulgence to those who participate in the diocese's May 15-23 novena. Those who join in activities marking the feasts of Our Lady, Help of Christians May 24 and Corpus Christi May 25 also are eligible. UCA News did not indicate when the pope authorized the plenary indulgence, which is a remission of the temporal punishment a person is due for sins that have been forgiven. The novena is a response to Pope Benedict's call for a world day of prayer for the church in China May 24. The pope announced this in his June 2007 letter to mainland Catholics.

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African bishops urge worldwide pressure to end violence in Zimbabwe

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- The Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference has appealed for international pressure to end violence and torture in Zimbabwe. International election observers should be deployed immediately as the country prepares for a runoff presidential election, said South African Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg, conference president, in a May 13 statement. "The current environment is not conducive to free and fair runoff elections," he said, speaking on behalf of the bishops' conference, which covers South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland. Reports of violence perpetrated by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party in the wake of the loss of its parliamentary majority in March 29 presidential and legislative elections have been widespread. The official presidential election results, published in early May after a delay of more than a month, put opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who garnered 47.9 percent of the vote, ahead of Mugabe, who took 43.2 percent. A minimum of 50 percent plus one vote was needed to avoid a second round of voting for the presidency.

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Film schools partner with Vatican for programs on human condition

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The New York Film Academy is partnering with the Vatican and a Mexican film school to offer new programs to help aspiring filmmakers tell their stories from a more human, spiritual dimension. "Film has extraordinary potential" to delve into the meaning of life, go beyond the superficial, "transcend reality" and encounter the human soul, said Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture. The archbishop and others spoke at a May 13 press conference at the Vatican to unveil four initiatives to help future filmmakers get hands-on experience and become more effective in delivering a message about the human condition to their audiences. The Pontifical Council for Culture, the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, the Higher Education Center for Cinematographic Production in Guadalajara, Mexico, and the New York Film Academy are sponsoring the alternative filmmaking initiatives.

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PEOPLE

Polish church seeks canonization of couple killed by Nazis

WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- The Catholic Church in Poland is seeking the canonization of a peasant couple shot with their six small children for hiding Jews in their farmhouse during the Holocaust. "This was a poor family, but a resourceful and hardworking one," said Archbishop Jozef Michalik of Przemysl, president of the Polish bishops' conference. "They knew sheltering Jews carried a death sentence and that several neighbors had already been executed for it. Despite this, they offered themselves -- not even the children were afraid." The first stage of the canonization process in the Diocese of Przemysl for Jozef and Wiktoria Ulm has been completed. The Ulms, who ran a fruit orchard, were shot March 24, 1944, for sheltering eight Jews. Poland's National Remembrance Institute said it believed local Poles had tipped off the Nazis after Wiktoria Ulm, who was nine months pregnant at her death, bought unusual amounts of food at the village shop.

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Changes in northern Canada brought challenges, says retired bishop

OTTAWA (CNS) -- When Canadian Bishop Denis Croteau, retired bishop of Mackenzie-Fort Smith, first began serving in the North as a priest 48 years ago, he used to travel by dog sled to visit the Dogrib Indians in their camps in the woods. But much has changed since the Oblate priest arrived in 1960. Roads crisscross the southern part of the diocese below Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Planes supply transportation to the region. "Even the native people don't have dogs. They all have Ski-doos now," he said in an interview from Yellowknife, the diocese's largest urban center. "They don't hunt, trap and fish anymore except for the pleasure of it," he said. "It's finished as a way of life." On May 10, Pope Benedict XVI accepted Bishop Croteau's retirement and Bishop Murray Chatlain, who served the diocese as coadjutor for the past year, has taken his place. But rest and relaxation are not in Bishop Croteau's plans after serving 22 years as bishop. "I will remain north and operate as a regular missionary," said the bishop. "We are very short of priests, and we have a large territory."

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