U.S. pro-life group leads campaign urging Amnesty International not to embrace abortion as ‘human right’
Miami, Fla., May 9, 2006 (CNA) -
Human
Life International, one of the most prominent pro-life organizations in
the world, has reiterated its call to all pro-life advocates to write
to Amnesty International (AI) and petition the organization not to
promote abortion as a “human right.”
The leaders of AI are set to decide on May 20 if the organization will embrace the idea of abortion as a “human right.”
According
to a press release by HLI, “The urgent need to write many letters to
Amnesty International is due not only to the fact that their annual
meeting is drawing near (May 20, 2006), but also because the British
pro-life organization United For Life has sent four letters to the
group's London headquarters in order to dissuade them from declaring
abortion to be ‘an international human right’ and so far, has not
received any response.”
Officials
at HLI speculate that “This is probably due to the fact that many
people and organizations that are either affiliated with Amnesty
International, or supporters are unaware that this organization, at its
highest levels, has unfortunately distorted the authentic concept of
human rights. Because of all this, we earnestly ask you to please
write this organization and ask that it cease promoting abortion as an
‘international right’.”
“If
Amnesty International persists in this campaign, we can only imagine
the great harm that it will bring to the pro-life cause due to the
‘prestige’ that this organization has in the eyes of many,” HLI warned.
Letters can be sent to Amnesty International at the following address:
Amnesty International
International Secretariat
1 Easton Street
London
WC1X 0DW
UK
http://web.amnesty.org/contacts/contact_us/eng-000
Pope Benedict mourns Italian soldiers killed in Afghanistan
Vatican City, May 9, 2006 (CNA) - Pope
Benedict XVI’s own words of condolence were read at the beginning of a
funeral Mass, held this morning, during which Italy laid to rest two of
its soldiers. Both lost their lives in a May 5th attack in Kabul,
Afghanistan.
The message,
sent by the Vatican’s Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano, was
read by Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, who is military ordinary for Italy,
at St. Mary of the Angels Church in Rome.
Cardinal Sodano
begins the telegram: "Having learned the news of the ignoble attack on
the Italian convoy in Kabul, which caused the death of two soldiers of
the Alpine Regiment, the Supreme Pontiff wishes to communicate to
parents and relatives an expression of his personal participation in
their profound suffering.”
Pope Benedict
also wished to “convey his heartfelt condolences for the grave mourning
which has once again struck the entire nation of Italy, and especially
the armed forces committed to upholding, with generous self-sacrifice,
actions of peace among sorely tried peoples.”
The Cardinal
said that Benedict assures “his fervent prayers that the Lord may
welcome to eternal life the young victims who sacrificed their own
lives,” and “invokes heavenly comfort upon those weeping their dramatic
death.”
The Pope also sent his personal apostolic blessing, “with a special thought for the soldiers wounded in the attack."
Italian, Dutch religious sisters to be beatified over weekend
Vatican City, May 9, 2006 (CNA) - The
Vatican’s Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff has
announced that two religious sisters will be beatified on May 13th and
14th during ceremonies scheduled to be held almost simultaneously in
Italy and Holland.
The first,
Servant of God Maria Teresa di San Giuseppe, nee Anna Maria Tauscher
van den Bosch, will be declared Blessed in Roermond, Netherlands on
Saturday, the 13th.
Born to Lutheran
parents in 1855, she became Catholic in 1888 before founding the
Congregation of Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus in 1891.
She died in 1938 in Holland.
On Sunday,
Servant of God Maria della Passione di Nostro Signore Gesu Cristo, nee
Grazia Tarallo, will be beatified in the cathedral of Naples, in Italy.
The Italian-born
sister was part of the Institute of Crucified Sisters Adorers of the
Holy Eucharist and near the end of her life, was said to have been
physically sustained on nothing but the Eucharist.
She was born in
1866 and died in 1912. A declared miracle was ascribed to her, opening
the door for her beatification, on December 19th, 2005.
Muslim refugees desecrate Belgian churches
Brussels, Belgium, May 9, 2006 (CNA) - Illegal immigrants have taken refuge in some Belgian churches and, according to the conservative Brussels Journal, these churches “are being turned into mosques before [the bishops'] very eyes.”
A recent report in the journal indicates that t he Belgian bishops have opened their churches and offered sanctuary to illegal immigrants in order to pressurize the Belgian authorities to allow them to stay in the country.
Most of these illegal immigrants are Muslim, and the Brussels Journal accused the bishops of being “ignorant” to the fact that these immigrants are desecrating the churches.
According to the Belgian publication, the squatters live in tents in the churches. Catholic relief organizations provided the tents and offered radios, television sets and computers. They hold Islamic prayer services in the church and display banners showing the name of Allah. They have also moved the altar and covered the face of a statue of Our Lady with a cloth.
The journal documented these facts with photos and claim that the arrangements have existed for a number of years already.
Pictures were used with permission from photographer Chris Gillibrand and the conservative weblog: http://cathcon.blogspot.com/2006/01/church-becomes-tent-city.html.
Tents set up in the Church
Muslim prayer service in Chapel
Computers to play card games
Allah banner on walls of the Church
Eleven new priests for Denver, largest ordination class in 40 years
Denver, Colo., May 9, 2006 (CNA) - Archbishop
Charles Chaput of Denver will ordain 11 new priests for his diocese May
13, on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, at the Cathedral Basilica of
the Immaculate Conception.
The ceremony
will bring the total number of ordinations for Denver this academic
year to 14; three men were ordained in December. This is the largest
number of ordinations in Denver since the 1960s. There were five
ordinations in 2002-03 and seven in 2004-05.
The Archdiocese
of Denver ranks third nationwide in ordination class size for 2006.
According to the Official Catholic Directory, the Church continues to
average between 400 and 450 priestly ordinations each year since 2003.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has cited a trend towards older
and better educated ordinands; the average age of whom nationally is
37.
In Denver, their
average age is 34 and many have had full-time careers in various
fields. For example, Deacon Frank Garcia, 48, taught over 20 years in
Colorado’s Jefferson County Public Schools before entering the
seminary. Deacon Michael Freihofer, 42, was an officer in the U.S. Air
Force for 10 years, where he taught calculus and coached the Academy’s
women’s volleyball team.
When asked about
their calling to the priesthood, many of the ordinands describe an
attraction to the priesthood since childhood, while others experienced
their calling in later years, usually during college or foreign
missionary work.
Boston Cardinal, local Catholics to support a ballot vote on marriage
Boston, Mass., May 9, 2006 (CNA) - Boston’s
Cardinal Sean O’Malley is urging Catholics in his archdiocese to
contact their state senators and representatives and urge them to
include a new amendment--defining marriage as an act between one man
and one woman--on the November 2008 ballot.
“Our elected
officials must hear from Catholics,” the archbishop said in a letter he
had published in The Pilot, the local diocesan newspaper.
“In order to
ensure that citizens can participate in decisions on the definition of
marriage, it is important that you contact your legislators,” he wrote.
The cardinal
said that he has joined a coalition, including the other bishops of
Massachusetts, Catholic Citizenship and VoteOnMarriage.org, to “support
the right of citizens to vote on the definition of marriage.”
The
Massachusetts State Legislature is expected to debate a proposed
constitutional amendment, defining marriage as the union between one
man and one woman, starting this month and as early as May 10. House
Bill 4617 responds to the 2003 Supreme Judicial Court ruling that
created a right to same-sex marriage in our state constitution.
The
cardinal-archbishop pointed out that more than 123,000 citizens signed
a petition supporting the amendment last fall. This was the most
signatures ever certified in a ballot campaign in Massachusetts.
For more information, go to VoteOnMarriage.org.
Recent polls show Americans shifting to pro-life attitudes
Washington D.C., May 9, 2006 (CNA) - According
to recent nationwide opinion polls, support for Roe v. Wade is waning
and the majority of Americans would support restrictions on abortion,
observes Deirdre McQuade, director of planning and information at the
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishop’s Secretariat for Pro-Life
Activities.
McQuade notes that “public opinion has moved progressively away from supporting unqualified access to abortion.”
“This is a real
sign of hope,” she said, “for both women and their unborn children.”
McQuade is hopeful this trend will continue.
A May 4 Harris
poll found that support for Roe v. Wade has dropped below 50 percent
nationally for the first time in 30 years. It also showed that 44
percent of Americans said they would support a law in their own state
like South Dakota's, which bans all abortions except to save the
mother's life.
“An April 2006
survey by the Polling Company, Inc./WomanTrend found that 54 percent
support limiting legal abortion to the extreme circumstances of rape,
incest, and to save the life of the mother,” McQuade said. An
additional 21 percent would limit abortion to the first trimester. Roe
v. Wade allows for abortion at any time throughout pregnancy.
In March, a
Zogby poll found majority support for abortion regulations such as
informed consent laws for women and parental notification laws, with 69
percent favoring such measures for girls under 17 years old.
Judge orders removal of Mt. Soledad Cross
San Diego, Calif., May 9, 2006 (CNA) - After
a 17-year legal battle, Federal District Judge Gordon Thompson ordered
San Diego officials to remove the historic Mount Soledad Cross within
90 days or face fines of $5,000 per day thereafter.
The 43-foot
cross was erected in 1954 and is currently the centerpiece of a
national memorial honoring American veterans of all wars.
A similar order was issued in 1991 in this case between the city of San Diego and atheist activist Philip Paulson.
But lawyers from
the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based
in Ann Arbor, Michigan, have said the issue is not over.
“The judge’s
order is not the end of the Mt. Soledad saga. We are looking at several
options: asking President Bush to take the land under the federal
government’s powers of eminent domain,” said Charles LiMandri, the west
coast regional director of the Law Center, which has been involved in
the defense of the Mt. Soledad Cross and National Memorial for several
years.
In 2004, just
weeks before the cross was to be removed, the Law Center devised the
legal blueprint to designate the land a national veteran’s memorial,
which the area’s congressmen implemented in a federal omnibus
appropriations act Dec. 8, 2004.
Just days before
Judge Thompson’s order to remove the Cross, LiMandri hand-delivered a
supplemental legal memo on behalf of San Diegans for the Mt Soledad
National Memorial, pointing out how recent federal court decisions
supported keeping the Cross where it is.
“I understand
that after 17 years, Judge Thompson would want to get this case off his
docket,” said Richard Thompson, the Law Center’s president and chief
counsel.
“But what is
troubling, to do so he not only ignored the change in the law and facts
since his 1991 order, but he ignored the will of Congress and the
United States President that made the Mt Soledad Cross a part of a
national memorial, and he ignored the will of San Diego citizens of all
faiths who overwhelmingly voted to maintain the Cross as the
centerpiece of this memorial.”
For more on the Mt Soledad Cross controversy, go to www.thomasmore.org.
Salvadoran cardinal says Church’s authority on condom use belongs to the Pope
San Salvador, El Salvador, May 9, 2006 (CNA) - Archbishop
Fernando Saenz Lacalle of San Salvador, El Salvador, said this week
that only the Pope has the authority to define the Church’s position on
the use of condoms by married couples in which one spouse is infected
with HIV or AIDS.
In the midst of
a debate in El Salvador about a policy that would center the country’s
efforts to fight AIDS on the distribution and promotion of condoms,
Archbishop Saenz was asked by local reporters about the statements by
Italian Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, who called the use of condoms in
such cases a “lesser evil.” “These opinions have not been
expressed by the Pope, who is the only one with authority to speak on
this matter,” the archbishop said.
“We should not
be spreading confusing ideas about such important issues that affect
morality and the nature of the marriage act,” he added.
Many media
outlets have recently reported that the Vatican is planning a new
instruction on the use of condoms, but so far, pertinent Vatican
offices have denied the suggestion.
Family is sole hope of humanity, says Spanish cardinal
Madrid, Spain, May 9, 2006 (CNA) - During
the closing of the International Congress, “Europe for Life,” held this
past weekend at the Catholic University of San Antonio in Murcia,
Spain, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares, Archbishop of Toledo, called the
family “the sole hope of humanity.”
The cardinal
made his statements during a talk on the cultural importance of the
family. He noted the “close relationship between the
deterioration of the family and the attack on human life,” thus
referring to terrorism and abortion as “examples of that attack.”
“Without a
doubt,” the cardinal said, “the most serious injustice and oppression
of the present time is that of the great multitude of defenseless human
beings whose fundamental right to life is being squashed.”
Church in Cuba wants to spark spiritual renewal
Havana, Cuba, May 9, 2006 (CNA) - The
Archdiocese of Havana announced that on September 8th, the feast of the
patroness of Cuba, Our Lady of Charity, a new pastoral plan will be
implemented in order to promote a spiritual renewal among the faithful.
“The previous
Plan had as its priority the formation of (new) Christian faithful, but
in a well-organized national survey, the Catholics of Cuba have
overwhelmingly expressed their view that Catholics are need of
spirituality,” Cardinal Jaime Ortega, Archbishop of Havana, said in an
interview published by the archdiocesan magazine.
The cardinal
said the plan also aims to encourage the faithful to assume a more
active and leading role in the transformation of Cuban society.
Likewise, reports say that it will also foster the Church’s efforts at evangelization and pastoral action.
