CATHOLIC WORLD NEWS: TUES. JULY 27, 2010: HEADLINES-
VATICAN: POPE APPOINTS BISHOP BLAQUART AUXILIARY OF BORDEAUX FRANCE-
VATICAN: 600 HUNDRED THEOLOGIANS IN TRENT FOR INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION-
ASIA: IRAQ: BISHOP ANDREAS ABOUNA OF BAGHDAD DIES AGE 67 OF SICKNESS-
EUROPE: ENGLAND: UK GOVERNMENT RELEASES STAMPS WITH POPE AND NEWMAN-
AFRICA: UGANDA: AFRICAN UNION SUMMIT COMBATS TERRORISM-
AMERICA: MEXICO: OPUS DEI PRIEST FR. CACHO DIES IN CAR ACCIDENT AGE 57-
AUSTRALIA: FR. MAGUIRE CELEBRATES 50 YEAR ANNIVERSARY IN PRIESTHOOD-
VATICAN
POPE APPOINTS BISHOP BLAQUART AUXILIARY OF BORDEAUX FRANCE
VATICAN CITY, 27 JUL 2010 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Bishop Jacques Blaquart, auxiliary of Bordeaux, France, as bishop of Orleans (area 6,811, population 648,000, Catholics 445,000, priests 168, permanent deacons 40, religious 238), France. He succeeds Bishop Andre Fort, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.
VATICAN
600 HUNDRED THEOLOGIANS IN TRENT FOR INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION
Radio Vaticana report: Six hundred theologians from all five continents descended on the Northern Italian city of Trent this week to discuss “Catholic Theological Ethics in World Culture”.
With over 50 sessions on topics ranging from family to environmental protection, from sexuality to good governance, the theologians sought to approach each issue from the point of view of the Catholic Church tradition in Moral Theology and contemporary culture.
Theologians of the stature of Italian Archbishop Bruno Forte, the Archbishop of Munich and Freising Reinhard Marx, chaired sessions alongside lay men and women theologians from the US Latin America, Asia and Africa.
Jesuit Priest James Keenan is professor of Theology at Boston College in the US. He is also the co- chairman of the convention. He pointed out that where once most theologians were formed in Rome, Paris or Holland, over the past thirty years, major faculties of theology have arisen in Brazil, the Philippines and India, making meetings such as this one in Trent an important focal point for Catholic theologians.
Of the numerous interventions, Fr Keenan highlighted the presentation made by American Theologian Julie Hanlon Rubio, on Family practise and Archbishop Reinhard Marx’s intervention on the Future of Moral Theology: “He gave us this discourse about the need to work with one another to be able to appreciate how social ethics is a deep part of our own theological tradition and about how we need to get to a moral objectivity that is really rooted in tradition”.
Fr Keenan noted that there is often tension between the need to root research in tradition and the need for theologians to engage with contemporary culture.
Asked about what Pope Benedict XVI has termed as a “creeping secularism” and his call to address the moral relativism of today’s society, Fr Keenan said that the notion of relativism “ cuts two ways”.
“We can have a relativism in which we simply say; ‘what the church once taught in 1548 has never changed and always remains the same’”, which Fr Keenan notes, is not possible. “There is the relativism of those who want to objectify tradition is such as way that they want us to be living in the past with rules that do not address some of the contemporary challenges that we have. So there is a relativism that comes from objectifying the tradition”.
But then notes Fr Keenan, “there is a relativism that is subjective, that is very liberal, that is very progressive, that says that tradition can be anything that I want it to be, that we don’t read the scriptures, that we don’t read tradition itself. This is another type of relativism. We shouldn’t think that relativism comes simply from the left, it can also come from the right. What I think a real Church is looking at, if it wants to be harmonious and integrated, is to really find the tradition as it needs to be now, in light of what it once was and what it will be”.
http://www.radiovaticana.org/en1/Articolo.asp?c=411240
ASIA
IRAQ: BISHOP ANDREAS ABOUNA OF BAGHDAD DIES AGE 67 OF SICKNESS
Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil told Aid to the Church in Need that Bishop Abouna was a pastor who was “always smiling, even in very difficult situations”.
Andreas Abouna was born on 23rd March 1943 in the village of Bedar, outside the northern Iraqi town of Zakho.
Aged 14, he joined Saint Peter’s Seminary – then based in the northern city of Mosul – and was ordained a priest for the Chaldean Catholic Church on 5th June 1966.
He was a parish priest in the diocese of Basra in southern Iraq from 1967 and four years later he was appointed parish priest of Saint Joseph the Worker’s Church, Baghdad, where he served for 20 years.
In 1989 he became personal secretary to Chaldean Catholic leader Patriarch Raphael I Bidawid of Baghdad. Nearly two years later he moved to Ealing, west London, where he became priest in charge of the Chaldean and Syrian-Catholic Mission in England, a role he fulfilled for 11 years.
On 11 November 2002 he was named Auxiliary Bishop of Baghdad and he returned to his native country the following year after being ordained to the episcopate in Rome by Pope John Paul II on 6th January 2003.
Within weeks of the bishop taking office, Saddam Hussein was overthrown and key parts of Iraq including Baghdad fell victim to extreme violence.
Christians were among the worst to suffer and Bishop Abouna helped his people in the face of insurgent activity including bomb attacks on churches and threats of violence against non-Muslims. This catalogue of incidents sparked a mass exodus from the city.
Amid increasing health problems, Bishop Abouna stayed in Baghdad, holding youth events where security allowed.
He responded to a shortage of priests by serving at the parish of Our Lady of the Assumption, in the city’s Al Mansour district.
Archbishop Warda said: “He was a very close friend not just to me but to so many others. He was always smiling, even in very difficult situations.”
Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk said: “Bishop Abouna was a very good and humble man, very open-minded.
"He really took care of each one of his priests and he always worked for the unity of the Church. I hope he can pray for us from heaven.”
Aid to the Church in Need, which had helped fund Bishop Abouna’s health care, worked closely with him on projects including the relocation of Saint Peter’s Seminary away from Baghdad, where the situation had become unsafe.
Marie-Ange Siebrecht, Aid to the Church in Need’s projects coordinator for Iraq, said: “I had the pleasure to meet Bishop Abouna many times during my visits to northern Iraq. “He was a very spiritual person and had great concern for the priests and seminarians he was in charge of.
“Especially in Baghdad he played a great role among the priests to try to show them that there is a future in their country.”
Iraqi Christians in Need have set up a condolence book on their website: www.icin.org.uk/pages/Condolences.html
http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=16571
EUROPE
ENGLAND: UK GOVERNMENT RELEASES STAMPS WITH POPE AND NEWMAN
The two £1.50 special stamps received Royal Approval from HM The Queen and include the Royal Cipher.
The miniature sheet is being issued to commemorate the State Visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United Kingdom, 16-19 September, and the Beatification of Cardinal Newman, 1801-1890, at Cofton Park, Birmingham, on Sunday 19 September.
Isle of Man Stamps & Coins is now working with the Vatican Post Office to produce a limited edition souvenir first day cover and joint special hand stamp postmark to commemorate the Beatification of Cardinal Newman on 19 September 2010.
(pictured- Archbishop Longley with the miniature sheet and presentation pack. Picture by Peter Jennings)
The left hand stamp depicts a previously unknown original photograph of Cardinal Newman taken by H J Whitlock, Photographers, New Street, Birmingham, and signed by Cardinal Newman, aged 82, at the Oratory House on
Passion Sunday, 11 March 1883, for a visitor.
The right hand stamp shows an original photograph of Dr Newman taken c. 1866 by McLean & Haes, Photographers, Haymarket, London.
The picture of Pope Benedict XVI by this correspondent on the stamp label was taken during a General Audience in St Peter's Square, Rome on Wednesday 10 June 2009.
John Henry Newman was the greatest English religious figure of the 19th century. Today he is known world-wide as one of the foremost theologians of the Catholic Church and a prolific writer - he left more than 30,000 letters - but most of all he is revered as a much loved holy parish priest in Birmingham. Cardinal Newman died in his room at the Oratory House, Edgbaston, aged 89, on Monday 11 August 1890.
The miniature sheet, a presentation pack and a first day cover and insert were printed well ahead of the four-day visit of Pope Benedict to Scotland and England and before the announcement on 24 June that the Holy See had requested a change of venue for the Beatification of Cardinal Newman from Coventry Airport to Cofton Park Birmingham.
The miniature sheet wrongly refers to the beatification of Cardinal Newman taking place: "at Coventry Airport, 19 September 2010."
These special stamps depicting Cardinal Newman will be collected and treasured by stamp collectors and non collectors alike throughout the world. The inclusion of the Coventry Airport venue will add philatelic interest.
The commemorative stamps and related products were the idea of this correspondent, a Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society London, who wrote the text and supplied the pictures to Isle for Man Stamps and Coins and worked with designer Stacey Smith at Isle of Man Advertising & PR Ltd.
The miniature sheet was launched by Archbishop Bernard Longley at the end of a press conference about the Papal Visit to the Archdiocese of Birmingham held at Cathedral House, Birmingham, on Friday 23 July.
Archbishop Longley said: "Once again postage stamps show their remarkable ability to inform and raise people's awareness of historic celebrations or important national and local events.
"Isle of Man Stamps and Coins are to be congratulated on these engaging and imaginative stamps included in a special miniature sheet to commemorate the State Visit of Pope Benedict XVI and the Beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman.
"This is first time that that a Pope has been welcomed to the United Kingdom on a State Visit and these stamps highlight the importance of such a visit for UK and Isle of Man citizens within and beyond the Catholic Church."
The Archbishop of Birmingham added: "The Beatification of Cardinal Newman promotes this man of God as an example of holiness and as the bearer of truth. He is a figure of international significance and these Isle of Man stamps will introduce Cardinal Newman and his witness to goodness and truth, to many people throughout the world who may not yet know him."
The back of the special first day cover includes a specially written "Welcome to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI" by Cardinal Keith O'Brien and Archbishop Vincent Nichols.
For further information please see Isle of Man Stamps and Coins website: www.gov.im/post/stamps
http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=16568
AFRICA
UGANDA: AFRICAN UNION SUMMIT COMBATS TERRORISM
Agenzia Fides REPORT- “Let us now act in concert and sweep them (terrorists) out of Africa” the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said on Sunday 25 August at the opening ceremony of the 15th African Union Summit of Heads of State. The Summit, taking place in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, was to focus on maternal and infant health and development in Africa, however the double terrorist attack on 11 July attributed to Somali Islamic extremists, which left 76 dead and hundreds injured, (see Fides 16 July 2010), led to a change in the Summit agenda.
The civil war in Somalia is one of the principal issues being discussed by the representatives of African nations. When claiming responsibility for the attacks, Shabab (Somali insurgents fighting Somalia's internationally recognised interim government), said the attacks were an act of retaliation against the participation of Ugandan soldiers in the African Union military mission Amisom which supports Somali government army troops.
The attacks in Kampala (which coincided with the final match of the World Football Championships in South Africa) are considered Shabab's first action outside Somalia.
The African Union has decided to reinforce Amisom (presently consisting of some 6,000 Ugandan and Burundian soldiers): Guinea and Djibouti have offered to send another 2,000 military to bring the African force to a total 8,100 men.
Another point of discussion at the AU Summit is the situation in Sudan in the light of another warrant of arrest issued by the International Penal Court CPI in The Hague for President Omar El-Bashir, charged with genocide in the war in Darfur. The CPI had issued a previous warrant of arrest for Bashir on charges of war crimes. Bashir did not go to Kampala, a fact, according to local observers, not only for fear of possible arrest but due to tension between Uganda and Sudan. Rotating AU President, Bingu wa Mutharika President del Malawi, criticised both warrants of arrest for the Sudanese President. “To subject a sovereign head of state to a warrant of arrest is undermining African solidarity and African peace and security for which we fought for so many years” said Bingu wa Mutharika.
Sudan is living a delicate moment, awaiting the referendum on the independence of Southern Sudan scheduled for January 2011. http://www.fides.org/aree/news/newsdet.php?idnews=27162&lan=eng
AMERICA
MEXICO: OPUS DEI PRIEST FR. CACHO DIES IN CAR ACCIDENT AGE 57
CNA REPORT.- Coadjutor Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles has written a letter bidding farewell to Fr. Ramon Salas Cacho, an exemplary priest who tragically died in a car accident on July 9. In his letter, the archbishop expressed his sympathy and hope in God, praising the courageous testimony of Fr. Salas and the priest's total commitment to his mission.
“For those who have faith, we know, as St. Paul says, that everything happens for the good of those who love God (Romans 8:28). There are events in our lives, however, episodes that remind us that accepting this truth is not always easy,” the archbishop wrote. “One of them has been the departure to Eternal Life of a priest friend, whose entire life was an affirmation of the Year of Priests we have just brought to a close: Fr. Ramon Salas Cacho, who completed his journey among us on July 9.”
The priest, who was the vicar of the prelature for Opus Dei in Mexico City, died at the age of 57. He had served as a priest for 25 years.
“Ramon, how are you?’ I would often ask him each time I had the chance to visit Mexico City,” the archbishop continued in his letter. “‘Will you come with me to the Villa to celebrate Mass at the Basilica of Guadalupe?’ I would invariably ask him. And the generosity of his response was equally invariable: ‘Absolutely! I’ll pick you up at the airport and we’ll go pray to Our Lady of Guadalupe.’”
“The last time we were together at the feet of Our Lady, he turned to me with his usually spiritual joy and said, ‘It’s so great to pray with Our Lady of Guadalupe',” the prelate recalled. “His more than 25 years of priesthood were marked by a profound life of prayer, the devout celebration of the Holy Eucharist and untiring attention to the spiritual needs of so many men and women who came to him to be reconciled with God through the sacrament of Confession or to seek out counsel and wisdom through spiritual direction,” Archbishop Gomez noted.
He also praised Fr. Ramon’s leadership in the apostolic work of Opus Dei in various Mexican cities, “giving men and women, single and married, young and old, a new hope of spiritual life. And always with a smile and with the simplicity of a normal and fulfilling life,” the archbishop said.
Fr. Ramon showed throughout his life “the authenticity of a priestly life that is worthy of imitation for me and for my brother priests,” he added.
“May my good friend and brother Fr. Ramon rest in peace. Let us appeal to his intercession, that he will continue accompanying us on our earthly journey until at the end of our lives we can meet with him again in the presence of the Lord our God and the company of Our Lady of Guadalupe,” Archbishop Gomez concluded.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/archbishop-gomez-gives-moving-farewell-to-priest-killed-in-car-accident/
AUSTRALIA
FR. MAGUIRE CELEBRATES 50 YEAR ANNIVERSARY IN PRIESTHOOD
Cath News report: As he celebrated his Golden Jubilee at the weekend, South Melbourne parish priest and media celebrity Father Bob Maguire remarked that, as a newly-ordained priest, he was "like a little Energizer bunny, keen to go and tell the world".
His South Melbourne church was packed for the 10am Mass honouring his 50 years as a priest, and Father Bob - as he is known everywhere - was at his witty, self-deprecatory best. The ladies of the parish, in a labour of love, laid on a feast, including a cake with his picture rendered in icing.
The Mass was not about him, he told The Age. "Roman Catholicism is the hearts and minds of lay people. Priests run on to the field and give the players some support, a sip of water, a pat on the back, some instructions from Jesus, who's the coach. That's what we're supposed to do."
South Melbourne mayor Frank O'Connor, who was a school cadet when he first met Father Bob more than 40 years ago, paid a warm tribute, remembering the priest's inclusive and generous attitude, his zeal for the disadvantaged, and his constant flood of ideas, some of which got him into trouble.
For most of his career the unconventional priest, his life shaped by the liberalising spirit of the Vatican II council in the 1960s, has enjoyed an uneasy relationship with "head office".
Father Bob said he was sad that he allowed his mission as priest to stifle his instinct to make friends. "I should have been better at the friend business with my colleagues, especially when I became an infotainment priest."
But he has never lost his inspiration or his concern for the poor. Of the latter, he says: "Look at the founder of the firm. The logic is, there's a down and out, hungry, on the cross, executed while innocent, on a rubbish tip outside the walls of Jerusalem. That's always inspired me."
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=22560
TODAY'S SAINT
St. Pantaleon
MARTYR
Information: Feast Day: July 27
Patron of: against consumption, against tuberculosis bachelors, doctors, physicians, torture victims
Martyr, died about 305. According to legend he was the son of a rich pagan, Eustorgius of Nicomedia, and had been instructed in Christianity by his Christian mother, Eubula. Afterwards he became estranged from Christianity. He studied medicine and became physician to the Emperor Maximianus. He was won back to Christianity by the priest Hermolaus. Upon the death of his father he came into possession of a large fortune. Envious colleagues denounced him to the emperor during the Diocletian persecution. The emperor wished to save him and sought to persuade him to apostasy. Pantaleon, however, openly confessed his faith, and as proof that Christ is the true God, he healed a paralytic. Notwithstanding this, he was condemned to death by the emperor, who regarded the miracle as an exhibition of magic. According to legend, Pantaleon's flesh was first burned with torches; upon this Christ appeared to all in the form of Hermolaus to strengthen and heal Pantaleon. The torches were extinguished. After this, when a bath of liquid lead was prepared, Christ in the same form stepped into the cauldron with him, the fire went out and the lead became cold. He was now thrown into the sea, but the stone with which he was loaded floated. He was thrown to the wild beasts but these fawned upon him and could not be forced away until he had blessed them. He was bound on the wheel, but the ropes snapped, and the wheel broke. An attempt was made to behead him, but the sword bent, and the executioners were converted. Pantaleon implored heaven to forgive them, for which reason he also received the name of Panteleemon (the all-compassionate). It was not until he himself desired it that it was possible to behead him.
The lives containing these legendary features are all late in date and valueless. Yet the fact of the martyrdom itself seems to be proved by a veneration for which there is early testimony, among others from Theodoret (Graecarum affectionum curatio, Sermo VIII, "De martyribus", in Migne, P. G., LXXXIII 1033), Procopius of Caesarea (De aedificiis Justiniani I, ix; V, ix), and the "Martyrologium Hieronymianum" (Acta SS., Nov., II, 1, 97). Pantaleon is venerated in the East as a great martyr and wonderworker. In the Middle Ages he came to be regarded as the patron saint of physicians and midwives, and became one of the fourteen guardian martyrs. From early times a phial containing some of his blood has been preserved at Constantinople. On the feast day of the saint the blood is said to become fluid and to bubble. Relics of the saint are to be found at St. Denis at Paris; his head is venerated at Lyons. His feast day is 27 July, also 28 July, and 18 February.
SOURCE http://www.ewtn.com/saintsHoly/saints/P/stpantaleon.asp
TODAY'S GOSPEL
Matthew 13: 36 - 43
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36 Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field."
37 He answered, "He who sows the good seed is the Son of man;
38 the field is the world, and the good seed means the sons of the kingdom; the weeds are the sons of the evil one,
39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels.
40 Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age.
41 The Son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers,
42 and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.
43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
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