CATHOLIC WORLD NEWS: TUES. AUG. 10, 2010: HEADLINES-
VATICAN: POPE: ACCEPTS RESIGNATION AND APPOINTS MONS. NUNNARI-
VATICAN: LAWSUIT AGAINST HOLY SEE IN KENTUCKY HAS BEEN DROPPED-
ASIA: CHINA: MUD SLIDES DISPLACE 50, 000 PEOPLE AND CAUSE OVER 1, 000 DEATHS-
EUROPE: POLAND: SUPPORTERS FORCE AUTHORITIES TO KEEP CROSS IN MEMORY-
AMERICA: USA: ATHEIST WILSON DONATES $5. 6 MILLION TO CATHOLIC DIOCESE-
AFRICA: ANGOLA: PRIEST CALLS CATHOLICS TO HELP IN ERADICATION OF POVERTY-
AUSTRALIA: COMMUNITY SERVICES LAUNCHES TOOL KIT TO HELP SQUALOR-
VATICAN
POPE: ACCEPTS RESIGNATION AND APPOINTS MONS. NUNNARI
Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation submitted by h.e. Mons. Ercole Lupinacci, Bishop of Lungro of Italo-Albanians of Italy mainland, pursuant to § 1 KOINONIA JOHN can 210, and appointed his Excellency Mons. Salvatore Nunnari, Archbishop of Cosenza Bisignano, Apostolic Administrator, sede vacante et ad nutum Sanctae Sedis, thereof Eparchy. [01104-01.01]
VATICAN
LAWSUIT AGAINST HOLY SEE IN KENTUCKY HAS BEEN DROPPED
Radio Vaticana report: “Justice for victims of sexual abuse and the protection of minors remain our primary objective”. This is how Vatican Press Office Director, Fr Federico Lombardi, welcomed the news that a lawsuit brought against the Holy See by three men sexually abused by priests in Kentucky has been abandoned by the plaintiffs.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs said earlier court rulings recognizing the sovereign immunity of the Holy See played a role in the decision, as well as the fact that most sexual abuse victims have already sought compensation from their dioceses.
The case is unrelated to another lawsuit filed against the Holy See in Oregon.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from the Holy See in the Oregon lawsuit, and it is still working its way through the US court system.
The US lawyer for the Holy See, Jeffrey Lena, said the abandonment of the Kentucky case shows there has never been a Holy See policy requiring concealment of child sexual abuse.
He also said that the fact the case against the Holy See always lacked merit does not mean that the plaintiffs themselves did not suffer as a result of sexual abuse, but bringing this case only distracted from the important goal of protecting children from harm.
Greeting the news Tuesday, Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi also said that the positive out come should not in anyway minimise the Holy See’s horror and condemnation of sexual abuse or compassion for the victims suffering.
However he added “it is good news that a case that has lasted six years on the alleged involvement of the Holy See in concealing abuse and which has also had strong negative effects on public opinion, has ultimately been proven[…] unfounded”.
http://www.radiovaticana.org/en1/Articolo.asp?c=414447
ASIA
CHINA: MUD SLIDES DISPLACE 50, 000 PEOPLE AND CAUSE OVER 1, 000 DEATHS
Asia News report: Army, police and firefighters mobilised. Unsafe roads make it difficult for machines and excavators to arrive. Wen Jiabao visits the affected area. A lake formed by debris is likely to produce another river of mud.
At least 1,300 people are missing and about 50,000 have fled to safety in other areas. The river of mud created by the torrential rains in recent weeks, with a depth of one to four meters, has buried entire areas, destroyed houses, rendered roads unusable, hampering the arrival of machines and excavators. People are digging in the mud looking for survivors using their bare hands or shovels.
Geologists and bomb technicians are studying how to empty a lake that was created because of debris and landslides. With the rains that are expected in the next 24 hours there is a risk that a new river of mud invades the area downstream.
Yesterday Premier Wen Jiabao visited the area and promised aid and comfort to survivors. Two-thirds of the county has no electricity. The Finance Ministry has earmarked 500 million yuan (about 55.6 million euros) for the emergency in the region. The Ministry of Agriculture has sent protective material and disinfectants: there is a large number of livestock in the area - where many Tibetan nomads living – raising fears of the spread of epidemics caused by dead animals.
In recent weeks, heavy rains in China have caused disasters in Shaanxi, Sichuan, Hubei and Anhui, with1,250 deaths and damage estimated at over 14 billion euro.
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Rescue-work-difficult-for-1300-missing-in-river-of-mud-in-Zhouqu-19151.html
EUROPE
POLAND: SUPPORTERS FORCE AUTHORITIES TO KEEP CROSS IN MEMORY
PICTURE: A supporter of the late Polish President Lech Kaczynski holds a rosary during a protest in front of the Presidential palace in Warsaw August 3, 2010.
Kaczynski, his wife Maria and 94 others, mostly senior political officials and military commanders, were killed in a plane crash in Russia on April 10 that plunged Poland into deep mourning and triggered an early presidential election.
The cross, erected by a scouting group after the crash, has become the center of a de facto shrine to the dead, festooned with flowers and candles.
The plan to move the cross to a nearby church had upset and angered Kaczynski's deeply Catholic core supporters.
Some protesters prevented priests from reaching the cross where they had intended to perform a short religious service on Tuesday before accompanying it to the nearby Church of St Anna.
"If there is no cross there is no faith, there is no church," a woman aged about 40 told the priests as she knelt to block their way in images broadcast live on Polish television.
"Leave this cross alone. We're Catholics, we beg you to leave this cross as a symbol of our national tragedy, as a symbol of people who gave their lives for Poland," shouted another man, also unidentified.
Jacek Michalowski, head of the president's chancellery, later told reporters that the cross would not be moved on Tuesday after all. It was not immediately clear whether the authorities would set a new date for its removal.
EDITED FROM http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre6723ls-us-poland-crash-cross/
AMERICA
USA: ATHEIST WILSON DONATES $5. 6 MILLION TO CATHOLIC DIOCESE
It’s the latest of many gifts from Wilson to the city’s Catholic hierarchy and educators, this one aimed at funding the Catholic Alumni Partnership, a program he founded that helps elementary schools track down their 750,000 alumni and recruit them as donors.
“Most of what the Catholic schools teach are the three Rs,” said Wilson, 83, in a phone interview, referring to reading, writing and arithmetic. “And they do it better than the union-controlled inner-city schools.”
Wilson, a Detroit native, said he began questioning the existence of God after enrolling in Amherst College in Massachusetts to study economics.
“Religious people say you couldn’t have our surrounding environment without the Creator, but then who created the Creator?” Wilson said. He made his fortune as a growth-stock investor at his firm, Wilson Associates, taking $15,000 in 1949 and turning it into $225 million by 1986 when he retired at age 60.
He stopped investing after retirement and entrusted his wealth among a dozen money managers. He then started giving money to conservation causes such as the World Monuments Fund, Nature Conservancy and the Wildlife Conservation Society. Wilson said he has donated more than $550 million to charity and wants to give away 70 percent of his wealth before he dies.
Wilson began making donations to the New York archdiocese in 1997 with a gift of $10,000, and he continued at that level for several years. Then Susan George, executive director of the Inner-City Scholarship Fund, asked him to consider giving more money to the schools. Wilson responded in 2007 with a $22.5 million gift to the archdiocese’s Cardinal’s Scholarship Program. He later saw a need for a better alumni support network.
Schools Closing
“I realized that Catholic schools were closing all over the country, and Bill Gates probably didn’t have enough money to save them,” said Wilson. “Every private school I hear of relies on alumni support, whether it’s the Groton School or the universities.”
So Wilson launched CAP in 2008 with a $2.7 million gift and then gave $5.6 million this summer to set up fundraising programs in the schools.
His atheism wasn’t an issue with the archdiocese. Rev. Timothy M. Dolan, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, said in an e-mail statement to Bloomberg News that he was “grateful” to Wilson “for his vision” and the archdiocese needs to “enlist broad and sustained support from our alumni to secure the future” of the schools.
‘No Greater Charity’
“With a Catholic education, I can take the poorest kid in the most negative family situation and send him to college,” Edward Cardinal Egan, New York’s archbishop from 2000 to 2009, said in an interview. “For me, there is no greater charity. What Robert Wilson is giving us is hope for what can happen.”
The archdiocese’s staff started the search for donors by turning to alumni records at 303 schools in New York and Connecticut.
CAP also set up a Facebook.com page and asked graduates to register and contribute money. So far, the new alumni outreach effort has raised over $1 million from about 11,000 graduates, George said. About 95 percent of New York Catholic school alumni weren’t supporting the schools they attended, she said.
The new strategy has helped Assumption School, a pre- kindergarten-to-8th-grade school in Peekskill, New York, get more than $3,000 in donations and track down donors using its Facebook.com page, said Jim Lyons, Assumption’s principal.
Wilson’s philanthropy produced an unlikely friendship with Cardinal Egan. Both opera and classical music buffs, they have dined together and discussed an array of topics, including the second movement of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony, Egan said. Divine matters and Wilson’s lapsed faith also turn up in their conversations.
“I’ve told him I look forward to the day when you’ll say that you’re not an atheist,” Egan said. “He said, ‘And if you succeed, you’d be out of a job.’”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-09/atheist-robert-wilson-gives-n-y-catholic-schools-5-6-million.html
AFRICA
ANGOLA: FR. TCHITUE CALLS CATHOLICS TO HELP IN ERADICATION OF POVERTY
All Africa report: Catholic priest, Rufino Tchitue, this Sunday here urged citizens to participate in the eradication of poverty in Angola, since it is a joint responsibility.
The clergyman, who uttered these words during a mass at the Major Seminary of Luanda, added that the society needs to be courageous and not expect others to contribute, but to act so as to contribute to the wellbeing of the community.
He called for respect to others "without wishing to benefit from everything".
The priest also advised citizens to promote solidarity, assisting the needy and being tolerant within the family, at work, at market and in any place in which relation with others is concerned.
According to the Catholic, building a culture of peace is everyone's responsibility, and of each person, with attitudes of respect and solidarity.
During the mass, the priest recalled and criticised the scandals of sexual abuse happening within some households and urged members of the communities to be attentive to the changing of the behaviours of fathers, uncles and sons.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201008100146.html
AUSTRALIA
COMMUNITY SERVICES LAUNCHES TOOL KIT TO HELP SQUALOR
Cath News report: Catholic Community Services has launched a new tool kit designed to help in handling domestic squalor, says Susan Graham, Senior Coordinator for the organisation's Squalor and Hoarding Project.
Research for the kit was funded by a grant from the City of Sydney, reports ABC.
"One component is information and resources - [from] what is hoarding, what is squalor to all the resources available in the community that you might have to involve," she said.
Professor John Snowden, a psychiatrist who deals with older people, noted that some people are just not good at looking after their possessions while others do have psychiatric illnesses that mean they let belongings accumulate.
Dr Shannon McDermott, a researcher at the University of New South Wales who worked on the Tool Kit, said he urged people to not look at 'the stuff' but to focus on the person, "and try to get to the bottom of why [they are living like that]."
Professor Snowden adds, "It's important to be concerned," especially for people who need help but are unable to refer themselves to receive some.
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=22782
TODAY'S SAINT
St. Lawrence
Information: Feast Day: August 10
Born: 225, Osca, Hispania (now modern-day Spain)
Died: August 10, 258, Rome
Major Shrine: Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura in Rome
Patron of: Rome, comedians, librarians, students, tanners, chefs[
St. Lawrence, one of the deacons of the Roman Church, was one of the victims of the persecution of Valerian in 258, like Pope Sixtus II and many other members of the Roman clergy. At the beginning of the month of August, 258, the emperor issued an edict, commanding that all bishops, priests, and deacons should immediately be put to death ("episcopi et presbyteriet diacones incontinenti animadvertantur"—Cyprian, Epist. lxxx, 1). This imperial command was immediately carried out in Rome. On 6 August Pope Sixtus II was apprehended in one of the catacombs, and executed forthwith ("Xistum in cimiterio animadversum sciatis VIII id. Augusti et cum eo diacones quattuor." Cyprian, ep. lxxx, 1). Two other deacons, Felicissimus and Agapitus, were put to death the same day. In the Roman Calendar of feasts of the fourth century their feast day is on the same date. Four days later, on the 10th of August of that same year, Lawrence, the last of the seven deacons, also suffered a martyr's death. The anniversary of this holy martyr falls on that day, according to the Almanac of Philocalus for the year 354, the inventory of which contains the principal feasts of the Roman martyrs of the middle of the fourth century; it also mentions the street where his grave is to be found, the Via Tiburtina ("III id. Aug. Laurentii in Tibertina"; Ruinart, "Acta sincera", Ratisbon, 1859, 632). The itineraries of the graves of the Roman martyrs, as given in the seventh century, mention the burial-place of this celebrated martyr in the Catacomb of Cyriaca in agro Verano (De Rossi, "Roma Sott.", I, 178).
Since the fourth century St. Lawrence has been one of the most honoured martyrs of the Roman Church. Constantine the Great was the first to erect a little oratory over his burial-place, which was enlarged and beautified by Pope Pelagius II (579-90). Pope Sixtus III (432-40) built a large basilica with three naves, the apse leaning against the older church, on the summit of the hill where he was buried. In the thirteenth century Honorius III made the two buildings into one, and so the basilica of San Lorenzo remains to this day. Pope St. Damasus (366-84) wrote a panegyric in verse, which was engraved in marble and placed over his tomb. Two contemporaries of the last-named pope, St. Ambrose of Milan and the poet Prudentius, give particular details about St. Lawrence's death. Ambrose relates (De officiis min. xxviii) that when St. Lawrence was asked for the treasures of the Church he brought forward the poor, among whom he had divided the treasure, in place of alms; also that when Pope Sixtus II was led away to his death he comforted Lawrence, who wished to share his martyrdom, by saying that he would follow him in three days. The saintly Bishop of Milan also states that St. Lawrence was burned to death on a grid-iron (De offic., xli). In like manner, but with more poetical detail, Prudentius describes the martyrdom of the Roman deacon in his hymn on St. Lawrence ("Peristephanon", Hymnus II).
The meeting between St. Lawrence and Pope Sixtus II, when the latter was being led to execution, related by St. Ambrose, is not compatible with the contemporaneous reports about the persecution of Velarian. The manner of his execution—burning on a red-hot gridiron—also gives rise to grave doubts. The narrations of Ambrose and Prudentius are founded rather on oral tradition than on written accounts. It is quite possible that between the year 258 and the end of the fourth century popular legends may have grown up about this highly venerated Roman deacon, and some of these legends have been preserved by these two authors. We have, in any case, no means of verifying from earlier sources the details derived from St. Ambrose and Prudentius, or of ascertaining to what extent such details are supported by earlier historical tradition. Fuller accounts of the martyrdom of St. Lawrence were composed, probably, early in the sixth century, and in these narratives a number of the martyrs of the Via Tiburtina and of the two Catacombs of St. Cyriaca in agro Verano and St. Hippolytius were connected in a romantic and wholly legendary fashion. The details given in these Acts concerning the martyrdom of St. Lawrence and his activity before his death cannot claim any credibility. However, in spite of this criticism of the later accounts of the martyrdom, there can be no question that St. Lawrence was a real historical personage, nor any doubt as to the martyrdom of that venerated Roman deacon, the place of its occurrence, and the date of his burial. Pope Damasus built a basilica in Rome which he dedicated to St. Lawrence; this is the church now known as that of San Lorenzo in Damaso. The church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, also dedicated to this saint, still exists. The feast day of St. Lawrence is kept on 10 August. He is pictured in art with the gridiron on which he is supposed to have been roasted to death.
http://www.ewtn.com/saintsHoly/saints/L/stlawrence.asp
TODAY'S GOSPEL
John 12: 24 - 26
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24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
25 He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
26 If any one serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also; if any one serves me, the Father will honor him.
