CATHOLIC NEWS WORLD: TUES. MAR. 15, 2011: HEADLINES-
VATICAN: POPE JOHN PAUL II FACEBOOK AND YOUTUBE PAGES
ASIA: JAPAN: AID FOR DEVASTATION IN JAPAN
AMERICA: USA: BABY JOSEPH NOW IN US HOSPITAL
AUSTRALIA: BISHOP CONCERNED OVER VISA REJECTIONS OF REFUGES
EUROPE: GREAT BRITAIN: THOUSANDS PREPARE TO ENTER CHURCH AT EASTER
AFRICA: LIBYA: REFUGEES DEPARTING WITH AID
TODAY'S GOSPEL: MAR. 15: Matthew 6: 7- 15
TODAY'S SAINT: MAR. 15: ST. LOUISE DE MARILLAC
2011
FACEBOOK AND YOUTUBE PAGES ON JOHN PAUL II BEATIFICATION
VATICAN CITY, 15 MAR 2011 (VIS reports) - The Holy See Press Office has published the following communique:
"In view of the beatification of John Paul II on 1 May 2011, Vatican Radio and the Vatican Television Centre (CTV) have organised a number of initiatives and made a wide range of documentary material available. (image source radio vaticana)
"A new page dedicated to John Paul II for his beatification has been activated on Youtube. The page is available at the following address: http://www.youtube.com/
"These are audio recordings supplied and selected by the language programmes of Vatican Radio, which have then been mounted onto video by CTV. The audio of the Pope will be in the original language in which it was pronounced, with English-language subtitles indicating the place (country), day, month and year of the event.
"The dedicated Youtube page - as well as the normal channel which has existed for some time in four languages www.youtube.com/vatican - will be supplied with video clips of current events and information concerning the days of the beatification.
"A new page has also been activated on Facebook concerning John Paul II in view of his beatification. It may be consulted at this address:www.facebook.com/vatican.
"The aim is to diversify the instruments so as to give this initiative as great an exposure and as wide a coverage as possible. Unlike other initiatives already present on the Internet in various forms, initiatives by private individuals not associated with the Holy See, this carries the joint signatures of Vatican Radio and of the Vatican Television Centre, it has been agreed with the Pontifical Council for Social Communications and is, of course, open to all users of Facebook.
"The general objective is to accompany the course of the beatification using the instruments technology makes available, making full use of the resources at our disposal and, at least in part, of the vast documentary archives held by Vatican Radio and the Vatican Television Centre".
ASIA: JAPAN: AID FOR DEVASTATION IN JAPAN
Japan’s closest neighbours have begun to set aside long-term animosities in an effort to help the region most affected by last week’s devastating earthquake.
With a drive to help Japan spreading across South Korea, a bishop has asked to forget the historical animosity between Korea and Japan and pray for and help people suffering after the largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan.
In Beijing, China’s premier said “we fully empathise with how the Japanese people feel now” and Chinese church organisations began sending aid to the stricken area.
Bishop Lazzaro You Heung-sik of Daejeon said in a message issued yesterday that “Japan is the country of which we have bad memories in the past.”
But he stressed that “we, Catholics who believe in God and live His words, should pray, help and love our neighboring brothers,” asking to pray that the Japanese people can overcome this disaster and become closer with Koreans.
On the internet, where many collections for Japan have been actively conducted, Koreans have been posting messages to cheer up the Japanese, such as: ‘Japan, you can do it. Go for it!’, ‘So close, yet so far. Nevertheless, we are one family on the globe,’ and ‘We are neighbors who can help each other when the other is in need.’
Bishop Peter Kang U-il of Cheju, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea (CBCK), sent a message yesterday to Archbishop Ikenaga Jun, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan and said Korean bishops wish to express their solidarity in a concrete form of assistance.
Accordingly, CBCK asked all 16 dioceses in South Korea to send financial aid for Japan to the CBCK by March 18.
Also, Caritas Corea will donate US$100,000 in emergency aid, including US$50,000 from Seoul archdiocese, to Caritas Japan.
Father Daisuke Narui, executive director of Caritas Japan, reported that Sendai diocese has been the worst damaged among the Saitama, Sapporo, Sendai and Tokyo dioceses affected by the quake.
He said that a priest had died in the quake and accompanying tsunami but they have yet to check if other priests and Catholics were safe.
In the region worst hit by the quake, the Red Cross estimates that 430,000 people are in emergency accommodation, having to survive freezing conditions with no power and little water. Red Cross medical staff have reported cases of hypothermia.
World Vision spokeswoman Mitsuko Sobata said logistics have been complicated by rationing of fuel which is hampering their task of delivering 4,500 blankets and thousands of bottles of water to one town in the area.
The death toll is expected to rise sharply, with more than 10,000 people still unaccounted for, according to reports.
Extending the mood of rapprochement throughout the region, the (Catholic) Jinde Charities in northern Hebei province have sent a letter to Bishop Isao Kikuchi of Nigata, president of Caritas Japan, to express sympathy and condolences towards Japanese clergy, faithful and the many victims.
The national charitable organization also offered an initial US$10,000 as “a symbol of fraternity” to support Caritas Japan’s relief efforts, said the letter from Jinde.
China’s state news agency Xinhua reports showed clearly that Beijing is keen to take the opportunity to set aside for once the traditional enmity between China and Japan in the wake of the quake.
In a news conference on March 14, premier Wen Jiabao said: “I want to use today’s opportunity to extend our deep condolences for the loss of lives in this disaster and to express our sincere sympathy to the Japanese people.
“China is also a country that is prone to earthquake disasters and we fully empathise with how the Japanese people feel now,” he said. “The Chinese rescue team arrived in Japan yesterday and we have provided relief supplies to Japan. We will continue to provide further necessary aid to Japan in accordance with their needs.”
In central China, Bishop Anthony Dang Mingyan of Xi’an and Father Stephen Chen Ruixue, director of the diocese’s Catholic Social Service Center, have sent consolatory letters via email to their friends in Japan, including Chinese faithful who work there, Japanese priests and a layperson who studied in Xi’an years ago.
“We expressed our concern and prayers for their safety, and asked if there is anything we can offer to help,” said Father Chen. The diocese also plans to dedicate requiem Masses for the deceased on the seventh day after the quake, according to Chinese custom.
Across mainland China, many parishes have said special prayers for the Japanese victims.
http://www.ucanews.com/2011/03/15/quake-prompts-regional-detente
AMERICA: USA: BABY JOSEPH NOW IN US HOSPITAL
To join a Facebook page in support of the parents of Joseph Maraachli, click here.
St. LOUIS, Missouri, March 14, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – After weeks of legal battles and searching for a hospital willing to take over his care, Baby Joseph Maraachli was airlifted Sunday night to a children’s hospital in St. Louis, Missouri.
Joseph and his father, Moe Maraachli, were joined on the specially-equipped air ambulance by Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of the U.S.-based Priests for Life. The organization paid for the flight, and will foot Joseph’s U.S. medical bills and the cost of his family’s accommodations.
Doctors at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center are now evaluating his condition and developing a treatment plan. The hospital is expected to make an announcement by Tuesday morning about their treatment plan for Joseph.
“If there is a chance this boy can live, we have to explore every option,” said Fr. Pavone in a Fox News report. “Now that we have won the battle against the medical bureaucracy in Canada, the real work of saving Baby Joseph can begin.”
Joseph suffers from a severe neurological disorder, but his specific condition remains undiagnosed. The Maraachli’s daughter Zina died from similar complications eight years ago. In that case the family took her home after doctors performed a tracheostomy. They now want the same for Joseph.
Joseph’s previous hospital, London Health Sciences Centre, which refused to perform the tracheostomy and had sought to remove his ventilator against his parents’ wishes, defended their care of Joseph again in a press release Monday. They insisted he was taken from the hospital “despite the strongest possible medical advice.”
The hospital complained that their doctors and staff “were targeted by well-organized social media feeds and directly via email with personal threats, threats to their families, innuendoes and falsehoods.”
The family had hired a new Canadian lawyer last week, Claudio Martini, who was planning to appeal the February 17th decision by Ontario Superior Court Justice Helen Rady backing the London doctors’ decision to take Joseph off life support.
Justice Rady’s decision was based on doctors’ testimony that he is in a permanent vegetative state with no brain stem reflex. But the family has contested that claim, pointing to footage showing him flailing and reacting to tickling.
A new video just released by Priests for Life shows Father Pavone interacting with Baby Joseph Maraachli in his hospital room.
The video, shot today, shows the baby moving his hands and rolling in his bed. The hospital in Ontario where he had been a patient since October, declared that the baby was in a persistent vegetative state, but doctors at Cardinal Glennon have told Father Pavone that he is primarily breathing on his own and is responding to touch.
After the Superior Court ruling, the hospital had appeared set to remove Joseph’s ventilator on February 21st. The move was delayed, however, when the family hired expert lawyer Mark Handelman with the financial backing of Canada’s Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. Handelman was later replaced by Martini.
Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, has warned that Ontario is creating a system where doctors are authorized to force life and death decisions on patients.
In a blog post Monday, he said the case emphasizes the need to reform a legal system in the province that “is loaded against families.” When there’s a disagreement between doctors and patients, hospitals have “unlimited financial resources” to hire a top lawyer with expertise in this area of law, he explained, while families often hire a lawyer from legal aid or one who lacks experience in the area.
“The law has a natural inequality that has resulted in a plethora of precedent setting cases that support the role of the doctor/hospital to make medical decisions against the wishes of the family. This needs to change,” he wrote. “If doctors/hospitals have access to huge legal budgets that are in fact, tax payers money, in order to fight families who are simply attempting to make medical care decisions on behalf of family members, then the system should also pay the cost for the family.”
Dr. Paul Byrne, a fifty-year veteran in the field of neonatology based in Ohio, who has said that Joseph should have had a tracheostomy “a long time ago,” told LifeSiteNews Monday that this issue shouldn’t be turned into a debate about the American health care system versus the Canadian system. Instead, he said it highlights the need for “medicine that’s based on the Creator and the specialness of the person.”
“It’s medicine that is in accord with the Hippocratic oath, which very few doctors take any more, versus medicine that is not true medicine, but is actually part of the culture of death,” he explained. “It’s medicine that’s with God versus medicine that’s without God.”
“They make the person be like a machine, like an automobile that has parts,” he said. That’s not what the person is. When the automobile gets too much wrong with it, it goes to a junk yard.”
“They decided that baby Joseph was not worthwhile and to do a tracheostomy was futile, and therefore they weren’t going to do it,” he added.
To join a Facebook page in support of the parents of Joseph Maraachli, click here.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/baby-joseph-airlifted-to-us-hospital
AUSTRALIA: BISHOP CONCERNED OVER VISA REJECTIONS OF REFUGES
CATH NEWS REPORT: The Bishop of Broome, Christopher Saunders, says more asylum seekers are having their visa applications rejected at the Curtin Detention Centre, reports the ABC.
"They tell me that previously the determinations were roughly 50 per cent negative and 50 per cent positive," he said.Bishop Saunders says on a recent visit to Curtin he was told by asylum seekers that the risk of self-harm among the detainees grows with every rejection.
"They're now saying that it's more likely that it's somewhere in the region of 75 per cent negative and only 25 per cent positive."
The Immigration Department says it does not break its visa figures down centre by centre but as recently as Wednesday, four men at Curtin were granted visas.http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=25465
EUROPE: GREAT BRITAIN: THOUSANDS PREPARE TO ENTER CHURCH AT EASTER
Around 900 of those people will be received into the Catholic Church and registered as members of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham during Holy Week; this includes 61 former Anglican clergy in addition to the five who have already been ordained as Catholic priests.
Each year those preparing to join the Catholic Church are invited to attend a gathering called the Rite of Election. It is usually presided over by the Bishop and inaugurates the final period of preparation before being received into the Church.
The Rite of Election is an important part of a process called the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) which is designed to support adults attracted by Christ and his teaching. In the months leading up to the Rite of Election it is usual for small groups to meet weekly to pray together and to find out more about the Catholic Faith.
The table below shows the number of people who attended the Rite of Election at their local cathedral at the weekend. In some dioceses, because of the distances between parish churches and cathedrals, not everyone who is preparing to become a Catholic was able to attend the gathering in the cathedral. This means that liturgies will also have taken place in some parish churches.
The people coming forward to be received into the Catholic Church are from all walks of life. A lorry driver, doctor, law clerk and a student are among several thousand people who are preparing to become Catholics. Bethany, for example, is a student at the University of Newcastle and will be received into the Catholic Church at Easter: "I think God has always been drawing me along my journey - at the difficult times and at the best times... I definitely think that the Journey in Faith will change my life."
Lorry driver, Michael, from Portsmouth said: "One time when I visited St Mark's Basilica in Venice, the peace was so tangible that I didn't want to leave...it was something that I'd never experienced in my life before... I knew it was time for me to make enquiries about becoming a Catholic."
For doctor, Clare, from Wadhurst Parish, the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the UK was influential: "We watched virtually every step of his journey and my sons and I joined a pilgrimage to Hyde Park... All my prejudices and fears melted away as I recognised the love and humility shining out of his eyes."
The number of people who participated in the celebrations at the weekend is as follows:
Total 3,931 795
Bishop Kieran Conry, Chair of the Department for Evangelisation and Catechesis (Bishops' Conference of England and Wales), said: "The witness of so many people taking this life-changing step is so very encouraging. Each year people freely choose to come forward from all walks of life, bringing with them unique experiences and talents. The Catholic Community welcomes them with love, friendship and the assurance of prayer. If you're considering taking a similar step or are not sure yet, come and see. Give your local Catholic church a ring or ask a Catholic friend for help."
Fr Keith Newton, who is the Ordinary (the priest who has pastoral responsibility) for the Personal Ordinariate said of those preparing to join: "I am greatly encouraged that these people will be received into the Catholic Church at Easter as members of the Ordinariate. During the next few weeks they will continue their prayerful preparation for this significant step.'
For more information about the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) see:http://www.rcia.org.uk. Those who are interested in becoming a Catholic are invited to contact their local Catholic parish. Also see the Catholic Enquiry Office's website: http://www.life4seekers.co.uk
AFRICA: LIBYA: REFUGEES DEPARTING WITH AID
“My greatest wish,” continues Bishop Martinelli, “is that we can find a way to put all these people on a ship bound for a Country that decides to welcome them. It is not right to have them depart in small groups and leave most them waiting in agony, also because they are mainly women and children. Yesterday, a large group of women and children stayed aground, some have been here a few months. Unfortunately, not all the documents were in order and then they were left stranded. I renew my appeal for these people to be accepted by some Countries as soon as possible.”
“As a Church we are a go-between, but our forces are very limited. We help these people to pay the rent and buy food, with the help of some benefactors and Italian Caritas. The problem is that food has become scarce on the market,” says the Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli.
Speaking about the the Catholic community, Bishop Martinelli praised “the two thousand Filipino nurses who have remained. Their families, husbands and children have left, but the women and girls have stayed, demonstrating a high sense of professionalism and human conscience. Otherwise without them the hospitals would be bereft of any medical care.” Furthermore, “there are still many Africans. On Ash Wednesday the church was full,” says Archbishop Martinelli. “The faithful come because they find courage in prayer.”
“I repeat that peace is still possible and that the two sides can be reconciled,” concludes the Apostolic Vicar. “We need the intervention of a high moral authority of Arab or African nationality, the level of Nelson Mandela so to speak, to bring the two sides together. Perhaps even some ecclesiastical authority of the Arab world could handle the mediation. The Libyan people do not want war either. Libya must rediscover its unity. There are many people originally from Benghazi living in Tripoli. I do not think that it is possible to separate the Country.”
TODAY'S SAINT: MAR. 15: ST. LOUISE DE MARILLAC
St. Louise de Marillac
FOUNDRESS AND PATRONESS OF SOCIAL WORKERS
Feast: March 15
| Foundress of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, born at Paris, 12 August, 1591, daughter of Louis de Marillac, Lord of Ferri res, and Marguerite Le Camus; died there, 15 March, 1660. Her mother having died soon after the birth of Louise, the education of the latter devolved upon her father, a man of blameless life. In her earlier years she was confided to the care of her aunt, a religious at Poissy. Afterwards she studied under a preceptress, devoting much time to the cultivation of the arts. Her father's serious disposition was reflected in the daughter's taste for philosophy and kindred subjects. When about sixteen years old, Louise developed a strong desire to enter the Capuchinesses (Daughter of the Passion). Her spiritual director dissuaded her, however, and her father having died, it became necessary to decide her vocation. Interpreting her director's advice, she accepted the hand of Antoine* Le Gras, a young secretary under Maria de' Medici. A son was born of this marriage on 13 October, 1613, and to his education Mlle Le Gras devoted herself during the years of his childhood. Of works of charity she never wearied. In 1619 she became acquainted with St. Francis de Sales, who was then in Paris, and Mgr. Le Campus, Bishop of Belley, became her spiritual adviser. Troubled by the thought that she had rejected a call to the religious state, she vowed in 1623 not remarry should her husband die before her. M. Le Gras died on 21 December, 1625, after a long illness. In the meantime his wife had made the acquaintance of a priest known as M. Vincent (St. Vincent de Paul), who had been appointed superior of the Visitation Monastery by St. Francis of Sales. She placed herself under his direction, probably early in 1625. His influence led her to associate herself with his work among the poor of Paris, and especially in the extension of the Confrérie de la Charité, an association which he had founded for the relief of the sick poor. It was this labour which decided her life's work, the founding of the Sisters of Charity. The history of the evolution of this institute, which Mlle Le Gras plays so prominent a part, has been given elsewhere (see Charity, Sister of); it suffices here to say that, with formal ecclesiastical and state recognition, Mlle Le Gras' life-work received its assurance of success. Her death occurred in 1660, a few month before the death of St. Vincent, with whose labours she had been so closely united. |
SOURCE: http://www.ewtn.com/saintsHoly/saints/L/stlouisedemarillac.asp#ixzz1GgMqJUEM
TODAY'S GOSPEL: MAR. 15: Matthew 6: 7- 15
| Matthew 6: 7 - 15 | |
| 7 | "And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. |
| 8 | Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. |
| 9 | Pray then like this: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. |
| 10 | Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. |
| 11 | Give us this day our daily bread; |
| 12 | And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors; |
| 13 | And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. |
| 14 | For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; |
| 15 | but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. |
