Saturday, September 24, 2005

Google Alert - Catholic church

Google Alert for: Catholic church

Catholic Church no longer accepting Gay Priests?
RedState.org - USA
... I was under the impression that the belief of the Catholic Church (as well as many other Christian faiths) was that homosexuality is a choice. ...

Some angry at church, others at DA
Philadelphia Inquirer - Philadelphia,PA,USA
... Some said they were so disgusted that they would never enter a Catholic church again. ... Rita DiPeppe said she no longer needs the Catholic Church. ...

Pope Benedict XVI leads the Catholic Church astray
I-Newswire.com (press release) - USA
Subtly but surely, Pope Benedict XVI leads the Catholic Church astray. On the one hand, he mimics Christ and pretends to proclaim ...

Juvenile Arrested In Connection With Sisseton Church Fire
KELOLAND TV - Sioux Falls,SD,USA
Saint Peter's Catholic Church has been hit by vandals before. In May 2004, someone painted profanity on the doors before first communion services. ...

CHURCH IN ROW OVER 'PURIFIED' DRUG CASH
Star of Mysore - Mysore,India
Mexico: A Mexican bishop sparked a row with the Government on Tuesday after he admitted the Catholic Church accepted alms from drug traffickers and said the ...


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Friday, September 23, 2005

Google Alert - Catholic church

Google Alert for: Catholic church

Catholic church employee accused of soliciting sex
St. Petersburg Times - St. Petersburg,FL,USA
... DUNEDIN - A 50-year-old Dunedin man who supervised teens at a local Catholic church has been arrested on charges that he offered one boy $100 to perform a sex ...

Catholic Church speaks on poll
Standard - Nairobi,Kenya
The Catholic Church yesterday spoke against postponing the referendum adding that it had embarked on civic education on the draft constitution. ...

CROATIA: CHURCH OFFICIALS INSULT WAR CRIMES PROSECUTOR
AKI - Rome,Italy
Zagreb, 22 Sept. (AKI) - Croatian Catholic Church dignitaries have launched a bitter verbal attack on Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor of the International ...

Mexican church in major row over drug money
Ekklesia - UK
A Mexican bishop who has admitted that the Catholic Church in Mexico receives money from drug traffickers has excited a political and religious storm in his ...

Church Fire Inspires Myths, Exposes Realities
WCCO - Minneapolis,MN,USA
... church last month. St. Mark's Catholic Church had nearly completed a major renovation when it was damaged by fire Aug. 24. Wood ...


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Thursday, September 22, 2005

Google Alert - Catholic church

Google Alert for: Catholic church

Bishop admits church has received drug money
Guardian Unlimited - UK
A Mexican bishop has admitted that the local Catholic church receives donations from drug traffickers, but claimed these are "purified" through good works. ...

Fire Guts Sisseton Church
KELOLAND TV - Sioux Falls,SD,USA
The Sisseton Fire Department arrived at Saint Peter's Catholic Church around one this morning and fought the flames until eight. ...

Church rebuilding after lightning strike
LaSalle News Tribune - LaSalle,IL,USA
... St. Valentine's Catholic Church in Peru after Monday's lightning strike, it now appears the steeple will be rebuilt as it was. ...

Spontaneous combustion blamed for Shakopee church fire
In-Forum (subscription) - Fargo,ND,USA
... church. Workers had been storing wood refinishing materials inside St. Mark's Catholic Church while renovating the church. Those ...

Plaintiff: Church's inaction hurt others
Pueblo Chieftain - Pueblo,CO,USA
... Rather, he is asking the church to stand up. "They deny any culpability, but it's time for any part of the Catholic Church - this diocese, the Marianists ...


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Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Google Alert - Catholic church

Google Alert for: Catholic church

Syro-Malankara to celebrate reunion with the Catholic church
Malayala Manorama - India
... Syro-Malankara Catholic community of Kerala, will hold a special mass on October 7 to mark the platinum jubilee year of its reunion with the Catholic Church. ...

Church rejects charge of harboring war suspect
International Herald Tribune - France
ROME The Roman Catholic Church in Croatia denied Tuesday that it was sheltering a top war crimes suspect, following an allegation by a UN prosecutor that the ...

Mexico church in row over "purified" drug money
Reuters AlertNet - London,England,UK
MEXICO CITY, Sept 20 (Reuters) - A Mexican bishop sparked a row with the government on Tuesday after he admitted the Catholic Church accepted alms from drug ...

ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH THROWS DOWN GAUNTLET ON GAY PRIESTS
Virtue Online - West Chester,PA,USA
The Roman Catholic Church which is struggling to extricate itself from priestly pedophile scandals that has cost the church tens of millions of dollars in ...

Catholic Church flexes on unmarried couples
Billings Gazette - MT, USA
... status might be applied to offer some legal protection to unmarried heterosexual couples - offering a rare exception to the Catholic Church's condemnation of ...


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Where's The Church?

Pinoy Kasi : Ichthys

Michael Tan opinion@inquirer.com.ph
Inquirer News Service

I GOT my first copy from a Catholic sister. There was no name, just "Various Reports," a compilation of news and feature articles about the Philippines, produced by the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines (AMRSP).

It actually looked quite dull, page after page of text mimeographed on newsprint, without pictures or photographs. Yet I found myself looking forward to each new issue, packed with all the news that we couldn't find in the daily papers, radio or television.

It was the 1970s and we were under martial law. There was no cable TV then, or Internet, so Marcos' press censorship was fairly effective. Print and broadcast media mainly churned out press releases from government, dull but also infuriating with its fabrication and lying. We had the hallelujah press singing praises to Ferdinand Marcos' New Society, with rosy statistics showing a nation moving forward even as the public coffers were being plundered.

It was also a muzzled press, with a suppression of news that didn't fit into the image of the New Society. Among the news that couldn't quite make it into the papers, radio or television were corruption, "government" (read Marcos') expropriation of private companies, protest rallies, strikes and, of course, torture and salvaging.

Extra-legal

Media people generally toed the line, at least for the first few years of martial law. Looming over their heads was Republic Act 1700, the Anti-Subversion Law, dating back to 1957, prescribing severe penalties for suspected communists. Not satisfied with that law, Marcos issued other decrees penalizing an assortment of "crimes," including rumor-mongering. In 1976, Marcos signed Presidential Decree 885, or the Revised Anti-Subversion Law, which expanded the definitions of subversive activities, including several that could be applied to mass media practitioners.

Despite these anti-subversion laws, there was an active underground press with newspaper names like Ang Bayan and Liberation. The papers were heavy on propaganda, often with fiery rhetoric around the theme of "exposing and opposing the US-Marcos dictatorship" and calling for armed revolt.

"Various Reports" belonged to a different genre, part of what was called an "extra-legal" struggle, neither legal nor illegal. There were a few school papers like Philippine Collegian of the University of the Philippines that tried valiantly to keep people informed and critical but they were always in danger of being closed down.

The AMRSP tried to protect its weekly report, making it clear on the cover that it was intended "For Religious Use." On the inside cover page, an editorial box explained that the articles and reports were intended "for critical analysis and theological reflection of the religious and laymen we serve." That made the newsletter sort of legal, but technically, it could still be considered a subversive document.

Signs of the times

Each issue was about 30 pages long, including several reprinted news articles from banned foreign magazines, as well as dispatches from the Catholic Church's own nationwide network of contacts. To give you an example of what the newsletter carried, the July 3, 1976 issue of Signs of the Times had news on fasting political detainees, military brutality in the province of Bukidnon and an article on the Marcos regime taking over the copra industry. Other issues had articles from prominent theologians, pastoral letters, reflection papers. People knew of Signs and Ichthys, writing the AMRSP about their grievances and appeals for assistance, especially around human rights violations.

The AMRSP newsletter went through several name changes. From "Various Reports" it became Signs of the Times, the name explained in an editorial box: "The various issues regarding our society of today are to be seen in the context of God's ongoing revelation, as signs of the times."

Signs of the Times later became Ichthys, from the Greek "Iesous Christos Theou Huios Soter," or Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. It also means "fish," a symbol of the early underground Christian Church. A Tagalog edition of Ichthys eventually came out and was called, simply, Isda.

The AMRSP publications weren't political tracts disguised as religious documents. Their approach was simple: Here is the news that you didn't get to read, here are your options as you reflect on the morality of it all. I never found out how many copies were printed but they probably ran into at least a thousand, with a large multiplier effect. There were all kinds of distribution networks and after college, when I worked with the Catholic Church's social action groups, I'd find the newsletter out in the most remote of communities. Remember photocopying wasn't cheap then, so people had to just read and pass on their copies. Perhaps it was as well; without photocopying, people remembered the news in greater detail, and discussed what they read.

Irony

This year's commemoration of martial law reminds me of AMRSP's publications, eliciting a degree of sad nostalgia. In the 1970s, the Catholic bishops were, as today, quite cautious, opting for "critical collaboration" with martial law. But many religious and lay people, especially those working with communities, were quite critical. Many practiced a local version of Latin American liberation theology with its emphasis on reading the signs of the times and responding to issues of justice.

Alas, liberation theology declined, partly because Pope John Paul II cracked the whip on its theologians and seminaries, finding them too far on the left. In fairness, John Paul II did find it appropriate to speak out from time to time against the excesses of right-wing dictatorships such as that of Marcos. The current Pope is said to be much more unwilling to get involved in anything political.

The Anti-Subversion Law was repealed in 1992, so in principle, we have a free press, some even saying it's too free. Yet the never-ending streams of breaking and live news can be deceptive. The Philippines is now the world's most dangerous place for a mass media practitioner, given the number of journalists who have been killed. Meanwhile, the hallelujah press has become more sophisticated, repackaging doctored facts and figures from the government propaganda machine while suppressing the less savory news, from the machinations of the ruling party in Congress to the continuing arrests, disappearances and salvaging of political activists.

The irony is that under martial law, there was more critical moral guidance available from our religious leaders. It was a vibrant Church with AMRSP's weekly newsletter as well as other Catholic and Protestant publications that drew on the lived Christianity of the communities. It was a Church living up to the tradition of Ichthys, followers of Christ, the fisher of men with his vision of a just and moral world.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Google Alert - Catholic church

Google Alert for: Catholic church

Waveland Church Built With Faith, Not Just Bricks
WLOX - Biloxi,MS,USA
... Clare Catholic Church in Waveland. On ... strength. Most of all, the parishioners of St. Clare's Catholic church were looking for one another. ...

Church service to signal opening of court sessions
Flint Journal - Flint,MI,USA
... 20 in St. Matthew Catholic Church, 706 Beach St., with judicial officials expected to join area Catholic attorneys and the legal community in the service. ...

Honors Issues Forum highlights Catholic Church
The Sign Post - USA
Father Casimir Bernas of the Abbey of the Holy Trinity in Huntsville came to Weber State University Wednesday to discuss the role of the Catholic Church in the ...


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Catholic Shift

Catholic Church shares blame for poverty

Inquirer News Service

WHY is it that the majority of our people are poor? Why is it that the majority suffers in extreme poverty and destitution despite the fact that we are blessed abundantly with natural resources?

While I agree that the unjust economic and political system is to be blamed for our nation's present condition, I do not deny that religion is partly to blame. Let us try to take a look at the Catholic Church's teaching, specifically on holiness: "Be holy as your Heavenly Father is holy."

Our Church officials seem to consider this teaching as central and paramount. More emphasis is given to religious piety as if prayer, worship and devotion were all there is to holiness. No wonder, in our liturgical celebration, the externals (the decoration and the singing) are given more importance.

This kind of "holiness" was practiced even before Jesus' time. During the time of Moses, the Jews, in order to fulfill the call to holiness, had to see to it that the animals intended for sacrifice were absolutely clean. All these behaviors were prompted by their fear of Yahweh. It was fear that moved them to conduct such rituals. A kind of fear that unfortunately causes us to do the same today. That is why we feel contented and satisfied once we fulfill our Sunday obligation, never mind if we are corrupt and unkind to our fellowmen.

I think it's time to change the emphasis. It is no longer: "Be holy as your Heavenly Father is holy," but "Be compassionate as your Heavenly Father is compassionate." This paradigm shift was made by Jesus. Sad to say, our religious leaders are not following in His footsteps. They have the "news" but they do not have the "good."

What matters now is compassion, the new and Jesus' emphasis. Jesus abrogated the old because it promoted greed, indifference and self-centeredness, whereas the new enhances peace, brotherhood and love. And the new is near to the spirit of the Kingdom, the core of our Christian life. After all, we are called to follow Jesus, to become compassionate. If only all people were like God, meaning, compassionate, our world would become a beautiful world to dwell in.

The call to compassion is boundless, unlimited and unconditional. And compassion is what God exemplifies. He is a God full of compassion. Let us only remember his words, "Whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do unto me."

This word of Jesus is telling us that salvation is not banking on our being a member of a particular church. We can only be saved if we are compassionate to our brothers and sisters, especially those in need. Regretfully, most of us prefer to show holiness rather than exercise compassion, the result of which we now see in the form of violence, war, bloodshed and senseless death.


FR. RUFINO PEPOYE CABATINGAN, St. Rita Parish, Gingoog City

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Fighting Church

Commentary : Bishop stands for morality all over

Asuncion David Maramba
Inquirer News Service

TO "CONFINE OURSELVES TO THE SACRISTY" OR TO SALLY forth and engage the world-this is the challenge over which many a priest and bishop must be agonizing. Archbishop Oscar Cruz, running priest Fr. Robert Reyes, Jaime Cardinal Sin, Bishop Julio Labayen, Fr. Ruben Villote, Bishop Antonio Fortich, Fr. Nico Bautista et al. may be prototypal of those who have courageously gone forth.

Archbishop Cruz, making headlines since July, has shown courage for at least three reasons. The most visible reason-and, perhaps, all that people see-is his boldness in exposing jueteng; in fact, he also exposed himself to political vultures who could devour him without mercy. It is belaboring the obvious to say that the attempts to indeed "devour" him have been sorely felt by the bishop. For a while I feared that he might be "abandoned" even by his co-bishops. What a relief that they stood behind him!

The second reason has to do with our truncated view of morality and of the role of priests, both of which are intertwined. The mindset has lain deep in our moral-religious culture for centuries, imbedded like an impacted tooth.

Too long have we been brought up or brainwashed to think that "morality" has to do only with sex, "private lives," indecent exposure and, lately, with birth and death issues. Because these issues are often settled in the confessional boxes inside the churches, therefore, the "guides of morality"-meaning, the priests and bishops-should also "stay in church," so the thinking goes.

The truth is, morality inheres in every human act, in itself, in its objectives and circumstances, in its relationships. All fields are awash with the moral dimension: governance, environment, war, wealth, poverty, business, gambling, property, justice, media, advertising-name it. Politics, for one, is swimming in morality issues (or, should we say, sinking in immorality).

As one young, wise priest put it, the Church has been obsessed with the beginning and end of life, and has neglected everything in between. And "everything in between" is out there; humongous, complicated and serious. How can one expect the enlightened priest or bishop to stay in the church? Morality is everywhere. Perhaps, the controversy over the matter will keep the safe players in the sacristy, but the brave will be restive and go out.

How has it come to this? This is a fruit of several related dichotomies (a long story) we have been brought up in: body and soul, Martha and Mary, God and Mammon, Church and State (yet to be fully understood), secular and spiritual. They have done ill to the character of Catholicism. They have split the whole man. Most of our public servants from the President to senators and congressmen, governors and mayors down to the barangay captains are mostly Catholics, but what a bunch of Jekyll and Hyde's.

Those who would make us moral in a cultural climate like this-like Bishop Cruz and those before him, with him and after him-display great courage in restoring the fuller role of the priest and the paradigms of morality to its entire range. "Sumosobra na," said a dear Catholic friend of the actions of Bishop Cruz. Have I been of help?

There is a third and even more subtle reason for the courage of Bishop Cruz. Right after the July 9 CBCP (Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines) statement, which was titled, "Restoring Trust: A Plea for Moral Values in Philippine Politics," news came fast that the Vatican, through the Nuncio, had cautioned and advised the bishops to keep off politics. Commentators even suggested that that advice could have changed the tenor of the statement.

The report pointed to one of the many burning questions in Church governance, set down in a number of Vatican II documents and decrees. It is "collegiality" which, in brief, deals with the interplay and/or balance of authority and autonomy in the relationship between the local Churches and the Vatican. It's a very delicate but urgent matter that must be discussed and settled by bishops of any given Conference, among themselves and with the Vatican.

The tension (not conflict, please) between the two is inevitable. On the one hand, the Vatican up till Pope John Paul II (and possibly till Benedict XVI), despite Vatican II, seems loathe to loosen an almost absolutist papal and Vatican center. How we looked up to the autocratic Pope Pius XII as fount of authority! On the other hand the local Churches have felt the need to have space for discretion, decision-making and some devolution. Cardinal Sin was said to have been cautioned to keep off politics, but we all know what he did.

Given very diverse situations in the local Churches, pastoring would have to be vastly different in the Philippines from that in Africa, Rome or the United States. Unity in diversity is attainable. "Unity, not uniformity" will not sunder the Church. "Collegiality and co-responsibility are now the order of the day."

Bishop Cruz's courage in wading right into the jueteng scandal, is in some way, testing the waters of collegiality.

It's great to see my Church in fighting form.

Asuncion David Maramba is a retired professor, book editor and occasional journalist. Comments to marda@info.com.ph; fax 8210659

Google Alert - Catholic church

Google Alert for: Catholic church

Nalzaro: Church and media
Sun Star - Philippines
By Bobby Nalzaro. Pardon me but I disagree with the statement of Ricardo Cardinal Vidal that media caused the divisiveness among leaders of the Catholic Church. ...

Church program aims to bring alienated Catholics back to the fold
Lowell Sun - Lowell,MA,USA
... In 1985, while Dill was exploring other faith communities, a friend suggested she revisit the Catholic Church, saying, "the church had changed.". ...

MARY IS GOD CATHOLIC CHURCH MOVEMENT
I-Newswire.com (press release) - USA
( Excerpts from the book, Mary As The Church -- The Last Testament, yet to be published ). The MATERIAL UNIVERSALITY of The Church ...


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