Salesian Bulletin Magazine

CHURCH NEWS

BRIEFLY
Toddlers Not Too Young To Start Building Ethnic, Religious Harmony

Oblate Father Kelum Niroshan Dias, assistant parish priest of St. Joseph Church in Medawachchiya village, in Sri Lanka, has taken the popular pedagogical maxim of “catching them while they are young” to heart. The priest believes and works to build a “just society” by weaning children on ethnic and religious harmony from the time they learn to walk and talk. He mixes children aged 3 to 5, irrespective of the religion, creed or color of their parents. A joint Sinhalese and Tamil New Year celebration provided an opportunity for the priest. (UCAN)

Young Indians Stand To Gain From World Youth Day Faith Sharing, Cultural Exchange

World Youth Day (WYD) programmes scheduled for July 15-20 are expected to draw a “huge gathering” of about 500,000 young Catholics. Faith sharing and cultural exchange among half-a-million youth from across the globe will enrich the contingent of around 1,000 Indians at the WYD celebration in Sydney, Church officials said.

500 young people are selected from regional and diocesan youth forums, while Religious congregations, dioceses and other Catholic youth organizations are sponsoring another 500. Pope Benedict XVI is expected to preside over closing programmes, which has been billed as Australia’s largest international event even bigger than the 2000 Sydney Olympics and to pump up to US$218 million into the local economy.WYD programs will focus only on prayer and catechesis for young people.( UCAN )

POPE SAYS MUSIC CAN BRING HOPE TO WOUNDED WORLD

Music can bring hope to a wounded humanity, Pope Benedict XVI said. At the end of an evening concert held in his honour April 24 to mark the third anniversary of the start of his pontificate, Pope Benedict said there is “a mysterious and deep kinship between music and hope, between song and eternal life.” The musical arts, therefore, have enormous spiritual value and are called to “instill hope in the human spirit so scarred and at times wounded by earthly life,” he said.

Milan’s Giuseppe Verdi symphony orchestra and chorus performed works by Johannes Brahms, Ludwig van Beethoven and Luciano Berio in the Vatican’s Paul VI hall to a large audience that included the pope’s elder brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger. Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano, who sat next to the pope during the performance, offered the concert to the pope as a gift. Pope Benedict told the audience the joy music and song bring is “a constant invitation to the faithful and people of good will to dedicate themselves to offer humanity a future rich with hope.”

HOMELESS PEOPLE OCCUPY HISTORIC BASILICA IN NAPLES

A group of 348 homeless people, including 115 children, occupied a historic basilica in Naples, demanding that government officials find them permanent public housing. Masses at the Basilica of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, popularly known as “the Carmine,” were suspended after the basilica was occupied by more than 150 people who had been forcibly removed from a building they had been illegally occupying for several years. The Carmelite priests, whose order has staffed the parish since the 13th century, have not made any public statements about the occupation. And Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe of Naples, who had been meeting regularly with city officials, commented publicly for the first time on April 21. He said the city had promised him that the original group of homeless people, who were registered as residents of Naples, would be provided with temporary housing by April 23 or 24, but further meetings would be needed to find a solution for the homeless from other cities who have joined those occupying the church.

POPE TO GIVE HOMILY BY SATELLITE AT EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS IN QUEBEC

Pope Benedict XVI will give the homily via satellite transmission from Rome at the closing Mass of the 49th International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec City. Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec, president of the planning committee for the congress, made the announcement at a news conference on April 24 in Quebec. Speaking in French, the cardinal invited everyone to attend the outdoor event, which will be held on the historic Plains of Abraham, the site of a decisive battle in 1759 between British and French troops that led to the fall of Quebec. Congress organizers hope that up to 50,000 people will attend the June 22 Mass in which the pope’s homily will be transmitted in real time to giant screens. Officials also announced that the location for the closing Mass, known as the “Statio Orbis,” had been moved from the originally selected site near the Quebec Citadel, a military fortification built in the early 1800s. Instead, it will be held farther west on the battlefield in an area where the first national eucharistic congress was held 70 years ago. The field is used for various sporting, community and recreational events.

CATHOLICS RALLY FOR ALL WORSHIP PLACES TO BE ‘WAR-FREE ZONES’

Recent shelling around a Catholic shrine has spurred Sinhalese Catholics to call on the government and Tamil rebels to spare all worship places from hostilities.

More than 300 clergy, laypeople and Religious rallied at Fatima Church in central Colombo on the evening of April 22. Centre for Society and Religion (CSR), a Church-run NGO, had organized the combined protest and prayer service.

As the Catholics walked 200 meters from the church to the main road, they carried banners and sang hymns calling for places of worship of all religions to be free from war.

Reports on conditions in the war zones in northern and eastern Sri Lanka say many Buddhist, Christian, Hindu and Muslim worship places either have closed or attract few worshippers, since people fear to visit or travel to them.

Bishop Rayappu Joseph of Mannar, in a statement, asked Catholics all around the country to fast and pray to protect the Shrine of Our Lady of Madhu, located in his diocese.

Shelling recently damaged the shrine, 220 kilometers north of Colombo, and its revered Marian statue has been moved to a safer place.

IMPACT OF POPE’S VISIT GOES BEYOND HIS SIX-DAY STAY, SAY OBSERVERS

When Pope Benedict XVI left New York April 20 after his six-day visit to the United States, Catholics were catching their breath from the whirlwind tour and many were trying to figure out what kind of impact the visit would leave in its wake. The trip, anticipated since last November, prompted a fair amount of guesswork about what the pontiff would and wouldn’t say. Pope Benedict, not swayed by hearsay, frequently reiterated that the theme of the visit was “Christ Our Hope” and stressed his optimism that the visit would prompt “a time of spiritual renewal for all Americans.” Whether he was addressing international or interreligious leaders, educators, priests and religious, bishops, youths or baseball stadiums full of Catholics, the pope stuck with that message of hope in Christ throughout his various stops. Overall reviews of the papal visit were positive. “In general, the visit was a terrific success. He hit a home run every time he went up to bat,” said Jesuit Father Thomas Reese, senior fellow at Woodstock Theological Center in Washington.

CHURCH VOLUNTEERS HELP FARMERS HARVEST CROPS

In expression of solidarity with farmers in distress hundreds of priests, nuns, seminarians and laypeople who volunteered to help farmers in Kerala state, southern India, after unexpected rains in March and April threatened to destroy their rice harvest.

Kerala Agriculture Minister Ratnakaran Mullakara estimated that the rains caused 3.93 billion rupees (US$84.82 million) in damage to crops in his state.

When desperate farmers sought help, the Church responded. Archbishop Joseph Perumthottam of Changanacherry and Archbishop Thomas Mar Koorilos of Tiruvalla facilitated volunteer harvesting at two places in Kuttanad. Kottayam archdiocese also sent volunteers.

While the state’s Marxist-led coalition government maintains the use of machines would render poor agricultural labourers jobless, Archbishop Koorilos and Father Vettickat dispute this contention and counter that Kerala is now experiencing a severe shortage of farm laborers. Nonetheless, the volunteers were able to harvest only 10 hectares during the week. (UCAN)

BRIEFLY
People Relieved As Bihar Court Stays Government Fee Hike

On April 10, the Patna High Court in India stayed the government’s early-March order to increase fees for various judicial processes. Following this Bihar’s 80,000 lawyers called off an indefinite strike they began on March 21 to protest the fee hike. The government justified the hike as a way to raise funds it needed to meet the 2 billion rupees it needs annually to run the court system. Church people in Bihar have expressed relief after the eastern Indian state’s top court stayed a government move to hike court fees.

Government Promises To Return Land Once Part Of National Marian Shrine

Government authorities of Dong Ha, Vietnam have promised to return land around the Shrine of Our Lady of La Vang to the Vietnamese bishops after the Archbishop Etienne Nguyen Nhu The of Hue led a delegation to meet governement representatives. The Blessed Mother is believed to have appeared in La Vang in 1798 to console persecuted Catholics during feudal times. In 1961, the bishops of Vietnam declared the site the National Marian Shrine.

The Government officials reached an agreement concerning a nearby 20,480-square-meter plot of land that also used to belong to the Church. It will continue to be used for planting trees, but the local Church can use it when it needs it.(UCAN)