News/International

VATICAN CITY - Germans are known for being punctual, so perhaps it should be no surprise that Pope Benedict XVI was the first person signed up for World Youth Day 2013.

Registration officially opened Aug. 28, and, according to organizers, the Pope was the first pilgrim to be registered for the event, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro July 23-28.

Organizers said that more than 220 groups of young people from five continents signed up in the first 24 hours after registration opened. Pilgrims from Canada, the United States, Australia, China, Aruba and the United Arab Emirates were among the first of the early registrants.

Groups of up to 50 people are encouraged to book early, organizers said. Registration should be done online on the official WYD Rio 2013 web site, www.rio2013.com.

The missionary outreach of young people is set to be a key focus of next year's gathering, as the theme is from the Gospel of St. Matthew, "Go and make disciples of all nations!"

The opening Mass, the papal welcoming ceremony and the Way of the Cross celebration will be held at Copacabana Beach, according to organizers. The youth vigil and closing Mass will be held at the city's Santa Cruz military air base.

The last World Youth Day was held in Madrid in 2011 and was attended by more than 1.5 million people.

WASHINGTON - In a dozen courts around the United States, attorneys representing more than 40 Catholic dioceses or institutions have filed briefs arguing against the federal government's call to dismiss lawsuits against its contraceptive mandate.

The Catholic entities are seeking to overturn a requirement that most religious employers provide contraceptives and sterilization to their employees.

The simultaneous filings Aug. 27 were in response to an Aug. 6 brief in which the Obama administration asked the courts to summarily dismiss the suits, saying they were premature and that the plaintiffs had no standing to challenge the Department of Health and Human Services' mandate.

"This case is about important rights to religious freedom protected by our founders under the First Amendment, assured by Congress under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but trampled by Defendants under haphazard rulemaking," says the 36-page brief filed on behalf of the University of Notre Dame.

Forty-three Catholic dioceses, schools, hospitals, social service agencies and other institutions initially filed suit in federal court May 21 to stop three government agencies from implementing a mandate that would require them to cover contraceptives and sterilization in their health plans. The diocese of Peoria, Ill., and Catholic Charities of Chicago have since joined the lawsuits.

Catholic organizations have objected to the contraceptive mandate since it was announced Aug. 1, 2011, by Kathleen Sebelius, HHS secretary. Unless they are subject to a narrow religious exemption or have a grandfathered health plan, employers will be required to pay for sterilizations and contraceptives, including some abortion-inducing drugs, as part of their health coverage.

In the briefs, filed by Jones Day, an international law firm with more than 2,400 attorneys on five continents, the dioceses and Catholic institutions rebut arguments that the courts should not hear the cases because a "temporary enforcement safe harbour" protects them from immediate government action against them if they fail to comply with the mandate. In addition, the government argues that the final rule on the mandate will likely be amended before it takes effect in August 2013.

The University of Notre Dame argues in its brief that the federal government's "plans to make some as-yet-undefined amendment to the U.S. government mandate does not deprive Notre Dame of its ability to challenge the law as it exists now, particularly where, as here, it is imposing both imminent and current harms."

Included with the Notre Dame brief was a sworn deposition by John Affleck-Graves, executive vice president of the university, who said the school's budget for fiscal year 2013 had to be finalized by October 2012.

"Before its next budget is finalized in the coming months, Notre Dame will have to make difficult decisions about whether to budget for the potential of significant fines if it cannot, for any number of reasons, comply with the mandate's requirement that it provide the objectionable services in the next plan years," the deposition said.

With about 4,500 full-time employees, the university could face approximately $9 million in fines annually, Affleck-Graves said. The school has already placed $1 million in reserve to pay costs and fines associated with the mandate, he said. Notre Dame also estimates that it will spend up to $50,000 in the next two months alone for actuarial services to determine the impact of the contraceptive mandate.

In a similar brief, the archdiocese of Washington said it could incur penalties of nearly $145 million a year, "simply for practising our faith," or could be forced to cancel health insurance benefits for its 4,000 archdiocesan employees and their dependents.

"Either scenario is unthinkable, and planning for such action is itself a grave burden, but in either case the mandate's impact would be so severe that the archdiocese must begin to prepare now," the archdiocese said in a news release.

"More important than the mandate's financial burden, though, is the blow it strikes to the fundamental issue of religious freedom. The Constitution allows for the full exercise of faith in the public square by ministries that translate belief into action, serving millions of people every day."

NEW YORK - Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York invited the Republican and Democratic candidates for president and vice president to sign a petition seeking civil dialogue and to refrain from personal attacks during the two months remaining in the campaign leading up to the November election.

The “Civility in America” petition developed by the Knights of Columbus calls on candidates, commentators and media representatives to focus on the important issues facing the country rather than on individual personalities.

“I am writing to you and to the other candidates for president and vice president of this great nation to ask for your support of this effort, so that the upcoming campaign will remain focused on the critical issues facing our nation and not on personal attacks,” Dolan said in letters to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic ticket, and Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan, the presumptive Republican nominees for president and vice president, respectively.

The petition on the Knights of Columbus web site had gained more than 20,000 signatures through Aug. 27.

Dolan’s letter said that if the candidates signed the petition he would “be most happy to convey” to Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson and to the 1.8 million members of the organization “that you have chosen to support this valuable effort.”

The cardinal cited the results of a Knights of Columbus-Marist Poll conducted July 9-11 that found 78 per cent of Americans are “frustrated with the tone in politics today.”

The poll also found that two-thirds of people said candidates spend more time attacking their opponents than addressing key issues and that 64 per cent of people believe negative campaigning harms the political process a great deal or a significant amount.

“That this perception exists cannot be healthy for our country or our democratic political process,” Dolan’s letter said. “‘Civility in America’ is giving voice to the desire of Americans of all backgrounds and political parties for more civil discourse during this election season.”

The cardinal, who is also president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was to deliver the closing prayer at both the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., and the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.

Clergy from several denominations are scheduled to pray at the opening and closing of each day’s sessions of the party conventions. The tradition of such prayers goes back more than 100 years.

It is unusual for the same person to pray at both conventions in the same year, but it’s not without precedent. For example, in 1948, Philadelphia Cardinal Dennis J. Dougherty prayed with both parties when the nominating conventions met in Philadelphia.

OAKLAND, Calif. - Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, to be installed in October as archbishop of San Francisco, was arrested in San Diego early Aug. 26 for driving under the influence.

The archbishop, a San Diego native, had his mother in the car.

In an Aug. 27 statement issued from the diocese of Oakland, which Cordileone has led for the past three years, the prelate apologized “for my error in judgment” and said he felt “shame for the disgrace I have brought upon the Church and myself.”

“I will repay my debt to society and I ask forgiveness from my family and my friends and co-workers at the diocese of Oakland and the archdiocese of San Francisco,” he added. “I pray that God, in His inscrutable wisdom, will bring some good out of this.”

According to the archbishop’s statement, he was driving his mother to her home after dinner at the home of some friends, “along with a priest friend visiting from outside the country.”

Cordileone’s mother lives near the campus of San Diego State University, where police had set up a DUI checkpoint.

He admitted in his statement that he was found to be over California’s legal blood alcohol level, which is 0.08 per cent.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Cordileone spent the night in jail, and was released shortly before noon once he posted a $2,500 bond. He is scheduled to be arraigned on the misdemeanor charge Oct. 9 — five days after his scheduled installation as San Francisco’s archbishop. If convicted, Cordileone faces penalties of up to three years of probation, two days in jail and an $1,800 fine.

Mark McCullough, the police officer making the arrest, told the Chronicle that Cordileone appeared intoxicated but was amiable.

“He was very calm, somewhat apologetic at the time,” McCullough said. “He said he’d been drinking. But he wasn’t a stumbling, falling-down drunk.”

VATICAN CITY - Fighting in Aleppo, Syria, has not spared the residences of the local Melkite and Maronite Catholic archbishops, according to the Vatican's Fides news agency.

The residence of Melkite Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart was ransacked during clashes Aug. 23. The archbishop and several priests who live in the building had fled a few hours earlier to a Franciscan residence in a safer neighbourhood, Fides reported Aug. 27.

Franciscan Father George Abu Khazen, who cares for the city's Latin-rite Catholics and offered shelter to the Melkites, told Fides that Jeanbart was very worried and shaken.

"He kept repeating one word: 'Why?' ”

The archbishop has gone to Lebanon, but one of his assistants was able to return to the house once the Syrian military regained control of the area. He said the house had been broken into and a variety of objects, including computers and a projector, were missing, Khazen said.

The Maronite archbishop's residence and a museum of Byzantine Christian art in the same neighbourhood were both ransacked as well, Fides said.

Khazen said it still seems like there is no solution to the Syrian conflict in sight because no one, nationally or internationally, seems able to pressure either side into beginning a real dialogue.

The tensions began in March 2011 as part of the pro-democracy Arab Spring movement that swept across North Africa and the Middle East.

Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, said it spoke to another member of "the local hierarchy, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons." He told Fides that "groups of jihadists" — militant Islamic fighters — from Chechnya, Pakistan, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Libya have joined the fighting in an attempt to increase "hatred and sectarian conflict."

The groups, he said, "have the sole aim of bringing chaos, destruction, atrocities and paralysing social life. The Syrian civilian population is the victim, but they won't fall for this trap."

WASHINGTON - While media images of the Syrian civil war are mainly those of men with guns, workers from Catholic Relief Services have seen "predominantly women and children, fleeing," said a communications officer who recently returned from the Middle East.

Syrian women, hailing from a society that gives them little chance to make their voices heard, were "tugging on my sleeve, begging me to tell their stories" in the United States, said the manager, Caroline Brennan, who visited with the refugees in Lebanon and Jordan.

The 250,000 Syrian refugees, part of a larger group of 1.5 million Syrians displaced from their homes due to the fierce fighting enveloping their country, have been "blindsided by what is happening to them," she said.

These Syrians were "viewing (the war) from a distance, never thinking this would affect their lives," Brennan said. "Many of these people, literally fleeing for their lives, are middle class. They have nice homes. The country has no debt. They never expected to see this happening."

Brennan told of a pregnant Syrian refugee who got a job as a maid in exchange for shelter for her and her sons. She worked until she gave birth and went back to work again shortly thereafter.

"She had no way to see a doctor or pediatrician" until CRS stepped in," she said. "Many of these women have bullet wounds. Their children need care.

"One woman I met in Jordan ... she was with her mother and they heard gunshots and they scurried around a corner. And the woman saw her mother, lying next to her, on the ground," felled by a bullet.

"Families are trying desperately to stay together," but not always succeeding, Brennan added. Sometimes, men "stay home trying to protect their land, or they're fighting — or worse, they've been kidnapped. The women are left to lead the family. They think: What is happening to the people they love in this world?"

But she also told of a Syrian husband and father named Faizad.

"He came across the border, but his wife and (most of their) children weren't allowed to make it. But then he has a son he has to care for. He (the son) cries at night, he misses his mom," Brennan said. Workers can tell from the boy's drawings that he has seen "people with guns killing innocent people," she added.

"This is a humanitarian crisis at its heart," she said.

There are "huge social needs of the people, especially children and mothers," said Vivian Manneh, a 20-year CRS veteran currently serving as a regional program manager for the Middle East. "Kids are starting to think, 'What is going to happen to us? Where are we going to be?' There are lots of psychosocial needs, lots of basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter."

Manneh said she sees people "who are in need of food, who are praying and lacking lots of the basics. They are leaving their homes with nothing. Their children are out of school. They have no clothing. They are using fruit trees to chop as cooking gas. Their situation is dire. The humanitarian crisis is increasing a lot."

She added, "If you see people coming out with babies, they have nothing to cross (the border) with, no sustenance — they had to flee quickly."

The shelter issue is complicated. Because of the Syrian refugees' impressions of Palestinian refugee camps, they resist as long as possible going to the camps set up for them.

"There are not a lot of places to go to. The rents are increasing," Manneh said.

Because of the prior long-term stability of their country, few Syrians have relatives in other countries who can take them in.

"They will come back (to Syria) as long as they feel safe. They will go back even if they know their home is laying right on the ground and they know they don't have a place," Manneh said.

Brennan concurred. She said refugees have told her, "I'd rather sleep on the dirt of my home" as long as there was peace.

"They don't see themselves as long-term refugees," she said. "They want to go home."

Seeing the "sad sequence of deaths and injuries, including among civilians, and a huge number of people internally displaced or seeking refuge in neighbouring countries," Pope Benedict XVI appealed July 29 for an end to "all violence and bloodshed" in Syria, which has seen thousands of civilian deaths since protests against the Bashar Assad regime started in March 2011.

One irony in the situation is that an estimated one million Iraqi refugees currently live in Syria. Now, some Syrians are fleeting to Iraq.

"They (Iraqis) are very hospitable, opening their doors," Manneh said, but "we don't know how many (refugees) they are going to take."

TORONTO - Toronto parishes are being encouraged to reach out to Africa and the Philippines.

The archdiocese of Toronto is channeling parish collections to the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace to help people suffering food shortages in the Sahel region of northwest Africa and flood victims in the Philippines.

In the case of the Sahel drought, which threatens the lives of 18.7 million people, collections sent in before Sept. 30 will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the Canadian government.

Funds contributed to Development and Peace for the Philippine floods are immediately available to Caritas NASSA — the main Catholic relief agency in the Philippines.

Parishes can make cheques payable to "Parish Name - Sahel Crisis Relief" or "Parish Name - Philippine Flood Relief." Cheques should be mailed to the Development Office, Catholic Pastoral Centre, 1155 Yonge St., Toronto, Ont., M4T 1W2.

Individuals can also contribute through the archdiocese, either by calling the Development Office at 1-800-263-2595 or (416) 934-3411 or online at www.archtoronto.org/humanitarian.

VATICAN CITY - Pakistani institutions and religious leaders are working together for the release of a Christian girl accused of blasphemy and to reduce the risk of Muslim-Christian violence over the incident, said the Pakistani prime minister's special advisor on minorities.

Paul Bhatti, the Catholic advisor, told the Vatican's Fides news agency Aug. 23 that those working to secure the girl's release included Muslim leaders.

Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, has reported that the girl, Rimsha Masih, is an 11-year-old with Down syndrome. She was taken into custody Aug. 18 after allegedly being found with burned pages of the Quran, the Muslim holy book. When the police took her away, hundreds of angry Muslims were reportedly gathering in the mainly poor Christian neighbourhood of Islamabad where she lived.

Hundreds of families have fled the neighbourhood, and the police presence has increased.

"The situation is under control," Bhatti told Fides.

Catholic leaders in Pakistan and human rights activists have said the country's anti-blasphemy law, which includes offenses against the Quran, has been misused to persecute Christians and other minorities in the country.

Daughter of St. Paul Sister Daniela Baronchelli, who works in Pakistan, told Vatican Radio Aug. 20: "We have been told that the girl cannot respond to the interrogation. They found her with a bag that had parts of a burned Quran inside. They don't know, however, who gave it to her or where she got it; they don't know anything."

Sr. Daniela said the angry crowd "wanted to burn her alive because they say it was a great offense against the Quran."

The unjust use of the anti-blasphemy law "unfortunately is becoming all too common. The fact is that the extremists don't want the Christians here any more, so any little thing — true or not — is enough to incite a revolt," she said.

VATICAN CITY - The president of the Nigerian bishops' conference called for the international community to help his country improve its security operations to stop the "fundamentalist, fanatic" Boko Haram terrorist group.

The day after a Catholic church, an elementary school and a police station in Damagun were attacked, presumably by Boko Haram members, Archbishop Ignatius Ayau Kaigama of Jos told Vatican Radio: "There is high religious tension in Nigeria, but we are not at war between Christians and Muslims. The Boko Haram is at war with Christians, because they have vowed they will kill Christians because they are 'infidels.' This is a fact, but it is not the whole Islamic community."

In its two-year campaign to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law on the entire country, Boko Haram has been blamed for more than 1,400 deaths of Christians, Muslims and police officers.

Kaigama, who was interviewed Aug. 20 in Rimini, Italy, where he addressed a meeting of the Communion and Liberation lay movement, told Vatican Radio that in his country, where the population is about half Muslim and half Christian, "there is no neat division between political problems and religious problems. They are intertwined."

"It is erroneous to always reduce every crisis in Nigeria to religion. Religion does a lot of good; we shouldn't see it as always generating crisis," the archbishop said.

In addition, he said, people must look for the root causes of tensions in Nigeria, including the economic, political and social issues that "trigger these crises, but somehow eventually they always become Christian-Muslim crises."

The vast majority of Nigerians — Christians and Muslims — want to live in peace and are frightened by the actions and agenda of Boko Haram, he said, "but somehow the violence continues to grow."

"The government seems helpless. The security agents, even though they are all over the place, don't seem to provide the security that would allow people to go about their normal business peacefully," Kaigama said.

"People are afraid that if this conflict situation continues, the consequences will be disastrous: There will be either an open, very terrible religious conflict or even a civil war that will pit the North against the South," he said.

The majority of people in the North are Muslim, while the majority of people in the South are Christian.

If there is war in Nigeria, he said, it will affect other West African nations and, perhaps, the whole continent.

"We don't want a war in Africa, that is why we are asking the international community to assist in a way that we can resolve the problems of security so that we can live happily in peace," the archbishop said.

WASHINGTON - The shooter brought 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches and a 9mm pistol with him to the Family Research Council headquarters in Washington Aug. 15.

According to an affidavit released by the FBI the next day, the gunman said, "I don't like your politics," just before he opened fire.

After a non-fatal shooting of one guard, the gunman, later identified as Floyd Lee Corkins, was subdued.

Corkins, 28, was charged Aug. 16 with assault with intent to kill while armed. He also is charged with the federal offense of interstate transportation of a firearm and ammunition. Corkins is from Herndon, Va., a Washington suburb. If found guilty on those charges, he could face a maximum of 40 years of imprisonment. He is being held in jail without bond.

Tony Perkins, CEO of the Family Research Council, said in a statement that "reckless language" created an atmosphere of violence. He referred to the Southern Poverty Law Centre's labelling of his organization as a hate group because of its opposition to same-sex marriage.

Founded in 1983, the Family Research Council advocates for public policy "that values human life and upholds the institutions of marriage and the family." Its motto is "Advancing Faith, Family and Freedom."

Perkins also shared his gratitude for 25 gay rights groups who had released a statement through the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. The GLAAD statement said, "Regardless of what emerges as the reason for this shooting, we utterly reject and condemn such violence."

Chick-fil-A has recently gone from being an innocuous sandwich shop to a political lightning rod after its chief operating officer, Dan Cathy, talked about his opposition to same-sex marriage. Chick-fil-A is a donor to the Family Research Council.

The Southern fast-food chain has just one location in Washington, in The Catholic University of America's student union. It has been closed for the summer and will reopen Aug. 27 when the new school year begins.

A spokesman for the university, Victor Nakas, told Catholic News Service that the school would increase security measures.

"We have professional staff available 24/7. We'll be giving our food court more visibility," said Nakas. He noted the school does not expect any incidents but would increase patrols to their student center regardless.