News/International

BEIRUT - Warning that Lebanon is going through a critical juncture, Maronite Catholic Patriarch Bechara Rai called for national dialogue to address the security and political situation in the country.

During his June 3 homily at Bkerke, just north of Beirut, the patriarch condemned the previous day's clashes in the northern coastal city of Tripoli between Sunni groups opposing Syrian President Bashar Assad and Alawites who support the Syrian leader. At least 14 people died and more than 50 were wounded.

WASHINGTON - Knowing that American Catholics stand in solidarity with the Haitian Catholic Church opens new opportunities for people of both countries to learn from each other and begin to shape a unified future together, a group of Haitian bishops said.

In Washington for the One Table, Many Partners National Solidarity Conference June 1-3, the prelates said during a visit to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops they see U.S.-Haiti solidarity strengthening, leading to a more self-sufficient Haitian church as long as there is a mutual exchange of ideas.

WASHINGTON - With observances of the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council being conducted around the world, one church historian cautioned that the council's documents should be studied comprehensively, lest they be misunderstood or their reforms dismantled piece-by-piece.

Jesuit Father John W. O'Malley, a professor in the theology department at Georgetown University who is renowned for his work in church history, said the documents should be considered as one body of work, not as unrelated parts.

He was asked to speak to the Catholic Common Ground Initiative about the significance of just one of the council's 16 documents, "Gaudium et Spes," the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.

VATICAN CITY - With Pope Benedict XVI in Milan for three days under the watchful eyes of Vatican and Italian police, members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard set down their halberds and headed off to do some volunteer work in earthquake-stricken Northern Italy.

Lt. Col. Christoph Graf, vice commander of the Swiss Guards, told L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, that it was "a spontaneous act of charity and solidarity."

Twenty members of the 100-strong corps left their Vatican barracks early June 2 and headed to Emilia Romagna, struck by earthquakes May 20 and 29. The death toll from the second quake reached 17 June 4 when a corpse was pulled from the rubble of a factory.

WASHINGTON - The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith warned June 4 that Mercy Sister Margaret Farley's 2006 book, "Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics," contains "erroneous propositions" on homosexual acts, same-sex marriage, masturbation and remarriage after divorce that could cause confusion and "grave harm to the faithful."

In a notification signed by U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada and approved March 16 by Pope Benedict XVI, the congregation said the book "is not in conformity with the teaching of the church" and "cannot be used as a valid expression of Catholic teaching, either in counseling and formation, or in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue."

SICUANI, Peru - Church leaders in Peru called for dialogue and expressed concern about the detention of two human rights workers in the southern Andes Mountains during violent protests over a copper mine.

Two people have been killed and dozens, including police officers, have been injured in demonstrations against the Tintaya Mine, owned by Xstrata, a Swiss company. On May 28, the government imposed a 30-day state of emergency after the protest, which began the week before, turned violent May 27.

WASHINGTON - German Cardinal Reinhard Marx called for a "social market economy" in the wake of the fiscal crisis that has gripped much of Europe over the past year.

In a May 30 talk delivered at Georgetown University in Washington, Cardinal Marx, the archbishop of Munich and Freising, said the economy needed to move "beyond capitalism" in order to be more fair.

He added that he was not calling for the abolition of capitalism, saying that capitalism was "an element" in the social market economy he has in mind. But Cardinal Marx suggested that it was the practice of "financial capitalism" in the era since the tearing down of the Iron Curtain that had brought Europe to its crisis point today.

VATICAN CITY - Depending on what commentary one reads, recent leaks of internal Vatican memos and private letters to Pope Benedict XVI are the work either of praiseworthy whistle-blowers or criminal moles.

Gianluigi Nuzzi, the Italian journalist who published a book based on dozens of private Vatican documents, said his main source was part of a group of Vatican employees who wanted to "help" Pope Benedict XVI clean up the church by revealing evidence of corruption, infighting and power struggles.

But Archbishop Angelo Becciu, a top official in the Vatican Secretariat of State, said leaking the material was "behavior unjustifiable from every point of view."

VATICAN CITY - From picked pockets to a 1998 double murder and suicide, the Vatican legal system has dealt with a vast array of crimes and misdemeanors over the decades.

Now it has begun a formal inquiry into the case of the pope's personal assistant who has been implicated in the media-blitzed "VatiLeaks" scandal. Paolo Gabriele, the pope's valet since 2006, was arrested May 23 by Vatican security for having unauthorized documents in his possession.

VATICAN CITY - The lawyers for Paolo Gabriele have petitioned Vatican magistrates for house arrest for their client, who is accused of illegally possessing stolen documents as part of the so-called "VatiLeaks" scandal.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said May 30 that the magistrates who have been holding Gabriele in the offices of the Vatican police were considering the formal request to allow him to return to his Vatican apartment with his wife and three children.