NEWS

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.

OTTAWA - The head of the London-based World Community for Christian Meditation, Benedictine monk Fr. Laurence Freeman OSB,  was made an Officer of the Order of Canada May 25.

Freeman was recognized for “a lifetime of achievement and merit of a high degree, especially in service to Canada or to humanity at large” as an “an internationally recognized spiritual leader and proponent of peace and interfaith dialogue and understanding.”

Freeman said he was “astounded” and “honored” to be named, but he said he would receive the award “on behalf of the Canadian Christian meditation community.”

The Canadian Council of Churches has questions and it has plans. The questions are for the government and its plans are for Canada’s Christians.

As the CCC executive committee elected new officers, including the first Salvation Army president in the Council’s 68-year history, it also trekked to Parliament Hill to ask politicians and bureaucrats about environmental policy and plans for an Office of Religious Freedom within the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

“We went there knowing there are issues on the horizon that we would like to ask questions about and simply learn more about,” said CCC general secretary Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton.

TORONTO - The dream of a cross-country Canadian Pax Christi organization is alive in Toronto, but struggling to find a foothold elsewhere.

Since the Toronto group of about 30 dedicated peace activists won the right to be called Pax Christi — Toronto it has received all kinds of inquiries about its work, but the group has struggled to translate that interest into membership.

“We’re getting more people interested,” said founding member Deacon Steve Barringer.

Early in his philosophy career, Professor Tom Langan was fired for being too left wing. Years later he helped found the Canadian Catholic Civil Rights League, an organization often called reactionary.

Langan died May 25 at Bridgepoint Hospital. For the last five months of his life at Bridgepoint, Langan was surrounded by family, friends and former students.

He was fired in the 1950s by his Jesuit-founded alma mater, St. Louis University. But Langan wasn’t unemployed long. Indiana University took him on and he eventually rose to chair of the philosophy department.

MONTREAL - The new attitude initiated by the Second Vatican Council and the changes in society in the last 50 years has deeply affected the life of the Church and the life of religious communities, 290 leaders of religious communities in Canada were told.

The leaders gathered here May 24-28 for the bi-annual assembly of the Canadian Religious Conference (CRC) at which time they also chose a new executive.