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NEWS

TORONTO - Lawyer Daniel Santoro will give a preview of jailed pro-life activist Linda Gibbons’ upcoming Supreme Court hearing at the 26th annual meeting of the Catholic Civil Rights League.

Santoro is the featured speaker at the CCRL’s Oct. 13 meeting that begins with a 5:30 p.m. Mass at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Cathedral, followed by the meeting at St. Michael’s Choir School.

Santoro said he would present an overall summary of Gibbons’ case before the Supreme Court on Dec. 14 which will challenge a 1994 temporary Ontario court injunction protecting several downtown Toronto abortion clinics. The issue is “whether the Criminal Code can be used to enforce civil injunctions,” he said.

Bishops’ social justice message targets youth

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OTTAWA - The Canadian Catholic bishops have issued a message on social justice to young Catholics encouraging them to commit themselves to building a “more just and joyful society.”

In a message released Sept. 22, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Commission for Justice and Peace urged young Catholics to participate in furthering the “Millennium objectives for development.”

“The Catholic Church shares all of humanity’s common quest for peace and happiness, and supports efforts of individuals and groups working to eradicate poverty, illness, injustice, inequality, human rights violations and environmental exploitation,” says the Message to Young Catholics on Social Justice. “This witness of solidarity flows from God’s love for humanity as revealed to us in Jesus Christ.”

U.S. cardinal arranged Vietnam meeting

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VATICAN CITY - U.S. Cardinal Bernard F. Law helped finalize plans for the first ever meeting of a president of communist Vietnam with a pope, according to a U.S. government cable appearing on the WikiLeaks web site.

Law visited Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, in 2009 to meet with government officials and discuss bilateral relations between the Vatican and Vietnam, the cable said. “It took a visit to Vietnam last week by American Cardinal Bernard Law to finalize arrangements to allow the visit (of Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet) to go forward,” said the cable dated Dec. 4, 2009, released on the WikiLeaks web site Aug. 30.

During a meeting with a top-level staff member of the U.S. Embassy to the Vatican, Law said the Vietnamese “expressed little interest in formal diplomatic relations, but considerable interest in ensuring the already announced visit would go forward.” 

Law had been involved in Vietnamese issues for decades. In 1991, he led the first high-level U.S. Catholic Church group to visit Vietnam at the invitation of the Vietnamese government since 1975.

Ten Commandments to influence Zambian president

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Zambia’s first elected Catholic president told members of his parish he will base his rule on the Ten Commandments.

President Michael Sata, 57, elected Sept. 20, also commended the Catholic Church for the role it played in ensuring that the nation held peaceful elections.

Sata, a member of St. Ignatius parish in central Lusaka, told fellow parishioners Sept. 25 his government will embrace the fight against corruption because the Seventh Commandment states, “Thou shall not steal.” He said his government will prosecute anyone who steals despite his or her socio-economic status or party affiliation.

In Germany, pope says godlessness poses new risks for society

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FREIBURG, Germany - On a four-day visit to Germany, Pope Benedict XVI warned that godlessness and religious indifference were undermining the moral foundations of society and leaving its weakest members exposed to new risks.

He repeatedly mentioned the duty to protect the unborn, and proposed this as an area where Catholics and non-Catholics can witness together and help resist ethical erosion.

The Pope said after arriving in his homeland Sept. 22 that he had come “to meet people and to speak about God.” He took that message to the country’s political leaders, to the Church’s ecumenical partners, to the Catholic faithful and, through the mass media, to the German people.

Whitehorse bishop pitches for priests

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Bishop Gary Gordon has a one-time, can't-miss, double-your-money-back-guaranteed deal for the priests of the nation.

"You want an opportunity to pray? You want an opportunity to connect with God in the vastness of His creation? An opportunity to actually know every single parishioner and have coffee with them, all the time?" begins Gordon's sales pitch to priests in southern Canada.

He has just the spot for them — his Whitehorse diocese in the Yukon.

Priests in the north get to actually read books, reflect on their work and take a second look at their homilies.

Pope celebrates Mass in Berlin's Olympic Stadium

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BERLIN - Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass in Berlin's Olympic Stadium and appealed for a better understanding of the church, one that goes beyond current controversies and the failings of its members.

The evening liturgy Sept. 22 was the religious high point of the pope's busy first day in the German capital, where he also met with government leaders, Jewish representatives and addressed the parliament.

About 70,000 Catholics gave the 84-year-old pontiff a rousing welcome when he rode in a popemobile through the stadium, which was built by the Nazi regime to host the 1936 Olympic Games. The pope paused to kiss several babies as young people waved scarves imprinted with the theme of the papal visit, "Where there is God, there is a future."

Fight against federal law will undermine marriage, says archbishop

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WASHINGTON - Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. bishops' conference, told President Barack Obama in a Sept. 20 letter that his administration's fight against the Defense of Marriage Act will undermine marriage and create a serious breach of church-state relations.

The law, known as DOMA, defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

"It is especially wrong and unfair to equate opposition to redefining marriage with either intentional or willfully ignorant racial discrimination, as your administration insists on doing," the archbishop said.

Pope says Catholic-Jewish dialogue important for society

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BERLIN - The Nazi "reign of terror" clearly demonstrated the depths of evil that men are capable of when they deny God and the dignity of all people he created, Pope Benedict XVI told leaders of Germany's Jewish community.

Speaking Sept. 22 with the Jewish representatives in a meeting room in the Reichstag, which houses the German parliament, the pope spoke about the need to continue remembering the horror of the Shoah, the importance of continuing Catholic-Jewish dialogue and the need for all believers in God to work together to bring moral values to society.

The Reichstag is a place of "appalling remembrance," the pope said, because it was in the parliament building that "the Shoah, the annihilation of our Jewish fellow citizens in Europe, was planned and organized."

D&P raises $4.7 million for Horn of Africa relief

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As the curtain came down on 10 weeks of double-your-money matching donations for famine relief in East Africa, the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace had raised approximately $4.7 million.

More than 13 million people face possible starvation in Horn of Africa countries, including Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. More than two years of drought and crop failure in the region have been compounded by political chaos in Somalia. Hundreds of thousands of refugees are on the move in the region.

Development and Peace will put donations to work in both short term, emergency feeding and medical care through the Caritas network and longer term projects to support farming.

Smuggling bill under fire as Parliament resumes

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OTTAWA - The federal Conservatives’ anti-human smuggling Bill C-4 came under attack as Parliament resumed Sept. 19 following its summer break.

Opposition parties are trying to block the latest version of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s bill that had drawn criticism last November from Canada’s Catholic bishops. They will have a hard time however, considering the Conservative majority in Parliament.

Bill C-4 was the first item debated by MPs upon their return Sept. 19. The bill aims to prevent human smugglers from abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act, placing restrictions on any group of refugee claimants who arrive in “irregular” circumstances. Kenney said the bill is aimed at smuggling syndicates, like those that brought two large shiploads of illegal migrants to Canada in the last two years.