NEWS

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY - As fighting continued in the Gaza Strip, Pope Benedict XVI urged Israelis and Palestinians to end the violent, armed clashes and start peace talks.

“Hatred and the rejection of dialogue bring nothing but war,” he said after reciting the Angelus Jan. 6 with pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square.

{mosimage}The Corner Brook and Labrador diocese in Newfoundland has cut a cheque for $13 million and turned the page on a sexual abuse case that drove the diocese into bankruptcy.

The final payment to almost 40 men who had been abused as boys by a priest in several rural parishes was about $2 million less than originally envisioned in the settlement between victims and the diocese. But it avoided further court proceedings that would have delayed payment and eaten up the settlement in legal costs, said Bishop Doug Crosby.

{mosimage}TORONTO - It’s been 30 years since Courage co-founder Fr. John Harvey, OSFS, began his work counselling priests and lay people with same-sex attractions.

But Harvey, now 90, says it’s still a challenge to get some priests to support his program which promotes chastity and discourages a homosexual lifestyle.

{mosimage}The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and Physicians for Compassionate Care (PCC) in Oregon have teamed up to create an online campaign to allow people — physicians especially — to pledge their ethical regard for life.

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition in Canada , said the pledge is not intended to bind anyone to a set of principles, but offer them encouragement and support for their ethical choices.

{mosimage}MONTREAL - The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace has turned to Newfoundland to find a new president of its national council.

Pat Hogan of St. John’s has been elected as the new president, according to a Dec. 16 news release from the organization’s head office in Montreal. At one-time a teacher in Zambia with CUSO, Hogan joined Development and Peace in 1996 and served as chair of the St. John’s diocesan council and as a member of the education committee prior to being elected to the national council in 2004.

{mosimage}VATICAN CITY  - Building peace and eradicating poverty demand an overhaul of shortsighted financial policies and unjust economic and social structures, Pope Benedict XVI said.

In his annual message for the Jan. 1 celebration of the World Day of Peace, the Pope said “peace can be built only if everyone is assured the possibility of reasonable growth: Sooner or later, the distortions produced by unjust systems have to be paid for by everyone.”

The world of finance and commerce need global governance and a new ethical approach that can ensure that investments and development truly contribute to the common good and peace in the world, he said.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - The Catholic Health Association of Canada (CHAC) is strengthening its team to address looming ethical and policy challenges.

The CHAC has appointed medical ethics educator Sr. Nuala Kenny as an ethics and policy advisor for 2009.

{mosimage}WASHINGTON - More Americans are losing jobs, and Catholic agencies are trying their best to tide them over until they find new work.

The United States shed 533,000 jobs in November, the most in any single month in 34 years. The national unemployment rate climbed to 6.7 per cent in December, a 15-year high, up from 6.5 per cent in October.

{mosimage}TORONTO  - The country's economic woes are causing more Canadians to seek counselling in recent months, says the Canadian Mental Health Association .

Catholic Family Services of Toronto — one of several agencies across the country at the frontlines in helping people cope with individual or family breakdowns during the economic crisis — has seen the number of people seeking counselling increase, especially as people are faced with holiday and post-holiday stress.

{mosimage}CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe must be forced to step down, said the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference.

"It is now time to isolate Mugabe completely and to remove all forms of moral, material or tacit support for him and his party," the conference said in a Dec. 18 statement issued by Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, conference spokesman.