Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Cross, Page 2
Synod opens with call
TO REVITALIZE EVANGE
LIZATION in Europe
Vatican City (CNS)
C hristianity can bring hope to
Europe, but only if Christians
find new ways to proclaim the Gospel
message, said members of the Synod
of Bishops for Europe. Opening the
work of the October 1-23 synod,
Spanish Cardinal Antonio Rouco
Varela of Madrid said the Catholic
Church in Europe must make an
“examination of conscience” to see
where it has failed and to map out its
future. Cardinal Rouco, the synod's
general reporter, said that in too many
ways Christianity in Europe has been
reduced to social custom or a guide to
good manners. “The secularization of
Christian life within the church” has
led to a drop in vocations to the priest
hood and religious life, a decline in
Mass attendance and a rise in doctri
nal dissent, he said.
Pope proclaims three
WOMEN PATRON SAINTS OF
Europe
Vatican City (CNS)
P ope John Paul II proclaimed three
women patron saints of Europe:
Saint Bridget of Sweden, Saint
Catherine of Siena and Saint Edith
Stein. The pope announced the
unusual step during a Mass October 1
to open the Synod of Bishops for
Europe. He said he wanted to show
that the church increasingly recog
nizes “the dignity and specific gifts
of women” and their role in history.
“All three of them admirably express
the synthesis between contemplation
and action. Their lives and then-
works testify with great eloquence to
the power of the risen Christ,” he
said. The women join three men —
Saints Benedict, Cyril and Methodius
— as patrons of Europe. In a sermon
and a 13-page apostolic letter
explaining his decision, the pope said
that although the church has at times
been “conditioned by a culture which
did not always show due considera
tion to women,” it has progressively
matured in this regard.
Church in Taiwan
REACHES OUT TO HELP
QUAKE VICTIMS
Taiching, Taiwan (CNS)
T he Catholic Church in Taiwan has
reached out to help and comfort
quake victims as they recover from
damages caused by the most serious
earthquake to hit the island this centu
ry. “What you have seen on TV
screens are places easily reached, but
now news begins to arrive from the
people in the mountain villages, and
they are mostly aborigines, the poorest
among our population,” Father Peter
Mertens, executive secretary of
Caritas Taiwan, said in a letter to Cari-
tas Hong Kong September 24.
Vatican denies U.N.
CLAIM IT GAVE UP OPPOSI
TION TO FAMILY PLANNING
Vatican City (CNS)
T he Vatican said its family planning
position remains unchanged, de
spite a U.N. official’s claims that the
church no longer presses for references
to natural family planning methods in
U.N. documents. During a London
presentation of the 1999 World Popu
lation Report September 22, Nafis
Sadik, executive director of the U.N.
Population Fund, claimed the Holy
See had ceased opposing U.N. family
planning programs. But in a two-page
statement September 27, Vatican
spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said
that “the Holy See has not changed at
all its well-known position.”
Baptist-Catholic
report on Bible
RELEASED
Washington (CNS)
I n a report released September 23,
U.S. Roman Catholic and Southern
Baptist scholars said that while they
have “serious differences,” they
“share a great deal in our Christian
faith concerning the authority and
truth of the Bible.” The group
expressed hope that their 1,600-word
report on how Catholics and Baptists
approach Scripture “will be useful to
teachers and students of our Christian
faith and thus contribute to better
mutual understanding and deeper
devotion to the Bible.” While not a
“confessional statement,” the report
affirms certain “core convictions”
Catholics and Baptists share.
N.Y. CARDINAL, BISHOP
CRITICIZE CONTROVERSIAL
ART EXHIBIT
New York (CNS)
C ardinal John J. O’Connor of New
York and Bishop Thomas V.
Daily of Brooklyn criticized contents
of an exhibition scheduled for October
2-January 9 at the Brooklyn Museum
of Art. The exhibition, which features
young British artists and was previ
ously shown in London and Berlin,
includes a portrayal of Mary with
cutouts from pornographic magazines
and shellacked clumps of elephant
dung. The work is by Chris Ofili, who
is identified as a Catholic and was
quoted in The New York Times
September 23 as saying the portrayal
is “simply a hip-hop version” of the
“sexually charged” paintings of Mary
that had become familiar to him in his
own Catholic background.
Catholic hospital
ENDS SUBLEASE PERMIT
TING STERILIZATIONS
Little Rock (CNS)
S aint Vincent Health System in
Little Rock announced September
28 that it plans to discontinue its sub
lease with a woman’s health center
allowed to perform elective steriliza
tions in space at a hospital purchased
by the Saint Vincent system in 1998.
The decision to end the lease of
space at Saint Vincent Doctors
Hospital was made after Bishop
Andrew J. McDonald of Little Rock
consulted with the Vatican
Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith. Saint Vincent Health System
entered into the lease agreement with
Arkansas Women’s Health Center, an
independent corporation, in good
faith in 1998 and respects the
church’s directives that prohibits ster
ilization, said Larry Marr, senior vice
president and administrator of Saint
Vincent Doctors Hospital.
Thursday, October 7, 1999
Retired bishops die
Peoria, IL & Merrillville, IN
(CNS)
R etired Bishop Edward W.
O’Rourke of Peoria, who lived
what he taught about the benefits of a
simple lifestyle, continued his exam
ple in death. Bishop O’Rourke, 81,
died in Peoria September 29, and he
was laid to rest in a simple wooden
casket, as he requested in his will.
The funeral Mass was held at noon
on October 5 at Saint Mary’s Cathe
dral in Peoria. A former executive
director of the National Catholic
Rural Life Conference, Bishop
O’Rourke guided the Diocese of
Peoria from 1971 to 1990. He was
widely known as an advocate and
friend of the poor, and used his
retirement years to found and lead an
organization that offered job-training
and hospitality for the less fortunate
of his Peoria neighborhood.
Retired Bishop Norbert F. Gaughan
of Gary died October 1 of complica
tions from a stroke suffered in 1992.
He was 78 years old. He had been
bishop of Gary from 1984 until his
retirement in 1996. His administrative
responsibilities were curtailed, though,
following the 1992 stroke. Bishop
Gaughan had lived at Saint Anthony
Home in Crown Point after his retire
ment. He had been a bishop since
1975, serving first for nine years as
auxiliary bishop of Greensburg, Pa.
Pro-lifers criticize
APPEALS RULING
Washington (CNS)
P ro-life leaders in at least two states
criticized a federal appeals court
ruling overturning laws in Arkansas,
Iowa and Nebraska banning partial-
birth abortions. The 8th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals in Saint Louis
September 24 ruled that the laws cre
ate an undue burden on the right to
have an abortion and therefore are
unconstitutional. In Arkansas, the
director of the Little Rock Diocese’s
Respect Life Office, Anne Dierks, told
Catholic News Service September 27
she hoped the state’s attorney general
would appeal the ruling to the U.S.
Supreme Court.
(USPS 505 680)
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