Southern cross. (Savannah, Ga.) 1963-2021, December 21, 2000, Image 2
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Thursday, December 21, 2000
EEOC SAYS SOME HEALTH PLANS
CAN’T EXCLUDE CONTRACEPTION
Washington (CNS)
n a decision that could have ramifications for
Catholic employers throughout the country, the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled
December 13 that it is against the law for some
health plans to exclude coverage of contraception.
Employers “may not discriminate in their health
insurance plan by denying benefits for prescription
contraceptives when they provide benefits for
comparable drugs and devices,” the EEOC deci
sion said. Although the decision applies directly
only to the two unnamed women—both registered
nurses—who filed suit with the EEOC against
their employer, it could have an effect on efforts in
California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia
and elsewhere to mandate coverage of contracep
tion by all health insurers in those jurisdictions.
CCHD makes $550,000 grant to
EMPOWER IMMIGRANTS
Washington (CNS)
he Catholic Campaign for Human Develop
ment has announced a special $550,000 grant
to help empower community groups of low-in-
come immigrants. “Our Catholic social teaching
instructs that we not only ‘welcome the stranger’
but help newcomers assume their full rights and
responsibilities in this country,” said Father Robert
J. Vitillo, CCHD executive director. He said the
Immigrant Empowerment Project will help low-
income immigrant groups identify and overcome
barriers to full participation in their adopted coun
try. It will provide financial and technical assis
tance. The three-year grant will be coordinated by
the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, known
as CLINIC, in partnership with CCHD, the U.S.
Catholic Conference’s Migration and Refugee
Services, Catholic Charities USA, and the Jesuit
Conference and Jesuit Refugee Service/USA.
U.S. BISHOPS ESTABLISH SECRETARIAT,
COMMISSION FOR EVANGELIZATION
Washington (CNS)
he U.S. bishops have established a Secretariat
for Evangelization and a Commission on
Catholic Evangelization. According to a December
14 announcement from the U.S. Catholic Con
ference, the secretariat will be led by Paulist Father
John Hurley, current head of the bishops’ Evan
gelization Office, which has been operating on an
ad hoc basis. The new secretariat, whose status
becomes effective January 1, was formally ap
proved by the U.S. bishops during their fall gener
al meeting in Washington in November. The com
mission was established by the bishops’ Commit
tee on Evangelization. Both actions mark the 25th
anniversary of Pope Paul Vi’s apostolic exhorta
tion Evangelii Nuntiandi (“On Evangelization in
the Modem World”), issued December 8, 1975.
Protesters demonstrate near
Vatican as Haider gives pope tree
Vatican City (CNS)
rotests threatened to overshadow the sparkling
lights of the Vatican’s Christmas tree when it
was presented by a controversial right-wing Aust
rian politician. As Jorg Haider sat in Saint Peter’s
Square December 16 with Vatican officials beneath
the 89-foot fir, clashes between police and demon
strators three blocks away left more than 50 people
injured. Together with a 250-member delegation
from the region, Haider, governor of Austria’s
Carinthia province, which offered the tree, met ear
lier in the day with Pope John Paul II. The Vatican
downplayed the event, pointing out that the tree’s
donation was arranged well before Haider was
elected as Carinthia’s governor. The Vatican also
said the audience was not of a political nature.
Indian priest survives being
STABBED 14 TIMES
Panaji, India (CNS)
Catholic priest survived an attack by two men
who stabbed him 14 times in Port Blair, the
capital of the Indian territory of Andaman and Ni
cobar. Pilar Father John Peter, 33, was recuperating
at a hospital in Port Blair, said Father Walter
Fernandes, vicar general of Port Blair Diocese.
Father Fernandes spoke to UCA News, an Asian
church news agency based in Thailand, by tele
phone December 16. Port Blair Diocese covers the
federally ruled union territory of Andaman and
Nicobar that comprises some 350 islands in the
Bay of Bengal. Father Peter “has several cuts all
over the body and a very bad bmise at the throat,
after he was strangulated. Now he can breath more
comfortably,” Father Fernandes said. Father Peter
is assistant at the cathedral parish in Port Blair and
chaplain of the Tamil Catholic community.
Italian prosecutors ask prison
SENTENCE FOR NAPLES CARDINAL
Naples (CNS)
talian prosecutors requested a three-year prison
sentence for the archbishop of Naples, on trial for
alleged complicity in a loan-sharking operation and
appropriation of church funds. Cardinal Michele
Giordano stands accused of ftmneling more than
$500,000 to a usury ring run by his brother and
embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from
archdiocesan bank accounts. He repeatedly has
protested his innocence. He is the first cardinal ever
to stand trial on criminal charges in Italy. Following
the prosecution’s sentencing request December 16,
the cardinal’s lawyers were to have two days to
present a defense on the merits of the accusations.
The court planned to issue a judgment December
22. “I expected it,” Cardinal Giordano said of the
prosecution’s request. Speaking to reporters after
Mass in a Naples parish December 17, he said he
trusted in Italy’s justice system “with the confidence
of him who knows his own innocence.”
Maryland bishops seek help to
END DEATH PENALTY
Baltimore (CNS)
aryland’s Catholic bishops reaffirmed their
strong opposition to the death penalty in a
December 13 statement calling on Gov. Parris N.
Glendening to commute death sentences. They also
called for public prosecutors not to seek such sen
tences and for lawmakers to enact legislation that
will lead to its abolition in the state. And, in what
is considered to be the most definitive explanation
of their position on the issue they have made to
date, the bishops urged Catholics in Maryland to
associate themselves with legislative and other
actions that will lead to the elimination of capital
punishment.
Ukrainian Cardinal Lubachivsky
DIES OF PNEUMONIA AT 86
Lviv, Ukraine(CNS)
ardinal Myroslav I. Lubachivsky, who led the
Ukrainian Catholic Church in exile and later
re-established the church in Ukraine, died
December 14 at the age of 86. The cardinal, who
had been weak and suffering for years from severe
rheumatism, died of pneumonia at his residence at
Saint George’s Cathedral in Lviv. His death leaves
the College of Cardinals with 141 members, 97 of
whom are under age 80 and therefore eligible to
vote in a conclave to elect a new pope. Ukrainian
Catholic bishops from around the world were to
gather at the Lviv cathedral for Cardinal Lubachiv-
sky’s funeral the morning of December 20 and
were to begin a synod that evening to elect a new
head of their patriarchate.
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