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The Southern Cross, Page 2
Vatican says pope to visit
Ukraine June 23-27
Vatican (CNS)
A t the request of the Ukrainian government, the
dates of Pope John Paul II’s June visit to the
country have changed slightly, the Vatican
announced. “The definitive date of the visit of the
Holy Father” will be June 23-27, the Vatican’s
January 16 announcement said. The pope is
expected to visit Kiev, the capital, and Lviv, the
principal city of western Ukraine, where the coun
try’s Catholic population is concentrated. The trip
was pushed back by two days to avoid conflict
with Ukraine's June 22 commemoration of the 60th
anniversary of the Nazi bombing of Kiev, marking
the former Soviet Republic’s entrance into World
War II, said Nina K. Kowalska, Ukrainian ambas
sador to the Vatican.
Black clergy mark 500th
ANNIVERSARY OF SLAVERY IN
America
Washington (CNS)
T he National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus
marked the 500th anniversary of the arrival of
the first slave in the Americas with a call for
“Sankofa”—historical remembrance and response.
In a statement issued January 15, Martin Luther
King Jr. Day, the caucus said America’s continuing
racism, rooted in its history of slavery and geno
cide, challenges Americans to reflect on “the trau
ma of racial dysfunction” in their society. “The
hemisphere is called to repentance,” it said. The
statement said the word “Sankofa,” taken from the
West African tribe of the Akan, means reflective
thought that “calls a person or a people to look
back to their past for wisdom to discern their
future.” The caucus statement is available on the
Internet at www.bcimall.org/nbccc.
Court fines attorney suing
PRO-LIFE ACTIVISTS
Brooklyn, NY (CNS)
A New York appeals court has fined a Brooklyn
abortion clinic’s attorney $10,000 for misrep
resenting 11 affidavits in a lawsuit against Helpers
of God’s Precious Infants, an organization of pro
life activists. In a unanimous decision, a four-judge
panel of the state appellate division’s Second
Judicial Department ordered Edward Land, attor
ney for the Ambulatory Surgery Center of
Brooklyn, to pay the fine to the Lawyers Fund for
Client Protection as a sanction for misconduct in
the case. The court found that Land had himself
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signed the 11 affidavits on behalf of the individu
als named in them, then notarized them, represent
ing them as signed by the individuals in his pres
ence. The decision, dated December 21, was pub
lished in the New York Law Journal January 9.
Pope tells diplomats world prob
lems ARE ROOTED IN SELFISHNESS
Vatican City (CNS)
I n his annual “state of the world” address to
diplomats, Pope John Paul II said the wars,
' social injustices and ecological imbalances that
continue to plague many countries are rooted in
human selfishness. The pope said the solution lies
in an approach that may seem “too simple” to the
world’s powerful: treating all people as brothers
and sisters. He noted some hopeful signs in recent
peace agreements and international steps to reduce
poverty and illiteracy. The pope made the remarks
January 13 in an audience with ambassadors repre
senting the 172 countries that maintain full diplo
matic relations with the Holy See.
Oregon Catholic leaders object
TO PROVISIONS FOR PRENATAL
SCREENS
Salem, OR (CNS)
F earing the arrival of state-funded eugenics, the
Oregon Catholic Conference said it would
question a prenatal screening provision in a budget
proposed by Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber. “This
presents problems if used to eliminate life as a
solution to health problems,” said Bob Castagna,
executive director of the conference, which is the
public policy arm of Oregon’s Catholic bishops.
The proposal, a first for the nation, would provide
prenatal screening for all first-bom children in
Oregon. The aim, according to Kitzhaber, is to
identify medical and social risks early so that chil
dren can “succeed in life, in school and avoid
future problems such as drug addiction, school
failure, delinquency or incarceration.”
Fathers’ Support Center helps
DADS GET BACK ON TRACK
Saint Louis (CNS)
T he primary beneficiaries of the Fathers’
Support Center of Saint Louis are the children,
according to its executive director, Halbert
Sullivan. “What we hope to do is help produce a
better outcome—to raise kids up out of poverty.
We have chosen the father as the vehicle to work
through,” said Sullivan, whose center receives sub
stantial Catholic support. In the past, he said, soci
ety left mothers with the responsibility for provid-
Thursday, January 18, 2001
ing for the family. While the mothers have done
their best, their success is limited without the
fathers’ help, he noted. Even when society does
step in to try and force fathers to pay child support,
the end result can be imprisonment for offenders,
an action that still doesn’t help the children. “We
want to use another alternative besides locking
them up,” Sullivan said.
Cardinal fears violence after
Estrada’s effective acquittal
Manila, Philippines (CNS)
M anila Cardinal Jaime Sin said he feared vio
lence after senator-judges in the presidential
impeachment trial voted not to open crucial bank
records, effectively acquitting Philippine President
Joseph Estrada. In a post-midnight rally January 17
at the same religious shrine where hundreds of
thousands gathered for the 1986 “people power”
revolution that toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos,
Cardinal Sin said he was afraid that “we might not
be able to stop bloodshed. We know in our hearts
that the president is guilty.” Prosecutors in the
impeachment trial had said bank documents would
show that Estrada, a former movie actor, had
amassed more the $63 million after just one-and-a-
half years in office. Estrada was accused of corrup
tion, bribery, betrayal of public trust and culpable
violation of the constitution and would have been
removed from office if convicted of any one
charge.
Archbishop protests policies
THAT DON’T PROTECT UNBORN
Brooklyn, NY (CNS)
A rchbishop Edward M. Egan of New York in a
homily protested government policies that fail
to protect the unborn child but instead protect the
abortionists who kill the child in the womb. “Our
nation is too good to allow this to go on,” he said.
Reading a personal letter he received about a Lon
don doctor proposing to do an abortion in his of
fice, the archbishop also said an outlook had
spread across the world that a child could be casu
ally killed by abortion. “Those of us who are horri
fied by this” are labeled by the media as “unpro
gressive and even fanatics,” he said. Archbishop
Egan was celebrant and homilist January 13 at the
annual Pro Vita Mass sponsored by the Diocese of
Brooklyn at Saint James Cathedral. Defending
abortion opponents against the media charges, he
said a true progressive was one who protected life.
Archbishop Egan compared the alleged fanaticism
of abortion opponents with the stand of those pre-
Civil War Americans who opposed slavery.
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