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November 2012

November 7

It’s in the heart

November 7, 2012

There is a special spot where I stand in front of Michelangelo’s Pieta every time I have the blessed fortune to enter the sublime majesty of St. Peter’s Basilica. But there is an altogether sweeter spot in my heart that is deeply touched by attending churches whose glory is, shall we say, of a more radically humble nature. We all know them. Things are always, well, just a little rag-tag on the liturgical front. Not in fidelity to the Mass, of course, but in the mechanics of the service. A glitch here. A stumble there. A perpetual air of excited uncertainty hangs over all. The choir is always a titch off-key or late finding the opening words behind the organ’s roar. When there is no choir, the psalm and hymns are carried by one brave soul whose vocal range truly is a testament to soul-filled bravery. An unfamiliar word or name from the Old Testament invariably stymies the lay reader of the first lesson as if he or she is about to sneeze. The congregants scatter in the pews like dropped copies of last week’s unread parish bulletin, maintaining valiant indifference to forgetting when to stand, sit or kneel. The priest is inevitably a genuine model of Christian patience implacably enduring every blip and blemish. I love such churches not merely as a reminder, but as a lived experience, of the fullness of the humanity at the heart of our faith. I find their foibles not a distraction but, on the contrary, an aid to focusing on why I am there. For while Our Lord admonished us to “be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect,” we are all there to try and try again to live up to His standard, aren’t we? Indeed, even He, born perfect and without sin, did not always find it easy to bear His humanity lightly, did He? “What stuck out for me was the humanness of Jesus,” Paul Henderson told me recently in speaking about his first trip to the Holy Land. “The fact that He had to walk around that dusty road; He got dirty; He got tired. You wonder where He spent the night. We stayed in beautiful places. Jesus didn’t have those. “I understood His humanness a lot better by being there. I was standing where He lived. I could picture Him on the shore asking ‘did you catch any fish? Maybe you should throw the net out on the other side.’ Almost playing with them.” Henderson, of course, is the hockey immortal who gave Canada the winning goal and the saving grace of eking out victory against the Soviet Union in the 1972 Summit Series. His autobiography, The Goal of My Life, was released earlier this fall to mark the 40th anniversary of the greatest single moment in Canadian sports history. Yet from the book’s opening pages, and from the opening moment of the interview I did with him for the forthcoming issue of Convivium magazine, no doubt exists that the man famous for his electrifying goal has made the true goal of his life the stumble toward the Cross. His greatness as a hockey player, he makes plain, is as nothing to the smallness of his humanity before Christ. Henderson states frankly (Convivium magazine memberships are available at www.cardus. ca/convivium) that it took him more than a few slips to find his way home to God following the Summit Series. He defiantly kept his back turned to the Christian Church of his youth until he had to face himself. “I finally realized that it’s God’s work, not my work. He uses us and that’s the dumbest plan He ever had in His life as far as I’m concerned — using dipsticks like me,” Henderson says with typical bluntness in the interview. “But God does say that we are to be His ambassadors. That’s the only plan there is. When I look at the 12 disciples that He chose, if I had been in His place, I don’t think I would have chosen any of them. But God looks at the heart. God knows what’s in the heart.” The human heart naturally responds to the staggering creative genius of a Michelangelo. It reverberates with moments of victory that bring an entire nation to its feet. But I am certain God knows the heart as a radically humble place, too, the not-quite-right place that has a glory all its own.

Massachusetts defeats assisted suicide; California keeps death penalty

November 7, 2012

WASHINGTON - Massachusetts voters narrowly defeated a "death with dignity" measure, rejecting attempts to legalize assisted suicide, while in California, an initiative to end the use of the death penalty was defeated as well in another close vote. The Massachusetts initiative, known as Question 2, was defeated by fewer than 39,000 votes — 1,395,227 to 1,356,899 — with the largest opposition rising in counties in the centre of the state and those north and south of Boston. Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston was pleased with the outcome, saying the common good was served in the measure's defeat. "The campaign against physician-assisted suicide brought together a diverse coalition from medical, disability rights and interfaith communities, all dedicated to ensuring that our residents were well informed on the issue," he said in an e-mailed statement. The cardinal called upon wider society to work with hospice organizations and palliative care providers "to improve the care provided to the terminally ill." "It is my hope and prayer that the defeat of Question 2 will help all people to understand that for our brothers and sisters confronted with terminal illness we can do better than offering them the means to end their lives." The measure may have generated the widest debate of any statewide ballot issue in the country. The initiative would have allowed terminally ill adults to commit physician-assisted suicide under certain conditions. The Massachusetts Catholic Conference, Massachusetts Medical Society and disability rights groups opposed it. Under the proposal, patients estimated to have six months or fewer to live and judged medically capable to make a medical decision could decide to end their lives after submitting such a request twice orally and once in writing. In video and written messages on the Massachusetts Catholic Conference web site, O'Malley urged voters to reject the measure, saying it would place vulnerable people at risk and that it promotes suicide. California voters rejected Proposition 34, which would have repealed the death penalty clause in the state constitution, by 52.6 per cent to 47.4 per cent. Inmates already facing a death sentence would have been resentenced to life in prison without parole under the measure. With 95 per cent of the vote counted early Nov. 7, the tally stood at about 4.7 million opposed to the death penalty ban and nearly 4.2 million in favour of it. Proponents of the measure said banning capital punishment would have ended the possibility of an innocent person being put to death for a crime. They also projected that California would have saved $130 million annually by ending capital punishment. The measure called for a one-time expenditure of $100 million for solving major crimes. Opponents, including law enforcement officers and three former governors, maintained that the savings estimates were overblown and that the state's onerous death penalty system is in need of repair and should not be replaced. The California Catholic Conference backed Proposition 34, saying that the inherent dignity of each person must be upheld and that even people convicted of any serious crime must not be put to death. The church also called for wide-scale restorative justice efforts to afford the opportunity for repentance and reconciliation among the affected individuals. In Florida, voters defeated an amendment to the state constitution that would have prohibited public funding of abortion services or insurance coverage that covered abortions and also would have allowed legislation to restore parental consent for a minor less than the age of 16 to have an abortion. Amendment 6 failed, by a 55 to 45 per cent margin. A second constitutional amendment that would have lifted a ban on public funds going directly or indirectly to any church or religious denomination for the delivery of social services also was defeated by a similar margin, 55.5 per cent to 44.5 per cent. In Montana, voters approved by more than 2-1 a referendum that would require parental approval of a minor child's abortion.

November 8

Axing chaplains puts prisoners at risk

November 8, 2012

Finding a home, a job, a purpose and peace for men who’ve spent most of their lives inside prison, addicted, raging and lost is never going to be easy. But Curtis Wiebe, who has spent 23 of his 45 years inside, has a suggestion for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews: Don’t cut programs that work. When Correctional Services Canada decided in October not to renew the contracts of 49 part-time chaplains working in Canada’s federal prisons, it also meant cutting the programs they run — including the one that has helped Wiebe turn his life around. As Wiebe neared release he moved from the maximum security Stoney Mountain institution near Winnipeg to the nearby minimum security Rockwood prison. In Rockwood he began meeting with a group led by part-time chaplain Sr. Carol Peloquin. The group called Next Step helped prisoners deal with the prospect of life on the outside in practical ways — driving them to appointments, finding a doctor, reconnecting with family when possible. It also selected a few men who both needed and wanted a supportive environment to live at Quixote House. That’s where Wiebe is now, living with two Jesuit priests and four other parolees in an environment free of drugs and other negative influences, working on finishing high school, making plans for life beyond prison. “I just couldn’t take it any more. If I had to come back (to prison) then my life’s over kind of thing,” said Wiebe. “And I like life, so I decided to stay out.” But without Next Step and the part-time chaplain who runs it, staying out will be infinitely harder. Without Next Step there’s no path into Quixote House. Without Quixote House all Wiebe could afford on his disability pension would be a rooming house on the rough north side of town where drugs and alcohol are a constant presence. There have been 67 men through Next Step over the last five years and three have gone back to jail for parole violations. All three were addicts and two were mental health patients. It’s a pretty good track record, said Next Step originator Peloquin. “Quite a number of them are law-abiding citizens who would have jobs and are paying taxes, who wouldn’t be scaring the public,” she said. The Jesuits and the Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus, Peloquin’s community, are in the process of adding a third step to the supportive process of reintegration they’ve built on the Next Step program. Next door to Quixote House they are renovating an old crack house to create individual apartments to be known as the Massey Apartments — named after Jesuit Father Brian Massey who was a prison chaplain in Jamaica and Canada. Once complete, graduates from Quixote House will have a chance to try out independent living in their own apartment, but still with the support of Next Step. Remove Next Step and the whole structure comes crashing down. Correctional Services Canada gassed the $1.3 million-a-year part-time chaplain program without first working out what happens to the associated programs. “A decision has yet to be made about all services that are connected with part-time chaplains,” reads an e-mail to The Catholic Register from the CSC media relations staff. “CSC is consulting with its various partners between now and the end of March 2013 to solicit their feedback and discuss the implementation of the full-time model of chaplaincy services.” The Canadian bishops have kept their heads down while they quietly engage the federal prison service on a plan B. “It would be sort of imprudent for us to comment,” said Whitehorse Bishop Gary Gordon, who acts as the liaison of prison ministry for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. “I know the commissioner and I know the chaplain management are working very hard to come up with viable options and alternatives and modalities of doing ministry.” Central to the negotiations on how to do prison ministry without 49 part-time contract holders will be maintaining a memorandum of understanding between faith groups and CSC which stipulates the equivalent of one full-time professional chaplain for every 150 to 200 inmates. So far Correctional Services has been talking up the 2,500 volunteers who contribute to chaplaincy. Kathleen Mico, who earlier this year took over Next Step from Peloquin, is concerned that the dozens of volunteers she works with won’t have a program to volunteer for. It’s Mico, as the professional trained by Peloquin, who co-ordinates the volunteers for Next Step. If CSC takes away Mico, what will the volunteers do? Given that just one prisoner in Stoney Mountain costs taxpayers about $100,000 per year, a program that keeps men out of prison on a quarter-time salary and two dozen volunteers is a pretty good deal, said Mico. Not all groups affected by the decision to axe the chaplains are taking the behind-the-scenes approach of the Canadian bishops. Full-time federal prison chaplains are calling the decision a breach of non-Christian prisoner rights. Only one of the 80 full-time chaplains working in the federal prisons is not Christian. While Toews claims a professional chaplain should be capable of serving the entire population regardless of religious affiliation — just as military chaplains do in the armed forces — Rev. Lloyd Bruce, full-time chaplain at the medium security Springhill Institution in Nova Scotia, isn’t buying it. “Taking away professional chaplains of other world faith traditions is taking away hope from others who are struggling to turn their lives around,” Bruce wrote in a letter to Toews. “Your decision not to renew part-time contracts with faith communities for provision of chaplaincy services with Correctional Service Canada will essentially eliminate chaplaincy services for non-Christians,” wrote the Moderator of the United Church of Canada Rev. Gary Paterson. While the decision affects Buddhists, Jews, Jains and others who won’t have access to their own clergy unless those clergy volunteer, the 40 per cent of federal prisoners who are Catholic will be hit harder, said Gordon. Lay and Protestant chaplains may be very good counsellors and advocates for prisoners, but they can’t hear confessions, celebrate Mass, anoint the sick. Catholic canon law defines a chaplain as a priest. Since 1975 Canada has endorsed the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which guarantees prisoners the right to access their own clergy. But that minimum standard is no help when it comes to maintaining the part-time chaplains. “We’re quite aware that the government is under no obligation to pay for it. They are under an obligation to open the doors, access,” said Gordon. Mico is one of just two part-time prison chaplains whose contract extends beyond next spring. But when her contract runs out in 2014 she’ll have to find another job. She simply can’t keep co-ordinating Next Step for free. As the Catholic bishops look for solutions their primary interest is in maintaining service to prisoners, said Gordon. “I can quite honestly and definitively say that as a Catholic Church we serve people. If we can get the remuneration to put those things in place, then we can serve them better,” he said.

People lost ‘stuff,’ but have each other

November 8, 2012

ISLAND PARK, N.Y. - Sacred Heart Church in Island Park is in an area of the diocese of Rockville Centre among the most devastated by Hurricane Sandy, but the pastor urged parishioners not to fret about the material goods they have lost. “Don’t be angry. We lost stuff. We will get other stuff,” Msgr. John Tutone, pastor, told the congregation during his homily at Sunday Mass Nov. 4. “We still have each other and the people we love. That’s the most important thing. “There are people on your block that need you. Knock on their doors and offer your help. We have to maintain our souls. We have to maintain ourselves by helping others.” In the community of 10,000 people in the southwest corner of Nassau County, Long Island, 80 per cent of the homes were flooded. The church, too, was flooded. A metre of water was pumped out of the parish centre, which is now being used for Masses. As of Nov. 5, the death toll from Sandy was at least 106 in the United States, two in Canada and 67 in the Caribbean. The Associated Press reported that about 1.4 million people were still without power, down from a peak of 8.5 million. Of those, about 800,000 were in New Jersey, down from 2.7 million, and about 530,000 in New York, down from 2.2 million. Early damage estimates put Sandy’s cost in the range of $30 billion to $50 billion. St. Ignatius Martyr is a sturdy 88-year-old brick church that sits a block from the ocean. Sandy caused minimal damage to the church, though the rectory basement was flooded to the ceiling. Nearly 200 people gathered in the cold, dark church for the 10 a.m. Sunday Mass Nov. 4, celebrated by Msgr. Donald Beckmann. Chris and Dawn Hagen attended with their children. Going to Mass “was important to restore some routine to our lives. We wanted to be with other people in a place that gives us comfort,” Chris said. “It’s good to come together and pray with people. It’s comforting to see our church is here and we can worship.” “We’re grateful we are alive and have each other,” said Dawn. “We’re praying for our friends and our family and our own recovery.” Beckmann described his most important tasks after Sandy: “One is to continue the sharing of the sacraments and preaching the Gospel in as normal a way as possible. ... A couple of people said to me, ‘It’s nice to come back here and see things as normal as possible.’ To see the church functioning is important to them. ... The second thing is to do whatever the church can do to help the wider Long Beach community.” He said he was “praying a prayer of thanksgiving for all who have survived. I’m also asking the Holy Spirit to show us the proper way to move forward, our three parishes, the whole community and other religious institutions.”

Cape Breton University honours pioneering nun

November 8, 2012

SYDNEY, N.S. - Cape Breton University recognized the contributions of Sr. Margaret Harquail to the school’s business program by naming a garden space in her honour. Harquail Gardens is the new name of the space between the Verschuren Centre and the Shannon School of Business. “Just as it is important for our university to progress, it is equally important for us to recognize those who have been instrumental to our success,” said Dr. John Harker, Cape Breton University’s president. “Sr. Harquail had a vision for our fine business school, and through hard work and commitment she helped shape the school into what it is today. The Harquail Gardens will be a lovely reminder of Sr. Harquail’s spirit and her contribution to the business community.” Harquail established the School of Business Administration at the University College of Cape Breton, as well as the Canadian Institute of Management (CIM) certificate program. Harquail was also instrumental in establishing the College of Cape Breton as a university. On hand for the ceremony was Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty, Harquail’s nephew.

Antigonish clears its abuse debt

November 8, 2012

ANTIGONISH, N.S. - The diocese of Antigonish in Nova Scotia no longer owes $16 million to 125 victims of clerical sexual abuse. The diocese has made its final payment to settle a class-action lawsuit, the Canadian Press reports. The settlement was negotiated by former Bishop Raymond Lahey, who was arrested on charges of importing child pornography just three weeks after announcing the deal to settle claims dating as far back as the 1950s. The lawsuit was initiated in 2002 by Ron Martin, whose brother committed suicide that year leaving a note about abuse he suffered at the hands of Fr. Hugh Vincent MacDonald. MacDonald was charged in 2003 but died before his trial could come to a conclusion. The last payment is not the end of the process of healing, said diocesan spokesman Fr. Don MacGillivray. “Healing always takes time,” MacGillivray told the Canadian Press. “But I’m a person of hope, and that’s what my faith calls me to be.” The diocese put 150 properties up for sale, dumped its shares in the local weekly paper, The Casket, and drained savings from parishes to come up with the full settlement.

November 9

Multifaith council loses funding

November 9, 2012

The 40-year-old co-ordinating body for chaplaincy in Ontario will lose all of its provincial funding, nearly half-a-million dollars, as of March 31. The Ontario Multifaith Council is working on a “transition plan” that may see it continue as a smaller organization focussed on lobbying for chaplaincy funding at Ontario hospitals, nursing homes and prisons. The Ontario bishops, who only rejoined the organization this spring, would like to see the council continue past the provincial funding sunset, said Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario general secretary Lou Poivesan. “(The bishops) felt it was important to have a common voice on advocating for chaplaincy services, because across the province in hospitals and other institutions chaplaincy services certainly have, other than in Catholic institutions, they don’t seem to have a high priority,” Poivesan said. There are 32 religious groups represented in the Ontario Multifaith Council, including Ontario’s Catholic bishops. Since the province shut down all its large residential care facilities for people with disabilities in 2009, there hasn’t been as much demand for Ontario Multifaith Council services, said Ministry of Community and Social Services spokeswoman Charlotte Wilkinson. “This resulted in the steady decline in need for services provided by the OMC as the organization had primarily been responsible for supporting chaplains in government facilities on religious matters,” Wilkinson wrote in an e-mail to The Register. Ministry of Community and Social Services funding to the council for the year ending March 31 was $493,200. The provincial government notified the council of the funding cut a year in advance to give the organization time to wind down or find other sources of funding, Wilkinson said, adding there’s no chance the ministry will reconsider funding the organization. Over the years the Ontario Multifaith Council has published, in books and on its web site, information about spiritual practices and beliefs of various religions. It also runs seminars for chaplains and volunteers and maintains regional multifaith committees. The Toronto-based organization maintains a library for chaplains seeking information about minority religions and cultural practices. The government saw this as needless duplication of information that was already available in libraries, on the Internet and directly from religious organizations. In 2004-2005 the Ontario bishops withdrew from the council over its activities promoting cultural tolerance rather than ensuring qualified chaplains are available and supported in all institutions. In April 2005 the bishops suspended indefinitely its membership in the organization. In 2010 it revived an “observer status,” looking for assurance the organization would be more focussed on chaplaincy. With budgets tightening, particularly at hospitals, the bishops believe the future role for the council will be as a united voice advocating for professional chaplaincy, said Poivesan. “I don’t think everything should be devolving to volunteers to provide those services,” he said. No one from the Ontario Multifaith Council was available to speak with The Register.

University of St. Michael's College teaching assistants poised to strike

November 9, 2012

TORONTO - University of St. Michael's College graduate theology courses, undergraduate classes, continuing education programs and help for students in writing labs will cease Nov. 15 unless the Catholic college at the University of Toronto can make a deal with the union representing academics who work under contract. The Ontario Labour Board has issued a no board report and representatives of CUPE local 3902, Unit 4, claim negotiations have reached an impasse. In a statement on its web site, St. Michael's College claims there is no impasse. Representatives of the college refused to speak with The Catholic Register about the situation. Job security is the sticking point, said CUPE bargaining committee chair Daniel Bader. Teaching assistants and sessional lecturers work on contract of less than 12 months with no guarantee of future work, even though many have been teaching the same courses for years and the college has no plans to give those courses to higher cost full-time faculty. "Really it's a matter of justice that when you have work that is continuous that you have employment that maps onto that," Bader said. Academics like Bader, who teaches philosophy to graduate theology students, have trouble getting mortgages or even leases because they can't prove they will be employed beyond their contracts, he said. The union is asking for right of first refusal if the course they are teaching is offered again. St. Michael's College would not answer questions about how many students would be affected by a strike or lockout. The college claims it has offered wage parity with University of Toronto for theology course instructors. "There's a general situation in universities as a whole where an increasing amount of the work that's being done at universities is on short-term contract, even though the work is not short term," Bader said. "So you have employment that doesn't map onto the work. We're not saying that the courses need to continue. What we're saying is that if the courses continue we should continue in that work."

Real to reality TV love

November 9, 2012

“Please come to the altar to renew your vows with your wedding rings,” said our parish priest. My parents looked at each other, and then to the rest of our extended family, with a mix of horror and amusement. It was their 20th wedding anniversary ceremony, and they forgot to bring their wedding rings. In a flash, my aunt found an impromptu ring to fit my dad’s pinky finger, while I handed my mom my diamond gold ring. And like two teenagers up to no good, my mom and dad scurried up to the front of the church, laughing at the situation as they joined other couples from our parish. Some of the couples celebrated their 10th anniversary, while one couple celebrated their 80th. The renewal of the vows ceremony was simple and beautiful. The couples posed for pictures and then celebrated with a delightful potluck lunch of sandwiches, a delicious wedding sheet cake and other desserts. This heart-warming image is a stark contrast to the very popular world of reality TV weddings. The bride spends hours at a designer store trying to find the perfect princess dress for $10,000. This is followed by a trip to Cartier for the most ostentatious necklace to match the bedazzled 24-karat engagement ring. The bride and groom argue over the wedding cake, but the bride chooses the most lavish one. Then scenes of the reception hall filled with ice sculptures and martini bars transition back and forth with that of dancing guests. For the grand finale, a dollar sign with six or seven figures usually pops up. The unspoken rule: the higher the price tag, the more successful the wedding. I learned more about celebrating love in the span of a two-hour renewal ceremony than the countless hours I have spent guiltily watching reality wedding shows. My mom glowed through the entire renewal ceremony, despite forgetting her wedding band. This completely contrasted with a reality TV bride who refused to walk into the church for two hours because the florist sent the wrong bouquet. I love waking up in the morning and finding my parents sitting at the breakfast table casually talking and laughing. When they have an argument, they are eventually willing to forgive one another. Even with hectic schedules, they attend Mass every Sunday to celebrate and reflect on the life they share together. Marriage is not perfect and it is definitely not simple. But they are committed to each other and to the vows they shared in front of God and their family 20 years ago. And their wedding cost only a fraction of the average reality TV wedding. My mom can’t recall the location of her wedding dress. My dad’s wedding ring no longer fits. But the night my mom’s car had a flat tire in the pouring rain during Hurricane Sandy, my dad immediately stopped cooking dinner and drove to the rescue. He gave her a hand to hold, an umbrella to shield her from the storm and piece of mind that she would never be alone through any test God might send their way.

Students re-imagine popemobile

November 9, 2012

They say the sky’s the limit. Just don’t say it to someone as practical as Toronto native Eric Leong. The strategy that won him and partner Han Yong-fei the 2012 Autostyle Design Competition for designing a new popemobile was based on plans that were never too “blue sky,” never too unattainable. “There are things that we could have done that might have looked really cool,” said Leong. “Even though it might seem cool, being blue sky is something that we didn’t want to do because it’s not in a way feasible or possible.” Leong and Yong-fei’s popemobile design, a modification of a hybrid Volkswagen Cross Coupé, included spray-on batteries to decrease weight, bullet-proof kevlar-belted wheels and a solar panel on the roof for a “greener aspect,” said Leong, who promises that everything in their design can be produced. The pair were among 22 young designer finalists chosen out of 70 applicants invited to the 19th-century Villa di Bagno in Italy in October where their popemobile proposals were on display. They competed with the goal to build an eco-friendly vehicle with high Pope visibility and strict security requirements. Pope Benedict XVI has spoken on protecting the environment, and the Vatican aims to use renewable energy sources for 20 per cent of its energy needs by 2020. The popemobile designs had to be based on a production hybrid car model or concept car design and keep the car model's front features so as to maintain the brand image. Only the rear of the vehicle could be modified and in such a way as to guarantee comfort for five passengers and maximum visibility of the Pope. Projects needed to use alternative energy, cutting-edge materials and innovative technology that allowed for rapid and easy rear access to and from the vehicle. In high school, Leong, now 25, knew he was interested in art and engineering. But he found neither to be fulfilling enough. Then he came across industrial design. “That was a pretty good mixture,” he said, “and so that’s how I ended up in the design field.” Leong completed his degree in industrial design at Toronto’s Humber College. But he met teammate and classmate Yong-fei, 23, at Sweden’s Umeå Institute of Design. “I just finished my master’s in transportation design,” said Leong, who is now looking for a placement in this field. Representatives from the ninth Autostyle competition came to the school looking for contestants to design a new popemobile, he said. Berman, an Italian car-parts manufacturer, sponsored the contest. This year, the Vatican Publishing House also supported the competition and will publish the best eco-popemobile design drawings. The panel of judges included design directors from Alfa Romeo, Audi, Bentley, Fiat, Ford, Ferrari and Toyota. (With files from the Catholic News Service.)

Toronto’s interfaith director to be honoured by Christian Jewish Dialogue

November 9, 2012

TORONTO - For Christian Jewish Dialogue of Toronto, talk is precious and deserves to be honoured. With those values front and centre, the 50-year-old organization will honour two people who have fostered conversations about faith, trust and our future together. Franciscan Friar of the Atonement Father Damian MacPherson and Holocaust Education Centre operations manager Mary Siklos will be feted by Christian Jewish Dialogue at a Nov. 26 dinner in Toronto. Cardinal Thomas Collins will be the keynote speaker for the dinner at the Adath Israel Congregation. For MacPherson dialogue with Jews is precisely how we are called to be Catholic. “It (dialogue) is not a choice we can arbitrarily make. It has become a responsibility we must assume,” he said. “The Church can only fully be the Church if it’s faithful to its Jewish roots. Knowing the texts is not sufficient. Knowing the people who believe and have preserved the texts, knowing the covenant, is what we’re called to.” It’s just the second time Christian Jewish Dialogue has honoured an individual with a dinner. Two years ago Rabbi Erwin Schild was recognized for more than half a century of work on building understanding between Toronto’s Christians and Jews. The organization now hopes to make the dinners in honour of champions of dialogue an annual event. “A lot of people start to question the need for dialogue at all,” said CJDT director Barbara Boraks. “We’ve got diversity in education, but we’re forgetting that everything comes down to personal relationships and knowing our neighbours.” The behind-the-scenes people who make dialogue possible aren’t often honoured, but should be, she said. “The event honours those relentless, grassroots workers who never get properly acknowledged or recognized,” said Boraks. “Damian fits that with bells on.” “He has devoted his professional life to building bridges and working together and building understanding for each other,” said Siklos of MacPherson. For more than a decade, MacPherson has been director of ecumenical and interfaith affairs for the archdiocese of Toronto. He was also the founding president of the Toronto and Area Interfaith Council. MacPherson’s job is a perfect fit for a Franciscan Friar of the Atonement — a religious order founded more than a century ago in the hope of ecumenical dialogue and Church unity. “It’s terribly important that the public knows that these initiatives are happening — that the churches are working with synagogues and synagogues are working with churches and there are Jewish organizations reaching out to Christian organizations,” said Siklos. Siklos runs the largest Holocaust education event in the world from her base at the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre of the United Jewish Appeal Federation. Toronto’s annual Holocaust Education Week has been imitated in cities across North America. The 32nd annual Holocaust Education Week program ran to 44 pages of events — speakers, art exhibits, films and plays — from Nov. 1 to 8. “She manages it in such a way that it stays human,” said Boraks. “She never lost touch with the grassroots people — the survivors — and they all love her.” Tickets for the CJDT dinner are $40 and available by calling (416) 598-4242 or e-mailing info@cjdt. org.

Northern community to empower native youth

November 9, 2012

Fr. David Shulist is inviting First Nations youth to strengthen the good aspirations and desires that already exist within them. The Working to Empower Youth program will launch in January from the Anishinabe Spiritual Centre in Espanola, Ont., where Shulist is director. WEY has been a year in the making and was created in response to concerns from native communities, especially the Sagamok community, that youth are lacking spirituality and direction. Elders, parents and teachers are “recognizing that there’s alienation and despair between the youth and the members of the community, especially at the level of their spirituality, at the level of their religious teachings,” said Shulist. “Religion is not popular in the world today, especially in the Western world, so this has compounded in the communities as well.” Beginning with 12- and 13- year-olds, Shulist says the “hope is that they could have an avenue with which they would be able to invite and encourage and help young people to be able to participate in discovering their spiritual roots, their spiritual traditions, both the Anishinabe and Christian, and this could be a program that could do that.” The teens will engage in community oriented activities, such as learning how to build a sweat lodge, under the guidance of an elder. The theme could be one of forgiveness and reconciliation. A sense of community is one of the values Shulist hopes to instill. Staff from the centre, elders and teachers will take leading roles. This is a “program that is very much of a partnership with the centre and a community. It’s not the community coming to us saying you run a program,” Shulist said. With modern culture promoting individualism, “The (program’s) core value would be the communal value. They are a part of the community, a collective,” said Shulist. “A person is never defined as an individual alone. They are always part of a set of relationships. So to instill this realization, this understanding, this awareness that they belong to a communal reality.” Shulist also hopes the program will instill in the teens a sense of honour for the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the value of empowerment, the virtue of patience, rights of passage and the importance of being a source of inspiration, among others. He wants the youth to know they have the power “to make a difference, to choose what is good and to perpetuate the good.” And in the process, he wants to incorporate into the program the fact that the youth are close to nature. “If I were to promote it to you as a 12-year-old,” said Shulist, “I would want to know what desires have you got, what are your hopes. I’d want to know, who are you? Who do you hope to be? Who are people that you look up to?” His hope is that participants will discover themselves and be aware that there are institutions within their community, such as those relating to health care, that they can contribute to one day. Shulist also hopes the program will receive financial support from the wider Catholic community. And if WEY proves to be successful, he plans on expanding it beyond the Manitoulin North Shore district and include youth up to ages 17 and 18.

November 10

Youth survive streets to find hope

November 10, 2012

“Put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11), he might as well have been talking directly to Covenant House president and CEO Kevin Ryan. Ryan may be a 45-year-old lawyer and former civil servant, but he doesn’t go to work in the morning. He goes to war. “The stakes are very high. This is a street war,” Ryan told The Catholic Register. “We’re fighting against the bullies and the bullets and the predators and the pornographers and the pervs and the guns and the gangs… We lose kids. We lose them to the streets. We lose them to despair. We lose them to suicide. But we win more kids by far.” Ryan’s report from the frontlines of Covenant House’s war for children has been catalogued in Almost Home, Ryan’s best selling book. Almost Home has hit number five on the Washington Post non-fiction list. It’s creeping up the Publisher’s Weekly rankings for trade paperbacks. It’s number two on Amazon’s list of Canadian international and world politics titles. Co-authored with former New York Times staff writer Tina Kelley, Almost Home tells the story of six Covenant House kids, one of them Canadian and another who spent years on the streets of Toronto and Vancouver. They aren’t Chicken Soup for the Soul stories. Murial meets Covenant House Vancouver as a prostitute who had three different pimps by the time she was 20, an addict who had been getting high from the age of 12 and still living with the effects of fetal alcohol syndrome. Meagan was thrown out of her family home as a teenager because she is gay. Paulie was beaten over and over by his father, but found refuge in drugs. “They don’t see virtue in their lives. The message they’ve gotten over and over and over is, ‘You’re broken, you’re defective, you’re unwanted,’ ” said Ryan. There aren’t necessarily happy endings to such stories. But these are stories people need to hear because lives are at stake, said Ryan. Between 20 and 40 per cent of homeless youth attempt suicide. It is a leading cause of their deaths. Covenant House Toronto reports that homeless youth are 11 times more likely to die young than the rest of the population. Toronto’s Covenant House, like the 20 other Covenant Houses in North and Central America, does a lot of things for homeless kids. It provides shelter, helps kids finish school, helps them reconnect with family when possible, find housing, find mentors, point the way to jobs. It also helps kids find the mental health care they need. “They are often as traumatized as men who are returning from war,” said Ryan. If teen suicide is now a national issue, Covenant House is in a position to give Canada some national advice: Kids need love. “It requires love,” said Ryan. “But it also requires that we be love in the world in a responsible and effective way. That requires more than a sentimental hug and a warm meal. It means making sure that our kids have the attention and clinical care they need to transcend the darkness that overshadows their lives.” Ryan claims to be shocked by the success of Almost Home. “These are stories about young people who have pulled themselves up, climbed out of the darkness, in some instances from violence and trafficking and drug abuse, and found hope in their lives.”

Raising awareness through film

November 10, 2012

TORONTO - In Mervi Junkkonen’s After Life: Four Stories of Torture, we are told the plight of four survivors seeking refuge in Finland but never finding complete peace of spirit. Their story is one of 12 “inspiring and heartbreaking” films playing this month at the seventh Amnesty International Reel Awareness Human Rights Film Festival, running at Toronto’s Carlton Cinema Nov. 15-18. “Each film was chosen because they focus on a specific Amnesty International concern or priority campaign,” said festival co-ordinator Elena Dumitru. Amnesty International is a global movement to protect and promote human rights. The festival kicks off with A Whisper to a Roar, a film shot over three years about democracy activists in five countries — Egypt, Malaysia, Ukraine, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. “It’s a positive film, it’s uplifting,” said Dumitru. Festival organizers say they always try to begin with a film that is not well-known. “It’s a film that looks at activists, at people who are doing the work our volunteers do every day,” she said. “So we hope it will be an inspiration to our own members and to the public to take action on human rights issues, get involved, do more.” The festival’s two main goals are awareness and engagement. So at the Carlton Cinema there will also be an action centre where festival-goers can find out how to become involved with Amnesty International. “We still find that people are surprised when they come and see a film and they find out about the specific human-rights violation,” said Dumitru. “Many times the reaction is ‘Oh my God, I didn’t know that this was happening.’ ” But films like After Life demonstrate how it is possible for suffering to go unnoticed and ignored by many. Loneliness, isolation, depression, anger and helplessness are all expressed in the steady voices of the men featured. There is Kebi, who is fighting deportation; Serge, whose will to live hinges on seeing his three surviving children again; Musa, who spends less time at home because he fears being rough with his two kids; and Hector, the artist who found it difficult at first to paint anything beautiful. “Problems are not like clothes that you can take off and wash,” says Musa. Their faces are never fully visible, at times blurred, with the only exception being the elderly Hector who has had 40 years to settle in the country. The film is intentionally often out of focus. It’s as if the lives the men are living now are mere dreams, as if they are really still imprisoned in their home countries, as if the world around them is in focus while they are not. As the men speak about the real life nightmares they suffered and the memories that still haunt them at night, the moviegoer will see extreme close ups of eyes, lips and hands. These images make the men’s existence seem concrete and yet still keeps their identities anonymous. They each could be almost any immigrant walking the cold streets of Finland. “This is an outstanding lineup of films that... show deeply compelling personal struggles against difficult odds,” said Dumitru in a press release. Each man’s deep, contemplative thoughts and reflections, the real draw of After Life, can be seen on Nov. 18. For more on the festival, see www.aito.ca/reelawareness.

Sault’s new school aims to preserve French culture

November 10, 2012

For the French Catholic community in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., the newly constructed École Notre-Dame-du-Sault will provide students with the sense of belonging necessary for preserving their French identity. “The community really wanted us to unite all of our students at one site and offer students a high quality school where they get to start off in Kindergarden and finish off in Grade 12,” said Paul de la Riva, spokesperson for the Conseil scolaire catholique du Nouvel-Ontario (CSCNO). “The board’s main goal is to keep our students from Kindergarden to Grade 12.” But that isn’t what had been happening in northern Ontario’s third largest city. While there are two elementary schools — École Cardinal-Léger and École Notre-Dame-des-Écoles which was expanded to become the new school — it had been renting space at a local Catholic secondary school to house its own high school. De la Riva said this lack of independent identity caused many students to move to the English boards, either public or Catholic, when they entered Grade 9. “All our schools weren’t really up to par, they were old schools and they really weren’t meeting the needs of the community,” he said. “When you’re renting a spot or area in another school you may have your own wing but you’re always looking at what the others are doing, the bigger section of the school. By having our students in their own building it will build a sense of belonging.” That’s what prompted the five-year, $12.5- million project of renovating, expanding and rebranding École Notre-Dame-des-Écoles for which the province put forward $11.26 million, with the additional funds coming from the board’s budget. It isn’t just CSCNO students who will benefit from this new building, which held its official opening ceremony on Oct. 26. Along with housing the more than 300 students from Junior Kindergarden to Grade 12, the building will also host the French-language adult learning centre and the Centre francophone de Sault-Ste-Marie, as well as play a supportive role for many off site organizations. It is hoped this will help establish the new school as a hub for francophone pride. “The school’s community component is something we hold dear and which will certainly contribute to its growth and to the vitality of the francophone community in Sault Ste. Marie and the Algoma District,” said Lyse-Anne Papineau, CSCNO director of education, in a news release. “We strongly believe that the new school will become a key City of Sault Ste. Marie partner for many years to come.” Not only does the board hope that more students will remain pupils of its system, the board also hopes to attract new students to the francophone system with the modern school which has a capacity of 565 students. To help ensure success in maxing out this expanded capacity, the school houses a French-language day care program for up to 30 children. “It’s really important to support the parents in preserving their language,” said de la Riva. “If children are not going to French schools, we know that one generation from now you’re losing many francophones who may have knowledge of the language but will not have the skills or capacity to really speak the language, transmit the language and culture to their kids.”

November 11

Out of the Holodomor rises a stronger Church

November 11, 2012

Few Ukrainians are thankful for Josef Stalin. In 1932-33 the Soviet dictator starved about six million Ukrainians to death in a planned genocidal famine known as the Holodomor. But the new bishop for Ukrainian Catholics in France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands has one good thing to say about Uncle Joe. “Stalin aided the future missions by deporting people to Siberia, to Kazakhstan, to different corners of the vast expanse of the Soviet Union. There now, through descendants of the political prisoners and deportees, the Greek Catholic Church is slowly developing its mission — which of course is open to all people of good will who might be attracted to the Church,” Bishop Borys Gudziak said as he passed through Toronto on a tour of Ukrainian communities in North America. It’s a bit like thanking Satan for making Christ’s incarnation and resurrection necessary. The Byzantine Rite Catholic Church in Ukraine survived three generations of often horrific martyrdom. For this Church to survive at all is one of the great accomplishments of the 20th century, said the Harvard-educated historian. “Ukrainians are a post-traumatic people. They’ve had a toxic degree of trauma in the 20th century,” he said. “Seventeen million Ukrainians were killed in the 20th century.” For three generations Ukraine was under occupation, kept in line by the highest concentration of KGB agents, informants and collaborators in the Soviet Union. “People lived in fear,” said Gudziak. “Fear is never something that really opens people up. You sort of close in on yourself.” But a closed-in, self-absorbed, defensive Church is not what the Syracuse, N.Y.-born son of immigrants has found in Ukraine. Within Ukraine, the Greek Catholics have become a beacon on a hill proclaiming openness and democracy, decrying corruption and authoritarianism. Particularly under Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, they have demanded a different future for their country. “The Greek Catholic Church today is a Church of the martyrs. At the same time it’s a Church that’s favoured by intellectuals, young people, urbane businessmen and women who want Ukrainian society to change — rule of law to become the style of the country,” he said. “Since the Greek Catholic Church did not compromise with the regime, it emerged from the catacombs with incredible, relatively speaking, moral authority.” As rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv for the past 12 years, Gudziak has built this tiny university into a democratic island of free and open debate. Officers of the SBU, Ukraine’s security service, came visiting in 2010. They asked Gudziak to keep his students away from protesting a newly authoritarian government with ties to Moscow. Gudziak not only refused, he told everybody about the visit. “The Church is actually quite free in Ukraine, limited only by its imagination. The Ukrainian Catholic University is itself witness to this,” said Ukrainian-Canadian Jesuit Father David Nazar in an e-mail to The Catholic Register. Nazar describes Gudziak as a “high-end dreamer.” For Gudziak, being Christian means sharing those dreams. To follow a God who in Christ seeks the human means offering a fully human experience of God to the world without preconditions. “Jesus really brings to us a call to a radical openness. It’s a going to the other,” he said. “My hope is that the radical deprivations Christians endured and in many ways still face in the former Soviet Union will be a place where the faith is forged.” That martyrdom and oppression should be the forge for openness, charity, joy and hope is unexpected, and perhaps too much to ask. But over the past 25 years Gudziak’s Church has been witness to miracles. “The intoxicating and exhilarating but often overwhelming change in society for the Church is now only in some ways settling, if you can say that any culture has settled in the first decades of the 21st century,” Gudziak said. Gudziak will be enthroned as Apostolic Exarch at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris Dec. 2.

Veterans help students understand why we remember

November 11, 2012

TORONTO - Gerry O'Pray served his country in the armed forces for eight years and now he wants young people to understand why. "We have to stand up for our values that citizens have fought and died for," said O'Pray. "Remembrance is good but maintaining and living our values is the best way to honour those who've served." O'Pray was speaking to 55 Grade 8 students from St. Gabriel Catholic School on Nov. 6s. The students placed paper poppies inscribed with personalized messages at a memorial set up at the Catholic Education Centre. "Thank you for fighting for our peace and our lives," said one note. "May your neighbours respect you, trouble neglect you, angels protect you and heaven accept you," said another. "Because of our soldiers I may stand tall and free, not having to worry about a gun and having to flee," said a third. Collins leads people through vespers and lectio divina once a month at Toronto's St. Michael's Cathedral. [images/stories/veterans/OPray071112.jpg] Gerry O'Pray speaks to 55 Grade 8 students about why he served. - Photo by Evan Boudreau O'Pray, who turns 71 this Remembrance Day, joined the Canadian Forces in 1959 at 18 after graduating high school in Truro, Nova Scotia. Two years later he was in the Congo serving in a peacekeeping role with the United Nations — a mission that saw 256 peacekeeping soldier casualties, including two Canadians. "When I was on the Congo mission, there were 37 countries as part of that mission," he said. "It was then that I realized how much I appreciated my country. The Congo mission ended in 1964 (and) unfortunately we left a really brutal dictator in charge." Following that two-year tour, O'Pray returned home until deploying to Egypt for a year. He ended his eight years of service safely in Canada and transitioned back into civilian life. But he's never forgotten why he served. Remembrance Day fell on a Sunday this year, outside of school hours, but the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) was intent on remembering the men and women who've served the nation. That long list includes one of the board's own, Second Lieutenant Christian Cieplik, a graduate of the Toronto Catholic school system. Collins leads people through vespers and lectio divina once a month at Toronto's St. Michael's Cathedral. [images/stories/veterans/Cieplik081112.jpg] Second Lieutenant Christian Cieplik tells students on from St. Edward Catholic School about his 2010 tour in Kandahar, Afghanistan on Nov. 8. - Photo courtesy of the Toronto Catholic District School Board. Cieplik was one of three veterans invited to speak to students at the Catholic Education Centre during the week. Two years ago, while a member of the 3rd Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment, he received about 800 letters from students of his alma mater, Our Lady of Victory Catholic School, while deployed in Kandahar, Afghanistan. "That was a huge gesture on their behalf and it was really cool because, depending on the age group, they tell you everything about themselves," said Cieplik. Participating in Remembrance Day services is more than a tribute to those who've risked their lives for our freedoms, said Bruce Rodrigues, the board's director of education. It's also an expression of Canada's commitment to transforming the world. "Because Remembrance Day falls on a non-school day this year, we wanted to ensure that we took the time within our school communities to reinforce its importance," said Rodrigues. "That importance would be to honour all of those who have sacrificed for peace and those who continue to serve our country." Cieplik credits his time in Catholic school for preparing him for his stint in Afghanistan. He said it instilled him with a sense of service, respect and sacrifice. "Being able to connect with people of different backgrounds and beliefs, that helped a lot over there," he said. "Especially dealing with locals and our interpreters. The Afghan National Army, they're all Muslim or Shiite, but I was still able to respect that faith and it was reciprocated. That helped a lot." Cieplik, who joined the Canadian Forces in 2006 after graduating from York University where he studied political science, wants to give back to the school board. He began last school year with a speaking engagement at Our Lady of Victory, where students gave him a hero's welcome. "Last year when I went to my old elementary school they were cheering, the kids were cheering, they went nuts," he said. "The area I grew up in has grown more violent over the years in Toronto and you're just kind of showing that there is another option, that violence doesn't have to rule or dictate how you turn out or it shouldn't really affect your morals and ethics in a negative way." Cieplik connected so well with the children that the board asked him to speak this year at the Catholic Education Centre during Veterans' Week. Before his address to more than 50 students from St. Edward Catholic School, the 31 year-old soldier said he'd stress that all war did not end in 1945, rather, a type of war ended. "Everything has been engrained in their minds that it's poppies and white crosses, like older forms of wars in Europe," he said. Rodrigues reiterated this. "It's not about the past. It's about the present and about ensuring the future," he said. Remembrance Day is as much about a moment of silence as it about learning from the voices of the past, Rodrigues said. "Having someone who's had the experience puts a real face on the event," he said. "The veteran will often do that with students so they can understand here is a real human face that has lived this experience and is not telling it from a story perspective but rather a real life experience." Collins leads people through vespers and lectio divina once a month at Toronto's St. Michael's Cathedral. [images/stories/veterans/egerton081112.jpg] Word War II veteran Stan Egerton, who reached the rank company sergeant major, speaks to an auditorium full of students at Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School on Nov. 7. - Photo courtesy of Tim Stewart Veterans visited several schools during Veterans' Week. Second World War veteran Stan Egerton was at Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School and told students how, like many surviving WWII veterans, he lied about his age to join the service. Egerton served under his brother George, a sergeant, for about two years in Europe before an artillery shell claimed his brother's life on Sept. 4, 1944. About a month earlier Egerton's other brother Frank, a private, was also killed in action, leaving him the family's sole surviving, son. Often Remembrance Day services focus on the dead, the fighting and the destruction. But the TCDSB wanted a diverse range of veterans to teach students that there is more than one way to solve a conflict and fighting is always the last resort. "Youth need to understand that there are other ways to solve conflict," Rodrigues said. "Today we wouldn't necessarily resolve conflict through fighting but through collaboration and that sense of coming together to find a common solution that can be attained through conversation."

November 12

Vatican court finds computer tech guilty of aiding, abetting butler

November 12, 2012

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A Vatican court found Claudio Sciarpelletti, a computer expert in the Secretariat of State, guilty of aiding and abetting the papal butler, who was convicted of stealing sensitive Vatican correspondence. The three-judge panel hearing the case Nov. 10 initially sentenced Sciarpelletti to four months in jail but reduced the sentence to two months, saying Sciarpelletti had never been in trouble with the law and previously had served the Vatican well. The judges suspended even the two-month sentence and said that if, over the next five years he commits no other crimes, the penalty would be lifted. The Vatican court indicted Sciarpelletti in August, accusing him of helping Paolo Gabriele, the papal butler, by obstructing the Vatican investigation of the butler's role in stealing, photocopying and leaking private Vatican correspondence to an Italian journalist. The butler is serving an 18-month sentence in a cell in the Vatican police barracks. After an unnamed source told Vatican investigators in late May that Sciarpelletti and Gabriele were in frequent contact, Vatican police searched Sciarpelletti's office in the Secretariat of State. The police said they found an envelope marked "Personal: P. Gabriele." The court did not reveal details about the envelope's contents other than mentioning assorted emails signed "Nuvola" (cloud in Italian), a small section of a book written by the Italian journalist who received leaked documents from Gabriele and pages of articles downloaded from the Internet. Sciarpelletti was arrested in late May and held in a Vatican cell for one night, after which he was released on a bail of 1,000 euros (about $1,270). In its sentence Nov. 10, the court said it would return the bail to Sciarpelletti, but it also ordered him to pay the court costs, which are about the same amount, said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman. The Vatican prosecutor accused Sciarpelletti of obstructing the Gabriele investigation by giving different versions of how he obtained the envelope and by changing his descriptions of his relationship with Gabriele. The court session Nov. 10 began with the testimony of Sciarpelletti. Giuseppe Dalla Torre, president of the three-judge panel, asked the defendant why he changed his story in the month after his arrest. Sciarpelletti said his arrest was "traumatic," which, combined with the fact that he received the envelope years ago, made it difficult to remember exactly how he came to have it in his desk. He said he did not know what was in the envelope since he never opened it because it was marked "personal." The computer tech first told investigators that he received the envelope from Gabriele; then he said he received it from his superior, Msgr. Carlo Maria Polvani, head of the Vatican Secretariat of State's office for information and documentation. Saying, "I swear on my baptism and my priesthood," Msgr. Polvani told the court Nov. 10 that he had never violated the secret of his office and had never improperly removed, copied or shared any confidential Vatican documents. He denied giving Sciarpelletti the envelope. Msgr. Polvani, the 47-year-old nephew of Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the nuncio to the United States, said he only met Gabriele when the butler came to visit Sciarpelletti in their office, something Msgr. Polvani said he thought happened often. "I think they were good friends," he said. Gabriele, who also testified Nov. 10, told the court that Sciarpelletti "was a friend and I confided in him," including about "worrying things that were happening in the Vatican." The butler said he gave Sciarpelletti the papers, seeking his opinion about them. But Gabriele said, as far as he remembers, he gave Sciarpelletti the papers on various occasions, so Sciarpelletti must have put the papers in the envelope himself. Father Lombardi told reporters that Vatican investigators had not closed their files on the "VatiLeaks" scandal; further investigations and even indictments are possible, he said. The court session Nov. 10 was not without its lighter moments: the court reporter's computer stopped working at a certain point. Sciarpelletti asked, "Do you need a technician?" and everyone in the courtroom burst out laughing. Gianluca Gauzzi Broccoletti, the Vatican police officer who was testifying, got up and discovered that the electrical outlet being used was no longer working. An extension cord was plugged into a different outlet and the testimony resumed.

Sacred music can attract lapsed Catholics back to God, pope says

November 12, 2012

VATICAN CITY - Sacred music can bolster people's faith and help lapsed Catholics rediscover the beauty of God, Pope Benedict XVI said. "Sacred music can, above all, promote the faith, and, what's more, cooperate in the new evangelization," he told participants attending a conference and pilgrimage sponsored by the Italian St. Cecilia Association. St. Cecilia, whose feast day is Nov. 22, is traditionally honored as the patron saint of musical performers. "Music and singing that are done well can help (people) receive the word of God and be moved in a positive way," the pope said in his address Nov. 10. Many people, including St. Augustine, have found themselves attracted to God because of some profound experience prompted by the beauty of liturgical music and sacred song, he said. In the church's missionary outreach, he said, it urges Catholics to recognize, respect and promote the musical traditions of the local people. Traditionally Christian countries, like Italy, have a rich heritage of sacred music which can help lapsed Catholics rediscover God and be drawn again to the Christian message and the mystery of faith, he said. Because of their important role in new evangelization, he urged church musicians to dedicate themselves "to improving the quality of liturgical song, without being afraid of reviving or emphasizing the great musical tradition of the church, which has two of its highest expressions in Gregorian and polyphony." "Show how the church may be the place in which beauty feels at home," he said. "Sacred song united to the words, form a necessary and integral part of the solemn liturgy," he said, quoting from the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy "Sacrosanctum Concilium." The reason why sacred music is "necessary and integral," Pope Benedict said, isn't simply for aesthetic purposes, but because sacred song "cooperates in nourishing and expressing the faith and, therefore, in glorifying God and sanctifying the faithful." Sacred music "is not an accessory or embellishment of the liturgy, but is the liturgy itself." The pope thanked the men and women musicians and singers for helping the faithful "praise God and make his word sink deep in their hearts." That evening, in the Sistine Chapel, the pope attended a concert with his brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, who was the director of the Regensburg Boys Choir for decades. They listened to music from a Mass composed by Msgr. Ratzinger, as well as to pieces by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Msgr. Massimo Palombella -- the director of the Sistine Chapel Choir -- and Colin Mawby, a contemporary British composer who has served as director of music at Westminster Cathedral.

Aid groups gather in Beirut to discuss Syrian refugee crisis

November 12, 2012

BEIRUT - Representatives of 26 humanitarian agencies gathered in Beirut to discuss and coordinate efforts to address the increasing Syrian refugee crisis. Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, who visited with Syrian refugees in the Bekaa Valley, presided over the Nov. 9 meeting. During the cardinal's Nov. 6-10 visit, he also met with Lebanese President Michel Sleiman and participated in the monthly meeting of the council of Maronite Catholic bishops in Bkerke. At the meeting sponsored by Caritas, the church's charitable agency, the humanitarian organizations agreed to carry out social work for the vulnerable populations inside and outside of Syria, to help alleviate their suffering, including providing medical and spiritual assistance as well as helping them to find shelter and prepare for the winter. The groups also agreed to institute an efficient coordination system among the Catholic humanitarian organizations to unify their approach on the field. They also stressed the importance of efforts to allow refugee children to continue their education and to recover some kind of routine in their daily lives. Pope Benedict XVI had hoped to send a delegation of three cardinals, three bishops and a priest to Syria during the world Synod of Bishops, which met for three weeks at the Vatican in October, to show solidarity with victims and encourage peace negotiations. The papal delegation to Damascus was to have included Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, chairman of the board of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association. Pope Benedict announced Nov. 7 that he would send Cardinal Sarah to Lebanon to deliver a $1 million donation and boost the church's humanitarian response to the crisis. Syria's civil war has left thousands dead and has displaced hundreds of thousands of people since March 2011. The U.N. refugee agency said Nov. 9 that a record number of Syrian refuges had crossed into Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, setting a record for a 24-hour period. The majority -- reportedly 9,000 Syrians -- had crossed into Turkey's Urfa province during the night Nov. 8, said the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The remaining 2,000 Syrians were registered and assisted by UNHCR in Jordan and Lebanon, the agency said. Those arrivals bring the number of Syrian refugees in the region to 408,000, the UNHCR said, but the numbers are actually greater because not all of the displaced Syrians entering the countries are registering with the agency. It said about 115,000 Syrian refugees live in Lebanon. It said approximately 1,000 entering the country daily, including migrant workers who go back and forth between Lebanon and Syria.