NEWS

ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT TO MADRID - Pope Benedict XVI described the World Youth Day celebrations as a "waterfall of light" that refreshes, nourishes and strengthens young Catholics and, therefore, can bring hope to the world.

Responding to four questions during the flight from Rome to Madrid Aug. 18, the pope told reporters that Blessed John Paul II was inspired when he instituted World Youth Day, and the celebration has brought much good to the church and the world, even if the results aren't always evident immediately.

"God sows silently, and the seeds he plants don't show up right away in statistics," the pope said. It's like the parable where some of the  seeds fall on the road and just dry out, while others fall among weeds and struggle, and others fall on fertile ground and flourish, he said as he prepared to join hundreds of thousands of young people in Spain Aug. 18-21.

Obviously, he said, some of the seeds sown during World Youth Day "will be lost, but that is human."

However, he said, he was confident most of the seeds, especially the seeds of "friendship with God and friendships with others," would continue to grow.

TORONTO - Toronto hosted 620 delegates of the Catholic Women’s League from Aug. 14 to 17 as they gathered for the 91st annual CWL National Convention, themed “Centred on Faith & Justice.”

The four-day conference, held at the Toronto Marriott Downtown Eaton Centre Hotel, presented four new resolutions that will be initiatives of the League in the coming year. The resolutions include prohibiting practices involving the destruction or manipulation of human embryos, providing support for children of missing and murdered aboriginal women, creating a national organ and tissue donation and transplantation registry, and mandating caffeine warning labels on energy drinks.

The resolutions were chosen from a group of more than a dozen proposals that had risen through the diocesan and provincial councils to the national level from parishes across the country.

MADRID - A cloudless blue sky turned to inky night as hundreds of thousands of pilgrims participated in the opening Mass for World Youth Day, celebrated by Madrid Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela in the Plaza de Cibeles.

Protected from the heat by white umbrellas and streams of soft mists, dozens of bishops and priests gathered on and around the makeshift altar to celebrate the Mass for pilgrims representing their homeland with flags, special hats, T-shirts and banners.

In his homily, Rouco said World Youth Day is inseparable from Blessed John Paul II, "the pope of the young," whose memory they celebrated with the Mass.

The relationship Blessed John Paul had with the young was "unprecedented," he said "a hitherto unknown relationship between the Church and her young: direct, immediate ... imbued with a faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, enthusiastic, hopeful, joyful, contagious."

This tradition has continued with Pope Benedict XVI, he said, who did not hesitate to highlight Blessed John Paul's love of the young in his homily for his predecessor's beatification in May.

OTTAWA - A new web site for the Canadian edition of the Roman Missal will help Catholics across Canada to understand the contents of the new book.

The web site can be found at www.romanmissal.ca.

Available this fall, the web site includes resources for preparing parish bulletins and workshops. It also has links to Roman Missal-related materials from the National Liturgy Office and the Publications Service of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, who will be producing the missal.

Also, parishioners can access the web sites of Catholic dioceses across Canada concerning the Roman Missal as well as links from the Vatican and English-speaking conferences of bishops around the world.

DUBLIN - The Dublin archdiocese is on the brink of financial collapse because of payouts to victims of clergy sexual abuse, according to an internal report.

The report — prepared by the diocesan Council of Priests and obtained by The Irish Catholic newspaper — said that "reserves the diocese had built up over decades have been spent on seeking to compensate, somewhat, victims of child sexual abuse by priests."

So far, 172 civil actions from people alleging abuse have been taken against 44 priests of the Dublin archdiocese; 117 have been concluded and 55 are ongoing. The costs, so far, to the archdiocese for settlement of claims regarding child sexual abuse by priests is currently at 13.5 million euros ($20 million) — 9.3 million euros in settlements and 4.2 million euros in legal costs for both sides.

"This means the diocese will have to go into debt for a considerable period and will not have resources for other projects unless we fundraise for them specifically," the document added.

Archbishop emeritus Austin-Emile Burke passed up a promising career pursuing the Canadian dream in the National Hockey League to take a shot at another goal: to become a priest.

Archbishop Burke died peacefully on Aug. 12 at Evans Hall, Parkstone Enhanced Care. He was 89.

In his 61 years of priesthood, including 23 years as bishop of Yarmouth, where he was born, Archbishop Burke far exceeded his goals, says Halifax Archbishop Anthony Mancini.

Archbishop Burke's pastoral approach endeared him to parishioners during his years in Yarmouth, Mancini said.

“He was one of their own, very much appreciated by the people there,” said Mancini. “He was like a native son,” referring not only to Archbishop Burke's pastoral ministry but also his Acadian heritage.

VATICAN CITY - Protests planned against Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Madrid Aug. 18-21 are "not worrying or surprising" to the Vatican, particularly because "there are hundreds of thousands of young people who will be happy to welcome the pope," the Vatican spokesman said.

Groups opposed to government and church spending for the pope's visit have planned a protest Aug. 16, the opening day of World Youth Day.

Briefing reporters Aug. 12 about the papal trip, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi said, "It seems to me that before every papal trip there are demonstrations by people who have a different opinion and use the occasion to express their problems or concerns .... It's part of life in a democratic country."

Father Lombardi also acknowledged the failure of efforts to keep the location of the next World Youth Day secret until Pope Benedict announces it at the final Mass Aug. 21.

BANGALORE, India (CNS) -- The brother of assassinated Catholic government minister Shahbaz Bhatti has joined Christians in rejecting the idea that family and property disputes were behind the March assassination.

"This is just nonsense," Paul Bhatti, special adviser on minorities to the Pakistan government, told Catholic News Service Aug. 15 from Islamabad, Pakistan.

The assassination of 42-year old Shahbaz Bhatti, who was ambushed and sprayed with bullets while being driven to his office in Islamabad, has drawn worldwide condemnation, including from Pope Benedict XVI.

Paul Bhatti spoke to CNS about a leaked news report that absolved Islamic extremists for his brother's assassination.

TORONTO - When the City of Toronto stops sending out welfare cheques over the coming winter it could be a very good thing, maybe something worth expanding to the entire province, said Catholic observers of the welfare system.

Instead of welfare cheques, the city intends to issue debit cards to Torontonians on Ontario Works. While 65,000 Toronto recipients already receive welfare payments via direct deposit into their bank accounts, there are still about 35,000, most without bank accounts, who receive cheques.

"(The debit card plan) doesn't seem to degrade anybody's dignity or anything like that. It sounds like a good idea," said Bishop John Pazak, chair of the social affairs commission of the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario.

For many cheque recipients the only way to turn the cheque into spendable cash has been to frequent payday loan companies that charge hefty fees for cashing a cheque. Money Mart charges $2.99 per cheque, plus three per cent of its value. The Cash Store, which operates 574 Cash Store and Instaloan branches across Canada, reported third quarter profits of $1.15 million as of June 30 on quarterly revenue of $49.7 million. The company's profits were down because of a $3 million class-action payout. The courts ruled brokerage fees charged by the payday loan company pushed interest rates above the legal limit.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - In the wake of the revolution that toppled Egypt's authoritarian government last winter, the country's Christians remain fearful, yet hopeful, said Cardinal Antonios Naguib, patriarch of the Coptic Catholic Church.

"I think that (the people) are afraid," said Naguib during a recent visit to Nashville. The revolution has provided a historic opening for equality and freedom for people of all faiths in Egypt, but the prospects for Christians depend on the future government, he added.

"At the same time we have much hope it will be better than before," Naguib said.

The cardinal is the leader of the Coptic Catholic Church, based in Egypt and one of the Eastern Catholic churches.