Category: World Touch

Crime Is A Threat To Peace In The World

Illustrating the report called, “The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment,” Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of ONUDC, said “Transnational crime has become a threat to peace and development, even to the sovereignty of nations. Criminals use not only weapons and violence, but also money and bribes to buy elections, politicians and power – even the military.” This situation is particularly acute in West Africa, a region used ever more frequently by Latin American drug traffickers as a transit point towards the rich markets of Europe. “West African countries need help to increase their ability to counter transnational organized crime” says the report. “Recent efforts against the trafficking of cocaine, with the backing of the international community, produced promising results. However the region is still particularly exposed and will continue to face a series of potential threats to governance and stability.” Looted natural resources in Africa include fauna. Every year, between 5,000 and 12,000 African elephants are killed to feed the ivory market (between 50 and 120 kg per year). Some organized crime specializes in the selling of counterfeit medicines in Asia and in Africa. “A good part of certain key drugs tested in South-East Asia and in Africa failed effectiveness tests and many are evidently fake. It is clear that organized crime deliberately swindles consumers in some of the poorest parts of the world often with lethal results” the report says. This, according to ONUDC, can have even more serious consequences: “watered down medicines can feed the reproduction of varieties of medicine resistant pathogenic agents, with global implications.” Somali piracy produces profits of 100 million dollars a year, a conspicuous sum at the local level, but very small at the general level. Somali piracy has made many countries mobilize their navies to protect international shipping along routes passing the Horn of Africa.

www.fides.org

Soccer Was Invented By Paraguayan Indians

In an article titled, “The Guarani Invented Soccer,” reporter Gianpaolo Romanato asserted that soccer was born in the 17th century in the region known today as Paraguay. His source for the claim is an account by a Spanish Jesuit priest, Jose Manuel Peramas, who lived for several years at the St. Ignatius of Mini mission, south of Asuncion, which was one of the 30 native missions established by the Jesuits in colonial Paraguay. Father Peramas described the pastimes enjoyed by the Guarani in his 1793 book, “De vita et moribus tredecim virorum paraguaycorum” (Of the life and death of the 13 men of Paraguay). “They often played with a ball that, although it was made completely of rubber, was so light and quick that instead of them hitting it, it bounced around without stopping, driven by its own weight. They did not throw the ball with their hands like we do, but rather they kicked it with the upper part of their bare feet, passing it and trapping it with great agility and precision,” the priest wrote. “Three centuries ago, the Guarani were surely masters of the ball. They are truly the descendents of the real inventors of soccer,” L’Osservatore Romano reported, although many British soccer enthusiasts would be quick to dispute such a claim.

www.catholicnews.com

The Dark Side Of Modern Sport

However, questions have been raised, over the years, about the pay and working conditions of those who work in the football-producing factories. Bob Crilly of the Irish Times discovered that the workers who produce footballs, which retail at €100, often receive only $3 per day. One informant told him that “People buying these balls should understand more about how they are made and insist that the workers are looked after and well paid.” One of the workers told Crilly that, “if they sack a person, there will be 10 queuing the next day for the job.” In recent years, pressure from international agencies has improved the lot of many of the workers, but much more needs to be done. A report by The International Labor Rights Forum found that half of the 218 workers surveyed do not earn €118 a month, which is the minimum amount of money a family would require to meet their basic needs. The ‘exciting ball game’ needs to address and solve this injustice as a matter of urgency.

Fr. Seán McDonagh, SSC

From The Olympics To The Convent

Holum was born into speedskating royalty. Her mother Dianne was a world-class speedskater who won the Olympic gold in 1972 and reached even greater heights as a coach, mentoring the legendary Eric Heiden to his clean sweep at Lake Placid in 1980. Despite an ongoing battle with exercise-induced asthma, Holum was a champion waiting to happen. Instead, Nagano would signal the final time she would pull on a pair of skates with competitive intent. From that point on, her life began an entirely different journey. “Speedskating was such a huge part of my life,” Holumn said in a telephone interview. “I still loved the sport, but I had this incredibly strong calling that it was time to move on and take a different path in life.” There is no television and no internet at St. Joseph’s Convent in Leeds, England, meaning Holum didn’t watch the 2010 Winter Olympics, that took place last February in Canada and where she was supposed to become a star. The peaceful surrounds of the convent is where Holum, now known as Sister Catherine, devotes her life to religious service as a Franciscan nun. That calling had begun on a trip to Our Lady of Fatima, the holy shrine in Portugal famed for the apparition of the Virgin to three little shepherds nearly a century ago. It was outside the Fatima basilica where Holum decided that a path of religious dedication, not frozen skating lanes, would be her destiny. “It is funny now to think of how different my life is now,” she said. “I had the wonderful privilege of being able to compete as an Olympian, and now I am blessed to be able to serve God and help those less fortunate.” After completing an art degree, including a thesis on the Olympics at the Art Institute of Chicago, Holum joined the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal, a faith whose mission is “work with the poor and homeless and evangelization.” Based first in New York, Sister Catherine and her fellow nuns stepped onto the mean streets of the Bronx to work with some of the Big Apple’s most underprivileged children in areas steeped in gang culture. Such work and sacrifice in homeless shelters and soup kitchens gave her a deep-rooted sense of satisfaction that skating had never been able to provide. She attacked each new project with the tenacity of an Olympian, and, according to Sister Lucille, who leads operations at the Order’s Bronx chapter, the “compassion of an angel.” She added: “It is wonderful to see people’s faces light up when Sister Catherine shares her experiences of her time in speedskating. She never boasts about it but she has come to realize that we are incredibly proud of her and are lucky to have her as part of our religious family. The Sisters and the people we try to reach love hearing about what she accomplished.” Last year, missionary work took Sister Catherine to England, where she has found her previous life as an

Yahoo! Sports (Martin Rogers); Wikipedia

Sant’egidio Hails Decline In Executioner Nations

“There is a new trend against the death penalty that is something new to the world,” Mario Marazziti, spokesman for Sant’Egidio, said, according to Reuters. Marazziti says that 56 countries continue to execute people, while 141 countries do not use the death penalty, including 93 that had formally abolished it. Even China, one of the countries where execution is most common, told judges in February to limit the use of the penalty. Amnesty International estimates that at least 7,000 people were sentenced to death in China in 2008 and 1,718 executed that year.

www.ucanews.com

Ricci Is Model For Dialogue And Mission In Globalized World

Father Tsang was born in mainland China to a Catholic family, “but I escaped by swimming to Hong Kong – four hours to Hong Kong, at night – and then went to the States.” The priest, who now teaches at Fu Jen Catholic University of Taiwan, attended the conference marking the 400th anniversary of Father Ricci’s death. Father Ricci, who was born in 1552 and arrived in China at the age of 30, delved into studies of the Chinese language, culture and Confucianism. His respect for the Chinese gradually paved the way for his dialogue with China’s government and cultural leaders. At the same time, “he was very frank and strict, explicit and direct on the goodness of the Christian faith,” Father Tsang said, and “he did not hesitate to point out the defects of Taoism and Buddhism.” While Father Ricci found great fault with what he understood about Taoism and Buddhism, he believed that Confucianism, in its purest form, was a philosophy open to Christianity. After his death, missionaries developed the so-called “Chinese rites” – Confucian-based social rituals involving ancestor veneration and offerings to the emperor – which allowed Chinese converts to preserve elements of their heritage while being Catholic. Centuries of controversy ensued and although the rites developed after Father Ricci’s death, he was so strongly identified with that disputed form of inculturation that his sainthood cause was not opened until the 1980s. Father Tsang said it was unfortunate that the controversy led some to question Father Ricci’s holiness. It is true, he said, that Father Ricci “was very friendly with the Chinese, respecting the Chinese culture, but in terms of the faith, he was very unabashedly Catholic.” In his speech at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, Father Tsang said Father Ricci was not so “narrow-minded as to regard non-Christian cultures or religions as nothing good; indeed, he saw quite a lot of compatibility between early Confucianism and Christianity,” and recognized that Confucian teachings could be seen as preparing the Chinese to receive the Gospel. Father Ricci’s respect for the Chinese and his commitment to sharing the Gospel with them offer the still-relevant lesson that Christians cannot claim God is at work only among Christians but, at the same time, they cannot claim that all religions are equally valid paths to salvation, Father Tsang said. According to him, the Chinese today need the Gospel just as much as they did in Father Ricci’s age. The country is enjoying economic prosperity, but “there are grave, hidden problems,” including the repression of human rights, a growing divide between rich and poor, widespread use of abortion and “alarming pollution.” www.catholicnews.com

Cindy Wooden

Stop Small Arms’ Epidemic

In 2009, the International Action Network on Small Arms’ (IANSA) members, in more than 90 countries, highlighted the human cost of small arms proliferation and misuse; they also demanded that governments enact policies that put their citizens’ security first. Civil society organizations taking part in the Week of Action organized public events, conducted media work, and generally engaged more people in the global movement against gun violence. They publicized the UN small arms process, emphasized the importance of an Arms Trade Treaty, promoted implementation of the UN Firearms Protocol, and supported policies linking armed violence and development, among other activities. Also in 2009, the Disarm Domestic Violence Campaign was launched with over 30 events worldwide. The goal of the campaign is to ensure that anyone with a history of domestic abuse is denied access to a firearm, and has their license revoked. In its last annual report, “Gun Violence: The Global Crisis,” IANSA reminded: “A thousand people die every day by gunshots, and three times as many are severely injured. Spinal cords severed, bones shattered, families destroyed, hearts broken. If the death, injury and disability resulting from small arms were categorized as a disease, we would view it as an epidemic. And no country is immune.”

2,000 Deaths And 600,000 Christian Refugees

The following figures, compiled through local Church sources in Iraq, provide a comprehensive picture of the suffering of Iraqi Christians: – Since 2003: about 2,000 Iraqi Christians have been killed in several waves of violence; – Between February 27 and March 1,2010: 870 families, a total of over 4,400 faithful, left Mosul due to anti-Christian violence; – October 2008: more than 12,000 Christians fled Mosul due to a wave of violence; – 40% of Iraqi refugees abroad (a total of about 1.6 million) are Christians (Source: UNHCR); – 44% of Iraqis who have applied for asylum in Syria are Christians. Asylum applications are growing in Jordan, Turkey and in Western countries (especially Sweden and Australia); – The total number of Christians in Iraq: in 1987, 1.4 million; in 2003, 1.2 million; in 2009, 600,000, many of whom were internally displaced; – Iraq’s total population: 27.5 million – 97% Muslim (65% Shiite, 35% Sunni), 3% Christian and other religious minorities.

www.fides.org

Violence Is A Wake-Up Call For Church

Attacks against Christians in several states, especially Orissa in eastern India, have prompted Indian bishops to establish a special committee to review “our evangelization methods,” the prelate noted in his biennial report to the CBCI’s 29th plenary. As many as 163 bishops from India’s 164 dioceses were present at the plenary that has chosen Youth for Peace and Harmony as its main theme. Some 40 Catholic youths also attended the event along with secretaries of CBCI commissions and centers. Archbishop Fernandes’ report asserted the “wanton” and “sacrilegious” attacks on Christians and their institutions were premeditated. “Even more villainous was the malicious damage” to human relations “with a systematic campaign” that tried to divide communities, he said. Added to this were the “apathy” to and “certain complicity” of local governments in anti-Christian violence, especially in Orissa, that encouraged the attackers, the prelate noted. However, the archbishop also highlighted some positive outcomes from the violence. He said Christians in India rallied behind their persecuted brethren offering material and psychological help. The archbishop saluted the victims who opted to die rather than give up their faith. He also commended people of other religions who defended Christians’ right to practice their faith in peace and freedom. Soon after the attacks, Church agencies rallied behind Orissa’s Cuttack-Bhubaneswar archdiocese to rescue and rehabilitate victims, the prelate said. The special committee, set up in the wake of the attacks, would study various challenges facing the Church in the country and advise the CBCI secretary general on appropriate actions. The Church in India found some relief from this gloom when the Vatican recognized Sister Alphonsa, “a nun unknown during life but acclaimed after death,” as India’s first female saint in 2008, the report said. Another recent milestone was the Indian Mission Congress in October 2009 where some 1,300 delegates from India’s various dioceses attended. In recent times, CBCI also undertook an exercise to reorganize its structure to accommodate India’s three ritual Churches that have separate episcopal conferences. Archbishop Fernandes explained this was done to avoid duplication of work and frittering away “the precious and limited resources of the Church.”

www.ucanews.com

World Touch

From the Olympics to the Convent

Twelve years ago, at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, a 17-year-old speedskating prodigy named Kirstin Holum was tapped for future greatness. When Holum placed sixth in the 3,000 meters – one of the most grueling disciplines in the women’s program, a lung-scraping four-minute bust of lactic acid torture – speedskating insiders predicted a golden future and speculated she may not even reach her peak for another decade. Like many of the longer distances, the 3,000 is regularly dominated by older athletes, as it can take years to build up the requisite reserves of aerobic capacity and deep-tissue resilience. At Nagano, 32-year-old Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann of Germany claimed the gold.

Martin Rogers

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