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Though trafficking in human beings is a “tremendous offense to dignity,” there is no easy solution to this multifaceted and international problem, says a Vatican official. Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers, considered the gravity of human trafficking during an address at a conference organized by the Association of the Pope John XXIII Community.
Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, appointed Fr. Socrates C. Lesiona (see photo), of the Mission Society of the Philippines (MSP), as National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the Philippines for the five-year term 2009-2014.
Food prices will rise again by 2015, when economies are expected to have recovered from the global recession, pushing up demand once more, says a recent UN report. 2008 is seen as the year of food crisis, prompted in part by high fuel prices, but these started declining as the global recession got underway in late 2008 and eventually returned to 2006 levels, though food prices in many developing countries are still higher than they were then.
NGOs have criticized a decision by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to triple its capital, claiming projects it funded have done more harm than good to communities it aims to help. On 30 April, ADB shareholders agreed to increase the bank’s capital base from US$55 billion to $165 billion to allow it to respond to the global economic crisis and help Asia’s poorest countries achieve the Millennium Development Goals, including halving the number of people living in poverty by 2015.
There is a fear that Taliban violence will increase, as a result of weakness being shown on the part of the government, police, and civil institutions. The Christian families of the city of Karachi, who suffered attacks from armed members of the Taliban, are terrorized and living locked-up in their own homes. This is what Fr. Mario Rodriguez, Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) in Pakistan, said in expressing his concern and alarm at the spread of violence of groups of Islamic militants in the country, not only in the Province of the North-West Frontier Province, but also in Pakistan’s largest cities.
“The basis of human rights has been the message of Christ that the Church has interpreted with various notions that have arisen in the Christian world, like the idea of the person, the idea of freedom as the essential component of man.” This is what Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, affirmed in presenting the conclusions from the 15th Plenary Assembly of the Academy, whose theme was: “Catholic Social Doctrine and Human Rights.” In the press conference held in the Holy See Press Office, Mary Ann Glendon, President of the Academy, and Ombretta Fumagalli Carulli, Professore of Canon Law at the University of Milan, were also present. Glendon highlighted the fact that, in today’s world, there are still many problems with the protection of human rights, and mentioned that next year, the workshops will be centered on the economic crisis and its social consequences.
St. Mary’s University, the first Catholic university in South Sudan, was inaugurated in the capital city of Juba last April. The ceremony was attended by the Security and Religious Affairs Minister, Maria Kiden Kimbo, of the South Sudan Government. St. Mary’s is the second private university in the capital of South Sudan. Minister Kimbo praised the opening of the new university, which will offer an education to future social workers, a profession that is extremely important in a country with nearly 50,000 handicapped persons.
Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe (see photo) is responding to the world economic crisis with more than exhortations; he is donating a year’s stipend and part of his personal savings to initiate a diocesan bank that will offer micro-credits to the poor. The Naples archbishop explained his plan in a pastoral letter titled “Where Can We Buy Bread?” The letter takes its title from the question posed to Jesus by the disciples before the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. He said the initiative aims to respond to the needs of “unemployed young people, and also of all those who have lost or will lose their jobs.”
In the Philippines, children are victims of prostitution rings, sex slaves for hire and are forced to work in high seas or open fields for up to 15 hours a day. They till the land, labor in the mines or scrub floors as domestic workers, on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week and work for at least 15 hours a day. Child labor is a curse that touches the lives of about four million children.
The Dalai Lama said, in a CNN interview broadcast last May, that his reincarnation would be found in the “free world” rather than in Chinese-occupied Tibet. The 73-year-old spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists also accused China’s communist government of “cultural genocide” in its assault on Tibet’s way of life but stressed that the future looks brighter for his people as China itself modernizes.
