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Forty years since the Encyclical Populorum Progressio, with which Pope Paul VI underlined the importance of education for justice and development and the growing disparity between rich and poor countries, a new disparity is affecting the poorest peoples: the “digital divide” produced by a lack of access to modern technology of information and communication.
“In just 10 years, what was once a luxury and a privilege, the mobile phone, has become a basic necessity in urban and rural Africa” said Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, underlining Africa’s progress in the sector of telecommunications with important social and economic effects.
The declaration of a state of emergency and the suspension of the Constitution “is part of a conspiracy to postpone the coming elections and to prolong the dictatorial rule of Musharraf,” said Shahbaz Bhatti, President of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, regarding the current political situation in the country.
Pope Benedict XVI has completed his second encyclical, a meditation on Christian hope, Vatican sources said. The text, tentatively titled Spe Salvi (“Saved by Hope”) comes from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, in which he wrote: “For in hope we have been saved.”
World Mission has received a trophy from the Catholic Mass Media Awards (CMMA). The magazine, published by the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus in the Philippines, was distinguished as the Best Community/Parish Newspaper/Magazine.
On the 200th anniversary of the U.K.’s abolition of the slave trade, which led to the end of transatlantic trafficking of human beings, women religious from 26 countries gathered to debate the fight against a new form of enslavement. The U.S. Embassy to the Holy See and the Italian Union of Major Superiors co-sponsored the seminar in Rome, entitled “Building a Network: The Prophetic Role of Women Religious in the Fight Against Trafficking in Persons.”
Recent economic growth in Africa is encouraging, but the continent still needs a lot of aid, especially as it suffers from the exodus of skilled and educated workers to rich countries, said Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, during the debate on the aid program to the continent, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development.
The Vatican’s new secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, is proposing a “universal commitment” in favor of the poor as part of the Vatican’s new diplomatic agenda. In his first address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, the prelate said this is one of the top priorities.
In an undercover investigation, a BBC correspondent visited a hospital in Tianjin, where he was told he could get a new liver at the cost of something less than 95,000 US dollars. The chief surgeon confirmed that one of the China’s many executed convicts would be the “donor”: death row inmates “offer” their organs “as a gift to society.” The organs, taken from the bodies of executed prisoners, are largely sold to foreigners who need a transplant.
In 2006, military expenses in the world will beat the Cold War record. Only in Africa, according to a UN organization, every year 15 billion dollars are wasted on war. This is true even in the poorest countries, where hunger is like a plague and money for development measures is always scarce.
