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Series: Church's Challenges

Dates Set For St. Francis Xavier’s Exposition

Francis Xavier, a Basque, was born in Spain, April 7, 1506, and arrived in Goa on May 6, 1542. His missionary work took him across Asia over the next 10 years. He died on Dec. 3, 1552, on Sancian island, just short of his ultimate goal: China. His body was first laid to rest in Portuguese Malacca (presently northern Malaysia). Two years later, the body was moved to the Portuguese colony at Goa, today a popular tourist enclave, and installed in the Basilica of Bom Jesus. The basilica and the mausoleum there that hold the relics of Francis Xavier are a popular pilgrimage site year round. Every 10 years, the relics are moved in solemn procession to the nearby Se Cathedral where they are available for public veneration for 44 days. The saint’s body is intact, except for his right arm, which was removed so that it could be displayed as a relic at the Church of the Gesù in Rome. He is said to have baptized more than 300,000 people across Asia, using his right hand to pour the baptismal water.  

www.ncronline.org/Dennis Coday

Canadian Arctic Temperatures At Their Highest In 44,000 Years

“The key piece here is just how unprecedented the warming of Arctic Canada is,” Professor Gifford Miller said. A fellow at CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research who led the study, Miller says that “this study really says the warming we are seeing is outside any kind of known natural variability, and it has to be due to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.” With his colleagues, Miller used dead moss clumps emerging from melting ice caps from the island as tiny calendars. Boasting of four different ice caps, radiocarbon dates show the Along mosses had not been exposed to the elements since at least 44,000 to 51,000 years ago. Radiocarbon dating is only accurate to about 50,000 years. Since Earth’s geological record shows it was in a glaciation stage prior to that time, the indications are that Canadian Arctic temperatures today have not been matched or exceeded for roughly 120,000 years. Compiling the age distribution of 145 radiocarbon-dated plants in the highlands of Baffin Island that were exposed by ice recession during the year they were collected proved daunting to researchers. All samples collected were within one meter of the ice caps, which are generally receding by two to three meters a year.  Reconstructing the past climate of Baffin Island beyond the limit of radiocarbon dating, the team used data from ice cores previously retrieved by international teams from the nearby Greenland Ice Sheet. Summer temperatures cooled in the Canadian Arctic by about five degrees Fahrenheit from roughly 5,000 years ago to about 100 years ago.  

www.catholic.org

30 Million ‘Modern Slaves’ Exploited Worldwide

Mauritania, a West African nation with deeply entrenched hereditary slavery, is ranked number one. It is estimated that there are between 140,000 and 160,000 people enslaved in Mauritania, a country with a population of just 3.8 million. Haiti, a Caribbean nation with deeply entrenched practices of child slavery (known locally as the restavek system) is ranked second on the index. An estimated 200,000 to 220,000 people are in modern slavery in Haiti, a country with a population of just 10.2 million. Pakistan, with its porous borders to Afghanistan, large populations of displaced persons and a weak rule of law, is third on the index with as many as 2,200,000 people in various forms of modern slavery. The country with the largest number of people in modern slavery is India, with between 13,300,000 and 14,700,000 people enslaved. Slavery in India includes some foreign nationals but, by far, the largest proportion of this problem occurs through the exploitation of Indian citizens, particularly through debt bondage and bonded labor. China had the second highest number, with an estimated 2.8 million to 3.1 million. In China, the forced labor of men, women and children can be located in many sectors of the economy, including domestic servitude and forced begging, sexual exploitation of women and children and forced marriage.  The country with the third highest absolute number in modern slavery is Pakistan, with an estimated 2 million to 2.2 million people. The United States ranked 134 with an estimated 59,644 enslaved. “Whether it is called human trafficking, forced labor, slavery or slavery-like practices (debt bondage, forced or servile marriage, sale or exploitation of children including in armed conflict), victims of modern slavery have their freedom denied and are used and controlled and exploited by another person for profit, sex or the thrill of domination,” the index authors conclude. A “staggering and harsh reality,” is that some people are still being “born into hereditary slavery,” according to the report, particularly in parts of West Africa and South Asia. “Other victims are captured or kidnapped before being sold or kept for exploitation, whether through ‘marriage’, unpaid labor on fishing boats or as domestic workers. Others are tricked and lured into situations they cannot escape, with false promises of a good job or an education.” Modern slavery can involve using children in the military, whether as combatants, porters, cooks or for other jobs. The chains of modern slavery are not always physical. Sometimes, escalating debts, intimidation, deception, isolation, fear or even a “marriage” that is forced on a young woman or girl can be used to hold a person against her will without the need for locks or chains.  

www.americamagazine.org

‘Rights Do Not Exist In N. Korea

Kim told the inquiry he was sent back to North Korea three times by Chinese authorities. He was then taken to a detention center where he witnessed severe beatings and was forced to search prisoners’ excrement for money. “The North Korean prison guards were telling us that, once you get to this prison, you’re not human, you’re just like animals,” he told the inquiry. In February 2007, he finally got away and he now has permanent residence in the United Kingdom. Another escapee, Park Jih-yun, described how she had to leave her dying father at home with only a bowl of rice as she fled across the Chinese border in 1998. In China, she was forced into marriage by “people who buy and sell other people,” she said. The U.N. commission of inquiry also heard from three former North Korean soldiers who spoke of rights abuses, and from the Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) which has documented violations inside the country. “We hope that the commission of inquiry will expose the extent of the North Korean government’s human rights violations and provide the first steps towards justice for the North Korean people who have suffered terribly under one of the world’s most brutal, and closed, regimes,” said CSW’s Special Ambassador Stuart Windsor.   

www.ucanews.com

Haiyan: Desperate Survivors In Flattened City

The coastal city of 222,000 inhabitants bore the brunt of the 195mph winds of the strongest storm ever recorded, tearing off roofs and destroying evacuation centers. The storm that surged six meters (20ft) in height turned roads into rivers of sewage and seawater, landing whole ships on top of houses, and obliterating bridges and roads. At least 10,000 people are thought to have died so far in Leyte province alone, with the toll expected to rise.  Without clean water, food or medicine, Tacloban survivors have begun raiding houses, shops and malls to find supplies. One shop owner was photographed defending his premises with a pistol, while reports emerged of aid convoys being hijacked and cash point machines being looted. Local officials warned Philippine President, Benigno Aquino III – who visited Tacloban on Sunday – that residents from nearby towns were entering the city to steal supplies and pleaded with him to declare martial law. Even Tacloban’s airport was reduced to a mere shell. But, now, survivors, authorities and media all crowd into the building through ragged gaps in its walls. The airport is both a makeshift command center – from which the army finally began, on Sunday, to deliver much-needed supplies – and the only way out for many survivors who are queuing hundreds-deep in an effort to leave the chaos behind. More grimly, the airport has been turned into a makeshift morgue for the growing number of bodies found stacked in churches, snagged on tree branches or underneath rubbles. Mass graves have been dug to accommodate the corpses; with Police Chief Elmer Soria reckoning that most victims either drowned or were crushed to death by crumbling buildings. “It was like a tsunami,” said Philippine Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, who visited Tacloban on Sunday by helicopter. “I don’t know how to describe what I saw. It’s horrific.” With communications still inoperative across vast swaths of the hardest-hit areas, it is impossible to judge the scale of the destruction. Aid agencies warn that they cannot reach all those affected, with airports and harbors across the Philippines either entirely closed or badly disrupted. Emergency teams have been forced to try to reach survivors by foot; in many cases walking for hours over debris to access remote and ravaged areas. Luiza Carvalho, the U.N.’s resident and humanitarian coordinator for the Philippines, said it was vital that aid agencies reach those who are stranded in isolated areas. “They are at risk of further threats such as malnutrition, exposure to bad weather and unsafe drinking water,” she said. More than 350,000 people are awaiting supplies in 1,220 evacuation centers, with 4.3M people across the country affected by Haiyan, said Orla Fagan of the U.N. Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Rescue teams, deployed in Bogo City and San Remigio, on the island of Cebu, said some buildings have been flattened to the ground, with significant damage to both homes and sugar plantations, which have served as many residents’ primary source of income in

www.theguardian.com

Typhoon Haiyan: The Rich World Is Still Ignoring Climate Change

“Each destructive typhoon season costs us 2% of our GDP, and the reconstruction costs, a further 2%, which means we lose nearly 5% of our economy every year to storms. We have not seen any money from the rich countries to help us to adapt … We cannot go on like this. It cannot be a way of life that we end up running always from storms,” he said. He later told the assembly: “Climate change negotiations cannot be based on the way we currently measure progress. It is a clear sign of planetary and economic and environmental dysfunction … The whole world, especially developing countries struggling to address poverty and achieve social and human development, confronts these same realities.” Saño could not be reached because phone lines to Manila were down, but he was thought to be on his way to Warsaw for the U.N. talks, which resume on Monday. This time, his country has been battered by the even stronger super-typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful ever recorded anywhere – 25 miles (40km) wide and reaching astonishing speeds of possibly 200mph (322km/h). We don’t yet know the exact death toll or damage done, but we do know that the strength of tropical storms, such as Haiyan or Bopha, is linked to sea temperature. As the oceans warm with climate change, there is extra energy in the system. Storms may not be increasing in frequency but Pacific Ocean waters are warming faster than expected, and there is a broad scientific consensus that typhoons are now increasing in strength. Typhoon Haiyan, like Bopha, will be seen widely in developing countries as a taste of what is to come, along with rising sea levels and water shortages. But, what alarms the governments of vulnerable countries the most is that they believe rich countries have lost the political will to address climate change at the speed needed to avoid catastrophic change in years to come. From being on top of the global political agenda just four years ago, climate change is now barely mentioned by the political elites in London or Washington, Tokyo or Paris. Australia is not even sending a junior minister to Warsaw. The host, Poland, will be using the meeting to celebrate its coal industry. The pitifully small pledges of money made by rich countries to help developing countries, such as the Philippines or Bangladesh, to adapt to climate change have barely materialized. Meanwhile, fossil fuel subsidies are running at more than $500bn (£311bn) a year and vested commercial interests are increasingly influencing the talks. As the magnitude of the adverse impacts of human-induced climate change becomes apparent, the most vulnerable countries say they have no option but to go on alone. The good news is that places such as Bangladesh, Nepal, the small island states of the Pacific and Caribbean, and many African nations, are all starting to adapt their farming, fishing and cities, to the situation. But, coping with major storms, as well as sea level

www.theguardian.com/John Vidal

The Great Friendship

When the Russian young woman, Raissa Oumansov, began her studies at the University of Paris, she was seventeen years old and the year was 1900. It was a time of great scientific achievements and the Sorbonne was one of its centers. Marie and Pierre Curie, for example, had discovered radium there only two years before. It was natural, therefore, for Raissa to turn to the sciences for the answers she sought. To her dismay, however, she soon discovered that her professors were either strict materialists or simply did not pose for themselves questions concerning truth and meaning. Hope began to wane in her heart. Yet, she also continued to await “some great event, some perfect fulfillment.” The first step toward that fulfillment came when she met the man who would become her greatest companion during her earthly pilgrimage: Jacques Maritain.  Almost from the moment that Jacques Maritain introduced himself to Raissa, they became inseparable. They were both students at the Sorbonne, he a year older than she, and they both were searching for the meaning of their lives. Jacques Maritain came from a family that embodied the values of the French Revolution. He discovered, however, what many others of his generation would one day recognize: the agnosticism that was their heritage was too thin a soil for the sense of justice that burned in their hearts. To withstand the winds of tyranny, justice needs deep roots and a rich soil in which to sink them. It was during his search for that rich ideal soil that Jacques encountered Raïssa. In the friendship that grew between them, they undertook the search together. In the midst of their distress, Jacques and Raissa reached a fateful decision that would shape the rest of their lives. While strolling through Paris, they both agreed that if it were impossible to know the truth, to distinguish good from evil, just from unjust, then life was not worth living. In such a case, it would be better to die young through suicide than to live an absurdity. They were spared from following through on this because, at the urging of their friend, Charles Péguy, they attended the lectures of Henri Bergson at the Collège de France. Bergson’s critique of scientism dissolved their intellectual despair and instilled in them “the sense of the Absolute.” Then, through the influence of Léon Bloy, they converted to the Roman Catholic faith in 1906. God, in His great mercy, led them to Christ, to baptism in the Catholic Church and to the consolation of the Eucharist. In reading Bloy’s great novel, The Woman Who Was Poor, the Maritains encountered the greatness of the Christian saints. “What struck us so forcibly on first reading Bloy’s novel was the stature of this believer’s soul, his burning zeal for justice, the beauty of a doctrine which, for the first time, rose up before our eyes,” they later confessed.  Upon meeting Bloy and his family, they were even more impressed. His poverty, his faith, his heroic

Fr. Lorenzo Carraro | Comboni Missionary

The Reasons Of Our Joy

This is the first word I would like to tell you: joy! Don’t be ever men and women of sadness! A Christian cannot be a sad person! Long faces cannot proclaim good news! Ours is a joy which comes from having met with a Person: Jesus, who is in our midst,” these are Pope Francis’ words on Palm Sunday, March 24, only a few days after his election and are like the motto of his pontificate.  Speaking to the thousands of seminarians and novices, on July 8, he said: “Every Christian, especially you and I, is called to be a bearer of this message of hope that gives serenity and joy: God’s consolation, his tenderness towards all.” Then, leaving out the paper and continuing in a spontaneous way, the Pope told the future priests and nuns to keep “freshness and joy” in their lives, and took to task seminarians and novices who are “too serious, too sad.” “Something is not right here. There is no sadness in holiness,” he said. “A true Christian is a person of joy. There are people who masquerade as Christians, and sin by being excessively superficial or overly rigid, forgetting that a true Christian is a person of joy who rests their faith on the rock of Christ. Some think they can be Christian without Christ; others think being Christian means being in a perpetual state of mourning. The former have a superficial happiness. The others do not know what Christian joy is. They do not know how to enjoy the life that Jesus gives us.”  These words that the Pope delivered in one of his spontaneous homilies in the chapel of Santa Martha makes one think of the movie “Babette’s Feast,” a movie very dear to Pope Francis, where the French refugee, Babette, an accomplished cook, fills with joy and tolerance her stern Calvinist hosts by preparing a sumptuous dinner and making them enjoy God’s creatures in a kind of contemplative experience.   From the experience of suffering Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Flores, a barrio of Buenos Aires, on December 17, 1936. He was the eldest of five children of Mario José Bergoglio, an Italian immigrant from Portacomaro, in the Province of Asti, in Italy. His father had followed his three brothers to Argentina, when the Advent of Fascism and the notorious dictator Benito Mussolini had forced many to leave Italy. Pope Francis remembers that his grandmother, Rose, arrived in Buenos Aires sweltering in the heat, clinging to her coat with a fur collar and didn’t want to let it go because, sawn inside that collar, were all the monies they had put together by selling their property in Italy in order to face the unknown. Very soon, the Bergoglios were affected by the Great Depression and life became a struggle. The four brothers had to part company. Life became bearable when Papa Mario José found a job as an accountant. After the fifth child, Jorge’s mother was struck by partial paralysis;

Fr. Lorenzo Carraro | Comboni Missionary

Christ At Lampedusa

On July 8, less than two weeks before his scheduled trip to Brazil, Pope Francis, in a surprising move, chose the tiny island of Lampedusa, which lies between Africa and Italy, as the target of his first trip as a pope, in order to meet the plight of the immigrants; he himself being the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina.  An estimated 8,000 people entered Europe through Italy in the first six months of this year. From 1994 to 2012, more than 6,000 of them died at sea in the attempt. Even now, as I write, after the Pope’s visit, hundreds of bodies are recovered from the cruel waters of the Mediterranean sea. On arrival, Pope Francis was taken out to sea in a Coast Guard boat, and he threw a wreath on the water in memory of those who had died in the passage. He embraced the refugees, some of whom had arrived that very day, then he delivered a homily directed not to the immediate hearers, but to the world. The Pope said: “Immigrants dying at sea, on boats which were vehicles of hope and became vehicles of death. This tragedy has constantly come back to me like a painful thorn in my heart. So I felt that I had to come here today, to pray and to offer a sign of my closeness, but also to challenge our consciences lest this tragedy be repeated.  “Adam, where are you?” This is the first question which God asks man after his sin. Adam lost his bearings, his place in creation. Harmony was lost. “The other” is no longer a brother or sister to be loved, but simply someone who disturbs my life and my comfort. God asks a second question: “Cain, where is your brother?” His blood cries out to Me, says the Lord. This is not a question directed to others; it is a question directed to me, to you, to each of us. Today, no one in our world feels responsible; we have lost the sense of responsibility for our brothers and sisters. The culture of comfort leads to the globalization of indifference.  But I would like us to ask a third question: “Has any one of us wept for the death of these brothers and sisters? Has any one of us shed tears for these people who were on the boat? For the young mothers carrying their babies? For these men who were looking for a means of supporting their families? We are a society which has forgotten how to weep, how to experience compassion: the globalization of indifference has taken from us the ability to weep!” The Pontiff’s visit made headlines around the world for bringing up the issue of immigration in a completely different light: from viewing immigration as a problem to understanding the plight of the immigrants. Moreover, the Pope meant for the Church to fulfill the call of the outskirts of the world to announce the Gospel. Lampedusa is really the outskirt

WM

The Culture Of Encounter

Only nine months have passed from the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the pontifical see, which happened on March 13, but great changes have taken place. Not so much in the doctrinal area but on the style of communication.  These are the unusual gestures that Pope Francis started with and have immediately changed the atmosphere around the pope. First of all, the courageous choice of the name Francis, a name totally new in the history of the popes, a name of which he himself gave a very clear interpretation: love for the poor, peace, integrity of creation. The request of a blessing from the people themselves crowding St. Peter’s Square and linked by media throughout the whole world: an unusual request the new pope made spontaneously, bending his knees and inclining his head to receive it.  The third sign was the way he washed the feet of the young convicts, kneeling on the ground six times, not a formal rite! And, lastly, his decision to reside in House Sancta Martha together with many of his collaborators, a most innovative decision for those who consider the Vatican setup. Of all the images from his first week in office, perhaps the most striking came when Pope Francis visited the Vatican’s small Church of St. Anne to say Mass on Sunday, March 17, ahead of his first Angelus address. Run by the Augustinian Order, St. Anne is where the roughly four hundred people, who live on Vatican grounds, have what can be considered a normal parish life. After Mass, Pope Francis stood outside the church and greeted people as they left, patting kids on the head and kissing them, shaking hands and exchanging hugs, with a quick word and a smile for everybody. It’s a scene that one can see every Sunday at Catholic parishes across the world, but one rarely sees a pope doing it. “A simple gesture is not always a simple gesture when it is the pope’s gesture” (Theologian Robert Dodaro). The choice of the new pope has stirred an extraordinary interest in the whole world. Around six thousand mass media operators had come to Rome to cover the conclave, but then the interest has continued. Also because of his open style, the requests of shooting documentaries on Pope Francis or to have interviews are numerous and, generally, they manifest a genuine and sincere interest in the person of the new pope. The interviews by the editor of Civiltà Cattolica, Fr. Antonio Spadaro S.J. and with Eugenio Scalfari, founder of Repubblica have made history.   The global “parish priest” Everybody has noted the number of people coming to Pope Francis’ weekly audiences. The crowds seem to grow by the week. They are becoming enormous, forcing police to close the area around St. Peter’s Square to traffic as if Mother Teresa or Padre Pio were being canonized. Vendors across Rome report a boom in sales of papal objects, always a reliable sign of popular enthusiasm. He is filling an obvious

Fr. Lorenzo Carraro | Comboni Missionary
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