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“Christians are called to overcome individualistic views of salvation and urged to become ministers of hope for the world.”
Public health and HIV/AIDS activists from the developing world are seeking to break the monopoly over drugs held by pharmaceutical giants through a new global campaign designed to influence international debate over the issue. Formulated at the end of a three-day meeting, which brought some 200 participants from 20 countries to Thailand’s capital, the campaign seeks ‘’a new way out of the current patent system; one that will encourage innovation of new drugs and access for all,’’ says one of the organizers of the International Conference on Compulsory Licensing: Innovation and Access for All. ‘’What we have now is innovation controlled by the pharmaceutical industry that allows them to have a monopoly on drugs.’’
The Eritrean government has thrown the Catholic Church into tension by expelling 13 missionaries in unclear circumstances. The expulsion order was issued to four Comboni missionaries (2 Mexicans, a Filipino and a Kenyan), 2 Comboni sisters, 2 Pavonian fathers, 2 Filipino Pius teachers, 2 nuns of an unspecified congregation and a lay missionary.
The president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace met with the founder of a U.S.-based organization aiming to replace minefields with farmland, and made an appeal for the elimination of unexploded ordnance. Cardinal Renato Martino spoke in Rome with Heidi Kuhn, founder of the international Roots of Peace, according to a communiqué from the Vatican dicastery.
A Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue, working to heal the 1000 year old rift between the Orthodox and Catholic Church, has announced that the Pope has primacy over all bishops – but the lines are still blurred as to what the Holy Father’s authority entails. Pope Benedict said a “fundamental priority” of his pontificate is to heal the split of the two denominations.
“The time has come to ensure, for the sake of peace, that no man, woman or child will ever be hungry again,” says Pope Benedict XVI when receiving in audience participants of the 34th general conference of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), headquartered in Rome.
After 11 years of Liberal government, Australians voted for the Labor Party led by Kevin Rudd (photo) in the November elections.
In an ever more globalized world, emigration is a growing phenomenon that causes particular difficulties for youth who travel far from their countries and families, says Benedict XVI in his message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, celebrated on January the 13.
In our world today, 27 million people live in an enslaved condition. This was affirmed by Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, in a seminar on slavery and the new forms of slavery promoted by the Catholic bishops of Africa and Europe in Cape Coast, Ghana.
Northern Philippine Church workers are planting trees and campaigning against quarrying to help restore the famed rice terraces that face removal from the United Nations’ World Heritage List. “We are aware of the various threats to the rice terraces and we are doing our part to respond to these through our Integrity of Creation program,” Rowena Ngitiw, Bontoc-Lagawe vicariate’s Social Action and Development Center coordinator, explained.
