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“The missionaries’ presence is a reminder that we must acknowledge and go beyond our prejudices, fears and indifference, care for the world and become universal people.”
The Philippines will likely fail in meeting its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 in conflict-affected Mindanao, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warns. And adds: “If it wants to achieve the MDGs without major disparities, then focus must be put on Mindanao where the indicators are far below many of the national averages,” Vanessa Tobin, UNICEF country representative, said in Manila.
Archaeologists have found evidence supporting a traditional belief that St. Peter was jailed in Rome’s maximum security Mamertine Prison before he was crucified and buried on the hill where St. Peter’s Basilica was later built.
More than 700 adults and children have been abducted in a largely unreported massive abduction campaign started by the Ugandan rebel, Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), in Central African Republic (CAR) and the neighboring Bas Uele district of northern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), denounces Human Rights Watch (HRW). Nearly one-third of those abducted are children, many of whom are being forced to serve as soldiers or are being used for sex by the group’s fighters, the report says.
In today’s world, marked by loneliness and indifference, Christians must learn to offer “signs of hope,” “cultivating the great ideals that transform history” and the world. This calls for better awareness and to “show” Jesus and His message of love to the world. This is the underlying meaning of World Mission Sunday – which will be celebrated October 24 – explained by Benedict XVI in his message devoted to it.
A new analysis of voting patterns among bishops at the Second Vatican Council points to the indirect influence of non-Catholic Churches in the Council’s liberalization of the Catholic Church.
World Christian leaders are paying tribute to the ecumenical community of Taizé in eastern France, which is marking its foundation in 1940 by Brother Roger Schütz (see photos), who died in 2005. In a message to Brother Alois, who now heads the community, the Pope described Schütz as a “pioneer in the difficult paths toward unity among the disciples of Christ.” And considered the founder’s “ecumenism of holiness” as an inspiration in “our march toward unity.”
Extreme weather is one of the clearest signals that climate change is happening. During the first part of August 2010, news of extreme weather in various parts of the world was seldom off the headlines. Pakistan suffered its worst monsoon-related floods in 80 years. More than 1,600 people were reported dead, though the real number is probably a multiple of that figure. Rivers burst their banks sweeping away houses, food crops, roads and bridges, leaving areas, such as Gilgit Baltistan, cut off from the rest of the country. The extreme flooding in the Swat valley was partly due to the fact that, since the Taliban took over, the area’s forests had been chopped down at an alarming rate. By the end of the first week of August, it was estimated that around 12 million people have been affected.
It’s no secret that guards, police and barangay officials beat, abuse, kick and humiliate Filipino youth when apprehended and later awaiting trial in jails and detention centers. Their testimonies and their medical examinations, when released, prove it. It happens in the UK also as the Observer newspaper recently exposed a government manual that taught guards how to beat, punch and gouge youth in privately-run UK detention centers.
Words like please or thank you, even goodbye, good morning, nice to see you, are being lost. It seems that life is so demanding and everything around us is going so fast that we must and can spare the words. But that’s not true. Courtesy is not a loss of time, it is a virtue that makes life more easy and pleasant. At family or work levels, but also in society, as a whole.
