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“The Earth − our common home − is a gift from God. He has entrusted it to our stewardship (not ownership)with its goodies and resources to be cared for, not plundered.”
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
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.
“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.
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.
An appeal carried in the hands of children and handed to representatives of the nations of the world said that violence is an illness polluting the planet. The appeal for peace, made public by the Catholic Lay Community of Sant’Egidio, was presented to the leaders at the concluding ceremony of the 21st International Encounter of Peoples and Religions held in Naples. The encounter brought together 315 religious leaders of various creeds.
The Simbang Gabi masses are a very beautiful way of anticipating the birth of Jesus. Above all, they are a way of truly preparing ourselves spiritually to welcome the birth of our Lord. He is the Light who vanquishes the darkness of our world,
the darkness that often attends our daily human experiences.
