Catholic News 2
SHENYANG, China (AP) -- In what became one of his most famous essays, Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo wrote, "I have no enemies," in an ode to hope and a repudiation of hatred and fear....
Police on Thursday returned to a large Pennsylvania farm to resume digging and sifting through a deep common grave where multiple remains were discovered, including one identified as one of four men missing since last week. The prosecutor also issued a fresh appeal for more help from the public in trying to solve the case....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Education Department's civil rights chief says she's sorry for making "flippant" remarks attributing 90 percent of campus sexual assault claims to both parties being drunk....
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- "Saturday Night Live," powered by madcap skits skewering the Trump administration, earned 22 Emmy Award nominations, including bids for Alec Baldwin's florid portrayal of the president and Melissa McCarthy's manic, gender-busting take on press secretary Sean Spicer....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than 400 people have been charged with taking part in health care fraud and opioid scams that totaled $1.3 billion in false billing, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Thursday....
PARIS (AP) -- French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday it is "obvious and indispensable" to have exchanges with U.S. President Donald Trump as the two leaders were set to meet to try to push past major differences and find common ground on security, defense and other issues....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a high-stakes bid for conservative support, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has agreed to demands from Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas to allow insurers to sell low-cost, skimpier plans as part of a new but still-reeling health care bill he was releasing Thursday, GOP aides said....
(Vatican Radio) More than one hundred seminary rectors from throughout the English-speaking world gathered in Rome earlier this month under the guidance and sponsorship of the Congregation for Clergy to discuss the revised handbook of best practices for the formation of seminarians.Known as the Ratio fundamentalis institutionis sacerdotalis – ratio fundamentalis or just ratio for short – the latest edition of the document is titled, On the Gift of Priestly Vocation.The basic and animating idea of the Ratio is that of helping seminaries all around the world to succeed in their mission of forming men for the priesthood by first firmly grounding them in a self-conscious attitude of missionary discipleship, and then giving them the tools to live their lives as disciples to the fullest, in and through the ministerial priesthood to which God calls them through His Church.One of the participants, Msgr. David L. Toups, rector of St. Vincent De Paul Regional Seminary ...
(Vatican Radio) More than one hundred seminary rectors from throughout the English-speaking world gathered in Rome earlier this month under the guidance and sponsorship of the Congregation for Clergy to discuss the revised handbook of best practices for the formation of seminarians.
Known as the Ratio fundamentalis institutionis sacerdotalis – ratio fundamentalis or just ratio for short – the latest edition of the document is titled, On the Gift of Priestly Vocation.
The basic and animating idea of the Ratio is that of helping seminaries all around the world to succeed in their mission of forming men for the priesthood by first firmly grounding them in a self-conscious attitude of missionary discipleship, and then giving them the tools to live their lives as disciples to the fullest, in and through the ministerial priesthood to which God calls them through His Church.
One of the participants, Msgr. David L. Toups, rector of St. Vincent De Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida, told Vatican Radio this new document, which brings together the many disparate elements offered as teaching and formation tools by several different dicasteries in the thirty-odd years since the last Ratio was promulgated, and offers best practices to seminary rectors who work in vastly different cultural contexts in service of one mission, is more than welcome.
“It’s highly significant for us in the seminary world,” he said.
Msgr. Joseph Betchart, rector of Mount Angel Seminary in St. Benedict, Oregon, also took part in the course, and told Vatican Radio he welcomes the holistic approach to formation, with the particular emphasis it puts on discipleship.
Click below to hear our conversation with Msgr. Toups and Msgr. Betchart
“In order to shepherd the People of God,” he said, “you have to – first of all – be a member of the People of God.”
Msgr. Betchart explained that the view this document takes is comprehensive.
“It is really focused on forming the man to be first and foremost a disciple of Jesus Christ,” he said, “because, as the axiom goes, ‘You can’t give what you don’t have.’”
The course sponsored by the Congregation for Clergy on the fundamental principles of the new Ratio fundamentalis ran from June 26th to July 7th in Rome.
Buddhists in Myanmar’s Rakhine state on Wednesday staged a protest against the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar who arrived on a fact-finding trip over alleged abuses by security forces against the Muslim Rohingya minority. Less than 100 protesters from the state's ethnic Rakhine Buddhist community shouted and held signs as UN envoy Yanghee Lee passed in her car in Sittwe, the state capital, calling her unfair and unwanted."We are strongly against the U.N.'s rights envoy visit as her reports never reflect the views of ethnic Rakhines and she is biased on the side of the Bengalis, so people are protesting," said Soe Naing from the Rakhine social network using the term “Bengali” to describe Muslim Rohingya. It is Lee's sixth visit to Myanmar to assess the human rights situation in Rakhine, Shan and Karen states. She will also visit Yangon and Naypyidaw.Lee has criticized the government's treatm...
Buddhists in Myanmar’s Rakhine state on Wednesday staged a protest against the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar who arrived on a fact-finding trip over alleged abuses by security forces against the Muslim Rohingya minority. Less than 100 protesters from the state's ethnic Rakhine Buddhist community shouted and held signs as UN envoy Yanghee Lee passed in her car in Sittwe, the state capital, calling her unfair and unwanted.
"We are strongly against the U.N.'s rights envoy visit as her reports never reflect the views of ethnic Rakhines and she is biased on the side of the Bengalis, so people are protesting," said Soe Naing from the Rakhine social network using the term “Bengali” to describe Muslim Rohingya. It is Lee's sixth visit to Myanmar to assess the human rights situation in Rakhine, Shan and Karen states. She will also visit Yangon and Naypyidaw.
Lee has criticized the government's treatment of the Rohingya minority, who face severe discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. They were the targets of intercommunal violence in 2012 that killed hundreds and drove about 140,000 predominantly Rohingya people from their homes to displacement camps, where most remain.
Last October, the army launched counterinsurgency operations in Rohingya areas after assailants presumed to be Rohingya attacked police outposts along the border with Bangladesh, killing nine officers and seizing weapons and ammunition. U.N. human rights investigators and independent rights organizations charge that soldiers and police killed and raped civilians and burned down more than 1,000 homes during the operations.
Lee is on a 12-day visit to Myanmar at the invitation of the government during which she is to discuss human rights issues with political and community leaders and civil society representatives.
Than Tun, a leader of the Rakhine Buddhist community said that after every visit to Rakhine, Lee has never reported any good thing about either Rakhine people or the Myanmar government. "What Rakhine people think about Yanghee Lee is that she is too one-sided," he said. The U.N. rights envoy will wrap up her visit on July 21 and will submit a report to the Human Rights Council in October.
Lee has been outspoken in her criticism of the government on previous visits, and recommended the establishment of a special U.N. mission primarily to investigate the problems in Rakhine. The U.N. Human Rights Council approved the mission by consensus in March and in May appointed a 3-member team to investigate the alleged abuses. In June, however, Myanmar officials announced that the mission would not be allowed into the country, insisting their own efforts to deal with the problem are adequate.
