Catholic News 2

(VATICAN RADIO) French drug company Sanofi said on Wednesday it had struck a research deal with the U.S. Army to speed up the development of a vaccine against the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

Sanofi is the only major drug company working on a vaccine against Zika, which has been linked to birth defects and neurological disorders.

Katie Ascough spoke with John Heinrichs, Associate Vice President at Sanofi Pasteur, to get the latest details on the development of this important new vaccine.

Listen: 

“The Zika virus…was identified in 1947 in Africa and for many decades circulated throughout Africa causing only very mild disease. But in the last several years the virus [has] spread out of Africa…”

When asked why Zika has only recently been such a widespread problem, Dr. Heinrichs admitted:  “We really don’t know is the short answer to that”. He then explained how industrialisation in regions of Africa has led to a closer proximity of humans with the traditional host of the Zika virus, a type of monkey, and how that may have led to the Zika epidemic.

As for prevention of infection and spreading of Zika, Dr. Heinrichs logically recommends avoiding the mosquito bite in the first place. Recommended are long-sleeve clothing and insect repellent.

Concerning the progress of Sanofi in finding a vaccine for Zika, Dr. Heinrichs says:  “We believe that the first vaccines…will enter into clinical studies toward the later part of this year…and we expect to see some early results from those trials very early in 2017 but…it will be some time before we have a vaccine that has demonstrated efficacy and is actually rolled out and available to the population that needs it in those regions.”

Commenting on what can be hoped for from the recent research and development agreement of Sanofi Pasteur with the U.S. Army, Dr. Heinrichs said:  “We entered into this partnership because we believe that their vaccine is a very rapid approach [and has worked in the past]…We bring into that collaboration the ability to manufacture the vaccine in scale and a lot of expertise in developing vaccines and formulation and delivery of those vaccines. So because of that partnership we’re very able to quickly respond and to bring that vaccine into larger clinical studies…

Because we have licensed recently a Dengue vaccine in the same regions of the world where Zika is causing epidemic currently, we have the connections, the clinical experience, [and] access to the ministries of health in countries such as Brazil.”

Responding to a question about how Zika may affect the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, Dr. Heinrichs replied:  “Clearly it’s a concern in Brazil and everyone has to make that decision based on their own status in life and how they perceive the risk. How it will affect the Olympics is really beyond my expertise.”

With the increasing hype around antibiotic resistance and the emergence of an E.Coli superbug in the U.S., Katie asked Dr. Heinrichs if viral resistance to vaccines was something to be worried about. Dr Heinrichs reassured:  “Currently there only appears to be a single serotype of Zika virus. That means that a vaccine developed for Zika should be able to neutralize or protect against all the strains that are circulating. [That is, Zika should not like be as difficult as, for example, the rapidly mutating HIV virus].”

To conclude the interview, Dr. Heinrichs stated:  “I’m very optimistic that a vaccine developed for Zika will be highly effective and will be able to protect throughout the world.”

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Roswell, Ga., Jul 8, 2016 / 01:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Millennials. They’re the smartphone-loving group of 18 to 34 year-olds who belong to the selfie generation, known for their pronounced diversity, connectivity, and ability to self-express.

According to Pew Research, they are also a generation whose majority - about 80 percent - will abandon their Catholic faith by age 23, which is why Catholics Come Home has singled out the nation’s largest living generation in their newest ad campaigns, or what they call “evangomercials.”

“We took to heart numerous studies showing that American millennials are struggling with addictions, suicide, out-of-wedlock births, joblessness, and other significant life challenges at catastrophic rates,” stated Tom Peterson, the Catholics Come Home founder and president, in a recent press release.

Catholics Come Home is an online evangelization resource aimed at reaching out to those who have lost their faith or who have no religious beliefs. They offer numerous tools on their website and have helped more than 500,000 people return to the Catholic faith since 1998.

Catering to what they call “a young and diverse generation,” Catholics Come Home recently collaborated with other Catholic organizations to create a series of ads and a new website that will encourage millennials to ask “is there something more?”

“I’m in a good place in my life. And I’m energized by new adventures,” young people say in one of the ads. “I’ve got friends to laugh with, and a good relationship. But even though I’m kind of comfortable, I sometimes wonder, ‘Is there something more?’”

“We are a young and diverse generation, helping those in need and promoting human rights,” another ad says. “We care for the environment, we embrace authentic witnesses and dream of a better world. Our passion comes from God, who loves us even when we fall, and cheers on our victories.”

The ads then invite those watching to see if God and the Church are what they are seeking, by visiting the Catholics Come Home website.

The commercials, including “Something More” and “Epic 2.0,” will air on television, radio, and other media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, with the goal of encouraging millennials to return to the faith.

“Our hope is to reduce these disheartening statistics,” Peterson said, “and guide young adults towards healthier, joy-filled lifestyles by introducing them to – or reminding them of – the importance of faith.”

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Vatican City, Jul 11, 2016 / 02:28 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Greg Burke, the former American journalist and communications adviser for the Vatican, has been named the new director of the Holy See press office, it was announced Monday. The new vice-director will be Spaniard Paloma García Ovejero, the first woman ever to be appointed to the position.  

Burke received the appointment from Pope Francis after the current director, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., submitted his resignation to the pontiff, the Holy See press office said in a July 11 press release.

“The purpose of my work is very clear: to serve the Pope,” Burke told journalists after the July 11 announcement was made. Francis had said he had “prayed on this appointment,” Burke recounted of his meeting with the pontiff.

Although the appointment was not unexpected, the Missouri native later told CNA it was “an honor to have been given this trust of the Pope.”  Burke went on to express his gratitude to Fr. Lombardi -- who served as director for ten years -- and lauded him for his “dedication, generosity, kindness, and patience.”

“It’s a long list of virtues, so I hope to pick up part of that,” Burke said.

Remarking on being the first woman to hold the position of vice-director, Ovejero told CNA the appointment felt “natural.”

“I’m the first woman: okay,” she said. “Isn’t the Virgin Mary the first woman in the Church? (Aren't) the women those who ran to announce the resurrection? So it seems to be very natural. We like to announce great news. Let’s do it!”

As vice-director of the Holy See press office under the pontificate of Pope Francis, the task is to “try to transmit exactly what he wants to say,” Ovejero said. “That’s my service, that’s my point. Not to invent, not do it (beautifully): just, what he says, what he wants to say, what he wants the world to know.”

In February of this year, Greg Burke was named vice-director of the Holy See press office where he worked under Fr. Lombardi, amid ongoing reforms by the Vatican Secretariat for Communications. Since 2012, Burke has been the senior communications adviser to the Vatican Secretary of State.

Born Nov. 8, 1959 in St. Louis to a Catholic family, Burke graduated in 1983 from New York's Colombia University with a degree in comparative literature, with a specialization in journalism.

Burke, who is also a member of Opus Dei, has written for a range of publications, including Reuters and the National Catholic Register. He began working for the prestigious Time magazine in 1990, and was a correspondent when John Paul II was named the magazine's “person of the year” in 1994. Starting in 2001, Burke became Fox News' correspondent in Rome, a position he held until his 2012 appointment as communications adviser to the Vatican.

The newly-named vice-director of the Holy See press office, Paloma García Ovejero, has worked as a correspondent in Italy and the Vatican since 2012 for the Spanish radio station, Cadena Cope, Radio Española, among other agencies.

Born Aug. 12, 1975 in Madrid, Ovejero received a degree in journalism from Complutense University of Madrid in 1998, followed by a masters in Basque studies in 2001. In 2006, she earned a specialization in Management Strategies and Communication from New York University.

Starting in 1998, she worked as editor and anchorwoman of Cadena Cope, Radio Española.

Between Burke and Ovejero, the director and vice-director are fluent in Italian, Spanish, French, English, and Chinese.

The new appointments will take effect Aug. 1.

Mary Shovlain contributed to this article.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Rebecca Cook, Reuters

By Mark Pattison

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- When the news revealed the drinking water in Flint, Michigan, was contaminated by lead, affecting roughly 100,000 people in the city and nearby areas, attention rightly focused on a staggering public health crisis.

However, the crisis may not be Flint's and Flint's alone. According to a report issued June 28 by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an estimated 18 million Americans are at risk of drinking lead-tainted water yet not know it.

One need not look further than Flint to see what the future could portend.

Months after the Flint water scandal broke, Catholic Charities of Shiawassee and Genesee Counties (the latter includes Flint and vicinity) continues to seek for water donations.

"Community members can do their part to provide relief by donating cases or gallons of water, water filters and replacement filters, cash or checks," says Catholic Charities' website. "If you would like to make a donation of bottled water, please note that we can only accept full cases of commercially packaged water or commercially sealed gallon containers of water."

Two Catholic Charities locations in Flint are pickup sites for water every weekday. 

A Catholic church in Detroit, itself having seen tough financial times, asked Massgoers June 26 to contribute $3 to buy a case of water, with cases to be delivered to Flint. Earlier this year, the pastor and parishioners of St. Michael Byzantine Catholic Parish in Flushing, Michigan, partnered with Catholic Charities and other churches and organizations in helping Flint with immediate needs, through monetary donations, cases or gallons of water, water filtration kits, and replacement filters.

Even though state and city officials proclaimed in late June that filtered Flint water is safe to drink and use, one can understand the wariness of residents who have been subjected to foul-looking and foul-tasting water coming out of their taps since fall 2014.

The scandal has already brought indictments and the expectation of more, as well as calls for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to resign, as well as congressional hearings and demands that federal Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy resign.

By the Natural Resources Defense Council's calculations, there are 5,000 water systems in the country that could have tainted water, but either the EPA doesn't report it or the water utility never tells the EPA, according to Erik Olson, director of the council's health program. He made the remarks during a June 28 conference call with reporters on the study, "What's in Your Water: Beyond Flint."

The council, a New York-based environmental advocacy group, is a party to a lawsuit to get a federal court to order that Flint residents be provided safe drinking water. Other plaintiffs include Concerned Pastors for Social Action and the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan. Defendants include state and city officials, including state appointed emergency managers of the fiscally troubled city.

Flint "doesn't even show up with lead violations in the federal government database that is supposed to show such problems," Olson said.

"There were more than a thousand water systems that serve 3.9 million people that showed lead levels at 15 parts per billion. That's the level that triggers action -- or is supposed to, at least," he added, under the federal Safe Water Drinking Act.

Water utilities, according to Olson, can pull a variety of tricks to fool federal authorities about lead that would make a Volkswagen diesel engineer blush. They test at preselected taps, and not random taps as they are supposed to; they test at service lines they know do not have lead, which also is against the rules; they remove the faucets' aerators, which can allow lead to circulate more freely; they run the taps slowly, as turning taps on high also can dislodge lead; or they use collection bottles with narrow openings, which would require a slow-running tap to capture the water.

Kristi Pullen-Fedinick, a member of the Natural Resources Defense Council's health program, who assisted in the writing of the group's report, said utilities can be found in violation of federal water regulations one of three ways: health-based violations, when utility systems are not doing everything they're required to do to protect the public; the monitoring of violations, when they fail to monitor water for lead; and the reporting of violations, in which they fail to report lead or other contamination.

It can be a logistical and public relations headache for utilities to deal with lead issues, especially when there's no guarantee they'll have the funds to make the fixes, Olson acknowledged. Even though "we've known since Roman times that lead was dangerous," he added, the lead industry of a century or more ago convinced municipalities that lead was "a preferred material."

Olson and Pullen-Fedinick mentioned Pope Francis' 2015 encyclical "Laudato Si'" and its effect on moving the needle on how people think about the environment.

"I know there's certainly been a lot of emphasis on that in the climate context. I haven't heard the Holy Father's encyclical being cited in the water context," Olson said. "But there's been some change in views on lead service lines. I think that's a fairly recent thing. Maybe the encyclical expedited it. But 25 years ago there was no mention of it at all."

In "Laudato Si'" Pope Francis "addresses who we need to consider: the poor and the outcast. The issue that we're seeing with contamination is that it particularly falls on low-income communities or communities of color," Pullen-Fedinick said, adding the encyclical points out the need of "coming to that consensus and really trying to protect those most in need of protection."

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Illinois, who joined the conference call briefly, said clean water is "a public health issue of the highest magnitude," adding he is co-sponsoring legislation to address the matter.

"We can no longer sit idly by. Flint was the wake-up call," Durbin said. "Cities by themselves can't (ensure clean water). States by themselves can't. The fed government by itself can't. It requires a coordinated effort."

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Follow Pattison on Twitter: @MeMarkPattison.

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Copyright © 2016 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Junno Arocho Esteves

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis named two experienced journalists -- including its first female vice director -- to lead the Vatican press office.

Greg Burke, a native of St. Louis, succeeds Italian Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, who retires after 10 years as head of the Vatican press office, the Vatican announced July 11. Spanish journalist Paloma Garcia Ovejero fills in Burke's spot as vice director, making her the first female to hold that position.

Burke served as special communications adviser in the Vatican's Secretariat of State starting in 2012 before he was named by Pope Francis as the vice director of the press office last December.

A graduate of Columbia University's school of journalism, Burke spent 24 of his past 28 years based in Rome as a journalist -- with the National Catholic Register, Time magazine and the Fox News network.

The middle child of six, Burke grew up in St. Louis Hills and went to Jesuit-run St. Louis University High School. He is a numerary member of Opus Dei.

Msgr. Dario Vigano, prefect of the Vatican's Secretariat of Communications, paid tribute to Father Lombardi's 10 years of service at the press office.

Speaking to journalists July 11, Msgr. Vigano praised Father Lombardi's professional work and his "ecclesial vision" of the church.

Born in northern Italy near Turin in 1942, Father Lombardi was named program director of Vatican Radio in 1990 and general director of the Vatican television center, CTV, in 2001.

During the reorganization of Vatican offices under Pope Benedict XVI, Father Lombardi was appointed general director of the radio in 2005 and head of the Vatican press office in 2006, while continuing to lead CTV. Before his retirement in 2013, Pope Benedict named Msgr. Vigano the new director of CTV.

Father Lombardi retired as head of Vatican Radio in February this year when the Secretariat for Communications took over the general administration of the radio.

Garcia Ovejero, who studied journalism in Spain and earned a masters degree in management strategies and communications at New York University, worked as the Italy and Vatican correspondent for Spanish radio broadcaster Cadena COPE.

"For me it's an honor, it's a service and it's another way of serving the church. But it is the same church and, in some way, the same type of work: to proclaim the Good News and to transmit faithfully and with dignity the pope's message," Garcia Ovejero told Catholic News Service.

The Spanish journalist downplayed her role as the first female vice director of the press office, saying that the first women who served the church "were the ones who found the empty tomb and proclaimed the Resurrection to the apostles."

"I am in no way the first woman. The first woman above all in the church, in the Vatican and in the press office is the Virgin Mary," she told CNS.

Garcia Ovejero said she hoped her role will be to serve and fulfill "the will of God, the will of the pope and, in every possible way, the will of the journalists."

The Vatican announced that Garcia Ovejero, a native of Madrid, and Burke will begin their respective roles Aug. 1.

In Washington, Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, congratulated all three and thanked Father Lombardi for helping to "spread the Gospel throughout the world across two pontificates."

"I was especially grateful to have learned not only from his media expertise but also his deep love for the church during the six days we spent together as Pope Francis visited the United States," the archbishop said.

He said Burke was "long known to us in the United States as a devoted man of the church and an unparalleled communicator."

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Follow Arocho on Twitter: @arochoju.

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Copyright © 2016 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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