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WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court in Washington ruled Monday that the head of the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped his authority in trying to delay implementation of an Obama administration rule requiring oil and gas companies to monitor and reduce methane leaks....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Whether by whim or design, President Donald Trump keeps adding fuel to his incendiary Twitter battle against the media. The press is an easy target for the Republican president, and one his supporters love to hate....
HOUSTON (AP) -- Rolando Arriaza has visited hospitals, morgues and even the harsh, mesquite-covered terrain in South Texas that his brother trekked nearly two years ago after illegally crossing into the U.S. - all as part of an ongoing effort to find his sibling's remains and bring his family closure....
Nigerian parents are up in arms against a Nigerian Social Studies textbook used for learners in the first year of Junior Secondary School (JSS 1). According to the parents represented by the Association of Concerned Mothers (ASCOM), the Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) being offered to their children, in school, is nothing but the promotion of an “unwholesome and dangerous ideology.” “Research has clearly shown that CSE is one of the most insidious attacks on the safety, health and innocence of our children. CSE claims to have an evidence-informed approach to effective sex, relationships and HIV/STI education. However, this ideology, which is already in use in government schools and some private schools in our country, promotes such things as abortion, homosexuality, masturbation and other controversial sexual ideologies to our children as young as eight years,” say Ngozi Agu and Chinelo Ujubuoñu of ASCOM.Parents find particul...
Nigerian parents are up in arms against a Nigerian Social Studies textbook used for learners in the first year of Junior Secondary School (JSS 1). According to the parents represented by the Association of Concerned Mothers (ASCOM), the Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) being offered to their children, in school, is nothing but the promotion of an “unwholesome and dangerous ideology.”
“Research has clearly shown that CSE is one of the most insidious attacks on the safety, health and innocence of our children. CSE claims to have an evidence-informed approach to effective sex, relationships and HIV/STI education. However, this ideology, which is already in use in government schools and some private schools in our country, promotes such things as abortion, homosexuality, masturbation and other controversial sexual ideologies to our children as young as eight years,” say Ngozi Agu and Chinelo Ujubuoñu of ASCOM.
Parents find particularly offensive page 50 of the book authored by S. O. Omotuyole. They claim the textbook sexualizes children. The Association has written to the Federal Minister of Education to withdraw the book. They are also unhappy with the Gender education in the Nigerian school curriculum.
Education in Nigeria is overseen by the Ministry of Education. Local authorities take responsibility for implementing the policy for state-controlled public education and state schools at a regional level. Students spend six years in Secondary School, that is three years of Junior Secondary School (JSS).
The Association of Concerned Mothers (ASCOM) is a registered NGO promoting family values and creating awareness of the rights and duties of parents in Nigeria. The Association also carries out activities focusing on the family and the moral education of children.
(Email: engafrica@vatiradio.va)
Athens, Greece, Jul 3, 2017 / 11:21 am (Church Pop).- Pope Francis has donated 50 thousand euros to the island of Lesbos, Greece, which is recovering from a June earthquake.The donation comes just a few days after the Holy Father received a full report on the extent of the damage.Archbishop Nikolaos Printezis, Bishop of Naxos, Andros, Tinos and Mykonos, said the Pope's donation was a sign of the closeness of the Pontiff to the people who have suffered the consequences of the earthquake.On June 12, a powerful earthquake measuring 6.3 hit the western coast of Turkey and the Greek island of Lesbos , killing one person, displacing approximately 800, and destroying infrastructure from the Turkish Aegean province, Izmir, to the Greek capital, Athens.The earthquake's epicenter was located about 50 miles northwest of the Turkish coastal city of Smyrna and nine miles south of Lesbos, according to the European Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC).Pope Francis vis...
Athens, Greece, Jul 3, 2017 / 11:21 am (Church Pop).- Pope Francis has donated 50 thousand euros to the island of Lesbos, Greece, which is recovering from a June earthquake.
The donation comes just a few days after the Holy Father received a full report on the extent of the damage.
Archbishop Nikolaos Printezis, Bishop of Naxos, Andros, Tinos and Mykonos, said the Pope's donation was a sign of the closeness of the Pontiff to the people who have suffered the consequences of the earthquake.
On June 12, a powerful earthquake measuring 6.3 hit the western coast of Turkey and the Greek island of Lesbos , killing one person, displacing approximately 800, and destroying infrastructure from the Turkish Aegean province, Izmir, to the Greek capital, Athens.
The earthquake's epicenter was located about 50 miles northwest of the Turkish coastal city of Smyrna and nine miles south of Lesbos, according to the European Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC).
Pope Francis visited the island of Lesbos in 2016, as it is a main point of entry for thousands of refugees fleeing violence in places such as Iraq and Syria.
During that trip, Pope Francis brought back 12 Syrian refugees with him, selected by lottery, including six children. Their homes had been bombed, and the Vatican oversaw their resettlement.
Currently, there are 3,500 migrants on Lesbos awaiting the outcome of asylum applications or deportation. According to the New York Times, aid workers reported no damage or injuries at the refugee camps due to the earthquake.
In the coming days a Vatican representative will visit Lesbos and deliver the money donated by the Pope.
IMAGE: CNS photo/Bob RollerBy Dennis SadowskiORLANDO, Fla. (CNS) -- Being Christian is more than accepting Jesus as savior, but requires the faithful to go to the peripheries of society where people are struggling materially and spiritually, Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles told the "Convocation of Catholic Leaders: The Joy of the Gospel in America.""Jesus calls us to follow him. That is an action, a decision that implies a way of life," Archbishop Gomez said during a plenary session July 3, the third day of the convocation.He said Pope Francis has focused the mission of the church on going to people on the sidelines of society, he said, calling it a responsibility not just for bishops, clergy and church professionals, but for the entire church.The pope, the archbishop explained, sees the peripheries as both a physical place and existential. They are places that reflect a society that has determined that some people can be pushed aside or discarded."They are places on a map,...
IMAGE: CNS photo/Bob Roller
By Dennis Sadowski
ORLANDO, Fla. (CNS) -- Being Christian is more than accepting Jesus as savior, but requires the faithful to go to the peripheries of society where people are struggling materially and spiritually, Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles told the "Convocation of Catholic Leaders: The Joy of the Gospel in America."
"Jesus calls us to follow him. That is an action, a decision that implies a way of life," Archbishop Gomez said during a plenary session July 3, the third day of the convocation.
He said Pope Francis has focused the mission of the church on going to people on the sidelines of society, he said, calling it a responsibility not just for bishops, clergy and church professionals, but for the entire church.
The pope, the archbishop explained, sees the peripheries as both a physical place and existential. They are places that reflect a society that has determined that some people can be pushed aside or discarded.
"They are places on a map, places where people live. The peripheries are parts of our cities and the rural areas that we never visit. The other side of the tracks. They are where the poor live. They are the prisons and the tent cities in our public spaces. The peripheries are the bitter fruits of neglect, exploitation and injustice. They are all the places our society is ashamed of and would rather forget about," he said.
"But for Pope Francis, the peripheries are more than a physical location or a social category. They are places where poverty is not only material but also spiritual," he said.
The archbishop called such locations places where people "are wounded and feel their life has no meaning and makes no difference," trapping themselves in sin, addiction, slavery and self-deception.
"The pope is saying these peripheries are growing in the modern world and these peripheries are new mission territory," he explained.
Archbishop Gomez, vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, admitted some of these places are "where the church does not like to go, where we do not like to go." Yet, he reminded the 3,500 delegates, Jesus is at the margins, and that as people of faith, they are invited to go where Jesus exists.
"The church has always been present in the peripheries, through our schools, our parishes and our ministries. Sometimes we are the only ones serving these communities. But we can do better, we are called to do more. That is our challenge," Archbishop Gomez said.
He also blamed "elites" for undertaking an "aggressive 'de-Christianization' of our society" to cause people to "'un-remember' our Christian roots and deconstruct everything that was built on these roots."
"With the loss of God, we are witnessing the loss of the human person," he said.
Archbishop Gomez pointed to American society as a prime example of where the need to minister on the margins is vital, especially because families are breaking down and communities are experiencing instability.
"This is one of the lessons from the last election, wasn't it? America is pulling apart. We are a people divided along lines of money and race, education and family backgrounds. People are afraid of the future. They feel powerless and excluded," he told the convocation.
The archbishop urged that such concerns be addressed by the church and the faithful, through being a presence to those in need to help bridge the widening gaps between people.
The answer to such concerns rests with imitating Jesus and meeting people at the "places of pain and injustice, to the places where people forgotten and along."
"Siempre adelante," he said in Spanish. "Always forward."
Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, in an address opening the plenary session, suggested to the delegates that if they "go deep enough into the peripheries, we will see the boundaries between us disappear."
He said Pope Francis and his predecessors, Pope Benedict XVI and St. John Paul II, have urged action for society's forgotten communities. He suggested marginalized people can be as close as the person next door.
Pope Francis asks the church to reach out "in joy in a permanent state of mission," Anderson said. "This great task is for each of us."
A panel discussion during the same session addressed several examples of the church working in the peripheries of the world including ministry with African-American Catholics; the work of Catholic Relief Services in more than 160 countries; care for immigrants along the border in the Rio Grande Valley in the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas; ministry to people with same-sex attraction; and the use of social media as a tool to reach youth and young adults.
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Follow Sadowski on Twitter: @DennisSadowski.
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