Catholic News 2

People struck by Hansen’s disease, or leprosy, were the subject of an international conference in Rome last week.  Jointly organized by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Healthcare Workers and a number of charitable foundations and organizations, the June 9-10th conference brought together leading experts in treating and caring for those with Hansen’s disease from across the world to discuss the theme, “Towards Holistic Care for People with Hansen’s Disease, Respectful of their Dignity.” 

Although curable, around 200,000 new cases of Hansen’s disease are diagnosed each year worldwide and this has a devastating impact on their social and economic future, forcing patients, sometimes with their entire family, to live on the margins of society.  The disfiguring yet curable disease is still very prevalent in many poor areas of the world, especially in India, Brazil and Indonesia.   

Among those participating in the conference was Indian priest Fr. Arputham Arulsamy, assistant director of the Catholic Health Association of India or CHAI. In an interview to Vatican Radio, Fr. Arulsamy spoke about the situation of Hansen’s disease in India.  He began talking about his experience at the Vatican conference. 

Linsten: 

Full Article

Istanbul, Turkey, Jun 16, 2016 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- While the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople maintains the “pan-Orthodox Council” scheduled to begin on Sunday will take place, the gathering is in disarray after four Eastern Orthodox Churches announced they would not be taking part.

The Holy and and Great Council, as it is officially known, was meant to gather the bishops of the 14 autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Churches to discuss the mission of Orthodoxy in today's world; the Orthodox diaspora; ecclesial autonomy; the importance of fasting; the relations of Orthodoxy with the rest of Christianity; and the sacrament of marriage.

It is scheduled to be held in Crete beginning June 19 – Pentecost in the Julian calendar – and ending June 26.  

But in recent weeks, four of the Churches – the Russian, Georgian, Bulgarian, and Antiochian Orthodox Churches – have announced they will not take part in the council. A fifth, the Serbian Orthodox Church, had made such an announcement, but decided June 15 that it would, in fact, participate.

Each of the Churchs has given its own reasons for defecting from the council, but they focus on the wording of preparatory documents issues of jurisdiction.

The Patriarchate of Antioch has broken communion with the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, because the latter appointed a metropolitan bishop in Qatar, which Antioch claims as part of its terrority. Moreover, it had failed to sign the preparatory document on the sacrament of marriage and its impediments.

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church withdrew June 3 because it is highly critical of several passages of the preparatory document on the relations of the Orthodox Church with the rest of the Christian world. The Bulgarian patriarchate maintains that the ecumenical document errs theologically because it acknowledges that there are other Christian Churches – not merely confessions – which are not in communion with Orthodoxy.

The Patriarchate of Georgia followed suit with the Bulgarians, and also objected to the preparatory document on marriage.

And the Serbian Orthodox Church at first joined the dissidents, but on June 15 changed course and announced it would, in fact, take part in the council.

The Russian Orthodox Church – which is the largest of the patriarchates – held a synod June 13 to discuss the developments, and issued a statement joining with the abstaining patriarchates, and proposing that the pan-Orthodox Council be postponed.

“The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church noted that the non-participation of even one of the universally recognized autocephalous Orthodox Churches in the Council ‘constitutes an unsurmountable obstacle for holding a Holy and Great Council’”, the statement says.

The statement also read that if the request of postponing the meeting was not accepted “by the Most Holy Church of Constantinople while the Council on Crete is still convened despite the absence of the consent of several Local Orthodox Churches, the participation of the delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church in it, with profound regret, be considered impossible.”

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of Russian Orthodoxy's department of external Church relations, also made it clear that “all the Churches must take part in the pan-Orthodox Council, and only in this case will the decisions made at the council be legitimate.”

That the Russian patriarchate moved only after the other Churches had made their decision has led some observers to believe that the last-minute abstentions were orchestrated by Moscow in order to bolster its importance within Eastern Orthodoxy.

Russian Orthodoxy claims most of the adherents (150 million), and the wealth, of Eastern Orthodoxy, but it ranks fifth among the patriarchates – while the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is quite small, and relatively poor, yet is “first among equals.”

Given its prominence and independence – Constantinople having been taken over by the Muslim Ottoman empire in 1453 – Moscow considers itself the “third Rome,” and the guardian of Orthodoxy. Much of the squabble over the pan-Orthodox Council may then be seen as part of a power play between Moscow and Constantinople.

Athenagoras Fasiolo, an Italian archimandrite of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, noted that behind the request to postpone the council, one can glimpse Russian resentment toward its place among the patriarchates, and that “perhaps it is trying to degrade the role of the Ecumenical Patriarch, not by chance pressuring the Churches that are linked by tradition or historical need to the Russian world.”

The archimandrite then underscored that “Moscow wants to be the third Rome, despite the fact that no one has acknowledged this title. It perceives itself as an imperial reality, but it is certainly not ecumenical in the real sense of the word.”

In the end, the Russian patriarchate consider itself the representative of many people “because of its political history (Peter the Great, the Czarist empire, the Soviet Empire), and not because of its ecclesiastical conscience,” Archimandrite Athenagoras said.

How is it that the pan-Orthodox Council risks failure, despite all the preparation that have gone into it? The most immediate preliminary meeting was held in Switzerland in January, but preparations have stretched back to a pan-Orthodox Conference held at Rhodes in 1961.

The January meeting in Switzerland saw lively discussion, but the unanimous approval of five documents for discussion at the council, and the approval, albeit not unanimous, of a document on marriage.

The documents that failed to receive approval regarded more controvesial topics: autocephaly; the order of eminence among the patriarchates, and the adoption of a common calendar.

Despite the hiccups in arranging the pan-Orthodox Council, Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarch, seems confident that it will yet take place.

In his letter of June 9, he wrote that “its postponement or breakdown at the twelfth hour, after decades of preparations, will compromise our Orthodox Church at the inter-church and international level and inflict an irreparable damage on her authority.”

Full Article

IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Meeting with acrobats, clowns, carnival workers, street performers, musicians and magicians, Pope Francis thanked the artists for bringing beauty and joy to an often dark, sad world.

"You cannot imagine what good you do, the good you sow," he said June 16 during a special audience celebrating the jubilee of circus and traveling-show performers.

While they may never know the impact they truly have on people, "you can be sure," he said, that "you sow these seeds that do many people good."

Hundreds of performers, family members and supporters gathered in the Paul VI hall as part of a two-day pilgrimage to Rome for the Year of Mercy.

Even a tiny black panther cub and a rather large six-month-old tiger attended the papal audience.

To the tune of "O Sole Mio" played by an organ grinder, an animal wrangler used a baby bottle filled with milk to lure the leashed tiger toward the pope, who was invited to pet the enormous cat.

Looking hesitant at first, the pope approached and touched the animal from behind, which caused the skittish cat to dart sideways in surprise.

After assistants helped reassure both pope and feline, Pope Francis stroked the tiger, who was still straining to drink the last of its milk. The event's ringmaster and MC said the pope's white clothing is what caught the cat off-guard.

In his talk, the pope noted the performers' special ability to bring a smile to a child's face, brighten a lonely person's day and draw people closer together.

"You can also frighten the pope" when petting a tiger, he said. "You are powerful!" he said to great applause.

Calling them "artisans" of wonder, beauty and celebration, he praised their abilities to lift people's spirits and offer communities "healthy entertainment."

The often difficult life of being on the road was "a special resource," he said, because it meant they -- like Christ -- could bring God's love, joy and embrace to even greater numbers of people, especially those on the margins of society.

He thanked them for offering shows and free admission to the poor, the homeless, prisoners and disadvantaged kids during the Year of Mercy.

"This, too, is mercy: sowing beauty and happiness in a world (that is) sometimes gloomy and sad."

The pope urged local parishes to reach out to traveling performers, offering them the sacraments and eliminating prejudicial attitudes that marginalize them. He also invited the entertainers to deepen their faith, especially by handing on God's love to their children and others.

Also showcasing their talents for the pope were: the Black Blues Brothers troupe -- five Kenyan acrobats wearing suits, hats and ties, who performed towering human pyramids; and Bruno Leone, dressed as the Neapolitan "Punch" character, who performed a puppet show reenacting the story and beheading of St. Januarius.

- - -

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.

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

(Vatican Radio) After the mass killing of 49 people by a sole gunman in a nightclub that caters for the homosexual community in Orlando,Florida, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein - the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights - has urged the United States to adopt robust gun control measures to pre-empt further killings

He said the U.S. leadership needs to live up to its obligations to protect its citizens from the “horrifyingly commonplace but preventable violent attacks that are the direct result of insufficient gun control.”

Listen to the report by Peter Kenny in Geneva:

Quoting Zeid, UNHCR spokesman Rupert Colville said it is hard to find a rational justification that explains the ease with which people can buy firearms. People can buy assault rifles in spite of prior criminal backgrounds, drug use, histories of domestic violence and mental illness, or direct contact with extremists – both domestic and foreign. 

Zeid asked: “How many more mass killings of school-children, of co-workers, of African-American churchgoers - how many more individual shootings of talented musicians like Christina Grimmie, or politicians like Gabrielle Giffords, will it take before the United States adopts robust gun regulation? Why should any civilian anywhere be able to acquire an assault rifle or other high-powered weapons designed to kill lots of people?” 

The UN right chief noted that irresponsible pro-gun propaganda suggests that firearms make society safer, when all evidence points to the contrary.

Full Article

(Vatican Radio) Two events will take place in Rome next week looking at the value of disabled people in culture and in the study of theology.

The Vatican ‘s Pontifical Council for Culture along with the Kairos Forum will be sponsoring an academic symposium and a conference entitled, Living Fully 2016.

The aim of both these gatherings is to celebrate the lives and stories of disabled people within culture and faith and introduces the study of disability theology from within a cultural perspective.

This celebration of disability follows a highly successful Jubilee for the Sick and the Disabled that also took place in Rome recently, in which Pope Francis championed the importance of diversity and inclusion.

Cristina Gangemi, is a disability advisor to the Bishops Conference of England and Wales and the Director of the Kairos Forum which seeks to highlight and respond to the spiritual and religious needs of people with disabilities.

She will be participating in both events and spoke to Lydia O’Kane about why it was important to have the symposium and conference at this time in Rome.

Listen to the interview

“It just seemed that it was time here in Rome to put some sort of event on that gathered the stories and noted the stories and experiences of other people all over the world that have been doing very similar activities and similar things in their own countries”, she said.

She added, “it really is time, I think, for the Catholic Church to put its teaching on the human person on the stage and celebrate it, but do that through the lens of the life and the personhood of disabled people.”

Cristina also underlined that for those working in the field of disability theology including herself, this has been a time of rediscovering just how amazing Jesus was. “When we look at how Jesus approached disability, he excluded nobody, he treated them no differently to anybody else and his whole ministry every single day, instead of leaving disabled people on the side of the road…he embraced them, met them, talked with them, asked them what they wanted and transformed their lives in exactly the same way he did everybody else”.

During these Rome events a charter for change will be given to each delegate, who will in turn take it’s inspiring message of belonging, value and welcome, back to their own country.

Living Fully 2016; Embracing the gifts of all people, especially people who live with Disability runs from the 23rd to the 26th June.

Full Article