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WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump took South Korea to task over its trade surplus with the United States on Friday, demanding renegotiation of a bilateral pact, even as the close security allies voiced joint resolve against the nuclear weapons threat from North Korea....
RIVERTON, Utah (AP) -- The parents of a Utah man imprisoned in Venezuela one year ago as of Friday fear their son will die in a Caracas jail with no relief in sight and growing volatility in the South American country....
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- Serious wounds to a soldier and a Navy SEAL who searched for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl can be used at the sentencing phase of his upcoming trial, a judge ruled Friday, giving prosecutors significant leverage to pursue stiff punishment against the soldier....
NEW YORK (AP) -- Paul Gottinger, who applied nearly a year ago to bring his Iranian fiancee to the United States so they could be married, went to bed feeling hopeless....
NEW YORK (AP) -- Police say at least two people have been shot at a New York City hospital and the gunman is still at large....
NEW YORK (AP) -- "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, a couple onscreen and off, say the White House told them a damaging National Enquirer story about their relationship would "go away" if they called the president and apologized for harsh commentary....
MOSUL, Iraq (AP) -- Hundreds of civilians fled Mosul's Old City on Friday as Iraqi forces slowly squeezed the last pockets of Islamic State resistance, and the U.N. warned that the "intense and concentrated" fighting put innocent lives in even greater danger....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Churches should have the First Amendment right to endorse political candidates and still keep their tax-free status, say House Republicans, who quietly tucked a provision into a sweeping spending bill that would deny the IRS money to enforce the 63-year-old law prohibiting such outright politicking from the pulpit....
(Vatican Radio) Educational institutions promote the “grammar of dialogue” necessary for cultural encounter and offer new responses to the challenges of our time.Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Apostolic Nuncio of the Holy See to the UN, made the comments during a high-level UN event on education.He reminded those present of the Catholic Church’s formation of generations of leaders throughout the world.“The Catholic Church has centuries of experience running institutions of education, open not only to Catholics but indeed to everyone, boys and girls, and especially founding schools throughout the world to educate the poor who otherwise would receive no education. In doing so, the Church strives to contribute to building a more united and peaceful world through the integral formation of successive generations of citizens and leaders.”Archbishop Auza said Pope Francis’ term “the grammar of dialogue” provides “the basis of encou...
(Vatican Radio) Educational institutions promote the “grammar of dialogue” necessary for cultural encounter and offer new responses to the challenges of our time.
Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Apostolic Nuncio of the Holy See to the UN, made the comments during a high-level UN event on education.
He reminded those present of the Catholic Church’s formation of generations of leaders throughout the world.
“The Catholic Church has centuries of experience running institutions of education, open not only to Catholics but indeed to everyone, boys and girls, and especially founding schools throughout the world to educate the poor who otherwise would receive no education. In doing so, the Church strives to contribute to building a more united and peaceful world through the integral formation of successive generations of citizens and leaders.”
Archbishop Auza said Pope Francis’ term “the grammar of dialogue” provides “the basis of encounter and the means of harmonizing cultural diversity”.
“Education sows hope,” he said, without which “the human person cannot live”.
Young people and educators, he concluded, “reach out in search of beauty, goodness, truth and communion with others for the common good.”
Please find below the full text of the address:
Mr. President,
Thank you for this opportunity to engage with key actors from the education community and, furthermore, in discussions about universal access to quality and equitable education and about educating children and young people concerning the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The Catholic Church has centuries of experience running institutions of education, open not only to Catholics but indeed to everyone, boys and girls, and especially founding schools throughout the world to educate the poor who otherwise would receive no education. In doing so, the Church strives to contribute to building a more united and peaceful world through the integral formation of successive generations of citizens and leaders.
Pope Francis spoke about the “right to education” when he addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2015. He said this principle “is ensured first and foremost by respecting and reinforcing the primary right of the family to educate its children, as well as the right of churches and social groups to support and assist families in the education of their children. Education conceived in this way,” he emphasized, “is the basis for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.” [1]
In order to succeed in this arduous task, it is necessary to promote a culture of encounter, which involves an authentic atmosphere of respect, esteem, sincere listening and solidarity, without the need to blur or lessen one’s identity. Such a culture is capable of responding to the many forms of violence, poverty, exploitation, discrimination, marginalization, waste and restrictions on freedom that the SDGs seek to remedy.
Within this context, educational institutions must seek to impart the “grammar of dialogue” [2] which, as Pope Francis recently affirmed, is the basis of encounter and the means of harmonizing cultural diversity. Forming new generations in this grammar of intellectual conversation, aimed at discovering the truth together, will leave students with the motivation to build bridges and find new answers to the many challenges of our time.
A few weeks ago, Pope Francis inaugurated the Vatican office of the Scholas Occurrentes Foundation, which he himself founded in 2013. The Foundation has a network of half a million schools in 190 countries, united in its core objective of promoting a “culture of encounter for peace through education, technology, art, and sport.” On that occasion, Pope Francis warned us of the danger of “elitism” in education, especially quality education. This danger is real and present, especially in places where public support for education is eroded and exclusive institutions are created by those who can afford to pay for education. [3] An “elitist education” would exacerbate inequalities, widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots, and perpetuate social and economic marginalization and the exclusion of those who have no access to education, in particular quality education.
Education sows hope. The human person cannot live without hope, a hope that education helps to generate, as students and teachers reach out in search of beauty, goodness, truth and communion with others for the common good. When educators listen to young people, and students to their professors, a more united and peaceful world that listens to the other with sensitivity and understanding becomes achievable.
Thank you, Mr. President.
[1] Pope Francis, Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization, 25 September 2015.
[2] Pope Francis, Address to the Plenary Assembly of the Congregation for Catholic Education, 9 February 2017.
[3] Pope Francis, Inauguration of the Vatican office of the Scholas Occurrentes, 9 June 2017.
Thousands of people, including Christian groups, rallied across India on June 28 to protest against mounting religious intolerance and express solidarity with the victims of hate crimes. Secular groups across India organized the protest titled "Not in My Name" to bring together thousands of Indians, including Hindus, who are against violence conducted in the name of Hinduism and patriotism. "A small group in India believe that every Indian should follow a particular culture and lifestyle dictated by them" which they project as Indian culture, Michael Williams, president of the United Christian Forum, told UCANEWS. "It cannot exist. Not in my name and not in my constitution. Do not fight this war in the name of India and Indians. You are not protecting the constitution of India by killing innocents," he said explaining the message of the protest.Holding placards and the national flag, students, artists, politicians and religious leaders gath...
Thousands of people, including Christian groups, rallied across India on June 28 to protest against mounting religious intolerance and express solidarity with the victims of hate crimes. Secular groups across India organized the protest titled "Not in My Name" to bring together thousands of Indians, including Hindus, who are against violence conducted in the name of Hinduism and patriotism.
"A small group in India believe that every Indian should follow a particular culture and lifestyle dictated by them" which they project as Indian culture, Michael Williams, president of the United Christian Forum, told UCANEWS. "It cannot exist. Not in my name and not in my constitution. Do not fight this war in the name of India and Indians. You are not protecting the constitution of India by killing innocents," he said explaining the message of the protest.
Holding placards and the national flag, students, artists, politicians and religious leaders gathered in New Delhi to take part in a silent protest. Facing the protesters was a billboard — called the Lynch Map of India — illustrating where incidents of mob lynching happened in the country since 2015.
The protests took place days after a group of Hindu men attacked 17-year-old Junaid Khan and his three brothers in an apparent row over seats, as they returned home to Khandawli village in Ballabgarh after shopping for Eid in new Delhi. One brother said the attackers accused them of carrying beef, a meat popular among many Indian Muslims but shunned by most of the country's Hindus, who revere cows as sacred. After stabbing Junaid to death on-board they threw the three others off the train some 20 kilometers from the national capital.
Police said on Thursday they arrested four men and identified the chief suspect in the killing, who had yet to be arrested. Media reports said two of the men arrested were local government employees.
"The incidents of hateful lynching exceed intolerance. What happened is really, very disturbing," Rabbi Shergill, a popular Indian singer told UCANEWS at Wednesday’s protest site in New Delhi. Shergill said all Indians should "challenge and stand against these atrocities." More protests are scheduled to be held in other parts of the country in the coming days.
Since 2015, many people across the country have fallen victim to incidents of mob lynching related to religious intolerance, that commonly results over petty issues. Recently, there has been a surge in cases of public lynching by self-styled ‘gau rakshaks’ or ‘cow protectors’ in different parts of the country over beef eating and cow smuggling or slaughtering, with Muslims and Dalits among the victims. The slaughter of cows and the possession or consumption of beef is banned in most Indian states, with some imposing life sentences for breaking the law.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, under whose right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government, incidents of intolerance have been surging, broke his silence for the first time this year on Thursday over the lynchings. “Killing people in the name of ‘gau bhakti’ [cow devotion] is not acceptable,” Modi said a day after the nationwide “Not in My Name” protests. “This is not something Mahatma Gandhi would approve. It is not the message that Vinobha Bhave’s life would give us,” he said in a public address marking the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi’s Sabarmati ashram in Gujarat. Last year, Modi criticized the vigilantes and urged a crackdown against groups using religion as a cover for committing crimes, but such incidents have continued.
Hours before Modi appealed against such killing, a Muslim, Asgar Ali was beaten to death at Ramgarh, 60 kms from Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand state, where the government is headed by BJP chief minister, Raghubar Das.
Leading rights watchdog Amnesty International has also called on the Indian government to ensure there is no impunity for those responsible for public lynching and other hate crimes against Muslims. “The pattern of hate crimes committed against Muslims with seeming impunity - many of them in states where the Bharatiya Janata Party is in power - is deeply worrying,” said Aakar Patel, Executive Director, Amnesty International India. “Unfortunately both the Prime Minister and various Chief Ministers have done little to show that they disapprove of this violence,” he said on Wednesday. The group noted that since April 2017, at least ten Muslim men have been lynched or killed in public in suspected hate crimes, amid a rising tide of Islamophobia in the country. (Source: UCAN/…)
