Catholic News 2
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate's leading Republican voices on national security are assembling an indictment of Donald Trump's worldview by soliciting rebuttals from U.S. military leaders that challenge the accuracy and legality of the GOP presidential front-runner's most provocative foreign policy positions....
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea on Saturday fired what appeared to be a ballistic missile from a submarine off its northeast coast, South Korean defense officials said, Pyongyang's latest effort to expand its military might in the face of pressure by its neighbors and Washington....
One year after the Burundi crisis began, almost 260,000 people have fled to nearby countries and thousands more are expected to do the same over the rest of the year unless a political solution is found and a descent into civil war averted. This is according to a press brief by UNHCR spokesperson, Leo Dobbs held Friday at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.“People continue to arrive in neighbouring countries, albeit in smaller numbers in recent weeks as it becomes harder to cross borders. Many asylum seekers or new arrivals report human rights abuses in Burundi, including torture, sexual violence, arbitrary detention, intimidation, forced recruitment by militia, killings and extortion. To date, 259,132 people have fled the country. UNHCR expects the figure to rise to 330,000 by year's end,” the spokesperson said.Leo Dobbs said continuing international support was needed to help ease the tension and encourage an inclusive dialogue.“With mass returns not currentl...
One year after the Burundi crisis began, almost 260,000 people have fled to nearby countries and thousands more are expected to do the same over the rest of the year unless a political solution is found and a descent into civil war averted. This is according to a press brief by UNHCR spokesperson, Leo Dobbs held Friday at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
“People continue to arrive in neighbouring countries, albeit in smaller numbers in recent weeks as it becomes harder to cross borders. Many asylum seekers or new arrivals report human rights abuses in Burundi, including torture, sexual violence, arbitrary detention, intimidation, forced recruitment by militia, killings and extortion. To date, 259,132 people have fled the country. UNHCR expects the figure to rise to 330,000 by year's end,” the spokesperson said.
Leo Dobbs said continuing international support was needed to help ease the tension and encourage an inclusive dialogue.
“With mass returns not currently expected soon, UNHCR will in the coming year put greater emphasis on education for children and youth, and encourage refugees to become self-sufficient at a time when budget shortfalls are leading to cuts in some assistance,” Dobbs said.
UNHCR is seeking almost US$175.1 million for its Burundi crisis operations this year but has received only US$47.8 million to date which translates to only 27 percent of its needs.
According to the UNHCR, “This means we are struggling to provide even the basics such as shelter, household items and latrines. The provision of services such as specialised counselling, care for the disabled and elderly, protection of the environment and even primary health care may also fall by the wayside”, Dobbs emphasised.
Burundian refugees have fled mostly to Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
An independent monitoring agency, International Crisis Group, says violence in Burundi has actually increased while the government, under international pressure, made cosmetic concessions to the opposition but continued with repression of citizens.
The crisis in Burundi was ignited when a year ago, President Pierre Nkurunziza, in office since 2005, decided to run for an unconstitutional third term. The country’s Catholic Bishops, civil society and opposition political parties denounced Nkurunziza for the move. Nonetheless, Nkurunziza went ahead with polls, boycotted by the opposition and got himself re-electd.
As the regime continues on a path of bloody repression, more than 80 people have died, thousands displaced and the country left in a virtual state of anarchy.
(UNHCR /Africa Service of Vatican Radio)
Email: engafrica@vatiradio.va
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis surprised thousands of teenagers in St. Peter's Square by personally hearing confessions for more than an hour Saturday morning.The Holy Father administered the Sacrament of Reconciliation to 16 teenage boys and girls gathered in St. Peter's Square for the Jubilee for Teens.More than 150 priests were present in the Square to hear confessions.
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis surprised thousands of teenagers in St. Peter's Square by personally hearing confessions for more than an hour Saturday morning.
The Holy Father administered the Sacrament of Reconciliation to 16 teenage boys and girls gathered in St. Peter's Square for the Jubilee for Teens.
More than 150 priests were present in the Square to hear confessions.
Rome, Italy, Apr 23, 2016 / 04:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- April 23 marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, the playwright, poet, and actor widely considered to be the most influential literary figure in the English language.Yet, there's one mystery which continues to elude scholars to even this day: what exactly was Shakespeare's relationship with the Catholic Church? And, could he have been a secret Catholic, forced to conceal his true religious identity in an era of persecution?At the time of Shakespeare's writing, Britain was in a period of religious upheaval. Its people were still caught in the crossfires of the English Reformation that had begun decades earlier when Henry VIII declared himself head of the Church of England. Shakespeare, like many of his contemporaries, outwardly followed the State-imposed religion, since it was illegal at that time to practice as a Catholic in England. However, scholars say he nonetheless maintained strong symp...
Rome, Italy, Apr 23, 2016 / 04:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- April 23 marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, the playwright, poet, and actor widely considered to be the most influential literary figure in the English language.
Yet, there's one mystery which continues to elude scholars to even this day: what exactly was Shakespeare's relationship with the Catholic Church? And, could he have been a secret Catholic, forced to conceal his true religious identity in an era of persecution?
At the time of Shakespeare's writing, Britain was in a period of religious upheaval. Its people were still caught in the crossfires of the English Reformation that had begun decades earlier when Henry VIII declared himself head of the Church of England. Shakespeare, like many of his contemporaries, outwardly followed the State-imposed religion, since it was illegal at that time to practice as a Catholic in England. However, scholars say he nonetheless maintained strong sympathies with the Church of Rome.
Shakespeare's writings “clearly points to somebody who was not just saturated in Catholicism, but occasionally argued for it,” said Clare Asquith, an independent scholar and author of a book on Shakespeare called “Shadowplay:The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare.”
He “was definitely putting the Catholic point of view to an intellectual audience,” she said.
An example of this relationship with Catholicism comes out in Shakespeare's Hamlet, a play which scholars say captures the sense of conflict experienced by the population as the country transitioned to the Church of England.
“Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, dramatizes the position of all these people, torn apart like Hamlet, having to play a part like Hamlet, pretend they were irresponsible, perhaps mad, and yet, having to make a decision about what to do about this,” Asquith told CNA/EWTN News.
She said that this conflict is particularly represented through the ghost of Hamlet’s father in Act I.
“Everything about the ghost is the old order, which has been displaced by a brand new tudor State with the monarch as the head of the Church, which was still highly, highly contentious,” she said. “I think scarcely anyone in England went along with it at that point. They did superficially, out of self-interest, and it gradually did produce a creeping secularism.”
Hamlet's mother, who has married his uncle very soon after the King’s death, represents the “England that has given into the new order, reluctantly,” while urging Hamlet to go along with it, Asquith said.
“On the other hand, he has his father saying: ‘No, Hamlet. Stand up against it. You must do something about it.’”
Author of “Through Shakespeare's Eyes: Seeing the Catholic Presence in the Plays,” scholar Joseph Pearce takes this conflict win Hamlet a step further by saying the play is speaking out against England’s persecution of Catholic priests.
“The play illustrates the venting of Shakespeare's spleen against the spy network in England which had led to many a Catholic priest being arrested, tortured and martyred,” said Pearce, who is director of the Center for Faith and Culture in Nashville, Tennessee and author of three books on Shakespeare.
“The Ghost of Hamlet's father is clearly a Catholic in purgatory who exposes the wickedness of the usurping Machiavellian King Claudius.”
Pearce reiterates that more people at that time had Catholic sympathies than is commonly believed.
“Although the anti-Catholic laws made it necessary for any writer, Shakespeare included, to be circumspect about the way that they discussed the religious controversies of the time,” he said, “it is clear that Shakespeare's plays show a great degree of sympathy with the Catholic perspective during this volatile time.”
People want Shakespeare to be an enlightened secular humanist, and they are not going to move an inch in the direction of him being committed in a religious sense at all.
While scholars agree that Shakespeare's writings indicate sympathies for the Catholic cause, definitive proof from his life that he was a covert Catholic are harder to come by. In fact, Asquith said, there is even resistance among the academic community regarding his possible relationship with the Catholic Church, despite the vast evidence from the writings of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.
“The fact that that line of research, that way of reading late-16th century literature has been so rejected by Shakespeare scholars, means that they would fight tooth and nail to resist any fact that indicated he was Catholic,” she said.
“People want Shakespeare to be an enlightened secular humanist, and they are not going to move an inch in the direction of him being committed in a religious sense at all.”
That said, Asquith explained there are only a few pieces of hard biographical evidence which point to the possibility of Shakespeare being Catholic.
She referred to two separate instances in which Shakespeare’s contemporaries refer to him as a “papist” – a term used to describe Catholics because of their allegiance to the Pope.
The first of these was in 1611, when the Protestant and government propagandist John Speed attacked Shakespeare for a parody he had written about Protestant martyr John Oldcastle, calling him a papist. The second instance came around 60 years after Shakespeare’s death in 1616, in which Protestant clergyman Richard Davis is quoted as saying he had died a papist.
These two references to Shakespeare being a papist “are the only two real facts that I can see,” Asquith said.
However, she added that there are other clues from his life which may point to his Catholicism. For instance, his daughter Susanna had been brought before the court of the Recusant because she, like many Catholics, refused to take the oath of supremacy – i.e. swear allegiance to the reigning monarch as head of the Church of England. Asquith noted that Susanna was married to a Puritan, the religious denomination which also refused to take the oath of supremacy.
A final detail about Shakespeare’s life which Asquith says potentially points to his relationship with the Catholic Church is the purchasing of the Blackfriars Gatehouse in London in 1613, which he immediately leased out as a safehouse for Catholics.
For Pearce, this detail is the most compelling evidence of Shakespeare's Catholicism. According to his book on the subject, the property would be used to harbor Catholic priests and fugitives, among other activities. Moreover, the brother of the tenant, John Robinson, entered the seminary of the Venerable English College in Rome, which was established when training for the priesthood in England became illegal.
“Shakespeare's purchasing of the Blackfriars Gatehouse, a house well known as a base for the Catholic underground, would be enough to prove Shakespeare's Catholicism,” he told CNA.
In studying the social and political dynamic of the period, Asquith said it is important to know about the alternative or “revisionist history of Shakespeare’s time, and to read his work in the light of that history.
“It really was much more of a battle for the soul of England than we have realized for the last three or four hundred years,” she said, in reference to her 2009 book Shadowplay.
“Shakespeare was commenting on breaking news, on momentous history as it was unfolding, and was addressing various key players along the way,” she said.
“What all the intellectuals of his day wanted: religious toleration. They didn’t want secular humanism. They wanted, really, freedom to practice either reformed Christianity or Catholic Christianity.”
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BERLIN (AP) -- When President Barack Obama opens the world's largest industrial fair in the northern German city of Hannover on Sunday, he'll be leading a delegation of American companies hoping to conquer new markets abroad. He'll also be trying to complete one of his presidency's main pieces of unfinished business - a trans-Atlantic trade pact....
LONDON (AP) -- If all the world's a stage, William Shakespeare is its architect....
LONDON (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Saturday urged the next generation of British leaders to give serious thought to how they solve problems, turning a light-hearted question about priorities for his successor into a treatise on his preference for diplomacy over military conflict....
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Prince talked dirty in song but had a reputation for clean living. He also had an ability to put on shows that were electrifying in their athleticism....
(Vatican Radio) The President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Peter Turkson, told the United Nations to realize the 2030 Development Agenda, we are called “to care”, even when dealing with finance. The Vatican official was on Thursday speaking at a High-Level Thematic Debate on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in New York.“Ethically irresponsible financial activity produces social inequalities,” – Cardinal Turkson said – “By caring, we are inspired to practice responsible finance and promote value-based investing in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.”Cardinal Turkson called “our conflict-ridden world” the greatest challenge to the realization of the 2030 Agenda.“For war is the negation of all rights and all development,” he said.“Thus good governance and all the political instruments for the maintenance of peace and security for all are indispensable fo...
(Vatican Radio) The President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Peter Turkson, told the United Nations to realize the 2030 Development Agenda, we are called “to care”, even when dealing with finance.
The Vatican official was on Thursday speaking at a High-Level Thematic Debate on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in New York.
“Ethically irresponsible financial activity produces social inequalities,” – Cardinal Turkson said – “By caring, we are inspired to practice responsible finance and promote value-based investing in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.”
Cardinal Turkson called “our conflict-ridden world” the greatest challenge to the realization of the 2030 Agenda.
“For war is the negation of all rights and all development,” he said.
“Thus good governance and all the political instruments for the maintenance of peace and security for all are indispensable for the successful realization of the 2030 Agenda,” Cardinal Turkson concluded.
The full text of Cardinal Turkson's speech is below
Statement of the HOLY SEE by
HIS EMINENCE CARD. PETER K.A. TURKSON
President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace
High-Level Thematic Debate on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
New York, 21 April 2016
Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I bring you the warm greetings of Pope Francis, and his prayerful wishes for a successful discussion on the means for achieving the SDGs. When Pope Francis addressed this Assembly on September 25 last, he referred to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as “an important sign of hope”. This hope, he went on, will come to concrete fruition only if the Agenda is truly, fairly and effectively realized, and even more importantly, if its framework is sustainable. Thus its realization calls for all stakeholders to exercise an effective, practical and constant will.
The Holy See believes that the realization of the 2030 Agenda requires more than public financing; it also requires financing and investment in accordance with value-based criteria of private investors, as a necessary complement to public finance. Indeed, it is necessary that Non-State Actors, such as faith-based groups, lead multi-stakeholder engagements in ethical financial activity to eliminate social inequality and to develop an ambitious new agenda to better “care for our common home”.
In his Encyclical “Laudato Si’”, Pope Francis talks about “care” and “caring”. For, if one cares, one is connected, one is involved and touched. To care is to allow oneself to be affected by another, so much that one’s path and priorities change. With caring, then, the hard line between self and other softens, blurs, even disappears. So when we cast aside anything precious in the world, we destroy part of ourselves too, beca use we are completely connected.
To realize the 2030 Development Agenda, we are called “to care”, even when dealing with finance. Ethically irresponsible financial activity produces social inequalities. By caring, we are inspired to practice responsible finance and promote value-based investing in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
Finally, Mr. President, as Pope Paul VI affirmed in 1967 in his Encyclical “Populorum Progressio,” development is the new name of peace. Peace is the necessary condition and environment for any true and lasting development. Accordingly, our conflict-ridden world is probably the greatest challenge to the realization of the 2030 Agenda. Peaceful and caring societies are more fundamental than the availability of financing and funding.
For war is the negation of all rights and all development. Thus good governance and all the political instruments for the maintenance of peace and security for all are indispensable for the successful realization of the 2030 Agenda.
