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BANGKOK (AP) -- Dong Junming was detained several times in his Chinese homeland before he and his family fled to Bangkok in February 2015. A year later, he was preparing to make a more desperate journey to evade Chinese authorities who still felt dangerously close....
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Rome, Italy, Mar 21, 2016 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The latest initiative of the Tulsa, Oklahoma diocese is not only offering practical care for the region's homeless and under-privileged communities – it's bringing a message of hope in the face of death.“Just because you're dying doesn't mean there's no reason to hope,” Bishop Edward James Slattery of Tulsa told journalists March 21 during a visit to Rome.“Just the opposite. Christ has changed the meaning of death to the entrance into life.”Porta Caeli – Latin for “door to heaven” – is a diocese-run hospice center people can receive end-of-life care consistent with the Catholic understanding of human dignity and the afterlife, regardless of race, illness, or financial status. The center will host up to twelve terminally ill residents at any given time, with 200-400 people expected annually. Those admitted to the center are expected to die within a matter o...
Rome, Italy, Mar 21, 2016 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The latest initiative of the Tulsa, Oklahoma diocese is not only offering practical care for the region's homeless and under-privileged communities – it's bringing a message of hope in the face of death.
“Just because you're dying doesn't mean there's no reason to hope,” Bishop Edward James Slattery of Tulsa told journalists March 21 during a visit to Rome.
“Just the opposite. Christ has changed the meaning of death to the entrance into life.”
Porta Caeli – Latin for “door to heaven” – is a diocese-run hospice center people can receive end-of-life care consistent with the Catholic understanding of human dignity and the afterlife, regardless of race, illness, or financial status. The center will host up to twelve terminally ill residents at any given time, with 200-400 people expected annually. Those admitted to the center are expected to die within a matter of days or weeks.
“What's valuable to this is that it sends messages to the entire diocese that it's okay to die,” Bishop Slattery said. “We're all going to die. And stop pretending that you're not.”
The Tulsa bishop expressed his desire for parishioners to be personally involved in the initiative, helping console the dying and their loved ones, while trying “to show them that what’s awaiting them is heaven: To be in the company of God for all eternity.”
“Their own faith then will be strengthened,” he said.
Bishop Slattery explained that Porta Caeli is unique in that it does permit interventions to end life prematurely, nor does it encourage artificially extending life beyond what is necessary.
Praising modern medicine and technology as a “gift from God,” he said some procedures are nonetheless “contrary to Catholic teaching, and are of not service but are detrimental to the good of humanity.”
The bishop cited the example of giving a terminally ill patient pain a higher dose of pain medication with the intention of speeding the dying process.
“That is really not letting the person die a natural death. It’s really, in effect, killing them,” he said. “Let God decide when you die. He knows when you should, and then he will take you to himself.”
Assisted suicide for terminally ill patients is currently legal in eight U.S. States, although Oklahoma is not one of them.
Bishop Slattery also addressed the other extreme, seen in the effort to keep someone alive artificially when they have the “right to die.”
Speaking of family and loved ones of the patient, he said “maybe they don't believe with real strong faith in life eternal and what’s in store, so they want to keep their loved one alive as long as possible – even though the person will never wake up.”
In situations where there is no chance of recovery, he said, it is best to allow the terminally ill person to “die in piece,” give them medication, and pray with them “if they’re awake or alert.”
The Porta Caeli center is a carry over from another Tulsa diocese initiative called the St. Joseph's home, a hospice established decades earlier to minister to those dying during the AIDS crisis.
We “invited people who had AIDS and who were dying to come and die with us, because they would otherwise be out on the street,” he said.
When medications became available to lower the mortality rate of AIDS, St. Joseph's could not continue serving the needs of people with the disease. This led to the decision to reestablish the hospice to cater to anyone suffering from a terminal illness.
Porta Caeli is an initiative of the Tulsa diocese's non-government funded Catholic Charities branch. Bishop Slattery explained this presence is important in that it is distinguished from a simply humanitarian entity.
“What I think our witness is to the Gospel is that we always unify the Eucharist with works of charity, so that no one will perceive what we do as purely humanitarian,” he said. This is “because we do things with faith, which means we are really just agents of Jesus Christ.”
Photo credit: www.shutterstock.com.
Yangon, Burma, Mar 21, 2016 / 05:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The bishops of Burma held a three-day seminar earlier this month to discuss the Church's role in reconciliation as the country transitions to civilian rule after more than 50 years of military government.More than 70 bishops, priests, and religious gathered March 10-12 in Yangon, Burma's largest city, to “examine the role of the Church in nation building.”Cardinal Charles Bo of Yangon said in his keynote address that “The nation is at a crossroads of challenges and opportunities.”Burma, also known as Myanmar, was ruled by a military junta from 1962 to 2011; the junta's dissolution has begun to usher in democtractic and economic reforms, including the release of opposition political activist Aung San Suu Kyi.Elections in November 2015 – the first openly contested general election in Burma since 1990 – gave Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party control of both houses of...
Yangon, Burma, Mar 21, 2016 / 05:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The bishops of Burma held a three-day seminar earlier this month to discuss the Church's role in reconciliation as the country transitions to civilian rule after more than 50 years of military government.
More than 70 bishops, priests, and religious gathered March 10-12 in Yangon, Burma's largest city, to “examine the role of the Church in nation building.”
Cardinal Charles Bo of Yangon said in his keynote address that “The nation is at a crossroads of challenges and opportunities.”
Burma, also known as Myanmar, was ruled by a military junta from 1962 to 2011; the junta's dissolution has begun to usher in democtractic and economic reforms, including the release of opposition political activist Aung San Suu Kyi.
Elections in November 2015 – the first openly contested general election in Burma since 1990 – gave Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party control of both houses of parliament. While Suu Kyi is barred from holding the presidency by the Burmese constitution, her close ally Htin Kyaw was elected president March 15.
The first civilian president of Burma, Htin Kyaw will take office March 30. It is hoped that his administration will move toward establishing diplomatic ties with the Holy See.
Fr. Leo Mang told CNA that the bishops' symposium “discussed the areas of reconciliation and peacebuilding through dialogue; protecting the rights of women, children, and ethnic minority groups; and enhancing education and capacity-building.”
Cardinal Bo commented, “As we gather today in the Lenten season, we cannot forget the people for whom Lent is not only 40 days, but is 365 days: for our poor country, it was a long Lent.”
He lamented that Burma's own “way of the cross” is formed by a lack of education for the majority of its people; a crony economy that deprives the poor of the right to land; and a lack of peace, with continuing conflict leading to refugee camps “becoming permanent homes for thousands of innocent people.”
“We seek no confrontation with anyone,” the cardinal said. “As citizens of Myanmar we have gathered here to explore avenues of collaboration. Peace, with justice, we hope will bring prosperity to this long-suffering nation.”
Cardinal Bo stressed that “people are hopeful that their decades-long way of the cross will end with the resurrection of democracy.”
Cardinal Bo also pointed to key issues which require urgent attention, saying, “With great urgency the Church needs to commit itself to the mission of reconciliation in this country.”
One of the major issues facing Burma is ethnic strife: the Rohingya, a minority group who practice Islam, has long been persecuted by the country's Buddhist, Bamar majority; and civilians in Kachin state, many of whom are Christian, have been targeted in fighting since 2011.
Of Burma's 16 dioceses, 15 are predominantly serve ethnic minorities. Cardinal Bo expressed the view that there is a need for dialogue and partnering with other religious groups as well as government agencies to find the root to concrete solutions.
The cardinal slammed the “myopic policies of rulers that fragmented the nation,” which he said have shed innocent blood, exiled millions, destroyed natural resources, and enabled drug abuse.
Burma has suffered ongoing internal conflict since it gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1948, resulting in a great loss of natural wealth and forests. “Myanmar is the richest country in Asia, where the poorest people live,” Cardinal Bo reflected.
One of the other major areas of attention at the bishops' symposium was education, given that 60 percent of Burmese children fail to complete primary school.
Cardian Bo lamented that in the last six decades a “systematic effort has been made to destroy education, forcing three generations of youngsters to be handicapped” educationally. He charged that the nationalization of the 1960s deteriorated the quality of education in the country: all Christian schools were taken over by the government, and missionary priests and religious were made to leave the country.
“We were in the forefront of quality education in this country till our schools were taken at midnight,” Cardinal Bo said. “Sadly it was never dawn afterwards.”
“We want to empower the poor with quality education,” he stated. “For those thousands who seek solace in drugs and unsafe migration, we want to show that Myanmar can be a land of opportunity if quality education is imparted … I foresee church re-entry into education in a big way in the future.”
Regarding the crony economy, Cardinal Bo said that “peace is possible only when the benefits of natural resources are shared with justice with all, especially the local people.”
Concluding the seminar, the Yangon prelate reminded the participants that such events often end with great-sounding documents and paperwork, but that “I personally wish that we avoid that trap.”
“Any gathering that does not translate its resolutions into actions at the ground level faces the danger of irrelevance,” Cardinal Bo stressed. “I do hope by the end of three days, we have not many resolutions, but some urgent and important tasks that the Church can plan and do as soon as possible for the good of our people.”
Other speakers at the gathering discussed Burma's socio-political landscape, and both Buddhist and Muslim perspectives on peace-building in the country.
Other bishops and lay speakers also deliberated on several topics of Social political landscape, education and human development; Peace and justice: role of the society and Church in Myanmar; Fellowship journey in nation building with Buddhist perspective on building peace and Islamic perspective on building peace in Myanmar.
CUPERTINO, Calif. (AP) -- As it struggles to match the success of its big-screen iPhones, Apple is now contending that small can be beautiful, too....
BAMAKO, Mali (AP) -- Gunmen launched an attack Monday evening on the European Union military training mission's headquarters in the Malian capital, Bamako, in what appeared to be the latest in a series of attacks on Western interests in the region....
