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 WASHINGTON-Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York called on everyone "concerned about the tragedy of abortion" to recommit to a "vision of life and love, a vision that excludes no one" on January 14. His statement marks the 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Cardinal Dolan chairs the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"Most Americans oppose a policy allowing legal abortion for virtually any reason - though many still do not realize that this is what the Supreme Court gave us," wrote Cardinal Dolan. "Most want to protect unborn children at later stages of pregnancy, to regulate or limit the practice of abortion, and to stop the use of taxpayer dollars for the destruction of unborn children. Yet many who support important goals of the pro-life movement do not identify as 'pro-life,' a fact which should lead us to examine how we present our pro-life vision to others."

"Even as Americans remain troubled by abortion," wrote Cardinal Dolan, a powerful and well-funded lobby holds "that abortion must be celebrated as a positive good for women and society, and those who cannot in conscience provide it are to be condemned for practicing substandard medicine and waging a 'war on women'." He said this trend was seen recently when President Obama and other Democratic leaders prevented passage of the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, "a modest measure to provide for effective enforcement" of conscience laws.

"While this is disturbing," said Cardinal Dolan, "it is also an opportunity." Pro-life Americans should reach out to "the great majority of Americans" who are "open to hearing a message of reverence for life." He added that "we who present the pro-life message must always strive to be better messengers. A cause that teaches the inexpressibly great value of each and every human being cannot show disdain or disrespect for any fellow human being." He encouraged Catholics to take part, through prayer and action, in the upcoming "9 Days for Life" campaign, January 16-24. More information on the campaign is available online: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxJwfcefUiU

He also cited the Year of Mercy called by Pope Francis as a time for women and men to find healing through the Church's Project Rachel post-abortion ministry.

The full text of Cardinal Dolan's message is available online.
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Keywords: Roe v. Wade, anniversary, Pro-Life, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, 9 Days for Life, USCCB, U.S. bishops, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Year of Mercy, Project Rachel, Pope Francis
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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis arrived in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Mexico on Monday, just before 09.00 local time (16.00 Rome time).

His Holiness was welcomed by the Archbishop of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Fabio Martínez Castilla at Ángel Albino Crozo Airport. Representatives from the indigenous population presented the Pope with a crown of flowers and a group of children played marimbas as he made his way across the tarmac.

However, the Holy Father did not stay long. He boarded a helicopter that took him to the municipal sports centre 50km away, in the town of San Cristóbal de Las Casas.

There he presided at the celebration of Holy Mass with the indigenous people of the Mexican State of Chiapas.

The Mass was celebrated in Spanish, with prayers and readings in three of the native languages.

You can watch the Mass, streamed LIVE on the Vatican’s YouTube channel, here.

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Monday celebrated Mass for the largely indigenous population of the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico, saying today’s world needs their ancient values and traditions.

The outdoor Mass, celebrated at a sports stadium in the town of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, included prayers and readings in several of the local languages. Despite being rich in natural resources, the southern region remains significantly less developed than the rest of the country, with high levels of poverty and illiteracy.

In his homily, the Pope noted that “in a systematic and organized way” the indigenous cultures have been misunderstood and excluded from society.  “Some have considered your values, culture and traditions to be inferior”, Pope Francis said, while others, “intoxicated by power, money and market trends, have stolen your lands or contaminated them”.  He stressed that it would be worthwhile for each person “to examine our conscience and learn to say, “Forgive me!” 

In particular Pope Francis said indigenous peoples have much to teach the rest of the world about “how to interact harmoniously with nature, which they respect as a “source of food, a common home and an altar of human sharing”.

Please find below the full text of the Pope’s homily during Mass at the Municipal Sport Centre in San Cristóbal de las Casas:

            ‘Li smantal Kajvaltike toj lek’ – The law of the Lord is perfect; it revives the soul.  Thus begins the psalm we have just heard.  The law of the Lord is perfect and the psalmist diligently lists everything that the law offers to those who hear and follow it: it revives the soul, it gives wisdom to the simple, it gladdens the heart, and it gives light to the eyes.

            This is the law which the people of Israel received from the hand of Moses, a law that would help the People of God to live in the freedom to which they were called.  A law intended to be a light for the journey and to accompany the pilgrimage of his people.  A people who experienced slavery and the Pharaoh’s tyranny, who endured suffering and oppression to the point where God said, “Enough! No more!  I have seen their affliction, I have heard their cry, I know their sufferings” (cf. Ex 3:9).  And here the true face of God is seen, the face of the Father who suffers as he sees the pain, mistreatment, and lack of justice for his children. His word, his law, thus becomes a symbol of freedom, a symbol of happiness, wisdom and light.  It is an experience, a reality which is conveyed by a phrase prayed in ‘Popol Vuh’ and born of the wisdom accumulated in these lands since time immemorial: “The dawn rises on all of the tribes together.  The face of the earth was immediately healed by the sun” (33).  The sun rose for the people who at various times have walked in the midst of history’s darkest moments.

            In this expression, one hears the yearning to live in freedom, there is a longing which contemplates a promised land where oppression, mistreatment and humiliation are not the currency of the day.  In the heart of man and in the memory of many of our peoples is imprinted this yearning for a land, for a time when human corruption will be overcome by fraternity, when injustice will be conquered by solidarity and when violence will be silenced by peace.

            Our Father not only shares this longing, but has himself inspired it and continues to do so in giving us his son Jesus Christ.  In him we discover the solidarity of the Father who walks by our side.  In him, we see how the perfect law takes flesh, takes a human face, shares our history so as to walk with and sustain his people.  He becomes the Way, he becomes the Truth, he becomes the Life, so that darkness may not have the last word and the dawn may not cease to rise on the lives of his sons and daughters.

            In many ways there have been attempts to silence and dull this yearning, and in many ways there have been efforts to anaesthetize our soul, and in many ways there have been endeavours to subdue and lull our children and young people into a kind of lassitude by suggesting that nothing can change, that their dreams can never come true.  Faced with these attempts, creation itself also raises an objection: “This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.  We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will.  The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life.  This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she ‘groans in travail’ (Rom 8:22)” (Laudato Si’, 2).  The environmental challenge that we are experiencing and its human causes, affects us all (cf. Laudato Si’, 14) and demands our response.  We can no longer remain silent before one of the greatest environmental crises in world history.

            In this regard, you have much to teach us.  Your peoples, as the bishops of Latin America have recognized, know how to interact harmoniously with nature, which they respect as a “source of food, a common home and an altar of human sharing” (Aparecida, 472). 

            And yet, on many occasions, in a systematic and organized way, your people have been misunderstood and excluded from society.  Some have considered your values, culture and traditions to be inferior.  Others, intoxicated by power, money and market trends, have stolen your lands or contaminated them.  How sad this is!  How worthwhile it would be for each of us to examine our conscience and learn to say, “Forgive me!”  Today’s world, ravaged as it is by a throwaway culture, needs you!

            Exposed to a culture that seeks to suppress all cultural heritage and features in pursuit of a homogenized world, the youth of today need to cling to the wisdom of their elders!  

            Today’s world, overcome by convenience, needs to learn anew the value of gratitude!

            We rejoice in the certainty that “The Creator does not abandon us; he never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us” (Laudato Si’, 13).  We rejoice that Jesus continues to die and rise again in each gesture that we offer to the least of our brothers and sisters.  Let us be resolved to be witnesses to his Passion and his Resurrection, by giving flesh to these words: Li smantal Kajvaltike toj lek – the law of the Lord is perfect and comforts the soul.

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(Vatican Radio)  On Monday evening Pope Francis flew to the city of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital of the Mexican southeast state of Chiapas, where he met with families in the city’s stadium (Tuxtla Gutiérrez Stadium). 

Before addressing the gathering, he listened to testimonies by people from different family situations who included a civilly-married couple of divorced parents who are actively involved with charitable work, a disabled adolescent who found joy in being accepted by the church and is now active in the evangelization of other youth, a single mother who was rejected by society but welcomed with love in the Church, and a catholic family of the diocese of Tapachula.

In his prepared remarks, Pope Francis noted that the testimonies he had heard represented the joys, hopes, and determination by which many families confront sadness, disillusion and failings. He observed that “living in a family is not always easy, and can often be painful and stressful”. He added that he would prefer a wounded family that makes daily efforts to put love into play to a society that is afraid of love.   

Before travelling to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the Pope visited the cathedral of San Cristóbal where he offered flowers to the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and a gift of a chalice and a Chasuble to the cathedral. Inside the Church, he was welcomed by groups of the elderly and the sick. Before reciting the Marian prayer with them he told them that they help Jesus to carry his cross, by taking a piece of it. He prayed to God through the intercession of Our Lady to give them strength and peace of heart and to comfort them. 

Here below is the Pope’s full speech in English to the Families in the stadium of Tuxtla Gutierrez:

Dear brothers and sisters,

            I am grateful to be here, on Chiapaneca soil.  It feels good to be here on this soil, on this land; it is good to be here in this place which, with you here, has a family flavour, a home flavour.  I give thanks to God for your faces and your presence; I give thanks to God because of the heart-beat of his presence in your families.  I also thank you, families and friends, for giving us your witness, for opening to us the doors of your homes and your lives; you have allowed us to sit with you sharing both in the bread that nourishes you and in the sweat of your brow as you face the difficulties of every day.  It is the bread representing the joys, the hopes and the hard sweat with which you confront sadness, disillusion and failings.  I thank you for allowing me to enter into your families, your homes, and to sit at your tables.

            Manuel, I thank you for your witness and especially for your example.  I liked the expression you used “to put your heart into it” [echarle ganas] describing the attitude you took after speaking with your parents.  You began to put your heart into your life, your family, your friends; you put your heart into us gathered here.  I believe that this is what the Holy Spirit always wants to do in our midst: to put a new heart into us, giving us reasons to keep on taking risks, dreaming and building a life that has this sense of home, of family.

            This is something which God the Father has always dreamt of and for which he has fought for a very long time.  When everything seemed lost that afternoon in the Garden of Eden, God the Father put a new heart into that young couple and told them that everything was not lost.  When the people of Israel felt that they could not go on journeying through the desert, God the Father put his heart into it by giving them manna from heaven.  When the fullness of time came, God the Father put his heart into it by giving humanity the eternal gift of his Son.

            Similarly, all of us here have had this experience, in different moments and different ways; God the Father has put his heart into it for us.  We can ask ourselves: why?  Because he cannot do otherwise.  He knows how to put his best into us; why?  Because his name is love, his name is gift, his name is self-giving, his name is mercy.  This he has shown us with complete power and clarity in Jesus, his Son, who risked everything to the end so as to once again make possible the Kingdom of God.  A Kingdom that invites us to share in a new mindset, that puts into motion a dynamic power capable of opening the heavens, capable of opening our hearts, our minds, our hands and capable of challenging us with new possibilities.  This is a Kingdom which has the feeling of family, the flavour of a life shared.  In Jesus and with Jesus this Kingdom is possible.  He is capable of changing our perspectives, attitudes, and feelings, which are often watery and dull, into the wine of joy and celebration.  He can heal our hearts and invite us again and again, seventy times seven, to begin anew.  He can make all things new.

            Manuel, you asked me to pray for the many adolescents who are disillusioned and on a wrong path, many who are deflated, tired and without aspirations.  And as you yourself rightly said, this attitude often comes from a feeling of loneliness, from not having someone to talk to.  And this reminds me of the witness which Beatrice gave us.  If I am not mistaken Beatrice, you said: “the struggle has always been difficult because of uncertainty and loneliness”.  Uncertainty, insufficiency, and often not having the bare essentials, can lead to despair, can make us deeply anxious because we cannot see a way forward, especially when we have children in our care.  Uncertainty is not only a threat to our stomach (which is already serious), but it can also threaten our soul, demoralizing us and taking away our energy so that we seek apparent solutions that in the end solve nothing.  There is a kind of uncertainty which can be very dangerous, which can creep in surreptitiously; it is the uncertainty born of solitude and isolation.  And isolation is always a bad counsellor.

            Both, unknowingly, used the same expression; both showed us that very often the greatest temptation we face is to cut ourselves off, and far from putting our heart into things, this attitude of isolation ends up, like a moth, drying up our souls. 

            The way to overcome the uncertainty and isolation which makes us vulnerable to so many apparent solutions, can be found on different levels.  One is through legislation which protects and guarantees the bare necessities of life so that every home and every person can develop through education and dignified employment.  There is, on the other hand, what the witness of Humberto and Claudia made evident when they explained how they tried to convey to others the love of God that they experienced through service and generous giving.  Laws and personal commitment make good duo that can break the spiral of uncertainty.

            Today we see how on different fronts the family is weakened and questioned.  It is regarded as a model which has done its time, but which has no place in our societies; these, claiming to be modern, increasingly favour a model based on isolation.

            It is true that living in family is not always easy, and can often be painful and stressful but, as I have often said referring to the Church, I prefer a wounded family that makes daily efforts to put love into play, to a society that is sick from isolationism and habitual afraid of love.  I prefer a family that makes repeated efforts to begin again, to a society that is narcissistic and obsessed with luxury and comfort.  I prefer a family with tired faces from generous giving, to faces with makeup that know nothing of tenderness and compassion.

            I have been asked to pray for you and I want to do so now, with you.  You Mexicans have something extra; you run ahead with an advantage.  You have a Mother, la Guadalupana.  She wanted to visit this land and this gives us the certainty of her intercession so that our dream, which we call the family, may not be lost through uncertainty or solitude.  She is always ready to defend our families, our future; she is always ready to put her heart into it by giving us her Son.  For this reason, I invite you to join our hands and say together: “Hail Mary…”.

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(Vatican Radio)  Pope Francis on Tuesday begins the 4th day of his Apostolic Journey to Mexico with a trip to one of the country's most drug-ridden states. Veronica Scarisbrick is with the Holy Father and sent us this report, entitled "Horror and Hope in Michoacán".

Listen to the report:

Pope Francis on Tuesday, 16 February, travels to Morelia, capital of Michoacán, the Mexican state most identified with the drug trade. A place where there are performances of stupefying violence. Although I’ve been told there are worse places still in terms of the drug scene across Mexico.

Francis who comes to Mexico as ‘messenger of peace’ has called drugs ‘messengers of death’. The scenario related to drugs here is complex and multi- faceted. To set a strategy that might break the organized crime model is not an easy task, the law is one thing and implementation is another. Also government anti-corruption cartels are not sufficiently powerful to counter the power of narco billions.

It's not that the problem has been ignored, the military and federal police have been called in on various occasions and in turn accused of the same crimes they were out to crush. And the result was so weak that the local communities decided to set up their own militias, the vigilantes' with the result that you have lemon and avocado pickers turned gunmen.

There are contradictions as well. Traditional crime groups are often deeply tied to religion.  Furthermore they offer benefits people find hard to refuse and are often obliged to accept.

Among the consequences of this situation are economic and social disintegration and a connection with the escalating number of ‘desaparecidos’ in the area.

Overall in Mexico there are more than 20.000 people who have disappeared in ten years. Although UN sources have stepped up that number to over 26.000.  But these numbers don’t relate exclusively to Michoacán.

But significantly it’s in the capital of Michoacán, Morelia that Pope Francis has chosen to meet with young people in an effort to bring a much needed message of hope.

He’ll be meeting with them in the afternoon at the stadium ‘José Maria Morelos y Pavòn’. It promises to be a moving moment, one they will treasure. Let’s recall how Pope Francis said in his first speech to the nation. ‘One of Mexico’s greatest treasures is that it has a youthful face”.

It’s in Morelia too that earlier in the day Pope Francis will go to the heart of this stunning colonial city, to the Cathedral in the characteristic pink stone of the area which dominates the city. There he will meet with fourteen deans of Mexican Universities and six leaders of other Christian religions.

But he will start the day by celebrating Holy Mass in the local stadium with priests, men and women religious, consecrated people and seminarians.

All in the presence of the man he created Cardinal a year ago,  the Archbishop of Morelia Alberto Suarez Inda.

With the Pope in Mexico, I’m Veronica Scarisbrick.

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BANGUI, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Voters in Central African Republic headed to the ballot on Sunday to elect their future president for the next five years during a presidential runoff poll that was generally termed as peaceful.

The voters were choosing between two former prime ministers, Anicet-Georges Dologuele who won the first round polls on 30 Dec 2015 with about 24 percent, and Faustin-Archange Touadera who came second with slightly over 19 percent.

Dologuele, 58, is an economist who served as prime minister during the regime of ex-president Ange-Felix Patasse (1999-2001) and also served as president of the Development Bank for Central African States.

His rival, Touadera, also aged 58, was a former vice-chancellor of Bangui University who served as prime minister during the regime of Francois Bozize between 2008 and 2013.

Voting in some polling stations in Bangui began after the legally prescribed time of 6:00 a.m. due to what was termed as technical challenges, but no violence was reported.

Central African Republic is trying to turn the page after three years of unprecedented violence since the March 2013 overthrow of Bozize by Michel Djotodia, leader of ex-rebel group, Seleka.

Out of a population of about 5 million, over 1.9 million have been registered on the electoral lists of the National Elections Authority (ANE).

(By Sikula)

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