Catholic News 2

(Vatican Radio) The Sala Marconi here at Palazzo Pio was the scene Tuesday morning of this week for the presentation of a major new book by Prof. Philip Larrey, a US-born priest of the Rome diocese who holds the chair of logic at the Pontifical Lateran University.

Titled Connected World: From Automated Work to Virtual Wars: The Future, By Those Who Are Shaping It, the work explores the consequences of the new digital age in conversation with leaders including Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet, Maurice Lévy, CEO of Publicis Groupe – and our own Chris Altieri.

Click below to hear our report

Ranging from the death of privacy to the rise of artificial intelligence, Connected World asks the existential questions which will come to define our age.

The Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, Cardinal George Pell, introduced the book to the participants in the presentation conference. “These conversations about the future are particularly appropriate to a Catholic university,” said Cardinal Pell, in reference both to the author’s position on the faculty of philosophy at the Lateran University and the broader Core Values project in which the Lateran participates, to the ethos of which Connected World gives expression.

“[In Catholic universities] we have conserved access to a millennial system of meaning, to a tradition of Godly reasoning, which still underpins – at least partly – our way of life,” Cardinal Pell went on to say.

Chris Altieri told the audience he thinks the book offers a profound and expansive look at the kind of thinking leaders in thought and industry are doing. The most fascinating thing and the most important thing about this book is its existence,” Altieri said. “We are being invited in, to hear people with enormous power and influence, think out loud,” he continued, adding, “we don’t get to do that every day.”

“I think that we have a signal service done to us here,” Altieri went on to say, “because we can see patterns of thought emerging, and we can understand intellectual trends – the way that fashions, that vogues in thinking, beyond just terminology, but real patterns of thought – are emerging and converging to create the world in which we live.”

Connected World by Philip Larrey is published by Penguin books, and is available now in stores and online.

Full Article

The Vatican has sent a message to Jains across the world wishing them on their most important festival and urging their collaboration to "foster non-violence in families to nurture peace in society.” The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue offered its "warmest felicitations" on the occasion of the 2,615th birth anniversary of Tirthankar Vardhaman Mahavir, who gave Jainism its present-day form.  “May this festive event bring happiness and peace in your hearts, families and communities!‎” read the message signed by Council president, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran and secretary, Bishop Muguel Angel Ayuso Guixot.

The annual festival called Mahavir Jayanti, is the biggest in their calendar, and falls on April 9 this year. Mahavir is the 24th and last tirthankara (teacher) of the Jain religion, whose core tenet is non-violence and respect towards all living beings.  Jainism, born as a non-Brahminical religious movement in 6th century B.C. in India, has some 5 million ‎followers, mostly in India.  The religion’s three main principles are non-violence (ahimsa), non-absolutism and non-possessiveness.    

Please find below the text of the message of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue:

PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

Christians and Jains: Together to foster practice of non-violence in families

MESSAGE FOR MAHAVIR JANMA KALYANAK DIWAS 2017

Vatican City

Dear Jain Friends,

The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue sends you its warmest felicitations as you celebrate the 2615th Birth Anniversary of Tirthankar Vardhaman Mahavir on 9th April, this year. May this festive event bring happiness and peace in your hearts, families and communities!

Violence, with its many and varied forms, has become a major concern in most parts of the world. So, we wish to share with you on this occasion a reflection on how we, both Christians and Jains, can foster non-violence in families to nurture peace in society.

Causes of violence are as complex and diverse as its manifestations. Not so infrequently, violence stems from unhealthy upbringings and dangerous indoctrinations. Today, in the face of growing violence in society, it is necessary that families become effective schools of civilization and make every effort to nurture the value of non-violence.

Non-violence is the concrete application in one’s life of the golden rule: ‘Do to others as you would like others do unto you’. It entails that we respect and treat the other, including the ‘different other’, as a person endowed with inherent human dignity and inalienable rights. Avoidance of harm to anyone in any way is, therefore, a corollary to our way of being and living as humans.

Unfortunately, refusal by some to accept the ‘other’ in general and the ‘different other’ in particular, mostly due to fear, ignorance, mistrust or sense of superiority, has generated an atmosphere of widespread intolerance and violence. This situation can be overcome “by countering it with more love, with more goodness.” (Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus, 18 February, 2008).

This ‘more’ requires a grace from above, so also a place to cultivate love and goodness. Family is a prime place where a counter culture of peace and nonviolence can find a fertile soil. It is here the children, led by the example of parents and elders, according to Pope Francis, “learn to communicate and to show concern for one another, and in which frictions and even conflicts have to be resolved not by force but by dialogue, respect, concern for the good of the other, mercy and forgiveness” (cf. Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, 2016, nos.90-130). Only with persons of non-violence as members, can families greatly contribute to making non-violence truly a way of life in the society.

Both our religions give primacy to a life of love and non-violence. Jesus taught his followers to love even their enemies (cf. Lk 6:27) and by His eminent example of life inspired them to do likewise. Thus, for us Christians, “nonviolence is not merely a tactical behaviour but a person’s way of being” (Pope

Benedict XVI, Angelus, 18 February, 2008) based on love and truth. ‘Ahimsa’ for you Jains is the sheet-anchor of your religion - ‘Ahimsa paramo dharmah’ (non-violence is the supreme virtue or religion).

As believers rooted in our own religious convictions and as persons with shared values and with the sense of co-responsibility for the human family, may we, joining other believers and people of good will, do all that we can, individually and collectively, to shape families into ‘nurseries’ of non-violence

to build a humanity that cares for our common home and all its inhabitants!

Wish you all a happy feast of Mahavir Janma Kalyanak!

Jean-Louis Cardinal Tauran

 President

H. Ex. Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, M.C.C.J.

 Secretary

Full Article

Vatican City, Mar 29, 2017 / 04:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- With the battle for major ISIS strongholds heating up in Iraq, Pope Francis has voiced his closeness to the country, praying for the safety of people on the ground, particularly civilians caught in the crosshairs of the fighting.

“My thoughts go out to civilians trapped in the western districts of Mosul and displaced because of the war, to whom I feel united in suffering, through prayer and spiritual closeness,” he said during his March 29 general audience.

“While expressing deep sorrow for the victims of the bloody conflict, I renew to all the call to engage with every effort in the protection of civilians as an imperative and urgent requirement.”

During the audience, which took place in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope greeted a delegation of Iraqi Superintendents representing various religious groups accompanied by the President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran.  

“The richness of the beloved Iraqi nation lies in this mosaic which is unity in diversity, strength in union, prosperity in harmony,” he said, encouraging them to go forward on this same path.

Francis also asked for prayers for Iraq that they might find reconciliation and harmony and “peace, unity and prosperity” among their different ethnic and religious groups.

His appeal followed a sharp rise this week in the number of reported civilian deaths in U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria as ground forces backed by the strikes are closing in on two of the Islamic State's main urban strongholds: Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

According to the Washington Post, the reports have fueled accusations that the U.S. and its partners may not be acting with sufficient regard for the safety of civilians.

During his main address to pilgrims, Pope Francis continued his catechesis on the theme of hope, drawing attention to the close connection that exists between the virtue of hope and the virtue of faith.

“Great hope is rooted in faith, and as such is able to go beyond all hope,” he said, “because it is not based on our word, but the Word of God…When God promises, he accomplishes what he promises.”

“I'd like to ask you a question,” the Pope said. “We, all of us, are we convinced of this? Do we believe that God loves us and that everything he has promised us will be brought to fruition?”

All we have to do is have an open heart, and God will teach us how to hope and will do “miraculous things.” The only price, he said, is to “open our hearts to faith and he will do the rest.”

To illustrate the point, Pope Francis drew on the Old Testament story of Abraham and his wife Sarah, quoting the words of St. Paul in the Letter to Romans, that Abraham “believed, hoping against hope.”

Despite the advanced age of he and his wife Sarah, Abraham, “did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body as dead (he was almost a hundred years old) and the dead womb of Sarah,” who was barren.

We are also called to live this experience and example of faith, Francis said, adding that Abraham, “who, even before the evidence of a reality that seems destined for death, trusts in God, ‘fully convinced that what he had promised he was also able to bring to completion.’”

Francis said this is a “paradox,” yet at the same time is the strongest element of our hope. A hope, he said, which is “founded on a promise which from the human point of view seems uncertain and unpredictable, but which does not fail even in the face of death.”

“The God who reveals himself to Abraham is the God who saves, the God who has come out of desperation and death, a God who calls to life,” he said. “In the story of Abraham all becomes a hymn to God who frees and regenerates.”

And we recognize and celebrate the fulfillment of God’s promises in the mystery of Christ’s Resurrection at Easter, he explained.

Hope, then, is not something we can possess based on “human reassurance,” but “it occurs where there is no hope, where there's nothing left to hope for, just as it did for Abraham, in front of his imminent death and sterility of his wife Sarah.”

“Dear brothers and sisters, today we ask the Lord for the grace to remain founded not so much on our safety, on our own strength, but on the hope drawn by the promise of God, like true children of Abraham,” he concluded.

Full Article

Mexico City, Mexico, Mar 29, 2017 / 09:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Archdiocese of Mexico said in a Sunday editorial that Mexican businessmen who would participate in the construction of a border wall with the United States are as traitors to their country.

In the March 26 editorial “Betrayal of the Homeland” in Desde la Fe, the archdiocese stated that “any business with intentions of investing in the wall of the fanatic Trump would be immoral, but above all, its shareholders and owners ought to be considered traitors to the homeland.”

United States president Donald Trump had Jan. 25 ordered a wall to be built on the U.S.-Mexico border. An estimated 650 miles of the 1,900 mile-long U.S.-Mexico border have a wall constructed currently. The president has indicated his intention that Mexico will pay for the wall's construction.

The Mexico City archdiocese wrote that “as the months go by, the immigration policies of Donald Trump are coming up against reality. Demagoguery during the campaign was easy, but actions in practice, turn out to be  difficult in face of notable opposition from civil society, churches, and activists, who are confronting an erratic government whose promises cannot be so easily implemented.”

“Trump set aside $2 billion for construction of the wall, which must join together solid construction and a soft aesthetic appearance in order to hide, beneath the paint and the lights, hatred, suppression, and division,” the editorial stated.

For the archdiocese, “what is deplorable is that on this side of the border there would be Mexicans ready to collaborate on a fanatical project which annihilates the good relationship and concord of two nations which share a common border.”

“It's not just two or three but more than 500 companies that are looking for good profits. For them the end justifies the means,” they criticized, and deplored “the timidity of the Mexican government's economic authorities, who have not stood up to these businessmen.”

For the Archdiocese of Mexico, those who claim that building the wall is “an inalienable right” of the United States “are those same myopic people who fail to see that the wall is an outright threat which violates relations and social peace.”

“Let us remember that in the name of ideology, nations and entire continents were divided, plunging millions into uncertainty. The only overriding voice was that of weapons, shooting, repression and the legal murder of anyone who dared to cross a border in search of freedom.”

The editorial said that the Mexican businesses which join Trump's project will feed “all those forms of discrimination that throughout history have subjugated millions of human beings. In practice, joining a projecting which is a grave affront to dignity is to shoot yourself in the foot.”

“The wall represents the predominance of a country that considers itself good, with the manifest destiny to overwhelm a nationality which it has considered to be perverted and corrupt: Mexico.”

Full Article

IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Hope is not built on people's predictions, assurances or line of reasoning, Pope Francis said.

Real Christian hope "is not based on our word, but on God's Word" and promises of salvation and eternal life, the pope said during his general audience in St. Peter's Square March 29.

Continuing a series of reflections on how the Apostle Paul describes the nature of Christian hope, the pope looked at how Abraham's faith is held up as a model for everyone in the apostle's Letter to the Romans (4:16-25).

Despite all logic -- Abraham was old and his wife infertile -- Abraham "believed, hoping against hope that he would become 'the father of many nations,'" which shows how faith is so closely connected to hope, the pope said.

"Our hope is not based on human reasoning, predictions and assurances," he said; real hope arises "where there is no more hope, where there is nothing left to hope for."

True hope "is rooted in faith and, precisely for this reason, it is able to go beyond all hope" because it is built on faith in God and his promise, he said.

"This is the paradox and, at the same time, the strongest part," he said, because from a human point of view, that promise seems "unsure and unforeseeable."

Looking at the people gathered for the general audience, the pope asked them if they really believed in God's love for them and his promise of eternal life.

"There is only one price" to be paid for this, he said. "Opening your heart. Open your hearts and God's power will carry you forward. He will do miraculous things and he will teach you what hope is."

Just "open your heart to faith and he will do the rest," he added.

Mary, too, believed in the unbelievable when the angel told her she would become the mother of God, the pope said in remarks to pilgrims from Arabic-speaking countries, particularly Iraq.

Like Mary, they are called to embrace that which they do not understand God is doing, and to open their hearts and minds to him, so that his will may be done, he said.

He later launched an appeal for more to be done to protect civilians in Iraq, reaffirming his prayers for civilians trapped in parts of Mosul and those displaced by war.

The pope also greeted a delegation of Iraqi authorities representing Shiites and Sunnis, and one representing Christians and other religious minorities, who were accompanied by Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

"The richness of the beloved Iraqi nation lies precisely in this mosaic that represents unity in diversity, the strength of union, prosperity in harmony," the pope said.

He encouraged them to continue their efforts and invited people to pray that "Iraq may find peace, unity and prosperity through reconciliation and harmony among its diverse ethnic and religious communities."

- - -

Follow Glatz on Twitter: @CarolGlatz.

- - -

Copyright © 2017 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

IMAGE: CNS photo/Carlos Barria, Reuters

By Dennis Sadowski

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Catholic environmental advocates decried President Donald Trump's executive order that would begin a review of his predecessor's Clean Power Plan, which set targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The advocates said that reversing any effort that reduces greenhouse gas pollution endangers the planet and puts the world's most vulnerable people at risk because of climate change.

Citing the efforts by Pope Francis, Pope Benedict, St. John Paul II and the U.S. bishops to address the importance of protecting the environment, Dan Misleh, executive director of the Catholic Climate Covenant, said Trump's action "neither protects our common home nor promotes the common good."

"The administration claims that these new orders will create jobs and grow the economy," Misleh said in a statement March 28, the day Trump signed the order. "The fact is, however, that those who work in energy conservation and renewable energy are already experiencing an economic boom."

Misleh also called for bipartisan cooperation to reach solutions to climate change.

Trump, flanked by coal miners, signed the order, titled "Energy Independence." In his remarks at the EPA, the president said the country will still have clean water and clean air, but his order seeks to eliminate what he said are too many job-killing regulations.

The president said his goal was to drive energy independence and bring back coal-mining and manufacturing jobs while reducing the cost of electricity.

According to Patrick Carolan, executive director of the Franciscan Action Network, Trump's order indicates the administration "does not care about climate change" or protecting people of color and low-income and indigenous communities that are most likely to experience the effects of pollution.

"By cutting the Clean Power Plan, the administration is demonstrating that corporate polluters are more important than the health and prosperity of our common home," Carolan said in a statement.

Bishop Richard E. Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, episcopal liaison to the Catholic Climate Covenant, did not refer specifically to the executive order during a March 28 conference call -- introduced as " President Trump's Dirty Energy Executive Order Conference Call" -- that was held shortly before Trump's executive order was issued.

But he cited three effects of climate change: the increasingly intense weather events that "we believe are an assault on God's creation" and which affect the world's poor more drastically than others; the support the U.S. bishops, as well as Catholic Charities and Catholic Relief Services, have given, in a letter to Congress, of the Clean Power Plan, vehicle fuel economy standards, the Green Climate Fund and the Paris climate agreement; and a growth in jobs from alternative energy efforts.

"Pope Francis could not be more strong on jobs," said Bishop Pates, who referred to the pope's 2015 encyclical "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home."

"He believes that providing work is a moral imperative of every economy." In Iowa, he added, 35 percent of the state's energy comes from wind or solar power, and has created 17,300 jobs, and has been cited by Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, a Republican, as having been a source for "good, high-paying jobs, helping families grow."

Bishop Pates said the bishops and their allies would "work closely" with the White House, Congress and "everybody who's involved with this."

Others on the conference call with the bishop described other effects of the Trump order.

"The American Lung Association and its partners from coast to coast will push back," said Lyndsay Moseley Alexander, assistant vice president and director of its Healthy Air Campaign, citing the projected loss of 300,000 school and work days a year to 2030, and an estimated 3,600 "lives ended prematurely," if the Clean Power Plan is scuttled.

The executive order also would have deleterious effects on the military, according to Stephen Cheney, a retired Marine brigadier general who is CEO of the American Security Project. "On the domestic side, it certainly threatens our coastal military bases with sea-level rise, and increases the risk to our soldiers, sailors, Air Force and Marines," he said. Internationally, he added, "it also acts as a threat multiplier all over the world."

Shannon Baker-Branstetter, energy and environment policy counsel for Consumers Union, said the goal of short-term gain risks the Clean Power Plan's long-term benefits, pointing to an estimated $150 a year in annual savings per household on utility bills by 2030. Medical saving costs also would result from cleaner power, Baker-Branstetter added.

Reverting to old ways means a higher likelihood of weather-related crop failures, meaning higher food costs and insurance premiums. "They shift the cost away from polluting entities and onto families," she said. Baker-Branstetter also voiced concern that the executive order could " prohibit the government from quantifying the impact" of the changes ordered by Trump.

Gina McCarthy, a fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard's Kennedy School and former EPA administrator, charged in a statement that the Trump administration wants "us to travel back to when smokestacks damaged our health and polluted our air, instead of taking every opportunity to support clean jobs of the future."

"This is not just dangerous; it's embarrassing to us and our businesses on a global scale to be dismissing opportunities for new technologies, economic growth and U.S. leadership," said McCarthy, who is Catholic.

Thomas J. Donohue, U.S. Chamber of Commerce president, supported Trump's action to "make regulatory relief and energy security a top priority."

"These executive actions are a welcome departure from the previous administration's strategy of making energy more expensive through costly, job-killing regulations that choked our economy," he said in a statement released late March 27.

Beyond the Clean Power Plan, Trump's order prioritizes the development of domestic coal, oil and natural gas reserves over renewable energy sources and opens federal land to coal leases. The president's blueprint calls for dismantling many of the environmental initiatives of President Barack Obama that were meant to address what the vast majority of scientists have concluded is human-caused climate change.

The Trump administration has maintained that there can be a balance between the need for jobs and economic growth and protecting the environment.

Coal usage for electrical power generation has seen a decline in recent years as utility companies converted plants from coal to less costly natural gas during the past decade.

While Trump has ordered a review of the Obama's signature plan, it has been on hold, however, as a federal appeals court weighs a legal challenge from 27 states and 100 companies. The plan was Obama's primary tool to meet the country's emissions reductions goals under the 2015 Paris climate accord.

Meanwhile, the CEO of the nation's largest privately held coal company urged Trump to "temper his expectations" about mining industry jobs making a comeback.

Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy, told The Guardian newspaper March 27 that he supported the review of the Clean Power Plan, but that it was market forces, rather than government regulations, that largely affect employment in the U.S. coal industry.

Critics have described the Obama-era plan as an overreach by the EPA that exceeds the original intent of the Clean Air Act. Supporters have said the plan would lead to thousands of clean energy jobs, reduce illnesses caused by air pollution and slow climate change.

The plan called for reducing power plant emissions by 2030 by about 32 percent from 2005 levels. It set targets for each state to reach. Coal-fired power plants are the nation's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

The EPA introduced the Clean Power Plan in August 2015, 26 months after Obama outlined general principles for tighter limits on power plant emissions in a speech at Georgetown University. He also stressed then the importance of meeting the country's growing electrical demand through renewable energy sources and called for efficiency upgrades to the country's electrical grid.

The Dominican Sisters of Adrian, Michigan, said Trump's action "sends a dangerous signal to the rest of the world that the United States is reneging on its pledge to cut carbon emissions by 26 percent by 2025, putting the historic Paris agreement -- and the well-being of people and planet -- in jeopardy."

The Paris climate agreement has been ratified by 134 of the 197 countries that approved it in December 2015 under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. President Barack Obama ratified the agreement on his own, bypassing the U.S. Senate. The agreement went into force last October after enough countries ratified it.

The Dominicans' statement said Trump's order "will not put all coal miners to work (because) most mining is increasingly mechanized."

"It will give a green light to planet-warming carbon pollution, threatening to relegate our children to an irreversible future of extreme weather events, droughts, floods, and untold billions in costs to adapt to these harmful impacts," it said.

- - -

Contributing to this report was Mark Pattison in Washington. Follow Sadowski and Pattison on Twitter: @DennisSadowski and @MeMarkPattison.

- - -

Copyright © 2017 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