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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Proposes Establishment of a Branch in Galilee

JERUSALEM, JUNE 5, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The leader of the Melkite Greek Catholics of Galilee has proposed the establishment of a new "branch" of the Neocatechumenal Way to work specifically in the Eastern-rite Church.

In a recent letter sent to Father Rino Rossi, director of Domus Galilaeae -- a project of the Neocatechumenal Way -- Archbishop Elias Chacour recognized that this ecclesial reality is bearing "excellent fruits" in its evangelizing work within the Melkite Church.

Archbishop Chacour states in his message that he has searched for "someone or some community to preach the Good News to my parishioners" as an answer to proselytism of the sects, and that the Neocatechumenal Way is an answer.

To further develop the fruits of this evangelization, the archbishop proposes the establishment of a new branch of the Neocatechumenal Way that would work within the Melkite Church and adopt its liturgy.

"You follow with your procedures the same path and the same methods, my Ancestors, the Apostles, used at the beginning of Christianity two thousand years ago," Archbishop Chacour writes. "You proclaim the Word of God fearlessly with conviction and with determination."

Father Rossi expressed his joy at the invitation of the Melkite Church.

"We share the sense of urgency expressed by Archbishop Chacour to evangelize 'the living stones' in the land of the Lord," he told ZENIT. "The Neocatechumenal Way is an itinerary of evangelization that has shown itself to be quite valid for stopping the spread of sects among the Catholic faithful in other parts of the world, above all in Latin America."

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Here is an adapted text of the letter of Archbishop Chacour:

Dear Beloved Father Rino Rossi,
Haifa
30/03/07

Greetings in the name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I take the opportunity of Easter to wish you as we do in our oriental church: Christ has risen! He has risen indeed!

I take pleasure to express my appreciation and sincere respect for the wonderful ministry "Domus Galilaeae" has undertaken to proclaim the Good News in several parishes of our large diocese. It is maybe useful to you to be reminded that the Melkite Catholic diocese of Acco, Haifa, Nazareth and all of Galilee -- practically the diocese of Israel -- is the largest Catholic community in the Holy Land. This Catholic community represents 110,000 Catholics, among whom, in my diocese, 76,000 are Melkite Catholic Christians.

We have, by reasons of history, no control on any of the holy places and shrines except the synagogue in Nazareth. Our field of action and of ministry is to protect and develop the living Church, the living stones.

We have and are still exposed to the proselytizing of our Christians by different so-called Christian sects. I prayed and looked for someone or some community to preach the Good News to my parishioners. I found you ready and happy to help. …

[W]e know the tree by its fruits, and after several months of diligent work in the different parishes of the Melkite Catholic diocese, your group has given some excellent fruits. For that I am grateful and pray for all those who helped bring into the Church so many lost souls.

I would be happy to consider even a branch of the Neocatechumenate to join our Church and adopt the Melkite Catholic rite. You follow with your procedures the same path and the same methods, my Ancestors, the Apostles, used at the beginning of Christianity two thousand years ago. You proclaim the Word of God fearlessly with conviction and with determination.

You have respected the local needs of our Church, our traditions and our spirituality. We learn a lot from you and are sure that your group is opened to learn some things from our people and from our Church traditions.

Please convey to your community at Domus Galilaeae our gratitude and deep appreciation with our prayers.

Christ has risen! He has risen indeed!

Yours with the blessing of the Lord,

Abuna Elias Chacour
Archbishop of Galilee

Code: ZE07060503

Date: 2007-06-05

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And Charity Needs Truth

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 5, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace opened the plenary session of Caritas Internationalis, telling them there is no justice without charity and no charity without truth.

Cardinal Renato Martino opened the six-day session on Monday in the Vatican. The representatives of some 160 Catholic charity organizations are gathered to discuss the theme of "Witnesses of Charity, Builders of Peace."

Cardinal Martino told them: "Justice is not charity, and in fact there is no state organization that could render the service of love superfluous."

Justice "needs charity, for otherwise it will not be able to purify itself from being overtaken by the interests and powers that bedazzle it," he added.

The 74-year-old cardinal continued: "Material reality cannot truly be understood without transcendence [...]; reason, precisely to be reason, needs to be purified by faith; in the same way justice needs to be purified by charity.

"The failure of all the systems that put God in parentheses bears witness to this. Reality needs God to be truly itself; political systems need religion to be fully themselves; rational and critical analysis needs the perspective of faith to encounter history."

Christ's poverty

Cardinal Martino recalled that Benedict XVI's new book, "Jesus of Nazareth," gives a principle regarding the preferential option for the poor and the political struggle for justice.

The Pope writes that "purely material poverty does not save, even if material disadvantages can in a special way count on divine goodness. The heart of persons who have nothing can be hardened, poisoned, and malicious -- internally full of the greed for possession, forgetful of God and desirous only of material goods."

For this reason, Cardinal Martino recalled, "the Sermon on the Mount is not a social program."

"The true way to serve the poor is not to take our point of departure from poverty in a sociological sense but from the poor Christ," the cardinal said.

He added: "Because of this, at Aparecida, the Pope proposed we take as our point of departure the Christ of the apostolic faith passed on to us by the Church.

"He encouraged the faithful of Latin America to revive their faith in Christ, our sole master and savior, who revealed to us the singular experience of the infinite love of God the Father of men."

Cardinal Martino stated: "Christ shows to us the face of God, a face of charity and truth, inextricably united.

"We cannot bear witness to charity without truth; the proclamation of truth is also a demanding form of charity and every act of charity, disinterested and farsighted, is likewise a witness to truth."

Code: ZE07060512

Date: 2007-06-05

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VATICAN CITY, JUNE 5, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI sent his greetings to a meeting of the Friars Minor of the Custody of the Holy Land, inviting them to announce the Gospel evermore effectively in Christ's homeland.

A telegram was sent on behalf of the Pope by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, to Franciscan Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Custos of the Holy Land.

The Pope assured the Franciscan of his prayers so that "this important meeting, faithful to the spirit" of St. Francis, "may respond with renewed apostolic zeal to the new challenges of our times."

The meeting began on Sunday in Bethlehem and gathered 47 religious, representatives of all the Franciscans of the Custody. The theme is "Lord, What Do You Want Me to Do in the Holy Land?"

The telegram expressed the Holy Father's hopes that "this meeting will serve to renew a generous pastoral commitment in the holy places and proclaim the Gospel evermore effectively to the faithful of the local communities as well as to pilgrims," Vatican Radio reported.

Code: ZE07060504

Date: 2007-06-05

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20070605 - Jonathan Luxmoore

Warsaw (ENI). The president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has met religious leaders in Ukraine during a visit in which he urged dialogue to overcome a crisis that has pitted the country's president against the prime minister.

"For me, personally, intercultural and international communication is the main priority," the Religious Information Service of Ukraine quoted assembly president René van der Linden as saying, in remarks explaining his desire to meet church leaders during his 21-22 May visit.

President Viktor Yushchenko has for months been locked in conflict with Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, and in April he ordered early parliamentary elections. Yanukovich, a long-standing rival of the president, resisted for weeks but eventually acquiesced, although the two have still not agreed on a date for the poll.

Van der Linden, a member of the upper house of the Dutch parliament, urged "a fully-fledged dialogue at the highest level in order to find a clear solution based on the rule of law", in a statement issued by the Council of Europe, which groups 46 European nations.

The situation escalated on 25 May after Yushchenko ordered 40 000 interior ministry troops to come under his command and away from that of Interior Minister Vasyl Tsushko who is an ally of the prime minister.

President Yushchenko favours a pro-Western strategy for the country that was once part of the Soviet Union, while Yanukovich is seen as being closer to Moscow.

In April, leaders of Ukraine's Greek Catholic, Latin-rite Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, and Pentecostal churches, as well as the Orthodox Church-Kiev Patriarchate described the president's decree to dissolve parliament as "the best way out of the current situation".

The statement was not signed by the largest of Ukraine's three rival Orthodox churches, which is linked to the Moscow Patriarchate. It has previously accused President Yushchenko of attempting to undermine it by supporting the creation of a single national church.

Lawmakers supporting the prime minister said in a statement sent to Pope Benedict XVI they were "especially distressed" that Catholic Church leaders had backed the inter-church declaration.

"Active involvement of Christian congregations in Ukraine's political life is unfortunately nothing new," said the parliamentarians, whose letter was published by the Russian Interfax news agency.

But Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, the head of Ukraine's Greek Catholic church, has defended his decision to support the church statement, saying, "Our declaration didn't back any party - it merely recalled that the church hasn't forgotten people, nor has God."

© 1994 - 2007 Ecumenical News International.  www.eni.ch

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VATICAN CITY, JUN 5, 2007 (VIS) - In New York on June 12 the Path to Peace Foundation will bestow the 2007 Path to Peace Award on Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, president of the 61st session of the U.N. General Assembly. Every year, the foundation awards the prize in recognition of acts of individual leadership in the international community. The president of the foundation, which was founded in 1991, is Archbishop Celestino Migliore, apostolic nuncio and Holy See permanent Observer to the United Nations.

A communique released by the foundation explains that this year's award is in recognition of Haya Rashed Al Khalifa's "dedicated efforts on behalf of peace and development."

Ms. Al Khalifa, who is from the Kingdom of Bahrain, was "one of the first women to practice law in her country," the communique reads. "In addition she has served her country as ambassador to France, from 2000 to 2004, and as non- resident ambassador to Belgium, Switzerland and Spain. Over the same period she was the Kingdom's permanent representative to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)."

DELSS/PEACE FOUNDATION/UN:MIGLIOREVIS 070605 (190)

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Occasion of his 40th Anniversary of Episcopacy

New York, NY - His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, will receive the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from Fordham University on the occasion of his 40th anniversary of Episcopal Service, on June 14, 2007 at the Rose Hill Campus of Fordham, beginning at 6:00 p.m.

The degree ceremony will take place in conjunction with the Fourth Annual Orthodoxy in America Lecture, which will be delivered by the Rev. Dr. Andrew Louth, Ph.D., renowned Orthodox scholar of Patristic and Byzantine Studies at Durham University.

Since the inaugural lecture in 2004, given by Archbishop Demetrios, more than 1,200 people have attended the Orthodoxy in America Lecture Series. This year’s keynote entitled, "Heart in Pilgrimage: St. Augustine’s Reading of the Psalms", will open the first of its kind international conference on "Orthodox Readings of Augustine", bringing together Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant scholars to discuss the place of Augustine in Christianity. For further information call 718-817-3004.

20060604 - Contact: Nikki Stephanopoulos at (212) 570-3530
www.goarch.org