News

Details

Last Updated: 19 February 2013

ARICCIA, Italy, MAY 27, 2007 (ZENIT.org).- Father Gianbattista Zanchi has been re-elected as superior-general of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions.

The 44 members of the general assembly chose the Italian-born priest for a second term today, www.asianews.it reported. During his first term, he emphasized new evangelization, including work in communications, which brought about the founding of the institute's AsiaNews agency.

The assembly also elected Father Livio Maggi as vicar general.

Code: ZE07052722

Date: 2007-05-27

Details

Last Updated: 19 February 2013

VATICAN CITY, MAY 27, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The Vatican Web site has posted the document "The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized," published by the International Theological Commission.

Click here to view the document in a new window.

Code: ZE07052709

Date: 2007-05-27

Details

Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Died During the Regime of Kim Il-sung

SEOUL, South Korea, MAY 27, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The process for the beatification of 36 North Koreans martyred during the 1949-'52 Stalinist regime of Kim Il-sung has opened.

The announcement was made Thursday by the Order of St. Benedict Waegwan Abbey in South Korea, which exercises ecclesial jurisdiction over the North Korean Abbacy of Tokwon.

According to Abbot Simon Petro Ri Hyeong-u, apostolic administrator of the Territorial Abbacy of Tokwon, "The community of Order of St. Benedict Waegwan Abbey is full of aspiration to honor the witness of faith shown by our predecessors."

The initiative also has a political value, according to www.AsiaNews.it. Until now, the Seoul government has exerted its influence to avoid the commemoration of these martyrs in order not to provoke a diplomatic incident with the present regime in the North, led by Kim Jong-il, Kim Il-sung's son.

The process is for the beatification of Benedictine Abbot Bishop Boniface Sauer, Benedictine Father Benedict Kim and companions.

These men, according to Sabas Lee Seong-geun, vice postulator for the cause, "all died in the North Korean communist death camps during that terrible wave of anti-Catholic persecution after the communists came to power. We remember them together because in some way they are all linked to the Tokwon Abbey."

Since the end of the civil war in 1953, the three local ecclesiastical jurisdictions and the whole Catholic community in North Korea have been wiped out by the Stalinist regime. Not a single local priest has been left alive and all foreign clergymen have been expelled, AsiaNews said.

There are neither resident priests nor ecclesial structures. According to Vatican sources, Catholics in North Korea number 800, far fewer than the 3,000 recently acknowledged by the government.

Code: ZE07052720

Date: 2007-05-27

Details

Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Documentary on Abuse Is Hit as "Sensationalistic and False"

TURIN, Italy, MAY 27, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Twenty members of the Italian Parliament joined in signing a statement asking that the directors of Italian public television not broadcast the BBC documentary "Sex Crimes and the Vatican."

The program, first broadcast in Great Britain in October 2006, should not be shown "on a network that is supported by the tax money of all Italians," the parliamentarians insisted.

The first signatory of the statement is Turin sociologist Massimo Introvigne, director of Center for Studies of the New Religions, who has for years been engaged in the study of the polemics in the United States over the child-abuse cases involving priests.

The signatories affirm that they are not against television broadcasts in which the "real and painful problem" of pedophile priests is dealt with in a serious way. But they ask that a "sensationalistic and false" documentary, whose material errors they list in detail, not be broadcast.

"For example," Introvigne explains, "it is claimed that the 1962 Vatican instruction 'Crimen Sollicitationis' foresees the excommunication of the victims who report abuse, when exactly the contrary is true: Excommunication is threatened for those victims and others who have knowledge of this abuse and who do not immediately report it."

According to the signatories, there are "very grave" falsehoods connected with the person of Benedict XVI.

The BBC documentary presents a letter that then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger signed in 2001 as favoring pedophile priests, when, on the contrary, it promotes greater severity, and extends to the age of 20 the statute of limitations for the victim who was abused as a minor.

The documentary is, in sum, only "gossip," making "sensationally false claims," and guided by "ignorance," the signatories contend.

"We can, indeed we must, confront the problem," the signatories conclude, "and Benedict XVI himself said as much in his address to the Irish bishops on October 28, 2006. But truly it is not right to do this by slapping television viewers in the face with a garbage documentary."

Code: ZE07052706

Date: 2007-05-27

Details

Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Meeting in Poland Highlights a Key Social Concern

By Father John Flynn

ROME, MAY 27, 2007 (Zenit.org).- More than 3,000 delegates from dozens of countries gathered May 11-13 in Warsaw, Poland, for the 4th meeting of the World Congress of Families. The WCF describes itself as an "international network of pro-family organizations, scholars, leaders and people of good will."

On the first day of proceedings, Roman Giertych, minister of education and deputy prime minister of Poland, told participants: "The family is life. Without the family, there is no state. There is no government. There is nothing."

The May 11 press release by conference organizers also reported similar comments made by a government representative from the United States, Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and immigration. "As you know," she declared, "the family is the oldest human institution, the first and most enduring community of individuals working together for the common good."

During the following days the WCF examined topics ranging from the impact of the media on family life, to difficulties caused by pornography, to the challenge of contraception and euthanasia.

Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, prepared a text for the meeting, which was read by Father Grzegorz Kaszak. "The vocation of marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman," the text affirmed.

Marriage in America

A useful overview of the ill effects that result when marriage and the family fail came in a book published late last year by Kay Hymowitz. In "Marriage and Caste in America," Hymowitz, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in New York, argued that marriage failures are exacerbating social differences.

A combination of divorce and out-of-wedlock births is producing a nation of separate and unequal families. These inequalities, Hymowitz warned, are putting at risk the future of large numbers of children who will start life with severe disadvantages.

The prevalence of single motherhood is especially high among poor women who have only a high-school education. The book cites studies showing that in the mid-20th century just about all women, regardless of educational level, married before becoming mothers. Divorce levels were also very low.

In the decades after the social and cultural upheavals of the 1960s, the incidence of both divorce and having children outside of marriage became much higher among women with lower educational levels, compared with their more highly qualified counterparts. By the turn of the century, only about 10% of mothers with a college degree or higher were living without husbands. For mothers with only nine to 14 years of education the level was 36%.

In 2004 the proportion of children born to single mothers reached 33% of all births. The vast majority of these children went home from the maternity ward with a mother who had low levels of education and who was poor.

Poverty and low grades

The elevated number of single mothers goes a long way to explaining the persistently high level of poverty among children in the United States, according to Hymowitz. No fewer than 36% of female-headed families are below the poverty line, compared with 6% of married couples.

Poverty is far from the only problem facing children of unmarried mothers. They also have lower grades and educational qualifications compared to children who grow up with married parents. This holds true even after allowing for differences in race, family background and IQ. Not surprisingly, this also means that as adults, children who did not grow up with both parents also earn less and have a lower occupational status.

This leads to a situation, Hymowitz continued, where the social and economic inequalities owing to single motherhood are perpetuated into the next generation.

These problems cannot be resolved just through better welfare programs, Hymowitz contended. She pointed out that when a divorced mother remarries, her children's outcomes resemble those of children from single-parent families more than those from intact families. In addition, children of cohabiting parents tend to enjoy few of the benefits that kids from married couples enjoy.

Traditional marriage, and childbearing within marriage, Hymowitz argued, orders society in ways that we are still striving to understand. Children brought up by a married couple are not only given greater security and order in their lives, but they also grow up more likely to want to replicate this same family structure for themselves.

Hymowitz then dedicated a substantial portion of her book to examining what happened with black families, where the trend to single motherhood started much earlier. Already in the mid-1960s, critics such as Daniel P. Moynihan warned that the poor state of black families was part of the reason they were not achieving economic equality with whites. Voices such as Moynihan's were, however, in large part ignored and we now run the risk of producing another unequal caste of society, those children born to unmarried mothers, argued Hymowitz.

Some of the attempts to cope with the increase in single motherhood, the book warns, such as increased distribution of contraceptives and welfare programs, only deal with the symptoms of the phenomenon. Strong families that provide plenty of parental oversight, along with robust cultural and moral values, are far more effective at encouraging adolescents to avoid becoming parents at an age when they should be concentrating on their education.

Concluding the book, Hymowitz did see signs of hope. In more recent years divorce, illegitimacy and teen pregnancy rates have declined. As well, family values and marriage seem to be enjoying a resurgence of support. Moreover, the idea that children in married, two-parent families do better is even being accepted by some of the cultural and social elites, who before would not entertain such a proposal.

Without being overly optimistic, Hymowitz opined that for some adolescents there could be a rediscovery of personal responsibility and family values. The danger is, however, that this could be restricted to just one group in society, namely, the children fortunate enough to count on two parents. The future of those who are brought up in the much more precarious situation of divorced families or single mothers is much less promising.

A credo

In the midst of continuing debates over the future of the family, the Poland meeting of the World Family Congress closed with a "Warsaw Declaration," which a May 18 press release by organizers described as "a pro-family credo for the 21st century."

"The natural family, creation of God, is the fundamental human community, based on the lifelong marriage between a man and a woman, in which new individuals are conceived, born and raised," stated the declaration text.

The declaration affirmed that it is the family that teaches what faithfulness in love means, along with respect for the life of every human being. It is also through authentic family life that a moral community is generated, essential for the upbringing of younger generations.

The declaration specifically thanked the defense of the family by Pope John Paul II and his successor, Benedict XVI.

The final part of the text called on churches "to proclaim the truth about life, marriage and the family, affirming the latter as the first community of faith and the school of all vocations."

The declaration also appealed to political institutions, academics and health professionals to support the family. "We ask all people of good will to be at one with families and to help them restore hope and bring concrete assistance when difficulties occur," urged the text. A duty of increasing importance in a world whose future will depend in great degree on what happens to the family.

Code: ZE07052721

Date: 2007-05-27

Details

Last Updated: 19 February 2013

VATICAN CITY, MAY 27, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI received Kiko Argüello, the founder of the Neocatechumenal Way, in audience on Saturday, the Vatican press office reported.

The Neocatechumenal Way, whose statutes were approved for five years "ad experimentum" by the Holy See in June 2002, is at the service of diocesan bishops and pastors as a way of rediscovering the sacrament of baptism and promoting ongoing education in the faith.

The journey began in 1964 when Argüello left everything to go live with the poor in the slums on the outskirts of Madrid, Spain.

There are an estimated 20,000 communities of the Neocatechumenal Way in more than 6,000 parishes in 900 dioceses, which gather together around a million Catholics.

Code: ZE07052703

Date: 2007-05-27