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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Urges U.N. to Show "Social Farsightedness"

NEW YORK, MAY 17, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The Holy See has asked the United Nations to "show flexibility and social farsightedness" this session and adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Holy See's permanent observer to the United Nations, said this Wednesday in an address to the 6th session of the permanent forum on indigenous issues of the U.N. Economic and Social Council.

In his address, the archbishop said that the postponement of the adoption of the draft declaration by the third committee of the General Assembly last December "marked a disappointing moment." The document has been under development in the United Nations for over 20 years.

The permanent observer said that such a human rights instrument would be beneficial "for the very poorest living in rural areas, often of indigenous origin and often marginalized by the modern world."

Archbishop Migliore reiterated "the particular importance [the Holy See] attaches to the instrument under consideration and encourages U.N. member states to show flexibility and social farsightedness with a view to reaching an agreement during the present session of the General Assembly."

He continued: "My delegation believes that such a political gesture would not only profit the poorest and most excluded citizens in both rich and poor countries of the world, but would also enhance peace among peoples and foster the just and equitable enjoyment of human rights by all. casino 5 euro deposit"

The archbishop cited several criticisms of the document made in the committee that postponed the adoption -- which he said represented genuine concerns -- such as fear that the declaration could cause division "among disparate tribal groups born as states within the last 50 or so years."

"Such concerns," Archbishop Migliore continued, "should not marginalize the best interest of the poorest peoples in such resource-rich territories."

The permanent observer added that "these questions should not allow progress on indigenous peoples' equally legitimate rights and concerns to be postponed 'sine die.'"

Code: ZE07051707

Date: 2007-05-17

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Expert Comments on Papal Address

VERONA, Italy, MAY 17, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI's message to Brazil's bishops is that the poor need Christ, said the director of a think tank that focuses on the Church's social doctrine.

Stefano Fontana, the director of the Cardinal Van Thuân International Observatory, said this in comments to ZENIT on the Pope's address to Brazil's bishops May 11.

The Holy Father traveled to Brazil to open the 5th General Conference of the Episcopate of Latin America and the Caribbean. He returned to Rome on Sunday.

Fontana said: "There have been many in the past who thought, and some still do today, that poverty, in the sociological and material sense, was a 'theological place,' that is, a point of view from which to understand the Church and Christianity.

"This is not so, there is only one theological place: the apostolic faith in Christ."

Benedict XVI said in his address: "This, and nothing else, is the purpose of the Church: the salvation of individual souls. Whenever faith education and the sacramental life are lacking, the key for solving pressing social and political problems is also missing."

Fontana commented: "Benedict XVI writes in his recent book Jesus of Nazareth: 'Purely material poverty does not save, even if the disadvantaged of this world can surely reckon with God's generosity in a quite special way. But the heart of those who own nothing can be hardened, poisoned, malicious -- it is filled with greed, forgetful of God and craves only material goods.'"

Fontana said that "the Sermon on the Mount is not a social program ... but social justice can grow when the sermon becomes a point of reference for us, living in our thoughts and deeds, and when we find the strength for renunciation and responsibility for our neighbor and all of society."

Fontana added, "The Church as a whole should not lose the awareness that she should be recognizable as the community of God's poor."

Code: ZE07051706

Date: 2007-05-17

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VATICAN CITY, MAY 17, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Recently published statistics report that there are 557 citizens of Vatican City.

The report released the demographics of the sovereign city-state as of Dec. 31, 2005.

Of the total number of citizens, 58 are cardinals, 293 are clergy with status as members of pontifical representations, 62 are other members of the clergy, 101 are members of the Swiss Guard and the remaining 43 are other lay persons.

Little less than half -- 246 -- maintain their original citizenship.

Vatican citizenship is not inherited nor can it be acquired by being born in the city. It can only be acquired based on service to the Holy See and is revoked upon termination of employment by the Vatican.

Article 9 of the 1929 Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and Italy says that if a person ceases to be a citizen of the Holy See, and does not have citizenship elsewhere, Italian citizenship is granted.

There were 111 marriages recorded in Vatican City for 2005.

Code: ZE07051701

Date: 2007-05-17

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Prepares for World Communications Day

VATICAN CITY, MAY 17, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Helping children make good decisions is an integral part of media education, says the president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

Archbishop John Foley made this point in a commentary released by his dicastery on Benedict XVI's message for the 41st World Communications Day entitled "Children and the Media: a Challenge for Education." The media day will be observed Sunday.

In the commentary the archbishop says: "The Holy Father reminds us that children need to be accompanied as much as possible as they interact with the media and where there exists the risk of sometimes confusing reality with fiction.

"Ideally, parents, teachers and parish communities should become knowledgeable of the languages and techniques used by the media in order to be better selective of what they offer, to assist children in discernment and in making better choices."

The commentary added that "general criteria based on principles such as beauty, goodness and truth can offer good guidelines in selecting programming, content or even videogames."

Archbishop Foley also said that "a primary goal is also to avoid instances where children can be directed toward themes or situations which impoverish or deceive them under the guise of freedom, or where a relentless desire for novelty is created which, in the long run, will never be satisfied or bring about real happiness."

The commentary includes the Holy Father's appeal to media industry leaders, reminding them "to safeguard the common good, to uphold the truth, to protect individual human dignity and promote respect for the needs of the family."

Code: ZE07051702

Date: 2007-05-17

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Moscow (AsiaNews) – The 80 year long schism within the Russian Orthodox Church was healed today with the celebration of the first communal liturgy in Moscow.  President Putin, who addressed the congregation during the celebration, had long sought an end to the division, receiving words of praise from the ex separatists. 

In Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral Patriarch Alexi II with Metropolitan Laurus, who leads the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in New York, celebrated the historic event in which the clergy from the two Churches partook of communion from the same chalice.  Before the solemn ceremony the two religious leaders signed the Canonical Communion Act, putting an end to nine decades of bitter division within the Russian Orthodox Church which began as Communist rule took hold after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The schism became official in 1927, when Patriarch Sergiy declared loyalty to the communist regime.

Click here for full story at AsiaNews.it. Also see coverage at www.synod.com. 

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2007-05-17 - Eminent brother Archpastors, beloved-in-the-Lord Reverend Pastors, dear brothers, sisters and children!

Celebrating the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Church beckons all hear children, all those who were born on earth, to rejoice, singing “Clap your hands, all nations, for Christ has ascended to where He was before!” (sticheron on “Lord I call”). From the Church song it is clear that even the Holy Apostles rejoiced, for in the troparion, we sing:”You ascended in glory, O Christ our God, granting joy to Your Disciples…”

One sometimes hears from those who do not wish to part with the celebration of the Pascha of Christ words similar to this regarding this holiday: What is there to rejoice over? It would seem more fitting to grieve, since the Lord left His disciples and the world in His visible presence and ascended to the heavens and took His place at the right hand of God, and He will only return again for the terrible and just Judgment of the living and the dead.

But in fact there are many reasons to rejoice over the Ascension! The Apostles rejoiced because Christ said to them: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” and He promised to send down His equal, the Holy Spirit, the Divine Consoler, saying: “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you” (John 16:7). Christ ascended physically, and thereby elevated human flesh and our nature to Heaven, to the Divine Altar, that is, He thereby brought us into His eternal glory. And now, when we gaze upon the Divine Throne, we see not a terrible punishing God, but a Loving, Merciful and Understanding God who possesses the experience of human existence and endured all the temptations you and I experience every day. We see at the Divine Throne both a Man shining in undying Light and Divine Glory, co-reigning and abiding in full unity with Him, and interceding for us, as John the Theologian witnessed: “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:1-2). Thanks to this holy event, and the matter of our very salvation, achieved by Christ, we have become divine humans by potential. That is why the Apostles rejoiced, as today our Church rejoices together with her children, in Which they, through the Mysteries, commune with Divinity and the holy, sinless humanity of the Ascended Lord. This holiday reveals to our spiritual eyes the new relationship which exists between God and mankind, thanks to the act of our Savior.

On this holiday, we restore canonical unity and the fullness of church communion in one Local Russian Orthodox Church. Today, the path approved by the IV All-Diaspora Council and the Council of Bishops that followed, has reached its conclusion.

The dogma of the unity of the Church is expressed in the Creed, confirmed by the Ecumenical Councils on the basis of the Gospel of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Chief and Creator of our faith and salvation, established only one Church on earth, entrusted to Her alone the true faith, made her alone the treasury of His blessed Gifts. He desired this and especially prayed to the Heavenly Father, that all those who follow Him, that is, all Orthodox Christians, would be “one flock” under His guidance, the “One Shepherd” (John 10:16). The following words spoken by the Savior confirm the unity and indivisibility of the Church: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand… He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad” (Matthew 12:25, 30). Apostle Paul provides significant foundations for the unity of the Church by likening it to the members of a human body: “For as the body is one,” said the Apostle, “and hath many members and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ… Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular” (I Corinthians 12:12, 27).

But what actual duty emerges for us, dear brothers and sisters in the Resurrected Lord, from the concept of the unity of the Church? In the words of Apostle Paul, all believers, forming together within the Church one body, must “keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:4), without refusing communion in the Mysteries and not separating themselves from universal accord through disobedience to the Divinely-confirmed ecclesiastical Hierarchy. “Do not be tempted, brethren,” said Holy Martyr Ignatius, “he who follows the teacher of schism shall not inherit the Kingdom of God, he who holds to an alien teaching shares not in the suffering of Christ.” Holy Bishop-Martyr Cyprian of Carthage witnesses that people who turn away from communion in the Church “even if they die in witness of the name of Christ, their sin shall not be cleansed with their blood; indelible and grievous is the sin of division, which is not washed away even through suffering” ( On the Unity of the Church ). Moving also are the words of the same Father: “Who hearkens not to the Church is not a son of the Church, and he for whom the Church is not a mother, to him God is not a father.”

So, my beloved ones, let us rejoice in these festive days of the Paschal Triodion, because through these events, which saved the world, the Lord made our natures divine, freed us and delivered us from death and corruption, and, completing the task of our salvation by establishing the Holy Church, He, as the first sticheron after the elevation of the cross says: “elevates us to the prime blessedness,” that is, restores the direct contact with God that was lost through the sinful fall of our ancestors, which we now obtain thanks to the special mercy and providence towards us, within the salvific Mysteries of the Church.

Stand firmly in the faith, my dear ones, make bold, be staunch in the unshakable foundation of the Church, which is “the pillar and the ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). Amen.

With love in the Lord and my plea for your holy prayers,

+ Metropolitan Laurus

First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia
May 14/27, 2007

Source: www.synod.com - The Official Website of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia