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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

WASHINGTON, D.C. APRIL 23, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The U.S. bishops' conference is calling all dioceses in their country to give concrete support to the Church in Africa.

A Pastoral Solidarity Fund for the Church in Africa supports the growing population of Catholics on that continent, supporting needs in all the African countries.

When the appeal began in 2005, nearly 60 U.S. dioceses contributed $822,000. In response to the 2006 appeal, 97 dioceses gave $1,727,000, an increase of 110% in total contributions and a 70% increase in the number of dioceses participating, the bishops' Web site reported.

The bishops reported that in the past 25 years, the number of Catholics in Africa has increased to 144 million from 55 million, and the number of priests has increased by 73%. Still, more than 70% of Africans live on less than $2 per day.

Bishop John Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee, chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Church in Africa, said: "The vibrant church in Africa today, so rich in spiritual wealth, has enormous material need that calls us as sisters and brothers in the universal church to respond generously with solidarity and love.

"This appeal has become an integral part of helping the flourishing Catholic community in Africa reach its enormous potential."

Code: ZE07042320

Date: 2007-04-23

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

"Your Words of Encouragement Are Very Important to Me"

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 23, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of the Feb. 2 German-language letter Chancellor Angela Merkel sent to Benedict XVI in response to the letter he sent her on the occasion of the beginning of the German presidency of the European Union and the G8.

* * *

2 February 2007

His Holiness
Pope Benedict XVI
The Vatican City

Your Holiness,

I was delighted to read your letter of 16 December 2006 in which you extended your good wishes and shared your thoughts on our EU and G8 Presidency. I am especially pleased that you, as Head of the Catholic Church, support the priorities of the German EU and G8 Presidencies. Let me take this opportunity to tell you that your words of encouragement are very important to me.

We want to use the German G8 and EU Presidencies to push ahead with combating poverty and realizing the Millennium Development Goals. We are focusing here particularly on the development potential of and challenges facing the African continent. In the G8 Presidency, the emphasis is on the continent's economic development and governance as well as peace and security issues. For me it is crucial that G8 relations with Africa move towards a reform partnership. Alongside increased efforts on the part of African countries, we attach importance to greater commitment of the international communities.

Fighting HIV/AIDS and strengthening healthcare systems are important priorities, above all of the G8 Presidency. Our aim is to change the strategies for combating HIV/AIDS so that they take special account of the situation of women and girls. Yet all these efforts are only half measures if healthcare systems are not improved in the long term.

The challenges of transparency on financial and raw materials markets which you mention will be taken up in the G8 framework. Of prime importance here is promoting and extending the Extraction Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) which enjoys our full support.

The debt relief initiatives you mention are an important factor in fighting poverty. The steps agreed at the G8 summits in Cologne (1999) and Gleneagles (2005) have given the countries whose debt has been cancelled financial scope which they can use to combat poverty in their countries. To implement the multilateral debt relief for the poorest highly indebted developing countries agreed in Gleneagles, the Federal Government pledged German participation to the tune of some 3.6 billion euro. The German Government is also supporting the setting up of a Debt Sustainability Framework. This is an important instrument for limiting the risk of the poorest countries to fall into excessive debt again. These formerly indebted countries have been able to increase their spending on combating poverty from 7% in 1999 to 9% of GDP in 2005 -- money which can be invested in schools and healthcare infrastructure.

Turning to trade, we have resolved to conclude the so-called Economic Partnership Agreements between the EU and the ACP countries in such a way as to promote development.

Furthermore, we will use our EU and G8 Presidencies to move forward dialogue with emerging market economies. Countries such as Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa are becoming ever more important when it comes to solving global problems such as energy supply, climate change and raw materials. That is why we have set ourselves the ambitious goal of talking to these countries also about difficult issues. After all, only if all strong players in the world shoulder their responsibility will we be able to build more justice and peace.

I believe the priorities I have laid out can provide momentum for sustainable development and thereby help us shape globalization around the world in a spirit of fairness.

Let me thank you once more for your letter.

Yours sincerely,

Angela Merkel

[Original text: German]

© Copyright 2007 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Code: ZE07042304

Date: 2007-04-23

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

"Poverty Should Be Given the Highest Attention"

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 23, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of the Dec. 16 German-language letter Benedict XVI sent to Chancellor Angela Merkel on the occasion of the beginning of the German presidency of the European Union and the G8.

* * *

To Her Excellency
Dr Angela MERKEL
Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany

On 17 July 2006, at the conclusion of the Saint Petersburg Summit, you announced that under your Presidency, the Group of the seven leading economic powers plus Russia (G8) would continue to keep the question of global poverty on its agenda. Subsequently, on 18 October last, the German Federal Government stated that assistance to Africa would be a key priority at the Heiligendamm Summit.

I therefore write to you in order to express the gratitude of the Catholic Church and my own personal appreciation for these announcements.

I welcome the fact that the question of poverty, with specific reference to Africa, now appears on the agenda of the G8; indeed, it should be given the highest attention and priority, for the sake of poor and rich countries alike. The fact that the German Presidency of the G8 coincides with the Presidency of the European Union presents a unique opportunity to tackle this issue. I am confident that Germany will exercise positively the leadership role that falls to her with regard to this question of global importance that affects us all.

At our meeting on 28 August last, you assured me that Germany shares the Holy See's concern regarding the inability of rich countries to offer the poorest countries, especially those from Africa, financial and trade conditions capable of promoting their lasting development.

The Holy See has repeatedly insisted that, while the Governments of poorer countries have a responsibility with regard to good governance and the elimination of poverty, the active involvement of international partners is indispensable. This should not be seen as an "extra" or as a concession which could be postponed in the face of pressing national concerns. It is a grave and unconditional moral responsibility, founded on the unity of the human race, and on the common dignity and shared destiny of rich and poor alike, who are being drawn ever closer by the process of globalization.

Trade conditions favourable to poor countries, including, above all, broad and unconditional access to markets, should be made available and guaranteed in lasting and reliable ways.

Provision must also be made for the rapid, total and unconditional cancellation of the external debt of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) and of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Measures should also be adopted to ensure that these countries do not fall once again into situations of unsustainable debt.

Developed countries must also recognize and implement fully the commitments they have made with regard to external aid.

Moreover, a substantial investment of resources for research and for the development of medicines to treat AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other tropical diseases is needed. In this regard, the first and foremost scientific challenge facing developed countries is the discovery of a vaccine against malaria. There is also a need to make available medical and pharmaceutical technology and health care expertise without imposing legal or economic conditions.

Finally, the international community must continue to work for the substantial reduction of both the legal and the illegal arms trade, the illegal trade of precious raw materials, and the flight of capital from poor countries, as well as for the elimination of the practices of money-laundering and corruption of officials of poor countries.

While these challenges should be undertaken by all members of the international community, the G8 and the European Union should take the lead.

People from different religions and cultures throughout the world are convinced that achieving the goal of eradicating extreme poverty by the year 2015 is one of the most important tasks in today’s world. Moreover, they also hold that such an objective is indissolubly linked to world peace and security. They look to the Presidency, held by the German Government in the months ahead, to ensure that the G8 and the European Union undertake the measures necessary to overcome poverty. They are ready to play their part in such efforts and they support your commitment in a spirit of solidarity.

Invoking God's blessings on the work of the G8 and the European Union under the German Presidency, I avail myself of the occasion to renew to Your Excellency the assurance of my highest consideration.

From the Vatican, 16 December 2006

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

[Original text: German]

© Copyright 2007 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Code: ZE07042303

Date: 2007-04-23

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Interview With English Professor Anthony Esolen

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island, APRIL 23, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Men must learn to seek the company of other men for the sake of women, the Church and the world, says a Catholic author and English professor.

In this interview with ZENIT, Anthony Esolen discusses the growing trend in rediscovering masculinity, and what it takes to make men and boys flourish.

Esolen is a professor of English at Providence College and senior editor of Touchstone Magazine. He has recently translated and edited Dante's "Divine Comedy," in three volumes, for Modern Library. His book, “Ironies of Faith,” is forthcoming this summer from ISI Press.

Q: In your recent articles you have discussed masculinity and manhood. How do you see your own understanding of these differ from the way others use these terms?

Esolen: When a virtue falls by the wayside, when it is no longer a lived reality recognized by a community in its manifold forms, we recall only a scrap of it here or there, or we can only imagine a gaudy caricature of it.

That, I think, is the case now for both manhood and womanhood.

Many millions of boys in America, for instance, are growing up in homes without fathers, so they find "fathers" of their own on the streets or in the diseased and silly fantasies of mass entertainment, musclemen who can take down a city, or charismatic gang leaders who move caches of drugs and make exciting things happen.

They miss the more subtle fortitude of moral vision and farsighted self-sacrifice. Male heroes in popular literature for boys, 80 or 90 years ago, might be all right with a gun or a sword, but they might also be bespectacled dons like Mr. Chips whose discipline was a form of love.

I see manhood as the drive to lead -- to serve by leading, or to lead by following loyally the true leadership of one's father or priest or captain.

The man exercises charity by training himself to be self-reliant in ordinary things, not out of pride, but out of a sincere desire to free others up for their own duties, and to free himself for things that are not ordinary.

The man also must refuse -- this is a difficult form of self-sacrifice -- to allow his feelings to turn him from duty, including his duty to learn the truth and to follow it.

A man loves his own family, but he also loves his family by refusing to subject the entire civil order to the welfare of his family; he understands that if he performs his duty, other families besides his own will profit by it.

A man must consider his life dispensable for the sake of those he leads; he must obey his legitimate superior; if and only if he does so will he become really necessary and really worthy of the obedience he claims, with scriptural authority that need not embarrass anyone.

Q: Books on manhood, such as "Wild at Heart" by Christian author John Eldredge, have been gaining popularity recently. What is it about our society and Church that is making men look at new ways of understanding their manhood?

Esolen: Men are lonely -- and they are also not universally fooled by the androgyny that is preached to them every day, in school, at church, in the workplace and in the media.

Unfortunately, I don't think they are finding "new" ways of looking at their manhood. They are finding very old ways of looking at it, or rather, they are finding a strange and finally unsatisfying version of those old ways.

Really, the human race has not changed since the days of Homer and Moses; men and women have not changed. And the mysteries of manhood and womanhood have been probed in literature for thousands of years. So we need to step back a little, take a look at that literature, or take a look at what men within our own lifetimes used to do.

For instance, though men are certainly wilder creatures than women -- the source of both their dynamism and their destructiveness -- it is men, not women, who create the civil order, as it is women, not men, who create the domestic order.

Our inability to distinguish between these orders, and our neglect of both of them in the pursuit of individual "dreams," has left us with a poor and thin domestic life, while in most places in America and probably Europe a vibrant civic life is hardly a memory.

Q: There has been a lot of discussion based upon Pope John Paul II's discussion of "the feminine genius." What about the "the masculine genius"?

Esolen: Men have a passion for the truth, and they seek that truth not generally by means of the affections, but by complex structures of various sorts.

These may be structures of authority or intellect, so you have the great university system invented by the friars and the student guilds in Europe, whose curriculum was often a kind of Euclidean geometry or Newtonian calculus of theological and philosophical propositions.

Men fashion "grammars" -- means of organizing and understanding almost impossibly disparate phenomena. Even the humble back of a baseball card, with its grid work of subtle statistics, testifies to this fascination.

Without this literal "discernment," I mean the clear separation of what may be predicated of a thing and what may not, with systematic means for judging the matter, there can be nothing so intricate as law, the government of a city, higher learning, a church -- not to mention philosophy and theology.

Even men who do not possess powerful intellects naturally fall in with such structures of order, and here the affections do play a vital role; men will fall in admiration of a leader, with a powerful combination of loyalty and friendship, as naturally as they will fall in love with a woman they may wish to marry.

If a society does not train boys to become such men, or if it does not allow mature men to form such natural alliances with other men for the benefit of civic life, it will degenerate.

I won't claim that this is a theory. It's a fact borne out by American and European cities right now.

Q: What could men learn from Christ, the ultimate man, in terms of developing masculinity?

Esolen: The first thing they could learn is not to be embarrassed by their manhood. It is holy! It has been created by God, and for a reason.

Then they might notice that Jesus is not the cute boyfriend that many of our churches make him out to be, the one who never goes too far -- forgive me if that is a little coarse.

Jesus loves women, as all good men must; Jesus obeys his mother at Cana; but Jesus does not hang around the skirts of women; he speaks gently, but as a man speaks gently, and when he rebukes, he rebukes forthrightly and clearly, as a man.

His closest comrades are men, though they are not necessarily the people he loves best in the world. He organizes them into a battalion of sacrifice.

He is remarkably sparing in his praise of them; certainly, as is the case with many good and wise men, he is much more desirous that they should come to know him than that they should feel comfortable about themselves.

From his apostles he seems to prefer the love that accompanies apprehension of the truth, rather than love born of his own affectionate actions toward them.

In fact, they respond to him as men often respond: They admire and follow with all the greater loyalty the man who rebukes them for, of all things, being frightened when it appears their ship will capsize in the stormy Sea of Galilee!

Men can learn from Jesus to seek the company of other men, at least in part for the sake of women, and certainly for the sake of the village, the nation, the Church and the world.

They can learn that there are two ways at least in which man is not meant to be alone: He needs the complementary virtues of woman, and he needs other men.

A soldier alone is no soldier.

Q: From your study of ancient and medieval works, such as Dante, what remedies could be applied to the many relational ills that plague society, such as high divorce rates, low birthrates and high numbers of children born out of wedlock?

Esolen: A good question. People can learn from both the Catholic and the Protestant literature of the past an appreciation for the wonder of the body, and of the virtue of chaste love.

They can learn from Dante that the love of man and woman is a glorious motif in the symphony of love fashioned by him who moves the sun and the other stars.

From Torquato Tasso and Edmund Spenser they can learn that the typical sin against love, occasioned by unchastity, does not so much stoke the flame of desire as it dampens it, making both the heart and the mind feeble, ineffectual.

From Spenser they can learn that marriage is not a private matter -- one of our greatest and silliest errors -- but a deeply social bond that unites those two fascinatingly different sorts of creatures, man and woman, in such a way as to link them to the families who have gone before them and to the families that will be born from their love.

If you have a view of marriage that does not include all mankind, all the natural world, the physical cosmos, heaven and earth, the dawn of time and its consummation in eternity, then your view of marriage is a cramped and hole-and-corner affair. So at least the old poets teach.

Maybe the most important thing they teach, though, is the delightfulness of the good: the lovely and modest woman -- Miranda in Shakespeare's "Tempest" -- and the brave and gentle young man -- Florizel in Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale."

Our children's imaginations now are a war zone, or what is left of fields and hills after the bombs have blasted them and the poison gas has infested them for 15 years.

Even fairy tales, those deeply Christian and incarnational folk parables of the West have been poisoned by feminist revisers.

So I guess I am saying that we will cure none of those ills, not one, unless we rediscover the virtue of purity, and we will not rediscover that virtue unless our imaginations are engaged by its beauty, and that from our childhoods.

Q: Are there things you are doing to raise your own son that is different from the way men of your own generation were raised?

Esolen: My son, my greatest blessing from God, is autistic. He can talk to you all day about computer systems and then take your computer apart with screwdrivers to fix it.

Most of these troubles of our time cannot touch him, especially since we teach him at home.

I'll say that the public schools in America are so poor, and are so universally slanted against both how boys learn and what they enjoy learning, that I would move heaven and earth rather than place a son of mine in any of them.

We desperately need single-sex schools for boys, and we need not apologize for them, either. Boys thrive in them, and unless the boys thrive, our society is finished.

Code: ZE07042328

Date: 2007-04-23

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Says They Are Key Element of Intercultural Dialogue

SAN MARINO, APRIL 23, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Religions' capacity to promote dialogue and understanding should be taken into account, said the secretary-general of the Council of Europe.

Terry Davis said that today when opening the first European conference on "The Religious Dimension of Intercultural Dialogue," organized by the San Marino chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

Representatives of Christianity, Judaism and Islam participated in the conference, which was also open to state leaders, observers, experts and the press.

"The subject is important, topical and complex," Davis said. "Intercultural dialogue is important because it brings peoples and cultures closer together and reduces the risks of misunderstanding, tension and conflict.

"Intercultural dialogue, together with close legal cooperation, and insistence on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, is part of our three-pronged approach in the fight against terrorism. Naturally, intercultural dialogue has a religious dimension, and that is what we have come here to discuss."

A priority

Davis said that the Council of Europe understands religion from two angles: first, freedom of religion as a human right, and second, religious beliefs as an element of personal identity and culture.

"The promotion of intercultural dialogue is a priority for our organization," Davis continued. "Our objective is to develop a long-term policy to exploit fully the potential of cultural diversity as a positive and cohesive force in our societies.

"I believe that religious communities have a tremendous potential in this respect. They can help to heal wounds, and they can build bridges.

"By working together, religious communities can defeat extremists who want to hijack and manipulate a faith to propagate violence and hate. They can become an enormous power for peace and tolerance, by making it clear that an attack against one faith is an attack against all of them."

Davis said he considered the conference itself as an opportunity for dialogue.

"The next challenge is to bring this dialogue to the local level," he asserted. "The religious dimension of the intercultural dialogue will reveal its full potential when a priest in a church, an imam in a mosque and a rabbi in a synagogue -- I emphasize: a local church, a local mosque, a local synagogue -- talk to each other and work with each other, to convey one common message, of tolerance, respect and understanding between people."

Code: ZE07042310

Date: 2007-04-23

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Speaks at UNESCO Conference in Defense of Equality

PARIS, APRIL 23, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The Holy See told UNESCO that it is convinced that one of today's priorities is the authentic promotion of the dignity of the woman.

Monsignor Franco Follo, the Holy See's permanent observer at UNESCO, the United Nations organization for education and culture, said this on Friday when offering his intervention to the executive council meeting. The committee was considering strategies for 2008-2013.

The Vatican official presented "the real promotion of the dignity of the woman and her responsible participation in social life at all levels" as a priority for the institution.

He recalled Benedict XVI's message for the 2007 World Day of Peace, in which the Pope spoke of the way that inequality between men and women influences the social conflicts in today's world.

The Holy Father's message said: "At the origin of many tensions that threaten peace are surely the many unjust inequalities still tragically present in our world. Particularly insidious among these are, on the one hand, inequality in access to essential goods like food, water, shelter, health; on the other hand, there are persistent inequalities between men and women in the exercise of basic human rights.

"A fundamental element of building peace is the recognition of the essential equality of human persons springing from their common transcendental dignity. Equality on this level is a good belonging to all, inscribed in that natural 'grammar' which is deducible from the divine plan of creation; it is a good that cannot be ignored or scorned without causing serious repercussions which put peace at risk.

"Similarly, inadequate consideration for the condition of women helps to create instability in the fabric of society. I think of the exploitation of women who are treated as objects, and of the many ways that a lack of respect is shown for their dignity; I also think -- in a different context -- of the mindset persisting in some cultures, where women are still firmly subordinated to the arbitrary decisions of men, with grave consequences for their personal dignity and for the exercise of their fundamental freedoms."

Instability factors

Monsignor Follo added: "The insufficient consideration of the feminine condition also provokes factors of instability in the social order. A fundamental element of building peace is the recognition of the essential equality of human persons springing from their common transcendental dignity."

"There can be no illusion of a secure peace until these forms of discrimination are also overcome, since they injure the personal dignity impressed by the Creator upon every human being," the Vatican official added, again quoting the papal message.

Monsignor Follo insisted on "the active role of the woman in social development."

The Holy See, he said, "recognizes her incomparable role in the human formation of youth and in the macroeconomic system, her adherence to human and moral values that she transmits to the new generations, the protection of life, her attention to peace and fraternal solidarity, the care for the elderly and infirm, the care of her family and children, her sense of interiority."

"Thanks to women, whose frequently humble and hidden activity should be supported," he continued, "the family could be better promoted as a fundamental cell of society, youth could learn to integrate themselves better within the social framework, peace could be sought more intensely, dialogue and human relations could be converted into factors of fraternity and solidarity."

"All of society," Monsignor Follo concluded," would benefit from her particular vocation, from her action and her feminine genius."

Code: ZE07042307

Date: 2007-04-23