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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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VATICAN CITY, MARCH 23, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Discussion during Benedict XVI's audience with Irish President Mary McAleese underlined the importance of Europe's Christian roots.
The Vatican press office reported that the Pope and the Irish leader also discussed in today's meeting the peace process in Northern Ireland.
"In the course of the discussions, which took place in an atmosphere of great cordiality, attention turned to problems associated with the situation of the Church in Ireland, concentrating particularly on the positive start of 'structured dialogue' between the state and Churches -- in the spirit of the new European Constitutional Treaty -- as a promising way toward a positive contribution of Churches to the life of society," the press office said.
The English statement continued: "Consideration was also given to other more general questions such as the construction of Europe and its Christian roots, and developments in the peace process in Northern Ireland.
"Particular appreciation was expressed for Irish commitment to providing disinterested aid for the development of the poorest countries of Africa, with its White Paper on Aid."
After the meeting with the Holy Father, the Irish president was received by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state.
Code: ZE07032302
Date: 2007-03-23
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2 Books Recall "Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust"
ROME, MARCH 23, 2007 (Zenit.org).- For harboring Jews, the nine members of the Ulma family were executed by firing squad in 1944 in their German-occupied Polish village.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, mentioned the Polish family in a speech given recently in Rome on the occasion of the publication of a book by British historian Martin Gilbert entitled "The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust."
The Ulmas' story was also told recently in an interview with the magazine Inside the Vatican and Mateusz Szpytma, a Polish historian and co-author of the book "The Sacrifice of the Just: The Ulma Family Gave Their Lives for Helping Jews."
Szpytma began, "In the summer and spring of 1942, Germans murdered the majority of the Jewish citizens of Markowa," a small village in southeastern Poland.
"One of the families who made a heroic decision to hide the Jews was the Ulma family," Szpytma explained. "Eight Jewish people found shelter in the Ulmas' house."
"At dawn on March 24, 1944, military policemen arrived at the house of Jozef Ulma. There were soon thereafter a few shots heard -- the Jews were killed first," Szpytma continued. Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma were then "led out of the house and executed."
A witness to the tragedy testified that "the children were calling for their parents, but the parents were already dead. It was a shocking sight."
Szpytma explained that "having shot the parents, among the yells, the policemen started to discuss what to do with the children." It was decided the children should also be executed.
And so died the Ulmas' six children "and the seventh child in his mother's womb, just a few days before the day of his planned birth. In just a few dozen minutes 17 people were killed," recalled Szpytma.
"Owing to the help of other Poles who kept Jews in their houses until the end of the war, at least 17 people survived in Markowa," the historian said.
The Ulma family has been honored with the title Righteous Among the Nations, and their beatification process was initiated on the diocesan level in August 2003.
Code: ZE07032326
Date: 2007-03-23
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Cairo, Mar. 23, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Sheik Mohammend Sayyed Tantawi, the head of Egypt’s Al Azhar University, cancelled a scheduled meeting with Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) on March 22.
The Vatican offered no comment on the Islamic leader’s failure to arrive as expected on March 22. The Italian news agency ANSA said that the visit had been cancelled because of “the imam’s commitments in Cairo.” No new date for a meeting between the Pope and the Egyptian cleric has been announced.
Plans for a visit to Rome by Sheik Tantawi had been announced by the Vatican in February, after Cardinal Paul Poupard, the president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, met with the Islamic leader during a visit to Cairo.
The Vatican announcement was itself the cause for some embarrassment, as Sheik Tantawi told reporters that he had neither accepted nor received an invitation to Rome. Later, however, the plans for the visit were confirmed, and the March 22 date for the meeting was set.
The visit by Sheik Tantawi was seen by Vatican officials as a major step forward in relations with Islam, after the controversty stirred by the Pope’s speech in Regensburg last year. The Egyptian cleric himself had earlier said that Pope Benedict should apologize for those remarks.
The Egyptian imam-- who heads the leading institution of higher learning in the Sunni Muslim world-- had been under heavy pressure from Egyptian Islamic scholars, and from fundamentalist leaders of the Islamic Brotherhood, to cancel his trip to Rome.
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Washington, Mar. 23, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The US bishops have announced that two pamphlets circulated by a Marquette University theologian represent “false teaching” which cannot be reconciled with Catholic doctrine.
In a statement released on March 22, and approved by the administratative board of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the bishops’ doctrinal committee said that the works by Daniel Maguire “do not present Catholic teaching.”
The doctrinal committee, chaired by Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Connecticut, addressed two pamphlets circulated last year by Maguire, covering the issues of contraception, abortion, and same-sex marriage. The USCCB concluded that Maguire’s views on those topics, and his understanding of Church teaching authority, “cross the legitimate lines of theological reflection and simply enter into the area of false teaching.”
In the pamphlets, Maguire had argued that “the Roman Catholic position on abortion is pluralistic,” claiming that some Catholics have always endorsed the “pro-choice” stance. He writes that on abortion-- and on other issues such as contraception and same-sex marriage-- there are two opposing Catholic views. “Neither is official,” he says, “and neither is more Catholic than the other.”
The US bishops flatly reject that claim. “While there may be individuals who disagree with the teaching of the Church,” the USCCB statement observes, “such divergent views cannot be considered authentic Catholic teaching or the basis for reliable guidance regarding faithful Catholic moral life.” The bishops encourage reference to the Catechism of the Catholic Church for “correct and authentic teaching.”
Informed about the USCCB statement, Maguire did not budge from his position, saying that the bishops themselves are wrong. “They’re simply uninformed,” he told the New York Times, insisting that there are many different Catholic positions on controversial issues. Daniel Maguire, a former priest who has long been an active proponent of legal abortion and supporter of “Catholics for a Free Choice,” teaches moral theology at Marquette, a Jesuit-run university in Milwaukee, Wisconson. The USCCB statement noted that Milwaukee’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan “has made public statements affirming that the views expressed by Professor Maguire in his two pamphlets are erroneous and incompatible with the Church's teaching.”
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LIMA, Peru, MARCH 22, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Another country has joined the list of those that will celebrate the Day of the Unborn Child this Sunday.
The Family and Defense of Life Commission of the Peruvian bishops' conference has stressed the urgency of defending pre-born human beings.
"The new being might be wanted or unwanted, perhaps unexpected," the commission said. "It might be in the maternal womb or in a laboratory plate, perhaps in a freezer; it might have been generated by love or in violence, in the warmth of a home or the coldness of irresponsible recklessness.
"But none of these circumstances modifies the scientific truth, which remains unharmed and unchanging: We are before a human being, as valuable as one already born."
The commission's message entitled "Love, Celebrate and Defend Life," reiterated the Church's call to welcome "the great and mysterious gift of life that shines in every human being, especially those about to be born."
Coinciding with the solemnity of the Annunciation, March 25 has been established as the Day of the Unborn by numerous countries and dioceses.
Code: ZE07032227
Date: 2007-03-22
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VATICAN CITY, MARCH 22, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI sent a message expressing his sorrow over two tragedies in Russia which cost the lives of nearly 200 people.
Russia was in mourning after an explosion on Monday in a coal mine in Ulyanovskaya, Siberia, took the lives of 108 miners; and a fire in a home for the elderly in Kamyshevatskaya, on the coast of the Azov Sea, claimed 62 lives on Tuesday.
In a telegram sent to President Vladimir Putin, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, said that the Pope is "deeply saddened" about the news.
The message read: "The Holy Father expresses his spiritual closeness to the citizens affected by these sad events, as well as the entire population of the Russian Federation in these hours of anguish.
"While raising to the Lord of life a fervent prayer of mercy for the eternal rest of the departed, he invokes heaven's consolation for those who mourn the loss of their loved ones."
After wishing the "prompt recovery of those who were injured in the accidents," Benedict XVI offered his "deepest sorrow for the family of the victims, invoking for all the abundant consolations of heaven."
Code: ZE07032202
Date: 2007-03-22