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FRI-SAT-SUN April 7-9, 2000 vol. 11, no. 70 SECTION TWOSee why so many consider the Daily CATHOLIC as the "USA Today for CATHOLICS!"
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WORLDWIDE NEWS & VIEWS with a Catholic slant: | ||
MEDITATION: Lord Jesus, at times I am afraid to reach out to others. I do nothing when I should act; I say nothing when I should speak out. Give me a deeper and more courageous faith. Help me to trust that You are with me.
MEDITATION: Lord Jesus, failure and disappointment sometimes lead me to despair. I hide behind my pride and self-pity, withdrawing from You and others. Give me the hope I need and help me never to be afraid to begin again.
MEDITATION: Lord Jesus, Your great compassion for others overwhelms me. I feel petty and selfish when I think of You and the way You love. Help me to pour out my love, that You might fill me with Your Love.
MEDITATION: Lord Jesus, Your failing strength makes me see how helpless I am. Without You, I can do nothing. Help me to rely on Your strength, to see how much I need You.
MEDITATION: Lord Jesus, seeing You so cruelly humiliated makes me realize how I cling to my accomplishments, my possessions, my way. Help me to let go of those things in my life that prevent me from growing closer to You and others.
MEDITATION: Lord Jesus, I can never doubt Your great love for me when I see You crucified. Help me to see Your cross as the great sign of Your love for me.
MEDITATION: Lord Jesus, Your broken and lifeless body calls me to deeper faith. You chose death, even death on the cross. Help me to see my crosses as ways of loving You.
MEDITATION: Lord Jesus, seeing Your body taken from the cross reminds me how fearful I am of letting go of my own life. I am frightened when I think of being unimportant, useless, and helpless. Help me to place my life in Your hands.
MEDITATION: Lord Jesus, when I see the great stone sealing Your tomb, I feel alone and abandoned. Even though You sometimes seem distant or absent in my life, help me always to believe in Your closeness and loving presence.
Imprimatur: William Donald Borders, D.D.
Archbishop of Baltimore
August 21, 1984
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but the words of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen have been known to launch a thousand images in one's mind, one of the ways this late luminary did so much to evangelize the faith. Because of the urgency of the times and because few there are today who possess the wisdom, simplicity and insight than the late Archbishop who touched millions, we are bringing you daily gems from his writings. The good bishop makes it so simple that we have dubbed this daily series: "SIMPLY SHEEN".
"It is not to the politicians and the economists and the social reformers that we must look for the first steps in spiritual recovery; it is to the professed religious. The nonreligious can help by repudiating those who come to them in the name of God or America and say that their neighbor does not love either. Religion must not be a cloak covering the dagger of hate! "
The U.S. House of Representatives
Wednesday passed a bill banning partial-birth abortions. The 287-141
margin guarantees the success of a vote to overturn a Clinton veto.
However, the Senate companion bill did not pass with a 2/3 margin,
endangering the possibility of overturning a veto.
continued inside
WASHINGTON, D.C., APR 6 (ZENIT.org).- The U.S. House of Representatives
Wednesday passed a bill banning partial-birth abortions. The 287-141
margin guarantees the success of a vote to overturn a Clinton veto.
However, the Senate companion bill did not pass with a 2/3 margin,
endangering the possibility of overturning a veto.
The only difference between the House and Senate versions is that the
Senate inserted language declaring that the Roe v. Wade decision
permitting abortion was "an important constitutional right" and should
not be overturned. A conference committee will now work out the final
version of the bill to be presented for President Clinton's signature or
veto.
Pro-abortion factions attempted to amend the House ban to permit the
procedure in cases involving "serious long-term physical health
consequences" to the mother. However, this amendment was rejected
289-140.
A poll recently commissioned by the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities
of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Knights of
Columbus shows that Americans overwhelmingly oppose the use of
partial-birth abortion techniques. Of the respondants, 68% support the
House bill banning the process, while 19.6% oppose it, and 13.4%
indicated no opinion on the matter. The poll was done by MarketFacts,
contacting 1,000 citizens between March 31 and April 2, 2000. It has a
margin of error of 3.1%.
ZE00040620
Sunday, John Paul II will
proclaim 5 new Blessed. Among them is Swedish religious Maria Elisabeth
Hesselblad, who will be remembered as one of the great driving forces in
the 20th century of the dialogue among Christians of different
confessions. She was born in Sweden in 1870 to a Lutheran family, and, after
moving to America and inspired by Saint Bridget of Sweden became a Catholic at the age of 32. continued inside.
VATICAN CITY, APR 6 (ZENIT.org).- This coming Sunday, John Paul II will
proclaim 5 new Blessed. Among them is Swedish religious Maria Elisabeth
Hesselblad, who will be remembered as one of the great driving forces in
the 20th century of the dialogue among Christians of different
confessions.
She was born in Sweden in 1870 to a Lutheran family. At 18, she
emigrated to the United States to help her family financially. When she
witnessed the suffering and sickness at Roosevelt Hospital in New York,
where she worked as a nurse, Maria Elisabeth developed great spiritual
and human sensitivity. She turned to the love of the crucified Christ,
and was inspired by the life and writings of her compatriot St. Bridget
of Sweden, a mystic who died in 1373, and whom John Paul II named last
year co-patron of Europe.
Maria Elisabeth converted to Catholicism on August 15, 1902. She
described the difficulties and illnesses she suffered before embracing
the Catholic Church in these words: "Some months went by during which my
soul was submerged in an agony that I thought would take my life from
me. But light came, and with it strength."
This "strength" enabled her to go to Rome two years later where, with
special permission from Pope Pius X, she received the habit of the
Bridgittines, in St. Bridget's House in the Eternal City, which at the
time was the property of Carmelite nuns. In 1911, she reconstituted the
Order of St. Bridget, which recovered its contemplative tradition, the
solemn celebration of the liturgy, the apostolate, and constant
commitment to the Church's unity. She received final approval for the
Order from the Holy See on December 2, 1940.
During and after the Second World War, she carried out intense work of
charity in support of the poor and persecuted, victims of Italian racist
laws, and promoted the movement of dialogue among Christians. She told
her spiritual daughters to be united to God and to love the Church and
the Pope. Her driving force was the unity of Christians in the one
Church of Christ: "This is the primary end of our vocation."
Mother Maria Elisabeth's foundation today is present in Europe (Sweden,
Finland, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Poland, England, Switzerland, and
Italy), Asia (India, the Philippines), and North America (Mexico and the
United States). She died in Rome on April 24, 1957.
All the religious heirs of the spiritual legacy of Maria Elisabeth Hesselblad (they number about 600 worldwide) are expected to be in Rome to participate in the beatification ceremony. There will also be many Swedish pilgrims. The celebrations will conclude next Tuesday with the profession of 16 new religious of this Order. The new consecrated women come from Finland, Poland, Mexico, and India, among other countries. ZE00040608
Pope John Paul II will receive Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, in a private audience on Friday, August 7th. Sure to come up will be the brouhaha launched by 'catholics' for a free choice in cahoots with Planned Parenthood to remove the Holy See as a Permanent Observer. Annan's visit comes a day after the Holy Father received the President of Yemen Abdullah Saleh. It was the first meeting in Rome between the two since diplomatic relations was established in October 1998. continued inside.
VATICAN (CWNews.com) -- Pope John Paul II will receive Kofi Annan, the
secretary general of the United Nations, in a private audience on April 7.
For Annan-- who is in Rome for meetings on world hunger and the problems
created by drought in the Horn of Africa-- this will be the fourth direct
meeting with the Pope. He has been received at the Vatican in April 1997
(for an introductory meeting after assuming his UN post), June 1998 (to
discuss the International Criminal Court), and June 1999 (to discuss the
Balkan war).
Pope John Paul II met yesterday with President Ali
Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in a private audience.
The Yemeni leader arrived at the Vatican for the first time following the
establishment of formal relations between his country and the Holy See,
which took place in October 1998. Abdullah Saleh paid homage to the Pope
for his role in bringing an end to the Cold War-- a conflict which exacted a
heavy price from the people of Yemen, since their country was divided into
two opposing states, one siding with the Soviet bloc and the other the United
States.
Yemen today has a population of about 15 million people, of whom only
3,000 are Catholics. Most of these Catholics are foreign workers, including
many from southeast Asia.
While the world is concerned for
the plight of little Elian Gonzales, who has become a political ping pong ball with his own father now in the United States parrotting Cuban leader Fidel Castro, the latter has been mischievously and insidiously worked behind the scenes in leading a cruel campaign against the Church and against human rights activists, according to sources in Havana. This is quite a setback after all the progress the Holy Father made just two years ago during his historic trip to the communist island. But Castro clings to the hammer and sickle and in his old age has become even more senile and sinister in his ways. continued inside.
ROME (CWNews.com/Fides) - While the world is concerned for
the plight of little Elian Gonzales, Cuban leader Fidel
Castro, undisturbed behind the scenes, is leading a cruel
campaign against the Church and against human rights
activists, according to sources in Havana.
Elian Gonzales, 6, is in the custody of relations in Miami
after arriving in November, saved from a refugee boat that
sank in the crossing, killing his mother and 10 others. The
boy has become the focus of the conflict between the
Cuban-American community that wants to keep him in the
United States to save him from Cuba's "regime of terror"
and Castro and his Communist government who want the boy
returned.
For several months, while the Elian story has become an
international media circus, the Catholic Church has been
repeatedly targeted in Cuba, according to the sources.
"There is a sort of war to destroy the influence and
prestige of the Church" which had acquired "so much
credibility in the eyes of the people since the visit of
John Paul II" two years ago, they said.
The anti-Church campaign has used the story of Elian and
the American Dominican nun Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, with
whom the boy's Cuban grandmothers stayed in January. Last
month, Cuban television showed a spot of the nun who,
thanks to computer technology, gradually turned into a
devil. Government newspapers refer to the nun as "Sister
Dollar" and a "sexual pervert." Havana police have publicly
announced that anyone openly defending the nun will be fined
2500 pesos, about ten times an average Cuban wage.
In the schools, teachers tell the children that Elian has
been "kidnapped" and that it is "God's fault." Another
source said: "Children who have begun to come in large
numbers regularly to catechism, are beginning to ask: Why
does God allow this kidnapping? Why does the Church want it
to continue? Why don't the priests do something?"
Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino of Havana has
consistently said since December that the boy should be
reunited with his father, but official newspapers refused
to print it for ten days. In February, the cardinal
denounced the fact that the Elian case was used to attack
Pope John Paul II, citing a television program in which a
speaker asked, "How can he (the Pope) celebrate the birth
of the Child Jesus when little Elian is still held captive?"
After the Pope's visit there had been some opening, with
more television space for the cardinal, Christmas restored
as a regular annual holiday, and a national Congress on the
Church's Social Doctrine in December with the participation
of Archbishop Jean Louis Tauran, the Holy See secretary for
relations with states.
But sources said these small signs of opening are ever
fewer and are giving way to more control. Last December, a
meeting at the national shrine of Cobre, for which more
than 1,000 young people had registered, was cancelled by
the authorities the day before. Other events for which
permits had been issued have also been cancelled without
explanation and secret police have been checking homilies
and watching movements.
The Communist government's two main concerns, according to
observers, are the increasing collaboration between
dissidents and Christians to discuss the Church's teachings
on human rights and dignity and the increasing numbers of
people, especially young people, returning to the Church.
"Our young people want the Church," one source said. "They
are beginning to realize that the state denies God,
prevents them from becoming fully human beings, with
inalienable rights and dignity hitherto unknown."
