NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      VATICAN (CWNews.com) -- On Saturday, January 9, three new saints will be canonized at a ceremony in Rome.

      The ceremony-- an "ordinary consistory," which is a meeting of the cardinals and other bishops present in Rome at the time-- will see the canonization of Marcellin Benoit Champagnat, the French priest who founded the Marist teaching order in 1817; Giovanni Calabria, and Italian priest who founded the Poor Servants of Divine Providence; and Agostina Livia Pietrantoni, the Italian foundress of the Sisters of Charity.

      On the 32nd World Day of Peace, January 1, Pope John Paul II evoked the memory of the victims of this century's two great world wars.

      As he celebrated Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, the Pope told members of the congregation, his thoughts had turned to the millions of deaths that had occurred during those wars. "How can be forget the death camps, the children of Israel who were cruelly exterminated, the marytred saints-- Father Maximillien Kolbe, Sister Edith Stein, and so many others?" the Pope asked in his homily.

      The Holy Father also mentioned the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and repeated his insistence that peace must be based on respect for fundamental rights. As he addressed a crowd of 30,000 people who gathered in St. Peter's Square for his Angelus audience, he said that "the integral observance of human rights is the surest route to creating solid relations among states."

      On the eve of the new year, the Pope had traveled to the parish of St. Ignatius in Rome, which is staffed by the Jesuit order. With the Jesuit leadership and the mayor of Rome among the congregation, the Holy Father led the singing of the Te Deum in thanksgiving for the blessings of the year 1998. He also mentioned the suffering that many families had endured during the year, paying particular attention to "the sick, the aged, and those who live alone, or abandoned; those who feel they have been abandoned by society."