News

Mar. 1, 2007 (CWNews.com) - A Russian Orthodox prelate has told reporters that a meeting between Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) and Russian Patriarch Alexei II could take place this year.

Bishop Hilarion of Vienna, who is representating the Moscow patriarchate at a planning meeting for the joint Catholic-Orthodox commission on theological dialogue, said that a meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch would be likely to take place at a “neutral” location, rather than in Russia or Italy.

MURCIA, Spain, FEB. 28, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Archbishop Paul Cordes says the primary objective of Catholic charities is to show the love of God.

The president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which helps the Pope to promote and coordinate the Church's charitable work, said this on Tuesday when opening an international conference at the Catholic University of St. Anthony in Murcia.

"Catholic charitable associations must work to reduce poverty, but their primary objective is to show the love of God in the world," Archbishop Cordes said.

The 72-year-old prelate exhorted ecclesial groups "to firmly maintain their roots and objectives so as not to lose their ecclesial nature, giving priority to evangelization in the charitable activities in which they engage."

His conference was entitled "Socio-Charitable Activity in the Encyclical 'Deus Caritas Est.'"

The prelate said that "Christian associations as well as believers must not seek supports in the field of socio-charitable action that are not in accord with the Gospel."

"Church and state need each other in the quest for man's good; hence, the need for cooperation between both institutions is inevitable," Archbishop Cordes added.

The prelate praised the work of civil associations, particularly those nongovernmental organizations that "engage in charitable activity philanthropically."
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KOENIGSTEIN, Germany, FEB. 28, 2007 (Zenit.org).-Bishop Joseph Coutts of Faisalabad, Pakistan, and two Muslim scholars have been receiving death threats for their efforts to establish interreligious dialogue.

A Muslim extremist group claimed responsibility for threatening letters and phone calls which branded the three men as infidels, AsiaNews reported.

In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, Bishop Coutts said he would not let himself be intimidated and that he would persist "with interreligious activities, in favor of social harmony and religious peace in the country."

The bishop added: "We have experienced the violence of certain extremist Muslim groups, a violence that in former times did not exist. This is for us a new phenomenon, which does not spring from the population in general, but from the promotion of this way of thinking within extremist groups."

Catholics account for 1.5 million of Pakistan's 165 million inhabitants.

Recent years have seen the development of positive relations between Christians and Muslims in Faisalabad, the third largest city of Pakistan, AsiaNews reported.
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Prelate Hopes for Sufficient Security to Have Sunday Mass

BAGHDAD, Iraq, FEB. 28, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Christians in war-torn Iraq have been asked to add Lenten sacrifices to their daily privations as an offering to God.

Chaldean Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni of Babylon explained this to the Italian bishops' SIR news agency.

"They are renunciations that are added to the privations that we experience daily in Iraq," said Bishop Warduni. Such privations include lack of drinking water, food, medicines and electricity.

"It is paradoxical, moreover, that in an oil-rich country such as Iraq there is no gasoline for the population's needs," he added in the interview published Friday by SIR.

"We have no security or stability, or job possibilities, and we suffer violence and abuses," the prelate said. "Despite this, we have asked our faithful to offer all these difficulties to God so that he will keep present the fate of Iraq, of its children, of its sick, of its elderly, and of peace and security."

Message to Youth for the Great Fast from Bishop John of Parma 

Self-mastery is a goal of Great Lent: mastery not only of self, but also of those things not worthy of God. 

Young people are often counseled to strive for “self-mastery.” This concept is appropriate to our Great Fast consideration.

Especially in this country, this may be understood from the viewpoint of a master who has control over another (slave).

This form of relationship denies one person the right to make decisions; it actually removes the one’s personhood. Even the Greek word for master, “despota” gives us the word “despot,” meaning a leader who exercises authority with no restrictions.

CATECHETICAL HOMILY ON THE BEGINNING OF HOLY AND GREAT LENT
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BY THE MERCY OF GOD
ARCHBISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE,
NEW ROME, AND ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH,
TO THE PLENTITUDE OF THE CHURCH,
GRACE AND PEACE
FROM OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST,
TOGETHER WITH OUR PRAYER,
BLESSING AND FORGIVENESS


"The time has come which is the beginning of spiritual struggles."
(Hymn of the Ainoi of the Cheese Fare Sunday)

Beloved brothers and children in the Lord,

It is with these words that the Sacred Hymnographer reminds us of our obligation to intensify our spiritual struggles for the benefit of our spiritual training and progress during this period of Holy and Great Lent which is about to begin.

Humanity realized from ancient times that good things can only be acquired through hard work. Likewise did the Holy Fathers realize that in order to savor divine love, within which everything good, both eternal and temporal coexists, the contempt of repose is considered necessary, as Abba Isaac the Syrian says characteristically. And on the one hand, the material goods and commodities are what we humans pursue and acquire through great trouble, which we are usually ready for and willing to undergo.