New Vatican Information Service 03/09/2010

SUMMARY:

- Note by Press Office Director on Cases of Sexual Abuse
- Concern and Horror at Violence in Nigeria
- Solutions That Respect the Dignity of Women

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NOTE BY PRESS OFFICE DIRECTOR ON CASES OF SEXUAL ABUSE

VATICAN CITY, 9 MAR 2010 (VIS) - Given below is the text of note issued today by Holy See Press Office Director Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. concerning cases of the sexual abuse of minors in ecclesiastical institutions:

  "For some months now the very serious question of the sexual abuse of minors in institutions run by ecclesiastical bodies and by people with positions of responsibility within the Church, priests in particular, has been investing the Church and society in Ireland. The Holy Father recently demonstrated his own concern, particularly through two meetings: firstly with high-ranking members of the episcopate, then with all the ordinaries. He is also preparing the publication of a letter on the subject for the Irish Church.

  "But over recent weeks the debate on the sexual abuse of minors has also involved the Church in certain central European countries (Germany, Austria and Holland). And it is on this development that we wish to make some simple remarks.

  "The main ecclesiastical institutions concerned - the German Jesuit Province (the first to be involved, through the case of the Canisius-Kolleg in Berlin), the German Episcopal Conference, the Austrian Episcopal Conference and the Netherlands Episcopal Conference - have faced the emergence of problem with timely and decisive action. They have demonstrated their desire for transparency and, in a certain sense, accelerated the emergence of the problem by inviting victims to speak out, even when the cases involved date from many years ago. By doing so they have approached the matter 'on the right foot', because the correct starting point is recognition of what happened and concern for the victims and the consequences of the acts committed against them. Moreover, they have re-examined the extant 'Directives' and have planned new operative guidelines which also aim to identify a prevention strategy, so that everything possible may be done to ensure that similar cases are not repeated in the future.

  "These events mobilise the Church to find appropriate responses and should be placed in a more wide-ranging context that concerns the protection of children and young people from sexual abuse in society as a whole. Certainly, the errors committed in ecclesiastical institutions and by Church figures are particularly reprehensible because of the Church's educational and moral responsibility, but all objective and well-informed people know that the question is much broader, and concentrating accusations against the Church alone gives a false perspective. By way of example, recent data supplied by the competent authorities in Austria shows that, over the same period of time, the number of proven cases in Church institutions was 17, while there were 510 other cases in other areas. It would be as well to concern ourselves also with them.

  "In Germany initiatives are now rightly being suggested, promoted by the Ministry for the Family, to call a 'round table' of the various educational and social organisations in order to consider the question from an appropriate and comprehensive viewpoint. The Church is naturally ready to participate and become involved and, perhaps, her own painful experience may also be a useful contribution for others. Chancellor Angela Merkel had justly recognised the seriousness and constructive approach shown by the German Church.

  "In order to complete these remarks, it is as well to recall once again that the Church exists as part of civil society and shoulders her own responsibilities in society, but she also has her own specific code, the 'canonical code', which reflects her spiritual and sacramental nature and in which, therefore, judicial and penal procedures are different (for example, they contain no provision for pecuniary sanctions or for the deprivation of freedom, but for impediment in the exercise of the ministry and privation of rights in the ecclesiastical field, etc.). In the ambit of canon law, the crime of the sexual abuse of minors has always been considered as one of the most serious of all, and canonical norms have constantly reaffirmed this, in particular the 2001 Letter 'De delictis gravioribus', sometimes improperly cited as the cause of a 'culture of silence'. Those who know and understand its contents, are aware that it was a decisive signal to remind the episcopate of the seriousness of the problem, as well as a real incentive to draw up operational guidelines to face it.

  "In conclusion, although the seriousness of the difficulties the Church is going through cannot be denied, we must not fail to do everything possible in order to ensure that, in the end, they bring positive results, of better protection for infancy and youth in the Church and in society, and the purification of the Church herself".
OP/SEXUAL ABUSE/LOMBARDI                                   VIS 100309 (780)

CONCERN AND HORROR AT VIOLENCE IN NIGERIA

VATICAN CITY, 9 MAR 2010 (VIS) - Holy See Press Office Director Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. yesterday expressed "concern and horror" at the violent conflicts which have taken place in Nigeria in recent days, and which have led to the deaths of five hundred Christians of the Berom ethnic group in villages in the centre-north of the country, at the hands of Muslims of the Fulani ethnic group.

  Fr. Lombardi also explained that the events are to be seen "not as a religious, but a social confrontation".

  For his part, Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, speaking to Vatican Radio, affirmed that "this is a classic conflict between herdsmen and farmers, only the Fulani are all Muslims and the Berom all Christians. The international media are quickly led to report that it is Christians and Muslims who are killing one another; but this is not true, because the killings are not caused by religion but by social, economic, tribal and cultural issues. The victims are poor people who know nothing about, and have nothing to do with, any of this and are completely innocent. For our part in the Church, we continue to work to promote good relations between Christians and Muslims, seeking to reach agreement in an attempt to overcome violence and to work together to face the real political and ethnic problems".

  "We pray for peace, for good government and for truth. And we pray also that people may realise that the only way to survive in this country is to recognise one another as brothers and citizens of the same nation", the archbishop concluded.
.../NIGERIA/LOMBARDI:OLORUNFEMI                                      VIS 100309 (280)

SOLUTIONS THAT RESPECT THE DIGNITY OF WOMEN

VATICAN CITY, 9 MAR 2010 (VIS) - Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Holy See permanent observer to the United Nations in New York, yesterday addressed the fifty-fourth session of the Economic and Social Council's Commission on the Status of Women, which was meeting to discuss "Item 3: Follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women and to the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly entitled 'Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century'".

  Addressing the commission in English, Archbishop Migliore said: "From the successive interventions in these days, ... it seems that the assessment is not entirely positive: It includes some light, but also many and disturbing shadows.

  "The advancements achieved regarding the status of women in the world in the last fifteen years include, among others, improvements in the education of girls, the promotion of women as key to eradicating poverty and fostering development, growth of participation in social life, political reforms aimed at removing forms of discrimination against women and specific laws against domestic violence", he added.

  "In particular, among the many parallel events, some have stressed the indispensable role played by civil society in all its components, in highlighting the dignity of women, their rights and responsibilities. This having been said, women continue to suffer in many parts of the world".

  The permanent observer highlighted the importance of not overlooking "violence in the form of female feticide, infanticide, and abandonment", as well as "discrimination in health and nutrition". He noted, moreover, how "girls and women 15 years of age and over account for two-thirds of the world's illiterate population".

  The archbishop went on: "It is a sad fact that three quarters of those infected by HIV/AIDS are girls and women between the ages of 15 and 24", and that, among the victims of human trafficking, "minors account for up to fifty percent and approximately seventy percent are women and girls".

  The reasons for this situation are to be found "in cultural and social dynamics as well as delays and slowness of policy", he explained.

  "Achieving equality between women and men in education, employment, legal protection and social and political rights is considered in the context of gender equality. Yet the evidence shows that the handling of this concept ... is proving increasingly ideologically driven, and actually delays the true advancement of women. Moreover, in recent official documents there are interpretations of gender that dissolve every specificity and complementarity between men and women. These theories will not change the nature of things but certainly are already blurring and hindering any serious and timely advancement on the recognition of the inherent dignity and rights of women".

  Archbishop Migliore stressed the fact that the final documents of international conferences and committees often "link the achievement of personal, social, economic and political rights to a notion of sexual and reproductive health and rights which is violent to unborn human life and is detrimental to the integral needs of women and men within society".

  "A solution respectful of the dignity of women does not allow us to bypass the right to motherhood, but commits us to promoting motherhood by investing in and improving local health systems and providing essential obstetrical services", he said.

  "Fifteen years ago the Beijing Platform for Action proclaimed that women's human rights are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights. This is key not only to understanding the inherent dignity of women and girls but also to making this a concrete reality around the world", he concluded.
DELSS/CONFERENCE WOMEN/UN:MIGLIORE                     VIS 100309 (600)

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News Vatican Information Service 03/06-08/2010

SUMMARY: 6 - 8 MARCH

- Pope Expresses His Thanks to the Italian Civil Protection
- Other Pontifical Acts
- Lent: God Invites Us to Individual Conversion
- Conversion Means Reading Events in the Light of Faith
- Guarantee a Future for Christians in the Holy Land
- Audiences

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POPE EXPRESSES HIS THANKS TO THE ITALIAN CIVIL PROTECTION

VATICAN CITY, 6 MAR 2010 (VIS) - At midday today in the Vatican's Paul VI Hall, the Pope met with 7,000 volunteers of the Italian Civil Protection, led by the head of that association, Guido Bertolaso.

  In opening his remarks to them the Holy Father thanked everyone for the efforts they made during the April 2009 earthquake that hit the Italian region of Abruzzo, and he reiterated words he had used on his own visit to the devastated areas of Onna and l'Aquila: "Thank you for what you have done, and especially for the love with which you did it. Thank you for the example you have shown". He also expressed his gratitude for the service of the thousands of people who assisted at World Youth Day in Rome in 2000 and at John Paul II's funeral in 2005.

  "You are", the Pope told his audience, "one of the most recent and mature expressions of the long tradition of solidarity that has its roots in the altruism and generosity of the Italian people".

  "The terms 'civil' and 'protection'", he continued, "are an expression of your 'vocation' to protect people and their dignity - vital benefits of civil society - in tragic moments of calamity and crisis that threaten the life and security of families or entire communities. This mission does not consist only in managing the emergency, but in making a valid and appropriate contribution to achieving the common good".

  "This dual dimension of protection, which is manifested both during and after an emergency, is well expressed in the figure of the Good Samaritan ... who teaches us to look beyond the emergency and to prepare ... the return to normality".

  The Holy Father went on to highlight how "love for others cannot be delegated; the State and politics, while maintaining their necessary concern for social welfare, cannot replace such love. ... Volunteers are not just there to patch up holes in the social fabric, but individuals who truly contribute to forming the human and Christian face of society. Without voluntary work the common good and society cannot last long, because their progress and dignity is largely dependent on people who do more than just their duty".

  "Apart from being custodians of the territory", he concluded, "always be living icons of the Good Samaritan, remaining attentive to others, recalling man's dignity and awakening hope. When people do not limit themselves merely to performing their duty, in their jobs and in their families, but dedicate themselves to others, their hearts expand. Those who love and serve others as neighbours live and act in accordance with the Gospel and share in the mission of the Church, who always concerns herself with man in his entirety and wishes to make him feel the love of God".
AC/.../CIVIL PROTECTION                                                VIS 100308 (480)

OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, 6 MAR 2010 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Msgr. Valentino Di Cerbo of the clergy of the diocese of Rome, bureau chief in the First Section of the Secretariat of State, as bishop of Alife-Caiazzo (area 580, population 70,000, Catholics 69,759, priests 63, permanent deacons 4, religious 56), Italy. The bishop-elect was born in Frasso Telesino, Italy in 1943 and ordained a priest in 1968.
NER/.../DI CERBO                                                                          VIS 100308 (80)

LENT: GOD INVITES US TO INDIVIDUAL CONVERSION

VATICAN CITY, 7 MAR 2010 (VIS) - This morning Benedict XVI visited the parish of St. John of the Cross in the northern sector of the diocese of Rome, where he celebrated Mass.

  In his homily, the Pope said that "during Lent each one of us is invited by God to change our lives, to think and live in accordance with the Gospel, correcting some aspect of our way of praying, acting, working and of our relations with others. Jesus makes this appeal to us not with a severity that serves as an end unto itself, but precisely because He is concerned with our good, our happiness, our salvation. For our part, we must respond to Him by making a sincere interior effort, asking Him to show us in what particular points we must seek to convert".

  He then went on to comment on the parish itself, which was founded twenty-one years ago, noting how "it has opened itself to the new movements and ecclesial communities, thus maturing a broader understanding of Church and experiencing new forms of evangelisation.

  "I encourage you to continue courageously in this direction, while undertaking to involve all sides in a united pastoral project", the Holy Father added. In this context he expressed his joy at the fact that the parish community "aims to promote - while respecting the vocations and roles of consecrated and lay people - the co-responsibility of all members of the People of God. ... This requires a change of mentality, especially as regards lay persons, 'considering them not merely as collaborators of the clergy but recognising them as co-responsible in the life and activity of the Church, thus favouring the promotion of a mature and committed laity'".

  Turning then to address the families and young people of the local area who frequent the parish, Benedict XVI encouraged them "to announce the Gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone. Do not wait for others to come bringing you other messages, messages which do not lead to life, but make yourselves missionaries of Christ for your brothers and sisters in the places where they live, study or spend their free time. Here too, implement a capillary and organic activity of pastoral care of vocations, consisting in the education of families and young people to prayer and to living life as a gift that comes from God".

  Lent, he said, "invites each of us to recognise the mystery of God present in our lives. ... On the hill of Golgotha God, Who on the flight from Egypt revealed Himself as the One Who frees us from slavery, revealed Himself as the One Who embraces all men and women with the salvific power of the Cross and the Resurrection, freeing them from sin and death and accepting them in the embrace of His love".

  The Pope concluded by encouraging the faithful to continue "contemplating this mystery of the name of God in order better to understand the mystery of Lent and to live as individuals and communities in a permanent state of conversion, so as to be a constant epiphany in the world, witnesses of the living God Who frees and saves us out of love".
HML/CONVERSION/ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS PARISH      VIS 100308 (550)

CONVERSION MEANS READING EVENTS IN THE LIGHT OF FAITH

VATICAN CITY, 7 MAR 2010 (VIS) - At midday today, following his morning visit to the Roman parish of St. John of the Cross, the Holy Father appeared at the window of his study in order to pray the Angelus with faithful gathered below in St. Peter's Square.

  Commenting on the first reading from today's liturgy - the narrative of Moses and the burning bush which was not consumed by the flames but continued to burn, and whence God called to Moses - the Pope explained how "God shows Himself in various ways, also in our own lives. However, in order to recognise His presence it is necessary for us to approach Him with an awareness of our own lowliness and with profound respect. Otherwise we would be incapable of meeting and entering into communion with Him".

  He then went on to comment on the day's Gospel reading in which Jesus is asked about certain tragic events: the murder in the Temple of certain Galileans by order of Pilate, and the collapse of a tower that killed several passers-by. "Against the facile conclusion of considering evil as the effect of a divine punishment", said Benedict XVI, "Jesus proclaims the innocence of God, Who is good and cannot wish evil, and He warns against thinking that calamities are the immediate consequence of the personal guilt of those who suffer them".

  Jesus replies to His questioners saying: "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did". Christ, the Pope explained, "is inviting us to read those events differently, to see them in the perspective of conversion: calamities and tragic events must not arouse our curiosity or our desire to find the supposedly guilty, but should be occasions to reflect, to reject the illusion that we can live without God and to strengthen, with God's help, our commitment to change our lives".

  "The possibility of conversion demands that we learn to read the events of life in the light of faith. ... In the presence of suffering and tragedy, true wisdom is to ask ourselves about the precarious nature of existence and to read human history with the eye of God Who, always wanting only the good of His children for an inscrutable design of His love, sometimes allows them to be tried by pain in order to lead them to a greater good".

  After praying the Angelus the Pope greeted, among others, a group of French pilgrims making particular mention of the people affected by the storm that struck western France last week.
ANG/CONVERSION/...                                                                  VIS 100308 (460)

GUARANTEE A FUTURE FOR CHRISTIANS IN THE HOLY LAND

VATICAN CITY, 8 MAR 2010 (VIS) - Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, has sent a letter to the bishops of the world encouraging them to participate in the collection for the Holy Land, which traditionally takes place on Good Friday.

  The letter, which also bears the signature of Archbishop Cyril Vasil S.J., secretary of the congregation, "is inspired by the pilgrimage 'in the historical footsteps of Jesus' which the Holy Father Benedict XVI made last May".

  Cardinal Sandri recalls "the pastoral, ecumenical and inter-religious concern that enlivened" the Pope's words and actions on that trip and notes how, "together with the ecclesial community of Israel and Palestine" we heard "'a voice' of brotherhood and peace.    Strongly emphasising the ceaseless problem of emigration, His Holiness recalled that 'in the Holy Land there is room for everyone', and he urged the authorities to support the Christian presence" while assuring "the Christians of this land of the Church's solidarity".

  "The Year for Priests involves the beloved priests and seminarians of the whole Church, together with their respective bishops, in a commitment to the Holy Places", writes the cardinal, inviting everyone to "work tirelessly to guarantee a future for Christians in the place where 'the kindness and humanity' of Our God and Father first appeared.

  "The Pope has entrusted the Congregation for the Oriental Churches with the task of keeping alive interest in that blessed Land", Cardinal Sandri adds. "In his name I urge everyone to reinforce the solidarity that has been shown so far. In fact, the Christians of the East have a responsibility that belongs to the Universal Church, in other words the responsibility to preserve the 'Christian origins', the places and people who are the sign of them, so that those origins may always be the reference of the Christian mission, the measure of the ecclesial future and its security. They therefore deserve the support of the entire Church".

  A document drawn up by the Custody of the Holy Land and a note from the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, details the projects undertaken using the 2008-2009 collection.

  Apart from providing study grants for priests and seminarians from the Holy Land to study in pontifical universities, various restoration projects were carried out in, among other places: Ain Karem (shrine of the Visitation), Jerusalem, Bethany, Bethlehem, Haifa, Magdala, Nazareth, Mount Nebo, Mount Tabor and Nain. Funds were also distributed to support parishes, families, schools and universities, and - through the Custody of the Holy Land - to various cultural projects, such as the faculty of biblical sciences and archaeology of the "Studium Biblicum Franciscanum" in Jerusalem, and the Francisca Media Centre, a new form of apostolate which uses television networks to divulge the message of the Holy Places and the life of the local Christian communities.
.../COLLECTION HOLY LAND/SANDRI                                      VIS 100308 (490)

AUDIENCES

VATICAN CITY, 8 MAR 2010 (VIS) - The Holy Father today received in separate audiences:

 - Cardinal Ivan Dias, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples.

 - Three prelates from the Uganda Episcopal Conference, on their "ad limina" visit:

    - Bishop Henry Apaloryamam Ssentongo of Moroto.

    - Bishop Emmanuel Obbo of Soroti.

    - Archbishop James Odongo, emeritus of Tororo and military ordinary.

  On Saturday 6 March he received in separate audiences:

 - Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

 - Two prelates from the Uganda Episcopal Conference, on their "ad limina" visit:

    - Bishop Joseph B. Willigers M.H.M. of Jinja.

    - Bishop Giuseppe Filippi M.C.C.J. of Kotido.
AP:AL/.../...                                                                                      VIS 100308 (120)

You can find more information at: www.vatican.va - www.visnews.org

The news items contained in the Vatican Information Service may be used, in part or in their entirety, by quoting the source:
V.I.S. -Vatican Information Service.
Copyright © Vatican Information Service 00120 Vatican City