VATICAN CITY (CNS) — This year’s economic crisis could help people rediscover the true meaning of Christmas and the values of life, love and charity, Pope Benedict XVI said. After the “consumerist and materialistic scales have been shed, Christmas can then become an occasion to accept as a personal gift the message of hope that […]
Continue readingROME (CNS) — An Italian government official intervened to stop a hospital from withholding nutrition and hydration from a woman who has been in a persistent vegetative state for 16 years. The Dec. 16 decree by Maurizio Sacconi, Italy’s welfare minister, temporarily blocked Eluana Englaro’s physician and family from carrying out an Italian supreme court […]
Continue readingDETROIT (CNS) — Cardinal Adam J. Maida of Detroit emphasized the need for urgent government action to allocate at least enough money to help Detroit’s automakers stay afloat until a more comprehensive assistance package can be worked out in the new year. “People in households throughout southeast Michigan and all across the country are counting […]
Continue readingVATICAN CITY (CNS) — The foundation upon which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is based will remain fragile if its ethical and divine origins are ignored, Pope Benedict XVI said during a Vatican commemoration of the document’s 60th anniversary. While much has been done over the past decades to promote and safeguard human rights […]
Continue readingINDIANAPOLIS (CNS) — A holiday gift-certificate campaign by Planned Parenthood of Indiana “is offensive because Christmas is about celebrating the gift of human life,” said the director of the pro-life ministry office of the Indianapolis Archdiocese. Sister Diane Carollo made the comments in a nationally televised interview Dec. 3 on ABC’s “Evening News.” The Planned […]
Continue readingUNITED NATIONS (CNS) — On the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Dec. 10, petitions for and against declaring abortion as a “universal right” were presented to U.N. members. More than a year ago, Marie Stopes International, a London-based abortion advocacy group, initiated a petition drive calling for “women’s rights to contraception […]
Continue readingVATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI warned young people of some of the dangers provoked by new computer technologies. Today’s younger generations are exposed to “a twofold risk caused primarily by the spread of new information technologies,” he told some 1,200 students and professors from the University of Parma, Italy, during an audience at […]
Continue readingBOSTON (CNS) — Today, 200 million people live in a country different from the one where they were born, and 26 to 30 million of them were forced from their homeland by adverse conditions beyond their control, a Vatican representative told a Boston conference. “Everyone is moving from everywhere to everywhere,” said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, […]
Continue readingWASHINGTON (CNS) — The chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace has joined other American Christian leaders in calling on President-elect Barack Obama to make lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace a priority during his first year in office. Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of Albany, N.Y., is among 40 signers of […]
Continue readingVATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican newspaper said the musical compositions of the Beatles were far more creative than the “standardized and stereotyped” pop music of today. The Beatles’ songs have demonstrated “remarkable staying power, becoming a source of inspiration for more than one generation of pop musicians,” it said. The newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, published […]
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