cardinals links faith, science, and nature - The Leaven

10 NATION THE LEAVEN • february 5, 2010
Some think Scott Brown is
pro-life Catholic, but it’s not so
WASHINGTON (CNS) — The positive
views expressed by some Catholics and
pro-life advocates following the election
of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S.
Senate led many to believe that Brown
is a Catholic who takes a 100 percent
pro-life stand. Neither is the case. Brown
and his family attend New England Chapel
in Franklin, Mass., part of the Christian
Reformed Church in North America, which
has roots in the Protestant Reformation.
And although Brown opposes partial-birth
abortion and supports parental notification
before a minor can receive an abortion,
he believes the decision on abortion
“should ultimately be made by the woman
in consultation with her doctor,” according
to his campaign Web site. “I believe we
need to reduce the number of abortions
in America,” the Web site adds. “I also believe
there are people of good will on both
sides of the issue and we ought to work
together to support and promote adoption
as an alternative to abortion.” In the
Jan. 19 special election to fill the Senate
seat occupied since 1962 by Democratic
Sen. Ted Kennedy, Brown defeated Massachusetts
Attorney General Martha Coakley,
a Catholic who supports legal abortion, by
a 52 to 47 percent margin.
Catholic school students send
money, supplies, toys to Haiti
BETHESDA, Md. (CNS) — When thirdgrader
Katya Shmorhun heard her father
was being deployed to Haiti on a medical
mission, she didn’t want him to leave, but
also realized it was a great opportunity to
help Haitian children who lost everything
in the earthquake. She told her father,
Capt. Daniel Shmorhun, a pediatric cardiologist,
that she wanted to do something.
After some brainstorming, he said he
might be able to take a few, small stuffed
animals with him on the USNS Comfort, a
Navy hospital ship providing humanitarian
and disaster relief to Haiti. Katya introduced
the idea to her teacher and classmates
at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred
Heart in Bethesda. The next day they filled
the school lobby with new or lightly used
stuffed animals. A statement from Stone
Ridge said when Shmorhun saw how many
stuffed animals were donated, he was
“deeply touched.” She said her husband
planned to give a stuffed animal to each
child he treats. Katya said she wanted to
help the Haitian children because “they
lost everything in the earthquake. We
can give a little bit to them so they’ll be
happy,” she told the Catholic Standard,
Washington’s archdiocesan newspaper.
U.S. bishops
call for
long-term
Haiti strategy
WASHINGTON (CNS) — The United
States needs “a long-term coherent strategy
for recovery, development and poverty
reduction in Haiti,” said the chairman of
the U.S. bishops’ Committee on International
Justice and Peace in a Jan. 26 letter
to officials in the Obama administration.
Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of Albany,
N.Y., said the strategy for rebuilding
Haiti after the devastation of the
Jan. 12 earthquake should combine efforts
of U.S. government agencies with
groups that have expertise and experience
with Haiti.
He sent the letter to Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, Treasury Secretary Timothy
Geithner, Homeland Security Secretary
Janet Napolitano and Ambassador
Ron Kirk, U.S. trade representative.
Key elements in rebuilding Haiti, he
said, include: debt relief and an expansion
of trade; an extension of temporary
protected status that has been granted
to Haitians living in the United States;
and sustained reconstruction and development
assistance.
He thanked President Barack Obama
for his quick response to the disaster by
sending relief and the assistance of government
agencies and also for listening
to an appeal made by the bishops and
many others that the U.S. grant Haitians
in the U.S. temporary protected status.
But Bishop Hubbard said it was “highly
unlikely” that the 18-month duration
of the special status “will afford sufficient
time for Haiti to be rebuilt in ways
that make it safe for Haitians to return to
their country and find employment.”
He also noted that the church has responded
to the crisis through the work
of Catholic Relief Services, its overseas
relief and development agency, and
special collections by parishes in most
U.S. dioceses the weekend after the
earthquake.
But the bishop noted that much more
needs to be done.
He quoted a Haitian bishop who
said: “At the moment it’s all about the
emergency, but one day the questions
will be about reconstruction.”
CNS photo/Paul Haring
VILLANOVA PROFESSOR CHECKS CAMERA — Villanova University Professor Paul Wilson
checks focus and exposure on a 21-megapixel digital camera while photographing a 360-degree
virtual reality tour of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Jan. 27. The camera operates
on a electronically guided rig that tilts it up and down in 180-degree arcs and rotates it 360
degrees to capture hundreds of images that will be stitched together.
Archbishop Hannan pulling
for Saints to march in
NEW ORLEANS (CNS) — Retired
Archbishop Philip M. Hannan of New
Orleans said “it would be tremendous”
if his city’s team, the Saints, beat the
Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV
Feb. 7 in Miami.
“As a matter of fact, if it happens, the
downtown parish of the city will simply
explode,” he told the Clarion Herald,
newspaper of the New Orleans Archdiocese.
Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond, current
head of the archdiocese, and Indianapolis
Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein
placed a friendly wager on the game.
“If we win, he owes me some southern
Indiana pork chops, and if they win,
I owe him some gumbo,” Archbishop
Aymond said. “It should be fun.”
But it was Archbishop Hannan, now
96, who was there at the beginning,
when the Saints and their fans were
“newly minted,” as editor Peter Finney
Jr. of the Clarion Herald recounted in
his column for the Feb. 6 issue of the
newspaper.
The archbishop, who headed the
archdiocese from 1965-88, even
helped name the Saints. According to
Finney, the archbishop reassured then-
Gov. John McKeithen “that he did not
consider the nickname sacrilegious.
‘But I have to tell you,’ he told McKeithen,
‘from the viewpoint of the church,
most of the saints were martyrs.’”
Archbishop Hannan was invited to
offer the invocation before the kickoff
of the Saints’ first game against the Los
Angeles Rams on Sept. 7, 1967, “in front
of 80,000 newly minted Saints fans at
sold-out Tulane Stadium.”
“Flash forward 43 years — 40 years
of wandering in the football desert plus
three. Archbishop Hannan is 96, and he
is still marching, one foot in front of the
other, and he is inspiring all true believers
with the way he has rebounded from
a recent stroke,” Finney wrote.
The archbishop was scheduled to fly
to Washington to spend time with his
brother, Denis, 93, who is gravely ill,
then return to New Orleans and fly to Miami
on team owner Tom Benson’s plane
to watch “the unfolding of a long-awaited
vision”: the Saints in the Super Bowl.”
“As a matter of fact, Tom Benson has
been praying for this every day,” Archbishop
Hannan said. “I’d say we have a
big opportunity. I tell everyone, in fact,
that we are going to win. This would be
good not only for the Saints but for all
the people who support them.”
CNS photo/L’O sservatore Romano via Reuters
DOVE RELEASED BY POPE RETURNS TO APARTMENT — Pope Benedict XVI and a child look on
as one of two doves they released returns to his apartment at the end of the Angelus prayer
Jan. 31 at the Vatican. The release of the doves coincided with worldwide prayers for peace
in the Holy Land.
Vatican making final review of
new English liturgical texts
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Congregation
for Divine Worship and the Sacraments
is pulling together the final version of the
English translation of the complete Roman
Missal, the book of prayers used at Mass.
The Vox Clara Committee, an international
group of bishops established
to advise the congregation about the
translation of the Roman Missal into
English, met in Rome Jan. 26-29.
A statement released at the end of
the meeting said members “reviewed
various reports on the steps being taken
for editing, coordination of manuscripts
and reviews for internal consistency of
the English-language translation” of the
Roman Missal.
Marist Father Anthony Ward, an official
of the congregation for worship,
said that because bishops’ conferences
approved the Roman Missal in sections
over a period of years, a final review
and minor edits were needed to ensure
consistency. For instance, he said, the
same Latin prayer may be used in two
different Masses and may have been
translated slightly differently during the
bishops’ approval process.
The Vox Clara statement said committee
members reviewed the last two
sections of the Roman Missal translation
to be approved by bishops’ conferences
in English-speaking countries:
The proper of saints, a collection of specific
prayers related to each saint in the
universal liturgical calendar; and the
common of saints, general prayers for
celebrating saints listed in the “Roman
Martyrology,” but not in the universal
calendar.
Spanish Cardinal Antonio Canizares
Llovera, prefect of the congregation,
met with the committee and “expressed
his hope that the coming confirmation
of the Roman Missal would prove to
be of great pastoral advantage to the
church in the English-speaking world,”
the Vox Clara statement said.
Most English-speaking bishops’ conferences
are preparing materials to introduce
and explain the new translation with the
hope people will begin using it in parishes
at the beginning of Advent 2011.
Father Ward said the congregation
would finish its work long before
that, although he could not give
a precise date for when the Vatican
will approve the entire Roman Missal
in English.
THE LEAVEN • february 5, 2010
Trafficking
expected to be
issue at
Olympics
By Deborah Gyapong
Catholic News Service
OTTAWA (CNS) — Members of the
Canadian bishops’ justice and peace
commission have called for prayers for
victims of human trafficking, noting
that they expect it to be a problem at
the Feb. 12-28 Olympics in Vancouver,
British Columbia.
A pastoral letter issued Jan. 26 said
major sporting events often see “systems
put in place to satisfy the demand
for paid sex.”
“As pastors of the Catholic Church in
Canada, we denounce human trafficking
in all its forms, whether it is intended
for forced labor (domestic, farm or
factory work) or for sexual exploitation
(whether it be prostitution, pornography,
forced marriages, strip clubs, or
other),” the bishops wrote. “We invite
the faithful to become aware of this violation
of human rights and the trivialization
of concerns about prostitution.”
The bishops urged Catholics to become
aware of human trafficking, so
“we can share in the suffering of the
victims and change the behaviors and
mentalities that foster institutionalized
violence in this new form of slavery.”
Prostitution is illegal in Canada.
However, the bishops said, trafficking
does occur, and “we need to recognize
it, talk about it with others, and take action
in our communities to stop it.”
Pointing out that the demand for
sexual services fuels human trafficking,
the bishops asked how a majority-
Christian country like Canada could
tolerate this form of “institutionalized
violence that destroys the physical,
psychological and spiritual integrity of
other human beings.”
The scale of human trafficking is
“alarming,” they wrote, citing International
Labor Organization estimates of
2.4 million victims of trafficking, including
1.3 million caught up in sexual
exploitation, worldwide.
world
11
Archaeologist: Find shows Turin
shroud not from Jesus’ time
JERUSALEM (CNS) — Results from studies
on the remains of a first-century shroud
discovered on the edge of the Old City of
Jerusalem prove that the famous Shroud
of Turin could not have originated from
Jerusalem of Jesus’ time, said a prominent
archaeologist. The first-century shroud was
discovered in a tomb in the Hinnom Valley
in 2000, but the results of tests run on the
shroud and other artifacts found with it
were only completed in December 2009.
“This is the first shroud from Jesus’ time
found in Jerusalem and the first shroud
found in a type of burial cave similar to that
which Jesus would have been buried in and
[because of this] it is the first shroud which
can be compared to the Turin shroud,” said
British-born archaeologist Shimon Gibson,
basing his conclusion on the full study
results, which are scheduled to be published
in a scholarly volume within the next year.
There are two clear differences between the
current shroud fragments and the Shroud
of Turin. While the Shroud of Turin is formed
from one full piece of cloth, studies on
the fragments of the shroud discovered in
Jerusalem show that two burial cloths were
used for the burial — one made of linen,
used to wrap the head, and another made of
wool, which wrapped the body — in keeping
with Jewish tradition of the time, Gibson
said. In addition, Gibson said, unlike the
complex twill weave of the Shroud of Turin
that, according to archaeological finds, was
unknown in this area during Jesus’ time, the
discovered shroud fragments have a simple
two-way weave.
Haitians in camp give thanks,
place future in God’s hands
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CNS) — With
words of praise to God in a melodic song that
carried over the din of thousands of people,
Dolce Rochelle let it be known to anyone who
cared that no matter the challenge, she was
doing just fine. One of an estimated 50,000
people living in makeshift shelters of sheets,
blankets and plastic tarps on what was once
a golf course at the Petionville Club, Rochelle
passes her days singing and selling goods
for a friend out of her tent. In a world where
the future remains uncertain, Rochelle and
many others camped out at the Petionville
Club expressed a great deal of hope that
God will help them survive. The U.S. bishops’
Catholic Relief Services has worked with
the United Nations and the U.S. military to
turn the informal gathering of people into a
formal camp. A two-week supply of food was
delivered recently, and 40,000 shelter kits
were scheduled to be delivered the week of
Feb. 1.
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