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Monday, May 08, 2006

In the News

Some stories in the news ...

Fr. John I. Jenkins, Notre Dame's president, has decided to allow performances of a gay film festival and The Vagina Monologues, despite stiff criticism from some faculty and students. I think Fr. Jenkins is doing the right thing.

Father Jenkins put the play's review within the overall context of integrating academic freedom with the Catholic character of the university. He said he made the decision although he believes the play's portrayals of sexuality "stand apart from, and indeed in opposition to, Catholic teaching on human sexuality." But "there must be room in a university for expressions that do not accord with Catholic teaching, and that is true in the case of this play," he added.
- Catholic News Service


China again defies Vatican with 2nd ordination; reconciliation imperiled

The government-recognized "open" church will soon ordain another bishop without papal approval, and some underground Catholics expect reconciliation with the open church to become even harder to achieve ... A Vatican source confirmed to UCA News on May 2 that neither of them has been given papal approval and both were told this before their ordinations.

There's talk of excommunicating the two bishops, but other sources have the Vatican saying that if the bishops who were ordained and those ordaining them were forced to participate, they would not be so punished ... Canon 1323 specifies that a person coerced by grave fear, even if only relatively grave, is not subject to penalty. For more info about the Church and China, see my post of April 20, 2006.

Cardinals visit White House, Hill on immigration reform

Several U.S. cardinals had a busy morning in Washington April 28 urging humane and compassionate immigration legislation as the Senate prepared to debate immigration reform .... Cardinal McCarrick and Cardinals Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles and William H. Keeler of Baltimore started the day with a breakfast meeting on immigration reform with White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and other White House aides .... From the White House Cardinals Mahony and McCarrick went to Capitol Hill to meet with several senators on immigration reform legislation .... One of the key elements in immigration reform that the cardinals and the U.S. bishops have been working for is a program that would provide a path to citizenship for large numbers of undocumented workers already living in the United States.

Go Cardinals! :-)


1 Comments:

Blogger crystal said...

Hi Fr. Basil. I agree Fr. Jenkins is a brave guy ... there was a good editorial about Fr. Reese SJ, the former editor of America, in the Tablet some time ago - This Will Not Help Faith to Thrive.

3:45 PM  

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