Year: 2017

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News Briefs

Venezuela cardinal says supreme court revisions don’t go far enough

April 5, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Caracas, Venezuela, Apr 5, 2017 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Shortly after Venezuela’s supreme court revised its decision effectively stripping the legislature of its powers this weekend, one of the country’s cardinals responded by calling the reversal a mere “cosmetic retouching.”

Venezuela’s Supreme Court, packed with supporters of president Nicolas Maduro, announced March 29 that it would assume the functions of the National Assembly, where the opposition holds a majority.

The move was denounced domestically and internationally as a coup and a blow to democracy. In the face of this criticism Maduro asked the court to revise its rulings, which it did April 1.

“The corrections to the rulings are cosmetic retouchings that do not resolve the situation in the least, because the measures that shut down the National Assembly as an autonomous power continue, and confound the population,” Cardinal Baltazar Porras Cardozo of Merida responded April 2.

Cardinal Porras said that there remains the request “made last year that the legislature be restored to its full authority. This is a universal demand of many countries.”

The Archbishop of Merida said the lack of popular sovereignty and refusing participation to any group dissenting from the central government is reprehensible.

“If this continues, it can be an invitation to chaos and disorder and provoke an unnecessary bloodbath. If there are reasons to disown the legislature, it’s the people who have to decide that. At this time the real needs of the people are the lack of food and medicine,” he noted.

Similarly, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino of Caracas pointed out that “the blockade of the National Assembly persists.”

“I’m still worried that the country has been in a state of emergency regarding economic matters for about a year. This is not normal,” he said April 2.

He likewise noted that the government’s controversial measures “such as the cancellation of the (presidential) recall referendum, that the problem of the representatives from Amazonas state has not been resolved, that the election of governors has been postponed. All this sets up a dictatorship.”

One of the most contentious issues the country faces is the economy, where the world’s highest inflation rates, price controls, and failed economic policies have resulted in severe shortages of basic necessities like medicines, milk, flour, toilet paper, and other essentials.
Venezuela’s socialist government, in power since 1999, is widely blamed for the crisis.
The shortages have their roots in policies enacted by Hugo Chavez in 2003 that control the price of nearly 160 products such as flour, milk, oil and soap. While these products are affordable at the government listed price, they are in short supply and fly off the shelves, ending up on the black market at much higher rates.

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News Briefs

Pope Francis condemns deadly attacks in Syria, Russia

April 5, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Apr 5, 2017 / 05:47 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis expressed his horror at a chemical weapon attack in the province of Idlib in Syria on Tuesday, also expressing his sorrow for the victims of an attack April 3 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

“We witness, horrified, the latest events in Syria,” the Pope said April 5. “I strongly deplore the unacceptable massacre that took place yesterday in the province of Idlib, where dozens of civilians were killed, including many children.”

“I pray for the victims and their families, and I appeal to the conscience of those who have political responsibility, locally and internationally, so that this tragedy may come to an end and relief be brought to that beloved population who for too long have been devastated by war,” he continued.

Francis also offered encouragement to those who, even in a time of insecurity and discomfort, are working to bring help to the people of that region.

Reports differ, but at least 70 people, including children, were killed April 4 after being exposed to a toxic gas said to have been dropped from warplanes, the Guardian reports. At least another 100 people are being treated in hospitals in the region. Hours after the initial attack, one hospital treating the injured was also hit.

This attack followed one day after a bomb exploded between two metro stops in St. Petersburg, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more. Authorities have determined the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber originally from the central Asian Republic of Kyrgyzstan, CNN reports.

Another explosive device was later found in the metro system and safely disabled.

Pope Francis said Wednesday that his thoughts go out to all those involved in the serious attack. “I entrust to God’s mercy those who have tragically died, I express my spiritual closeness to their families and to all those who suffer because of this tragic event,” he said.

The Pope’s appeal followed his usual Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square, where he spoke about what it means to accept suffering in our lives, uniting it with the suffering of Jesus on the Cross.

St. Peter tells us it is better to suffer “for doing good…than for doing evil,” Francis said. “He does not mean that it is good to suffer, but that, when we suffer for the good, we are in communion with the Lord, who consented to suffer and be placed on the cross for our salvation.”

“When then we too, in smaller or larger situations in our lives, accept to suffer for the good,” he continued, “it is as if we sow around us seeds of the resurrection, seeds of life, making shine in the darkness the light of Easter.”

This is why the Apostle urges us to not return “evil with evil,” he said, but instead to always wish the other person well.

“This blessing is not a formality, is not only a sign of courtesy, but is a great gift that we ourselves have receive and have to ability to share with others,” he said. “It is the proclamation of God, an immense love, that does not end, it never fails, and which constitutes the very foundation of our hope.”

Every time we suffer “for righteousness,” we become an “instrument of peace,” the Pope said. This is why the Apostle Peter calls us “blessed” for doing so.

St. Peter also tells us to “always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope,” but this hope is not just a concept or a feeling, but a person, Pope Francis said.

Because “Christ is risen,” we recognize that he is not only alive, but present in us and in our brothers and sisters, as well, he said. This means that we must be Christ’s visible signs on earth, taking him as our model of how to live and learning to always act as he would act.

We must “emanate” the gentleness of Christ, always showing respect towards others, forgiving those who hurt us, the Pope said.

“Yes, because that is what Jesus did, and continues to do through those who make room for him in their hearts and in their lives, aware that evil does not win with evil, but with humility, mercy and meekness.”

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News Briefs

A letter from the Pope to the US president sunk in the Titanic

April 5, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Denver, Colo., Apr 5, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On the fateful voyage that embarked from Southampton and never made it to New York City, a passenger on the RMS Titanic named Major Archibald Willingham Butt was tasked with a special mission.

He was to carry a letter from Pope Pius X and personally deliver it to United States president William H. Taft.

But the 45-year-old major perished along with more than 1500 other passengers the night of April 15, with the contents of the letter never to be known.

Born in 1865 in Augusta, Georgia, Major Butt began a career in journalism after graduating from the University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee. He later worked as first secretary of the United States Embassy in Mexico. During the Spanish-American war, he joined the army and was later appointed in 1908 by Theodore Roosevelt as his military aid. When President Taft was elected, Major Butt was kept on staff and promoted to the rank of major in 1911.

By the next year, his health began to deteriorate – some speculating that this was due to him wanting to stay neutral and supportive amid tense political rivalry between Taft and Roosevelt, the latter of whom was planning a re-election campaign.

On a leave of absence, Major Butt embarked on a six-week tour of Europe in March of 1912 with his friend, artist Francis Millet. President Taft gave the major a letter to deliver to Pius X while in Rome, which he did on March 21. In return, Pius X gave him a letter to deliver to the president, according to the U.K. National Archives.

The major boarded the RMS Titanic in Southampton on April 12.

When the ship struck an iceberg in the waters of the Atlantic on the evening of April 15, he was seen in the smoking room, playing cards with Millett, the two ostensibly making no attempt to save themselves. Other sources, however, report his heroism.

According to Biography.com, The New York Times reported survivor Renee Harris as saying that he helped the sailors place women and children safely into lifeboats – even threatening bodily harm to any man who tried to circumvent the process.  

“Women will be attended to first or I’ll break every…bone in your body,” he told one such unfortunate gentleman, according to Harris. The major helped “frightened people so wonderfully, tenderly, and yet with such cool and manly firmness. He was a soldier to the last,” Harris reportedly said.

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The Dispatch

A bishop of consequence

April 5, 2017 George Weigel 5

When I first met Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., more than twenty years ago, I was struck by his boyish demeanor, his exquisite courtesy, and his rock-solid faith. Then the bishop of Rapid City, South […]

Ecclesia et Civitas

Do ideals matter anymore?

April 5, 2017 James Kalb 0

Man is a rational animal. From a moral standpoint, that means he aspires to act—and often does act—in accordance with principles that join together to form an ideal of life. He’s also social, so his […]

No Picture
News Briefs

Forced abortion in China cost a UN agency millions in US funds

April 4, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Washington D.C., Apr 4, 2017 / 05:55 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The United States has ended funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), saying the agency’s support for Chinese population control programs violates an amendment banning funds for partners of coercive abortion or sterilization programs.

“This determination was made based on the fact that China’s family planning policies still involve the use of coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization, and UNFPA partners on family planning activities with the Chinese government agency responsible for these coercive policies,” the U.S. State Department said in a letter to U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker.

The move ends $32.5 million in funds for the 2017 fiscal year, Reuters reports. The money will instead go to the State Department’s Global Health Programs fund. Those monies are used by the U.S. Agency for International Development to support family planning and maternal and reproductive health.

In 2015, the U.S. government was the fourth-largest voluntary donor to the Population Fund, giving $75 million.

The population fund said the claims were erroneous, saying its entire work “promotes the rights of individuals and couples to make their own decisions, free of coercion or discrimination.” It said its work has saved tens of thousands of mothers from preventable deaths and disabilities.

The Kemp-Kasten Amendment bars funding for any organization or program that the U.S. President determines to support or participate in coercive abortion or sterilization programs.

Women’s Rights Without Frontiers founder and president Reggie Littlejohn, a longtime critic of the Population Fund, said the fund “clearly supports China’s population control program, which they know is coercive.”

Littlejohn had called for further investigation into the Population Fund at a March 23 panel her organization held at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Her remarks cited several instances of coercion in abortion and sterilization.

She cited a sterilization campaign begun in April 2010 in  Puning City in China’s Guangdong Province, which set a goal of sterilizing 9,559 people. Littlejohn charged that those who refused were detained, along with their family members.

She also cited a May 4, 2016 article from BBC News, “Reinventing China’s abortion police,” which describes a Chinese official in Shaanxi province as a “birth-control enforcer” screening women for illegal pregnancies and telling women who cannot afford the fines to have an abortion.

The coastal province of Shandong is particularly strict, with illegal detentions for those accused of having children without official approval.

“Under China’s One (now Two) Child Policy, women have been forcibly aborted up to the ninth month of pregnancy,” Littlejohn said April 4. “Some of these forced abortions have been so violent that the women themselves have died, along with their full term babies. There have been brutal forced sterilizations as well, butchering women and leaving them disabled. Where was the outcry from the UNFPA? In my opinion, silence in the face of such atrocities is complicity.”

In 2002 the U.S. ended federal funding for the Population Fund after an investigation under then-Secretary of State Colin Powell found that it was complicit with Chinese officials’ coercive implementation of the country’s one-child policy.

The Obama administration had restored this funding in 2009.

Women’s Rights without Frontiers offers a support network to Chinese women pressured to abort or abandon their daughters, providing monthly support for up to a year. It aims to combat the practice it characterizes as “femicide” or “gendercide,” the selective targeting of baby girls for abortion.

Littlejohn has said the Chinese government should implement a similar program to save baby girls.

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