Brian R Corbin's Reflections on Religion and Life

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March 27, 2009 • 2:32 pm 1

Cardinal Says Moral Education Needed To Fight AIDS

Notes Contributions of Religions in Senegal

DAKAR, Senegal, MARCH 26, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The archbishop of Dakar is emphasizing that in order to combat AIDS in Africa, education in values is the most important necessity.

Cardinal Théodore-Adrien Sarr explained Tuesday to Vatican Radio that since 1995, at the request of former President Abdou Diouf, Christian and Muslim religious communities have been engaged in the struggle against AIDS.

He noted: “We said we could preach and exhort in favor of abstinence and fidelity, and we have done so, both Christians as well as Muslims. And if today the rate of AIDS infection in Senegal is still low, I believe it is thanks to the religious communities, which have emphasized morality and moral behavior.”

“Given that I don’t think that condoms can eradicate AIDS,” he affirmed, “I believe our appeal for abstinence and fidelity, in other words, for moral values and the observance of sexual customs, continues to be truly valid.”

The cardinal acknowledged that there could be difficulties in some countries of the continent “because there are different customs.” However, he stated “that it is necessary to know that Africa is very varied and that there are African societies that know the concept of abstinence and fidelity very well and cultivate it” and that it “is necessary to help them to continue to cultivate it.”

Speaking about Senegal’s situation, he expressed the fear that “if they start to distribute condoms massively to our young people, this will not help them and it will be very much more difficult for them to control themselves and to remain faithful until marriage.”

“I think that to help people through education to make the effort to control themselves continues to be a valid contribution for the prevention of AIDS,” he noted.

Papal visit

Cardinal Sarr observed, “It is a pity that instead of reflecting on how the Pope was received and especially all that he experienced with the peoples of Cameroon and Angola, some of the media put the accent almost exclusively on the question of condoms and abortion.”

“There were beautiful things on this trip that must be transmitted,” he continued. “Instead some found nothing better to do than fuel controversies which, moreover, were magnified, excessive as regards the rest of the content” of the Papal visit.

The cardinal asserted that “it is increasingly necessary that the West and Westerners stop thinking that they alone are the depositories of truth, that only what they conceive as the way of seeing and behaving is valid.”

Making a personal reflection on the Papal trip, the prelate said that “if the Pope put these two problems on the table, that of abortion and condoms, perhaps it is to remind us Africans, and especially Africa’s bishops, that it is better to think with our own heads and for ourselves; to live the Gospel and its values and to promote them for ourselves, to foster those values that don’t always seems to be our own.”

“In any case,” he concluded, “I have committed myself to work so that we can express ourselves and demonstrate that we have ways of seeing and acting that are valid, even if they are different from those that some propose to us.”

Filed under: Culture, healthcare, Medical Ethics, Social Doctrine

March 5, 2009 • 7:29 pm 0

Concerns about Sebelius HHS Nominations

More from Archbishop Naumann on the Sebelius HHS nomination

Posted on March 5, 2009 by Dennis Sadowski

Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., has been questioning Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Catholic, for her support of legalized abortion for a year and a half now, and he has asked her on at least two occasions not to present herself for Communion in Kansas.

In his latest public comment, he now says her nomination by President Barack Obama as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services is “troubling” because of her abortion stance. The archbishop offered his most recent comments about Sebelius — summarized in a Catholic News Service report – in his column in the March 6 issue of The Leaven, the archdiocesan newspaper.

In an interview with Our Sunday Visitor, he further explains his stance.

While calling Sebelius a gifted leader who represents Catholic social teaching well when it comes to concerns such as the development of affordable housing and increasing access to health care for poor children, Archbishop Naumann strongly takes the governor to task for her long-held support for abortion. In the interview the archbishop said he can understand why Sebelius was nominated to the federal post but reiterated that he finds it troubling.

An excerpt: “But I think from the church’s point of view, it’s sad because it places another high-profile, pro-abortion Catholic into national leadership along with Vice President (Joe) Biden and Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi and a raft of others that are in the Congress. And so I think it makes our job as bishops more challenging, because we have to be even more clear that this is not acceptable for a person in public service to say that they are Catholic and then to support these policies that are anti-life, you know go against the most fundamental of all human rights, the preservation of innocent life.”

Filed under: healthcare, Medical Ethics, Social Doctrine

March 4, 2009 • 8:06 pm 0

PRO-LIFE E-MAIL CAMPAIGN TO CONGRESS EXPANDS NATIONAL POSTCARD EFFORT


 
WASHINGTON—The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has launched an e-mail campaign urging Congress to maintain widely-supported pro-life policies and to oppose the federal funding and promotion of abortion. The e-mail campaign augments the massive national postcard campaign launched in dioceses throughout the country in late January. Both efforts are being coordinated through the USCCB’s partner organization, the National Committee for a Human Life Amendment (NCHLA).
            Since 1993, NCHLA has coordinated national postcard campaigns equipping citizens to express their pro-life views clearly and respectfully to Congress. The current campaign is unprecedented in scope, exceeding those sponsored by the Catholic bishops in the past.
            Deirdre A. McQuade, Assistant Director for Policy and Communications at the USCCB’s Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, explained the supplementary e-mail campaign. “Tens of millions of cards have been distributed in parishes, schools, non-Catholic churches, and civic organizations across the country,” she said. “The e-mail campaign will give even more citizens the chance to participate.”
            The e-mails urge a constituent’s Senators and Representative to “please oppose FOCA or any similar measure” and “retain existing laws against funding and promotion of abortion.” They also state: “It is especially important that Congress retain these laws in the various appropriations bills, e.g., the Hyde Amendment in the Labor/Health and Human Services appropriations bill.”
            “To guard against the erosion of current pro-life measures—and to keep abortion from becoming a federal entitlement—our voice is needed now more than ever,” McQuade said.

Filed under: Culture, healthcare, morals, Politics, Social Doctrine

February 7, 2009 • 8:28 pm 0

President of Caritas Internationalis Discusses role of families

ZE09020605 – 2009-02-06 Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-25022?l=english

CARITAS PRESIDENT ON THE ROLE OF FAMILY

Interview With Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga

By Gilberto Hernández García

MEXICO CITY, FEB. 6, 2009 (Zenit.org).- With all of the importance that families have for individuals and society — including in the economic realm — the decision to form a family should be made with ample preparation, says the president of Caritas. Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga affirmed this last month when he spoke with ZENIT at the 6th World Meeting of Families, held Jan. 14-18 in Mexico City. In this interview, he considers the impact of poverty on family relationships and the Church’s response.

Q: You have a broad vision of social issues and their repercussion on families. In this regard, what is the issue that most concerns the Church today?

  Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga: The family itself — that is the principal point, the most important option in the life of the human being; as a consequence, it is on the list of the concerns we have: what to do so that people are ever better prepared for this life option. All big things are prepared for, they are not improvised, but many times the greatest decision of life, which is love and family, is improvised in a frightful way. Sometimes we have families that start off because of a mistake and not because of a decision made freely. To prepare this life option is perhaps the biggest objective of all evangelization of family ministry.

Q: What do you think about the evident process of poverty and inequality that Latin America suffers and that in many cases restrains the integral development of families?

Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga: In the World Meeting of Families, a specialist in economics presented to us the consequences that a lack of families has for economic development, for poverty itself. With studies and statistics, she showed us that physical and mental health is much better in united families than in single-parent or disintegrated families. Poverty is much worse in broken than in united families. In this regard, they looked at distinct aspects, for example, higher education and the obstacles when parents are divorced. These are elements very little considered by the press and it’s worthwhile to give them attention. The educative role of the family is spoken of; some reduce it to school education. Here it was made clear what moral education in the family means, spiritual education, economic aspects and the testimony of the father of the family, when in the midst of life’s vicissitudes, he is capable of heroically accompanying the family. These are unexplored riches and it’s worthwhile to make them known, because there are people who suffer and hearing these cases gives them strength. Poverty is a reality that is increasing in our countries, instead of diminishing. Now we have this very grave financial crisis and it is foreseen that it will have many consequences.

Q: Some say poor countries are poor because they don’t regulate births. Many governments focus their strategies against poverty with policies of birth control.

Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga: These birth control policies are in reality the elimination of the birth rate. They consider only one of the perspectives. It is thought that we are poor because we have a large population and this is a sophism. Population is necessary for economic development; there is a country in Latin America that was the first, already in the 50s, to apply reductions of birth rate. What has happened to that country? It cannot grow and, as a consequence, it doesn’t have consumers so that there are prosperous businesses. They have to import everything from other large countries and barely have a subsistent economy — not a development as there should be. The Church speaks clearly of responsible paternity and maternity; the transmission of life is a great responsibility of the parents, not a product of some disorder. It is a great responsibility. In the same way governments have the grave responsibility to procure the common good for all citizens, and if there are citizens that should be privileged, it should be the poor and not those who have more. And that is why the Church, that is Mother, heavily insists in its social doctrine that the family is not like an element that doesn’t play a part in the social problems. In the social doctrine of the Church, a very important chapter is the family, because it is very linked to everything that refers to social problems. The Church has always made the appeal to governments to concern themselves with poor families.

Q: What merit has the idea that the Church only gives privileges to the rich?

Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga: One who says this doesn’t know the life of the Church. In the first place, the Church is not reduced to the hierarchy; every baptized person is the Church. If we look at all the pastoral developments in the continent, we see that the Church has made a preferential option for the poor. In Mexico there is a unique case for our continent: businessmen and people of the high economic class sustain the Instituto Mexicano de Doctrina Social (Mexican Institute of Social Doctrine), which educates the people precisely in the conviction they have that one of the best ways to relieve poverty is through education. The institute has given scholarships to students from poor countries, including Cuba, who have come to Mexico with full scholarships, to go deeper in the study of the social doctrine of the Church. So this judgment cannot be generalized. One who examines the life of the Church understands that the preferential option for the poor is not poetry, but reality. Sometimes Catholic morality is criticized because it is opposed to the use of condoms as a solution for the problem of HIV-AIDS. Well I want to say that 27% of the organizations in the world [that work] in favor of patients with this illness are from the Catholic Church and they receive barely 2% of the Global Fund for aid for HIV-AIDS patients. If we move to programs of housing construction, we realize what it means when, during natural disasters, I speak as president of Caritas Internationalis, the most respected institution in the preferential option for the poor.

Filed under: AIDS, Caritas, Economic Policy, morals, Social Doctrine

February 5, 2009 • 11:52 pm 0

CARDINAL RIGALI TO CONGRESS: KEEP EXISTING PRO-LIFE LAWS

WASHINGTON— Writing as chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, Cardinal Justin Rigali sent a letter on February 5 to all members of Congress, urging them to maintain pro-life provisions in the appropriations bills they must soon approve to keep government programs funded past March 5.

“I urge you not to use this legislation to weaken or rescind longstanding provisions that protect U.S. taxpayers from being forced to fund and promote the destruction of innocent human life,” Cardinal Rigali said. “In making this plea,” he said, “I am joined by millions of Catholics and others who, in the weeks to come, will be sending postcards to their elected representatives with this message: ‘ Please oppose FOCA [the ‘Freedom of Choice Act’] or any similar measure, and retain laws against federal funding and promotion of abortion.’

While an extreme proposal like FOCA would overturn hundreds of pro-life laws at once, we are equally concerned that such laws may be overturned one at a time during Congress’s appropriations process.”

The prelate’s letter highlighted several pro-life provisions, including: the Hyde amendment and similar measures protecting American taxpayers from being forced to subsidize abortions; the Dickey/Wicker amendment preventing federal funding for research in which human embryos are created, harmed and destroyed; and the Kemp-Kasten amendment preventing U.S. funding of organizations that support or help manage programs of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.

Cardinal Rigali also called on Congress to maintain the Hyde/Weldon conscience protection amendment , a key measure preventing discrimination against health care providers who do not perform or refer for abortions. “Clearly ‘choice’ is an empty slogan if physicians, nurses and hospitals must ‘choose’ to provide abortions or be forced out of the health care field,” he said. “Like Congress’s decision about requiring taxpayers to fund abortion, the decision whether to maintain current conscience protections could play a major role in determining whether Americans of different backgrounds, viewpoints and religions will be able to work together toward a consensus on much-needed health care reform,” Cardinal Rigali advised.

Filed under: Culture, healthcare, Medical Ethics, morals, Social Doctrine

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