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Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and representatives of other Orthodox and Anglican churches accompanied Pope Benedict in lighting a candle to launch the Year of St Paul.
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Volunteers refuse WYD powers
Rural Fire Service and State Emergency Service volunteers will not seek "authorised person" status while assisting with WYD in order to avoid "negative interactions with people".
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Vietnam up, US down on WYD numbers
A record number of Vietnamese pilgrims will attend World Youth Day this year but US numbers are down - and 50 Angola pilgrims are stranded in Sydney instead of Adelaide because tour organisers thought the SA capital was only an hour way.
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Celebrate the living spirit: Bishops urge
Australia's bishops have urged Catholics to "celebrate the Living Spirit" to mark Aboriginal and Torres Islander Sunday this weekend.
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Korean priests in Mass protest against US beef
Two hundred South Korean priests have celebrated a street Mass in Seoul to protest an unpopular government decision to resume beef imports from the US.
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Bees for Benedict
Italian scooter manufacturer Piaggio has presented Pope Benedict with two new specially made three wheeled vehicles.
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Feature - Walking away from what they do not know
"People who leave the Church are not leaving because they are rejecting the teachings of John Paul II or Pope Benedict. Most do so because they go to Catholic schools and they think that the kind of warm secular humanism with Christian gloss that they get in Catholic schools is in fact the Catholic faith and it hasn't captured their imagination, their love or their intellect so they are walking away from something that they do not know." - The Catholic Herald
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Featured Website - First Things
First Things is a monthly ecumenical journal concerned with the creation of a "religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society." It is published by The Institute on Religion and Public Life in the United States of America.
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Film Review - Kung Fu Panda
Kung Fu Panda is essentially a martial arts comedy and is a total action movie. It has striking effects and action sequences and a particularly impressive concluding fantasy sequence which brings DreamWorks to a new level of technological sophistication. There is a strong cultural feel about the movie and it heavily draws on Chinese culture to bring authenticity to its fantasy. - Peter Sheehan, Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
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Opinion - God is without circumference
His challenge was to see the beauty in every face, even when the owner of that face had long given up on it. Surely, that is to love others as Jesus did—Jesus the One who never gives up on us. If we are to love as Jesus loved, we need to be forgiving people. Forgiving people are bridge-builders and reconcilers. - Fr Chris Gleeson, Madonna
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OPINION
Beyond knowledge to wisdomI believe this is one of the crisis points for contemporary Christianity. Put bluntly, its representatives do not seem wise. Yes, those representatives can give you any amount of information, some of them can even speak knowledgeably of Christian teachings. Wisdom is another thing altogether. - Fr Michael Whelan [More] - Aquinas Academy
FEATURE
Connected across bordersIt is time for leaders of nations to see their national interests as connected with the interests of people on the other side of the globe. We have reached the point where human existence is at stake and our destiny is inextricably linked. If we are to overcome this crisis of climate change we need to think beyond the confines of national states. - Just Comment [More] - Edmund Rice Centre
FEATURED CATHOLIC WEBSITE
Catholic Education Diocese of ParramattaReturning to our education theme, we shine the spotlight on arguably the most innovative Catholic education website in the country. In addition to all the standard features of any CEO site, Parramatta's includes some interactive opinion polls and a competition for students to attempt to ''Become the Executive Director for the day''. The site is also well regarded for its RE and curriculum resources.
- www.parra.catholic.edu.au
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Consternation in US over gays in seminaries
"Is there evidence of homosexuality in the seminary?", one of 56 questions being asked during apostolic visitations of Catholic seminaries this year, has sparked unprecedented media attention.
Catholic News Service reports that one of the main purposes of the visitations is to assess how well US seminaries are preparing their students for a lifelong commitment to celibacy as priests.
"The church is trying to put out a very clear signal" that those seeking ordination "must embrace a life of celibate chastity," said Fr Stephen Rossetti, president of St. Luke Institute, a facility in the Washington suburbs that specialises in treating priests and religious who suffer addictions or behavioral, emotional or psychological problems.
"The question of homosexuality is an important one," he told Catholic News Service on Friday. He said there is a need to determine when it is appropriate and when it is not to ordain someone who is homosexually oriented.
"Certainly someone who has a problematic history of sexual acting out, or an orientation that is so powerfully homosexual that it really overshadows the person's relational life, then those would not be appropriate people" for priesthood, he said.
The Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education - which oversees seminary formation worldwide and is in charge of the visitations - outlined the nature, purpose, procedures and topics of the visitations in a 13-page "instrumentum laboris," or working paper. The working paper has been distributed to the 117 bishops and seminary personnel who will conduct the visitations, in teams of three or four per seminary or formation house. It has also been sent to the seminaries and formation houses for distribution to their faculty, students and recent alumni.
The education congregation named Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien of the US Archdiocese for the Military Services, a former rector of two seminaries, as coordinator of the visitations.
The media flap over the working paper began just as the Vatican-appointed visitors were attending a two-day preparatory session in Baltimore on Thursday and Friday, meeting with Archbishop O'Brien and Archbishop J. Michael Miller, secretary of the education congregation, to review the topics and procedures for the visitations.
Msgr. Francis J. Maniscalco, communications secretary of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, who is serving as Archbishop O'Brien's media liaison for the visitations, told CNS that the question about homosexuality "is just relevant to the current time in which we live."
He cited recent trends in gay rights advocacy, more tolerance of a gay lifestyle and arguments that homosexual and heterosexual relations are equivalent.
"We do live in an era in which these questions are raised, and the seminary is a place that is preparing men for the priesthood and for a lifelong celibate commitment," he said. "So anything that affects that commitment, whether it relates to heterosexual behavior or homosexual behavior, I think, is appropriate to ask."
SOURCE
Homosexuality question for seminary visitations sparks flap (Catholic News Service 16/9/05)
MORE STORIES
Outrage at Vatican's US hunt for gay seminarians (Sydney Morning Herald/Boston Globe 17/9/05)
Catholic probe to look at gays in US seminaries (Big News Network/Reuters 15/9/05)
Vatican to Check US Seminaries on Gay Presence (New York Times 15/9/05)
Archbishop Dolan sees 'genuine renewal' of priests coming (Catholic News Service 13/9/05)
Homosexual men should not be accepted into seminaries, bishop says (Catholic News Agency 14/9/05)
US Prelate: Gays Shouldn‘t Be Ordained (Associated Press/Leading the Charge 12/9/05)
Vatican Document on Gay Priests Up in Air (Leading the Charge 10/9/05)
Archbishop: Seminaries should not accept even celibate homosexuals (Catholic News Service 7/9/05)
19 Sep 2005
