BRAZIL


Vatican moves to mend fences


THE VATICAN’S Secretary for Relations with States, Dominique Mamberti, has asked the chief of staff to the outgoing Brazilian President not to change the concordat between the Holy See and the Brazilian Government, writes Jon Stibbs. President Luiz “Lula” da Silva and Brazil’s ruling Workers’ Party found themselves at odds with the Vatican during the recent presidential election campaign, when the Church’s vocal pro-life message was construed as a warning not to vote for the now President-elect, Dilma Rousseff. Angry at the treatment of President Lula’s chosen successor, his chief of staff Gilberto Carvalho reportedly threatened the Brazilian bishops with a change to the concordat, which upholds government support for Catholic schools. Mrs Rousseff, elected on 31 October, has said she will not “take the initiative” to liberalise Brazil’s anti-abortion laws. The Mamberti initiative, reported by LifeSiteNews, appears to show the Vatican is keen to mend fences.


UNITED STATES


Kennedy niece and Palin clash over JFK speech


Michael Sean Winters In Washington


FORMER GOVERNORof Alaska, Sarah Palin, has ignited a public squabble with one of President John F. Kennedy’s nieces over remarks in Palin’s recent book that criticised a famous Kennedy speech about the separa- tion of Church and State.


On 12 September 1960, then-Senator Kennedy told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association: “I believe in an America where the separation of Church and State is absolute – where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act.” Ms Palin said that Kennedy had articulated


■Catholic groups were among the largest beneficiaries of federal funds distributed to faith-based organisations through the controversial economic Stimulus Bill, passed in 2009. The bill was designed to pump US$787 billion into


an “unequivocal divorce” between his private faith and public duties. She noted, and crit- icised, his opposition to the use of public funds for Catholic schools as evidence of his getting the divide between Church and State wrong. In last Sunday’s Washington Post, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a niece of the President and former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, defended Kennedy’s stance. Palin “proceeds down a path fraught with danger – the path my uncle warned against when he said that a president’s religious views should be ‘neither imposed by him upon the nation nor imposed by the nation upon him’.” Townsend said Kennedy’s opposition to the public funding of Catholic schools was “courageous”.


the economy and stop the economic free fall. More than US$140m was distributed to faith-based organisations. Catholic Charities USA was the single largest recipient, with US$50m. “We don’t encourage favouring faith-based groups


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30 | THE TABLET | 11 December 2010 ROME


No backing for report on GE crops


THE VATICAN has distanced itself from an endorsement of genetically engineered (GE) crops that emerged from a May 2009 study week sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS), writes Robert Mickens. The director of the Holy See press office,


Fr Federico Lombardi SJ, said on 1 December that the study week included only seven PAS members and 33 “outside experts”. He said the participants’ final 15-page statement, recently published, only had the “value of their scientific authority” and “must not be con- sidered as a statement of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which has 80 members”. The Vatican spokesman said the academy, as a body, “has never been consulted” on the text, nor were there plans to do so. “The state- ment cannot be considered an official position of the Holy See or of the Magisterium of the Church on the topic,” he added. The Vatican also distanced itself in 2000 from an earlier PAS study document that promoted GE tech- nology to fight hunger. The Magisterium’s official position on GE technology has been one of caution. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church states: “It is necessary to maintain an attitude of prudence … because we know this potential … can be used either for man’s progress or for his degradation.”


over other organisations, [but] we want to ensure qualified faith-based groups are among the organisations considered for federal grants,” Joshua P. DuBois, the director of the White House Faith-Based Office told The Tablet.


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