UNITED STATES
Pro-life groups face financial questions
TWO PRO-LIFE organisations in the United States, Priests for Life and the American Life League, are under scrutiny regarding their financial practices, writes Michael Sean Winters. Earlier this month, Fr Frank Pavone, head of Priests for Life (PFL), was recalled to his diocese of Amarillo, Texas, by Bishop Patrick Zurek. Bishop Zurek explained that his repeated requests for information about PFL finances were unheeded. This week, PFL released an audit for 2010 showing it ended the year with a US$1.4 million deficit, despite raising US$10.7m that same year. American Life League (ALL), according to its own publicly filed documents, has failed to comply with “best practices” guidelines issued by watchdog groups such as the Better Business Bureau. For example, they compen- sate several members of their board of directors. “As a matter of practice, compen- sated boards are not done.” said Bennett Weiner of the Better Business Bureau.
CANADA
Court overturns ‘Catholic trivia’ ruling
CANADA’S FEDERAL Court has overturned a ruling by the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) that a Chinese asylum seeker, Mao Qin Wang, was “insufficiently Catholic” to justify his claim for refugee status based on religious persecution, writes Peter Kavanagh. In a hearing in January, Mr Wang had failed to name the mother of the Virgin Mary and the mother of John the Baptist, causing the IRB adjudicator to find that “on a balance of probabilities, the claimant is not and never was a genuine practising Roman Catholic”. The Court ruled last week that the IRB had held Mr Wang to “an unreasonably high standard of religious knowledge, erro- neously determining the applicant’s knowledge of the Catholic faith by way of ‘trivia’.” Mr Wang will now get another hearing.
AUSTRALIA Hepworth dismisses calls to quit
Archbishop John Hepworth, embroiled in controversy over his allegations that he was sexually abused by three priests in the 1960s and 1970s, has rejected calls from the US for him to resign as world leader of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), writes Mark Brolly. Clergy in the Anglican Church in America (ACA), part of TAC, have written to the Adelaide-based prelate urging him to stand down, saying that recent developments had made it impossible for him to continue to function effectively as TAC primate, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported last Sunday. The letter did not mention Archbishop
Hepworth’s allegations or the naming of his only alleged surviving abuser by Independent senator Nick Xenophon in the Federal
■KENYA:Professor Wangari Maathai, the Catholic woman who won the Nobel Prize for her environmental work, died on 25 September in Nairobi at the age of 71, writes Fredrick Nzwili. Catholic bishops said they
admired the campaigner against deforestation who became the first African woman to win the Nobel
32 | THE TABLET | 1 October 2011
Parliament on 13 September, but said the Church needed “focused leadership at this critical time”. On Tuesday this week, Archbishop Hepworth told The Australian newspaper that 67 priests from the US TAC had made an application to join the Catholic Church and were no longer voting in the House of Clergy, where the resolution that he resign had passed. If the vote had been held before they withdrew, it would not have suc- ceeded, he told the paper. Earlier, Archbishop Hepworth said there had been a split within the TAC in America, with some members preferring not to seek unity with the Catholic Church under the 2009 Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, which provides for ordinariates to be established for former Anglicans.
Peace Prize, in 2004. She was awarded the prize for contributions to sustainable development, democracy and peace. “She was truly a focused leader. We have prayed for her,” said Archbishop Boniface Lele of Mombasa. In Rome at the Assembly of
Caritas Internationalis in 2007, Professor Maathai
reminded bishops that God created trees before human beings. “She was a great woman who planted great ideas in people’s minds. I wish everyone would plant a small ‘Wangari Maathai tree’ as she is being buried,” said Bishop Martin Kivuva of Machakos. Wangari Maathai’s Green
Belt Movement has planted 30 million trees in Africa.
INDIA
Work on nuclear plant halted after church-led fast
Anto Akkara In Bangalore
A FAST SUPPORTEDby the Church in south- ern Tamil Nadu state has persuaded the Government to review the construction of a nuclear power plant that is nearing comple- tion. “We decided to call off the indefinite fast after the Government endorsed our concern,” Bishop Yvon Ambroise of Tuticorin Diocese told The Tablet last week after distributing orange juice to more than 100 fishing com- munity activists who had been on indefinite fast for 11 days. The Indo-Russian Koodankulam nuclear plant, being built at a cost of US$3 billion, is located within two kilometres of the nearest human habitation and there are more than 45,000 people, most of them Catholics, in the fishing communities along the nearby coast. Villagers have been particularly con- cerned about their safety following the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in March caused by Japan’s tsunami.
The ending of the fast followed a meeting
on 21 September convened by Tamil Nadu’s chief minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa. Two dozen activists including several church leaders led by Bishop Ambroise attended the meeting at which the Government promised to “stand with the people” and ensure suspension of work on the plant. V. Narayanaswamy, a fed- eral government minister, had visited the main protest site the day before that meeting as an emissary of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and declared that “safety is more important than power”. “This is a victory for non-violent protest by the ordinary people. They have proved the power of non-violence,” said Bishop Ambroise, a former director of Caritas Asia. A total of 127 people – 15 Hindus and 112 Catholics including four priests and three nuns of Tuticorin Diocese led by Fr P. Rayappan, the diocesan fishery director – took part in the fast at the compound of the Our Lady of Lourdes parish at Idinthakarai, five kilometres from the plant.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40