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News & Herald
Volume 7 Number 6 • October
Serving Catholics in Western North Carolina in the Diocese of Charlotte
10,
1997
Pope Urges Families
In Brazil,
To Defend The pope spent much of his
l\/larriage, Life
stay in
Rio de Janeiro rallying Catholics
to
strengthen their marriage bonds and to defend their families as precious and irreplaceable gifts.
By CINDY WOODEN RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (CNS)
—
During a four-day trip to Brazil, Pope John Paul II said the family is a gift that must be defended, and attacks on the values that hold it together must be repelled.
Waving
the banner of Catholic
teaching on the permanence of marriage and the evil of abortion, the pope spent much of his Oct. 2-5 stay in Rio de Janeiro, rallying Catholic families to
defend and strengthen their bonds. "In the design of God, matrimony
— indissoluble matrimony —
is the foundation of a healthy and responsible family," he said Oct. 5 during a seaside
Mass
closing the Second
World Meet-
ing of Families.
God wants all people to be happy, pope told the crowd, which police numbered between 1.5 million and 2 million people. But God also wants people "to always join fidelity to happiness, because one cannot exist without the
said
womb." The pope prayed
children's faces there shines the future, the is
coming millennium, the future which God's hands," he said. Meeting Oct. 3 with participants in
in
Pope John Paul told the couples gathered from around the world that they have a great task before them. "Be bearers of peace and joy at the heart of the family," he said.
At an evening rally Oct. 4 with families in the Maracana Stadium, the pope told the crowd that "a false message of impossible and inconsistent happiness is being spread in the world today, and it carries with it only desolation and bit-
"Today it seems that the enemies of God, more than conducting a frontal attack on the author of creation, strike him through his works," he told the more than 2,600 representatives from 77 countries.
The human person God's
creation, he said,
is
human
the family that
it
life is
dignity.
Pope John Paul listed the main strategies of attack on the family as being situations in which:
— "The equal
dignity of the spouses
and their necessary diversity and sexual complementarity are not recognized nor
— "Conjugal
life in all
By
fidelity
and respect for
phases of its existence are sub-
verted by a culture which does not admit the transcendence of the human per-
replaceable gift."
mission relative to
Staff Writer
CHARLOTTE —
"'
officials re-
— it's
yours to give.'" With those words. Father Robert J. Vitillo summed up both the theme of the upcoming 1997 national
Campaign for Human Development (CHD) Nov. 23 and the
collection for the
driving force behind an ongoing effort to empower the powerless.
Father Vitillo, executive director of his Oct. 1-2 visit to the
diocese at St. Patrick School in Charlotte with a discussion about the U.S. Catholic bishops' domestic anti-poverty campaign.
The
priest of the Patterson (N.J.)
Diocese spent two days
The pope and Vatican
...
Hope —
in
CHD-funded
lina touring
North Caroprojects in
peatedly have affirmed Catholic teaching that marriage must be based on the permanent union of a man and a woman
Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Charlotte, and meeting with clergy and lay persons who compose the lifeblood of
who
the
open to having children. They have denounced attempts to grant legal recognition to the unions of homosexual are
couples.
"When the destructive forces of evil manage
to separate
tack humanity
matrimony from
human
life,
depriving
they
its
at-
of the
campaign
in this diocese.
His Charlotte audience listened to a
message of historical pertinence and how the strife of the past affects the needy of today.
"The Campaign for Human Development was started in 1969 by the Catho-
children as signs of their love for each
pope
other and as signs of their hope for the future of humanity.
The pope encouraged the participants to increase their efforts of education, outreach and support for family life, especially in situations where couples are
bishops of the United States," said Father Vitillo, explaining that a key element in the American landscape during characterized by race rithe late '60s ots, social discontent and debates over the American presence in the Vietnam was the worsening plight of the War
having
poor.
and
to
to
welcome new
"Societies that are not interested in children are
he
inhuman and irresponsible,"
said.
"Welcome your
children with re-
difficulty.
its
mother's
lic
—
—
The Catholic bishops, he
that our actions
would
also have to
lead to justice and that those structures gaps between the rich and
that created the
would be changed," he added. Thus began the campaign, pointed at addressing the "root causes of poverty in America through promotion and sup-
the poor
port of community-controlled self-help
organizations and through transformative
education," Father Vitillo said. Those suffering from poverty themselves compose at least 50 percent of the governing body of each organization, he added, and projects are intended to be operated at parish and
community
levels.
Some programs also focus on helpwho at times become society's
ing those
disenfranchised: the elderly, the sick, small business owners, those without political or social influence.
"This is a meeting of friends," said Dr. Barney Offerman, CHD's diocesan director, of the gathering in Charlotte
honoring the work of a campaign that celebrates change through personal and social responsibihty.
Offerman conunended Father Vitillo commitment to justice issues since
for his
being named CHD's executive director in January and during his decade of work with Caritas Intemationalis, a worldwide confederation of Catholic social action and development organizations. The priest was involved in United Nations meetings and joint lobbying efforts at the time.
Father Vitillo also directed the Secsaid, real-
retariat for Social Ministries in the
involvement and dialogue with
ized the need to reach out to the nation's
whose decisions
most needy in ways that transcended mere handouts. "They came face to face with the fact that charity was not enough
Patterson Diocese and served as a liaison with a variety of social service and
government
born from
it
future," the
He also asked them to increase their
as a gift of God from the moment they are conceived and from the time life is
its
said.
political
human
itself,
essential guarantees of
sponsible love," the pope said. "Defend
them
Charlotte,
Of Empowerment
JIMMY ROSTAR
CHD, capped
respected.
God."
to their spouses
in
Director Visits Diocese
Witli IVIessage
created,
welcomed, loved and educated. But the family is one of the main targets of at-
human
CHD
through
is
"Happiness is not found by followway of freedom without truth, because this is the way of irresponsible egoism, which divides and separates families and society," he said. After listening to the testimonies of families who explained how hardships and tensions were overcome by discovering or putting into practice church teaching, the pope told the crowd, "Defend your families as a precious and irbe faithful
Flower Assisted Living Community
the height of
and
son created in the image and likeness of
He encouraged them
Little
tacking the family.
terness."
ing the
Photo by Jimmy Rostar
Laura Stuppnig, a resident of
and Charlotte Catholic High School senior Elizabeth Hanson enjoy a conversation following the feast day Mass for St. Therese of the Child Jesus on Oct. 1 A group of CCHS seniors attended the Mass and spent time with their friends at the center, named in honor of St. Therese of Lisieux, the 19th-century French Carmelite nun known as the Little Flower for her simple and beautiful faith. .
an international theological congress, the pope said modem forces of evil are attacking God and human dignity by at-
tacks on
the other."
abomi-
"that the
nable crime of abortion, the shame of humanity, will no longer condemn the unborn to the injustice of execution." "The seed of the new humanity sleeps in the mother's womb. In
authorities
See
Brazil,
page 2
See
Vitillo,
page 2