VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Benedict XVI opened a crisis summit on the Mideast church with a call to help the region’s beleaguered Christian minority. Peace and human rights are essential for the church’s survival there, he said. The Mideast is unique in salvation history as the “cradle” of the church’s worldwide evangelizing mission, the pope said as he celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica Oct. 10 with more than 250 participants at the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East. The synod’s primary goal: to renew the pastoral energy of Mideast church communities and strengthen their faith identity so that they can continue to witness the Gospel to all. That task goes hand in hand with the church’s dialogue with Muslims and Jews, the pope said. In his homily, the pope emphasized unity in a land where the church has richly varied liturgical, spiritual, cultural and disciplinary traditions. Without unity, there can be no real witnessing of the faith, he said. He urged church leaders to rise above their difficulties with the Pentecost spirit that moved the early church. “The first Christians in Jerusalem were few,” he said. “No one could have imagined what happened afterward. And the church still lives with that same energy that made the early church arise and grow.” The synod’s role, he said, is to renew that sense of “permanent dynamism” among Catholic communities of the Middle East. Church members must strengthen their Christian identity through the word of God and the sacraments in SYNOD, page 11
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(CNS PHOTO/PAUL HARING)
Pope to synod: let Pentecost spirit rise anew in Mideast
Prelates leave the opening Mass of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East in St. Peter’s Basilica Oct. 10.
Many Catholics learn IVF is wrong only too late By Valerie Schmalz Many Catholics don’t learn until it is too late that invitro fertilization as a remedy for infertility is gravely contrary to Catholic moral teaching, a leading Catholic bioethicist said Oct. 9. That is unfortunate because there are more effective methods of assisting couples that do not require artificial conception in a laboratory, said Father Tad Pacholczyk of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, which was established in 1972 to provide ethical analysis on scientific developments, particularly in life issues, Father Tad Pacholczyk using standards of natural law and Catholic Church teaching. “Laboratory glassware is not the way new human members of our family should enter the world,” said Father Pacholczyk, the center’s director of education. “A human being has the right to be conceived under his or her mother’s heart.” Father Pacholczyk made his comments at a seminar sponsored by the Archdiocese of San Francisco, “Rediscovering the Family in a Technological Age: Bioethical Considerations.” His remarks came days after the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to British scientist Robert Edwards for his contributions to IVF. The first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, was born in 1978, and the Nobel committee estimated that 4 million IVF babies have been born since.
Lucio Romano, president of the Italian association Science and Life, said the honor “ignores all the ethical problems” and noted that IVF emerged from livestock breeding techniques. Msgr. Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said he recognized that Edwards “ushered in a new and important chapter in the field of human reproduction in which the best results are visible to everyone, beginning with Louise Brown.” However, “without Edwards there wouldn’t be a market for oocytes (immature egg cells), without Edwards there wouldn’t be freezers full of embryos waiting to be transferred in utero or, more likely, to be used for research or to die abandoned and forgotten by everyone,” the monsignor said in a statement released by the Vatican press office Oct. 4. He also said that Edwards “opened the wrong door” to fertility treatments and did not confront the underlying causes of infertility. The Vatican-based International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations also expressed its dismay about the prize. “Although IVF has brought happiness to the many couples who have conceived through this process, it has done so at an enormous cost. That cost is the undermining of the dignity of the human person,” said the federation’s president, Jose Simon Castellvi. “As Catholic doctors we recognize the pain that infertility brings to a couple, but equally we believe that the research and treatment methods needed to solve the problems of infertility have to be conducted within an ethical framework which respects the special dignity of the human embryo, which is no different from that of a mature adult with a brilliant mind,” he wrote. IVF WRONG, page 15
A journey to China’s largest Catholic village By Anthony E. Clark Traveling through China’s poorer provinces one often sees blue coal trucks, muledriven carts brimming with freshly harvested vegetables, squatting peasants smoking long-stemmed pipes, or dilapidated roadside hovels with exposed Mass in Liuhe village light bulbs hanging precariously from crumbling ceilings. Occasional pavilions or temples might be seen, though these were largely destroyed during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Catholic churches suffered two major periods of destruction, the Boxer Uprising (1898-1900) and the Cultural Revolution. The anti-foreign Boxers, called the Fists of Righteous Harmony, swept through China’s northern provinces attacking churches and Christians, and when the Red Guards were told to destroy the “four olds” – old ideas, old customs, old habits, and old culture – they attacked not only anything that seemed traditional, but also anything that was foreign or religious. Being old, traditional, foreign, and religious, Catholic churches, orphanages, seminaries, and hospitals suffered widespread destruction through the Maoist era. Despite these two historical events Chinese CHINA’S CATHOLIC VILLAGE, page 21
INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION World Mission Sunday . . . . . . 3 Eastern Church asks respect . 4 Legal Directory . . . . . . . . 11-12 Rosary: “spiritual weapon” . 13 Local news . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
80th jubilee, 103rd birthday ~ Page 8 ~ October 15, 2010
St. Teresa of Avila: a saint for the ascerbic ~ Page 20 ~
Church leadership and the abuse crisis ~ Page 24 ~ ONE DOLLAR
Senior living . . . . . . . . . . 14-17 Exercise faithful citizenship . 18
www.catholic-sf.org VOLUME 12
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