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Friday, December 24, 2004
Archbishop urges new efforts to restore North
Ireland government By CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE MAYNOOTH, Ireland - Following the' collapse of political talks to restore a power-sharing government in Northern Irel;md, a prominent Irish archbishop has called on all parties to renew efforts to complete what might be th 7 final stage of the peace process. "I believe that the progress which has been made to date is extraordinary," said Archbishop Sean Brady of Armagh, Northern Ireland. "That progress shows that the parties are a~le and willing to work together. B,ut the breakdown just short(of the ,finishing line is gis.appointing. IHells us that more trust h~t()..be built. "The lesson may be, in all of this, that all parties who intend to go into government together need not only to talk, but to listen to each other. Otherwise their governing will not be as effective as it might be and will not necessarily be for the good of all the people," the archbishop said in a statement released last week by . the Catholic Communications , Office in Maynooth. On December 8, officials of the British and Irish governments announced that talks on restoring the power-sharing government had stalled over whether an official photographer could take pictures of the outlawed Irish Republican Army destroying its weapons. The leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, the Rev. Ian Paisley, said photographs are needed to prove that the IRA's campaign of war against the British state is , finally 'completed. Officials of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, said the Protestant clergyman is seeking to humiliate their organization and its predominantly Catholic supporters. For
decades, the Irish Republican Army has been fighting to reunite Northern Ire.1and with the Irish Republic. . Rev. Paisley has refused to accept an IRA proposal to have the destruction of its remaining stockpiles of weapons witnessed by retired Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain, head of the decommissioning commission, and two clergymen, one Protestant and one Catholic. Archbishop Brady, primate of all Ireland, said the request for photographs "is really a request for greater clarity and certainty about decommissioning. The question is, if photographs are impossible, what is possible to provide the certainty required?" He also said members of Sinn Fein, the political party to which most IRA members belong, should be "treated seriously as partners in government." "Right now we all need to do and say the things that make for peace," Archbishop Brady's statement said. "Something that is seen as humiliation is not likely to help people to work effectively and peacefully together in partnership in government. Humiliation is one thing, humility is something else; humility is built on truth." The archbishop suggested that all sides in the decades-old conflict take responsibility for the past. "If we cannot go the extra mile, let's try to go the extra - perhaps even the final - step. Humility, yes, humiliation, no," he said. Northern Ireland's power-sharing government was established under terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. However, it has been suspended several times, including one in 2001 over the issue of the Irish Republican Army's failure to disarm..
KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS at St. Louis Academy in Caledonia, Wis., practice 'making the sign of the cross with Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of Milwaukee recently. The archbishop celebrated Mass for students, faculty and parents, blessed a sign at the school's entrance, then visited with students. Pictured with the archbishop are, from left, Lincoln Bargender, George Meyer, Andrew Krivsky and Cole Anderson. (CNS photo by Sam Lucero, Catholic Herald)
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IRAQI FOREIGN Minister Hoshyar Zebari meets with Pope John Paull! in a private audience at the Vatican December 13. The foreign minister pledged that Iraq's new government would promote full religious freedom and defend the rights of Christians. (CNS photo from L'Osservatore Romano) .
Iraqi foreign minister says government will promote, defend religious freedom By CINDY WOODEN CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE VATICAN CITY - Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari thanked Pope John Paul II for the help he always has given the Iraqi people, and he pledged that the country's new government would promote full religious freedom. The foreign minister met Pope John Paul II last week, exactly one year after U.S. troops captured Saddam" Hussein and less than a week after an Armenian Catholic Church ~d a Chaldean Catholic bishop's residence were damaged in an attack by armed men. . Zebari also met with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state. "In'the course of the meetings, the situations currently existing in Iraq and in the Middle East in general were reviewed," said a state-' ment from Joaquin Navarro-Valls,
the Vatican spokesman. Zebari, he said, assured the pope of "the commitment of his government to promote religious freedom and, particularly, the defense of the Christian communities." Navarro-Valls said, "The painful plague of terrorism" was condemned during the meetings. The ongoing fighting in Iraq has included daily terrorist attacks on civilian targets as well as on U.S. and coalition forces. In additiOl'l'to the recent 'attacks on Catholic targets, five Christian churches in Baghdad were struck in mid-October, and five Catholic churches were the targets of bombings in August. Fides, the Vatican's missionary news agency, published an interview with Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk. The archbishop said he and other religious leaders have asked their
faithful to focus on prayers for peace and security at Christmas, rather than hosting parties and receptions. ''We are preparing for the birth ofthe Lord," Archbishop Sako said. ''We will pray and hope that this is a Christmas of peace and love, but there is still much pain in our community and there will not be great festi vities. "Many families have lost relatives or children because of the activity of fu.ndam~l!t.ali~t groups or in tl1e attacks on the churches of Mosul and Baghdad," he said. With the ongoing mourning and suffering, he said, it did not seem right to celebrate Christmas with the customary parties. In addition, he said, most Iraqi Muslims could not have big feasts for the end during November of Ramadan, the month of fasting, so giving up the Christian parties is also an act of solidarity.
Hostility to religious references weakens values ROME- The growing hostility to public religious references in Europe is not a sign of tolerance, but a weakening of the religious-based values that guarantee tolerance and the rights of all, said U.S. scholar and author George Weigel. "Europe's dwindling numbers of Christians know why they must engage the convictions of others with respect and why they must defend the other's freedom: because it is their Christian obligation to do so," he said recently at a lecture in Rome. On the other hand, he said, those pushing a strictly secular vision ofEurope have only a weak, ungrounded pledge of tolerance to support their convictions. , His lecture at Rome's Gregorian University focused on religion and politics in Europe and the United States, the topic of his book, 'The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America and Politics Without God," which will be published in the spring. Responding to questions after the lecture, Weigel said that by ignoring the Christian roots of the continent the framers of the new European Constitution are attempting "to establish the state as 'church' in the name of pluralism." . ''What space there is for Christian convictions in Europe is essentially private space," he said. "It is true, unfortunately, that European political leaders are un- . comfortable talking about the religious background of their moral convictions."
He told his audience, "if75,000 people in Ohio had voted differently" in the U.S. elections and Sen. John F. Kerry had won, "it would have been the acceleration of the 'Europe-izatio~' of America," a phenomenon that already has begun in Canada. In his speech, Weigel said many Europeans view the public invocations of faith made by President George W. Bush and other U.S. political leaders "as evidence of fanaticism, xenophobia and aggression" and ignore "the danger that dare not be named: the Islarnist threat now inside Europe's house." Weigel said the clearest sign of the religious, moral and cultural crisis in Western Europe is its declining birthrate. It is too simplistic to say "Europe has stopped reproducing itSelf because Europeans have stopped going to Church," he said. "But the failure to create the human future in the most elemental sense - by creating a successor generation - is surely also an expression of a broader failure: a failure of self-confidence. 'That broader failure is no less surely tied to a collapse of faith in the God of the Bible. For when God goes, so does God's first command: 'Be fruitful and multiply,'" he said. Weigel said 18 European countries report more deaths than births each year. "It is unprecedented in history for a healthy, wealthy secure society to stop reproducing," he said.