From: People For Peace <ppa@africaonline.co.ke>
Date: Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 10:15 PM
Subject: Regional News
To: People For Peace <ppa@africaonline.co.ke>
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POPE
BENEDICT XVI CELEBRATES 85TH BIRTHDAY WITH CHALLENGES
BY FR
JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
MONDAY,
APRIL 23, 2012
As Pope Benedict XVI marked 85th birthday
and the seventh anniversary of his election as pope, the 265th pope in a long
line spanning the centuries from St. Peter onward, the Vatican was issuing a
harsh rebuke of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCW), an
organization representing about 80 percent of all Catholic nuns in America.
The reason is that the nuns had failed to make the
opposition to abortion and gay marriage central to their agenda, and instead
had been wasting their time on irrelevant mission. They could even join war as
portrayed on this picture below. They are ready for any mission provided it
could liberate and set human beings free.
To that effect the Pope has appointed Seattle
Archbishop Peter Sartain to manage the five-year
reform, which will include rewriting the group’s statutes, reviewing all its
plans and programs — including approving speakers — and ensuring the group
properly follows Catholic prayer and ritual.
The conference which is based in
Another challenge the Pope is facing is the Catholic
priest who supports ordination for women. On Holy Thursday, Benedict issued an
unusual and direct public rebuke of a prominent group of dissident Austrian
priests who say they represent about 10 percent of the country’s clergy who
support the ordination of women.
Three ‘bishops’ at the ordination of a female
French priest in
The declaration, made a day before Good Friday, comes
in direct response to a group of Austrian priests who last year declared they
would challenge the Catholic rule against ordaining women, as well as celibacy
laws. He says many priests are already quietly breaking the rules anyway, often
with the knowledge of their bishops.
Reformist Austrian Catholics have repeatedly
challenged the conservative policies of Benedict and his late predecessor Pope
John Paul in recent decades, creating grass-roots protest movements and
advocating changes the
An estimated 400 Austrian Catholic priests, or almost
10 per cent of the 4,200 in the country, are reported to support an “Appeal to
Disobedience” which calls for significant reform of guidelines on celibacy,
marriage and other areas of church authority.
On their website www.pfarrer-initiative.at,
the priests have called for the abolition of celibacy; for married clergy to be
allowed; for shared Communion with remarried people and other Christians. They
have also called for reform of the liturgy and introduction of the term “Priestless Eucharistic Celebration” for a liturgy of the
Word with distribution of Communion.
Addressing the crowds at his weekly Sunday blessing,
the Pope asked for prayers and for the strength to carry on. “Next Thursday, on
the occasion of the seventh anniversary of my election to the
Pope Benedict XVI is now the oldest pope in the past
109 years and one of only six popes in the past 500 years to reign past the age
of 85 and with lots of challenges than ever been before.
This October will be busy for him as he will lead a
gathering of bishops and launch the “Year of Faith” on the 50th anniversary of
the opening of the Second Vatican Council, a significant date in the church’s
history.
Also in October, he will make seven new saints; two of
them from the United States, Kateri Tekakwitha, a Mohawk Indian and Marianne Cope, who cared
for leprosy patients in Hawaii.
Another challenge the pope is faced with is the plan
by Planned Parenthood Committee in
Day 4 of the prayer is to give thanks for the doctors
who provide quality abortion care, and pray that they may be kept safe. Day 21
is to pray for women in developing nations, that they may know the power of
self-determination- That they may have access to employment, education, birth
control, and abortion.
Day 25 is dedicated to pray for women who have been
made afraid of their own power by their religion. They pray that they may learn
to reject fear and live bravely. Day 27 is to give thanks for abortion
providers around the nation whose concern for women is the driving force in
their lives, while day 40 is to give thanks and celebrate that abortion is
still safe and legal. Planned Parenthood is the
Inset-left to right-planned parenthood carry a
placard to demonstrate that abortion is a demand and legal-Sr
Margaret McBride-excommunicated for saving life- Sr
Elizabeth Johnson, renowned theologian under fire by US bishops for her new
book/ File
LCW is not the only organization which does not
condemn abortion. Two years ago Mercy Sr. Margaret McBride was in the news when
it became public that the ethics committee assented to the abortion of an
11-week-old fetus in order to save the life of a
pregnant woman suffering from pulmonary hypertension.
McBride was excommunicated latae sententiae (automatically). Sr McBride was vice president of mission integration at the
The Ethics Board at the hospital was convened. The doctors asserted that only an
abortion could save the mother’s life and that failure to perform the procedure
would result in the death of both the mother and the unborn child. The Ethics
Board, on which Sr McBride sat, agreed to permit the
abortion.
Traditional teaching by the Catholic Church bans
abortion, even when the mother might die if she continues with the pregnancy.
Many theologians are now questioning whether, when it comes to hard cases, they
should stick to moral absolutes or return to an even older teaching about the
start of life.
Yet American Catholics are more liberal than the
general population on social issues like divorce and homosexuality, despite the
Catholic Church's longstanding conservatism on both issues, according to an
analysis by
It explains why in the
The same year, Spanish bishops warned Catholics that
the writings of one of the country’s best-known theologians, the Rev. Andres
Torres Queiruga, were “distorting” certain “elements
of the faith of the church” and should not be read.
Yet still, in countries like
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