Catholic News 2

Vatican City, Aug 2, 2017 / 09:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After hosting a discussion earlier this summer, the Vatican office for justice has outlined several goals and action points in their plan to fight corruption, which will be a central focus for the upcoming year.

On June 15 the International Consultation Group for justice, corruption, organized crime and mafias, part of the Vatican dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, organized an “International Debate on Corruption.”

The event, hosted in collaboration with the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences, drew some 50 participants from all over the world, including anti-mafia and anti-corruption magistrates, bishops, Vatican officials, representatives from the U.N. and various States, heads of movements, victims and ambassadors.

As a result of that meeting, the consultation group has issued a joint text July 31 highlighting their priorities and providing 21 goals and actions points they hope to accomplish in the coming year.

In the text, the group noted that among Pope Francis' monthly prayer intentions for 2018 is the petition “that those who have material, political or spiritual power may resist any lure of corruption,” to which the month of February will be dedicated.

“Corruption, prior to being an act, is a condition,” they said. “Hence the need for culture, education, training, institutional action, citizen participation.”

To encourage this, the group said that from September of this year on, they will place a special focus on anti-corruption efforts, and plan to formulate different definitions of “corruption,” which was mentioned in a book-length interview with Cardinal Peter Turkson titiled “Corrosione,” or “Corrosion.”

Published the same day as the June 15 debate on corruption, the book was presented during the event and features a forward by Pope Francis, who called corruption a “form of blasphemy” and a “cancer that weighs our lives.”

According to the text, the group “will not just come up with virtuous exhortations, because concrete gestures are needed.” To educate means having credible teachers, they said, “even in the Church.”

As an international network, the group and the Church itself will work “with courage, resolution, transparency, spirit of collaboration and creativity.”

The group insisted that “anyone seeking alliances to obtain privileges, exemptions, preferential or even illegal pathways, is not credible.”

“If we decide to follow this behavior, we can all run the risk of becoming unsuitable, harmful and dangerous,” they said, adding that those “taking advantage of their position to recommend people who are often not recommendable – both in terms of value and honesty – are not credible.”

“Thus, the action of the Consultation Group will be educational and informative, and will address public opinion and many institutions to create a mentality of freedom and justice, in view of the common good.”

Consequences arising as a result of corruption are not often recognized, they said, noting that “one is unaware that an act of corruption is often at the base of a crime.”

Because of this, the group aims to intervene and “fill this gap, especially wherever, in the world, corruption is the dominant social system.”

With the help of bishops' conferences and local churches, members will also dedicate themselves to investigating a global response to the “excommunication of the mafia” and other similar criminal groups, as well as “the prospect of excommunication for corruption.”

Pope Francis himself said in a June 2014 visit to Calabria, a region plagued by mafia activity, called the local criminal branch, known as the 'Ndrangheta, “adorers of evil” and said that those who have chosen this path “not in communion with God. They are 'excommunicated,'” as an invitation to conversion.

Another objective the group will pursue is to “develop the almost-lost relationship between justice and beauty,” since “our extraordinary historical, artistic and architectural heritage will be a formidable element supporting educational and social actions against all forms of corruption and organized crime.”

They will also seek to promote a political mindset which, in their words, is capable of “enlightening actions towards civil institutions, to ensure that international treaties are effectively enforced and laws are standardized to best pursue the tentacles of crime, which go well beyond state borders.”

To this end, the principals of both the Palermo and Merida Conventions against transnational organized crime and corruption will be studied.

Peace and the relationship between peace processes and various forms of corruption will be another area of study, since corruption “also causes a lack of peace.”

“A movement, an awakening of consciences, is necessary,” the group said. “This is our primary motivation, which we perceive as a moral obligation. Laws are necessary but not sufficient.”

Key areas of focus, then, will be education, culture and citizenship, they said, stressing that “we need to act with courage to stir and provoke consciences, shifting from widespread indifference to the perception of the severity of these phenomena, in order to fight them.”

Full Article

Vatican City, Aug 2, 2017 / 09:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Wednesday there was a special surprise at the end of Pope Francis' general audience – a performance by acclaimed Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and a choir of 60 children from the poorest areas of Haiti.

The choir, called “Voices of Haiti,” sang three songs with Bocelli, including 'Amazing Grace' and 'Ave Maria,' following the general audience in the Vatican's Pope Paul VI hall Aug. 2. After the performance the children and world-renowned singer were greeted by Pope Francis.

The performance was part of a nearly two-week-long European tour of the children’s choir, made up of youth ages 9-15, coming from some of the poorest areas of Port-au-Prince Haiti. Besides Rome, the tour included stops in Pisa, Florence and Lajatico, Italy, Bocelli’s birthplace.

In Lajatico they will perform with Bocelli in front of 15,000 people for the 12thh edition of his annual concert at the famous Teatro del Silenzio. In Florence they sang for the inauguration of a foundation dedicated to the Italian director Franco Zeffirelli.  

According to a press release, the project, “offers the opportunity to children and young Haitians coming from extremely disadvantaged situations to enhance their talent thanks to a highly specialized training, benefitting also of a wealth of opportunities, precious for their future.”

“Grown up in a context of extreme poverty, thirsty for beauty, eager to learn, through a highly professional educational path, the young singers have reached a great understanding, have become aware of discipline, passion, love for music and of the joy of sharing. Therefore, what they can convey through their singing is pure joy.”

The children of the choir and related projects come from the Citè Soleil slums where over 300,000 people live in tin shack houses, without access to water and sanitation.

The project has been ongoing since January 2016. The children participate in weekly rehearsals on Saturdays, which include breakfast, lunch and game time in addition to vocal exercises, music therapy and song rehearsal. Buses pick them up and bring them home after.

They learn both folk Haitian and international music and perform throughout the year in local celebrations in their community, such as Easter and the end of the school year. In September 2016 they traveled internationally for the first time, performing in New York City.

“Voices of Haiti” is a project of the Andrea Bocelli Foundation. In addition to the choir, the foundation also introduces music into the 30 schools supported by the local St. Luc Foundation in Haiti.

They also help to provide education, food, and health assistance to thousands of children, water and electricity to remote and poor communities, solar panels and libraries.

According to their website, “because all the students come from poor economic and social backgrounds, through music they have been able to find a way to consolidate discipline, cooperation, and have moved away from the misery brought on by the grip of poverty.”

“Music becomes an additional means for social and intellectual development, not only personal, but for entire communities.”

“Voices of Haiti” is directed by Malcolm J. Merriweather, a professor at Brooklyn College Conservatory in New York, and is run by a team of Haitian collaborators made up of musicians, teachers, and administrators.

Why a choir? Because “music is the soul’s voice, its strength and beauty open minds, and develop thoughts…” the website continues.

“From the secret melodies of celestial bodies to the beat of the fruit fly wings, creation is a sound metaphor of its Creator, and every element contributes, imperceptibly, but effectively to universal harmony, that with immeasurable perfection rules life and expresses a poetic, amazing synonym of God.”

Full Article

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The ancient practice of orienting church buildings East to West -- with the entrance facing West and the altar toward the East -- was symbolic of the connection that exists between light and hope, Pope Francis said.

"What does it mean to be a Christian? It means looking toward the light, continuing to make a profession of faith in the light, even when the world is wrapped in the night and darkness," Pope Francis said Aug. 2 at his weekly general audience.

With temperatures moving toward a forecasted 100 degrees, the pope resumed his audiences indoors after a month's hiatus. He also resumed his series of audience talks about Christian hope.

He began by explaining how in ancient times the physical setting of a church building held symbolic importance for believers because the sun sets in the West, "where the light dies," but rises in the East, where "the dawn reminds us of Christ, the sun risen from on high."

In fact, he said, using the "language of the cosmos," it was customary to have those about to be baptized proclaim their renunciation of Satan facing West and their profession of faith in God facing East.

Pope Francis did not touch on the debate about whether priests should celebrate Mass facing East, with their backs to the people, but focused on light as a symbol of Christian hope.

"Christians are not exempt from the darkness, either external or even internal," he said. "They do not live outside the world, but because of the grace of Christ received though baptism, they are men and women who are 'oriented': they do not believe in the darkness, but in the light of day; they do not succumb to the night, but hope in the dawn; they are not defeated by death, but long for resurrection; they are not crushed by evil because they always trust in the infinite possibilities of goodness."

Receiving the light of Christ at baptism, he said, Christians are called to be true "Christophers" or Christ-bearers, "especially to those who are going through situations of mourning, desperation, darkness and hatred."

Christians who truly bear the light of Christ's hope, he said, can be identified by the light in their eyes and by their serenity "even on the most complicated days."

- - -

Copyright © 2017 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article