KNEEL WITH POPE JOHN PAUL II IN SEPTEMBER PRAYER General: That old people may be considered an asset to the spiritual and human growth of society. Missionary: That in Africa authentic brotherly cooperation may develop among all those who work
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Justice for Romero Salvadorans hope Romero case leads to reconciliation
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By Ellie Hidalgo
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alvadorans expressed hope that a federal judge's ruling against a retired Salvadoran military officer in the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero will promote reconciliation and justice in their homeland. "The truth has finally come out," said Eduardo Gonzalez, executive director of the Oscar Romero Clinic in Los Angeles. "We're free of oppression, free from fear and free from the pain of not having had justice for so many years," Gonzalez said. "It's a historic day for peace and justice in El Salvador and the world. Now true reconciliation can begin." "For nearly 25 years, it's been a wound in our lives. Today we will begin healing that," he said. Gonzalez was among the 50 Salvadorans sitting on wooden courtroom benches on September 3 as Judge Oliver Wanger of the US District Court in Fresno ruled that Alvaro Saravia, a retired Salvadoran air force captain who had been living in Modesto, California, hired and paid the Archbishop's murderer. In the civil suit, Saravia, whose current whereabouts are unknown, was ordered to pay US $10 million in damages to an unnamed relative of the Archbishop. "Monsenor Romero - Presente!" cheered the Salvadorans who came from Fresno, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, after
Attorney Nicholas van Aelstyn, pictured in his office in San Francisco on August 20, holds a copy of a book on assassinated Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero. Van Aelstyn has served as lead counsel in a case filed on behalf of the Archbishop’s family against members of a death squad that assassinated him as he celebrated Mass on March 24, 1980, in San Salvador. Photo: CNS
the decision was given. The cheer - Spanish for "Archbishop Romero is among us!" - referred to remarks by the Archbishop
that if killed he would be resurrected in the people. The Archbishop, a strong critic of human rights abuses by the
Salvadoran military, was murdered in 1980 as a civil war was raging. Continued page 3
Australian briefing leads world COMMENT By Fr Joe Parkinson The Australian Catholic Church is a world leader when it comes to constructive collaboration between bishops, theologians and health care professionals. At the official launch of the ‘Briefing Note on the Obligation to Provide Nutrition and Hydration’ in Adelaide last week, Bishop Michael Putney said that Australian Catholics had every right to be proud of the statement which is a joint publication of the Bishops Committee for Health Care, the Bishops Committee for Doctrine and Morals, and Catholic Health Australia. No other country in the Englishspeaking world had managed to bring together such a wealth of learning and leadership to
Princess’s faith target of bigotry
Fr Joe Parkinson explain in detail Pope John Paul II’s March 2004 address on the same subject. Drafted jointly by Bishop Anthony Fisher OP, Rev Dr Gerald Gleeson and Dr Elizabeth Hepburn IBVM, the Briefing Note won the unanimous approval of both Bishops Committees and
would be welcomed in Catholic medical facilities around the world. Speaking before nearly 450 delegates to Catholic Health Australia’s national conference last week, Bishop Fisher stated that CHA’s 2001 ‘Code of Ethical Standards’ would require no amendment because it clearly held the same position expressed in Pope John Paul’s address. “Rather than the positions of those who say ‘always feed’, ‘never feed’ or ‘only in exceptional circumstances’, Pope John Paul proposes that feeding and hydrating, even by artificial means, is a kind of basic caring which should be given unless there are strong reasons against,” Bishop Fisher said. But if death was imminent or the patient was in fact already dead,
or if nutrition and hydration were no longer able to sustain life, or if their mode of delivery proved unreasonably burdensome to the patient or their family, then the Pope’s teaching allowed that treatment could be withdrawn or, if not already commenced, it could be withheld. This clear restatement of a traditional moral principle comes as Catholics in other countries continue to debate central aspects of the Pope’s March address, which had been prompted by increasing international trends favouring euthanasia. Readers will recall last year’s Victoria Supreme Court ruling in the BWV case, which permitted the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration from an elderly woman suffering from Pick’s Disease. Continued page 3
here is still an anti-Catholic bias in Britain, according to Princess Michael of Kent, who claimed in late July that this is one of the reasons she has met hostility from the British public and in the media. Her Catholicism was a problem when she married into the Royal family in 1978. Pressure was put on her at the time, she said, particularly by Lord Mountbatten, to convert to Anglicanism. She said there were even hints that she and her husband would be rewarded with a place on the Civil List if she converted. But she was not prepared to do so. "To be asked to convert, to see the light, hallelujah, you know, I just can't do that," she told John Stapleton on ITV's My Favourite Hymns last Sunday. "I'm many things, but I'm not a hypocrite." Princess Michael was primarily responding to reports that she had made racist remarks in a New York restaurant in May, which she denied. The Czech-born princess, originally Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz, is the daughter of an Austrian father. “I’m foreign, which is never quite accepted, I think. I have different ways of saying things and doing things and I'm half Hungarian which implies I am volatile. Not really - I think I'm rather high-spirited. I'm also very tall. When I came into the family I was very much the tallest lady. Continued page 4
Special Report STEPHEN STEELE reports direct form Chad
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Lockridge 10th! Celebration a real oldfashioned get-together
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Charismatics 12,000 gather for Charismatic conference
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