Quotes and news

For the first time, Egypt has been listed among the world’s worst violators of religious freedom. The list is compiled by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

The other nations are Burma, China, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

In Egypt, religious freedom violations have increased, including murder of Coptic Christians and other religious minorities.

Since President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation in February, such violence continues unabated without the government bringing the perpetrators to justice.

Need to reduce global warming ‘now’

A working group of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences have said nations and individuals have a duty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enact policies that mitigate global warming.

The 15-page report on the impact humans have on the environment was entitled ‘Fate of mountain glaciers in the Anthropocene’.

The cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing reforestation, cutting air pollutants and helping poor regions adapt to climate change “pales in comparison to the price the world will pay if we fail to act now,” it said.

“We call on all nations to recognise the serious and potentially irreversible impacts of global warming caused by the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, and by changes in forests, wetlands, grasslands, and other land uses,” it said.

Church leaders can learn from bloggers

At the beginning of May, the pontifical councils for culture and for social communications invited 150 bloggers to an event called ‘Blog Meet’. The Vatican representatives insisted the virtual world should only be a tool, not a substitute for, real human contact, even when the meeting underlines the extraordinary powers of new media.

“The Church has something to learn from bloggers,” Archbishop Claudio Celli, president of Vatican’s communications council, said in an interview with L’Osservatore Romano.

By listening to inhabitants of the blogosphere, the Church can learn not only what people in the pews are thinking and feeling; Church leaders can get a sense of how important it is to speak about the faith in a language that is less “ecclesial” and more “understandable”, he said.

Catholic Action can help restore Italy

In a message to the 14th national assembly of Italian Catholic Action, Pope Benedict XVI referred to what he described as “the most pressing problems of the everyday life of the family: the defence of life, the suffering of separations and abandonment, solidarity in misfortune, and assistance of the poor and homeless”.

The Pope urged the Catholic Action members to make a difference through their commitment.

“Italy has gone through difficult historical moments and has emerged revitalised, also because of the unconditional dedication of Catholic lay people involved in politics and institutions,” the Pope wrote in his message.

He said Catholic Action should make the same contribution to today’s Italy, helping the nation to regain its sense of direction and to build upon its Catholic heritage.

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)