Quotes and news

At the end of World Youth Day held in Madrid, Spain, many Brazilian bishops expressed their eagerness to host World Youth Day 2013 in Rio de Janeiro.

WYD will take place in Brazil a year before the country hosts the finals of the World Cup tournament. The celebration is expected to be held at the end of July when schools are on holidays.

The bishops also said theyare eagerly awaiting the announcement of the theme. Bishop Pinheiro da Silva predicted that WYD 2013 “will show a Church that is alive and creative, in part because of the young people. Brazilian youth, with their creativity, will give us a lovely day for the whole world.”

Annual CL meeting held in Rimini

Close to one million adherents of the Communion and Liberation movement took part in their annual meeting in Rimini. An estimated 800,000 people from 38 countries came to Rimini to listen to several leading speakers, including churchmen and political and cultural leaders. The theme of the meeting was ‘And existence becomes an immense certainty’.

In his message for the meeting, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone wrote that “today more than ever, we Christians are called to give reason for the hope that is in us, to witness in the world that ‘other’ without which everything remains incomprehensible”.

Diocese strongly condemns gambling

A commission of the Archdiocese of Cordoba in Argentina has issued a strong condemnation of gambling.

In a statement the commission said that gambling “affects, above all, the poorest families, who see in it a magical solution to their economic problems, and the young, who remain ensnared by the egoism of an essentially individualistic game and one which attacks solidarity and the culture of work.

“Gambling is a business that moves large amounts of money to the benefit of the few and to the detriment of the many, especially the poorest,” the letter continued.

“Whoever develops a passion for gambling risks losing what belongs to his or her spouse or children. It is a fact that harms the family’s communion and often causes arguments, quarrels and accusations.”

Warning against higher taxation

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, president of Vatican Bank, recently said: “During a prolonged crisis, inheritance taxes, new forms of taxation or similar alternatives reduce resources for investments, discouraging the trust of investors, penalising the cost of the public debt and the possibilities of its renewal at its expiration.

“In this context, imposing taxes on property and on income is equivalent to a suicidal anti-subsidiarity of the state to the citizen. …High taxes penalise saving, generate distrust in the ability to stimulate recovery, hit families and prevent the formation of new ones, as well as creating uncertainty and precariousness in employment. …They lay the foundations for another phase of unsustainable development.”

Bibles seized in ‘anti-Christian’ campaign

Local authorities in the Iranian province of Zanjan have seized 6,500 Bibles as part of an anti-Christian campaign.

“Missionaries with reliance on huge money and propaganda are trying to deviate our youth,” said adviser to the Iranian parliament’s social committee Majid Abhari.

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)