Quotes and news

Bishop Luis Santos Villeda of Santa Rosa, Honduras, said he will ask the Pope’s permission to run for his country’s presidency. “I would no longer be bishop or have any church office,” he said. Mgr Santos is due to reach the age of 75 in November.

The bishop plans to contest on the ticket of the Liberal Party, the party of former President Manuel Zelaya. He was removed from office on the basis of a court order following the accusation that he had exceeded his legal authority.

Mgr Santos criticised this decision while most of the other bishops of Honduras approved it.

Zenit editors resign en masse in protest

The six editors of the various editions of Zenit, a Catholic news agency, have resigned due to their disagreement with the owners of the service, the Legionaries of Christ.

The service of the agency is e-mailed to daily to 450,000 subscribers.

The editors said they were leaving Zenit “with great personal sadness”, but were troubled by a decision to make the agency more closely aligned with the interests of the Legionaries.

The founder and director of the Zenit agency, Jesus Colina, was dismissed last September.

Violence undermining coexistence in Egypt

“I am saddened by the violence that took place in Cairo last Sunday,” Pope Benedict said last Wednesday.

“I share the suffering of the families of the victims and all Egyptian people, lacerated by attempts to undermine peaceful coexistence among their communities, a coexistence it is vital to safeguard, especially in this moment of transition,” the Pope continued.

Fr Rafic Greiche, spokesman for the Catholic Church in Egypt, claimed Egyptian government officials were complicit in the burning of churches, particularly the church near Aswan. He said this is the fourth time in recent months that a church has been burnt by Islamists.

Public broadcaster apologises to priest

Irish public service broadcaster RTE said in a statement that its allegations against Fr Kevin Reynolds are “baseless, without any foundation whatever, and untrue”. The broadcaster publicly affirmed that the priest was entirely innocent.

RTE broadcast the claim of a Kenyan woman that the priest had raped her and fathered her child while he was serving as a missionary in the African country. Fr Reynolds strongly denied the allegation and immediately offered to take a paternity test.

He was suspended from ministry because of the charge.

Now RTE has published an apology and withdrawn the allegation.

Some no longer able to stay in silence

Pope Benedict XVI, addressing a group of Carthusian monks last Sunday, said developments in the new media are such that we are risking that virtuality will become more important than reality.

In a world where people are immersed in an audio and visual dimension from morning till night, the young “want to fill every empty moment with music and images,” he said.

The Pope added that “some people are no longer capable of remaining for long periods in silence and solitude”.

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)