Quotes and news

Addressing a 200-strong delegation from the Italian National Olympic Committee, Pope Benedict said: “Every sport, both amateur and professional, requires fairness in competition, respect for one’s body, a sense of solidarity and altruism and also joy, satisfaction and celebration.

“(This is made possible by) authentic human maturity, comprised of sacrifice, tenacity, patience and, above all, humility, which is never applauded, but is the secret to victory.

“Pressure to achieve results must never drive (people) to take shortcuts as happens in doping. (Team owners, administrators and coaches are all called) to be witnesses of the good of humanity, cooperating with families and schools for the education of young people.”

Philippines passes reproductive health law

Despite strong opposition from the Catholic bishops of the Philippines both houses of Parliament passed legislation to promote artificial contraception as a family planning method. The bishops said the Bill could harm the nation, saying “contraception corrupts the soul”.

Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, vice-president of the bishops’ conference, said the legislation was being “giftwrapped to look like a gift for maternal healthcare. It is not so. It will lead to greater crimes against women.”

32 per cent Christian, 23 per cent Muslim

According to the Global Religious Landscape published by the Pew Forum, the three largest religions are Christianity (32 per cent of world population) followed by Islam with 23 per cent and Hinduism with 15 per cent. Buddhist amount to half that number.

The Pew Forum found that 157 countries have a majority Christian population, while 49 have a majority Muslim population.

The five nations with the largest Christian population are the US, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, and the Philippines.

While the average age in the world is 28, the average Christian is 30 years old.

Cardinal Bertone all for transparency

Speaking to the Prefecture for Economic Affairs, Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone said the Vatican has made “an increasing commitment to transparency and accuracy” in all financial dealings.

He said the Prefecture was established to ensure that the Vatican has adequate material resources to fulfil the needs of the Church’s spiritual mission. The office has a supervisory role over all the economic affairs of the Vatican, and is responsible to see that all its financial dealings are honest, efficient and transparent.

He added that the Vatican is cutting down on expenditure as Church revenue had declined due to the world’s bad financial situation.

Over two million are following the Pope

Just two weeks after the Pope started tweeting over two million people are following him. The first Papal tweets were in eight languages.

Speaking on Vatican Radio, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, said the Pope is using Twitter to be present in the latest platforms of communication to share with them “words of truth”.

“The Pope wants to be where men and women are speaking together because not only are they sharing information, they’re also sharing a bit of themselves,” he said.

Over 140 million people use Twitter. Forty per cent are aged 18 to 34.

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)