More priests and bishops are saying that the English-speaking world should start using the 1998 translation of the missal instead of the 2011 version approved by the Vatican.
The Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) in Ireland called for a review of the current English missal.
Bishop Emeritus Donald Trautman of Erie, ex-chairman of the US bishops’ conference committee on the liturgy, writing in a blog in The Tablet, described the current missal as a failure that “does not communicate in the living language of the worshipping assembly”. He was backing a call made in a letter to The Tablet by the respected Jesuit theologian Fr Gerald O’Collins.
However the Vatican is resisting these appeals.
Italian bishops oppose civil unions Bill
Italy’s bishops are opposing a measure that would provide legal recognition for civil unions, including same-sex unions. Bishop Nunzio Galantino, secretary general of the Italian episcopal conference, said the proposed legislation is an “ideological stretch, reducing objectively different realities to one”.
The legislation, which won approval from a Senate committee, would provide for local registration of civil unions and give partners in these unions many of the rights traditionally reserved for married couples, including access to inheritance, health insurance, pension benefits and adoption of their partners’ children.
Vatican’s plea for refugee children
Speaking at UN offices in Geneva, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s leading diplomat, said: “Due to the Middle Eastern conflicts and massive uprooting of families, several thousand unregistered children are scattered in camps and asylum countries. These are ‘phantom kids’ whose parents escaped from Syria but whose name and date of birth were never registered.
“A child below 11 and without documents has no access even to the most basic services. These children cannot go to school and are likely to be adopted illegally, recruited in an armed group, abused, exploited, or forced into prostitution. Every child has the right to be registered at birth and thus to be recognised as a person before the law.
“Another disruptive consequence of the continuing violence is the separation of family members, which forces minors to fend for themselves. The root of the destabilisation of society is the generalised violence that leads to the breakdown of the family, society’s basic social unit. To prevent further exploitation of children and protect them, an additional effort should be made to facilitate the reunification of minors with their respective families.”
Call for liberation of Iraqi minorities
Speaking to the UN Security Council, Iraqi Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako said: “The so-called Arab Spring impacted negatively on us.” He was invited to address the council following a French initiative to discuss the persecution of Christians and other religious minorities by the Islamic State.
Sake said Muslim extremists are unwilling to tolerate other faiths, and conditions have deteriorated for religious minorities, adding: “It is important to understand that these terroristic acts should not be generalised to all Muslims. There is a silent and peaceful majority that reject such politicisation of the religion.”
He urged international leaders to support his country’s government in a drive for “the liberation of all Iraqi cities and for us Christians, Yezidis and Shabaks, the city of Mosul as well as the towns in the Nineveh plain and villages”.
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)