Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has instructed the pastors of his Dublin archdiocese to offer “appropriate catechesis” for parents who wish their children to be baptised. The archbishop said parents should be properly educated about the meaning of baptism, and should understand that the sacrament is not merely a family celebration but an entry into an active Christian community.
Mgr Martin said parishes should design appropriate educational offerings to avoid making parents resent the new requirement, adding that “programmes should be attractive, rather than simply compulsory”.
Supreme Court rebukes cardinal
The Mexican Supreme Court upheld the legality of same-sex couples adopting children and rebuked Guadalajara Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez, who accused the 11 judges of being bribed by the mayor of Mexico City and international organisations.
The court ruled last Monday against a challenge by the federal attorney general’s office, which had contested a portion of a same-sex marriage law in Mexico City allowing homosexual couples to adopt children.
The court rebuked Cardinal Sandoval, saying “You cannot, with impunity, protected by any title, accuse 11 justices of the highest tribunal in the country of corruption and say they have been financially motivated to pronounce in a certain way”. The court unanimously voted to censure the cardinal.
That same day, Mexico City mayor Marcelo Ebrard demanded during a radio interview that the cardinal “show proof” or retract his remarks, and threatened to take legal action.
The singing nuns
World renowned Decca Records has its eyes on a convent of cloistered nuns in France and their Gregorian chant. A recording contract has been signed between the nuns of the Abbey of Our Lady of the Annunciation and the label that helped to make Bing Crosby and The Who top pop acts.
The nuns’ first CD, Voices. Chant From Avignon, is scheduled to be released on November 8.
Decca executives said the nuns’ chanting is like an immediate escape from the challenges, stresses, noise and pace of modern living.
Archbishop sponsors Iraqi refugee family
Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto is personally sponsoring a refugee family as a concrete sign of the help that Iraqi Christians trapped in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon should be given.
He has also written to the other Canadian bishops about the fate of Iraqi Christian refugees, asking them to encourage refugee sponsorship in their dioceses.
“Helping refugees is important in this world in which so many people are suffering, and I want personally to assist in this,” Mgr Collins said.
Drilling under cemeteries
The director of the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s Catholic Cemeteries Association said last Tuesday that she signed a five-year lease in 2008 granting a local company the option to drill for natural gas underneath 15 local Catholic cemeteries.
The cemeteries, located on 1,060 acres, “offered us the possibility to drill horizontally beneath the tracts from adjoining leases without encroaching on the surface,” said the company’s president.