Scotland’s ‘moral decline’

LONDON (CNS) — Scottish society is in a moral decline because of politicians’ failure to recognize and support the role of the family, said the bishops of Scotland. The Bishops’ Conference of Scotland denounced the legal recognition of same-sex unions and urged all Catholics to be at the "forefront of promoting family life" in a letter sent to all parishes for distribution Jan. 28-29. "We see a society in moral decline, a civilization in cultural decay, as our temporal leaders fail to take a global view of society," said the bishops in the letter signed by Archbishop Mario Conti of Glasgow, Scotland, president of the bishops’ commission for Christian doctrine and unity. The letter is largely a response to the Civil Partnerships Act, which gave Scottish homosexual couples the same benefits as married heterosexuals Dec. 20. The bishops also have expressed disappointment at Scottish lawmakers’ plan to speed up divorce procedures.

Bolivians jubilant over election

LIMA, Peru (CNS) — The dancing in the street that followed the Jan. 22 inauguration of Bolivian President Evo Morales, the Andean nation’s first indigenous chief executive, expressed a "sense of jubilation, of regaining lost dignity, and of feeling that a son of the Andes could be an example for other countries in Latin America," said the secretary-general of the Bolivian bishops’ conference. "As church, we view the change with great hope, because it expresses the will of the people," said Bishop Jesus Juarez Parraga of El Alto Diocese, where most of the population lives in sprawling, low-income neighborhoods at the edge of La Paz. "What people want are the values and principles that the church has always proclaimed — the inclusion of all social and ethnic groups in the country, justice and equal opportunity so that people can have decent work and wages," the bishop said in a telephone interview. Morales, 46, was born in the Andean highlands, the son of Aymaran farmers. As a child, he herded the family’s sheep and llamas. A key figure in the political opposition in recent years, he led anti-government protests and became a member of Congress representing the Movement to Socialism. He now has the task of guiding an impoverished country in which street protests have ousted two presidents since October 2003.

Red tape hampers tsunami relief

PANAJI, India (CNS) — The Catholic Church is facing bureaucratic hurdles in providing assistance for tsunami survivors in eastern Indian islands, said a priest in charge of relief work. The government hurdles and uncertainty continue to haunt the survivors, who have to live in small tin sheds that "heat up in the sun and leak when it rains," Pilar Father Attley Gomes told UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand. He was interviewed in India’s western state of Goa in late January. Father Gomes, who works in India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, said the survivors have received little quality relief since the December 2004 tsunami. The territory of about 550 islands in the Indian Ocean lies about 620 miles east of the Indian mainland and is about 120 miles from Banda Aceh, Indonesia, the epicenter of the undersea earthquake that sent giant waves sweeping across the Indian Ocean region. Only approximately 40 of the islands in the federally administered territory are populated, but several thousand residents were killed or went missing in the tsunami disaster.

Egyptian parish helps refugees

JERUSALEM (CNS) — At least four Sudanese refugee families have decided to return to Sudan from a protest camp in the Egyptian city of Cairo, feeling they would be safer there than in Egypt. At the end of last year, more than 30 refugees were left dead in the wake of violence between Egyptian police and residents of their protest camp. "When you are between a rock and a hard place you really have no choice," said Father Simon Mbuthia in a telephone interview from Cairo. The Kenyan priest’s Sakakini Sacred Heart Catholic Church has helped pay for the tickets for the four families. "At least in Sudan they may be harassed, but not because they don’t have residency documents. They are having to choose between two very difficult things. It can’t be very easy for them," he added.

Priests barred from campaigning

OXFORD, England (CNS) — Ukrainian Catholic Church officials have barred priests from campaigning in the country’s upcoming elections and warned that they will violate church rules if they engage in some business activities. The decision is outlined in a statement from the Ukrainian-rite Synod of Bishops, which met in mid-January in Lviv, Ukraine. The statement added that church law also bars priests from dealing "with financial transactions and trade, either for their own or another’s benefit." During a Jan. 21 press conference, Cardinal Lubomyr Husar of Kiev-Halych said the synod had "strictly interpreted church rules" in preparation for the March 26 parliamentary ballot, the first since Ukraine’s 2004 disputed presidential election known as the Orange Revolution.

Priests freed

HONG KONG (CNS) — Two underground church priests, officials of Wenzhou Diocese in eastern China, were freed in mid-January after being detained for two and a half months. UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand, reported Jan. 27 that Father Shao Zhumin, 44, vicar general of the diocese, and Father Paul Jiang Sunian, 36, diocesan chancellor, were released Jan. 11 and 13, respectively. Their diocese is based in Wenzhou, in China’s Zhejiang province. After his release, Father Shao was rushed to a hospital for kidney treatment. A source told UCA News Jan. 25 that he was unlikely to be discharged before Jan. 29, the beginning of the lunar new year. Father Jiang underwent a medical checkup and is said to be in good health. Before Christmas, he staged a three-day hunger strike to demand that Mass vessels, confiscated when he was detained, be returned to him so he could celebrate Christmas Mass. The vessels have not been returned, the source said. Public security officers arrested the priests separately Oct. 27, hours after they celebrated Mass to close the Year of the Eucharist.

Australian bishops oppose RU-486

SYDNEY, Australia (CNS) — The Australian Catholic Church has been working to prevent lawmakers from allowing an abortion drug to become readily available to women through their doctors. The February vote will decide whether the abortion pill RU-486 will remain under the control of Minister of Health Tony Abbott, a Catholic and stated anti-abortionist, or will be transferred to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the regulatory body that manages prescription drugs. Calling the estimated 90,000 abortions a year that occur in Australia "too many,"

Congregations to merge

LA GRANGE PARK, Ill. (CNS) — Seven U.S. congregations of Sisters of St. Joseph announced Jan. 23 that they plan to merge into a single new congregation in April 2007. The communities that will form the new Congregation of St. Joseph currently have 891 vowed religious and 548 nonvowed men and women associates. Sister Marianne Race, president of the Sisters of St. Joseph of La Grange, said, "The decision to form a new congregation grew out of our seven congregations’ common origin, heritage, charism and mission from the original Sisters of St. Joseph who were founded more than 350 years ago in LePuy, France." Besides the La Grange congregation, which has 92 members, the other congregations involved are: Sisters of St. Joseph of Cleveland, with 123 members; Sisters of St. Joseph of Nazareth, Mich., with 257 members; Sisters of St. Joseph of Tipton, Ind., with 38 members; Sisters of St. Joseph of Wheeling, W.Va., with 83 members; Sisters of St. Joseph of Wichita, Kan., with 157 members; and Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille, based in Cincinnati, with 141 members.

College cancels play

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (CNS) — Providence College will not be presenting the play "The Vagina Monologues" this year, according to an announcement made by Dominican Father Brian Shanley, president of the college. The priest said the play, performed on several hundred college campuses around the country in mid-February, is not appropriate for a Catholic college campus "because its depiction of female sexuality is so deeply at odds with the true meaning and morality" of church teaching. Production of the play on Catholic college campuses often raises questions and occasionally sparks protests.

Pope may visit Baltimore

BALTIMORE (CNS) — Cardinal William H. Keeler of Baltimore has invited Pope Benedict XVI to visit Baltimore and has expressed hope the trip will take place in 2007. "The Holy Father will most likely be able to come next year," the cardinal said after returning from Rome in mid-January. The cardinal had originally invited the pope to visit in the fall of this year for the rededication of the Basilica of the Assumption, the first metropolitan cathedral in the United States, but the pope’s schedule was filled up, said Sean Caine, archdiocesan communications director. The possibility of a papal trip to Baltimore was discussed by the cardinal Jan. 17 at the annual archdiocesan Catholic Charities dinner after he had returned from attending Rome events sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.