NEWS IN BRIEF –THURSDAY JUNE 27

NEWS IN BRIEF – THURSDAY JUNE 2

POPE FRANCIS MET WITH NATIONAL DIRECTORS, CHAPLAINS AND VOLUNTEERS FROM THE STELLA MARIS APOSTOLATE, urging them to be missionaries of compassion and to confront issues that are the fruit of human greed. The Stella Maris apostolate – the name means Star of the Sea – is active in over 300 ports worldwide, offering spiritual and material assistance to sailors, fishermen and their often-distant families. The Pope said, “without sailors, the global economy would come to a standstill; and without fishermen, many parts of the world would starve.” He asked those present to convey his esteem and encouragement to all the sailors and fishermen they come across in their work. He also noted that, “the life of a sailor or fisherman is not only marked by isolation and distance. At times it is also painfully affected by shameful experiences of abuse and injustice, by the snares of those engaged in human trafficking.”

THE VATICAN ANNOUNCED THAT ON MONDAY JULY 1, 2019, at 10 am in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father Francis will preside over the celebration of the Third Hour and the Ordinary Public Consistory for the Canonization of 5 Blesseds, including John Henry Newman, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Founder of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in England. Others to be canonized at a date to be announced Monday include: Italian Sister Giuseppina Vannini (born Giuditta Adelaide Agata), founder of the Daughters of Saint Camillus; Indian Sister Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan, founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family; Brazilian Sister Dulce Lopes Pontes (born Maria Rita) of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God and Marguerite Bays of Switzerland, virgin of the Third Order of Saint Francis of Assisi.

POPE FRANCIS ADDRESSED 500 PARTICIPANTS IN THE 41ST GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE ROME-BASED UNITED NATIONS FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION (FAO), urging the cooperation of all in order to tackle the “scourges of hunger and food insecurity” in the world. One way to fight hunger and food insecurity, the Holy Father suggested, is to reduce the wastage of food and water. Addressing the group in his native Spanish, the Argentine Pope called for tackling the underlying causes of the lack of food and access to drinkable water. He blamed the tragedy on “a failure of compassion, the lack of interest on the part of many and a scant social and political will to honor international obligations.” The lack of food and water, he pointed out, is not an internal and exclusive affair of the poorest and most vulnerable countries, but one that concerns each of us. He said that responsibility lies on all for increasing or alleviating the suffering of many of our brothers and sisters whose desperate cries we are called to hear. (source: vaticannews.va)

“VATICAN INSIDER” PROFILES THE VIA LUCIS – GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD”: PAPAL MESSAGE TO FOOD EXPO – CARITAS REPORTS ON DEVASTATION FROM NEPAL EARTHQUAKE

“VATICAN INSIDER” PROFILES THE VIA LUCIS

Tune in to Vatican Insider this weeked for a special on the Via Lucis!  What is the Via Lucis? It’s a new and relatively unknown practice and I’m delighted to profile this for you! I’ve asked a number of people – priests and lay people – if they knew of it and most everyone said ‘no’. Tune in this weekend and then, when people ask you “What is the Via Lucis?” you will have the answer!

In the United States, you can listen to Vatican Insider on a Catholic radio station near you (there is a list of U.S. stations at www.ewtn.com) or on Sirius-XM satellite radio. If you live outside the U.S., you can listen to EWTN radio on our website home page by clicking on the right side where you see “LISTEN TO EWTN.” Vatican Insider airs Saturday mornings at 9:30 am (Eastern time) and re-airs Sundays at 4:30 pm (ET). Check for your time zone. Past shows are found in Vatican Insider archives: http://www.ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/file_index.asp?SeriesId=7096&pgnu=

“GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD”: PAPAL MESSAGE TO FOOD EXPO

Pope Francis, in a video message at noon Friday, addressed the opening of the six-month long Milan Expo 2015 which this year is focusing on the theme: “Feeding the planet – energy for life.”  (photo: lbtimes.com)

In that message  Pope Francis said, “I would like to make myself the spokesman for all our brothers and sisters, Christians and also non-Christians, as children whom God loves and for whom He gave His life: He broke the bread, which is the flesh of his Son become Man; He taught us to ask God the Father, ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ The Expo is a propitious occasion to globalize solidarity. Let us not waste it, but make the very most of it.”

The official website – www.expo2015.org – notes that Expo Milan will offer 184 days of events with 145 participating countries to 20 million expected visitors at an exhibition site of 1 million square meters. The event runs from May 1 to October 31, 2015. Hosted by the most commercial and cosmopolitan city of Italy – Milan – Expo 2015 revolves around a key theme for the Earth: “Feeding the Planet, energy for life.”

The Universal Exposition 2015 hopes, say organizers, to become the largest event ever organized about food and nutrition. For six months, Milan will be a global showcase in which countries will show the best of their technologies to give a concrete answer to a vital need: producing healthy and safe food, enough for all peoples, while respecting the planet and its balance. Participants also hope to exchange ideas and share solutions to the problem of food security.

And – no small thing! – visitors will have the opportunity to discover and taste some of the world’s most delicious foods!

The Vatican has a pavilion at this Expo on the theme “Not by Bread Alone. At the Lord’s Table with all Mankind.”

The Holy See states on the Expo website that, “’Not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’. From this first sentence of the Gospel, is a message that the Holy See wishes to send out during its participation at Expo Milano 2015.

“Food is a primary value for mankind, forever the subject of rituals, symbols, stories, calendars and rules, and also a tool for understanding one’s identity and building relationships with the world, the Creation, time and history.

“The Holy See aims to focus visitors’ attention on the strong symbolic relevance of feeding, and on its potential for anthropological development. Its potential is deeply social and collective, yet unfortunately, is often interpreted negatively as a reprimand for neglect and injustice.

“Food is therefore not only portrayed as nourishment of the body, but as a gesture of nurturing, a meal and a convivium: a moment of encounter and communion, education and growth. This sharply contrasts with the ‘culture of waste’ which increasingly influences today’s society, fuelling the terrible hardships of injustice and poverty.

“Through its pavilion, spread over a total area of ​​747 square meters, the Holy See looks to offer its visitors a space for reflection on issues that persist today, related to food and access to food. Such issues highlight how the anthropological act of offering food is at the heart of both Christian experience, and the cultural and spiritual thinking it has generated within our history.”

The pavilion has been funded by the Holy See, the Italian Bishops’ Conference and the Milan archdiocese in equal parts for a total of €3 million. Visitors can admire two artworks, Tintoretto’s Last Supper from the church of San Trovaso in Venice and a Flemish tapestry designed by Rubens from the diocesan museum in Ancona.

CARITAS REPORTS ON DEVASTATION FROM NEPAL EARTHQUAKE

I received the following update today from Patrick Nicholson at the Vatican offices of Caritas Internationalis concerning the devastation in Nepal following the horrific earthquake that struck this Asian nation on Saturday, April 25:

Caritas aid missions are reporting that villages in remote areas of Nepal have been utterly devastated by the earthquake. (Caritas photo)

Speaking from Pokhari danda in Gorkha, 15 km from the epicentre, Stefen Teplan of Caritas Germany said, “60 percent of the village is destroyed. More than food and water, what is needed most is temporary shelter before the monsoon sets in.”

The full scale of the disaster is becoming clear. The death toll from the 7.9 magnitude earthquake increased to 6000 with thousands still missing.

Over 130,000 houses have been destroyed and 85,000 houses partially damaged. There are 30 out of 75 districts in the country affected. This includes mountain and hilly areas, in areas where rural populations are dispersed.

Caritas has reached 4000 families in the Kathmandu Valley with plastic sheets, blankets and food. Teams have also reached some of the worst affected rural areas of Gorkha, Sindapalchowk, Nuwakot and Kavre.

“Each of these teams is staffed by experience experts,” said Fr. Pius Perumana SJ, director of Caritas Nepal. “They can evaluate what people need most.”

The priority is shelter.

“The people who have lost their homes are exposed to the rain and cold weather at night. They really need international solidarity,” said Angan Baj, Emergency Response Manager for Caritas India, who is with the team visiting villages in Gorkha.

Caritas will also be providing food, clean water and sanitation and counselling.

Caritas Internationalis Secretary General Michel Roy says Caritas has been flooded with donations and solidarity from across the globe. Caritas members worldwide have pledged 3 million euros in the first days following the quake.

The Caritas website is: http://www.caritas.org/

An April 30 United Nations update on the Nepal quake said some $8 million is urgently needed to help disaster-struck Nepalese farmers rapidly recover lost agricultural inputs and resume preparations for the imminent rice sowing season, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today.

“There is a critical window of opportunity to help crop producers plant in time to have a rice harvest this year and regain their self-sufficiency,” FAO Representative in Nepal, Somsak Pipoppinyo, said in a statement to the press. “At the same time, we need to do all we can to preserve vital livestock assets which provide affected families with much needed income and nutrition.”

Farmers who miss the planting season that is expected to start late May onwards will be unable to harvest rice – the country’s staple food — again until late 2016. This, together with likely losses of food stocks and wheat and maize harvests, would “severely” limit food supplies and incomes in the South Asian country, where around two-thirds of people rely on agriculture for their livelihood, FAO said.

THE PRIMACY OF MAN, NOT PROFITS, MUST REIGN IN FIGHT AGAINST WORLD HUNGER

Inexplicable technical problems have plagued my entire afternoon and early evening but I have been able to post a few news stories on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/joan.lewis.10420). For this column, given the late hour, I chose one story – the Pope’s visit to FAO – the United Nations’s Rome-based Food and Agricultural Organization. I wrote an opening paragraph and then selected excerpts from the papal speech and presented those, putting in italics some of his choice words to this UN body.

I attempted to post the story on my blog but both the blog and this Word document disappeared. I will try again to post this important story but will limit myself to just excerpts – using italics to highlight

THE PRIMACY OF MAN, NOT PROFITS, MUST REIGN IN FIGHT AGAINST WORLD HUNGER     

Pope Francis on November 20, 2014 to FAO: ”We live in a time in which the relations between nations are too often damaged by mutual suspicion, that at times turns into forms of military and economic aggression, undermining friendship between brothers and rejecting or discarding what is already excluded. He who lacks his daily bread or a decent job is well aware of this. … I hope that, in the formulation of these commitments, the States are inspired by the conviction that the right to food can only be ensured if we care about the actual subject, that is, the person who suffers the effects of hunger and malnutrition.” ”Nowadays there is much talk of rights, frequently neglecting duties; perhaps we have paid too little heed to those who are hungry. It is also painful to see that the struggle against hunger and malnutrition is hindered by “market priorities”, the “primacy of profit”, which have reduced foodstuffs to a commodity like any other, subject to speculation, also of a financial nature.”

“Persons and peoples ask for justice to be put into practice: not only in a legal sense, but also in terms of contribution and distribution. Therefore, development plans and the work of international organisations must take into consideration the wish, so frequent among ordinary people, for respect for fundamental human rights and, in this case, the rights of the hungry.” ”Interest in the production, availability and accessibility of foodstuffs, climate change and agricultural trade should certainly inspire rules and technical measures, but the first concern must be the individual as a whole, who lacks daily nourishment and has given up thinking about life, family and social relationships, instead fighting for survival. St. John Paul II, in the inauguration in this hall of the First Conference on Nutrition in 1992, warned the international community against the risk of the ‘paradox of plenty’, in which there is food for everyone, but not everyone can eat, while waste, excessive consumption and the use of food for other purposes is visible before our very eyes. Unfortunately, this “paradox” remains relevant.”

”The second challenge to be faced is the lack of solidarity. Our societies are characterized by growing individualism and division: this ends up depriving the weakest of a decent life, and provokes revolts against institutions. When there is a lack of solidarity in a country, the effects are felt throughout the world.”

“Human beings, as they become aware of being partly responsible for the plan of creation, become capable of mutual respect, instead of fighting between themselves, damaging and impoverishing the planet. … A source of inspiration is natural law, inscribed in the human heart, that speaks a language that everyone can understand: love, justice, peace, elements that are inseparable from each other. Like people, States and international institutions are called to welcome and nurture these values, in a spirit of dialogue and mutual listening.

“Every woman, man, child and elderly person everywhere should be able to count on these guarantees. It is the duty of every State that cares for the well-being of its citizens to subscribe to them unreservedly, and to take the necessary steps to ensure their implementation. This requires perseverance and support. The Catholic Church also offers her contribution in this field through constant attention to the life of the poor in all parts of the world” and “the Holy See is actively involved in international organizations and through numerous documents and statements” and “contributes to identifying and assuming the criteria to be met in order to develop an equitable international system.” If

“We believe in the principle of the unity of the human family, based on the common paternity of God the Creator, and in the fraternity of human beings. No form of political or economic pressure that exploits the availability of foodstuffs can be considered acceptable. But, above all, no system of discrimination, de facto or de jure, linked to the capacity of access to the market of foodstuffs, must be taken as a model for international efforts that aim to eliminate hunger.”