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Urging an Info-ethics
The importance of medical ethics has long been recognized, says a Vatican aide, but in recent years there has been more focus on the need for ethics among those who work in the media. Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, delivered that message at an address on the topic of "Teaching the Ethics of Communications in a Catholic University." He said the most quoted remark from Benedict XVI's message for the 2008 World Communications Day dealt with the widely perceived need for "info-ethics."
Lessons From Abuse Victims
The U.S. bishops' conference National Review Board is publicizing a series of 10 lessons learned from working with the victims or survivors of child abuse by clergy. "It takes great courage for a victim/survivor to come forward with his or her story after years, sometimes decades, of silence and feelings of shame," the conference said in a communiqué. Among the lessons learned: "to the victim/survivor it is so important to finally simply be believed," and "in spite of their own pain and suffering, many victim/survivors are just as concerned that the Church prevents this abuse from happening to more children as they are about themselves and their own needs for healing."
Behind the Economic Crisis
The economic crisis has shown that the market is incapable of regulating itself, "apart from public intervention and the support of internalized moral standards," says Mary Ann Glendon, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. In her summary of the academy's recent plenary assembly, Glendon quoted from Benedict XVI's address to participants of the gathering. She went on to sum up discussions about what "public intervention" and "internalized moral standards" might mean. Among the systemic economic faults cited was "an overreliance on speculative financial activities separated from productive activity."
What God Does Through Priests
Benedict XVI encouraged the faithful to be close to their priests, remembering that God chooses to sanctify the world through them. "It is Christ himself who makes us saints, namely, who attracts us to the sphere of God," the Pope said at a general audience. "But as an act of his infinite mercy he calls some to 'be' with him and to be converted, through the sacrament of holy orders, despite human poverty, into participants in his own priesthood, ministers of this sanctification, dispensers of his mysteries, 'bridges' of the encounter with him."
News Bytes for Your Parish Bulletin
- Mother Teresa Stamp On Its Way
- Support Benedict XVI With a Text
- Forgiveness Does Not Replace Justice, Says Pope
- Child Labor Shows Disturbing Trends
- Priest Dies Saving 3 Drowning Youth
For a New Apologetics
The Church urgently needs a new apologetics, says the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In an address in Rome, Cardinal William Levada echoed a point made Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, that "Apologetics is important first of all within the Church itself." Cardinal Levada asserted that that a new apologetics must be "grounded in a philosophy that grants the sciences their rightful autonomy but not a hegemony." Apologetics should also, he said, "focus on the beauty of God's creation."