News

• 9 June 2005
  VATICAN - Pope Benedict XVI delivers important address on the Family to open Rome’s diocesan Ecclesial Congress (part III) “We must not only strive to overcome relativism in our work of forming people, we are also called to counter its destructive predominance in society and culture.” Rome (Fides Service) - We give the third and last part of Pope Benedict XVI’s important address on the Family delivered in St John’s Basilica Cathedral on 6 June to open Rome’s diocesan Ecclesial Congress on the su ...
• 8 June 2005
  VATICAN - At his general audience the Pope teaches on Psalm 110: “Prayer is contemplation of the mystery of God and the marvels he works in the history of salvation” Vatican City (Fides Service) - In Psalm 110, a hymn of praise and thanksgiving we find many words that “describe God and his attributes and his work of salvation … prayer is therefore contemplation of the mystery of ...
• 8 June 2005
  ASIA/HOLY LAND - New magazine for Palestine’s Christian youth “to instil hope and help them say no to hatred and war” Bethlehem (Fides Service) - Juthouruna (Our Roots) is the name of a new magazine mainly for Christian youth presented yesterday 7 June in Bethlehem at the local Catholic Action Hall. “At last we have our first issue, a ...
• 8 June 2005
  ASIA/HONG KONG - Long procession through the streets on Corpus Christi: the Eucharist helps us realise we are all one family Hong Kong (Fides Service) - More than 700 special ministers of Holy Communion and hundreds of Catholic faithful took part in the Corpus Christi procession through the streets of Hong Kong led by Bishop Joseph Zen. Kong K ...
• 8 June 2005
  AMERICA/BRAZIL - "It is contradictory that after all the progress made by science and psychology politicians have the nerve to claim that for the first 15 days of life the embryo is not yet a human person” says Bishop Odilo Pedro Scherer, auxiliary of São Paulo and secretary general of the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference Brasilia (Fides) - Bishop Odilo Pedro Scherer, auxiliary of São Paulo and secretary general of the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference said recently to Fides that the imminent referendum in Italy is paradigmatic for similar ...
• 8 June 2005
  ASIA/INDIA - For Catholics in Orissa threats are a daily reality, the situation is unbearable: Catholic Archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneshwar launches appeal through Fides Bhubaneshwar (Fides Service) - “Our missionaries and our other church personnel are all afraid. It is dangerous to move about. Christians are jeered and boycotted every day amidst the total indifference of the civil au ...
• 8 June 2005
  VATICAN - Pope Benedict XVI delivers important address on the Family to open Rome’s diocesan Ecclesial Congress “the story of the love and union of a man and a woman in the covenant of matrimony is assumed by God as the symbol of the history of salvation” Rome (Fides Service) - We give the second long excerpt of Pope Benedict XVI’s important address on the Family given at St John’s Basilica Cathedral on 6 June to open Rome’s diocesan Ecclesial Congress on the subje ...
• 8 June 2005
  AMERICA/MEXICO - “We cannot be silent and impassive before the crashing violence which continues to bloody this part of Mexico and the silent wave no less destructive of drug-dealing”: Bishops of north east Pastoral region of Mexico launch pressing appeal Monterrey (Fides Service) - In a statement ‘Drug-dealing and Social Violence’ the Catholic Bishops of the north east Pastoral region of Mexico say they cannot remain silent and unmoved before “crashing violence whi ...
• 8 June 2005
  OCEANIA/AUSTRALIA - Four years of continuous drought drives desperate farmers to suicide. Catholic Archbishop stresses the sacred value of life and calls on local authorities to provide adequate assistance for drought stricken farmers and families Canberra (Fides Service) - Life is sacred, it is the most precious good entrusted to our stewardship. Life is far more important that any material good and any harvest lost through drought. With these sentiments Archbish ...
• 8 June 2005
  ASIA/CHINA - In a few years the Catholic community in Heng Shui has grown again to 300 members Heng Shui (Agenzia Fides) - Some years ago one of the very few Catholics in the town of Heng Shui, in the northern mainland China Hebei province offered his home as a centre for prayer and other religious activity. Since ...
• 7 June 2005
  AFRICA/CÔTE D' IVOIRE - Dramatic telephone call from Duékoué: “How long can the miracle last? More than 15,000 people now sheltering at our mission” Duekoue (Fides Service)- The number of refugees being sheltered at the Salesian mission in the western Côte d'Ivoire town of Duékoué has risen to 15,000 (see Fides 2 and 3 June 2005), a Salesian priest told Fides ov ...
• 7 June 2005
  AFRICA/BURKINA FASO - National Mission Office of the Italian Bishops’ Conference meets Italian Missionaries operating in Burkina Faso Ouagadougou (Fides Service) - On June 3 at the St Camillo Centre in Ouagadougou run by the Camillians there was a meeting between the National Mission Office of the Italian Bishops’ Conference and Italian missionaries ...
• 7 June 2005
  AFRICA/MADAGASCAR - The tragic situation in Madagascar prisons. Trinitarian Father Angelo Buccarello former prison chaplain in Antananarivo Rome (Fides Service)-“This is a story which is not new and which keeps on repeating itself” said Trinitarian Father Angelo Buccarello former prison chaplain in Antananarivo capital of Madagascar, with regard to worse ...
• 7 June 2005
  ASIA/INDIA - National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies confirmed Vatican City (Fides Service) - Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples on 27 May 2005 confirmed Rev. Ignaci Siluvai. National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in ...
• 7 June 2005
  VATICAN - Pope Benedict XVI opens Rome’s diocesan Ecclesial Congress with an important address on the Family “The various present day forms of dissolution of matrimony, free unions and "trial marriages" and even pseudo-matrimony between people of the same sex, are instead expressions of an anarchical freedom which wrongly claims to be authentic liberation of the human person”. Rome (Fides Service) - In the evening of Monday 6 June the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI went to the Cathedral of Rome St John’s to open a Diocesan Ecclesial Congress on “The Family and the Christian Community: forma ...