CNS BRIEFS (11.16.2009): Lawyers ask court: Is life in prison for teen like a death sentence?
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Supreme Court is weighing whether to follow a ban on capital punishment for minor offenders with a prohibition or limits on sentencing teenagers to life in prison without parole. In two cases argued before the court Nov. 9, the justices were asked to rule that teens' immaturity and the potential for them to reform means they should be shielded from life imprisonment, applying the same logic that led the high court four years ago to end the death penalty for minors. Among those urging the court to rule that such sentences are cruel and unusual punishment -- barred by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution -- are religious organizations and those who study the developmental differences between teens and adults. The cases involved offenders who were 13 and 16 at the time of the crimes for which they were convicted. Bryan Gowdy, arguing before the court on behalf of one of the teens, said sentences of life without parole are immoral for adolescents because it means society has given up hope on the juvenile and believes he or she will never change or be fit to re-enter society.
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National campaign renews call to close Guantanamo prison immediately
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Religious leaders have renewed their call to Congress seeking the immediate closure of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The prison "is the symbol of our country's violation of our deepest values" and must be closed immediately, the group of more than 40 religious leaders said in a Nov 12 letter sent by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture to the Democratic and Republican leadership of the House of Representatives and the Senate. "Regardless of how it is operated now compared to how it was operated in earlier years, it stands in the minds of hundreds of millions of people in our nation and around the globe as a place where America broke faith with itself and used torture as an interrogation technique," the letter said. Closing the prison now rather than later will allow the country to begin to heal spiritually and "put an end to this dark and errant chapter in our history," the leaders wrote. As for the remaining 200 detainees, the leaders suggested that "appropriate alternative sites" can be found for their detention until they go to trial.
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Congressman urges Obama to raise issue of forced abortions in China
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A U.S. congressman urged President Barack Obama to raise the issue of forced abortions with Chinese leaders and not allow human rights to take a backseat to economic issues when the president traveled to Beijing. Obama was scheduled to be in China Nov. 15-18, after stopping in Tokyo Nov. 13 and Singapore Nov. 14. He was to return to the United States Nov. 19 after a stop in Seoul, South Korea. "Few people outside China understand what a massive and cruel system of social control the one-child policy entails. ... The system is 'marked by pervasive propaganda, mandatory birth permits, coercive fines for failure to comply, and, in some cases, forced sterilization and abortion,'" said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., quoting the U.S. China Commission. Smith, a ranking member of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, spoke at a hearing on the issue Nov. 10. "I believe the Chinese government would respond to the president if he were to take the lead in speaking up in defense of human rights in China," Smith said in an opening statement. "The Chinese government is sensitive to how it is viewed by the rest of the world."
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Monks' thriving coffee business helps attract young men to monastery
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A small Carmelite monastery in Clark, Wyo., has seen its coffee sales take off in the last couple of years, and the growing awareness of its coffee business has brought an added benefit to the community -- more members. "In the past two years, the monks themselves have grown from six to 15 monks and all the new monks are under 25, some right out of high school," said Susie George, a neighbor of the monks who helped with marketing and computer work for the coffee business, in a letter e-mailed to Catholic News Service. One young man from Australia said he has found his place in life there. Carmelite Brother Paul Marie told CNS in a Nov. 4 phone interview that he was searching for more in life than just "conforming to society" and the Wyoming religious order has provided that for him. Brother Paul said he discovered the monastery by searching for religious orders online but was initially attracted to the Carmelite order because of the joy and spiritual aspect of the community and the fact that some of his favorite saints -- including St. John of the Cross and St. Therese -- were Carmelites. He also found he has a place in the cloistered monks' coffee business. Brother Paul started his work in packaging and then helped in operations, shipping the coffee products and ordering coffee beans. They call their product Mystic Monk Coffee.
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WORLD
Looking for bigger role on Web, bishops meet Google, Facebook reps
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In an effort to understand how the church can make better use of the Internet and its search engines and popular social networking tools, European bishops met with representatives from Facebook, Google, YouTube and Wikipedia. The bishops and their communications experts also met with a former hacker and an Interpol official to get an inside look at cybercrime and how to defend Web sites from attack. The meetings came during the plenary assembly of the European episcopal commission for media held at the Vatican Nov. 12-15. Some 100 delegates attended the meeting dedicated to "The Internet Culture and Church Communications." Bishops, media officers and spokespersons from European bishops' conferences met with multimedia representatives such as Google and Identi.ca -- a self-described "microblogging service" -- in order to learn more about how people use these tools and what developments these companies have in store for the future. "The Internet is as important as the invention of the printing press," said the president of the bishops' commission for media, Bishop Jean-Michel di Falco Leandri of Gap, France. Just as the printing press helped make the Bible available to everyone who could read, the Internet can make the Gospel accessible to everyone who uses the Internet, he said through a translator during a press conference Nov. 13.
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Haitians cross Dominican border to escape the misery of dire poverty
OUANAMINTHE, Haiti (CNS) -- During the afternoons before market days, strangers begin showing up in town. Twice a week, like clockwork. These strangers -- fellow Haitians -- have one goal: entering the Dominican Republic in a bid to escape the dire poverty that engulfs Haiti. Faced with 70 percent unemployment and corresponding severe human needs, Haitians constantly make their way to the border town of Ouanaminthe seeking the promise of a better life. Their plan is to join the throng of Haitians who will cross the border unimpeded into Dajabon the next morning as they head for the twice-weekly market just beyond the arch that welcomes visitors to the Dominican border town. The market is an easy place for Haitians to cross unnoticed into a country where the government works and life is not nearly as harsh. Alejandro Robles, director of the Labor Rights Center, a program of Jesuit Refugee and Migrant Services in Dajabon, said that by afternoon on market days Haitians will have begun to disperse, some on buses that will take them into the interior of the Dominican Republic and others on foot to the nearby fertile farms.
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Dominican town unites to end trafficking, exploitation of children
BOCA CHICA, Dominican Republic (CNS) -- Sixteen-year-old Doralin Pulio Valerio knows she could easily be working on the beach, but she also knows prostitution would not be the kind of work she or her parents could brag about. Sex is big business in this Caribbean resort town less than an hour east of Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital. Young male and female prostitutes ply their trade around the clock on the wide white-sand beach and up and down the city's main street. For young people such as Valerio, the attraction to the sex trade is money and attention -- or so the sex traffickers tell them. In reality, there's the risk of HIV and AIDS, physical abuse, exploitation and the loss of self-esteem. Valerio has been approached numerous times by men asking her to come to work for them. She told Catholic News Service that the offers came wrapped around an invitation to legitimate employment, such as working in a gift shop at Las Americas International Airport, just 10 minutes away. "A lot of people would want to take advantage or trick me, but I knew more," she said. Valerio said her street smarts were developed through the awareness training she received during the last nine years at Caminante, a program formed in response to negative aspects of the tourism industry that developed rapidly in the 1990s after the town's sugar-cane processing factory closed.
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Mexican bishops rebuke drug cartels, tell politicians to crack down
CUAUTITLAN IZCALLI, Mexico (CNS) -- The Mexican bishops' conference rebuked narcotics-trafficking cartels for their murderous ways and demanded that Mexico's politicians crack down on the corruption and impunity that permits the illicit drug industry to flourish. The bishops' Nov. 12 letter -- a long-anticipated response to the issue of violence in Mexico -- also called on all Mexicans, including senior Catholic leaders, to take responsibility for abating the drug- and crime-related violence that has claimed more than 13,000 lives over the past three years. "Instead of searching for guilty parties and tossing mutual accusations, we call on each and every Mexican to assume responsibility, leaving behind complicities, passive attitudes and complacency," the letter read. The bishops included themselves in the call for taking responsibility by acknowledging that they had fallen short in their efforts. "We bishops recognize that we have been satisfied with superficial evangelizing and a cultural religiosity. We ask forgiveness for the incongruity ... and the false testimony of so many of the baptized," the letter read.
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Vatican hopes U.S. will lift Cuba embargo, archbishop says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican consistently has criticized the U.S. embargo against Cuba and hopes the Obama administration will lift the restrictions, recognizing the fact that they cause untold suffering for the Cuban people, a Vatican official said. Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, visited Cuba Nov. 4-8 and met with local bishops and Catholics involved in communications work, but also with government officials. The embargo "undeniably has a negative influence on the life of the people," Archbishop Celli told Vatican Radio Nov. 13. Asked whether he expects U.S. President Barack Obama to change U.S. policy, Archbishop Celli said, "I hope this can occur because, undeniably, it is the population that suffers most." He said that while the Catholic Church in Cuba has few resources and extremely limited access to the media, its communications efforts are having an impact.
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Charity is essential part of Christian witness, pope says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Catholics must be channels of God's goodness and love, offering concrete assistance to the poor and working for justice in the world, Pope Benedict XVI said. "Charity belongs to the very nature of the church," the pope said Nov. 13 during a meeting with members of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, the Vatican office that promotes and coordinates Catholic charitable giving and distributes the money the pope designates for charity. Pope Benedict thanked Catholics all over the world who generously give their time, their resources and their energy "to witness to the love of Christ, the Good Samaritan," who attends to those who are physically or spiritually needy. "In proclaiming salvation, the church cannot ignore the concrete living conditions of the people to whom it is addressed," he said. "Acting to improve those conditions concerns the very life and mission of the church because Christ's salvation is holistic and regards the human person in every dimension: physical and spiritual, social and cultural, earthly and heavenly," he said.
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Married priests? For the Vatican, still an exception to the rule
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The question of priestly celibacy is one that keeps bubbling to the surface at the Vatican, most often in the theoretical discussions of synods of bishops but more concretely in a new papal document on Anglicans coming into the Catholic Church. The fact that married former Anglican priests may be ordained as Catholic priests under the new arrangement -- albeit on a case-by-case basis -- has given rise to widespread speculation that this represents a step toward jettisoning the general rule of celibacy. "Hope for priests who would marry" was a typical headline in the days that followed the Vatican's announcement of the Anglican plan. But as on many previous occasions, the Vatican moved quickly to dispel that notion. "The possibility envisioned by the apostolic constitution for some married clergy ... does not signify any change in the church's discipline of clerical celibacy. According to the Second Vatican Council, priestly celibacy is a sign and a stimulus for pastoral charity and radiantly proclaims the reign of God," the Vatican said in a statement Nov. 9 accompanying the papal document on the Anglicans. Indeed, it seems that every time the celibacy issue is pushed, there's a swift pullback to defend the current rule.
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Students learn how to keep peace in a world of two cultures
MAO, Dominican Republic (CNS) -- Yolanda Noesi knows the path to peace is getting along with the people who cross her path in life. As a teenage Haitian living on the outskirts of the northern city of Mao, Noesi knows how much of a challenge that can be. Generations of Haitians, Dominican-born Haitians and Dominicans have lived in conflict over jobs, status, culture and language. Noesi, 17, did not quite understand the friction, especially when it came to kids. The eighth-grader has lived almost her entire life in the Dominican Republic, growing up with Haitians and Dominicans alike. She got along fine with most of the students at Francisco del Rosario Sanchez School as well as in the broader community, but witnessed plenty of conflict -- some along nationality lines, some because kids will be kids. Located adjacent to a "bataye," a community that is a mix of Haitian migrant workers and long-time Dominican residents, the 700-student Francisco del Rosario Sanchez School is almost evenly divided between Haitians and Dominicans. Several years ago it began Peace Program, an effort to teach kids how to diffuse conflict before it begins. The effort is an initiative of the Pope John Paul II Center of the Diocese of Mao-Monte Cristi and is supported by the U.S. bishops' Catholic Relief Services. Evangeliste Nunez, who runs the program for the center, said it teaches children how to work out their disagreements.
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PEOPLE
Pope approves the election of new archbishop of Mosul, Iraq
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- More than 20 months after the body of kidnapped Chaldean Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, Iraq, was recovered, Pope Benedict XVI approved the election of a new archbishop for the city. The synod of bishops of the Chaldean Catholic Church elected Father Emil Shimoun Nona, an official of the Archdiocese of Alqosh, to succeed Archbishop Rahho. Pope Benedict gave his consent to the election, the Vatican announced Nov. 13. Archbishop Rahho was kidnapped Feb. 29, 2008, in an attack that left his driver and two bodyguards dead. Church leaders recovered the archbishop's body two weeks later after the kidnappers told them where they had buried him. Archbishop-elect Nona, who celebrated his 42nd birthday Nov. 1, was born in Alqosh, about 20 miles north of Mosul.
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Boy shines shoes to keep from falling victim to child traffickers
SANTIAGO, Dominican Republic (CNS) -- His towel whips silently around the back and over the top of a customer's shoe in a smooth, seamless motion with a bit of a flare. In a minute the once-dull shoe has a sheen that reflects the tropical midday sun. With a couple of knocks on the side of his shoeshine kit, Gregory Jean signals his customer to place his other shoe atop the footrest. In minutes the second shoe sparkles as well. For five minutes of work, Gregory gets 10 Dominican pesos (28 cents). Gregory quietly pockets the coin and, in a soft voice, thanks the man for his patronage. One shine down; hopefully at least a few more to go before the day ends. Shining shoes is Gregory's way of pitching in to support his family, which includes an older brother, Makelee, and his aunt, 23-year-old Rosie William. On a typical day Gregory will shine up to 10 pairs of shoes. Gregory, who's not sure of his age, spends most afternoons walking the streets of downtown Santiago, the Dominican Republic's second-largest city, looking for people who know that shoes make the man -- or woman. Gregory is among hundreds of children on the streets of Santiago. Child advocates and social workers consider each to be at risk of being trafficked or abused.
