Land dispute in Vietnam between Redemptorists and government continues. Video at www.cssr.tv .

The  maiden voyage RMS Titanic in Southampton, England , April 10, 1912

Nine years ago, a James Cameron movie on the doomed RMS Titanic was shown internationally with phenomenal success. I was one of the first in the city  to buy a VCD copy of the movie. As a child , I’ve read lots of articles  from newspapers and  magazines and literature from books about this “unsinkable” legend. I was fascinated with everything Titanic , even now, that I would search on any news related to this ocean liner.  Searching for RMS Titanic today led me to the article Titanic Survivor Dies , the ongoing struggle for the preservation of Titanic artifacts  and living survivors account of  their ordeal in a A Voyage of Discovery. The touch of romance normally a part of Titanic productions  in the past surely were not mentioned in the articles with links , but being romantic at  heart, I’m continually searching for any news article with romantic flavor associated with the “unsinkable” legend.

The government of the province of Henan decreed that the sanctuary dedicated to our Lady of Mount Carmel be blown up with a dynamite , issued a complete ban for Catholics to hold their annual pilgrimage there and a complete ban to hold any religious gathering and function in the area. Read 100  Year Old Sanctuary to be Destroyed in China for the complete article.

Beijing issued a list of “unwanted” who are to be investigated and may be barred from the 2008 Olympic Games. On the list are ” all religious groups not sanctioned by the state including underground Catholic and other Christian churches. Will Catholics be Banned from the 2008 Olympics in China ?

A word we no longer hear from today’s Roman Catholic churchmen is PROSELYTIZE. What is the reason we don’t hear it or read it in the church today ? Find out from this article, Why Don’t We Proselytize ?

Jesus of Nazareth, the new book by Pope Benedict XVI , has already sold more than 2 million copies, the official Vatican publisher has announced.

Jesus of Nazareth has been printed in 15 different languages, the Libreria Editrice Vaticana reports. The Vatican publishing house, which holds the rights to the Pope’s written work, made an agreement with the Italian Rizzoli house to market the book in that country. In Germany the Pope’s book is published by Herder Verlag; in the US, by Doubleday.

- Courtesy of Catholic World News.

The Highland Capital made Church history this week when the rapid growth of the immigrant Polish population in and around Inverness was officially recognised with the arrival of Scotland’s first ever Polish nuns.

The nuns, Sacred Heart Sisters Marzena, Joanna and Brygida will be based in the former convent next to St Mary’s in Huntly Street.

They will join Polish chaplain Fr Ryszard Swyder, also based in St Mary’s, who celebrates Mass in Polish and ministers to the Polish community.

St Mary’s parish priest, Fr Michael Savage, said the three nuns would complement the work of the five Polish priests who now serve the Diocese of Aberdeen.

They will take catechism classes for local children and travel to other places with Polish communities such as Invergordon and Fort William.

Fr Savage said: “Bishop Peter Moran of Aberdeen is anxious that the Polish community will be made to feel welcome in the Highlands and that the new arrivals will also work with our own local Catholic community.”

It is estimated that the Catholic community in Inverness has tripled in the last three years to around 7,000, and Bishop Moran is hoping that, as well as ministry to the Polish newcomers, the Polish priests and nuns will be able to help boost the numbers of Scottish clergy.

The arrival of the Polish priests and nuns follows a visit last year by Bishop Moran to Poland where he had talks with Archbishop Zycinski of Lublin and Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow.

He told them: “The percentage of Catholics in and around Inverness was three per cent of the population, but with the arrival of Polish immigrants that is now increasing.

“I have come to Poland because the Polish Catholics in the Highlands need pastoral care. I also need priests for our own Catholics. I heard there are some priests in Poland who would be happy to work in Scotland for a number of years.”

The sisters, including their order’s provincial bursar, visited St Mary’s earlier this year where they first met Bishop Moran and Fr Savage.

- Courtesy of The Universe

A Catholic-run girls’ school in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier province has reopened after a weeklong closure prompted by threats from Islamic militants.

While the girls’ school was closed, a bomb exploded in another Catholic school in the province.

The Public High School for Girls in Swat reopened on September 17, after a letter warned the Apostolic Carmelite Sisters running the school to close the “factory of Christians” or face suicide attacks.

When the school reopened, seven police officers were deployed to guard it as about half of its 950 students showed up for class. All but three of the school’s teachers are women.

The group Jan Nisaran-e-Islam sent the letter to the Swat Press Club, and local newspapers published it on September 9. The letter accused the nuns of converting the mostly Muslim students to Christianity and involving them in illicit activities.

The two-page letter accused “insolent Muslims” of sending their daughters to the school to make them foreigners. It said the nuns take the girls to a Church behind the school office at night and teach them to pray in “their own fashion.”

It said the nuns involve the girls in adultery, and the girls wear only “a two-inch sash.” It alleged the girls are made “accomplices in Internet chatting” and are compelled to watch nude pictures under the “veil of computer classes”.

The letter demanded the expulsion of Christian and male staff and insisted on the burqa, clothing covering the whole body except the eyes and hands, as the school uniform.

Bishop Anthony Lobo of Islamabad-Rawalpindi said that when he met with the Swat district co-ordination officer, he demanded protection for the convent and the school. Bishop Lobo said the threat was an effort to seize control of the school.

“It seems that Islamists are trying to drive away the nuns,” but such threats have not targeted just the Catholic school, the bishop said.

“This is not Islamisation but extremism in the name of religion,” he added.

- Courtesy of The Universe

In June, Pope Benedict XVI cleared the way to canonization for Blessed Alphonsa of India, making her that country’s first female saint. A Poor Clare nun from Kerala, Alphonsa was raised by an aunt after the death of her mother when Alphonsa was a child. She suffered a number of illnesses throughout her life but endured silently and even cheerfully, believing that suffering made her more worthy of God. She is patron of sick people and of people who have lost parents.

Pope Benedict XVI has said that although the September 11 terror attacks “darkened the dawn of the third millennium,” God’s mercy is still stronger than evil.

The Pope made the remarks on September 16 at his summer villa outside Rome, where hundreds of pilgrims crowded the courtyard for a Sunday blessing.

He spoke about divine mercy as illustrated in Gospel parables, especially shown to those who “stray from the right path.”
In our time, he said, “humanity needs the mercy of God to be proclaimed and witnessed with vigor.”

He said his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, had been an “apostle of divine mercy” and understood its importance for the modern world.

“After the tragic events of September 11, 2001, which darkened the dawn of the third millennium, he (Pope John Paul) invited Christians and people of good will to believe that the mercy of God is stronger than any evil, and that only in the cross of Christ is found the salvation of the world,” he said.

Pope Benedict offered a prayer that people would trust in God’s love and become more merciful in their own lives.

He said the core message of the Gospel is precisely that “God is merciful love.”

“In the end, this is why (Jesus) came into the world: to speak to us about the Father, and to make him known to us, the lost children, and revive in our hearts the joy of belonging to him,” he said.

- Courtesy of The Universe

 Pope Benedict XVI  paid homage to Mother Teresa of Calcutta on Wednesday, September 5th : the 10th anniversary of her death.

At the end of his regular public audience,  the Holy Father acknowledged 1,500 Missionaries of Charity in the crowd in St. Peter’s Square. These members of the religious order founded by Mother Teresa were in Rome to mark the anniversary of her death. September 5  is also the optional feast day honoring Mother Teresa in the liturgical calendar of the Church; that date was set by Pope John Paul II  at the time of her beatification: October 19, 2003.

In his tribute to Mother Teresa, Pope Benedict said that “the life and witness of this true disciple of Christ, whose liturgical memory we celebrate today, are an invitation to you and the entire Church to always serve Christ in the poor and the needy.”

- Courtesy of Catholic World News

The vocation of the Catholic physician consists in transmitting Christ’s healing love as a good Samaritan, says Cardinal Javier Lozano Baragan.

The president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry said this in an in-depth analysis published by the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations.

Being a Catholic physician “involves proximity and special intimacy with God, and at the same time  represents  an opening-up and being a complete gift to others,” Cardinal Lozano Barragan said.