c. 1999 Religion News Service
Update: Cardinal O’Connor released from hospital
(RNS) Cardinal John O’Connor was released from the hospital Wednesday (Oct. 20) to continue his recovery from brain tumor surgery at home.
The leader of more than 2 million Catholics in New York was hospitalized Monday with side effects from radiation treatment.
He was found to have been slightly dehydrated and also had a small blood clot in his left leg.
O’Connor, 79, has missed Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral for two Sundays.
Joe Zwilling, O’Connor’s spokesman, said he did not know when the cardinal would resume his public schedule, the Associated Press reported.
O’Connor had a brain tumor removed in September and then underwent five weeks of radiation therapy.
Leaders of Eastern Catholic Churches to meet in Boston
(RNS) Leaders of the Eastern Catholic Churches of North and South America and Australia will meet next month to discuss how to preserve their liturgy and their faith far from their homelands, the Vatican said Thursday (Oct. 21).
Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, told a Vatican news conference it will be the first meeting of leaders of the Eastern rite churches serving immigrants from Eastern Europe and the Middle East.”The immigrants arrived with the language and the culture, but the second and third generations speak only the language of their new country. There is the fear that the churches will lose the richness of tradition and that the new generations will leave the church,”Silvestrini said.
Silvestrini said another problem is that while the first generation immigrants were concentrated in such cities as Pittsburgh and Chicago in the United States; Toronto, Edmonton and Winnipeg in Canada; and in major centers of Argentina, Brazil and Australia, their children have dispersed.
The Vatican said that some 120 bishops and superiors of male and female religious orders will gather Nov. 7-12 in Boston.
They will represent almost all the Eastern Catholic Churches including the Armenian, Caldean, Coptic Ethiopian, Maronite, Melkite, Romanian, Ruthenian, Syrian, Syro-Malabarese, Syro-Malankarese, Slovak and Ukrainian.
Silvestrini, officials of his congregation and of other Vatican congregations and a representative from the mother country of each of the Eastern Churches also will attend the meeting organized for the congregation by Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston.
The meeting will seek to establish what ties still exist between the mother churches and the ecclesiastical community in the diaspora and whether, in fact, the diaspora still exists after the immigrants are assimilated.”Many of the Eastern Catholics who live in these technologically advanced countries no longer even recognize the definition of `diaspora,’ which assumes a lost psychological and emotional connection with their land of origin, almost a sort of temporary exile,”the Vatican said.
In addition, it said, mixed marriages have broken the ties that united church and nation and created multiethnic churches, which try to conserve their liturgical traditions and some link with the church of origin while seeking to become part of the society in which they live.
Originally part of the Orthodox patriarchate of Constantinople, which split with the Western Church in the schism of 1054, the Eastern churches in the following centuries returned to communion with Rome while keeping their own rite.
Tutu treated for recurrence of prostate cancer
(RNS) Archbishop Desmond Tutu was scheduled to undergo surgery Thursday (Oct. 21) to determine the extent of a recurrence of prostate cancer.
The retired Anglican archbishop will be treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
Tutu was first diagnosed and treated for cancer in 1997.”I understand this is a fairly normal occurrence two years after radiation treatment,”Tutu said in a statement.
If surgery indicates that the cancer has spread, Tutu said he expects to undergo more hormone treatment.”But I am feeling fine,”he added.
Tutu, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work to rid South Africa of apartheid, is a visiting professor of theology at Emory’s theology school.
Vatican still plans for papal trip to Iraq but may change the date
(RNS) The Vatican has decided to go ahead with plans for Pope John Paul II to make a controversial pilgrimage to Iraq but may change the date from December to January, Vatican sources said Thursday (Oct. 21).
The resumed planning indicated that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has provided the guarantees demanded by the Vatican that the pope’s presence would not be politicized.
The Vatican canceled a planned trip to Baghdad by the Rev. Roberto Tucci, the Jesuit priest who acts as the pope’s advance man, and announced a”pause for reflection”earlier this month after a group of Iraqi scholars leveled sharp criticism at a spiritual pilgrimage by the pope.
The Iraqis said the Roman Catholic pontiff would be welcome only if he denounced the economic sanctions the United Nations imposed on Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Iraqi Caldean Patriarch Raphael Bidawid, who is mediating between Baghdad and the Vatican, met in the Vatican Wednesday (Oct. 20) with Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, and officials of the Secretariat of State.
Bidawid’s brief visit stirred speculation that he carried a response from Saddam’s regime to the Vatican’s demands.
Asked at a Vatican news conference today whether the pope would travel to Iraq, Silvestrini said:”I continue to have faith. And I really think he will make this trip although the date has not been fixed.” Vatican sources said that because of the delay in planning, the visit probably would have to be moved forward from early December to mid-January.
John Paul hopes to travel to the site of the ancient city of Ur of the Chaldees in southern Iraq, home of the Prophet Abraham. Ur, located in the desert 240 miles south of Baghdad, would be the first stop on a series of papal pilgrimages to Old and New Testament sites in Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Palestine Authority territory and Syria to mark the start of the third millennium of Christianity.
The U.S. and British governments strongly oppose the visit to Iraq on the grounds that Saddam would try to exploit it politically.
Iraqi officials have begun renovating Ur, and the Vatican’s envoy to Iraq, Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto, met Saturday (Oct. 16) with Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf to discuss the papal trip, Reuters reported from Baghdad Thursday, quoting embassy sources.
The news agency said an advance team headed by Tucci was expected to visit Iraq to lay the groundwork but no schedule had yet been set, they said.
Kirk Franklin, dc Talk, Skillet among Inspirational Award winners
(RNS) Christian musicians Kirk Franklin, dc Talk and Skillet were among the winners of the 1999 Inspirational Awards, announced by The Inspirational Network.
For the second year, the Charlotte, N.C.-based cable television network honored winners in categories that included music artists and authors.
Kirk Franklin’s”The Nu Nation Project”won inspirational black gospel CD; dc Talk won for both performer and pop/contemporary with its”Supernatural”CD; and the alternative band Skillet won rock/alternative CD for its”Hey You, I Love Your Soul.” Other musical winners and their categories included”Heatseeker”by the World Wide Message Tribe, rap/hip-hop/dance CD;”Still the Greatest Story Ever Told”by the Gaither Vocal Band, Southern gospel CD;”Bow Down and Worship Him”by the Full Gospel Baptist Fellowship Mass Choir, traditional gospel CD; and”Focus on the Family/Renewing the Heart”by Kim Hill, praise and worship CD.
Max Lucado’s”Just Like Jesus”won in the nonfiction book category.”Left Behind”by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins was honored in the fiction book category.”We created these awards to provide a forum for people to honor their favorite inspirational authors, artists, products and personalities,”said David Cerullo, president and CEO of the network.”The response was so favorable that we have made a long-term commitment to make these awards an annual event.”
Quote of the day: Mayor Leni Sitnick of Asheville, N.C.
(RNS)”I don’t tell anyone how to believe, but I support everyone’s right to freedom of religion. Being aware of different religions, of all religions … should not be feared.” _ Mayor Leni Sitnick of Asheville, N.C., defending her proclamation of the week of Oct. 25 as Earth Religions Awareness Week against some Christian ministers who feared noting the old pagan religions might get people curious about witchcraft and other Earth-centered beliefs.
DEA END RNS
