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Last Updated: Friday - 09/24/2010

Week of November 29, 1999

Canadian and Foreign News Highlights

Pope challenges dissidents:

In a sharply worded talk to German bishops, Pope John Paul criticized lay groups pushing for women priests and other major changes in the Church, saying they were acting against the will of Christ. In a Nov. 20 speech to a group of German bishops making their ad limina visits to the Vatican, the pope said, obedience and respect for pastors by laity was required for genuine Church renewal. "In the contemporary age, in which there is much talk about emancipation both in civil society and in the Church, there is a growing idea that true freedom can be gained by detachment from the Church," he said. Bishops should oppose this trend, he said.

Rome asks for Lectionary changes:

Rome has approved the use of inclusive language in the Lectionary, but has also asked for changes to be made in the Sunday Lectionary in use in Canadian Catholic churches since 1992. The Lectionary texts have not been greatly altered, the director of the National Office of Liturgy, Sister Donna Kelly, said at the Nov. 12-14 meeting of the Western Conference of Liturgy (WCL) in Regina. The number of changes is minimal, considering the number of passages involved, she said. Rome has not requested that the current Lectionary be withdrawn but has asked that a new edition with the changes be published, she said.

U.S. bishops concerned about tabernacle placement:

The current draft of a U.S. bishops' document on church art and architecture covers many topics in its 100 pages, but most bishops focused on the subject of tabernacle placement during their Nov. 18 discussion at their fall general meeting. Most of the 30-plus bishops who commented on Domus Dei (House of God) referred to tabernacle placement, and most of those who remarked on it indicated their preference for a central placement where the faithful could easily see it upon entering a church.

Poor have right to health care - pope:

Though health care providers around the world face increasing economic challenges, they must guarantee care for society's poor and defenceless, said Pope John Paul. "It is not tolerable that the limitation of economic resources, experienced today to different degrees, primarily affects the weaker segments of the population and the less wealthy areas of the world, depriving them of necessary health care," the pope said Nov. 19. "It is equally unacceptable that such limitations lead to the exclusion from health care of some stages of life or situations of particular fragility and weakness, for example, unborn life, old age, serious disabilities, terminal illnesses," the pope said.

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