NOBEL PRIZE: Catholic scientist at Stanford shares Nobel Prize in Chemistry
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CONSCIENCE & THE COMMON GOOD:
DOMINICAN SISTERS:
Special section on the Catholic voter and the 2012 election
PAGES 15-22
Menlo Park monastic community elects new leadership
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CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO Newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco
www.catholic-sf.org
OCTOBER 26, 2012
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Aleppo Christians just hanging on CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
LONDON – The Chaldean Catholic bishop of Aleppo said Syria’s second-largest city, which he “loves so much,” has been left in ruins by months of fighting, and Christians there are struggling to survive. “People have fled their homes,” said Chaldean Bishop Antoine Audo. Speaking at a reception in Parliament Oct. 18, the bishop said that, even with the violence of “bombing and snipers,” Aleppo’s bishops have decided to stay with their people to try to prevent the loss of a Christian presence in the area. “We don’t want to leave them alone. If I go out of the city for a time, the people will feel alone,” he said. “We did not go to Lebanon to meet the pope to tell him that we are in a dangerous situation,” he said, referring to Pope Benedict XVI’s Sept. 14-16 visit to Lebanon. “Instead, we wrote the pope a letter to ask for his support.” SEE ALEPPO, PAGE 28
ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
and the government came down extremely hard. Now it is way past the point of no return.” CRS is partnering with the international humanitarian organization, Caritas, in Lebanon and Jordan in particular, including at the Jordanian tent city (it houses 35,000 and a second is being built) dispensing mattresses, hygiene kits, soap and laundry detergent, kitchen utensils, clothing and other basics, because the refugees came with nothing. Educational programs are launching too, “now that it is apparent that these kids are not going back (home and to school) any time soon,” said Schnellbaecher. CRS is also offering psychosocial programs, “basically
MIAMI – The Obama administration “has not shown any inclination to rescind” its requirement that most religious employers cover contraceptives for their workers, so “we need to get this mandate overturned” by the courts, said Miami Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski. He made the comments at an afternoon news conference Oct. 19 to announce the Miami archdiocese has joined the 50 or so other Catholic dioceses, universities and entities throughout the U.S. that have filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services contraceptive mandate. Under the mandate, all employers, including most Catholic and other religious employers, must provide coverage in their health care plans for contraceptives, including some that can cause abortions, and for sterilizations, over any moral objections they have. “We feel it is a violation” of the First Amendment, the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act and HHS’s rulemaking authority, the archbishop said. The lawsuit was filed in federal court on behalf of the Archdiocese of Miami, Catholic Health Services and Catholic Hospice. It was filed by the archdiocese’s legal representatives, J. Patrick Fitzgerald and Associates, along with the Jones Day law firm, which is providing its services pro bono. Jones Day is representing many other Catholic entities in similar lawsuits. Archbishop Wenski pointed out that Vice President Joe Biden spoke “untruthfully” during the vice presidential debate Oct. 11 when he said there is no problem between the Catholic Church and the Obama administration on the health care issue. Biden stated that “no religious institution, Catholic or otherwise, ... has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide.”
SEE SYRIA, PAGE 28
SEE HHS, PAGE 28
(CNS PHOTO/SANA HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)
In a photo released Oct. 3 by Syria’s national news agency SANA, men walk on a road amid destroyed buildings in Aleppo’s main Saadallah al-Jabari Square.
Syrian crisis ‘way past point of no return’ GEORGE RAINE CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO
Some 340,000 Syrians have fled their country amid civil war and many are refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, but another two million are believed to be displaced inside their own country and out of the reach of humanitarian hands, their needs no doubt great, according to a Catholic Relief Services official in the region. Access to Syria is virtually impossible as the government is not issuing visas, nor is it possible to wire money into the country of 22 million people that President Bashar al-Assad has sealed off. The needs of the displaced Syrians inside their country can’t be responded to, lamented Mark Schnellbaecher, the
Archbishop says lawsuit needed to reverse HHS
regional director for Catholic Relief Services in the Middle East based in Beirut. Consequently, efforts are aimed at the refugees outside Syria, many in Lebanon and in tent cities in Jordan and Turkey. Their numbers are expected to reach three-quarters of a million, mostly women and children, by year’s end, said Schnellbaecher, with no end in sight for the escalating war. “This started in my view as just another Arab uprising, the next one on the list,” said Schnellbaecher, while visiting the Archdiocese of San Francisco on Oct. 18. “Demonstrations for greater political openness, end of one-party state, etc., and it stayed like that for a long time. It moved from nonviolent protest to scattered violent actions
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INDEX On the Street . . . . . . . . .4 National . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Opinion. . . . . . . . . . . . .23 Faith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 Arts & Life. . . . . . . . . . .29