POPE LEO XIII : TIMELESS TEACHER OF THE ROSARY WILLIAM NEWTON ON WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THE PONTIFF TODAY PAGE 6

No. 6479

Pope urges migrants to integrate in host nations

BY JOHN THAVIS

POPE BENEDICT XVI has said that migrants have a duty to integrate into their host countries and respect their laws and national identities.

But in a message released at the Vatican on Tuesday, the Pope also told host countries that welcoming refugees is an “imperative gesture of human solidarity”.

“This means that those who are forced to leave their homes or their country will be helped to find a place where they may live in peace and safety, where they may work and take on the rights and duties that exist in the country that welcomes them,” he said.

The Pope made the comments in his message for the 2011 World Day for Migrants and Refugees, which will be celebrated on January 16 in most countries. He chose “One Human Family” as the theme for next year’s commemoration.

Published shortly after Prime Minister David Cameron hinted at a softer stance on immigration and a fortnight after the French President Nicolas Sarkozy met the Pope to discuss his government’s attempts to repatriate Roma migrants, the Pontiff’s message said that everyone, including migrants and the local populations that welcome them, “have the same right to enjoy the goods of the earth whose destination is universal, as the social doctrine of the Church teaches”.

“It is here that solidarity and sharing are founded,” he said.

The Pope said that the increasing movement of peoples today is often motivated by situations of conflict or discrimination.

“For these people who flee from violence or persecution, the international community has taken on precise commitments. Respect of their rights, as well as the legitimate concern for security and social coherence, foster a stable and harmonious existence,” he said.

The Pope defended the “right to emigrate” as a fundamental right to leave one’s country and enter another country to look for better conditions of life. That implies responsibilities among immigrants and the host countries, he said.

“States have the right to regulate migration flows and to defend their own frontiers, always guaranteeing the respect due to the dignity of each and every human person. Immigrants, moreover, have the duty to integrate into the host country, respecting its laws and its national identity,” he said.

At a press conference to present the papal message, a Vatican official said such integration does not mean mere assimilation into a kind of “melting pot”.

Archbishop Antonio Veglio, president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travellers, said that immigrants can undergo a “deculturalisation” when they are expected to simply conform to the host culture.

At the other end of the scale, immigrants who completely resist the host culture end up living in a kind of cultural ghetto, he said.

The proper balance involves “cultural synthesis”, in which cultural values are exchanged, benefiting both the immigrant community and the host country, he said.

Fr Gabriele Bentoglio, undersecretary of the Pontifical Council, said there are about 15 million refugees in the world today, and about 27 million internally displaced people. Many have acted with “courage” in leaving tragic circumstances in their homelands, he said.

Fr Bentoglio said it is a common misconception that only places like Europe or the United States are facing a large influx of immigrants. Last year, he said, South Africa had 220,000 people requesting refuge in the country, nearly equal to the total for all of Europe.

CatholicHerald.co.uk

October 29 2010 £1.20 (Republic of Ireland €1.70)

Pope Benedict XVI blesses a child as he leaves the closing Mass of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East. Synod reports: Page 4 Photo: CNS/Paul Haring

Plans for British Ordinariates gather pace

BY ANNA ARCO

PLANS to establish an Ordinariate for groups of formerAnglicans in England and in Scotland are accelerating, it emerged this week.

Anglo-Catholics wishing to take up the offer Pope Benedict XVI made last November in the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus had until the end of October to inform their bishops of their decision.

Meanwhile, three of the bishops who minister to AngloCatholics are likely to be re-ordained to the Catholic priesthood early next year.

The Rt RevAndrew Burnham, the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, the Rt Rev Keith Newton, the Bishop of Richborough, and the Rt Rev John Broadhurst, the Bishop of Fulham, are believed to be the vanguard of Anglicans to receive instruction and become part of the Ordinariate.

Of the three bishops, both Bishop Burnham and Bishop Broadhurst are unlikely to become the Ordinary, or head, of an Ordinariate once it is established.

While there is no official timeline for the establishment of an Ordinariate in England and Wales, January next year seems the likely time for its creation. An Ordinariate is likely to be on the agenda for the bishops’ November plenary meeting and more information is due to emerge after it.

Meanwhile, traditional members of the Episcopal Church met Bishop Philip Tartaglia of Paisley today in order to discuss the possibility of establishing an Ordinariate north of the Border. The chief concern for both the Catholic bishops in Scotland and the traditionalist Episcopalians interested in taking it up is whether the group is large enough to justify an Ordinariate for Scotland.

Fr Andrew Crosbie, who ministers to a traditional Anglican congregation under the care of Forward in Faith bishops in Dumfries, said there were eight clergymen as well as congregations hoping to take up Anglicanorum coetibus.

He said that the group had written to Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in March asking for the Apostolic Constitution to be implemented.

Unlike their peers south of the Border, traditionalist Episcopal congregations often own their buildings. Although Anglicanorum coetibus states that Ordinariates correspond with bishops’ conferences, Fr Crosbie and others fear their group may be too small.

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Liturgists tried to block my Mass setting for Pope, says MacMillan

BY MARK GREAVES

SCOTTISH composer James MacMillan has claimed that Church liturgists tried to stop his Mass setting from being performed for the Pope during his visit last month.

He said an “almighty row erupted behind the scenes” after he submitted the setting earlier this year and it was passed on to Church officials who disliked it.

According to Mr MacMillan, they complained that the setting was “un-singable”, “not fit for purpose”, and “not pastoral enough”. They were unhappy that it required a competent organist.

But they were overruled after MrMacMillan contacted Scotland’s bishops, who had commissioned the setting, and all but one of them gave him their support.

He wrote on his Telegraph blog: “The bishops didn’t know anything about [the row] – until we raised it with them. Obviously, not having heard the music, they were in a quandary. What if the ‘liturgists’ were right? What if the new music couldn’t be sung by ordinary people?

“But they had put their faith in me, knowing what I had done for the Church so far... I was contacted, separately, by four members of the Scottish hierarchy, directly or indirectly. The one who phoned me allayed my fears and confirmed their full support.”

He added that one bishop sided with the liturgists and sent him an “upsetting letter”. Mr MacMillan said that his publishers, Boosey and Hawkes, were “deeply shocked” by the row.

He said: “In all their years of facilitating the commission of new music, Boosey and Hawkes had never dealt with such rudeness and shoddy behaviour.”

The setting was performed at Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, and Cofton Park, Birmingham, and followed the new translation of the Mass.

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Poles build world’s largest Christ statue

Oscar-winning actor stars in Newman film

BY MIGUEL CULLEN

IT IS set to stand at nearly twice the height of Mount Rushmore and pips perhaps even the Colossus of Rhodes. Yet this statue of Christ stands at an anonymous rest stop in northwest Poland.

The statue, erected in the locality of Świebodzin, was designed by local priest Fr Sylvester Sawadzki and is set to measure over 100 feet, not including the 52 foot mound it stands on.

One local official told Wprost, a weekly news magazine: “If we had opened a racetrack or a golf course here, tourists would have come only for the season. But with a statue of Jesus the season will last the whole year.”

The next largest Christ is the Cristo de la Concordia statue in Cochabamba, Bolivia, which measures 112 feet, followed by the better known Cristo Redentor statue in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil on Corcovado hill, which measures almost 99 feet.

BY ANNA ARCO

THE FIRST film about Blessed John Henry Newman is to be shot over the next few weeks and stars the Oscar-winning actor F Murray Abraham.

The Unseen World will be directed by Liana Marabini, Italian television comp Rai has reported. Filming will take place in Rome, Littlemore, Oscott, near Birmingham, and Oxford.

F Murray Abraham, the actor best known for his role as Salieri in Amadeus, is to play the English cardinal beatified by Pope Benedict during his visit to Britain in September. Mr Abraham, who was raised in Texas by an Assyrian Christian father and an Italian-Amer-

ican mother, won the Best Actor Oscar for his per-

formance in Amadeus in 1985. Nastassja Kinski also features in the new film.

DON’T MISS: A MEETING WITH THE NEW ABBOT OF WORTH PAGE 7