S i g n i s I n d i a

MANILA, June 21, 2010— A lawyer of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines has led a group of parents in filing a class suit against education officials for including sex education in schools’ curricula.

Atty. Jo Imbong, CBCP Legal Office executive secretary, and 30 other parents went to court Monday seeking to redress of their grievances as the education department began implementing the UNFPA-assisted project “Institutionalizing Adolescent Reproductive Health through Lifeskills-Based Education.”read more »

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka,June 15, 2010--The 175th anniversary of St Anthony’s Shrine was celebrated last Sunday, 13 June, in Kochchikade, in the heart of the Sri Lankan capital.

Thousands of people of every ethnic, linguistic and religious background took part in the Masses, which started at 4 am, and the procession that made its way through the streets of Colombo.

Mgr Kingsly Swamipillai, bishop of Trincomalee-Batticloa, Archbishop Emeritus Oswald Gomis and Apostolic Nuncio Joseph Spiteri celebrated Masses in Tamil, Sinhalese and Englishread more »

ROME, Italy, Jun 20, 2010--Following the popular video in which he recounts how his mother ignored the advice of doctors to have an abortion, tenor Andrea Bocelli said he does not want his testimony to be considered as merely anti-abortion, but also in support of life.

“Because of my personal convictions as a devout Catholic, I am not only fighting against something, I am fighting for something - and I am for life,” he told the Italian newspaper, Il Foglio.read more »

ASUNCION, Paraguay, Jun 19, 2010--During his visit to the Seminary of St. Joseph in the Diocese of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, the country's papal nuncio, Archbishop Eliseo Antonio Ariotti, reminded the seminarians that the Church needs “passionate priests who are faithful to the Gospel.”

The prelate thanked Bishop Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano and the other members of the seminary’s board of directors for the invitation and the welcome they extended to him.read more »

VATICAN, June 16, 2010 (CNA/EWTN News).- During his Wednesday audience, the Holy Father explored the teachings of the renowned scholar, St. Thomas Aquinas, asserting that saint's work emphasizing faith and reason “helps us overcome certain objections raised by modern atheism” which “denies that religious language possesses objective meaning and holds that it only has a subjective or merely emotional value.”read more »

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, June 16, 2010--Caritas Cambodia will spend US$16 million over the next five years to help develop communities in the country, its executive director said yesterday while celebrating the agency’s 20th anniversary.

The Catholic Church’s social service arm will continue its work in the community and in disaster relief programs as well as rights-based approaches to gender equality and justice that it has launched over the past two decades, said Kim Ratana.read more »

BERLIN, Germany, June 16, 2010--The former Bishop of Augsburg, Germany, Walter Mixa, has told a German newspaper that he was forced to sign his April 22 letter of resignation, and that it was written by others. He plans on discussing the matter with Pope Benedict in a July audience.read more »

CARACAS, Venezuela, June 18, 2010--The Archbishop of Caracas, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, called on Venezuelans to imitate the evangelical zeal of St. John Bosco and strengthen the unity of the Church amidst the aggressive secularism that is expressed in religious intolerance and attacks on Pope Benedict XVI.read more »

ROME, June 18, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Several cardinals of the Roman Curia concelebrated a Mass on Thursday for the eternal repose of two anti-Nazi diplomats who worked to rescue Jews during World War II.
The souls of Luis Martins de Sousa Dantas and Aristides de Sousa Mendes were prayed for in a Mass presided over by Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, in the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, near the Vatican.read more »

AHMEDABAD, June 14, 2010--Tens of thousands of tribals will be forced from their homes if construction on several dam projects in Gujarat proceeds, Jesuit activists warn.

“This is another attempt to push indigenous people to the periphery by grabbing their land and houses to construct big dams,” Jesuit human rights activist Father Cedric Prakash, who directs an NGO in Gujarat’s commercial capital Ahmedabad said.read more »