South Korean customs officials have confiscated 17,000 pills filled with powdered baby flesh, from China, where manufacturers have reportedly been making the pills, which are advertised for sexual stamina enhancers and alternative medicinals.

Obtaining corpses of aborted and stillborn babies from hospitals and abortion facilities, the manufacturers dehydrate the bodies of these children, before grinding them up into powder for the pills.

It has been reported that China has been involved in this macabre industry of fetal flesh pharmaceuticals for quite a while. One such report said that it was possible that some babies were actually born alive, and left to die in China’s “dying rooms” before being ground for the capsules, as they had been born into families that already had their one child limit.

Some of the pills that were confiscated by the customs officials were found to be 99.7 percent human flesh, even having bits of human hair in some of the capsules. Past allegations regarding China’s use of human fetuses, have even included claims of Chinese restaurants serving “fetal soup,” and that Chinese beauty products also contain the fetal materials.

Although Chinese officials condemn such trade, China’s one-child policy certainly fuels the evil atmosphere for such a gruesome industry. China’s human rights activists report that more than 35,000 abortions, many of them forced, take place on a daily basis in the country whose official policies demand coercive measures against, what they consider to be “illegal pregnancies.” In fact, China’s abortion rate is actually around ten times greater than that of the United States.

This gruesome news of China’s evil pill trade, has surfaced at the same time that Chen Guangcheng’s story is also dominating worldwide headlines. He is the Chinese human rights activist who has escaped, after being under house arrest, for exposing and fighting against China’s one-child policy for years.

Bonnie Quirke (Linked-In Discussion Group)

Shi Jia Zhuang (Agenzia Fides) – They serve the Mass, receive the pilgrims, direct the traffic, help the elderly to climb to the shrine, they meet every logistic need: they are young Catholic volunteers who have chosen to live the month of May by offering their service to Marian shrines during this month that records the largest number of pilgrims throughout the year. Since in China the holidays for May 1, Labor Day, last at least three days, the Catholics take advantage of this holiday to go on a pilgrimage to the Marian shrines for the opening of the Marian month. This involves a strong commitment to pastoral care and logistics of the faithful on behalf of the operators to the Sanctuaries, so the contribution of these youth becomes important and timely.

According to what is reported to Fides by Faith of He Bei, one of many examples is the famous Shrine of Our Lady of China of Hu Xian, in the province of Shaan Xi, where the Group of Charity, composed of young Catholic university students, have mobilized since the beginning of May for this service. During the sharing, almost all of the different groups of pilgrims have devoted their thoughts to these young people who are “the hope of the Church.” The pilgrims said they saw in them “successors of the first evangelists,” because “they are the best evangelists.” But even young Catholic volunteers are enthusiastic about this service: “For us it is like a new baptism, a spiritual renewal. Seeing the devotion of the elderly, young people and children, we feel strengthened in faith.” Despite the service and the daily struggle, the young volunteers pray together every night, and every week they have a new theme of spirituality to be deepened. (NZ) (Agenzia Fides 03/05/2012)

According to statistics that the Study Center of Faith in He Bei managed to collect up to 19 April, which was sent to Fides, during Easter 2012, a total of 22,104 baptisms were administered in the continental Catholic communities. Despite this result, “the community is fully aware of the need for further work of evangelization.” “It is true that we have dioceses that do not focus all baptisms at Easter, according to the cycle of catechism or other solemnities of the Church – underlines the head of the Study Center of Faith – but we cannot but consider that more than 22 000 baptisms at Easter, in a Catholic community like ours, Chinese, which has over 6 million members, represent only 0.33%. Instead, in the diocese of Hong Kong, which counts 360 000 faithful, there were 3,500 baptisms at Easter, equivalent to 0.97%. So we need to reflect and do more to promote evangelization.”

Also according to the statistics of the Study Centre, which started this process of collecting data in 2007, this represents an important documentation for the history of the Chinese Church and, the 22,104 baptized at Easter, belonging to 101 dioceses, 75% are adults. In He Bei province, considered a stronghold of Chinese Catholicism, there were 4,410 newly baptized, 615 more than last year, and three-quarter adults. Some dioceses, however, do not celebrate all the baptisms only at Easter, like Shang Hai. In 2012 there were 379 baptisms at Easter in Shang Hai, but at the end of the year the total figure of baptisms could exceed 1,500. Moreover, according to Sister Li Guo Shuang of the Study Center, “there are still some dioceses or communities which due to communication difficulties, have not yet reported data to us. So we must emphasize that the figures are not complete, they may still increase. ” (NZ) (Agenzia Fides 20/4/2012)

New York City (Agenzia Fides) – During Easter there were 154 baptisms and 216 confirmations in the three churches attended by the Chinese Catholic community in New York, according to what was reported to Fides by Faith of He Bei. Don Giuseppe Rang, head of the Chinese Catholic community ministry in New York, informs that “in the church of St. Joseph and the church of Santa Teresa, 120 catechumens were baptized (86 adults and 34 children) and 216 faithful (130 together with 86 newly baptized adults) were confirmed. In the church of the Transfiguration there were 34 baptisms: two young Chinese immigrants of the new generation, two from Hong Kong and thirty adults of the continent. There were many Chinese Catholic immigrants who attended enthusiastically these moments of great impulse of faith. “

The church dedicated to St. Joseph in New York is considered the church of immigrants, and the solemn celebration of Easter was a time of profound spirituality for the community, as confirmed by Don Lino Gonsalves, of Indian origin, pastor of St. Joseph: “every year catechism classes and the celebration of baptisms have always given great impetus to evangelization and parish ministry. ” All this thanks to the efforts of community leaders and priests responsible for the community and for priests studying in the United States, and at the same time provide pastoral services to immigrants, convinced that it is mutual help. In fact, the Chinese young priests say: “we were sent here to study, we did not imagine we could also provide pastoral service to our faithful. For us studying and evangelizing are two complementary and harmonious commitments, mutual support “.
Don Giuseppe Rang, who is originally from the province of Fu Jian and after obtaining his doctorate in moral theology at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome was called to go to New York for the pastoral care of the Catholic community of the Diaspora, he recalls that at Christmas 175 baptisms in the parishes of St. Joseph and St. Therese were celebrated, among whom 95 adults. (NZ) (Agenzia Fides 12/4/2012)

The image of the garden is central to both the Creation story and the account of the Resurrection in John’s gospel. But the city is just as important as a potent biblical symbol, inspiring revulsion in some and reverence in others, as two visitors reveal

Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a cavernous and depressing place. Its ornate chapels puncture the gloom with their glitter and bling. The air, soupy with incense and candle wax, shifts and stirs with the chanting of monks and the irritable jostling of tourists and worshippers. Like Jerusalem itself, it is a place of religious rivalry, with frequent fights breaking out among the monks of the Orthodox, Armenian, Catholic and Coptic Churches that control the building. It is said to contain both Golgotha, where Christ was crucified, and the sepulchre where he was buried and rose again, but it is a place that evokes more a sense of the brooding darkness and mob violence of Good Friday than the Resurrection joy of Easter Sunday.

In the nineteenth century, General Charles Gordon claimed that another location, outside the walls of Old Jerusalem, near the Damascus Gate, was the real site of the Crucifixion and burial of Jesus. This site, known as the Garden Tomb, has become popular among Protestants, who have tended to reject the Church of the Holy Sepulchre because of its heavily Catholic influences.

Archaeologists still dispute whether either or neither of these sites is authentic, but the quest for historical authenticity sometimes has to yield to the more poetic and imaginative interpretations that inspire the life of faith. To say this is not to discount the importance of historical research, but to recognise that there are different ways of telling the same story, and truth must find language appropriate to what it seeks to communicate.

For example, my friend’s lovely disabled daughter died last month. The autopsy diagnosed the medical condition that caused her death, but the story that moves and inspires me is the family’s account of being with her as she died, and my friend telling me of how, when she realised what was happening, she prayed for God to send angels to take her daughter to heaven. There is no contradiction between these two accounts of Lee’s death. One is a scientific record of the medical facts, the other a human story of love, loss, faith and mourning. So much of the ostensible conflict between science and religion arises out of our failure to recognise the many voices in which truth speaks, depending on what we want to understand.

This is why, whatever the historical debates, I prefer to think of the Garden Tomb than the Church of the Holy Sepulchre when I reflect upon that first Easter. The Garden Tomb is a peaceful refuge hidden away from the bustling streets of Jerusalem, alive with birdsong amid a scented profusion of flowering shrubs. There is an ancient burial chamber hewn out of pale rock, which offers a space of quiet reflection. Just beyond, overlooking what is now a bus station, there is a craggy hill said to be the site of the Crucifixion, in which the rock formation looks like a skull – the word “Golgotha” means “skull”.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a place of stress and conflict, but the Garden Tomb is a place of recreation. That is a rich word whose symbolic significance we tend to overlook. Gardens have, from time immemorial, been places of reflection, where people have sought God amid the beauty of nature, but the word “recreation” does not just mean rest. In the Bible, the garden is the locus of the creation of the world by God, and of the recreation of the world in Christ. The garden of the Resurrection is God’s new creation coming alive in Christ, and if we read the account of the Resurrection in John’s Gospel with that in mind, we discover deep resonances with the Book of Genesis.

Genesis describes a Creation that was “very good”, when man and woman, God and nature, shared a space of intimate communion in the Garden of Eden. To read this story as a factual account which challenges science is to misunderstand the kind of truth it communicates. The Catholic tradition has always recognised that the literal words of the Bible are a veil woven over its more profound truths, which we must discern through prayerful reflection on the meaning and not just the appearance of the text. From that perspective, the story of Genesis 1-3 remains a powerful myth of human origins, for it offers a poetic account of why we are such a troubled species. Like the Freudian oedipal myth, it points to a primal experience of exile, mourning and sexual conflict in the shaping of the human soul.

On the one hand, we inhabit a story of imagined origins and endings which haunts us with a sense of yearning for love and joy beyond anything that the world can offer. On the other hand, we are prey to intense feelings of fear and alienation that affect our most intimate relationships. That ancient serpent appears as a mysterious presence in the midst of creation and it is still there, whispering its seductive promises of godlike power and domination to the human heart, infecting our lives with a malevolent undercurrent of shame and blame.

The last chapters of John’s Gospel take up themes from Genesis 1-3 and impregnate them with redemptive significance. The gospel author recapitulates the story of creation and the fall in Genesis by representing the garden of the resurrection as the scene of a dramatic and transformative encounter between the risen Christ and Mary Magdalene, which heralds the dawning of a new age. Patristic theologians and many medieval artists depicted Mary Magdalene as a figure of the New Eve, who encountered Christ, the New Adam, in Paradise made new on Easter morning.

Yet if the garden is one important metaphor in the biblical story, the city is just as important. The revelation of God incarnate unfolds between the garden of Creation and the city of redemption. The biblical journey from the Garden of Eden to the New Jerusalem can be read as the story of God’s gradual redeeming of creation as the human species evolves and migrates from nature to culture, from rural to urban environments, in that complex interweaving of sin and grace that constitutes our history.

Christianity has had an ambivalent attitude towards cities, even although it has always been more of an urban religion than a nature religion. Augustine identified the fratricidal brother Cain with the building of the earthly city as a place of sin and corruption, and his murdered brother Abel with the heavenly city as the eternal home of the redeemed. Augustine’s pessimism was a reflection of the times in which he lived during the violent collapse of the Roman Empire, but it is also possible to see the city as a space that shimmers with the incarnate presence of Christ amidst its human multitudes.

In his epiphany, Fourth and Walnut, Thomas Merton described how, on a busy street corner, he had a sudden sense of this: “In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realisation that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness.”

While some monastic communities and hermits have withdrawn to wilderness places, many others have sought to serve Christ among the human throngs that populate cities. The quest to recognise Christ among the urban poor is likely to become ever more important as the vast cities of the future swallow surrounding rural communities.
A garden provides beauty and balm for the troubled soul, but the Christian life is not one of exile from the human condition. Paradoxically, perhaps the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is indeed a more holy place than the Garden Tomb, for it confronts us with all the failure and tawdriness of the Christian story, including its violent religiosity. To seek Christ in such a place is to confront what the incarnation means in all its struggle and turmoil.

In its turbulent and bloody history, Jerusalem is sacred to all three Abrahamic religions. It is a holy city not because it is beautiful but because it is a focal point in the ongoing story of our confused and often violent quest for God. The biblical story begins in a garden and ends in a city. The life of faith calls us out of the sheltered tranquillity of paradise into the darkened streets of the city where Mary Magdalene, like the Bride of the Song of Songs, went out in search of her beloved on that first dawn of God’s new creation in the risen Christ.

Professor Tina Beattie is director of the Digby Stuart Reseach Centre for Catholic Studies at the University of Roehampton.

HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

Santiago de Cuba, Plaza Antonio Maceo Square
Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord
Monday, 26 March 2012

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I give thanks to God who has allowed me to come to you and to make this much anticipated trip. I greet Bishop Dionisio García Ibáñez, Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, and I thank him for his warm words of welcome offered on behalf of everyone. I greet the Bishops of Cuba and those who have come from elsewhere, and the priests, religious men and women, seminarians and lay faithful present for this celebration. I cannot forget all those who, for reasons of illness, advanced age or for other motives, are not able to join us. I also greet the civil Authorities who have graciously wished to join us.

This first Holy Mass which I have the joy of celebrating during my pastoral visit to this country, takes place in the context of the Marian Jubilee Year called to honour and to venerate Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, Patroness of Cuba, in this fourth centenary of the discovery and presence of her venerable statue in this blessed land. I cannot forget the sacrifices and the dedication with which this jubilee has been prepared, especially spiritually. I was deeply touched to hear of the fervour with which Mary has been welcomed and invoked by so many Cubans during her journey to every corner of the island.

These important events in the Church in Cuba take on a special lustre because of the feast celebrated today throughout the universal Church: the Annunciation of the Lord to the Virgin Mary. The Incarnation of the Son of God is the central mystery of the Christian faith, and in it Mary occupies a central place. But, we ask, what is the meaning of this mystery? And, what importance does it have for our concrete lives?

First of all, let us see what the Incarnation means. In the Gospel of Saint Luke we heard the words of the angel to Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (Lk 1:35). In Mary, the Son of God is made man, fulfilling in this way the prophecy of Isaiah: “Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel, which means ‘God-with-us’” (Is 7:14). Jesus, the Word made flesh, is truly God-with-us, who has come to live among us and to share our human condition. The Apostle Saint John expresses it in the following way: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14). The expression, “became flesh” points to our human reality in most concrete and tangible way. In Christ, God has truly come into the world, he has entered into our history, he has set his dwelling among us, thus fulfilling the deepest desire of human beings that the world may truly become a home worthy of humanity. On the other hand, when God is put aside, the world becomes an inhospitable place for man, and frustrates creation’s true vocation to be a space for the covenant, for the “Yes” to the love between God and humanity who responds to him. Mary did so as the first fruit of believers with her unreserved “Yes” to the Lord.

For this reason, contemplating the mystery of the Incarnation, we cannot fail to turn our eyes to her so as to be filled with wonder, gratitude and love at seeing how our God, coming into the world, wished to depend upon the free consent of one of his creatures. Only from the moment when the Virgin responded to the angel, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38), did the eternal Word of the Father began his human existence in time. It is touching to see how God not only respects human freedom: he almost seems to require it. And we see also how the beginning of the earthly life of the Son of God was marked by a double “Yes” to the saving plan of the Father – that of Christ and that of Mary. This obedience to God is what opens the doors of the world to the truth, to salvation. God has created us as the fruit of his infinite love; hence, to live in accordance with his will is the way to encounter our genuine identity, the truth of our being, while apart from God we are alienated from ourselves and are hurled into the void. The obedience of faith is true liberty, authentic redemption, which allows us to unite ourselves to the love of Jesus in his determination to conform himself to the will of the Father. Redemption is always this process of the lifting up of the human will to full communion with the divine will (cf. Lectio Divina with the parish priests of Rome, 18 February 2010).

Dear brothers and sisters, today we praise the Most Holy Virgin for her faith, and with Saint Elizabeth we too say, “Blessed is she who believed” (Lk 1:45). As Saint Augustine said, Mary conceived Christ by faith in her heart before she conceived him physically in her womb; Mary believed and what she believed was came to be in her (cf. Sermo 215, 4: PL 38, 1074). Let us ask the Lord to strengthen our faith, to make it active and fruitful in love. Let us implore him that, like her, we may welcome the word of God into our hearts, and carry it out with docility and constancy.

The Virgin Mary, by her unique role in the mystery of Christ, represents the exemplar and model of the Church. The Church, like the Mother of Christ, is also called to embrace in herself the mystery of God who comes to live in her. Dear brothers and sisters, I know with what effort, boldness and self-sacrifice you work every day so that, in the concrete circumstances of your country, and at this moment in history, the Church will better present her true face as a place in which God draws near and encounters humanity. The Church, the living body of Christ, has the mission of prolonging on earth the salvific presence of God, of opening the world to something greater than itself, to the love and the light of God. It is worth the effort, dear brothers and sisters, to devote your entire life to Christ, to grow in his friendship each day and to feel called to proclaim the beauty and the goodness of his life to every person, to all our brothers and sisters. I encourage you in this task of sowing the word of God in the world and offering to everyone the true nourishment of the body of Christ. Easter is already approaching; let us determine to follow Jesus without fear or doubts on his journey to the Cross. May we accept with patience and faith whatever opposition or affliction may come, with the conviction that, in his Resurrection, he has crushed the power of evil which darkens everything, and has brought the dawn of a new world, the world of God, of light, of truth and happiness. The Lord will not fail to bless with abundant fruits the generosity of your commitment.

The mystery of the Incarnation, in which God draws near to us, also shows us the incomparable dignity of every human life. In his loving plan, from the beginning of creation, God has entrusted to the family founded on matrimony the most lofty mission of being the fundamental cell of society and an authentic domestic church. With this certainty, you, dear husbands and wives, are called to be, especially for your children, a real and visible sign of the love of Christ for the Church. Cuba needs the witness of your fidelity, your unity, your capacity to welcome human life, especially that of the weakest and most needy.

Dear brothers and sisters, before the gaze of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, I appeal to you to reinvigorate your faith, that you may live in Christ and for Christ, and armed with peace, forgiveness and understanding, that you may strive to build a renewed and open society, a better society, one more worthy of humanity, and which better reflects the goodness of God. Amen.

Baghdad (AsiaNews) – The Syrian Orthodox Church of St. Matthew, in Baghdad, is one of the objectives targeted by Iraqi extremists, who this morning carried out a series of attacks across the country to coincide with the ninth anniversary of the U.S. invasion – March 20, 2003 – to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Church sources in Iraq asking for anonymity for safety reasons, told AsiaNews, that the two guards were killed in the attack, while five others were injured. Meanwhile, the provisional toll from the bomb attacks – in more than 20 explosions – in the capital, in Kirkuk, in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, and Hillah in Mahmoudiya is at least 39 dead and 200 wounded.

AsiaNews sources in Iraq confirm “at least the 20 explosions” in different areas of the country, including the bombing of the church of St. Matthew, which “caused the death of two guards and wounded five other people.” At present it is unclear if the place of Christian worship was the real target of the extremist. In Kirkuk, a city 300 km north of the capital, there were “three blasts that caused about 10 deaths and more than 40 wounded” in a neighborhood where the attackers “have targeted a police station.”

Reports speak of 13 other deaths and fifty wounded in Karbala, the Shiite holy city, where two car bombs exploded. More attacks were reported in Hillah, Latifuyah and other areas of Iraq, although currently there is no official news.

The long trail of blood today marks the ninth anniversary of the U.S. invasion and is just the latest in a series of unending violence that mark a nation divided between Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, and where Christians are often the victim of revenge caught in the crosshairs of power plays. From 2003 to December 2011, the date of complete withdrawal of U.S. troops, 4,550 U.S. soldiers have died and 300 allies. However, the real carnage regards the Iraqi civilian population, which has around 100 thousand casualties since the war began.

Iraqi political experts interviewed by AsiaNews emphasize that today’s attacks could be linked to the upcoming Arab League summit, to be held in Baghdad – for the first time since 1990 – between 27 and 29 March next. “There are nations – said the expert – who want to derail the summit, because the league is composed of a majority of Sunnis.” Added to this is “the feast of Nawruz”, the traditional celebration that marks the new year for Shiite and Kurdish communities. Born within the pre-Islamic era sacred to the Zoroastrians, it is now observed by many Sufi and Baha’i.

The attackers, said the source, want to strike at key events and “we expect more attacks in the coming hours and days to come.” Violence in Iraq “is not finished.” (DS)

A few weeks ago I posted an article about the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda because it was the first time I had seen anything written about them for some years. I shared what I knew from my time in Uganda back in the mid-90′s with the U.S. Air Force after the genocide in Rwanda. Kony was abducting children and turning them into child soldiers and sex slaves back then and is still doing the same thing in Central African Republic and Southern Sudan. I am very happy to learn of the grassroots movement Kony 2012. This is a film that tells the story in a very effective way – a father telling his son about Joseph Kony. Please watch the film by clicking here. If you can, share this with your friends. Let’s make Joseph Kony as famous as George Clooney and bring him to justice!

Msgr. George Brubaker