From Catholic News Service

Pope asks Macedonia to allow religion classes

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI asked the government of Macedonia to keep its promise to allow religion to be taught in public elementary schools. "Knowledge enlightened by faith, far from dividing communities, binds peoples together in the common search for truth, which defines every human as one who lives by belief," the Pope said May 19 during a ceremony welcoming Macedonia's new ambassador to the Vatican. Slightly more than 2 million people live in the small Balkan nation; about 70 percent of them are Orthodox and about 29 percent are Muslim. The Vatican estimates there are about 15,000 Catholics in the former Yugoslav republic, which gained independence in 1991. Speaking in English, Pope Benedict told the new ambassador, Bartolomej Kajtazi, that the future stability and social and economic progress of his nation will depend to a large extent on efforts to improve the country's education system.

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Bishops intervene for man trying to keep right to hydration

LONDON (CNS) -- The English and Welsh bishops have intervened in the case of a terminally ill man fighting a court battle for the right not to be starved and dehydrated to death when he loses the ability to communicate. Leslie Burke, 45, a Catholic from Lancaster, England, has suffered from cerebellar ataxia, a degenerative disorder of the nervous system that causes unsteadiness and lack of coordination, since 1982. Burke, a former postman, knows eventually he will not be able to communicate and said he fears that doctors may withdraw nutrition and hydration. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales submitted written evidence in Burke's favor during a May 19 hearing at the Court of Appeal in London, where Burke was defending an earlier ruling that the practice of withdrawing food and fluids was unlawful. In their submission, the bishops said human dignity could be violated by "acting on the basis that the person would be better off dead and so can deliberately be killed by an act or a planned course of omissions."

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Terri Schiavo's parents meet Pope at end of his general audience

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The parents of the late Terri Schindler Schiavo met briefly with Pope Benedict XVI at the end of his May 18 general audience in St. Peter's Square. Bob and Mary Schindler, parents of the 41-year-old Florida woman who died after a court ordered her feeding tube to be disconnected, shook hands with the Pope and presented him with a framed gift featuring two pictures of Schiavo and what appeared to be a poem. The Pope exchanged a few words with the couple, and an aide took the gift. At the end of his weekly general audiences, Pope Benedict greets audience members who are seated in two special sections near his chair. The Schindlers were seated along the barricade in the front row of one of the sections.

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Latin American bishops celebrate 50 years of CELAM

LIMA, Peru (CNS) -- Bishops from throughout Latin America met in mid-May to celebrate the founding of the organization that has provided them with a platform for reflection and joint action over the past five decades, amid the revolutions, dictatorships and economic and political crises that have rocked the region. The Latin American bishops' council, known by its Spanish acronym CELAM, "was a surprising new idea," born of "joint reflection by the bishops of Latin America," Guzman Carriquiry, undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, told prelates and guests in a lecture at the opening of the assembly May 17 in Lima. The assembly was to end with a Mass May 20. CELAM grew out of the first conference of the region's prelates in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1955. Although the assembly meets each year, subsequent conferences were held in Puebla, Mexico; Medellin, Colombia; and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. A fifth conference is tentatively scheduled for February 2007 in Ecuador.

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Jerusalem patriarch asks God to reconcile Israelis, Palestinians

JERUSALEM (CNS) -- Latin Patriarchate Michel Sabbah prayed for God to "reconcile the hearts" of Palestinians and Israelis in his homily on Pentecost, May 15. He noted the date marked both Israeli independence day and the day Palestinians call "Il-Nakba" -- "catastrophe" in Arabic -- which Palestinians commemorate as the day of the loss of their land. Palestinian Christians are an integral part of those two events, he said. "The fate of all human beings concerns us, whether it be their successes or their failures, their aspirations or their sufferings," said Patriarch Sabbah in the homily, released to the press May 16. "Consequently, on this Pentecost Sunday, both events are part of our prayer. "We ask God to fill us with his Spirit and to recreate and reconcile the hearts of Palestinians and Israelis, and particularly the hearts of their leaders, so that they might become instruments of peace and justice for all," he said.

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