Pope calls for ‘war against evil,’ including illegal arms trade

VATICAN CITY – Repeating his recent calls for peace in the Middle East, Pope Francis urged Christians to wage a “deeper war” against evil, including the illegal arms trade that he said drives much of the world’s military conflict.

The pope made his remarks, before praying the noon Angelus with a crowd in St. Peter’s Square, where the previous evening he had led a four-hour vigil for peace in Syria, the Middle East and the world.

“This war against evil means saying no to fratricidal hatred, and to the lies that it uses; saying no to violence in all its forms; saying no to the proliferation of arms and their sale on the black market,” the pope said.

“There are so many of them!” he said of black market weapons. “And the doubt always remains: This war over there, this other war over there – because there are wars everywhere – is it really a war over problems, or is it a commercial war, to sell these arms on the black market?”

 

Agencies fear increase in Syrian refugees if US launches strikes

ISTANBUL – Tanil Kahiaian, a refugee from the Syrian city of Aleppo, said he is doing what he can for the others fleeing his country. He, his wife and two children escaped the Syrian war almost a year ago, and since he has watched “tens of thousands” pour into neighboring Turkey as he did.

“It is so difficult for me to see this, their poverty. I am donating clothes from my work,” Kahiaian told Catholic News Service from near his home in Istanbul’s Kumkapi district. Kahiaian said he considered himself among the fortunate refugees here, because he came with money, was being lodged by Istanbul’s Armenian Orthodox community and was able to quickly get a job with an Armenian clothing firm in Turkey because of his numerous languages.

“I speak Turkish and I am doing for them a lot of business in Turkish clothes with Arabic countries. But the people on the border have nothing,” he said. “If there are (air) strikes on Syria, their numbers will be more.”

 

Christians, Muslims join pope in praying for peace in Syria

JERUSALEM – At the Church of All Nations at the Garden of Gethsemane, the stone that traditionally has represented Jesus’ agony was scattered with notes in different languages – all asking for peace in Syria. Christian leaders of the Holy Land gathered there, as Christians and Muslims all over the world prayed with Pope Francis for Syria.

In the West Bank and in Turkey, in Canada and the U.S., people gathered, responding to the papal call for prayer and fasting.

“We prayed for peace for Syria and for Egypt,” said Yusef Daher, executive secretary of the Jerusalem Inter-Church Center.

“We were resisting the other call for war with a call to stop the (possible U.S. air) strike and save Syria and Egypt. Everybody was really praying. There is no fear of retaliation. All the attention is focused on (the Syrian people),” he told Catholic News Service.

Following the prayers, the courtyard of the church was lit by hundreds of candles as the worshippers joined in a small candlelight procession. In front of one of the ancient olive trees, the word “peace” was spelled out with stones.

 

Congolese bishop hopes pressure helps his country

NAIROBI, Kenya – A bishop from eastern Congo said people in the area continue to suffer from an ongoing government-rebel conflict, and he hoped pressure from the international community would help relieve the situation.

Bishop Willy Ngumbi Ngengele of Kindu, Congo, told Catholic News Service in Nairobi that people in and around North Kivu and Goma were the worst hit.

“People there suffer from lack of food, shelter and clothes,” he said. He said the church’s aid agency, Caritas Internationalis, was helping victims, “and we thank God for this.”

The bishop said he hoped current concern expressed by the international community would help bring change. He said he believed peace negotiations and not guns would help bring about peace.

 

College leaders say improvements needed to reduce debt

WASHINGTON – This summer – when college campuses were virtually empty – the subject of out-of-control college loans was a hot topic. Now that students are back in school, the price tag on their loans – set to greet many of them when they graduate – looms larger than their dorm room bunk beds and is getting close scrutiny by students, parents, college leaders and government officials.

To review: 37 million Americans have college loan debt, and the federal student loan debt tops the $1 trillion mark. In an attempt to reel this in, members of Congress went back-and-forth on the issue this summer.

In early July, lawmakers failed to prevent interest rates on federally subsidized Stafford student loans from doubling to a 6.8-percent interest rate, but then weeks later, they turned around and brought the rate back to 3.86 percent.

This agreement – the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act of 2013 – ties the interest rate on student loans to the 10-year U.S. Treasury note and locks in individual rates for the life of each loan.

President Barack Obama signed the legislation in early August and then ran further with it announcing a major White House plan to trim college loans.

 

Federal funds should not cover Congress members’ abortions

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is urging the Obama administration to comply with a long-standing policy against subsidizing federal employee health care plans that cover abortions for members of Congress and their staffs.

A new rule proposed by the federal government makes no “mention of any limitation with respect to abortion coverage” for members of Congress and their staff, according to comments submitted by the USCCB to the federal Office of Personnel Management.

Currently, the federal government is able to make contributions to health care plans purchased by federal employees, but a long-standing provision called the Smith Amendment – authored by Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. – states that federal funding cannot be used toward plans that cover abortion except in the cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother.

In 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provided that members of Congress and their staff only may be offered health plans on the newly created state health insurance exchanges.

 

Teachers’ tent city drives people from Mexico City cathedral

MEXICO CITY – They come and go, running riot in the Mexican capital, but they always return to a tent city in the central Zocalo Square – right in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral, which Catholic officials say has been negatively affected by the presence of so many protesting teachers.

“It’s not very easy to access for the faithful or visitors,” said Father Hugo Valdemar Romero, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Mexico City.

Father Valdemar acknowledged a sharp drop in attendance, which the newspaper Reforma put at 80 percent for Sunday Masses.

The protest camp also forced Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera to stay away from the cathedral.

Cardinal Rivera was just one of many Mexicans inconvenienced by the teacher protests, which started in mid-August with the arrival of thousands of unhappy educators from Oaxaca state.

They came to the capital to protest an education reform approved Sept. 3 in a heavily secured Senate session.

The protests since collapsed traffic, forced the Congress and the president to move major events and blocked access to the international airport.