John Paul II taught that ‘the body matters,’ priest says

Saint John Paul II’s teaching on love and sexuality shows the dignity of the human body and how concrete acts of mercy are demanded of all of us, says priest and author Father Michael Gaitley.

“The heart of the Theology of the Body for me,” said Fr. Gaitley, “is the idea that the body matters,” and that “all of us are called in our bodies to reflect the self-giving love which is at the heart of the Trinity – which means putting mercy into action.”

Fr. Gaitley is the director of the Association for Marian Helpers and spoke July 10 at the Theology of the Body Congress in Philadelphia. His comments addressed the relationship between Vatican II and Pope John Paul II’s teaching on marital love and the family.

The teaching, unofficially termed the “Theology of the Body,” was a series of over 100 talks on human love, sexuality, and the family delivered by Pope John Paul II between 1979 and 1984. Its relationship to Vatican II, Fr. Gaitley explained, was that both taught that faith is meant to be put into action through concrete, personal acts of faith and love.

The Church in Bangladesh is too shy to speak up on social issues

Fr. Sergio discusses his missionary life in a country that is home to just 350 thousand Catholics and where religious conflict is always on the brink of exploding. “There is a fragile tolerance”

It is a land that is marked by deep social inequality, where the embers of religious discrimination crackle beneath the ash. Bangladesh is home to 160 million people, 88% of whom are Muslim, 10% Hindu, 1% Buddhist and less that 1% Christian (mostly Catholics). There are 350.000 Catholics in the country. Fr. Sergio Targa who has been a missionary since 1992, directs the national social and catechetical centre in Jessore. This is a “new role that offers the possibility of influencing the Church’s future leaders.” The Saverian missionary tries to serve “in the hope that through the little that he offers, people can avert the presence of Another, the One I am trying to discover in the hidden corners of Rishi history.”

Fr. Sergio, could you give us a snapshot of the religion situation in Bangladesh?
“Bangladesh is a tolerant country but it is subjected to international Islamic fundamentalism. There is a hidden and little known Islamism which rears its ugly intolerant head now and again. At the moment, religious parties like Jamaat and Islam have undergone repression and have seem to have left the public political scene partly because of the centre-left government’s heavy handedness. Indeed, they have formed a network across various parts fo the country, they receive generous funding from abroad and are always on the ready. Clashes intensified prior to January’s political elections, leaving hundreds dead.”

Ramadan fasting ban in China draws criticism

A Chinese province’s ban on the observance of the Ramadan fast among Muslim university students ignores the importance that religion can have for its followers, an American Muslim religious freedom advocate said.

“Religion is a fundamental human right. It is a fundamental aspect of humanity that gives our lives meaning,” Asma Uddin, legal counsel with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said.

“Religion informs what we do and how we do it,” she said. “For many people it’s a question of their deepest relationship of all.”

“This strong, fundamental relevance of religion should be accommodated everywhere possible by government,” she added.

Three Muslim students told BBC News that they have been forced to have meals with professors to ensure they are not fasting. Those who refuse to eat risk punishment and official warnings that could affect their future careers or deny them their degrees.

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time A

Reading I: Wisdom 12:13, 16-19
Responsorial Psalm 86:5-6, 9-10, 15-16
Reading II: Romans 8:26-27
Gospel: Matthew 13:24-43

“If you pull up the weeds
you might uproot the wheat along with them.
Let them grow together until harvest.” (Gospel)

Non-Discriminating Embrace That Still Speaks Its Truth

Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate. Jesus challenged us with those words and there is more in them than first meets the eye. How is God compassionate?

Jesus defines this for us: God, he says, lets his sun shine on the bad as well as the good. God’s love doesn’t discriminate, it simply embraces everything. Like the sun it doesn’t shine selectively, shedding its warmth on the vegetables because they are good and refusing its warmth to the weeds because they are bad. It just shines and everything, irrespective of its condition, receives its warmth.

That’s a stunning truth: God loves us when we are good and God loves us when we are bad. God loves the saints in heaven and God loves the devils in hell equally. They just respond differently. The father of the prodigal son and the older brother loves both, one in his weakness and the other in his bitterness, and his embrace is not contingent upon their conversion. He loves them even inside their distance from him.

New Burundi law would restrict small denominations

The Burundian parliament has passed a bill intended to curb the proliferation of evangelical churches in the country.

A government survey distributed last year revealed that there were 557 religious denominations preaching their beliefs in the small East African state with an estimated total population of 9 million.

As per the new bill, each local church must have at least 500 members and each foreign church must have at least 1,000 members in addition to a proper building.

Many churches in Burundi are started in people’s home, and it is also common to see makeshift roadside tents where worshippers gather on Sundays.

Anyone can set themselves up as a preacher, and some have been accused of manipulating or abusing their followers. One reported case involved a preacher who said that barren women wanting to conceive should sleep with him.

ISIL removes cross from Mosul cathedral

The jihadist militant group that controls approximately 40% of Iraq and 30% of Syria has removed the cross from the dome of the Syriac Orthodox cathedral in Mosul, according to a report from the Assyrian International News Agency.

After its conquest of Mosul, Iraq’s 2nd-largest city, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant “imposed a poll tax on Christians, ordered all women to veil themselves, closed beauty salons and barber shops, and occupied churches,” the agency reported.

Vatican official calls for greater commitment to sustainable energy

The Holy See supports the goal of sustainable energy for all, and achieving this goal requires a “radical paradigm shift,” the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace said at a recent forum held at the headquarters of the United Nations.

Archbishop Mario Toso’s remarks, delivered on June 6, were published in the July 17 edition of L’Osservatore Romano.

Citing Pope Francis, who said in his May 21 general audience that creation is “the marvelous gift that God has given us, so that we will take care of it and harness it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude,” Archbishop Toso said that the paradigm shift is required in behavior as well as in the “manner of perceiving the economy and development.”