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December 2011

Beginning with hope
 (Friday, 30 December 2011 )

In their Christmas messages, both the Catholic and Anglican bishops of Hong Kong spoke of a growing selfishness in society, while Pope Benedict XVI named pride as being at the root of all evil in the world.

In the run up to Christmas, traditionally a time of putting things right and making peace with those with whom we have been at odds, Christians in a variety of localities around the world prepared for Christmas...

New Year’s Day
 (Friday, 30 December 2011 )

JANUARY 1 – THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, MOTHER OF GOD.
Mass of the solemnity, Gloria, Creed, preface for the BVM (white).
Readings:
Numbers 6:22-27;
Galatians 4:4-7;
Luke 2:16-21.

JANUARY  2 – Ss. BASIL THE GREAT AND GREGORY NAZIANEN.
Mass of the memorial, preface for Christmas (...

Remain open to North Korea Church in Seoul urges
 (Friday, 30 December 2011 )

HONG KONG (SE): The Church in the Republic of Korea is taking the death of the leader of the hermit state to the north of the Demilitarised Zone, Kim Jong-il, as an opportunity to seek reconciliation with the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in Pyongyang.

It was announced on North Korean state television on December 19 that Kim died on a train of a heart attack, brought on by physical...

Bottom up consumer revolution begins with an educated conscience
 (Friday, 30 December 2011 )

The Christmas season is over and the Chinese New Year is just around the corner. For people living in a society like Hong Kong, which places a big emphasis on consumerism, these festivals can almost become like being invited into a time of retail therapy to help us forget about our everyday worries.

Advertising propaganda encourages us to spend as much as we can on gifts and personal effects, all in the festive...

Forty years on Justice in the World document still carries vital message
 (Friday, 30 December 2011 )

HONG KONG (SE): “We recognise that justice is not just a legal entity, but something that cannot be divorced from our humanity, as people created in the image and likeness of God,” Poon Wan-yu, from the Hong Kong-based Asian Centre for the Progress of Peoples, told a gathering at St. Margaret’s parish in Happy Valley, on December 18.

In introducing the afternoon study session organised by the...

Educating young people 
in justice and peace
 (Wednesday, 28 December 2011 )

Pope Benedict XVI has devoted his message for the 45th World Peace Day on the first day of 2012 to educating young people on the fundamental spirituality of justice and peace.

The pope stresses the importance of paying attention to the younger generations in struggling for the common good, as well as affirming the need for a just and peaceful order, where fundamental human rights can be fully expressed and exercised...

Pope connects moral education with justice in World Day of Peace message
 (Friday, 30 December 2011 )

VATICAN (CWNews.com): In his annual message for the World Day of Peace, Pope Benedict XVI highlights the role that idealistic young people can play in building peace in the future, stressing the importance of education in realising this goal. 

“Young people today are frustrated by the injustices they see in the world,” the pope writes. They need guidance as they mobilise to remedy problems....

Christmas bombings in Nigeria provoke anger in young people
 (Friday, 30 December 2011 )

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS):  Pope Benedict XVI appealed for an end to violence in Nigeria, condemning the Christmas church bombings that led to the deaths of at least 39 people. 

Following the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square on December 26, he said that the celebration of Christmas leads people to pray in an even stronger way that God will “stop the hands of the violent who sow death and that...

A focus on selfishness and pride in Christmas messages
 (Friday, 30 December 2011 )

 

HONNG KONG (SE): Both Bishop John Tong Hon and his counterpart in the Anglican Communion, Archbishop Paul Kwong, were critical of a growing tendency in Hong Kong to amass wealth for personal use at the expense of the common good of the whole of society in their Christmas messages for 2011.

In referring to the biblical story of the birth of Jesus, Bishop Tong quoted the phrase, “There was no room at the...

The freedom of Christmas
 (Friday, 23 December 2011 )

There is a lot about Christmas that the world doesn’t know, doesn’t want to know or conveniently forgets. And that is the Christ in Christmas was a person, fully human and son of God.

The sweet baby Jesus in the Christmas manger was born in poverty among peasants, faced death threats and assassination, was a refugee and asylum-seeker in a foreign land. 

The...