MISSION STATEMENT
We the Catholic faithful of the Diocese of Scranton,
in union with our Holy Father, the Pope, are called
through baptism to share in the mission which Jesus
Christ has entrusted to the One, Holy, Catholic and
Apostolic Church. Priests, deacons, religious and laity,
under the leadership of our Bishop, cooperate to
proclaim the Gospel in accordance with the teaching of
the Church, to celebrate the sacraments, especially the
Eucharist, for the salvation of all, and to witness by
grace to the Kingdom of God so as to promote a culture
of life, justice and peace.
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This Issue:
|
| Week
of Prayer for Christian Unity |
| Bishops
Urge Justice for Immigrants |
| The
Human Cloning Hoax |
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity |
Gathering,
community, and fellowship in the name of Jesus
will be the focus when the 2006 Week of Prayer
for Christian Unity is observed locally.
The observance
begins this Tuesday, Jan. 17, when Bishop of
Scranton Joseph F. Martino will host a luncheon
in the St. Peter Cathedral Rectory for local
Orthodox, Eastern Catholic and Latin Rite
Catholic clergy.
On Wednesday, Jan.
18, representatives from the various Christian
faith traditions will gather for an ecumenical
prayer service at 10:30 a.m. in the Cathedral.
The public is invited to participate.
Please note
that this is a new time for the prayer service
so that the regularly scheduled 12:10 Mass can
be celebrated. CTV: Catholic Television will air
live broadcasts of both the prayer service and
Mass.
The homilist for
the prayer service will be the Rev. Martin L.
Cox, Jr., pastor of Hawley United Methodist
Church since 1981. He previously was pastor of
the Hawley / Lakeville Charge United Methodist
Church and two churches in Illinois. He also was
a faculty member of the Garrett-Evangelical
Theological Seminary and the Theological School
at Drew University.
Rev. Cox has chaired the Worship Committee of
the United Methodist Wyoming Annual Conference
and the conference’s Board on Ordained
Ministry, and is a representative of the Wyoming
Annual Conference to the Christian Communities
Gathering of Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Liturgical music
for the prayer service will be provided by the
students of St. Anthony of Padua Catholic
School, Dunmore, under the direction of Joseph
Moffitt, the parish director of music.
The local
observance will conclude on Thursday, Jan. 19,
with a luncheon in the Cathedral Rectory with
Polish National Catholic and Roman Catholic
hierarchy and clergy. |
Bishops Urge Justice for Immigrants |
WASHINGTON –
At a time of considerable discussion of the
place of immigrants in American society, the
U.S. Bishops’ National Migration Week, which
continues through Saturday, focuses on
solidarity with immigrants and other people on
the move.
Journey to Justice
is the theme for National Migration Week 2006,
which marks the 25th anniversary of the annual
observance.
In announcing the
Journey to Justice theme, Bishop Gerald R.
Barnes of San Bernardino, chairman of the
Bishops’ Committee on Migration, said all
people are called to make a journey “in
solidarity with migrants, immigrants, refugees,
human trafficking victims, and other people on
the move seeking justice and peace.”
“Never has this
call to solidarity been needed more than
today,” Bishop Barnes stated. “Too often
those who have come to our land seeking a better
life for themselves and their families face
discrimination and exploitation,” he said.
To counteract
this, Bishop Barnes recalled, a broad coalition
of Catholic organizations together with the U.S.
Bishops committed themselves to changing minds
and hearts through the national "Justice
for Immigrants: Together on the Journey of
Hope" campaign. The goals of the campaign
are to educate Catholics and others of good will
about the benefits of immigration and the
benefits to the nation, to strengthen public
opinion about the positive contributions of
immigrants, to advocate for just immigration
laws which promote legal status and legal
pathways for migrant workers and their families,
and to organize Catholic legal service networks
to assist immigrants.
“When we make
this journey we embrace the newcomers to our
land as we reach out in a spirit of peace and
hope,” Bishop Barnes said. “Together with
them we are truly the Body of Christ.”
Information on the
"Justice for Immigrants campaign" is
available on the Web at
www.justiceforimmigrants.org; on National
Migration Week at www.usccb.org/mrs/nmw.shtml. |
The Human Cloning Hoax |
Commenting on
Seoul National University’s final report on
the South Korean cloning scandal, which found
that a team led by Dr. Woo-Suk Hwang had
fabricated two major studies on human cloning,
an official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops called this hoax “the most obvious
symptom of a field where ethical concerns were
dismissed in the pursuit of alleged miracle
cures.”
Richard M.
Doerflinger, deputy director of the USCCB
Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, said this
situation offers an opportunity to realize that
“good ethics is a necessary and integral part
of good science and good medicine.”
“After almost a
decade of intense effort by teams around the
world, it seems no one has been able to take
even the first step needed to derive treatments
from human cloning,” he said. “As the Washington
Post reported Jan. 10, it also means that
‘the highly touted field of embryonic stem
cell research is years behind where scientists
thought it was.’
“Lawmakers can
best respond to this scandal by enacting a
complete ban on human cloning, as called for by
the United Nations, and by increasing government
support for stem cell research that is both
medically promising and morally sound.”
For more on this
issue, see the "Making Sense Out of
Bioethics" column in the upcoming Jan. 19
issue of The Catholic Light.
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