Australian Racecourse Cleared for World Youth Day

SYDNEY, Australia – A dispute that threatened the use of Royal Randwick Racecourse in Sydney as a World Youth Day venue has been resolved with the announcement that the Australian and New South Wales governments will disperse a $30 million (US$26.7 million) taxpayer-funded compensation package to the affected parties.

Under the terms of the agreement, an additional $10 million (US$8.9 million) will be set aside in a contingency fund in case the racecourse is so trashed that it cannot be used for the 2008 racing carnival, which this year had to be canceled due to the outbreak of the highly contagious equine influenza.

The 700 thoroughbred horses and their trainers at Randwick will be relocated to Warwick Farm and Rosehill racecourses in western Sydney for a 10-week period to coincide with the preparation and staging of the World Youth Day vigil and closing Mass at Randwick July 19-20.

Up to half a million people are expected to attend the closing Mass, which will be celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI.

Pope Benedict Encourages Christians to Read the Bible

VATICAN CITY – To know God and to know how to live their lives, Christians must read the Bible, Pope Benedict XVI said.

“Drawing close to the biblical texts, especially the New Testament, is essential for believers because ‘ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ,’” the pope said, quoting St. Jerome.

At a general audience, the pope continued a talk begun the week before about the importance of the teaching of St. Jerome, the fourth-century doctor of the Church.
Reading the Bible teaches believers the way they are to live their lives, the pope said, but the Scriptures must be read in a spirit of prayer and must be understood the way the Church understands them.

“For Jerome, a fundamental criterion for the interpretation of Scriptures was harmony with the magisterium of the Church,” he said.

Pope Benedict said the books of the Bible “were written by the people of God, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,” so “only in harmony with the faith of this people can we understand the sacred Scripture.”

Visas Expire, Few Arab Priests Travel in Holy Land

JERUSALEM – As Israeli-granted multiple-entry visas expire, Arab priests and seminarians in the Holy Land increasingly are facing the dilemma of not being able to return to their jobs if they leave to visit home.

The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem is predicting dire consequences if the Israeli policy of denying one-year multiple-entry visas to Arab religious remains the same.

An internal memo noted that if the policy is not canceled by June, the patriarchate will lose most of its clergy, the seminary will be closed and many parishes will be left without priests.

Father Humam Khzouz, chancellor of the Latin Patriarchate, said that almost a year ago priests and religious – including seminarians – from Lebanon, Syria and Iraq were denied one-year multiple-entry visas.

In August, the policy of denying such visas was extended to priests and seminarians from Jordan and Egypt, Arab countries with which Israel has signed peace agreements and has diplomatic relations.

Father Khzouz said the Latin Patriarchate includes Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan and Cyprus, and the priests must be free to travel throughout the diocese in order to serve the Church.

As Court Reviews KY Case, States Delay Executions

WASHINGTON – It may only continue for a matter of months, but an effective moratorium on executions has spread across the United States while the Supreme Court considers whether the most commonly used combination of drugs for lethal injections constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

More than a dozen states have formally or informally stopped the process of executions until after the Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of lethal injection in a case from Kentucky, Baze v. Rees.

Oral arguments in the case will be heard after the first of the year and a ruling should come before summer.

Uncertainty about the constitutionality of the procedure used by most of the 38 states that have the death penalty has led judges or other authorities in 20 states and the federal government to put executions on hold pending the ruling.

As of Nov. 16, there had been no executions since the court announced Sept. 25 that it would hear the case.

On Nov. 15, the Supreme Court stayed Mark Dean Schwab’s execution by the state of Florida just four hours before he was scheduled for lethal injection.

Vatican Diplomat: Relations With Israel Have Been Better

VATICAN CITY – With new problems over visas for foreign priests and the long, ongoing negotiations needed to resolve the tax status of Catholic institutions in Israel, the Vatican’s former ambassador to the country said relations were better before there were full diplomatic ties.

Archbishop Pietro Sambi served as the Vatican nuncio to Israel for seven years before being named the nuncio to the United States in 2005.

An interview with the archbishop was published in the online edition of Terra Santa magazine, a publication of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land.

Archbishop Sambi told the magazine, “To be frank, relations between the Catholic Church and the state of Israel were better when there were no diplomatic relations.”

Although issues related to the juridical and financial status of the Catholic Church had not been fully clarified, the Vatican went ahead and launched full diplomatic relations with Israel in 1994 “as an act of trust,” certain that Israel would act quickly to finalize agreements on the legal and financial issues, Archbishop Sambi said.