News

• 21 June 2004
  EUROPE/ITALY - “Angels in the Desert”: photograph exhibition fund raising campaign for Centre of Education and Culture for 80,000 people 58% poor children and adolescents in Peruvian diocese of Carabayllo. Rome (Fides Service) -“Angels in the Desert” is the title of an exhibition of photographs on life in one of the poorest suburbs of Lima, the capital of Peru. The exhibition is part of a campaign to collect funds to o ...
• 21 June 2004
  EUROPE/RUSSIA - Crowds gather for Corpus Christ Mass with Papal Nuncio in Moscow’s Catholic cathedral: for the sixth year running local authorities give permission for a public procession Moscow (Fides Service) - On Sunday 13 June as in many other countries, Catholics in Moscow celebrated the feast of Corpus Christi with deep devotion and solemnity. According to the local Catholic weekly “Svet Evangelia ...
• 21 June 2004
  AFRICA/BURUNDI - Good chance for Burundian refugees in Tanzania to return home Bujumbura (Fides Service) - More than 300,000 Burundian refugees in Tanzania had good reason to celebrate yesterday 20 June, World Refugee Day, in fact they are preparing to return to their own country. The peace agreeme ...
• 21 June 2004
  AFRICA/SUDAN - “How can it be that people asking for a school and a hospital get only bullets and bombs in reply?” asks Sudanese Catholic Bishop Macram Max Gassis with regard to the war in Darfur Rome (Fides Service)- “Peace must be built on reciprocal trust. This is why the Khartoum government should take concrete measures to show it sincerely wants peace” Sudanese Catholic Bishop Macram Max Gassis of El Obe ...
• 21 June 2004
  EUROPE/ITALY - Hunger in the world: a third of the world’s population eats too little and over 600 million have no clean water Rome (Fides Service) - Poverty means hunger. 1.3 billion (about one third of all the people on the planet) do not have enough to eat. According to the World Health Organisation 500 million of these eat less than 1500 cal ...
• 21 June 2004
  ASIA/TAIWAN - Catholic hospitals gives loving care to Alzheimer patients Tai Dong (Fides Service) - Today society in Taiwan, as elsewhere in the world, has to face the challenge of a growing population of elderly citizens, and all the connected ailments including Alzheimer disease. According ...
• 21 June 2004
  VATICAN - International Workshop for health-workers, educators and journalists on Italia-USA formation at distance hosted by Bambino Gesù Hospital Vatican City (Fides Service) - On June 23 the Children’s Hospital Bambino Gesu will host an international workshop in formation at a distance as part of an Italian national programme for Ongoing Medical Formation . Th ...
• 21 June 2004
  ASIA/SOUTH KOREA - “Family for Life”: local Church organises Symposium Seoul (Fides Service) - “Family for Life” was the theme of a symposium held in Seoul, organised by various Commissions of the Korean Catholic Bishops’ Conference: Family Pastoral, Social Communications, Promotion o ...
• 21 June 2004
  AFRICA/DEMOCRATIC CONGO - Crisis in supplies heightens in Bukavu in eastern Congo. “ If this continues we will soon run out of fuel ” local sources told Fides Bukavu (Fides Service)- “The city is slowly being strangled. Supplies are ever fewer and far between. If this continues we will soon run out of fuel” said local sources in Bukavu, main town in south Kivu, in the east ...
• 19 June 2004
  DOSSIER FIDES - EUROPE OF RELIGIONS FRANCE AND ISLAM Vatican City (Fides Service) - In less than 40 years France has become the western European country with the largest number of Muslims. According to statements issued in 2003 by the Internal Affairs Minister, Nicolas Sar ...
• 19 June 2004
  THE DIMENSIONS OF THE MUSLIM PHENOMENON IN FRANCE The figure of 5 million Muslims in France is the official estimate issued by the Minister of Internal Affairs, Sarkozy. But between 2000-2001 the figure rose to 6 million, even though some sociologists of Islam were not ...
• 19 June 2004
  PROBLEMS AND TENSIONS  The Veil Among the problems faced by Muslim integration in France, the most recent is the dispute over the veil that practising Muslim girls wish to wear in class. This dispute on the use of the Islamic vei ...
• 19 June 2004
  DIALOGUE WITH OTHER RELIGIONS The Secretariat for Relations with Islam During the very first years of Muslim immigration, the Catholic Church was strongly engaged in helping the Muslims to integrate within the French reality. It was a matter of h ...
• 19 June 2004
  NUMERICAL COMPARISON WITH OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES Country ----- Muslim population ----- Percentage Germany ----------- 3.2 million ---------- 3.8 (mainly Turks or Kurds) United Kingdom ------ 2 million ---------- 3.4 (mostly of Pakistan origin) Netherlands ...
• 19 June 2004
  THE 1905 LAW ON THE SECULARITY OF THE STATE The 1905 Law will celebrate its hundredth anniversary next year. It is the law regulating the secularity of the State. At the beginning, the Catholic Church felt it was anti-Clerical; the Pope rejected it and it was acce ...