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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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Here is the text of the letter that the Holy Father Benedict XVI addressed to His Beatitude Cardinal Nasrallah Pierre Sfeir when he accepts his resignation from office of Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites:
LETTER OF THE HOLY FATHER
To His Most Eminent Beatitude
Cardinal Nasrallah Pierre Sfeir
Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites
The year spent in sixteenth hundredth anniversary of the death of Saint Maron reaches its conclusion: a time of grace has been given to the Maronite Church during this anniversary special. It is also the culmination of your service for the greater glory of God and the good of all his faithful.
God in His unfathomable love you shaped and marked its indelible mark for a special election for his service. This choice has found his secret correspondence in your reply to the free and enthusiastic example of the Mother of God: "Let me according to thy word!" (Lk 1, 38).
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CWNews.com - Pope Benedict XVI met on February 24 with Lebanon’s President Michel Sleiman, and said that the peaceful coexistence of Christians and Muslims in that country “stands as a message of freedom and respectful coexistence, not only for the region but for the whole world.”
The Pope’s talk with the Lebanese leader concentrated on the importance of interfaith cooperation, according to a communiqué released by the Vatican after the meeting. The two also discussed the current unrest in the Middle East, and the difficulties facing Christians in the region.
President Sleiman was in Rome for the dedication of a statue of St. Maron, located on the exterior wall of St. Peter’s basilica. St. Maron was the founder of the Maronite Catholic Church, the largest Christian group in Lebanon.
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CWNews.com - An Egyptian state security court has acquitted two men “known to be accomplices” in the January 2010 drive-by shooting of seven people outside a Coptic church in southern Egypt, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
“It took over a year, and the Egyptian state security court committed serious breaches of due process and fairness in the case of the killings of six Christians and one Muslim in Naga Hammadi,” said Leonard Leo, USCIRF chair. “The government also should ensure that Christian and other non-Muslim places of worship receive heightened security, particularly in the current climate where religious minorities are increasingly vulnerable to extremist attacks, including threats to eradicate Christians from the region.”
In January, another man was sentenced to death in the killings.
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- Egypt: USCIRF Concerned about Acquittals in Sectarian Killings Case (USCIRF)
- Egypt: man sentenced to death for drive-by shooting of Christians (CWN, 1/17/11)
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CWNews.com - Deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak may have orchestrated the January 1 massacre of Coptic Christians, the country’s leading Catholic prelate has suggested.
Coptic Catholic Patriarch Antonios Naguib told the Italian monthly 30 Giorni that Mubarak’s regime might have planned the brutal attack on Christians, as a pretext for imposing new security controls to prop up his government. He said that the regime had often used anti-Christian violence as an excuse for crackdowns on political opponents.
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CWNews.com - Pope Benedict XVI blessed a statue of St. Maron, the founder of the Maronite Catholic Church, before his public audience on Wednesday, February 23.
The 15-foot marble statue of the 5th-century Syrian monk stands in a niche in the outer wall of St. Peter’s basilica. Having exhausted the available room for statues inside the basilica, the Vatican in recent years has added statues of notable saints on the outside wall.
Lebanese President Michel Sleiman was at the Vatican for the dedication of the statue, acknowledging the enormous influence of the Maronite Church in that country. Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir also joined in the ceremony.
Cardinal Sfeir, who is 90 years old, has submitted his resignation, and there was speculation that the Pope might use the Lebanese prelate’s visit to Rome as the occasion to make that resignation official. But no announcement was made.
The Maronite Patriarch had met privately with Pope Benedict earlier, and their conversation probably touched on the timing of the resignation announcement. Because the Maronite Synod of Bishops would elect his successor, one critical consideration is the replacement of other Maronite bishops who are now beyond the normative retirement age, so that their successors would be able to participate in the Synod vote.
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CWNews.com - Amid fears that a post-Mubarak Egypt will become increasingly Islamist, thousands of Coptic Christians marched in Cairo on February 20 to demand the removal of Article 2 from the Egyptian constitution. Article 2 reads: “Islam is the religion of the state. Arabic is its official language, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic jurisprudence (Sharia).”
“We sacrificed our souls for the sake of Egypt, and our aim was a civil state, not a religious one,” said one protestor, referring to Christians who were slain by security forces during the recent uprising against the regime of Hosni Mubarak.
Father David-Maria Jaeger, who helped negotiate the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Israel, says that the majority of Egyptians do not want “precisely the kind of theocratic state that the Muslim Brotherhood or similar organizations are working for.” However, he cautions, when the Shah of Iran’s regime fell in 1979, the majority of Iranians did not want an Islamic state; “what the Khomeini forces were able to do was ride the crest of that wave and use it for their purposes.”
“If there is no alternative vision to that of the Islamists, then the Islamists are left to be the only ones proposing a coherent program.”
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