POPE TO CANONIZE FOUR BLESSEDS SUNDAY

VATICAN CITY, NOV 20, 2001 (VIS) - On Sunday, November 25, the Solemnity of Christ the King, at 9:30 a.m., the Pope will celebrate Mass in the Vatican Basilica during which he will canonize four blesseds.

The future saints are: Giuseppe Marello (1844-1895), bishop, founder of the Congregation of the Oblates of St. Joseph; Paula Montal Fornes de San Jose de Calasanz (1799-1889), virgin, foundress of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary, religious of the Pious Schools; Leonie Francoise de Sales Aviat (1844-1914), virgin, foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters Oblates of St. Francis de Sales; and Maria Crescentia Hoss (1682-1744), virgin, nun of the Third Order of St. Francis.

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ENSURE POSITIVE SPIRITUAL CONTENT IN MEDIA PRODUCTIONS

VATICAN CITY, NOV 20, 2001 (VIS) - The Pope received today in audience 450 participants in the world congress promoted by OCIC and UNDA, the international Catholic organizations for cinema, television, and radio, which is being held in Rome from November 19 to 27.

John Paul II expressed his pleasure that the members of the International Catholic Association for Radio and Television (UNDA) and the International Catholic Organization for Cinema and Audiovisuals (OCIC), are preparing to merge in a few days to form SIGNIS, the new international Catholic organization for all audiovisual media.

"It is my hope," he said, "and yours too I am sure, that SIGNIS will expand and make ever more effective the work which your two organizations have undertaken for the past seventy years, the work of evangelizing in and through the communications media, proclaiming the Lord's saving Gospel in the world of cinema, radio, television and, most recently, internet."

The Holy Father emphasized that "SIGNIS must continue to create new audiences for Catholic programming and work with other involved bodies to ensure that positive religious and spiritual content is not lacking in the various media productions."

"People spend enormous amounts of time absorbed in media consumption, particularly children and adolescents. An important part of your work, therefore, is to teach wise and responsible media use. This means setting high standards not for the general public alone but also for the leaders of the communications industry. It means bringing people to a keen awareness of the great influence that the media has in their lives. It means monitoring the quality of content and promoting constructive dialogue between media producers and consumers."

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OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, NOV 20, 2001 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Fr. Marcel Utembi Tapa, vicar general of Mahagi-Nioka (area 18,490, population 1,137,399, Catholics 579,661, priests 71, religious 60), Democratic Republic of the Congo, as bishop of the same diocese. The bishop-elect was born in Luma in 1959, and ordained to the priesthood in 1984. He succeeds Bishop Alphonse-Marie Runiga Musanganya, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese the Holy Father accepted, in accordance with the age limit.

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CLONING IS MORALLY AND ETHICALLY UNACCEPTABLE

VATICAN CITY, NOV 20, 2001 (VIS) - Yesterday in New York, Archbishop Renato Martino, Holy See permanent observer to the U.N., addressed the Sixth Committee on the International Convention Against the Reproductive Cloning of Human Beings. He repeated the Holy See's unequivocal position, "that calls for the rejection and prohibition of any and all aspects relating to the cloning of humans on a moral and ethical basis."

He stated that "those born as a result of cloning would begin life as an anomaly in terms of the relationship with parents and relatives through an act of predetermination which is at the same time deliberate and arbitrary in relation to their corporeity. The ethical and juridical consequences which will arise from this act would contaminate and desecrate the future of humankind."

He referred to a meeting of the United States Academy of Science last summer where "experts made the explosive proposal to initiate the practice of cloning for reproductive purposes as a technique of assisted procreation for couples who are unable to conceive a child naturally, or by using other recognized methods. ... Those attending that meeting ... rejected the use of cloning at a scientific level as a dangerous adventure, with serious risks and predictable failures."

Archbishop Martino reiterated the Holy See position on cloning, noting that it had been set forth in a June 1997 document by the Pontifical Academy for Life entitled "Reflections on Cloning," which "provided a moral and ethical argument for the rejection of all aspects of human cloning." He added that this opposition by the Holy See is derived "first and foremost from anthropological and ethical reasons. ... In fact, this discussion is based upon the generation of a child outside the act of personal love. Such an act excludes paternity and maternity and is an asexual and agamic conception, thus resulting in a lack of union between the person and the gametes."

"Science," said the nuncio, "must be free from every form of abuse and every form of submission to the interests of any party."

The archbishop stated that "Therapeutic cloning, the production of human embryos as suppliers of specialized stem cells, embryos to be used in the treatment of certain illnesses and then destroyed, must be addressed and prohibited. This exploitation of human beings, sought by certain scientific and industrial circles, and pushed forward by underlying economic interests, retains all its ethical repugnance as an even more serious offence against human dignity and the right to life, since it involves human beings (embryos) who are created in order to be destroyed."

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