NOTICE

VATICAN CITY, JUN 14, 2006 (VIS) - As previously advised, tomorrow, Solemnity of Corpus Christi and a holiday in the Vatican, there will be no VIS bulletin. Service will resume on Friday, June 16.
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OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, JUN 14, 2006 (VIS) - The Holy Father accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the archdiocese of Minsk-Mohilev, Belarus, presented by Cardinal Kazimierz Swiatek, upon having reached the age limit, and appointed Bishop Antoni Dziemianko, auxiliary of Minsk-Mohilev, as apostolic administrator "sede vacante" of the same ecclesiastical circumscription.
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BEATIFICATION TOMORROW OF FR. EUSTAQUIO VAN LIESHOUT

VATICAN CITY, JUN 14, 2006 (VIS) - At 4 p.m. tomorrow, in the Mineirao Stadium of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins C.M.F., prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, will preside at a Eucharistic concelebration during which, by order of Benedict XVI, he will read out the Apostolic Letter in which the Holy Father proclaims as Blessed, Servant of God Fr. Eustaquio Van Lieshout.

  Fr. Eustaquio Van Lieshout was born in Aarle-Rixtel, Netherlands, on November 3, 1890, the eighth of eleven children, and baptized the same day with the name of Humberto. He came from a very Catholic rural family. After reading the biography of the Belgian Blessed, Fr. Damian de Veuster of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, he decided to join the same order. During his noviciate, he took the name of Eustaquio. He was ordained a priest in 1919, and exercised the pastoral ministry in his own country until 1924.

  He arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 1925, and for the next 18 years worked as a missionary in Brazil. In April 1942, he took over the parish of Santo Domingo in Belo Horizonte, where a few months later, on August 30, 1943, he died.

  In 1949, his mortal remains were transferred to his last parish, which is dedicated to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

  On December 19, 2005 Benedict XVI authorized the promulgation of a decree concerning a miracle attributed to the intercession of Fr. Eustaquio.
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HOLY LAND: CALL FOR A JUST AND LASTING PEACE

VATICAN CITY, JUN 14, 2006 (VIS) - Holy See Press Office Director Joaquin Navarro-Valls released the following declaration at midday today:

  "The Holy See is following with great concern and anguish the episodes of increasing mindless violence which are bloodying the Holy Land over these days. The Holy Father is close, especially in prayer, to the innocent victims, their relatives and to the peoples of that land, which is captive to those who delude themselves into thinking they can resolve the ever more dramatic problems of the region with force or unilaterally.

  "The Holy See invites the international community quickly to activate the means necessary for providing due humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, and joins the call to leaders of both peoples, that in the first place due respect be shown for human life, especially that of defenseless civilians and children, and that the path of negotiation be courageously resumed, the only way to arrive at the just and lasting peace to which everyone aspires."
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ANDREW: THE CHURCH REACHES ALL PEOPLES AND CULTURES

VATICAN CITY, JUN 14, 2006 (VIS) - St. Andrew the Apostle, brother of St. Peter, was the subject of Benedict XVI's catechesis during today's general audience, held in St. Peter's Square in the presence of 35,000 people.

  The name of Andrew, not Hebrew but Greek, is "an appreciable sign of a certain cultural openness of his family," said the Pope. "He was the first of the Apostles to be called to follow Jesus," and thanks to Andrew (according to tradition, the evangelizer of the Greek world), "the Church of Rome and the Church of Constantinople feel themselves to be sisters."

  The Holy Father pointed out how the Gospels mention Andrew in three key moments: The multiplication of the loaves and fishes when "his realism is worthy of note, he saw the boy [with the bread and fish] but noticed the scarcity of his resources." When asking explanations from Christ on His words concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, he showed that "we must not be afraid to put questions to Jesus, but at the same time we must be ready to accept the teaching He offers us." And again, shortly before the Passion, with Philip, "he interpreted and mediated for a small group of Greeks before Jesus."

  Referring to this last episode, the Holy Father recalled Jesus' words on the necessary death of a grain of wheat in order to bear fruit, a symbol of the crucifixion that "in the resurrection will become bread of life for the world, ... a light for people and cultures." Christ thus prophesies the meeting with the Greek world and Greek culture and the extension of the Church "to pagans as a fruit of His Passion."

  Tradition recounts St. Andrew's death in Patras on a diagonal cross as, "like his brother Peter, he asked to be crucified on a cross different from that of Jesus." Benedict XVI then quoted the words attributed to St. Andrew during his agony when he said of the cross: "before the Lord was placed upon you, you incited earthly terrors. Now, blessed with a heavenly love, you are received as a gift."

  This phrase, the Pope continued, contains "a profound Christian spirituality, which sees in the cross not so much an instrument of torture as the unrivaled means of full assimilation to the Redeemer. ... Our crosses acquire value if considered and accepted as part of the cross of Christ. ... Only from that cross do our sufferings become ennobled and acquire their true significance."
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