APPEAL FOR KYRGYZSTAN, UNITED NATIONS WORLD REFUGEE DAY

VATICAN CITY, 20 JUN 2010 (VIS) - After praying the Angelus at midday today, Benedict XVI launched "a pressing appeal for peace and security to be promptly re-established in southern Kyrgyzstan, following the serious clashes of recent days".

  The Pope expressed his closeness to the victims and gave assurances of his prayers for everyone suffering because of this tragedy. He also invited "all the ethnic communities of the country to renounce any form of provocation or violence", and asked "the international community to strive to that humanitarian aid can soon reach the people affected".

  The Holy Father then went on to recall the fact that today marks the United Nations' annual World Refugee Day, which aims "to call attention to the problems of people who have been forced to leave their lands and familiar customs, often taking refuge in profoundly different environments. Refugees wish to be welcomed and to see their dignity and fundamental rights recognised. At the same time they intend to make their own contribution to the society that welcomes them, We pray that, with due reciprocity, refugees' expectations may find an adequate response, and they may demonstrate the respect they nourish for the identity of the communities that receive them".

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SECOND MEETING OF VIETNAM - HOLY SEE JOINT WORKING GROUP

VATICAN CITY, 21 JUN 2010 (VIS) - Holy See Press Office Director Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. today announced that the Vietnam - Holy See Joint Working Group will hold its second meeting in the Vatican on 23 and 24 June. The aim of the meeting is to strengthen and develop bilateral relations, as declared at the end of the group's first meeting, which took place in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi on 17 February 2009.
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AUDIENCES

VATICAN CITY, 21 JUN 2010 (VIS) - The Holy Father today received in separate audiences eleven prelates from the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, on their "ad limina" visit:

    - Bishop Miguel Angelo Freitas Ribeiro of Oliveira.

    - Bishop Guilherme Porto of Sete Lagoas.

    - Bishop Emanuel Messias de Oliveira of Guanhaes.

    - Bishop Aloisio Jorge Pena Vitral of Teofilo Otoni.

    - Bishop Francisco Carlos da Silva of Ituiutaba.

    - Bishop Paulo Francisco Machado of Uberlandia.

    - Bishop Tarcisio Nascente dos Santos of Divinopolis.

    - Bishop Waldemar Chaves de Araujo of Sao Joao del Rei.

    - Bishop Jose Ronaldo Ribeiro of Janauba.

    - Bishop Jose Moreira da Silva of Januaria.

    - Bishop Leonardo de Miranda Pereira of Paracatu.

  On Saturday 19 June he received in separate audiences:

 - Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

 - Archbishop Velasio De Paolis C.S., president of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See.
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OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, 21 JUN 2010 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Fr. John Wong Soo Kau, vice director of the preparatory year of St. Peter's College in Kuching, Malaysia, as coadjutor archbishop of the archdiocese of Kota Kinabalu (area 11,558, population 3,746,000, Catholics 186,138, priests 38, religious 140), Malaysia. The archbishop-elect was born in Sandakan, Malaysia in 1968 and ordained a priest in 1999.

  On Saturday 19 June it was made public that he:

 - Appointed Fr. Zbignev Stankevics of the clergy of the archdiocese of Riga, Latvia, spiritual director of the local seminary and director of the higher institute for religious sciences, as metropolitan archbishop of the same archdiocese (area 23,587, population 1,250,000, Catholics 220,000, priests 41, permanent deacons 1, religious 63). The archbishop-elect was born in Lejasciema, Latvia in 1955 and ordained a priest in 1996. He succeeds Cardinal Janis Pujats, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same archdiocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.

 - Appointed Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa, archbishop of Santiago de Chile, Chile, as his special envoy to celebrations marking the centenary of the diocese of Catamarca, Argentina, due to take place on 21 August.

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ARCHBISHOP MAMBERTI AT TENTH CUBAN CATHOLIC SOCIAL WEEK

VATICAN CITY, 18 JUN 2010 (VIS) - On 16 June Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, secretary for Relations with States, attended the opening of the tenth Cuban Catholic Social Week, during which he delivered a speech entitled: "Certain considerations concerning the secularism of the State".

  "Although the term 'secularism', both in the past and in the present, refers first and foremost to the reality of the State and not infrequently assumes forms that run counter to the Church and Christianity", the archbishop noted, "it would not exist at all were it not for Christianity".

  "In fact, without the Gospel of Christ the history of humankind would not have known the fundamental distinction between what man owes to God and what he owes to Caesar; in other words, to civil society. ... The word 'secularism' itself ... has its origins in the ecclesiastical sphere. ... A lay person is ... one who is not of the clergy. ... This is the original, completely intra-ecclesial, definition of the word", he said.

  In the Middle Ages, the archbishop went on, "sovereigns who sought to avoid being subject to the Pope did not for this reason consider themselves as being outside the Church. At most they wanted to play a role in controlling and organising the Church, but they had no desire to separate themselves from her or exclude her from society. It was with the Enlightenment, and in a particularly dramatic way during the French revolution, that the term 'secularism' came to designate quite the opposite: complete alterity, a net opposition between civil life, and religious and ecclesial life".

  "Although secularism today is not infrequently invoked and used to hinder the life and activity of the Church", said the secretary for Relations with States, "in its profound and positive sense it would never even have existed without Christianity. The same is true for other values which today are considered as typical of modernity and often invoked to criticise the Church, or religion in general, such as respect for the dignity of the person, the right to freedom, equality, etc. These are to a large extent the fruit of the profound influence of the Gospel in various cultures, though later they were separated and even set in conflict with their Christian origins".

  "Much State legislation", he observed, "affirms that secularism is a fundamental principle; above all, as concerns the State's relationship with the religious dimension of man. ... In this context we cannot overlook the fact that, in the name of this concept, decisions are sometimes taken and norms published with objectively affect the individual and collective practice of the fundamental right to religious freedom".

  "If secularism is not made logically and ontologically subordinate to full respect for religious freedom this can represent a real threat to that freedom. ... In such a case the State, paradoxically, becomes a confessional state, no longer truly secular, because it would make secularism a supreme value, a dominant ideology, a kind of religion with its own civil rites and liturgies".

  "The full concept of the right to religious freedom must be reaffirmed. Because respecting this right does not just mean avoiding coercion and allowing personal and interior adherence to the faith. Although respect for the individual act of faith is fundamental, the State's stance towards the religious dimension does not end there, because this dimension ... must find expression in the world and be lived, not only individually but also in the community".

  Referring finally to the mission of lay people themselves, Archbishop Mamberti highlighted how "the role of the Magisterium is different from that of the laity, for while pastors of the Church must illuminate minds with their teaching, 'the direct duty to work for a just ordering of society', as Benedict XVI says in his Encyclical on charity, 'is proper to the lay faithful', who achieve this by 'co-operating with other citizens'"

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