Quotes and news

Last year, some 53,200 Austrians left the Catholic Church, 31 per cent more than in the previous year. The number of Catholics in Austria fell from 89 per cent of the population in 1961 to 66 per cent today.

Two interpretations are being given to last year's exodus. The radical group, We Are Church, claims the defections began when Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of the controversial bishop Richard Williamson.

On the other hand, a representative for the Vienna archdiocese says the reason is financial. Registered believers in Austria are required to pay a 'church tax', and as people are reluctant to pay it in the present economic downturn, they say they are no longer Catholics.

'Report priestly sex abuse to police' - Vatican

Cardinal Claudio Hummes, head of the Vatican's Congregation for Clergy, said that in order to treat sex abuse accusations against priests thoroughly, cases should be turned over to the civil justice system, not just to Church authorities. Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano quoted Mgr Hummes as saying that instances of sexual abuse by priests are "extremely serious and are criminal facts that the Church can never tolerate in any way".

He said that what happened in Ireland was "a very painful fact, which certainly hits first and foremost the victims, but it also deeply hurts the heart of the Church".

Mixed review for Avatar

L'Osservatore Romano praised the "magic" of Avatar's high-tech, sci-fi imagery but said the film lacked real human emotion. The film's visual impact is fascinating, and opens a new frontier in the realm of science fiction cinema, according to the Vatican paper's film review.

The results of director James Cameron's innovative 3-D imagery make the film "worth the price of a ticket", it said. However, the film's story is "bland", the newspaper said. "It narrates without going very deep, and ends up falling into sentimentalism. Everything is reduced to an overly simple anti-imperialistic and anti-militaristic parable," it said.

It added the film also "gets stuck in a spiritualism tied to the worship of nature".

Solidarity with Haiti stressed

The archbishop of Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, affirmed his country's solidarity with the earthquake victims in Haiti. "We cannot ignore the fact that history has bound us together," said Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez.

Christians face violence in Middle East

According to the outline of the document published for the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, Christians in the region are called to be courageous builders of peace in a region where violence and oppression are one of its main characteristics. Another concern expressed in the document is Islamic extremism.

The theme of the synod, scheduled for October 10 to 24, is 'The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness: The community of believers was of one heart and mind'.

Compiled by Fr Joe Borg