Bro. Bruno Cadoré, OP, has been elected as new Master of the Dominican Order by the General Chapter of the Dominican Order. Among those taking part in the meeting are Maltese Dominican provincial Fr Paul Gatt, OP, Fr John Xerri, OP, and Bro. Reno Muscat, OP.

Bro. Bruno, 56, has for the past eight years been Dominican provincial in France. He was a medical doctor when he started his novitiate, and worked for two years in Haiti before starting his Dominican studies. He is a doctor in theology and taught biomedical ethics at the Catholic University of Lille where he was director of the Centre for Medical Ethics.

Christian buildings in Kashmir attacked

Police in India-controlled Kashmir surrounded Catholic churches and schools to protect them after violent mobs went on a rampage last Monday, throwing Molotov cocktails at government and Christian buildings.The predominantly Muslim separatists staged violent protests in several cities throughout the Kashmir valley.

“The Christian community, which has always been at peace, feels threatened,” Bishop Elampassery told Vatican news agency Fides. “We feel helpless and powerless. We have nothing against the Muslims, whom we respect as brothers. We have repeated this several times. However, a violent minority is fuelling the tension,” he said.

New approach to Africa needed – bishops

While acknowledging that average incomes in Africa were on the increase a number of African bishops noted that Africa did not share enough in the global success in reducing poverty. The bishops called for a new approach in Africa, focusing on implementing the Millennium Development Goals in Africa, using the “principles of morals and ethics, economic growth, subsidiarity, common good and benefits accruing from resources”.

The bishops view the development goals as an opportunity “to restore to the poor their human dignity and to correct the grave injustices done them”.

‘Belief in God provides moral orientation’

At a meeting with the new German ambassador to the Vatican, Walter Jurgen Schmid, Pope Benedict commented on the beatification of Fr Gerhard Hirschfelder, who was martyred by the Nazi regime, and four other priests who will be beatified next year.

The Pope pointed out that all of them died for a personal God, not for “a supreme being, mysterious and undefined, who has only a vague relation with the personal life of human beings”. He went on to speak about the importance to society of belief in a personal God:

“If God does not have His own will, then good and bad end up being indistinguishable. Man thus loses the moral and spiritual energy necessary for the overall development of the person. Social activity is increasingly dominated by private interest or by power calculations, to the detriment of society.”

The Pope added that the Church “looks with concern at the growing attempts to eliminate the Christian concept of marriage and the family from the conscience of society”.

He also mentioned the need to avoid biomedical approaches that “involve manipulation of man, the violation of his integrity and dignity”.