Pope earns media honour
POPE Jo HN Paul II has received a coveted press award for his skills as a communicator.
The Pope received the Golden Microphone award from the Roman Press Association for his "abilities as a communicator". The honour marked the 125th anniversary of the organisation, Italy's most important press associadon.
Association secretary Silvia Garambois said the award recognised the Pope as "a great communicator of freedom, of all freedoms: of the freedom of faith and thought as well as of journalism".
She said freedom of information was "an instrument of democracy" for the Pope who has appealed for clear and just rules in the media to guarantee pluralism and freedom of expression". "These words represent for us the way we wish to follow," Gararnbois said.
Eastern leaders meet in Rome
THE CONGREGATION of the Eastern Churches gathered in Rome last week for its annual plenary meeting.
High on the agenda was the renewal of Eastern Catholicism and the tense relationship between the Latin and Eastern rite Churches, and the ongoing rift with Russia.
Mgr Antonio Maria Veglio, the secretary of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, said the Holy See was seeking advice from the Eastern prelates regarding relations with the Orthodox world.
The Eastern hierarchy also discussed problems facing the Catholic Church in Lebanon. The emigration of Catholics from the Lebanon has catised serious problems for the Maronite Catholic Church and for other Eastern Christian bodies. Twenty-two Eastern Catholic churches, observe their own rites and follow their own canon law, but maintain full communion with Rome.
Pope: honour dignity of man
THE INVIOLABLE dignity of the human person is the only basis on which society can be built, Pope John Paul II has said.
The Holy Father told a meeting of the Italian bishops' conference in Collevalenza on November 19 that society had a tendency to forget the "oneness of our being and our vocation as creatures made in the image of God" and he urged the Church to get that message across and to make a greater contribution to contemporary culture through the media and broadcasting.
He condemned the "pretence" of explaining man with empirical scientific methods alone.
More than ever it is "necessary to have a clear and firm conviction of the inviolable dtgnityDfthehurrrawpersoeI, he said.
The Pope warned that economic interests endangered the "patrimony of cultural and moral values which represents the first wealth of nations".