Gloria TV News on the Feast of Blessed Angela Salawa.

Often Lukewarm and Bureaucratized

Vatican

During his Wednesday audience, Benedict XVI spoke about the legacy of St. Boniface, "apostle of the Germans." The Pope remarked that two lessons can be drawn from the great saint's life: "the central importance of the Word of God," and the value of "faithful communion with the Apostolic See." The Holy Father contrasted the saint's "burning faith" with the approach taken by too many modern Catholics: "often lukewarm and bureaucratized."

The Evil Goal has Been Widely Achieved

UK

There is a growing pressure to push Christians out of public life, Sydney Cardinal George Pell told an audience at Oxford University this weekend. The Cardinal noticed that human rights and anti-discrimination legislation is being used against Christians and Christian opinion. "Secularist intolerance for Christianity," the archbishop of Sydney said, "seeks to drive Christianity also from the provision of education, health care, and welfare services." And it is through anti-discrimination legislation that this goal has been widely achieved, he said.

Prison Chapel in Pakistan

Pakistan

The maximum security prison of Adiala in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi has now a chapel. It was built with the support of the government and Christian institutions. The Fides News Agency reports that the chapel serves the “250 prisoners of Christian faith who are held at the prison.” The prisoners said they were “satisfied and thankful for this space where they can stop to pray and meditate for hours.” Many of them “worked and collaborated in the construction. Catholic prisoners have even “become evangelizers to other prisoners”.

Socialists Against the Church

Spain

The Archdiocese of Madrid has been given permission to develop a complex of five ecclesiastical buildings in parkland on the city's west side. The complex will include a monastery, residence for retired priests, religious library, parking garage, and center for the homeless. But the development threatens to destroy a vista that was immortalised by the painter Francisco de Goya. The initiative has provoked protests from Spain’s Socialist government. It has even filed an appeal with the European Commission in Brussels following approval of the plan by Madrid’s city council.