Pope urges respect for life, including “sick, damaged”
Vatican City – In a strong condemnation of abortion, Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday urged the faithful to develop a new respect for life even when it is “sick or damaged.”
Marking the Italian Catholic Church’s “Day for Life,” Benedict stressed the need to protect all human life.
The pontiff cited the 1995 encyclical “Evangelium Vitae,” in which the late Pope John Paul II delivered the Vatican’s most forceful condemnation of abortion, artificial contraception, euthanasia and experimentation on human embryos.
“We know well that this truth risks being contradicted by the hedonism of the so-called well-off societies: Life is exalted as long as it’s pleasant, but one tends to not respect it any more when it is sick or damaged,” Benedict told pilgrims and tourists in St. Peter’s Square for his Sunday blessing.
In the church’s teaching, “sick or damaged” life commonly refers to situations in which life is in particular need of being defended, including deformed fetuses, the severely disabled, terminally ill patients or people in vegetative states.
“Every human life as such deserves to be always defended and promoted,” the pontiff said.
CHICAGO
Pediatricians urged to speak out to fight HIV
Pediatricians should speak out in support of needle exchange programs to reduce the spread of HIV among injection drug users, the American Academy of Pediatrics says in a toughened policy statement.
Doctors also should discuss HIV risk with their teenage patients “with a nonjudgmental approach” and offer confidential help if local laws allow, the group says in the statement, appearing today in the journal Pediatrics.
The previous version of the group’s policy, dated 1994, said clean-needle programs should be “encouraged and expanded.”
Unprotected sex is the most common way young people become infected, but sharing dirty needles or having sex with an injection-drug user accounts for about 13 percent of youth AIDS cases.
RICHFORD, Vt.
Lawmaker collapses at military funeral
Rep. Bernie Sanders collapsed Sunday while attending the funeral of a Vermont National Guardsman killed last month in Iraq, but he was able to walk to an ambulance without assistance.
“I feel all right,” Sanders, 64, said as he left the building. “My wife had the flu. I’m fine.”
Sanders left the funeral for Sgt. Joshua Johnson while it was still going in the Richford High School gymnasium, then fell to the floor in the lobby.
An independent elected to the U.S. House in 1990, Sanders is running for the U.S. Senate seat held by Jim Jeffords, who is retiring.
TOTOWA, N.J.
Oil-tank spill leaves 8-mile slick in river
A ruptured tank spilled more than 9,000 gallons of refined oil into a river Sunday, causing an 8-mile oil slick, authorities said.
At least two New Jersey water companies temporarily stopped taking water from the Passaic River after the 9 a.m. spill, said the Passaic County Sheriff’s Department.
The leak started at a factory in Totowa, about 20 miles west of New York City. Oil was flowing “like a spout” into the water, said a deputy.
LONDON
Church to debate having female bishops
The Church of England’s national assembly will debate a contentious proposal to allow female bishops when it meets for four days beginning today.
An influential church report recommended last month that women should be allowed to become bishops. It looked at ways to create female bishops without splitting the church, which divided over the 1992 decision to ordain women as priests. Women now make up about one-sixth of the priesthood.
Traditionalists argue that the church’s spiritual leaders should be men.
A number of clergy and lay people left the Church of England for the Roman Catholic Church to protest the ordination of women.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
President Mbeki won’t seek third term
South African President Thabo Mbeki said Sunday that he would not seek a third term.
South Africa’s constitution limits a president to two terms. But the South African National Civic Organization, an ally of the governing African National Congress, proposed recently that the possibility of a third term should be explored.
“For a long time now, the ANC has taken a position that we don’t want to change the constitution … and that remains our position,” Mbeki said. “By the end of 2009, I will have been in a senior position in government for 15 years, and I think that is too long.”
Mbeki, who served as Nelson Mandela’s deputy before succeeding him as president in 1999, also has discouraged fellow African leaders from tampering with their countries’ supreme law to prolong their time in office.
MEXICO CITY
Acapulco worries about violent image
With spring break coming and college students making plans, tourism officials in Acapulco, Mexico, are worried that the resort city’s image may now include bloody shootouts along with the beach, bikinis and beer parties.
In recent days that image includes this: Four drug traffickers lying dead in the street just five minutes from the hotel zone, town merchants marching in the streets against drug-related violence, and the mayor declaring that he is scared.
President Vicente Fox has sent dozens of federal police agents into Mexico’s second- largest tourist resort after a downtown gun battle between police and drug traffickers 10 days ago, trying to stop a turf battle between two violent drug cartels.
Officials warn that the situation could deteriorate to the level that has racked some border towns, even as state officials try to reassure tourists that vacationers have not been targeted.
