Apostolic nuncio to Haiti reports relief work continues in ‘chaotic’ times

Konigstein, Germany, Aug 12, 2010 / (CNA).-

The apostolic nuncio for Haiti has announced that the reconstruction of churches destroyed by the January earthquake should start early next year. However, he emphasized that the Church’s first priority must be helping the disaster victims in a “chaotic” situation further hampered by corruption and selfishness.

Archbishop Bernardito Auza spoke about relief work in Haiti during a visit to the international headquarters of the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) in Germany.

“First of all we have to look after the faithful, and then take care of the churches, which have to be built structurally better and safer,” he commented. As many as 70 percent of the buildings in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince were devastated by the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Thanking the charity for its support in the disaster and for its promise to support church reconstruction and educational programs, Archbishop Auza explained the situation in Haiti.

“The people are still traumatized. The parishes have been scattered, and over half the churches are destroyed,” he said.

Parish organizations built up over decades have dissolved after the disaster. While help is being provided, he said the situation is still “chaotic,” he told ACN News. “People have simply scattered. Some now live in camps, while others have moved out into the provinces. Others again have come into the city in search of work,” he added.

Schools will be a priority in reconstruction, the nuncio said, as this is an area where the Church takes her responsibilities “very seriously.” The Church provides over half of the schools in Haiti and according to the archbishop these are better than the state schools.

“For the Catholic Church, education and a Christian upbringing are the key to the true development of the country,” he remarked, lamenting a lack of funds for educational buildings and staff.

Archbishop Auza said that a lack of progress in reconstruction is due not only to lack of infrastructure and the collapse of government administration, but also widespread corruption. A selfish mentality still prevails, he reported.

The nuncio thanked ACN for its “indispensable assistance” in supporting pastoral work in Haiti, saying such work is needed to put people “back on their feet.”

ACN has received more than $5.1 million in donations for Haiti.

Lay Eucharistic ministers not entitled to position, Archbishop Burke clarifies

Vatican City, Aug 12, 2010 / (CNA/EWTN News).-

The rights of girls and Catholic lay faithful to carry out certain roles on the altar are not prescribed as "rights" within the Church, according to the Church's top legal authority, Archbishop Raymond Burke. The statement came in a clarification he wrote about the consequences of the reintroduction of the Latin Rite Mass by Pope Benedict.

The Catholic Church of Germany recently printed a commentary on the application of Benedict XVI's 2007 motu proprio, "Summorum Pontificum," which made Pope St. Pius V's Latin Rite Mass more widely available. In the preface of the volume, printed for the third anniversary of the motu proprio, Archbishop Raymond Burke clarified some confusion about the legislation's practical use.

Archbishop Burke is the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, which is often described as the supreme court of the Catholic Church.

According to Vatican Radio, the archbishop explained in the preface that due to the motu proprio's papal origins, it is not just an act of legislation brought about as a "favor" to a specific group for the celebration of the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, the Mass in Latin, but one that applies to the entire Church.

Archbishop Burke wrote, "it is about a law whose finality is the protection and promotion of the life of all the mystical body of Christ and the maximum expression of this life, that is to say, the Sacred Liturgy."

It implies an obligation of the Church "to preserve liturgical tradition and maintain the legitimate celebration of both forms of the Roman Rite, that preceding the Second Vatican Council and that which followed it," he said.

Archbishop Burke pointed out that the Holy Father himself explained that for the communion of the Church in the past and the future, "universally accepted uses of uninterrupted apostolic tradition" must be observed.

This, he he pointed out should be done "not only to avoid errors, but also to transmit the integrity of the faith, so that the law of the prayer of the Church might correspond to her law of faith."

The American archbishop went on to point out that certain elements may need to be clarified in this regard. For example, he wrote, among the "rights" of the baptized, assistance by "persons of the feminine sex" at the altar is not included. Additionally, serving as a lector or as an extraordinary distribution of communion is not a right of the laity, he noted.

As such, out of respect for the integrity of the liturgical discipline within the Roman Missal of 1962, these more modern modifications are not observed in the extraordinary form.

This clarification comes just a week after L'Osservatore Romano writer Lucetta Scaraffia published an article on the altar server pilgrimage to the Vatican which drew thousands of boys and girls alike. She drew some attention as she proposed that the introduction of girls into the position of serving at the altar "meant the end of every attribution of impurity to their sex ... it meant a different attention to the liturgy and an approach to the faith in bringing it near to their very hearts."

Archbishop Burke clarified, however, that the reality of the matter is that neither the presence of girls at the altar, nor the participation of lay faithful "belong to the fundamental rights of the baptized."