Pope: Church must include sick, disabled

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has called for the “real inclusion” in the Christian community of people with sickness and disability through inclusive ministry in parish communities and Catholic associations.

“To favour the real inclusion of the sick in the Christian community and to arouse in them a strong sense of belonging, it is necessary to have inclusive ministry in parishes and in associations,” he said on Saturday. “It consists of truly valuing the presence and witness of fragile and suffering persons, not only as the recipients of evangelical work, but as active subjects of this same apostolic activity.”

The Pope made these comments in the Paul VI Hall during an audience attended by people with sickness or disability and some members of UNITALSI, an Italian association that travels with the sick and disabled on pilgrimage to Lourdes, France, and to other international Marian sanctuaries. The association is marking 110 years since its foundation.

“Dear sick brothers and sisters,” he said, “Do not simply consider yourselves to be objects of solidarity and charity but feel fully included in the life and the mission of the Church.

“You have your place, a specific role in the parish and in every ecclesial environment,” he continued.

“Your presence, silent but more eloquent than many words, your prayer, your daily offering of your suffering, in union with that of Jesus crucified for the salvation of the world, the patient and even joyful acceptance of your condition are a spiritual resource, assets for every Christian community. Do not be ashamed to be a precious treasure of the Church!” he said to applause.

“The poor, even the poor in health, are a richness for the Church,” he said. And the men and women who work or volunteer with them “have received the gift and the obligation to gather this richness, to help promote it, not only in the Church itself but in all of society.”

He commented on how the current “social and cultural context is more inclined to hide physical fragility, to consider it only as a problem that demands resignation and piety or sometimes the rejection of people,” he said.

But UNITALSI is called to be a prophetic sign and “to go counter to this worldly logic, helping the suffering to be protagonists in society, in the Church and in the association itself”.

The Pope underlined how UNITALSI’s 110-year commitment to the sick and to people with disabilities has been “typically evangelical”.

“In fact, your work is not welfarism or philanthropy, but the genuine proclamation of the Gospel of charity and a ministry of consolation… moved by love for Christ and by the example of the good Samaritan, you do not turn away in the face of suffering,” he told the members present. “On the contrary, you seek to be a welcoming glance, a hand that uplifts and accompanies, a word of comfort and a tender embrace.”

He urged them to continue despite difficulties and fatigue, and to imitate Mary’s maternal care. In following Mary, she will help each person to be a reflection of the merciful God, he said.

“Every sick and fragile person can see in your face the face of Jesus; and you, too, can recognize Christ in the person who suffers,” he said.

Report by Laura Ieraci

Pope Francis receives participants in Plenary of the Apostolic Signatura

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis received the participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura on Friday in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The Apostolic Signatura is the highest court in the Catholic Church. It deals with procedural challenges arising in the Church’s other courts, as well as with disputes arising under the Church's administrative law. The Signatura is also responsible for overseeing the general administration of Justice in the Church.

In remarks to the participants, Pope Francis focused on the role of the Defender of the Bond: the lawyer who argues in favor of the validity of a marriage in annulment cases. “In his delicate task,” said Pope Francis, “[the Defender of the Bond] is called to harmonise the prescriptions of the Code of Canon Law with the concrete situations of the Church and of society.”

Speaking broadly of the work of the Signatura, Pope Francis said, “Service to justice is a commitment of apostolic life: it requires to be exercised with one’s gaze fixed upon the icon of the Good Shepherd, who bends himself toward the lost and wounded sheep.” Pope Francis concluded his remarks by commending the participants to the protection and intercession of Our Lady, “Mirror of Justice”. 

Centro Bonò rejects the abhorrent sentencing of the Constitutional Tribunal

The organization denounces that the CT leaves 4 generations of Dominicans without nationality

Santo Domingo, September 26, 2013. Centro Bonó expressed the most profound indignation after the absurd, insensitive and unjust sentencing in which the Constitutional Tribunal (CT) creates the term “foreigners in transit” within a period covering 85 years, to justify the denationalization of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent. 

The abhorrent sentencing 168-13 of the CT legitimizes illegal administrative acts, according to the Central Electoral Board, affecting the fundamental rights of more than four generations of men and women who have formed part of the Dominican community; Men and women who have contributed to the material, cultural and spiritual development of this republic. According to this entity, it’s a judicial practice that overtly violates the principle of non-reactivity of the laws.

The Centro Bonó expresses publically its indignation as it saw the CT overextend itself in the case of Juliana Deguis Piere, who went to the tribunal with her nationality intact. Rather than receiving their support and the protection of her fundamental rights, she was denationalized by the judges who approved the sentencing. 

In this case, the Constitutional Tribunal is detaching itself from its origin, since the Magna Carta in its article 74 states that the highest court has the obligation to interpret the rights “of the persons entitled to them, in the most favorable sense.”  Centro Bonó said, “the CT ignores the principles of sentences drafted by the Interamerican Court of Human Rights, as well as the international agreements of the constitutional hierarchies.” 

In this context, Centro Bonó calls on all the citizens to denounce the sentencing made by the highest tribunal, and expresses its profound concern as the State of Rights, the judicial security and the institutional democracy in the Dominican Republic has been made vulnerable.

The Bonó announces that it will accompany all those affected by this sentencing, until the rights that have been violated are reinstated.

The Tribunal has appropriated hundreds of cases in similar situations, for which we hope that in the future and in honor of Rights, they revise and change their own jurisprudence according to the Constitution, the laws and the international agreements. 

“We call on the Powers of the State to assume their responsibility in balanced exercising of power, and to harmonize their views to seek a just and dignified solution to this problem.” 

The Centro Bonó greets and recognizes the dignity of the magistrate that opposed to this sad ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal.

Ruling could have ‘devastating impact’ on children of Haitian descent - UNICEF

NEW YORK, United States, Thursday October 10, 2013, CMC – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned that a ruling by the Constitutional Court in the Dominican Republic depriving Dominican-born persons of Haitian descent of their right to citizenship could have a “devastating impact” on thousands of children.

“Without a nationality, stateless children can be denied access to basic social protection programmes, cannot earn education certificates or graduate, or obtain an identity card or a passport,” said UNICEF in a statement on Wednesday.

“Without these basic protections and opportunities, these children are more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse,” it added.

UNICEF said the decision contradicts numerous court decisions and treaties to which the Dominican Republic is party, and contravenes basic principles of human rights.

“A 2005 judgment by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the issue of nationality in the Dominican Republic and the recommendations made by the UN Treaty-based bodies and the Human Rights Council clearly set out that cases involving the violations of children’s rights are particularly serious.

The Dominican Republic is a state party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (2001), which clearly articulates that in all state actions concerning children, the best interest of the child must be the primary consideration,” it said.

UNICEF noted that, in 2008, in the concluding observations for the Dominican Republic, the Committee on the Rights of the Child said that the constitutional right of acquiring nationality by jus solis (the right to a nationality or citizenship given because one is born in the territory of the state in question) was “frequently denied to children who did not have regular birth certificates or were born to parents whose residency had not been regularized in the Dominican Republic.”

The Committee expressed serious concern at the large numbers of stateless children generated by this policy.

“The provisions of the new ruling could place these children at risk of deportation, in violation of the principles articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly articles 12 and 15,” UNICEF said.

It, therefore, urges the Dominican Government to adopt, with the support of the United Nations system, a procedure to protect every child’s right to acquire a nationality, in accordance with the country’s international human rights obligations.

“UNICEF stands ready to support the Dominican Republic authorities with the identification and implementation of procedures that would fully respect children’s rights,” the statement said.

Last week, the Constitutional Court in Santo Domingo, ruled in favour of stripping citizenship from children of Haitian migrants.

The decision applies to those born after 1929 — a category that overwhelmingly includes descendants of Haitians brought in to work on farms.

The development, according to international observers, could cause a human rights crisis, while leaving tens of thousands of people stateless and facing mass deportation and discrimination.

Former Jamaica Prime Minister PJ Patterson has urged the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) grouping to “strongly condemn recent developments in the Dominican Republic that could render stateless, thousands of persons of Haitian descent.

“No one can be hood-winked as to the reason and the purpose for this kind of discriminatory legislation. Within the region we have an obligation to speak and we cannot allow such inequities to go without our strongest condemnations,” Patterson told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).

Read more: http://www.caribbean360.com/index.php/news/1032066.html?print#ixzz2jxgouA3p

Group marches in PoS against ruling

Originally printed at http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Group-marches-in-PoS-against-ruling-230920961.html

By Joel Julien joel.julien@trinidadexpress.com
November 6, 2013

IF decisive action is not taken by the Caribbean Community (Caricom) in response to a recent controversial ruling in the Dominican Republic, the region may face a bloody “cleansing” equivalent to the situation that took place in Nazi Germany.
This was the ominous warning sounded by Prof Emeritus Norman Girvan, the former secretary general of the Association of Caribbean States, yesterday.
Dr Jose Serulle Ramia, Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to Trinidad and Tobago, has however denounced all the doom and gloom prophecies saying these are based on misinformation.
Serulle denied that Haitians will be harassed and said the law in question was aimed at regularising the status of undocumented immigrants to the Dominican Republic.
On September 23, the Dominican Constitutional Tribunal ruled that “foreigners with no residence permit in the country must be equated with the category of foreigners in transit, under which their children are not eligible for Dominican citizenship, even though they were born in Dominican territory”.
This ruling has caused an outcry among the 450,000 immigrants of Haitian descent living in the Dominican Republic.
Haiti and the Dominican Republic share an island land mass.
The controversial ruling was issued in response to a case brought by the Dominican-born daughter of Haitian migrants, who had been refused a Dominican identity card.
The Dominican Constitutional Tribunal ruled that because both of the girl’s parents were undocumented migrants they were considered to be “in transit” through the Dominican Republic and therefore she was not automatically entitled to Dominican citizenship.
This decision could leave hundreds of thousands of people who consider themselves Dominican now stateless.
A theatrical demonstration was yesterday held in Port of Spain in protest of the ruling.
Around 10 a.m. yesterday members of the Jouvay Ayiti group started to gather at the Queen’s Park Savannah opposite the embassy of the Dominican Republic.
Ayiti is the original Amerindian name for Haiti.
The group presented a petition of 800 numbers to the Embassy of the Dominican Republic and the Office of the Prime Minister.
They were accompanied my mas characters portraying the situation taking place in the Dominican Republic.
Rawle Gibbons, a co-director of Jouvay Ayiti, said the group, which was formed following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, viewed the recent ruling as an “outrage”.
Gibbons said yesterday’s demonstration was aimed at showing the Caricom leaders how citizens around the region feel about the Dominican Republic’s ruling.
Girvan was among those who were present to show his support to the action by Jouvay Ayiti.
He called for the Dominican Republic to face severe repercussions for its adherence to the court ruling.
Girvan called for a boycott of all events taking place in the Dominican Republic by Caricom and its member states.
“I am also suggesting and in fact putting that Caricom should put on hold the application of the Dominican Republic to become a member of the Caribbean Community and the application of the Dominican Republic to join the Caribbean Development Bank,” Girvan said.
“I am also suggesting that Caricom explore the possibility of suspending the Dominican Republic from Cariforum which is the body to which Caricom and the DR belong which interacts with the European Union,” he said.
Girvan said the court ruling was “inhumane and contrary to international conventions and norms to which the Dominican Republic itself subscribes”.
He said the ruling would render stateless people who only know the Dominican Republic as their home.
Serulle has however downplayed the concerns.
Speaking through an interpreter, Serulle yesterday hosted the media at the embassy to answer questions relating to the issue.
He said the concerns being raised on the international stage were based on misinterpretations and misinformation of the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling.
“The purpose of the ruling is to regularise the presence of the Haitian immigrants and all of the immigrants in the country so everybody can move around and they are not going to be harassed by bullies or any other person,” Serulle said.
“A lot of people have been taking about racism but that is not true that is a lie. In the Dominican Republic we cannot have racism, we could have some people who might be racist like in all over the world. But the Dominican people cannot be racist,” he said.
Serulle said he was once ambassador to Haiti and he loves that country and its people.

Call for building of border wall between  the Dominican Republic and Haiti

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, Wednesday November 6, 2013, CMC – Hundreds of people took to the streets in support of a controversial Constitutional Court ruling that could render stateless, thousands of persons of Haitian descent.

The demonstrators assembled opposition Independence Park in the capital carrying banners rejecting the presence of Haitians in the country and even suggesting the erection of a wall to ensure the division of Hispaniola that is shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

The demonstrators said the “Patriotic Meeting” was aimed at lending support to the ruling of the Constitutional Court that children born in the country of undocumented foreign parents do not have Dominican nationality.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM, as well as the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), have criticized the ruling made on September 23, with the IACHR saying that it “retroactively modifies legislation that was in effect from 1929 to 2010, and thus would strip Dominican citizenship from tens of thousands of people born in the Dominican Republic”.

CARICOM Secretary General Irwin La Rocque said the ruling “raises a serious question about the status of the numerous… Dominican Republic nationals of Haitian extract” while St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves in a letter to President Danilo Medina said the court’s decision was “unacceptable in any civilized community”.

The international human rights group, Amnesty International and the Organization of American States (OAS) have also expressed concern over the ruling and the US-based The US-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) said the ruling had truned the Dominican Republic into a “ticking time bomb.

“Unsurprisingly, this controversial ruling has sparked global outrage. The ruling could potentially result in the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent, as well as their children, who were born in the Dominican Republic,” COHA added.

The demonstration was organized by the National Network for the Defense of Sovereignty and demonstrators sang the national anthem and waved the Dominican Republic flag.

Economist Philip Auffant Najri, who addressed the meeting, rejected what he termed the smear campaign made against the country internationally and demanded the construction of a border wall which he said would end poverty here and prevent conflict between the two nations.

He said that the lack of public policies to promote the employment of Dominicans has led many people within and outside the country, to believe that impoverished immigrant labour is indispensable for the national economy.

Another speaker, jurist Juan Manuel Castillo Pantaleon, said the Constitutional Court "has aroused all Dominicans to defend as one man our national sovereignty".

He described the ruling as a landmark and brave “because it clearly defines who we Dominicans are and reaffirms the laws and institutions, as provided in the Constitution.

"The hypocritical international community which offered aid to Haiti, never kept their promises and in some cases committed robbery, and intends that we Dominicans should assume responsibility for a failed state," said Castillo Pantaleon.

Emilo Santana of the group,  Night Watch of San Juan, called on the government to build a wall along the border, adding that many communities in the area were losing their identity after being invaded illegally by Haitian immigrants.

He said many Dominicans were unable to receive proper health services because the resources were being used to assist the Haitians and urged President Medina to prevent a “silent and massive Haitian take-over of the territory.

“I feel humiliated and angry, but not by my president, I feel humiliated by those NGOs that negotiate with the poverty of Haitians and it is they who are destroying our country," said Emilio Santana.

The National Network for the Defense of Sovereignty said that the demonstration was a reaction to the continuous attacks promoted by the Haitian government "and the traitors that act against our nation on the occasion of the judgment 168-13 of the Constitutional Court"

Read more: http://www.caribbean360.com/index.php/news/dominican_republic_news/1083081.html?print#ixzz2jxfoDwbi

CARICOM monitoring Dominican Republic citizenship issue

Photos courtesy Jouvey Ayiti By Marcia Braveboy Caribbean News Now Senior Correspondent marcia@caribbeannewsnow.com  PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad -- Caribbean Community (CARICOM) chair, Trinidad and Tobago prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, said she is monitoring the situation in the Dominican Republic following a controversial ruling by that country’s constitutional court and, further, will consult with CARICOM Secretary General Irwin LaRocque on the best way forward to seek a solution to the issue. The prime minister’s statement was triggered by a petition that was delivered to her office by the Trinidad and Tobago-based mas and consciousness-raising organisation, Jouvay Ayiti, whose members, clad in jouvert costumes, led a demonstration in Port of Spain on Wednesday in support of some 200,000 Dominican-born individuals of Haitian descent, who have potentially been left stateless following a court ruling on September 23, 2013, that stripped them of their citizenship. Members of Jouvay Ayiti marched to the prime minister’s office in Port of Spain on Wednesday to deliver a petition, calling for her intervention in the citizenship matter. In acknowledging receipt of the petition, Persad-Bissessar said she noted with great concern the issues raised in the document. She said she recognises the difficulty and uncertainty facing those persons in the Dominican Republic whose status and rights have been cast in doubt.  However, the CARICOM chair indicated her respect for the independence of the constitutional court of the Dominican Republic. “Equally, the prime minister respects the sovereign independence of the Dominican Republic and of its Constitutional Court,” a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said. In 2007, many Dominicans of Haitian descent were blocked by a law that did not allow them to acquire copies of their birth certificates or national identification cards. Juliana Dequis Pierre was one of the persons blocked. She could not get a national ID card and would later take her fight to the courts.  Though she had been born in the Dominican Republic, the high court ruled that 29-year-old Dequis Pierre did not meet the criteria for citizenship since her parents had not been legal immigrants. The court took the matter further, asking the authorities to identify similar cases that stretched back to 1929. And this is where the uproar started.  The matter has since attracted international and regional concern.  The UN refugee agency issued a statement saying: "Should this process indeed be carried out without the necessary safeguards, three generations of Dominicans of Haitian descent could become stateless."  The OAS also voiced its concern over the predicament that a great many Dominican-born individuals now find themselves in. Persad-Bissessar said she concurred with the Organisation of American States (OAS) position on the issue. “The prime minister also draws reference to the recent statement on this issue by the secretary general of the Organisation of the American States (OAS), His Excellency Jose Miguel Insulza, who affirmed that the OAS (of which Trinidad and Tobago is a member), through its Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), ‘will continue to work… to find a solution with the maximum degree of agreement, the maximum degree of openness and the maximum degree of goodwill,’” the statement read. Caribbean leaders have been urged to freeze the Dominican Republic’s pending application for membership in CARICOM and to review its economic and trading relations with the country. Saint Lucia’s Prime Minister Dr Kenny Anthony has referred to the ruling as a “most callous and insensitive invective of people based on their ancestry.”