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Fragile peace, shattered buildings

25 Jan 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

"Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed," the Lord warns Jonah in this Sunday's first reading. As Israel pulled its troops out of Gaza and an uneasy cease-fire between Hamas and Israel took hold this week, the world got its first close look at the destruction the three-week campaign caused in Gaza. In Gaza City, tank shells and aerial bombardment turned homes and office buildings into heaps of concrete. Orange and olive groves were flattened. The parliament building and other targets of Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships were reduced to piles of debris. Destruction in some areas left streets that resembled a moonscape. With Israeli tanks now gone, donkey carts hauled produce and firewood through streets littered with rubble and broken glass. The Israeli offensive left a total of 1,284 Palestinians dead and 4,336 wounded, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. The rights group said 894 of those killed were civilians. The Palestinian bureau of statistics reported 4,100 homes totally destroyed and 17,000 others damaged in the offensive. The death toll in Gaza has provoked international outrage. In Israel, however, the war had strong backing and was seen as a legitimate response to Hamas militants who now have one-eighth of Israel's population within rocket range. At least 13 Israelis died during the 22-day conflict. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon left the region early Wednesday after touring Gaza and southern Israel. He accused Israel of using "excessive force" in the conflict and called for an investigation into the Israeli shelling of U.N. compounds in Gaza during the fighting, which he termed "outrageous." He also called militant rocket attacks against Israel "appalling and unacceptable." Source: Articles by Amy Teibel, Ibrahim Barzak, and Christopher Torchia for the Associated Press and by Mai Yaghi for Agence France Presse

gaza strip hamas israel gaza city palestinians palestinian center for human rights ban ki-moon united nations
The heavy toll of war

01 Nov 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday's reading from the Book of Revelation speaks of "the ones who have survived the time of great distress." The longstanding wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as their impact on Pakistan, the United States, and Western allies, have brought great distress in their wake. This past week has been exceptionally violent, with massive suicide bombings in Iraq and Pakistan and high U.S. and United Nations casualties in Afghanistan. On Sunday a pair of suicide car bombings devastated the heart of Iraq's capital, Baghdad, killing at least 147 people in the country's deadliest attack in more than two years. The bombs targeted two government buildings and called into question Iraq's ability to protect its people as U.S. forces withdraw. Two helicopter crashes in Afghanistan killed 14 Americans on Monday, the bloodiest single day for U.S. casualties in more than four years. And Tuesday, October became the deadliest month for U.S. troops in the eight-year-old Afghan war when two bombs killed eight soldiers and an interpreter in separate attacks. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned as "despicable and brutal" an attack on a U.N. guest house in the Afghan capital of Kabul by Taliban militants wearing suicide vests and police uniforms. The attack killed 11 people, including five U.N. staff. It was the biggest in a series of attacks in the capital Wednesday intended to undermine next month's presidential runoff election. The attack on the guesthouse was the worst on the U.N. in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime. The chief of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said the attack "will not deter the U.N. from continuing all its work" in the country. One of the dead was an American, the U.S. embassy said. Also on Wednesday a car bomb struck a busy market in the city of Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 100 people--mostly women and children. The Pakistani government blamed militants seeking to avenge an army offensive launched this month against al-Qaida and the Taliban in their stronghold close to the Afghan border. Source: Articles by Riaz Khan, Rahim Faiez, and Amir Shah for the Associated Press, Joshua Partlow for the Washington Post, BBC News, and CBS News

iraq war peshawar kabul bombings kai eide baghdad united nations ban ki-moon afghanistan war pakistan
A world hungers for solution to food shortage

22 Nov 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The reading from the Book of Daniel this Sunday describes a vision of "one like a Son of man." United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened a worldwide "Hunger Summit" on Monday in Rome by calling for a "single global vision" to address the plight of the world's estimated 1 billion hungry people. Aid groups, however, are looking for actions, not words. The absence of many world leaders undermined the summit from the start, and its final declaration showed little progress was made in the fight against hunger, said critics. U.N. officials put on a brave face throughout the three-day meeting, saying it had won broad support for the need to focus on longer-term agricultural development--rather than emergency aid--to help poor countries feed themselves. "It's a half-full, half-empty glass," said Jacques Diouf, director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), who had called the summit to keep attention high on the plight of the more than 1 billion people going hungry. "We made some progress to reverse the decline in agricultural investments . . . but it did not go as far as FAO would have wished to see," he told the final news conference. "It's a big disappointment that the leaders from the biggest and richest countries did not come," said Gawain Kripke of the aid agency Oxfam. "Without them it's hard to imagine how the world will attack these challenges of hunger and increasing agricultural productivity," he said, adding that the summit had thrown only "crumbs" to those who do not have enough to eat. The FAO had hoped the meeting would yield firm promises to boost farm aid to $44 billion a year, reversing nearly 30 years of neglect. Diouf also wanted leaders to commit to eradicating malnutrition by 2025. But the summit declaration merely pledged to eliminate hunger "at the earliest possible date" and set no targets nor a timeframe for more investments in agricultural development. Hunger is local as well as global. A hard-hitting report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) this week said that more than one in seven American households struggled to put enough food on the table in 2008, the highest rate since the USDA began tracking food security levels in 1995. That's about 49 million people, or 14.6 percent of U.S. households. The numbers are a significant increase from 2007 when 11.1 percent of U.S. households suffered from what USDA classifies as "food insecurity"--not having enough food for an active, healthy lifestyle. The report also showed an increasing number of children in the U.S. are suffering. In 2008 16.7 million children were classified as not having enough food, 4.3 million more than in 2007. "What should really shock us is that almost one in four children in our country lives on the brink of hunger," said David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World. Source: Articles by Silvia Aloisi and Svetlana Kovalyova for Reuters, Joe Kapua for Voice of America News, Gina Doggett for Agence France Press, and Henry C. Jackson for the Associated Press

Children hunger summit rome development un food and agriculture organization agriculture gawain kripke us department of agriculture usda food insecurity david beckmann jacques diouf fao united states united nations ban ki-moon Hunger world summit on food security
How undiplomatic of you, Wikileaks

05 Dec 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“All the nations” have reason to proclaim the happiness of the Lord, says the psalmist this Sunday. Yet nations around the world are proclaiming their unhappiness this week after the unauthorized leak of a treasure trove of private U.S. diplomatic correspondence by whistleblower website Wikileaks. Given that the nations of the world lack the harmony and accord St. Paul calls for in this Sunday’s reading from the Letter to the Romans, U.S. diplomats routinely send their frank and unvarnished private opinions of foreign leaders back to the State Department. The gradual publication of some quarter-million such communications has left the Obama administration scrambling to contain the damage. On Tuesday the State Department severed its computer files from the government's classified network, significantly reducing the number of government employees who can read diplomatic posts, as U.S. and world leaders tried to tighten procedures in the wake of the damaging leak. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton embarked on a hastily planned trip to smooth ruffled diplomatic feathers worldwide. Ratcheting up the heat on Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, the European law enforcement agency Interpol put him on its most-wanted list after Sweden issued an arrest warrant against Assange as part of a drawn-out rape probe. Assange’s lawyer claims Assange is being persecuted on trumped-up charges. One of the more diplomatically embarrassing revelations in the documents is that the U.S. State Department asked its diplomats to collect sensitive personal information on foreign leaders. "What worries me is the mixing of diplomatic tasks with downright espionage," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley sought to reassure the world that U.S. diplomats were not spies, even as he sidestepped questions about why they were asked to provide DNA samples, iris scans, credit card numbers, fingerprints, and other deeply personal information about leaders at the United Nations and in foreign capitals. Source: Articles by Raphael G. Satter and Malin Rising for the Associated Press, TIME, and msnbc.com

ban ki-moon state department wikileaks diplomats hillary rodham clinton julian assange spying p j crowley
Serious debate over alleged use of chemical weapons

05 May 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The Sunday reading from the Acts of the Apostles says “there arose no little dissension and debate” in Antioch over whether or not circumcision was required of Gentile men interested in joining the early Christian community. There is also debate and dissension today over whether Syria has used chemical weapons on opponents of the ruling regime. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon renewed an appeal Monday to Syria to allow U.N. chemical weapons experts into the country, saying that on-site inspections are essential to “establish the facts and clear up all the doubts.”Ban’s remarks—delivered with chief U.N. chemical weapons inspector Ake Sellstrom of Sweden at his side—followed allegations by several countries, including the United States, that chemical weapons were likely used in Syria in recent months.Syria invited the U.N. last month to conduct an investigation into its claims that Syrian rebels attacked Syrian government forces with chemical weapons on March 19 near Aleppo. Syrian officials said 26 people died in the attack, including some government troops.But Syria balked after Britain and France urged the U.N. to also investigate Syrian opposition claims that the government employed chemical weapons in three Syrian cities: Aleppo, Damascus, and Homs.The stakes are high on this issue. President Barack Obama has said on several occasions that conclusive evidence that Syria was using chemical weapons would be “a game changer” in terms of the West’s response to the civil war in that nation.Homily hint: The U.S. public is understandably leery of any escalation of American involvement in another conflict in the Middle East. How can good people find good ways to resist violence around the world without resorting to violence in return? A age-old question that remains timely and pressing today. Sources: Articles by Colum Lynch, Abigail Hauslohner,Anne Gearan, and Craig Whitlock for the Washington Post

ban ki-moon united nations syria chemical weapons
A farewell to arms?

09 Jun 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In the second reading this Sunday the apostle Paul speaks openly of how in his former way of life he “persecuted the church of God beyond measure.” In an effort to stem illicit trade in weapons that fuel conflicts, persecutions, and extremists worldwide, more than 65 countries signed a landmark treaty regulating the multibillion-dollar global arms trade Monday, and the United States said it will sign soon.The announcement by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that the U.S.—the world’s largest arms dealer—will sign is critical, but the treaty’s ultimate strength rests on support by all major arms exporters and importers, say observers. While the treaty was overwhelmingly approved on April 2 by the United Nations General Assembly, key arms exporters including Russia and China and major importers including India, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Egypt abstained and have given no indication yet that they will sign it.Signatures are the first step to ratification, and the treaty will only take effect after 50 countries ratify it. Finland’s Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, a key treaty backer, predicted that there will be 50 ratifications “within slightly more than a year—but the real test is, of course, getting those who still have doubts or who have not made up their minds, to sign on and ratify.”U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a special event marking the signings that the treaty shows that “the world has finally put an end to the ‘free-for-all’ nature of international weapons transfers.” What impact the treaty will have in curbing the global arms trade—estimated at between $60 billion and $85 billion—remains to be seen. A lot will depend on which countries ratify it and how stringently it is implemented once it comes into force, say observers.Homily hint: Keeping arms out of the hands of thugs and dictators is important, but the worldwide arms industry in its entirety (estimated at $1.5 trillion a year) represents an ethical failure when contrasted with the message of the Prince of Peace. The prophetic words of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower (who knew the horrors of war as well as anyone) ring as true today as when he spoke them in 1953: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” Source: An article by Edith M. Lederer for the Associated Press

ban ki-moon united nations arms trade john kerry erkki tuomioja
Let us “strive together” for international peace

21 Aug 2016 - Preaching the News for the Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

This Sunday’s readings feature the Lord promising the prophet Isaiah that “I come to gather nations of every language.” Every four years, nations of every language gather for the Summer Olympics, which are concluding this weekend in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As the games were about to open this year, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon participated in the Olympic Torch Relay in Rio after the historic torch had made its quadrennial journey from Greece, where the games were born more than 2,000 years ago and revived late in the 19th century. Ban congratulated the athletes and the fans saying, “The Olympics and Paralympics celebrate the best of humanity.” “Let us all do more to uphold the ideals of equality and mutual respect. Let us build prosperity and dignity for all on a healthy planet,” he added. In his message for the games, Ban highlighted the fact that the UN also works for global harmony and peace. “In that spirit, we proclaim the Olympic Truce,” he said, adding: “We call on all warring parties to lay down their weapons and put aside their differences during the Games.” Earlier, the secretary-general met with the Olympic Refugee Team. He saluted the athletes’ work and determination, telling them: “You are a source of inspiration for all of us.” Since the modern Olympics began in 1896, more than 200 national teams have vied for glory at the Summer and Winter Games. This year for the first time a team of refugees competed as well. The first-ever Refugee Olympic Athletes team includes two Syrian swimmers, two judokas from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a marathoner from Ethiopia, and five middle-distance runners from South Sudan. “Their participation in the Olympics is a tribute to the courage and perseverance of all refugees in overcoming adversity and building a better future for themselves and their families,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. “UNHCR stands with them and with all refugees.” The initiative comes at a time when more people than ever—59.5 million at last count—are being forced to flee their homes to escape conflict and persecution. The squad representing them in Rio hopes to give the world a glimpse of their resilience and untapped talent. The Olympic Summer Games’ power of unification is so strong that it can apparently bring together North and South Korea—at least briefly. During a gymnastics training session on Thursday, a photographer captured a photo of Lee Eun-Ju of South Korea posing with Hong Un Jong of North Korea for a selfie. Despite hostilities between North and South Korea, the tension is not evident between the two competitors at the Olympic gym in Rio. In the photo, Lee is making a peace sign with her hand. “In the past, North Korean athletes avoided conversation not only with the athletes, but also with the reporters from South Korea. However this summer, they greeted South Korean athletes with more hospitality,” reported Korean-American newspaper Korea Daily. The interaction has been praised as a demonstration of the true spirit of the Olympics. The Olympics haven’t been able to cut through all international conflicts. Members of the Lebanese delegation reportedly blocked their Israeli counterparts from boarding a bus they were assigned to share en route to the opening ceremony of the games, and a few days ago, defeated Egyptian judo fighter Islam El Shehaby was loudly booed when he refused to shake hands with his Israeli rival. At his weekly general audience leading up to the Olympics, Pope Francis called on athletes to exemplify the unity of the human race during the event. He urged Olympians not to consider winning medals as the ultimate prize, but instead to encapsulate a civilization in which solidarity takes precedence. The pope said it was possible to create a society “based on the acknowledgment that everyone is a member of the same human family, independent of culture, skin color, and religion.” Francis also praised the Brazilian society for hosting the Olympics hoping that, by working together, it could overcome its difficulties and lead to a more just and safe country. Lessons drawn from the readings Jesus reminds us in this Sunday’s gospel that “some who are first will be last, and some who are last will be first.” The Olympics are about more than winning and losing, as Pope Francis pointed out. Yes, they showcase great athletic skill but they also transcend sport. They offer a vision of athletes from around the world uniting in a common effort, “striving together” not only to be the best athletes they can be but also to be model citizens. Though occasionally an athlete or even an entire nation will fall short of the ideal, the vast majority enter into the true spirit of the games as a time to compete fairly and to celebrate what unites us rather than what divides us. Final thought in light of the news Heather Reid, professor of philosophy at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa offers this perspective on the meaning of the Olympics: “There’s something about this collective experience of striving together, which is what the word competito in Latin means, to strive together,” says Reid. “It’s very hard to watch the Olympic Games and not be inspired by what humans are capable of and their ability to overcome their political differences.”

2016 summer olympics ban ki-moon Unity Refugee Olympic Athletes unification olympic games international conflicts