Weekly roundup

News stories from the week of Dec. 29—Jan. 4

Holy Father wants financial change (Thursday) — Pope Benedict XVI challenges world leaders to make major changes to the global financial system. Benedict says short-term answers to the financial crisis weren't sufficient. "It's not enough, as Jesus said, to put patches on an old suit," Benedict says in his New Year's Day blessing to thousands of people huddled under umbrellas in a rain-soaked St. Peter's Square. Associated Press

Violating human dignity is root of all conflict (Friday) VATICAN CITY — Not respecting human dignity lies at the root of all conflict, including the renewed violence in the Gaza Strip, said a top Vatican official and longtime diplomat. Religious tensions play a minor role in fueling world conflicts; rather, countless economic and social injustices are what foment violence, said Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. "For decades, human dignity has been trampled in the Gaza Strip; hatred and homicidal fundamentalism find fodder" in social and economic injustice, he said in an interview published in the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, Jan. 1.. Catholic News Service.

Billy Graham changes church membership (Tuesday) — Evangelist Billy Graham is changing membership from a Dallas church to a friend's church in South Carolina. First Baptist Dallas said Monday the church was told by Graham's personal assistant the 90-year-old was switching to First Baptist Church of Spartanburg, S.C. Graham joined First Baptist Dallas in 1953 during his first crusade in the city but has never lived there. Associated Press

Armenians, Georgians in unholy row over disputed church (Tuesday) TBILISI – Amidst the rambling homes and cobble-stoned streets of the Georgian capital Tbilisi's old town, two stone churches stand side-by-side, sharing a snow-covered courtyard.
One, the Georgian Orthodox Church of Jvaris Mama, is alive with parishioners and lit candles. Its neighbour, the Norashen Church, sits lonely and locked. Unused for nearly seven decades, the Norashen Church is at the heart of long-running dispute between the Armenian Apostolic and the Georgian Orthodox Churches. The dispute has flared again in recent weeks, raising ethnic tensions in Georgia as it is still recovering from an August war with Russia over the South Ossetia region, where ethnic Ossetian separatists broke from Georgian control in the early 1990s. (AFP)

"The Church has always taken great care that no one should be compelled against his will to embrace the Catholic Faith, because, as Augustine wisely declares: 'except he be willing, man cannot believe'." — Leo XIII, Immortale Dei