C-Fam Launches Anti-Prostitution Campaign

WORLDNETDAILY, May 26 — The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute launched a “Stop World Cup Prostitution” petition campaign in response to reports that 40,000 young women will be brought to Germany from Central and Eastern Europe to “sexually service” men attending the soccer championship, WorldNetDaily reported.

An estimated 3 million soccer fans are expected to descend on 12 German cities for the quadrennial sports event, which began June 9 and runs through July 9. Prostitution is legal in Germany. In a statement on its website, C-Fam said it is collecting names on a petition to be delivered to the German missions to the U.N. and European Parliament, German Embassy in the U.S., members of the German Parliament and the governing body of the World Cup.

“Whatever their circumstances, each and every one of these young women is someone’s daughter, a child of God and deserves our protection,” a C-Fam press release stated. “They do not deserve to be exploited and sentenced to a life of misery to satisfy the sexual appetites of soccer fans.”

What “makes this crime particularly appalling,” added the statement, “is the open support it is receiving from the German government. The same government that likes to lecture America on morality.”

Sri Lankan Religious Leaders Meet With Rebel Chief

SPERO NEWS, May 30 — Representatives from the Catholic, Protestant and Buddhist communities met with a leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelan (LTTE) and separately with Sri Lanka’s president recently to urge them to resume peace talks, Spero News reported.

Father Damian Fernando and S.P. Anthonymuthu, from Caritas Sri Lanka, a Methodist minister and three Buddhist monks met May 23 with S.P. Thamilchelvan, head of the rebel group’s political wing. They urged Thamilchelvan to work toward restoring lasting peace in the country.

The group also had met with President Mahinda Rajapaksa May 11, before meeting with Thamilchelvan. According to Father Fernando, the president stated at that first meeting that he wanted peace and not war.

“The only thing is he wanted to know what the main concerns of the LTTE are,” he said. “And he said that he would like to have direct talks with the LTTE leader without a mediator.”

Cardinal: No Communion for Pro-Abortion Politicians

THE AGE, May 28 — Cardinal George Pell of Australia said Catholic politicians who vote in favor of abortion should not identify themselves as Catholics or go to Communion, the Australian daily reported.

Cardinal Pell, the country’s most senior Catholic, stopped short of endorsing some American bishops who said during the 2004 presidential election campaign that pro-abortion politicians should be refused the Eucharist.

He told a pro-life website that refusing Communion was a difficult question. But “if a person is regularly supporting pro-abortion legislation in a way that is very, very difficult to divorce that voting from an explicitly pro-abortion attitude, I think you should ask them, how come you feel that you’re able to go to Communion?”

He said that Catholics should lobby Catholic politicians who contradicted the faith.