During the cordial discussions, the Parties focused on various aspects of the
life of the country including numerous recent reforms, in particular the
constitutional amendments regarding religious freedom. Attention then turned
to other matters of common interest, such as migration, the struggle against
poverty and unemployment, and initiatives for combating violence and drug
trafficking.
 Finally, there was an exchange of opinions on themes relating to current
regional and international affairs.

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 THE CHURCH PROPOSES A SYSTEM OF JUSTICE THAT AIMS TO FULL REHABILITATE
WRONGDOERS
 Vatican City, 7 June 2014 (VIS) - On 30 May Pope Francis sent a message to
the participants in the 19th Congress of the International Criminal Law
Association and the 3rd Congress of the Latin American Association for Penal
Law and Criminology, held last week in Buenos Aires, in which he shares with
them some ideas which "form part of the Scriptures and the millennial
experience of the People of God" and, in which "in spite of historical
changes, three elements have been constant: the satisfaction or reparation of
damage caused; confession, by which a man expresses his inner conversion; and
contrition, to lead to the encounter with God's merciful and healing love".
 With reference to the first, satisfaction, Francis observes that "the Lord
has gradually taught his people that there is a necessary asymmetry between
crime and punishment, that an eye or a broken tooth cannot be restored by
taking or breaking another. It is a matter of bringing justice to the victim,
not punishing the aggressor", and "in our societies we tend to think that
crimes are solved when we capture and sentence the criminal, largely avoiding
the damage caused or without paying sufficient attention to the situation in
which the victims find themselves. However, it would be a mistake to identify
reparation solely with punishment, to confuse justice and vengeance, which can
only contribute to increasing violence, even if this latter is i
stitutionalised. Experience teaches us that the increase and hardening of
penalties often neither solves social problems, nor reduces crime rates. And,
furthermore, this may give rise to serious social problems, such as
overcrowding of prisons or prisoners detained without trial".
 "In this regard", he continues, "means of communication ... play a very
important role and hold great responsibility: we depend on them to give
accurate information and not to contribute to creating alarm or social panic
when they provide news of criminal activities. The life and dignity of people
is at stake, and these must be turned into media events, subject to attention
often of an unhealthy nature, condemning the suspects to social disparagement
before being judged or forcing victims, for sensationalist purposes, to
publicly relive their suffering".
 The second aspect, confession, is "the attitude of those who recognise and
admit their guilt. If the criminal is not sufficiently helped, he or she is
not offered the chance to be able to convert, and ends up as a victim of the
system. ... It is necessary to move forward and to do everything possible to
correct, improve and educate the person so that he is able tomature in
respects, so he is not discouraged and faces the damage caused, rethinking his
life without being crushed by the weight of his miseries. ... And we must ask
ourselves why some fall and others do not, in spite of being in the same
condition. Not infrequently criminality is rooted in economic and social
inequality, in networks of corruption and organised crime, that seek
accomplices among the poorest and victims among the most vulnerable. To
prevent this scourge, it is not enough to have just laws: it is necessary to
construct responsible people able to put them into practice. A society that is
governed solely by market laws and creates false expectations and superfluous
necessities, discards those who are not at the top and prevents the slow, the
weak or the less gifted from taking an open road in life".
 Finally, contrition is "the gateway to repentance, the privileged path to the
heart of God, Who welcomes us and always offers us another chance if we open
ourselves up to the truth of penance and allow ourselves to be transformed by
His mercy. ... The attitude of God, Who goes before the sinner to offer him
His forgiveness, is shown in this way to be a higher justice, both equanimous
and compassionate, with no contradiction between these two aspects.
Forgiveness, in effect, neither eliminates nor diminishes the need for
rectification required by justice, nor does it ignore the need for personal
conversion, but instead goes beyond this, seeking to restore relationships and
to reintegrate people into society".
 "I think that here is the great challenge that we must all face", concludes
the Pope, "so that the measures taken against evil are not limited to
suppressing, discouraging and isolating those who cause it, but instead help
them to rehabilitate, to re-embark upon the path of good, to be authentic
people who move on from their miseries to become merciful themselves.
Therefore, the Church proposes a form of justice that is humanising, genuinely
reconciliatory, a justice that leads the wrongdoer, through an educative path
of encouraged penance, to rehabilitation and total reinsertion in the
community. How important and good it would be to take on this challenge, so as
not to let it fall into oblivion. How good it would be to take the necessary
steps to ensure that forgiveness does nto remain exclusively in the private
sphere, but instead attains a real political and institutional dimension to
create harmonious relations of coexistence.

___________________________________________________________

 STUDY DAY DEDICATED TO ST. PIUS X
 Vatican City, 9 June 2014 (VIS) - The Pontifical Committee for Historical
Sciences has organised a study day dedicated to St. Pius X (1914-2014) to be
held on 12 June , the centenary of his death. The theme of the day is "St.
Pius X, a reforming pope facing the challenges of the new century", and it was
presented this morning in the Holy See Press Office by Fr. Bernard Ardura O.
Praem., president of the aforementioned Committee and by Professor Alejandro
Mario Dieguez of the Vatican Secret Archive.
 "During this day", said Fr. Ardura, "we intend to highlight the principles
and pastoral directions of St. Pius X who, throughout all his ministry, was
essentially a pastor of souls. ... All his efforts in the ecclesial and social
fields were dictated by a pastoral realism, oriented towards the renewal of
the Christian life of people and communities".
 Diguez commented that the event "will offer an overview of new historical
information on this intense and crucial pontificate. ... This has been
possible thanks to the publication of archive sources (with four volumes
edited by the Vatican Archive), of profound and systematic research (not only
on modernism but also on apostolic visits, codification and the reform of the
curia), and study conferences (six over the last twenty-five years). It has
therefore been possible to recover the historical Pius X and not that of myth,
the Pius X of ecclesiastical governance and reform, and not that of popular
piety, recomposing the complex and fascinating personality of this pontiff".

___________________________________________________________

 THE AIF FURTHER STRENGTHENS INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION
 Vatican City, 7 June 2014 (VIS) - The Autorit  Informazione Finanziaria
(AIF), the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Holy See and Vatican City State,
has formalised its bilateral cooperation with the U.K., France and four other
countries with Memoranda of Understanding signed during the plenary meeting of
the Egmont Group held in Peru.
 The Memoranda were signed with the Financial Intelligence Units of the U.K.,
France, Malta, Romania, Poland and Peru by the Director of the AIF, Rene
Bruelhart.
 A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is standard practice and formalises the
cooperation and exchange of financial information to fight money laundering
and combat terrorist financing across borders between the competent
authorities of both countries. It is based on the model Memorandum of
Understanding prepared by the Egmont Group, the global organisation of
national Financial Intelligence Units, and contains clauses on reciprocity,
permitted uses of information and confidentiality.
 "Becoming a member of the Egmont Group last year was a major step toward
strengthening the international cooperation of the Holy See and supporting the
global efforts to fight Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism", said
Bruelhart. "The signing of these latest MOUs shows that we are continuously
expanding our network of cooperation, and will further facilitate our joint
efforts".
 AIF became a member of the Egmont Group in July of 2013, and has already
signed MOUs with the Financial Intelligence Units of Australia, Belgium,
Cyprus, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and the United States.
 AIF is the competent authority of the Holy See/Vatican City State to fight
money laundering and the financing of terrorism. It was established in 2010.

___________________________________________________________

 CARDINAL FILONI SPECIAL ENVOY TO FUNCHAL
 Vatican City, 7 June 2014 (VIS) - Today a letter was published, written in
Latin and dated 28 May, by which the Holy Father appoints Cardinal Ferdinand
Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, as his
special envoy to the celebrations for the 500th anniversary of the foundation
of the diocese of Funchal (Madeira, Portugal), which will take place from 13
to 16 June. The pontifical mission accompanying the cardinal will be composed
of Msgr. Jose Fiel de Sousa, vicar general, and the Rev. Canon Joao Duarte
Pita de Andrade, president of the cathedral chapter.

___________________________________________________________

 AUDIENCES
 Vatican City, 9 June 2014 (VIS) - Today the Holy Father received in audience:
 - Cardinal George Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy.
 - Francis Gurry, director general of the World Intellectual Property
Organisation (WIPO).
 -Br. Enzo Bianchi, prior of the Monastery of Bose.
 - Reinhard Schweppe, ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany, on his
farewell visit.
 - Alicia Castro, ambassador of the Republic of Argentina to the United
Kingdom.
 On Saturday, 7 June, the Holy Father received in audience:
 - Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, prefect of the Congregation for Divine
Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
 - Cardinal Marc Ouellet, P.S.S., prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.
 - Cardinal Agostino Vallini, vicar general of His Holiness for the diocese of
Rome.

___________________________________________________________

 OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS
 Vatican City, 9 June 2014 (VIS) - The Holy Father has:
 - erected the new diocese of Izcalli (area 533, population 966,836, Catholics
821,351, priests 64, religious 64), Mexico, with territory taken from the
diocese of Cuautitlan, making it a suffragan of the metropolitan church of
Tlalnepantla. He appointed Msgr. Francisco Gonzalez Ramos as first bishop of
the new diocese. The bishop-elect was born in Pueblo Nuevo, Mexico in 1958 and
was ordained a priest in 1982. He holds a degree in philosophy from the
Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, and has held a number of pastoral and
educative roles, including prefect of discipline in the minor seminary of
Leon, and professor in the major seminary of Leon, and priest of the parish of
"Espiritu Santo".
 - appointed the following members of the Congregation for the Clergy:
Cardinal Giuseppe Betori, archbishop of Florence, Italy; Cardinal Rainer Maria
Woelki, archbishop of Berlin, Germany; and Archbishop Gintaras Grusas of
Vilnius, Lithuania.
 - confirmed the following as members of the Congregation for the Clergy:
Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera,
Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Cardinal Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, Cardinal Marc
Ouellet, Cardinal Jorge Liberato Urosa Savino, Cardinal Angelo Scola, Cardinal
Sean Patrick O'Malley, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, Cardinal Odilo Pedro
Scherer, Cardinal John Njue, Cardinal Donald William Wuerl, Cardinal Kazimierz
Nycz, Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk, Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, Archbishop
Tomash Bernard Peta, Bishop Fernando Antonio Figueiredo O.F.M., Bishop Klaus
Kung, and Bishop Heinrich Mussinghoff.
 On Saturday, 7 June, the Holy Father:
 - appointed Archbishop Hubertus Matheus Maria van Megen, apostolic nuncio in
Sudan, as apostolic nuncio in Eritrea.
 - appointed Cardinal Jozef Tomko, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for
the Evangelisation of Peoples, as special envoy to the celebration of the 25th
anniversary of the restoration of the freedom of the Greek Catholic eparchy of
Mukachevo, to take place at the major seminary of Uzhhorod, Ukraine on 28 June
2014.

___________________________________________________________

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