Globalization

Catholic leaders at an international mission conference for the Americas said the church must become a missionary community with a new mentality. The Third American Missionary Congress drew more than 2,000 laypeople, bishops, priests and religious to Quito, Ecuador, Aug. 12-17 to discuss challenges for mission, from family life and fundamentalism to ecology and science. The closing Mass marked the official launch of the "great continental mission" that bishops from Latin America and the Caribbean announced in May 2007 during their fifth general conference in Aparecida, Brazil. That mission must build on "a spirit that was begun in Aparecida, the spirit of mission, of discipleship," said Auxiliary Bishop Octavio Cisneros of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Recent news from Africa continues to be negative. But positive news can be found as well. Ultimately, reform is needed on both the international and national levels. The United Nations has found some success in offering assistance to developing African nations and applying pressure on repressive governments. Its security forces have made a difference in Liberia, Darfur and the Congo. But much depends on whether the G-8 group of nations will live up to its promises of support for debt reduction and assistance with the ongoing AIDS pandemic. In the United States, the Senate's recent approval of the so-called Pepfar reauthorization act, already passed in the House, will also bring some relief by providing funding to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria around the globe.

Zimbabwe's ruling party and the opposition MDC began negotiations on Tuesday in neighboring South Africa on a power-sharing deal that could end the country's political crisis, diplomatic sources said. President Robert Mugabe and Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai signed a deal on Monday that committed the ruling ZANU-PF and two factions of the MDC to two weeks of negotiations with South African mediators. The government and the opposition had been deadlocked over talks since Mugabe was re-elected unopposed on June 27 in a run-off poll boycotted by Tsvangirai because of violence against his supporters. Mugabe blames the opposition for the bloodshed.

Something extraordinary happened in February when President Bush visited Africa: He was cheered by locals and showered with kisses. That is in no small part a result of the $15 billion President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which has helped millions suffering from HIV/AIDS find treatment and may be the one arena in which the White House has shown positive leadership abroad. Yet despite strong bipartisan support in both houses of Congress and the spirited backing of the White House, this lifesaving program might not get reauthorized.

The Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference has called on the international community to work with leaders in the region to resolve the political crisis in Zimbabwe. In the statement, the bishops called for "a consensus model of government that involves all Zimbabweans" to be established by the international community in cooperation with the Southern African Development Community. While the conference "passionately supports" the "legitimate aspiration" of Zimbabweans to choose their president in a fair election, "the politically motivated violence, intimidation and torture have made a just and fair runoff presidential election virtually impossible," the bishops said.

Mexico has swallowed its doubts and bound itself to the United States through the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA). And having become a democracy, too, Mexico's close partnership with the United States is nowadays based on common values as well as common interests. Or so it thought. Over the past couple of years Mexicans have had to watch as their country has been the victim of some decidedly unfriendly treatment from its neighbour. This began when the American Congress, largely at Republican urging, squashed attempts to regulate migration, opting instead to build a fence along stretches of the Mexican border.

U.S. Catholic leaders have urged Congress to give countries such as Haiti and Bolivia continued preferential consideration when making trade policy. During a June 12 hearing before the U.S. Senate's Finance Committee, Oblate Father Andrew Small, foreign policy adviser for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said existing preferential trade programs for Haiti and Bolivia have helped to provide jobs in the two countries, both of which have staggering unemployment and citizens who live in abject poverty. The USCCB supports the long-term extensions of a global trade policy that gives preference to poor nations for moral and economic reasons.

The numbers are almost too large to fathom, so many Americans stop trying. As bodies pile up in disaster after global disaster, even the most sympathetic souls can turn away. Charities know this as "donor fatigue," but it might be more accurately described as disaster fatigue -- the sense that these events are never-ending, uncontrollable and overwhelming. Experts say it is one reason Americans have contributed relatively little so far to victims of the Myanmar cyclone and China's earthquake. Ironically, the more bad news there is, the less likely people may be to give.

Catholics and Muslims united to help Buddhists on Wednesday, as South Florida religious leaders announced a joint collection to benefit cyclone victims in Myanmar. The collection is set to start this weekend at 18 mosques in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, plus the 120 parishes and missions in the Archdiocese of Miami. Their goal is raising funds for Myanmar, a mainly Buddhist nation hit May 3 by Cyclone Nargis. The United Nations expects the death toll to reach 100,000, and nearly 2 million people need emergency aid.

Chinese priests had to work around disrupted telephone systems and damaged roads as they tried to assess the damage from the May 12 earthquake centered under Sichuan province. Responding to appeals for aid and prayers on Catholic Web sites, Catholics across China have begun donating money and clothes to help survivors, the priests told the Asian church news agency UCA News.