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The OSV Daily Takes Blog. News, views, and news analysis from a Catholic perspective from the newspaper editorial team, including John Norton and Greg Erlandson.. Email us with questions, comments or suggestions: feedback@osv.com. Or just comment!
Written by: admin 10/31/2007
Not-so-holy saint Time magazine Mexican immigrants to the United States are bringing with them many religious traditions, including one not sanctioned by the Catholic Church. Statues of Santa Muerte (St. Death) — a skeleton covered in a white, black or red cape who carries a scythe or a globe — are showing up in cities with large Mexican populations, such as Chicago and Los Angeles. Mexican authorities have linked Santa Muerte’s devotees to prostitution, drugs, kidnappings and homicides. The Mexican Church has deemed Santa Muerte's followers devil-worshiping cultists. Now, devotion to Santa Muerte is presenting a challenge to U.S. Church officials, who face an increasingly multicultural society. More info> Myanmar’s boy soldiers The International Herald Tribune Add to the many hardships in Myanmar today one more danger: being a boy. According to a report released Wednesday, the military, struggling to meet recruiting quotas, is buying, kidnapping and terrorizing boys as young as 10 to join its ranks. The report by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based rights group, says military recruiters and civilian brokers scour train stations, bus stations, markets and other public places for boys and coerce them to volunteer. The Compendium of Social Doctrine of the Church affirms that the use of children in battle is “an intolerable crime”: “The use of child soldiers in combat forces of any kind must be stopped, and, at the same time, every possible assistance must be given to the care, education and rehabilitation of those children who have been involved in combat.” Read OSV’s Nov. 11 News Analysis on the Church in Myanmar. More info> Mind readers The New Yorker A British neuroscientist working at a brain-imaging center at the University of Cambridge made an amazing discovery when doing a scan of a patient in a vegetative state — an area of her brain called the fusiform gyrus, which neuroscientists had identified as playing a central role in face recognition, lit up on the scan, showing activity in that part of her brain was the same as “normal” volunteers. The New Yorker shares what other scanning techniques are telling scientists about vegetative patients. More info>
Time magazine
Mexican immigrants to the United States are bringing with them many religious traditions, including one not sanctioned by the Catholic Church. Statues of Santa Muerte (St. Death) — a skeleton covered in a white, black or red cape who carries a scythe or a globe — are showing up in cities with large Mexican populations, such as Chicago and Los Angeles. Mexican authorities have linked Santa Muerte’s devotees to prostitution, drugs, kidnappings and homicides. The Mexican Church has deemed Santa Muerte's followers devil-worshiping cultists. Now, devotion to Santa Muerte is presenting a challenge to U.S. Church officials, who face an increasingly multicultural society. More info>
The International Herald Tribune
Add to the many hardships in Myanmar today one more danger: being a boy. According to a report released Wednesday, the military, struggling to meet recruiting quotas, is buying, kidnapping and terrorizing boys as young as 10 to join its ranks. The report by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based rights group, says military recruiters and civilian brokers scour train stations, bus stations, markets and other public places for boys and coerce them to volunteer. The Compendium of Social Doctrine of the Church affirms that the use of children in battle is “an intolerable crime”: “The use of child soldiers in combat forces of any kind must be stopped, and, at the same time, every possible assistance must be given to the care, education and rehabilitation of those children who have been involved in combat.” Read OSV’s Nov. 11 News Analysis on the Church in Myanmar. More info>
The New Yorker
A British neuroscientist working at a brain-imaging center at the University of Cambridge made an amazing discovery when doing a scan of a patient in a vegetative state — an area of her brain called the fusiform gyrus, which neuroscientists had identified as playing a central role in face recognition, lit up on the scan, showing activity in that part of her brain was the same as “normal” volunteers. The New Yorker shares what other scanning techniques are telling scientists about vegetative patients. More info>
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