Million Minutes raises funds for young people

More than 350,000 minutes were pledged by more than 100 people last Monday at the vibrant London launch of Million Minutes, a new Catholic charity to raise money for projects supporting young people.

The focus in 2011 will be raising £1m through a UK-wide sponsored silence around Sunday 8 May, Independent Catholic News reports.

Danny Curtin, a recent President of the Young Christian Workers, and Paschal Uche, the young man who welcomed Pope Benedict XVI on the steps of Westminster Cathedral during 2010's Papal Visit, urged people to download resources from the new website www.millionminutes.org.

Speaking at the launch, Million Minutes champion, Fr Christopher Jamison OSB, presenter of BBC TV programme The Big Silence, said: “this is a great way to bring together two really important and overlooked things: silence and young people”. Fellow champion Margaret Mizen, mother of murdered teenager Jimmy Mizen, said it is important “that young people are supported to play their full role in society”.

She told ICN that Million Minutes will be working with the Jimmy Mizen Foundation to assist their work with young people on the theme of ‘Youth peace on the streets’.

Other themes and partners include ‘Youth homelessness’ with the Cardinal Hume Centre, ‘Youth leadership’ with the Young Christian Workers and ‘Youth overseas’ with Progressio. Catholic cookery expert Delia Smith has already pledged to join the sponsored silence, along with many youth chaplains, teachers, parish priests and young people themselves.

The launch at St Mary Moorfields Church in East London was attended by the directors of youth services in at least six Catholic dioceses and youth workers from Catholic organisations such as Young Christian Workers and Pax Christi.

Bishop George Stack, auxiliary in Westminster and Fr John Dale, Director of Missio, were also there in support. Danny Curtin, one of the founders, summed up with: “A few of us have thought for a while about how best to raise money for young people and raise their profile in the Church as well as in the rest of society and Million Minutes seems to be an idea whose time has come.”

SOURCE

Silence is golden - launch of Million Minutes (Independent Catholic News)

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Pope John’s secretary recalls Vatican II pillars

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Recalling the announcement of Vatican II by Pope John XXIII, Bishop Loris Capovilla, who was the pontiff’s personal secretary, has outlined what he calls “the four pillars” of the Council.

“We know today more than ever who we are and where we are going (Lumen Gentium), what language we should speak and what message we should convey (Dei verbum), how much and how hard we should pray (Sacrosanctum concilium), what attitude we should adopt towards the problems and tragedies of contemporary humanity (Gaudium et spes),” Bishop Capovilla, 95, said on the 52nd anniversary of the announcement of the Council, CNA reports.

“These are the four pillars that sustain the building of renewed pastoral ministry and encourage us to listen to God’s voice, to speak to God as his children, and that oblige us to dialogue with all the components of the human family,” he concluded.

Bishop Loris Capovilla also described how the media announced the Council before Pope John had a chance to inform the cardinals, according to an article published Jan. 25 by L’Osservatore Romano.

He noted that the then-Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Domenico Tardini, wrote the following on his calendar for Jan. 20, 1959: “Important audience. Yesterday afternoon His Holiness spent time in reflection and set in stone the agenda for his pontificate. He came up with three ideas: a Roman Synod, an Ecumenical Council (Vatican II) and an update of the Code of Canon Law. He wants to announce these three things next Sunday to the cardinals after the ceremony for the feast of St. Paul.”

Bishop Capovilla said on that Sunday, Jan. 25, 1959, the Pope got up and prayed, but after celebrating Mass, “He remained kneeling longer than usual.”

He then went to the ceremony for the feast of St Paul at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. The ceremony ran longer than scheduled, and before he could announce the convening of Vatican II, the press embargo on the announcement expired. The council was then “broadcast by the media before the Pope could communicate it to the cardinals,” the article said.

The Pope still addressed the Roman Curia, “with trembling and a bit of excitement,” about his plans to hold “a twofold celebration: a diocesan synod for the city and an ecumenical council for the universal Church.”

Bishop Capovilla said the council was given three clear directives: to promote interior renewal among Catholics, to raise awareness among Christians of the reality of the Church and of the tasks she is charged with carrying out, and to call on bishops, with their priests and the laity, to assume responsibility for the salvation of all mankind.

The bishop said that 52 years after announcing the council and 46 years after its conclusion in 1965, four Popes have continually emphasized that it was “an event willed by God” and led by “an old man who rejuvenated the Church” at a time when many thought John XXIII was going to be a “transitional Pope.”

“If Vatican II has not yet achieved its goals, this means that our conversion is a task yet to be fulfilled,” he added.
SOURCE

Personal secretary of John XXIII recounts Vatican II announcement (Catholic News Agency)

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