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 institutionalised. 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.

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 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".

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 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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