Cultures in Conflict, and...

victories in the struggles against euthanasia

On Holy Thursday, Pope John Paul II celebrated the Chrism Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, surrounded by a number of priests. In his homily, the Pope observed that "through the eyes of faith" the many participants in the Eucharist sacrifice recognized that they were "taking part in the great sacrifice of the Cross."

The Pope called on all priests, throughout the world, to use Holy Thursday as an occasion to "renew together the vows we made at our ordination," on this feast of the institution of the priesthood.

Later in the day the Pope went to the basilica of St. John Lateran, for the traditional Holy Thursday service. In his homily there, he emphasized again the centrality of the Mass in the Catholic faith. "There is no Eucharist without the Church," he said, "but at the same time there is no Church without the Eucharist."

For the Holy Father, the schedule for Good Friday has been set over the years: hearing confessions at St. Peter's Basilica in the early afternoon, then the liturgy of Christ's Passion, and in the evening the Way of the Cross in the Coliseum. Pope John Paul has insisted on hearing confessions as an ordinary priest, pointing out (as in his recent letter on the priesthood) that this is an essential part of the priestly ministry. So he spent three hours in the confessional on Good Friday.

The annual Way of the Cross is without doubt one of Rome's most memorable rites; the illuminated Coliseum, the long shadows, and the large crowd add to the solemnity of the event. Each year, the Holy Father has asked a different Church leader to write meditations for the Way of the Cross. Three years ago it was the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the leader of the worldwide Orthodox churches. Last year the honor fell to Cardinal Vinko Puljic of Sarajevo, in a gesture of recognition for the sufferings befalling that city. This year the Pope asked Catholicos Karekin I, the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, to write the meditation. Again the Pope's invitation was in part a gesture of recognition for a suffering people; the Armenian people have suffered throughout this century first through genocide under the Turkish government, then from Soviet repression.

"Wherever man is struck and killed, it is Christ himself who is offended and crucified," the Pope told the faithful at the Coliseum. (It was not clear whether he was reading from the script by Karekin I, or improvising--as he has improvised in previous years, moved by the spirit of the occasion.) "This is the mystery of sorrow," the Holy Father concluded; "the mystery of infinite love."

The Holy Father sounded the same theme at the Easter vigil services, reminding his congregation that "God hears the cry of the poor and guides them toward peace." There was a special significance, in this context, in the composition of the group of 10 catechumens he baptized: 2 from Albania, 2 from Zaire, 2 from mainland China, 2 from Taiwan, 1 from Cape Verde, and 1 from Benin. Albania and Zaire are of course suffering through bloody turmoil; while faithful Catholics suffer severe repression in China. Benin is the homeland of Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, who--along with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger--concelebrated the liturgy with Pope John Paul.

The "cry of the poor" was a theme sounded once again on Sunday when the Holy Father delivered his annual Easter message. That message--which preceded the traditional "Urbi et Orbi" blessing-- was delivered in 57 different language, and broadcast to a television audience in 65 different countries. The Pope called upon world leaders to work for peace, especially in Africa and in the Holy Land, as well as in Albania and in the Balkans. He made a special plea for the release of the hostages still being held by terrorists in Lima, and for persecuted Christians everywhere.

The newly enhanced Vatican presence on the Internet has proved an enormous success in its earliest days. In the first three days of the "official" Vatican presence on the World Wide Web--immediately following its introduction Easter Sunday--there were nearly three million "hits," or efforts to gain access to the site.

Among those visiting the Vatican site, the most popular feature was news about the Holy Father--a topic which accounted for 32 percent of the visits. The Roman Curia attracted 15 percent of the visitors' attention, the press office 14 percent, and information about the celebration of the Jubilee Year attracted 9 percent of the Vatican's visitors from cyberspace.

On Holy Saturday, a bomb attempt the Jewish synagogue in Rome was foiled by the quick reaction of Italian police. Ibrahim Farahat, an Egyptian national with a history of emotional instability, threw two bottles full of gasoline at the door of the synagogue; he was quickly arrested by police guarding the building.

Franco Pavoncello, the vice-president of the Jewish community in Rome, hastened to say that the attack was "the work of a deranged man," rather than a concerted terrorist effort. He also made a point of "thanking the forces of order, who intervened immediately."

Farahat, who has apparently lived in Rome illegally for two years without any fixed address, failed in his bombing effort. The front doors of the synagogue were barely singed.

The pharmaceutical company that developed the controversial abortion pill RU-486 announced in April that it would give up all patent rights to the drug. The announcement came in response to protests by American pro-life groups.

The giant Hoechst corporation, whose French subsidiary Roussel-Uclaf developed the "abortion pill," transferred all but the US patent rights to RU-486 to former Roussel-Uclaf chairman Dr. Edouard Sakiz. The firm "no longer has the means to be able to withstand the boycott threats" from American pro-life groups, Hoechst spokesman Catherine Euvrard told reporters in Paris. Hoechst had came under a boycott threat from American pro-lifers who threatened to organize a boycott of Allegra, an allergy medication which Hoechst had recently introduced in the United States.

Sakiz, who received the patent rights from Hoechst free of charge, said he is creating a company to take over manufacturing and distribution of RU-486, and said all profits would go toward medical research. When asked if he would cooperate with the US patent holder, the Population Council, Sakiz replied: "Certainly not."

The remarkable progress of a man who had been described as living in a permanent vegetative state (PVS) has been a significant boost for pro-life campaigners, who are fighting to halt Britain's slide toward euthanasia--a slide which is expected to accelerate under Labor government.

Andrew Devine, 30, suffered brain damage after being injured in the 1989 tragedy at a Hillsborough football stadium--the same incident which caused brain injuries to Tony Bland, who died in 1993 after a ruling by the House of Lords allowed his doctor to deprive him of food and drink. After almost eight years of care by his parents and a leading medical specialist at his family home in Liverpool, Devine is slowly emerging from the coma which had imprisoned him.

Devine's mother Hilary and his father Stanley, who gave up his in order to care for his son, said in a public statement: "Andrew began to emerge from the vegetative state about five years after his diagnosis, and has continued to improve in his ability to communicate at a simple level, using a touch-sensitive buzzer switch. His ability to recover further is unknown."

Dr. Keith Andrews, the director of London's Royal Hospital for Disability, has been managing Devine's care. He said he knew of no other case in the world in which someone emerged from a persistent vegetative state as late as five years after the diagnosis. He added, "Inevitably, it is going to cause concern in some people's minds, and for very good reasons."

Dr. Andrews cautioned, however, against drawing a direct parallel between the Devine case and that of Tony Bland. In the Bland case--which led to a number of similar court applications to end the lives of unconscious patients--it was claimed that the young man was brain-dead, with his brain tissue turned into a watery mass. A post-mortem disproved this contention, but Alan Bland, the father of the victim, continues to believe the earlier diagnosis and to insist that the withdrawal of food and water was the best course for his son. At the time of the judgment by the House of Lords, the Catholic Diocese of Leeds (in which the Bland family lived) said no one should criticize the family or doctors for their decision. On the other hand, the diocese condemned pro-life activists for mounting a vigil at the hospital during the nine days it took Bland to die after his feeding tubes were disconnected.

Meanwhile Scotland's Cardinal Thomas Winning has consolidated his position as the Church's leading pro-life champion in the British Isles. In a full-page article for the mass-circulation Daily Mail, he pointed to the latest victim of the Bland precedent, a woman known only as "Miss D."

Although she does not entirely fit the PVS criteria laid down by the medical profession, England's leading family judge has given permission for Miss D to be deprived of food and water. The decision comes despite the fact that Miss D reacts to stimuli and can follow moving objects with her eyes.

Said Cardinal Winning:

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has been making special efforts during the election campaign to alert voters to the danger that advance directives--that is living wills--may be given binding legal standing by the next parliament. A proposal to that effect was rejected by the outgoing Conservative government, but a Labor government would be sympathetic to the demands of the euthanasia campaigners. SPUC's director of political development, Phyllis Bowman, pointed out that the Voluntary Euthanasia Society was allowed a prominent stand at the last Labor Party conference, while pro-life organizations were banned, despite vigorous protests, even from advertising in the conference program.

If the Labor Party wins the British election as expected, a significant liberalization of laws and regulations regarding homosexuality can be expected.

Labor's shadow Home Secretary, Jack Straw, has said that the ban on homosexuals in the armed forces is unfair, and will be changed. It is reported that the shadow Defense Secretary, David Clark, agrees. So it can be expected that there would be a vote in the House of Commons on the matter--although probably not during the first year of the new parliament--after a Labor win.

The issue of homosexuals in the military has been brought to the fore by a high court judge who has referred the case of Terry Perkins to the European Court of Justice. Perkins was discharged from the navy for being a homosexual. The case may turn on whether the policy calling for "no discrimination" on grounds of sex implies that there should be no discrimination on grounds of sexual preference. If he decision goes in favor of Perkins, there could be weighty implications; over 2,000 men and women have been dismissed from the armed forces over the past 20 years because of homosexuality. A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense said that it holds to the old interpretation of the rule, and will argue its case for the status quo on grounds that the policy increases the effectiveness of troops in combat. No ruling is expected for 18 months.

In a related development, Caroline Meagher, who was forced out of the Royal Military Police for being a lesbian--after years of service in which her duties sometimes included spying on other lesbians--has denounced the methods the services use to track down homosexuals. Suspects would be interrogated until they broke down and confessed, she said.

The same issue burns within the Church of England. Dr. John Austin Baker, the retired Bishop of Salisbury, was prepared to call in an April lecture for "an authentic Christian homosexual ethic," and the acceptance of actively gay clergy. A report in the Observer said his lecture would anger the Archbishop of Canterbury, and indeed that the issue could split the Anglican communion. Members of a reform group among the clergy say they will leave the church if the rule is relaxed. But in the face of claims that as many as 2,000 of the 11,000 Anglican clergy may be homosexual, Bishop Baker is expected to argue that a fresh approach may offer a way to escape an impasse.

Meanwhile the Boy Scout movement has for the first time approved the recruitment of homosexuals as leaders, dismissing the argument that homosexuals are more likely to be pedophiles.

Ireland's first Jewish judge was appointed to the Supreme Court in March, becoming the first non-Christian to serve in that post.

Justice Henry Barron joins seven other Irish Supreme Court judges. All the others are Catholic men except Justice Susan Denham--who, at 52, is the youngest member of the Court and the only Protestant.

Barron previously served 15 years as a High Court judge. Said to be an intellectual liberal, the judge has a background in commercial law. He recently granted Ireland's first divorce to an elderly American businessman--who then married a woman , and died shortly after that remarriage.

Three Catholic and two Protestant churches were burned down in Northern Ireland in the space of one week in early April, as the troubled area prepared for the beginning of "marching season" when Loyalist Protestant groups march to demonstrate their views, often parading through Catholic neighborhoods. "It's extremists that are responsible for this, there is no doubt," Father Kieron MacOscar said after the destruction of the 226-year-old Mullavilly church at Tandragee.

Archbishop Sean Brady, the Primate of Ireland, was joined at the site of the fire by Anglican Archbishop Robin Eames to denounce the fires. "Once you attack a church, the center of community life like that, you are bringing sectarianism to its lowest point and that is why I am very concerned about our future," Archbishop Eames said.

Last year's marching season was marked by violent protests and rioting as Protestant groups tried to march through Catholic areas and Catholics tried to stop them. The first march of this year's season in Belfast was voluntarily re-routed to avoid antagonizing Catholics.

A Dutch doctor was charged with murder in March for allegedly breaking euthanasia guidelines when he administered a fatal injection to a patient last year.

Dr. Sippe Schat could face up to 20 years in prison for giving Dora Brattinga a fatal dose of insulin last April. Although thousands of patients are killed every year under the euthanasia guidelines, the practice is still technically illegal. Doctors have traditionally been given immunity if they follow those guidelines.

However, prosecutors said Schat broke those guidelines in Brattinga's case. Under those rules, the doctor should be able to provide proof that the patient asked to be killed, seek a second opinion from another physician, and notify the coroner of the circumstances. The prosecutors said Schat originally reported the death as occurring from natural causes and failed to seek a second opinion or provide proof of Brattinga's desire to be killed.

Critics of the Netherlands' euthanasia guidelines pointed to the case as evidence of abuse within the system. Many doctors are alleged to practice euthanasia without reporting the cases, and some even kill patients without being asked.

The European Parliament on April 8 published a list of European Union nations which have violated provisions of a new European human-rights convention. The list included a citation of Ireland for that country's laws against abortion, and Austria for its minor restrictions on homosexuality.

The Parliament's report condemned Great Britain, Belgium, and Greece for not banning the death penalty; singled out Greece for restricting meetings of ethnic, religious, and other minorities; and blasted Ireland for banning the publication of any material supporting abortion. Austria was criticized for setting a higher age of consent for homosexual activity than for heterosexual activity.

For the first time, the Parliament also demanded minimum guarantees of income, social protection, medical treatment, housing, and a clean environment as part of its definition of basic human rights.

A Franciscan monastery in central Bosnia was damaged in a grenade attack, just one week before Pope John Paul is due to visit Sarajevo.

The monastery of Kraljeva Sutjeska, just 40 miles from Sarajevo, was damaged by three rifle grenades fired at the building, according to UN officials. A policeman was injured in the attack, and all of the windows in the centuries-old monastery were shattered. This attack was the latest in a series of attacks on Catholic and Muslim houses of worship since early March. Police speculate the attacks were organized by extremists trying to prevent the Holy Father's visit.

Poland's parliament voted in March to approve the country's first constitution formulated since the fall of Communism in 1989. The governing party, made up largely of ex-Communist, included enough compromises to satisfy the powerful Catholic opposition parties, and President Aleksander Kwasniewski promised to sign the law before it is submitted for a public vote on May 25.

The Solidarity party had proposed amendments in the constitution that would recognize that divine laws take precedence over man-made laws, but the proposals were rejected. The final version recognizes God as the source of truth, justice, good, and beauty, but adds that atheists may find those values in other sources.

Catholics prevailed with proposals that ban same-sex marriages and keep religion classes in public schools. In another compromise, this time on the subject of abortion, the document guarantees "legal protection of every man's life" without specifying whether that life begins at conception or birth.

The compromise language in the constitution, watering down the strongest demands from both right and left, prompted former prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki to declare the new charter as "not ideal, but not bad."

Shortly after the official approval, however, the parliamentary Constitution Committee announced that it will recommend an amendment to the new charter allowing for homosexual "marriages." The constitution as it stands would define marriage as a heterosexual union under the legal protection of the government; the amendment would strike out the word "heterosexual." The committee proposed its amendment after receiving a letter from a Warsaw-based group which claimed to represent "Christian homosexuals and lesbians," and which complained that parliament was working with the Polish bishops to restrain the civil rights of homosexuals.

Representatives of various Christian denominations have established a new organization: the Belarus Christian Association for Religious Liberty. The association was formed at a meeting of representatives from over 650 parishes, and claims to be open to "all Christian confessions and churches without exception." However, the appeal issued by the group is signed only by representatives of Protestant groups; representatives of the Catholic and Orthodox churches did not attend the founding meeting.

The appeal issued by the new group proclaims that its main aim is "the confirmation and spreading of the principles of religious freedom, and also the protection, by all legal means, of the rights of every person to worship God according to his personal choice." The group also mentioned its plan for "awakening the spirituality of the nation."

But the appeal has a darker subtext. Recently there have been reports that a new law may be introduced placing new curbs "non-traditional" religions. The report--first mentioned in the small independent newspaper Pahonia--cited the Belarusian Orthodox Church as the source of the new proposal. The proposal was said to recommend restrictions on the "non-traditional" religions, which would include most Protestant denominations, and banning "destructive" faiths which undermine national unity. Such "destructive" groups might include Quakers (who protest the nation's policy of compulsory military service) and a variety of Oriental sects. It was not clear whether the proposal would include any restraints on the Eastern-rite Catholic churches, which are sometimes cited as obstacles to national cultural unity.

Russian Orthodox church leaders in the northern Caucasus have appealed to President Boris Yeltsin and to local political leaders to take action against what they term "terrorism" committed by what they term "people lacking piety." The council of bishops of the Stavrepol and Baju dioceses complain that these "impious" persons take hostages and beat up innocent people in order "to intimidate Russian Orthodox Christian people to make them leave places where their forefathers lived for centuries, toiled and spilt their blood, and where their parents' graves lie."

This "godlessness, lack of spirituality and lack of rectitude" has escalated, not only in the breakaway Republic of Chechnya but also in neighboring areas of the Caucasus. During last winter, "more than 10" Orthodox clerics were the victims of such attacks, and the criminals remain unpunished, the bishops say.

The Caucasus is a region where the Christian and Islamic traditions have developed in sometimes uneasy coexistence for centuries. There are two Christian states in the area with their own churches: Armenia in 310 AD became the first nation in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion, while Georgia has its own Orthodox church independent from Russia. But during the 19th century, when the Russian empire was establishing its rule in the Caucasus, the Russian Orthodox Church was viewed there as a tool of Tsarist imperialism, while the greatest of the anti-Russian resistance leaders, Shamyl, was a Muslim. Attacks on Russian Orthodox priests and faithful even if committed by Muslims, may well be motivated not so much by religious zeal as by politics.

The customs service of Uzbekistan recently confiscated 25,000 New Testaments, a gift from the Russian Bible Society to its counterpart in Uzbekistan. According to the head of the Russian Bible Society, Anatoly Rudenko, the Uzbek customs and religious affairs authorities view the sending of the New Testaments as "missionary activity," and therefore, "banned by the country's laws."

The "traditional" faith of Uzbekistan, like the other Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union, is Islam. However, like all republics of the former Soviet Union, it has a sizable Russian community, whose own traditional faith is of course Russian Orthodox Christianity. According to Rudenko, the Bibles were intended for these Russians and, in any case, Uzbek law does permit citizens to acquire and use religious literature in any language. Hence, he maintains, the confiscation was either "an unfortunate error" or else a deliberate violation by the customs authorities of Uzbekistan's law on freedom of religion. The Uzbek Bible Society has appealed to the courts to rule on the fate of the impounded Bibles.

A bill before Israel's parliament would declare that conversions to Judaism in Israel can only be recognized if performed by an Orthodox rabbi. The bill follows warnings by Orthodox rabbis that the more liberal sects were exporting their "alien ideology" to Israel. Official recognition of conversions is essential for Jews who wish to be married or divorced in Israel, where only Orthodox rabbis are officially sanctioned to perform the ceremonies.

In North America--where 80 percent of all Jews belong to the Reform or Conservative movements--the concerns raised by the introduction of that measure in Israel were intensified when an American rabbis' group accused two other branches of Judaism of misleading their followers. The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada issued its statement saying the Reform and Conservatives branches "are not Judaism at all."

The tensions that surround new Israeli housing plans in East Jerusalem are threatening to derail plans for the celebration of the Jubilee in the Holy City, according to the president of an organizing committee there.

Bishop Kamal Hanns Bathish of Jericho, a Palestinian member of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, complained in the Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera, "The Israelis have practically isolated Jerusalem from the rest of the Holy Land. The crisis in the peace process is more and more profound. If things get worse, we might have to consider the possibility of pulling the city out of the Jubilee ceremonies."

Bishop Bathish pointed out that the threat to the Jubilee ceremonies could have crucial economic overtones for Israel as well. If there are no Jubilee ceremonies in Jerusalem, he said, the number of tourists visiting the Holy Land would probably remain at its usual level: about 800,000 a year. But if pilgrims follow the Pope's invitation to visit first Rome and then Jerusalem in the years of the Jubilee, Israel could expect to receive 10 to 15 million visitors in the year 2000.

The Palestinian bishop was highly critical of the Netanyahu government, which he said "has practically closed Jerusalem." He complained that Christians from Bethlehem are stopped by soldiers when they go to Jerusalem to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Bishop Bathish also pointed out that the 140,000 Christians living in Israel, and especially the 40,000 in the occupied territory of the West Bank, are caught between the hostility of the Israeli government toward all Palestinians and the suspicions of their Muslim neighbors that Christians might betray the Arab cause. These tensions, he said, are most pronounced in the region around Bethlehem and Hebron.

Finally, the bishop reported that relations between the Catholic Church and the Israeli government have cooled in recent months. A proposed meeting between the Vatican nuncio and the Israeli foreign minister was indefinitely postponed, he revealed.

The head of the Coptic Church of Egypt, Pope Shenouda, has forbidden members of his faith to visit Jerusalem, until such time as "all of us--all Arabs, Muslims, and Christians"--can go there together. The immediate reason for his ban is a dispute with the Israeli government over the ownership of the Sultan Coptic Monastery in Jerusalem. But even if this were resolved, he told a reporter from the newspaper El Arabi, the ban would still hold until the problems of the "full national rights of the Palestinian people and peace in the whole Middle East" are resolved.

The Coptic Church is currently under pressure from militant Muslims, and Pope Shenouda's ban--which was accompanied by strident condemnations of the Jewish state--may have been motivated by political rather than religious considerations. His ban on travel to Jerusalem does not seem to involve excommunication--or, indeed, any religious sanction. He simply said that if any member of his flock visits the ancient city, this would "not be acceptable..."

The Vatican has established diplomatic relations with Libya, despite objections by the United States and despite the commitment of the country's ruler, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, to his own brand of militant Islam.

While carefully avoiding any direct criticism of the Holy See, officials at the US State Department observed that they would continue to recommend international sanctions against Libya, accusing Gadddafi's government of supporting terrorist acts including the bombing of international air flights. But one Libyan cleric shot back by saying that if the Vatican refused diplomatic ties with any government which violated human rights, then the United States itself would be ineligible because of its promotion of intrusive birth-control programs in Third World nations.

According to spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the Vatican's only interest in establishing diplomatic ties is to satisfy the spiritual needs of the estimated 50,000 Catholics who live in Libya, along with a growing number of foreign workers engaged in engineering projects. There will now be two bishops in the country, serving the dioceses of Benghazi and Tripoli.

The negotiations leading up to the establishment of relations, Navarro-Valls disclosed, had lasted three years. During those talks, he added, "Libya has undertaken or begun to undertake religious freedom, and this cannot but favor the Catholic community in Libya."

Colonel Gaddafi himself used the establishment of diplomatic ties as an opportunity to present himself as a friend of Christians. Interviewed on Italian television, he promised state help for Christian communities to repair dilapidated church buildings since "for us, churches are places where the name of God is invoked, like mosques."

Archbishop Jose Sebastian Laboa, who will be the first papal envoy to Libya, is not stranger to politically sensitive appointments; he was the nuncio in Panama at the time of the American invasion there, and handled delicate negotiations when Panama's President Noriega sought asylum in the Vatican embassy.

More than 8O civilians were murdered by suspected Islamic extremists in a rampage of terror early in April, according to media reports. Most of the victims had their throats slit in the attacks while others, including children and women, were decapitated with a chainsaw, according to witnesses cited by newspapers in Algiers. The reports have not been independently confirmed and the government has remained silent on the subject.

Fifty-two of the victims, including women, children, and elderly, were reportedly killed on April 5 in the village of Thalit, 50 miles south of Algiers. The papers said a gang of 30 to 40 men ordered residents out of their homes and proceeded to slaughter them. More victims were killed the same night in the villages of Harbil, Sidi Naamane, and in the region of Bouira, southeast of Algiers.

The next day the village of Amroussa was raided by another unit led by a leader of the radical Islamic Armed Group, and between 15 and 17 people were killed, witnesses told the Liberté newspaper. Among them were three children under the age of three and seven women. The victims' homes were then torched, the witnesses said.

After battling Islamic terror for several years, Algeria's military government finally announced recently it would hold general elections on June 5. Thousands of people, including Algerian citizens, foreign workers, tourists and journalists, have been murdered in the violence which erupted after the regime canceled the results of previous elections, widely believed to have been won by an Islamic party.

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), an umbrella organization of Christian denominations, has warned the head of state, General Sani Abacha, not to try to convert himself from a military ruler into a civilian president.

Abacha seized power in a military coup in November 1993. Presidential elections are now scheduled for next year, but there is a widespread belief that Abacha will stand as a candidate. He himself has gone out of his way to encourage that belief, observing in February that for a military ruler to become a civilian president is "not new in Africa."

CAN cautioned that, in Nigeria's current political situation, for Abacha to stand for election would be "fraught with perilous and far-reaching consequences, which will drastically impede the progress to healthy democracy and shake political stability at its roots." The group also warned the Nigerian military government not to join the D-8, a group of mainly Islamic states, pointing out that the international group showed no commitment to democracy.

Without ever actually mentioning Sudan, Bishop Giuseppe Bertello--the head of a delegation from the Holy See to the Human Rights Commission in Geneva--denounced the practices of that African country at a March meeting of the international body.

In remarks delivered in Geneva on March 21, Bishop Bertello reported that "in an African capital," government authorities have given the orders to demolish 25 Catholic schools, ordering bulldozers to destroy the buildings. Those schools, the bishop added, had been opened "to all youngsters without regard to race or religion." But the government had claimed that the schools must be destroyed in order to carry out new urban-development plans. The government also seized all school property, confiscating textbooks and destroying other material, Bishop Bertello reported, and complaints lodged with the government were ignored.

The Human Rights Commission meets each year to discuss the application of international accords calling for the end to all forms of intolerance and discrimination based on religious convictions."

Crowds of Indian Christians demonstrated in New Delhi on March 19, demanding that jobs and education opportunities be set aside for them.

As the descendants of lower caste Hindus who converted to Christianity, the protesters, who call themselves dalits or oppressed, were in the past denied many opportunities under India's caste system. A 1993 Supreme Court ruling declared that, in order to remedy that past discrimination, almost half of all government jobs should be reserved for lower castes. A similar situation gives dalits preference for seats at government-funded universities, but excludes Christians on the grounds that--since Christianity never imposed a caste system, adherents to the religion cannot have suffered discrimination. Thus converts to Christianity, whose ancestors suffered under the caste system, have no legal recourse. Dalits account for 60 percent of India's 21 million Christians.

In the March protest, Christian dalits called upon the government to fulfill a campaign promise to give them equal legal status. Protesters marched to within a half mile of parliament, but were turned back by police barricades. The rally ended peacefully.

One week later, Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda in a "frank" chat with a Christian delegation admitted that he is in a "difficult position right now" regarding to their demand for an end to the discriminatory policy.

"I can still promise you we will do it. Right now, do you want me lose the vote in the parliament?" Gowda asked a ten-member delegation of the All India Christian People's Forum (AICPF) when they met with him at his residence.

The prime minister said the bill to accede to the Christian demand needs a two-thirds majority in parliament, which his government cannot muster because he sits at the head of a complex coalition, and would need the support of 13 different parties to achieve such an overwhelming majority. However, some legal experts say the bill to help Christians would need only a simple majority--suggesting either that the prime minister has been misled, or that he is bluffing to evade Christian complaints.

Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo of Dili, the leader of contested East Timor's Catholic population, allayed fears of the faithful that the erection of a new diocese would dilute their unity, the official Indonesian Antara news agency reported on March 16.

"The division in East Timor's one diocese is not meant to divide the East Timorese ... On the other contrary it is meant to improve the faith of the local people," Bishop Belo was quoted as saying. The bishop was a co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, along with exiled independent activist Jose Ramos-Horta.

Bishop Belo's remarks were made at a welcoming reception for Bishop Basilio Do Nascimento, the apostolic administrator of the diocese of Bacau, who was appointed by Pope John Paul when he created the diocese earlier this year. At the installation of the new bishop, the official representative of the Holy See was not the papal nuncio to Indonesia--who was reported to be ill--but Archbishop Maurilio Gouveia of Evera, Portugal. The substitution, which raised eyebrows among Indonesian government officials in Jakarta, may have reflected Vatican sensitivity to Timorese claims of independence from Indonesia.

East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, was invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and annexed the following year. Mainly Catholic East Timor has resisted the annexation, supported by United Nations resolutions condemning the actions.

A US-based group that monitors Communist China's treatment of Catholics reported on March 24 that a bishop in the underground Church has become the target of renewed persecution.

Bishop Joseph Fan Zhongliang had his home ransacked on March 4 by police who seized some of his belongings, including Bibles and other religious materials, according to the Cardinal Kung Foundation of Stamford, Connecticut.

The bishop had spent more than 20 years in prison for refusing to renounce the authority of the pope over the Catholic Church in China. Following the rise to power in 1949, the Communist Party decreed that all religions in the country must sever ties without outside authority and pledge fealty to official churches, joining the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. Many Catholics refused Beijing's demands and continued to worship illegally. Bishop Fan is administrator of the archdiocese of Shanghai.

Shortly after the bishop's home was raided--and even as US officials visited Shanghai for Easter services-- Communist police also raided the home of a Catholic priest active in the underground Church. Police burst into the home of Father Zen Caijun on Holy Saturday night, and by the time they left on Easter Sunday morning, they had confiscated religious items, money, and electronic equipment. The group also said it had received reports from around China that many Catholics were unable to celebrate Easter because of government oppression.

Ironically, US Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich had attended Easter services at the officially-sanctioned Shanghai Community Church. Gingrich was on a visit to China to help determine official US policy regarding trade with China and human-rights issues, including religious freedom.

South Koreans have set aside their traditional antipathy for the Communist nation to their north, and have begun donating millions of dollars to relieve a devastating famine.

Even as memories fade from a North Korean submarine incursion last year that included images of secret agents racing through the countryside pursued by police, South Korean citizens have begun to donate to relief efforts. "After the submarine infiltration, the donations stopped," said Rhee Jong-geun, spokesman for the South Korean Red Cross. "But now the money is pouring in."

North Korea is suffering from a famine of staggering size, the enormity of which is highlighted by the normally reclusive North Korean government's open acceptance of outside charity.

Churches have been at the forefront of charity efforts, with pastors urging their flock to skip a meal a week and donate the money saved. The Red Cross said it sent a shipment of $1 million dollars worth of food and seeds to North Korea early in April.

The bishops of the Philippines have denounced a movement to allow President Fidel Ramos to seek a second term in office, in contradiction to constitutional provisions which allow only one term for a president.

A statement by the bishops' conference, read in churches during Masses on April 6, warned that such a move to circumvent the intentions of the framers of the constitution could provoke street protests and destabilize the nation. "Have we become so poor and so dependent on one man that we can no longer continue with our progress unless he remains as president?" the statement asked.

Ramos was elected to his six-year term in 1992 and has stated publicly that he will step down at the end of his term next year. But several private groups have begun a petition drive to force a referendum to decide whether Ramos can run again, with various news media reporting that presidential aides are involved in the drive. The Supreme Court ruled last month that there is no provision for the proposed referendum in the constitution, but supporters have begun a public campaign with the slogan, "Let the people decide."

Australia's federal parliament voted March 24 to overturn a law that legalized doctor-assisted suicide, less than a year after the measure was enacted.

The Senate voted to approve a repeal measure which had already been passed by the House of Representatives. The parliament invoked a legal provision that allows the federal government to overturn laws passed by the territorial governments. The Northern Territory's Rights of the Terminally Ill Act was invoked in the deaths of four people who have died since last July.

The law was condemned by a coalition of religious leaders, aborigines, and Australia's medical society. Native leaders said their people might avoid medical care if the law remained in force under the mistaken impression they might be killed by doctors.

Prime Minister John Howard supported overturning the law, although he told members of his party to vote according to their consciences. "I think there have got to be some absolutes in life, and respect for human life is one of those," he had told parliament members last December. "I know that's not a popular view of a lot of people if you read the polls, but that's my personal view."

The repeal effort had sparked an emotional debate across Australia. In an open letter to senators, one unidentified woman said she was afraid the Northern Territory law legalizing doctor-assisted suicide would be overturned before she could take advantage of the law. The woman, who said she was terminally ill and was one of two people recently certified as eligible for doctor-assisted suicide, read the letter on Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. She said she was not ready to commit suicide, but felt pressure to kill herself before the repeal measure went into effect.

"To assist her before then means that I have to really end her life on the basis of the fact that the main consideration is a vote in the Senate, not her pain and suffering. Now that's unethical," said Dr. Philip Nitschke, Australia's leading suicide advocate and the woman's adviser.

An Argentine human rights group said in March that it plans to file formal accusations against a former papal nuncio to Argentina of complicity in atrocities committed during military rule between 1976 and 1983.

Mothers of Plaza de Mayo told Reuters News Service that they travel to Italy and charge Cardinal Pio Laghi, currently prefect of the Pontifical Congregation for Catholic Education, of cooperating with Argentina's former military regime during the so-called "Dirty War." "On May 20 we will file charges against former nuncio Pio Laghi for

his direct participation in the illegal repression in Argentina," Mothers' leader Hebe de Bonafini told Reuters. "We'll do this together with Italian lawyers and human-rights groups."

Cardinal Laghi was reported to have been originally named on a list of 1,351 people thought to be connected to the repression of the military government. The list was compiled by the National Commission on the Disappearance of People. But the cardinal's name did not appear in the final, published version of the list.

More than 70 experts on child abuse concluded at a March meeting in Buenos Aires that the problem of child prostitution is on the rise in Latin America primarily because of the crisis in the family.

The experts, gathered by the international law-enforcement consortium Interpol to analyze ways to fight child prostitution, also concluded that the amounts provided by governments in the region to prevent or punish child abuse "are ridiculous."

According to Agnes Fournier, coordinator of an Interpol task group working in the field, "people tend to simplify the problem by saying that child abuse and child prostitution is increasing because of careless nations, but we have to say that the first problem is the crisis in the family as a nurturing and protecting institution."

"Children without the safe environment of a family are easy victims of the abusers, especially pedophiles," she said. According to Fournier, there are around 100,000 Latin American children involved in child prostitution, most of them in Brazil and the Caribbean.

Miguel Chamorro, regional bureau chief of Interpol, concurred that the crisis of the family has to be seen as "cause number one in this problem," but said that "another cause is the lack of interest by politicians for children, simply because they are not seen as a politically significant group."

Cardinal Lucas Moreira Neves, president of the Brazilian bishops' conference, made a dramatic demand to "end the barbaric brutality" of police forces, after the broadcast of a videotaped beating shocked public opinion.

Early in April, television viewers all over Brazil were shocked by a home video which showed a group of policemen from Sao Paulo torturing and killing a man who had been arrested in a local shanty town, and who offered no resistance. The anonymous owner of the tape also recorded scenes taken at a nearby freeway were laughing policemen beat undocumented workers.

While President Jose Henrique Cardoso promised a "thorough investigation and immediate actions" to clean up the police forces, new images of police brutality again shocked Brazilians. This time, a picture from a local newspaper showed a line of 20 meninos de rua--street children-- in the city of Manaus tied up together in a row, with their T-shirts used as handcuffs, and walked several blocks to be escorted into a police truck. Paradoxically, the arrest was part of a "cleansing" campaign launched by the police before the arrival of a high-ranked official from the Ministry of Justice, who in turn was coming to Manaus in response to charges by Catholic missionaries that child prostitution in Manaus had been covered up by local authorities.

Cardinal Moreira Neves said, "We are all shocked, ashamed of being Brazilians, because such systematic violations of human dignity show how much like animals we can become when we are not guided by solid moral principles." He recognized that "the system as a hole cannot be censured by this episodes," but added that "these cases are too frequent, and something urgent and drastic has to be done."

A Catholic advocacy group working with Indian tribes in the Amazon basin has warned that recent changes in the administration of Indian reservations are having disastrous consequences for Indians.

The Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) said municipal leaders in the Raposa/Serra do Sol reservation were planning "illegal" dam projects and were constructing roads on Indian lands, following a government decision to allow non-Indian cities to remain after the area was declared an Indian reservation. The constitution states indigenous lands must be vacated by non-Indians.

CIMI said municipal public-works plans threaten land outside those municipalities, and opposition from the Indian Council of Raposa/Serra do Sol has resulted in death threats against council members. "All of this has resulted from the unfortunate (decision) of Justice Minister Nelson Jobim, who reshaped and cut back the indigenous area, leaving space for small towns set up by wildcat gold and diamond miners," CIMI said in a March statement.

Brazilian Indians have complained in recent years that foreign developers are acquiring title to their tribal lands--often, it seems, by bribing public officials. The conflicting claims have often led to violence in remote villages, with government officials unable or unwilling to help the Indians fend off interlopers.

After weeks without apparent progress, a sense of optimism prevailed during Holy Week among the negotiators in Lima seeking to end the hostage crisis at the Japanese embassy. The change in mood came after Archbishop Juan Luis Cipriani met with Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori and emerged speaking of a "positive and hopeful trend." But Easter came and passed without the breakthrough some observers had begun to expect.

Archbishop Cipriani met with President Fujimori hoping to convince him that he should accept the terms of a final agreement with the MRTA terrorists, as it has been drafted by a negotiating commission. At the same moment, Canadian ambassador Anthony Vincent and Red Cross representative Michael Minnig sat down with MRTA leader Nestor Cerpa Cartolini to discuss the same plan. The latter meeting was held at the Japanese Embassy, where Cerpa and his MRTA colleagues still hold 72 hostages.

The hostage crisis had entered into a gloomy stage a week earlier, when Archbishop Cipriani, in the name of the negotiating team, said that "we are close to reaching the limit of (our) possibilities unless positions are softened in both sides." The climate of pessimism was intensified by a rumor that Fujimori had set April 1 as a deadline for a peaceful solution--after which a military assault on the embassy would become the first option.

Cardinal Augusto Vargas Alzamora of Lima, the president of the Peruvian bishops' conference, used a television interview program to denounce the tendency to strike aggressive public positions, and issued a fervent appeal for calm, saying that "if both the government and the MRTA are truly willing to find a peaceful solution, they should both try to avoid any kind of provocative language." Cardinal Vargas added: "The minds, and not the guts, should prevail in building an agreement. This is the moment to keep quiet and to work for peace." His pleas were at least partially answered when President Fujimori ruled out the possibility of a direct assault on the embassy to oust the MRTA.

On Palm Sunday, the negotiating commission--which includes Cipriani, Canadian ambassador Anthony Vincent, and Red Cross delegate Michael Minnig--drafted a six-point proposal as the basis for an agreement between the government and MRTA. The critical issue, on which both sides have been inflexible, was the release of MRTA prisoners. MRTA leader Nestor Cerpa has always insisted that all of his 420 comrades in Peruvian jails should be set freed, while the government said that the release of prisoners was "out of the question."

According to "reliable sources" quoted by the daily La Republica, the

commission proposed an intermediate solution which would consist of the release of those MRTA members who have received unusually heavy sentences for their crimes. Presented in that light, the release could be explained by the government not as a surrender to terrorist demands but as a "correction" of a judicial "mistake." Archbishop Cipriani then revealed that "the negotiations are back to a constructive and hopeful trend." He declined to elaborate, beyond a simple statement: "I can only say that thing are going well-- quite well."

Peru's Congress has repealed a 1924 law that allowed rapists to go free if they married their victims.

The measure passed Congress by a vote of 86 to 1 although many congressmen who opposed the bill abstained. The old law allowed an alleged rapist to remain free from prosecution if he persuaded his victim to marry him, and gang rapists would also go free if just one of them married the victim. Women's groups say dozens of Peruvian men take advantage of the law every year to escape prosecution for rape, particularly in poor and rural areas.

The only congressman to vote against the bill pointed out that under the old law women were free to refuse marriage and file charges against the rapist. "The text (of the bill) damages the dignity of the Peruvian woman," said Xavier Barron of the Popular Christian Party. At least 15 other countries in Latin America have similar laws, which are now expected to come under debate.

The Peruvian bishops' conference in March launched a campaign to provide books and school supplies for the large numbers of poor students in the country.

Bishop Luis Bambaren, secretary-general of the bishops' conference, said in a March 17 press conference that the campaign, to be held under the motto "Seamos Utiles 1997" (Let's Be Useful 1997), will "help the thousands of needy children in Peru who have the right to study and receive a good education." The motto is also a play on words since the "Utiles" also means school supplies.

The campaign will be co-sponsored by the government's Ministry of Education, thus marking a new stage of cooperation between the Church and the government. Relations between them were damaged last year when the government decided to launch a birth-control program.

A Mexican court on March 13 released two Jesuit priests and two native Indians from jail after ruling there was insufficient evidence to charge them in a case involving an attack on police officers.

The release of Father Jeronimo Alberto Hernandez Lopez, SJ, Father Jose Luis Gonzalo Rosas Morales, SJ, and Indian leaders Ramon Parcero and Francisco Gonzalez came a day after television news shows reported that the four men had been beaten and tortured in jail by police demanding that they confess to ambushing a police patrol, killing two policemen and wounding five. Mexican Catholic officials had maintained that the men had been arrested on March 7 as scapegoats for the attack.

The men had been part of a demonstration against a police action to remove poor farmers who had illegally taken possession of two ranches in the southern Chiapas state. The two Indians said the killings occurred when police, backed by helicopters, started shooting at the peasants, who fired back.

The archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Lucas Ortega y Alamino, called on all Catholic Cubans to work for "forgiveness, peace, and national reconciliation" in order to prepare for Pope John Paul's visit to Cuba, scheduled for January 21-25, 1998.

"We cannot succeed in changing our reality if we don't start by changing ourselves," said Cardinal Ortega. "We all have to ready ourselves for (the Pope's) visit because he is coming as a messenger of peace, hope, and joy."

Cardinal Ortega celebrated Palm Sunday at Havana's cathedral, which was filled to overflowing into the square. The cardinal said in his homily: "We will be ready for the year 2000 if our country is filled with a spirit of peace, amnesty, forgiveness, and reconciliation."

Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston visited Cuba in April, and complemented Cardinal Ortega's call for forgiveness by issuing a public statement supporting an end to the American embargo on trade with Cuba. The net effect of the embargo, Cardinal Law argued, is to hurt the poor people of Cuba, and to curb the possibility of meaningful exchanges between Cuba and the United States.

A few weeks earlier, a Cuban exile group in Miami had disclosed plans for a series of protests flotillas to the Communist nation culminating in a landing on the island during Pope John Paul's visit next January.

The Democracy Movement said the non-violent campaign is intended to rally Cubans to demand that the Communist government "yield to a genuine democratization process." During a previous flotilla operation on July 13, 1995, Cuban military vessels bumped an exile boat, damaging the vessel and injuring several people on board.

The group said the protest flotillas were intended to "exercise our right to enter our (Cuban) territorial waters as citizens who were born in that country and who have the right to live in it, regardless of our ideology."

"If such a right is not recognized by the Cuban government prior to the visit of Pope John Paul II, then on the day of his visit to the island we will attempt to land in Cuba," Democracy Movement leader Ramon Saul Sanchez told a March news conference.

The Vatican announced on April 8 that Pope John Paul had appointed Archbishop Francis George, currently the bishop of Portland, Oregon to succeed the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin as archbishop of Chicago.

Archbishop George, 60, was only appointed to Portland less than a year ago, after serving as the bishop of Yakima, Washington since 1990. He is regarded as considerably more conservative than his predecessor. Although the new archbishop told reporters that he would continue the work of Cardinal Bernardin, that statement did not satisfy some notable Chicago Catholics who had publicly dissented from Church doctrine in the past. Father Andrew Greeley, a novelist and pollster, asked: "The question remains: how open is he going to be to what's going on in the Church ... he says he's going to preach the faith. Is birth control part of the faith when at least 85 percent dissent on that?"

The Chicago-based Call to Action--a group demanding

ordination of women and married men, selection of bishops

by laity, and other doctrinal change--issued a more subtle statement

saying it hoped to establish a relationship with Archbishop

George that is similar to the one it had enjoyed with

Cardinal Bernardin.

Archbishop George, who was afflicted by polio as a child

and now wears a brace on his right leg, was born in Chicago and was ordained there as a member of the Oblate Missionaries of Mary Immaculate in 1963. He has a doctorate of philosophy from Tulane University and taught philosophy at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. The archbishop told reporters that he was just as surprised as all the pundits who tried unsuccessfully to predict who would be chosen. "I asked the question that has been asked: Are you sure that the Holy Father has considered all the options?" he said.

The Archdiocese of Boston has granted an annulment to Congressman Joseph Kennedy, despite the objections of his first wife, Boston's two major newspapers reported on April 8.

The newspapers, the Boston Globe and Boston Herald,

quoted Kennedy's first wife, Sheila Rausch Kennedy, in a new epilogue to her book, Shattered Faith, which due to be published in May. The book's revelations may create political difficulties for the latest rising star in the Kennedy clan, who is reportedly planning a campaign to become governor of Massachusetts next year.

Joseph and Sheila Kennedy married in 1979 and divorced. The congressman began annulment proceedings in 1993, but did not wait for their completion before marrying a member of his staff. Rausch Kennedy revealed in her epilogue that the marriage tribunal granted the annulment on the grounds that Joseph lacked "due discretion." Although Sheila Rausch Kennedy is not herself a Catholic, she has bitterly contested the annulment, and said that she is appealing to the Vatican to reverse the Boston decision.

The publicity surrounding the Kennedy story--which comes just months after a similar scandal arose over the marital status of the congressman's uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy--prompted new revelations from yet another Massachusetts political figure. Julia Thorne, the former wife of the state's other senator, John Kerry, revealed that she, too, has been asked to cooperate in her husband's plans to obtain an annulment. (Since their divorce, Senator Kerry has remarried; his new wife Teresa Heinz is also a Catholic.) Thorne told reporters that she had written to an official of the Boston Archdiocese, telling him: "I regard your ecclesiastical intervention as hypocritical, anti-family, and dishonest."

While Sheila Kennedy and Julia Thorne agreed in their criticism of Catholic tribunals, Joseph Kennedy certainly did not advance his own standing with Church officials when he characterized the annulment process as "gobbledegook."

At a conference in Pittsburgh sponsored by New Ways Ministry, Bishops Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit and Matthew Clark of Rochester, New York, caused a sensation when they encouraged homosexuals to be active in the Church, and suggested that in time the Catholic Church would approve homosexual unions.

Bishop Gumbleton--who reports that he himself is heterosexual, but has been an active supporter of gay-rights activists since learning that his brother is homosexual--told the New Ways conference that homosexual priests should be open about the leanings. "I can't tell you the number of letters I have received from priests who say they are gay, but who are afraid to come out," he said. "What a loss that is to our Church!"

At the same conference Bishop Clark--who had riled the faithful of his own diocese a few weeks earlier by celebrating a special service for homosexuals--seemed to go even further in questioning Church teachings when he told the Pittsburgh audience that he had direct a Rochester priest to stop officiating at ceremonies to bless "holy unions" between homosexual couples. Bishop Clark explained, "My concern is not so much the practice ... but that [such ceremonies] communicate to the wider community that the issue is settled."