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World Watch

Ecumenical Openings to the East, and...

The population debate continues at another UN conference

VATICAN

Searching for Union with the Orthodox

And remembering the days before division

Within the space of a week in late June and early July, Pope John Paul II presided at two different ceremonies that underlined a main theme of his pontificate--the drive toward union with the Orthodox churches.

On June 29, the Solemnity of Ss. Peter and Paul, a traditional day for discussions of unity, the Pope renewed his appeal for union between the ancient churches of East and West--an appeal which he has sounded with increasing urgency as he speaks of the coming observance of the Jubilee Year 2000. "As the son of Slavic people, I personally feel a special call from the Lord to work for this," he observed.

In his homily during a liturgical celebration at St. Peters Basilica, attended by several Orthodox prelates representing Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the Holy Father recalled a similar celebration on the same feast last year, in which the Ecumencial Patriarch himself took part. "Exactly one year ago, the Holy Father recalled, Awe together addressed the people of God, almost presaging the beauty of the full communion to which we both aspire."

The Pope said that by 2000, the dawn of the third millennium of Christianity, "we can, if not completely united, at least be nearer to overcoming the divisions of the second millennium."

The following weekend, the Pope led Byzantine-rite ceremonies at the Vatican to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Union of Brest, which allowed the restoration of communion between the Holy See and the Ukrainian Catholic Church. In a vivid illustration of the practical problems that stand in the way of complete ecumenical progress today, those celebrations were kept deliberately low-key, to avoid giving offense to the Orthodox churches of Ukraine.

In the early centuries of the Christian era, the Holy Father pointed out, the Church was not divided between East and West. Indeed the first great councils, in which the doctrine of the Catholic faith was established, took place primarily in cities of the East. "At Nicea and Constantinople, the faith of the Church in the mystery of the Trinity was precisely affirmed," he observed, and at Ephesus and Chalcedon the basic dogmas were further refined and developed.

The Pope said that the commemoration of the Union of Brest was intrinsically related to the celebration of 1000 years of Christianity in Kyiv-an anniversary occurred in 1988. AAt the moment in which Rus'of Kyiv received Baptism, in 988, Christians preserved their unity among themselves, he said. AAt the time there was a clear liturgical and cultural difference between the Byzantine East and the West, but there was no division. This only came later." He added that the effects of the schism of the East did not reach those who in the 11th century lived in the territories of the Rus'. "They remained convinced that they belonged to the Church of Christ, one and undivided." Thus, he concluded, the Union of Brest-which brought Byzantine-rite Catholics back into communion with Rome-was not the "beginning" of the Catholic Chuch in Ukraine, but the restoration of an original unity.

Talks with the Moscow Patriarch?

Meeting rumored for September trip

While the public ceremonies involved representatives of the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Vatican buzzed with rumors that the Pope would soon schedule a historic meeting with the second most powerful prelate in the Orthodox world: Aleksei II of Moscow. By the time John Paul left Rome on July 9 to spend his annual summer vacation in the Dolomite mountains, some Vatican insiders believed they knew the time and place of the summit meeting.

At first glance, such a meeting would seem highly unlikely. In 900 years, the Patriarch of Moscow has never met face to face with the Bishop of Rome. Patriarch Aleksei himself has been distinctly cool toward the Catholic Church, frequently expressing dissatisfaction with what he sees as an effort to lure believers away from the Orthodox churches. During this summers Russian presidential campaign, Aleksei succeeded in making the special status of the Orthodox Church an important political issue, demanding that the government place restrictions on the activities of Aforeign churches and sects. Yet other more aggressive Orthodox bishops have criticized their leader for failing to take an even stronger stand against Western--and especially Roman--influence.

Until recently, the Patriarchs maneuvering room was also restricted by the bitter quarrel between the patriarchates of Moscow and Constantinople over the status of the Orthodox churches in Estonia. Although the threat of outright schism between the two great Orthodox centers has now been averted, the relationship between the two patriarchates remains extremely delicate. That conflict has complicated the task of ecumenical work among Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox leaders, and for the moment, at least, Orthodox participants seem to be virtually paralyzed. In June, the Russian church quietly postponed the scheduled meeting of a mixed theological commission, explaining weakly that the Moscow delegation had not had time to prepare.

Nevertheless the Holy See has continued to grope for an ecumenical opening. In January the Vatican send a delegation to Moscow to meet with the Patriarch, and knowledgable sources in Rome suggested that the talks might have included the possibility of a summit meeting. Soon reporters in Rome were speculating about a time and place for the encounter: in September, during Pope John Pauls trip to Hungary, at a thousand-year old monastery in Pannonhalma.

In June the head of that monastery, Abbot Imre Asztrik Varszegi, visited the Vatican. He did nothing to quiet the speculation that he might play host to a historic meeting, although he did tell reporters that it would be Avery difficult to overcome practical objections. Then in July the papal household released a full itinerary for the September trip, and alert newsmen noticed that although the schedule meticulously accounts for every waking hour of the Popes time, there is a three-hour block left inexplicably open, at a time when the Holy Father will be near Pannonhalma.

An even financial keel

Better management erases red ink

After 23 consecutive years of budget deficits, the Vatican has now produced three straight years of surplus. Cardinal Edmund Szoka, who has brought an American style of business management to the Holy See, released that welcome news in June along with an accounting of income and expenses for the Vatican.

The report revealed a surplus of $1.7 million in 1995, up from $433,000 in 1994. "It seems we're still moving in the right direction," said Cardinal Szoka, a former Detroit archbishop. He projects profits of $340,000 for 1996.

The surplus comes despite some noteworthy special expenses for the 1995 fiscal year, Cardinal Szoka pointed out. Last year all Vatican employees received a 6 percent salary increase, and there were unusual expenses involved in setting up embassies in nations that had established new diplomatic ties with the Holy See--such as Israel and the newly independent nations of Eastern Europe.

The new fiscal health of the Vatican has been attributed to more efficient management, more skillful investment of working capital, and more generous donations from local churches, especially in Western Europe and North America. Cardinal Szokas figures did not include the Popes personal charities, which are subsidized by the worldwide Peters Pence collection, or the operations of the Vatican government, which are supported by the Vatican museums and post office.

ITALY

Shroud found to date from time of Christ

Scientists contradict Carbon-14 test result

Two Italian scientists have found new evidence that the Shroud of Turin dates from the time of Christ. The latest finding contradicts a controversial Carbon-14 test performed in the 1980s, which suggested that the cloth was manufactured in the 12th or 13th century.

Nello Balossino and Pierluigi Baima Bollone of the University of Turin reported that they have identified the faint image of an ancient Roman coin bearing the date 29 AD near the left eye of the image on the Shroud. Traces of that coin matched exactly with similar traces from a coin now held in the British Museum, which was minted during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius. It was an ancient Jewish burial custom to place coins on the eyes of the deceased, and until the latest discovery Shroud experts questioned why the image of a coin was visible only on the right eye.

The Turin scientists announcement will undoubtedly revive popular debate on the Shroud, which is scheduled to be displayed in public in 1998, for the first time in a generation. "I believe above all that science should have the last word on this latest result," Roman Catholic theologian Father Giuseppe Ghiberti, assistant to the shroud's papal custodian, told the Italian daily newspaper Avvenire in an interview. "But if this discovery is confirmed, it would have important consequences."

GERMANY

Pope faces fierce divisions

Homage and hatred mark pastoral visit

"The people of Germany owe you a great deal," Chancellor Helmut Kohl told Pope John Paul II, as they stood together in front of the Brandburg Gate--a symbol of the Berlins Cold War division. "You made a decisive contribution to the disappearance of a totalitarian and anti-religious ideology which divided our continent, our country, and this very city." But even as the German leader praised the Pontiff, anti-Catholic demonstrators in the crowd chanted obscene slogans, handed out condoms, and threw paint at the papal vehicle.

Some bitter controversy had been expected for the Popes weekend trip to Germany. A dissident group called AWe are the Church" had collected nearly 2 million signatures on a petition calling for changes in Catholic teachings, and on the eve of the Popes June visit, a group of homosexual activists staged a parody of the Mass, led by a famous Hamburg prostitute. Cardinal Georg Sterzinsky of Berlin called the latter event a Satanic blasphemy, and likened it to the anti-religious activities of the French Revolution and the Communist era. "I can understand serious criticism of the Pope," the cardinal said at a news conference. But, he continued, "If God is blasphemed, that hits us hard."

Pope John Paul referred to his critics only indirectly, when he met with the German Catholic hierarchy. He pointedly told the bishops that they can not be dispensed from their duty to supervise the formation of the Catholic people, and particularly the seminarians and Catholic students who will serve the next generation. And he called upon them to fulfill their obligation to discipline those who attack the Church from within.

The Holy Fathers visit to Germany was the third in his pontificate, but the first since the reunification of East and West. His first stop was in Paderborn, where the last papal visitor had been Pope Leo III, who came to that city in 799 to meet with Charlemagne at the founding of the Holy Roman Empire. John Pauls main business there was a meeting with ecumenical leaders--especially leaders of the Lutheran Church, whose adherents now roughly match the number of Catholics in the newly reunified nation.

Although he greeted the Protestant leaders warmly, and praised Martin Luther's "original intention" to reform the Church and purge her of abuses, the Pope stopped well short of the dramatic gesture that some German Catholics had predicted; he did not lift the centuries-old censure against Luther. "Fundamental problems

about Luther's views on faith, scriptures, tradition, and the Church have not yet been sufficiently clarified," he cautioned.

SPAIN

Liberal abortion law blocked

Conservatives defend a Asocial consensus

Spain's minority conservative government declared victory after a June vote defeating a measure that would have virtually guaranteed abortion on demand in the mainly Catholic country.

The Popular Party of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar blocked the measure by 176 votes to 166, backed by all but five allied members of parliament, who had been free to vote according to conscience.

The opposition Socialists' abortion proposal would have made abortion freely available in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, by allowing exceptions to Spain's ban on abortion for cases where the woman's pregnancy causes "severe anxiety for economic and social reasons."

The debate centered on whether there was a "social consensus" calling for changes to the current abortion legislation, as suggested by the Socialists. "This does not deal with a majority demand...we are not called on to go ahead with legislation that the Spanish society has not asked for," Popular Party deputy Maria Teresa Fernandez said.

UNITED KINGDOM

Another outpost falls

Guernsey accepts abortion

The parliament of Guernsey, in the Channel Islands, has voted to legalize abortion up until the twelth week of pregnancy, provided two doctors approve the procedure. The Channel Islands fall into the Catholic diocese of Portsmouth and Bishop Crispian Hollis said he was "sad and disappointed" at the outcome.

The new vote supersedes a 1910 statute which made abortion punishable by life imprisonment. An estimated 400 women a year have traveled from Guernsey to the British mainland to procure abortions. Two years ago the neighboring island of Jersey also approved abortion, by one vote. Northern Ireland is now the only part of the British Isles where abortion is still a crime.

NORTHERN IRELAND

Violence threatens peace process

Orangemen demand to march

IRA bombings in Manchester in June, and Unionist riots in Belfast in July, bore witness to the obstacles that stand in the path to peace in Northern Ireland.

The rioting began when authorities refused to allow the annual Orangemens parade--which commemorates 17th-century English victories over the Irish--to pass through a predominantly Catholic neighborhood in Portadown. Defiant members of the Orange Order took to the streets, taunting the police, and soon rioting began, spreading quickly to nearby Belfast. A Catholic taxi driver was killed in Portadown, and at least four Catholic families were reportedly forced to leave their homes, in what Gerry Adams, president of the IRA's political wing, Sinn Fein, condemned as an "orchestrated campaign of intimidation.

Unlike the IRA bombing campaigns, which in recent years have been aimed at targets in England, the rioting threatened to provoke a new rash of violence inside Nothern Ireland. To ward off such a diaster, British Prime Minister John Major sent more troops into the Belfast, bringing the British military presence there to its highest point in more than a decade.

BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

Mass seen as Apolitical gathering

Peacekeeping forces halt Catholic worshippers

International peace-keeping forces (IFOR) in Bosnia-Herzegovina have declared that the public celebration of Mass constitutes a "political gathering" which may be subject to regulation.

The Croatian Catholic weekly newspaper, Glas Koncila, reported early in July that three buses filled with Catholics parishioners, heading for the celebration of Mass on a special feast day for their parish, were turned back by IFOR officers at a military checkpoint. The incident appeared to be a direct violation of international accords which-at least on paper-provides freedom of worship and freedom of religion in the territories of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The parishioners of Donja Tramosnica are now refugees living in Croatia. The territory of what was once their parish has been divided up, with one part in the formerly Croatian territory that has been occupied by Serbian forces, and the other part in the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. On the feast of St. John the Baptist, the patron of their parish, the Croatian Catholics were traveling to the village of Liporasce, on the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, to celebrate the feast on the soil of the old parish.

Wary of provoking an incident, the parishioners had announced their plans to the IFOR authorities three days before beginning their pilgrimage. They had not been discouraged; on the contrary, IFOR had thanked them for not insisting that their parish celebration should take place on the Serbian-controlled territory.

Nevertheless, as the three buses rolled down the road between the towns of Orasje and Tuzla-a road that is now known by the American nickname "Arizona"-they were stopped by armed IFOR soldiers. After all the parishioners were examined, the parish priest, Father Marijan Orsolic, was escorted to Orasje to be questioned.

During these lengthy discussions, armored IFOR vehicles blocked the path of the three buses, and other IFOR vehicles set up roadblocks on other streets that might have been used for travel to the old Croatian parish. The IFOR commanders explained these actions by reporting

rumors that Serbian zealots were massed along the Arizona road, ready to ambush the buses.

POLAND

Preservation plans for Auschwitz

Government moves to bar commercial development

The Polish government has presented a plan to keep commercial development away from Auschwitz, so that the Nazi concentration camp there will remain a place of remembrance for Holocaust victims.

The government cabinet chief of staff Leszek Miller told a June news conference that the government expected a detailed plan to be ready by mid-September. "It envisages that both the extermination camp and the town (Oswiecim) should undergo complex actions...to keep the town's character both as a place of national remembrance and a center where normal life must go on," he said.

"There is a need to preserve Auschwitz-Birkenau as a sacred place where there is no commerce, restaurants, and so forth," Miller told reporters. But he added that the town had to offer proper hotel and other facilities for visitors and needed economic development.

The government initiative has been prompted by a dispute over actions by a local developer who early this year began converting old buildings opposite the museum gate into a shopping center and fast-food restaurant for town residents.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau complex, with its gas chambers, crematoria and watchtowers, is a huge graveyard of Jews from around Europe as well as many thousands of Catholics, other Poles, Russians, gypsies and others victims of the Nazi regime.

CZECH REPUBLIC

Heretic or saint?

New attitudes toward a national hero

Jan Hus--traditionally viewed as one of the forerunners of the (Protestant) Reformation--could become a candidate for canonization, according to recent speculation in the Czech press. Hus was burned at the stake as a heretic on July 6, 1415 in Constance. Now, however, many of the ideas advocated by him and his followers--and cited by traditionalist Catholics as clear evidence of heresy, have become an accepted part of Catholic practice, such as Communion under both kinds and Mass in the vernacular. Some Catholic Czech theologians now view Hus as a forerunner not of Luther, but of the Second Vatican Council.

Hus' refusal to abandon his preaching at the orders of the ecclesiastical powers made him a hero to many Central and East European campaigners for personal and national liberty in the 19th and 20th centuries. Since 1868, the anniversary of Hus' death has been solemnly commemorated in his native town of Husinee, in spite of the disapproval of the Austro-Hungarian empire. In the mid-1980s, in an atmosphere of growing opposition to Communist rule, a group of Czech theologians, philosophers, and historians in Prague began meeting regularly to reassess the traditional Catholic view of Hus. Several contributions to this seminar--including a paper by the Polish theologian Professor Stefan Swiezawski--were later published in the Czech underground journal Theological Texts.

Since the fall of Communism, the anniversary has taken on an increasingly ecumenical note, and now includes a multi-faith service and a panel discussion, with the regular participation of the Catholic primate, Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, as well as prominent Hussites and Protestants.

The Czech cardinal clearly has a high estimation for Hus, honoring him not simply as a man of conscience who held firm to his beliefs even though they earned him the condemnation of the Church, but in effect, saying that the Church leaders of his day were mistaken in that condemnation. Hus, in Cardinal Vlk's opinion, was "a Catholic priest and a reformer of the Church"--not a heretic. The late Cardinal Frantisck Tomasek of Prague, the leading figure in Church resistance to Communist ideology, once included Hus in a list of those who embodied the "commitment to moral truth and sincerity" which he considered the "key to Czech history"--together with such saints as Cyril and Methodius (apostles of the Slavs), Agnes of Bohemia and Wenceslas.

The traditional Vatican view of Hus as "heretic" has also gradually been tempered, a change of stance which the Czech media refer to as his "rehabilitation." Whether that "rehabilitation" will go as far as canonization--as it did in the case of another victim of the stake, St. Joan of Arc, is another matter.

Church property to be restored

But state plans to cut subsidies

The Czech Republics new coalition government has agreed to hand back to the Catholic Church a considerable portion of the real estate confiscated by the Communist regime. The decision has been welcomed by the (Catholic) Czech Bishops Conference, but also by the (non-Catholic Ecumenical Council of Churches, although the churches which the latter group represents have not yet had the government assess their own claims to confiscated property.

The governments decision concerns, in the first place, parish houses and other buildings which were formerly used either as living quarters for clerics and religious or as the sites for what are formally defined as Areligious activities. Also available to the Catholic Church are 175,000 hectares of forest land, together with buildings located within the forests and facilities related to forest management. These forests and other real-estate properties, once held by the Church, provided a steady source of income which made the Church independent of government financing. The Czech government is anxious to return to that situation. Today the state subsidizes the Church, partly from tax revenues and partly from the proceeds from this confiscated property. Once the properties are returned, the subsidies will be phased out.

However, this situation will leave the Church with some serious financial problems. Almost half of the Churchs current budget goes to the upkeep of aChurch national heritage--that is, historic buildings, art treasures, and the like. The government has agreed in principle to Aconsider ways and means of compensating the Church for the costs of maintaining and conserving these treasures, but the exact implications of that agreement remain far from clear.

BULGARIA

Succession controversy

Government rejects new patriarch

On July 4, after 25 years as head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Maxim has retired to the seclusion of a rural monastery. But he leaves behind him a Church split by the first internal schism in its history--a schism which Maxim"s opponents say could have been avoided if he had retired five years ago. For the schism concerned Maxim"s right to lead the Church in the first place.

Maxim was "elected" Patriarch in 1971, by a puppet synod (convened in breach of the rules of canon law), which, in reality, simply endorsed the nomination presented to it by Bulgarias Communist authorities. For the next 20 years under his leadership the Church authorities pursued a course of passive--and sometimes active-- compliance with the state and party authorities; recent revelations show that church authorities even allowed the secret police to listen in on penitents confessions. Only during the late 1980s did a few reform-minded clerics and lay believers raise a call for spiritual renewal and the "cleansing" of the Church. After the fall of Communism these activists called for Maxim to retire and make way for anew and canonically elected patriarch. The twentieth anniversary of his "election," it was hinted, would be an appropriate occasion for him to bow out without loss of face.

Maxim, however, was unwilling to quit. In 1992, therefore, the dissidents convened their own synod, which declared Maxim's "election" invalid and chose their own patriarch, Pimen. The latter and his supporters seized the patriarchal building in the capital, Sofia, and held it until evicted by the police in 1994. The rivalry between the two contenders for the Patriarchate smoldered on, and news of Maxim's pending retirement renewed the dispute.

The dissidents called another synod to confirm the election of the now 90-year-old Pimen as the undisputed Patriarch. But the Maximites still will not accept Pimen, nor will Bulgaria's left-wing government. According to Deputy Premier Zhan Videnov, the election of Pimen is a "profoundly anti-Bulgarian act.

ROMANIA

Jehovahs Witnesses not welcome

Convention triggers heated dispute

Organizers of a world congress of Jehovah's Witnesses went ahead with their plans for an international meeting in Bucharest, despite sharp criticism from the Romanian Orthodox Church.

Patriarch Teoctist had voiced his disapproval when the government approved the use of public facilities for the meeting. "Such a reunion is in defiance of our people's Christian Orthodox belief and an action meant to destroy the nation's moral unity," said the patriarch. More than 85 percent of Romanians are members of the Orthodox Church.

As the organizers of the Jehovah's Witnesses meeting prepared to receive more than 40,000 followers at a Bucharest soccer stadium, the capital city has been flooded with posters calling for an "open fight" against "the fanatic and murderous organization."

RUSSIA

Top Yeltsin aide hostile to protestants

Lebed more open to Buddhism

After a heated electoral campaign which had often touched on the special status of the Russian Orthodox Church, Aleksandr Lebed, the national-security adviser and heir apparent to President Boris Yeltsin, earned a rebuke fom parliamentary leaders when he said that foreign religious groups constitute Aa threat to Russias security. Viktor Korkaltsev, a Communist Party member of the Duma and chairman of it committee on religion, rebuked Lebed in a public statement that pointed to the fifty different religious denominations which now enjoy full legal approval.

The primary focus of Lebeds complaint had been the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints--the Mormons--whom he compared to the Japan-based Aum Sinrikyo cult. Both groups, the outspoken former general said, cater to Amold and scum. Although he later retracted that remarks, he continued to insist that foreign religions are "strangers on our territory" and that he is "categorically against anyone teaching us how we should live in our land."

Lebeds particular hostility toward Mormons puzzled most observers, since that church, with only 600 missionaries in Russia, is far less visible than the Baptists and Methodists. But observers were even more surprised that, in listing the atraditional religions[ of the Russian people, Lebed mentioned Buddhism along with Orthodox Christianity and Islam. Although it is certainly not an important factor in Russian history, Buddhism enjoyed a burst of popularity among Community Party officials during the 1970s.

UNITED NATIONS

Abortion debate sidetracks Habitat conference

Holy See rebukes US delegates

The Habitat II conference-- an international meeting convened in Istanbul under the sponsorship of the United Nations--was designed to answer the challenge of providing adequate living quarters for all of the world's people. How, then, did the conference degenerate into another squabble over abortion?

At recent conferences on population (in Cairo) and the role of women (in Beijing), delegates representing the United States and the countries of Western Europe have been implacable in their demands for an international agreement that would recognize a worldwide legal right to abortion. In Istanbul, American delegates made an unsuccessful last-minute effort to insert such language into a document which, in theory, should have concentrated on the question of housing. But that obsession with abortion is only a part of the whole story. At each of these UN-sponsored conferences, the question of abortion reflects a broader anti-natalist attitude which permeates the thinking of the international body.

Shortly before the Habitat II meeting, the United Nations released a new report pointing to the rapid growth in the world's urban population areas. The report indicated that more and more people are leaving the countryside to live in the cities, especially in the world's least developed countries. Clearly, this trend toward urbanization would be a major topic for discussion in Istanbul.

However, as the New Scientist observed in a June 15 issue, the Habitat conference "failed to resolve its central dilemma: is the rapid growth of cities a good or a bad thing? Delegates agreed that urban growth is inevitable, but [were] ambivalent on whether this is desirable or not."

AThe urban poor have worse conditions than the rural poor, said Nafis Sadik, director of the UN Population Fund. But she was flatly contradicted by Wally N'Dow, secretary-general of the Istanbul conference, who argued that rural conditions are Aeven more desperate."

Returning home after the Habitat II conference, Henry Cisneros, US Housing and Urban Development Secretary, insisted that the delegates had been right to concentrate on the issue of areproductive health,[ saying that population growth would inevitably aplay a role in the context of sustainability." Nafis Sadik went further, insisting that "no human settlement can be satisfactory without the reduction of population." The UN official also promised that to continue her drive to establish an international right to abortion, explaining that "denying access to family planning methods is as much a coercion as forming a woman to use a method.

Perhaps the most extreme response of all came from the delegation from Canada, which wanted the word "family" deleted from the Habitat document. During the negotiations in Istanbul, Canada said at one point that "the family is a concept that is prejudicial to women."

KUWAIT

Convert faces death penalty

Press campaign seeks stay of sentence

The Italian Catholic daily newspaper Avvenire has joined in an international campaign to save the life of Robert Hussein, a 44-year-old Kuwaiti who faces a death sentence because of his conversion to Christianity.

The press campaign to save Hussein's life began in England, shortly after an Islamic court sentenced him to die on June 9. The BBC and the Times of London carried his message; early in July Avvenire devoted an front page to Hussein's story.

Originally a Shiite Muslim, Hussein became acquainted with Christianity while he was a student in the United States. When he returned to Kuwait , he continued to explore the faith. In 1993 he purchased a Bible, and shortly thereafter was baptized. He changed his name from Hussein Kambar Ali to Robert Hussein. Although his wife supported his conversion, his family rejected it and denounced him.

Toward the end of 1994, Hussein's wife was abducted and raped. (Because she is seen as the wife of an apostate, she is treated as a prostitute.) To protect her from such episodes, Hussein appealled to a Kuwait court. But that legal move backfired when the court, strictly interpreting the Islamic Shari'a law, condemned him to death and insisted that his wife must divorce him.

Recognizing that such a sentence was possible, Hussein had contacted Christian Solidarity International before facing the Islamic court. The group is now orchestrating an international pressure campaign, seeking to convince the government of Kuwait that Hussein--who is now living in hiding--should be allowed to leave Kuwait.

KENYA

Says no to sex education

President sides with Church leaders

Kenya's President Daniel Arap Moi has ruled out the teaching of sex education in the countrys primary schools, explaining: aOur religions are against such immorality and my government will reject calls for it to be debated in parliament."

Controversy has surrounded the introduction of sex education in schools ever since it was proposed as an answer to problems such as teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. Proponents of sex education argue that traditional methods of sex education and initiation into adulthood in Kenya have broken down, while parents are shy about filling the ensuing vacuum; if schools could inform children about sexuality, they argue, many of the problems could be prevented.

Non-governmental organizations and family planning associations have called for some form of sex education to be introduced on a mandatory basis in all Kenyan schools. But churches, especially the Catholic Church, have raised persistent opposition to such a subject in schools on the grounds that the proposed syllabus tends to instill a value-free approach far removed from Christian or African sexual ethics; they also point out that instruction on contraception is invariably included in the curriculum.

MYANMAR

AEthnic cleansing charged

Church group offers shelter to victims

Three Catholic bishops have joined in complaints against the forcible resettlement of ethnic minorities in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), according to reports released in July by Aid to the Church in Need.

Bishops Matthias U Shwe of Taunngy (the president of the Myanmar bishops' conference), Sotero Phamo Thein Myint of Loikaw, and Raymond Saw Po Rayvon of the newly erected diocese of Mawlamyine told the German-based relief group that the Burmese military is expelling ethnic minorities from their remote mountain villages near the Thai border, and moving them to areas where they can be more easily controlled. In these three dioceses alone more than 80,000 people have been uprooted in recent months, the bishops report.

The approximately 530,000 Catholics in the country (about 1 percent of the population) belong almost exclusively to ethnic minorities. Bishop Phamo, in whose diocese around 25 percent of the population are Catholic, reported, "Many of these expelled people are now seeking refuge with the priests and nuns in the parishes. There is a shortage of medicines, food, clothing, and housing."

INDIA

End to discrimination?

Prime Minister promises to help low-caste Christians

Prime Minister H. D. Deve Gowda, whose coalition government won the crucial June vote of confidence in parliament, has made a categorical assurance that he will fulfill one of the long-standing

demands of India's 21 million Christians. Gowda told a delegation from the All India Christian People's Forum (AICPF) that the this summer parliament will extend special statutory rights to Christians of low caste origin, putting them in parity with Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist members of the low castes.

"We are indeed happy that for the first time we have received such a

categorical assurance from the government. The undeclared apartheid against Christians is on the verge of collapse," AICPF general secretary Brindavan C. Moses told a news conference.

Dalit, which in Sanskrit means "trampled upon," is the term given to people of the low castes, who were once treated as "untouchables" in India's society. A 1950 constitutional amendment made Hindu dalits eligible for special benefits, and these statutory benefits were extended to Sikhs in 1956 and Buddhists in 1990. But Christian

dalits, who comprise more than 60 percent of India's 21 million

Christians (of whom 15 million are Catholic) are denied these statutory benefits on the grounds that Christianity does not have caste discrimination.

Countering the arguments of pro-Hindu parties, which charged that the Christian demand is "illogical" as Christianity does not allow caste discrimination, an AICPF statement pointed out that "Christian dalits live not in the West, but in the caste-ridden Indian society where even after embracing Christianity, a dalit remains a dalit and continues to live in the same dalit colonies, suffering caste abuses, and carrying caste as well as derogatory dalit names."

KOREA

Missing: Female babies

Census discrepancies point to sex-selection aborionts

According to figures recently released by South Korea's Census Bureau, the Asian nation has the highest ratio of male to female newborns, with 115.4 boy babies for every 100 girls.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of Korea says that these figures

lead to the conclusion that approximately 30,000 girls were aborted last year because there is a bias in Korean culture toward having sons. "Perhaps we were more successful than we should have been," said Park Soon-jung of Planned Parenthood, lamenting that his group's success at getting families to limit children has resulted in the lopsided birth rates.

Critics blame the government, because it has turned a blind eye to the widespread use of abortions and of prenatal tests to determine the gender of a fetus; both practices are illegal in South Korea. Although abortions are also technically illegal, most obstetricians are willing to perform them.

The situation mirrors that of China and other Asian countries where there is a strong traditional preference for sons. China's imbalance peaked at 114 boys to 100 girls in 1989-90 but has been creeping downward since the government spoke out against the trend, its State Statistical Bureau claims.

The tragic situation in Korea is the result of a 35-year campaign by the government offering incentives, including tax breaks and free sterilizations, to families to limit population growth. But while fertility has dramatically declined, the pressure to produce a male heir has persisted.

PHILLIPPINES

Repatriation resumes for Vietnamese

Bishops seek to preserve refugee camps

United Nations officials sent scores of Vietnamese refugees back to their native land early in July, as the group prepared to close its refugee camps in the Philippines. The quiet repatriation drive was in contrast to an involuntary removal in February, when some Vietnamese fought with police to avoid being returned to the Communist country from which they had fled.

While more than 400 of the 1,3000 Vietnamese remaining in UN camps were expected to voluntarily return to Vietnam in July after failing to receive asylum in Western countries, Bishop Ramon Arguelles, head of a Church commission for migrants, said that600 former soldiers, clerics, and political activists want to stay.

"It is for these (600) that we ask the benevolence of the state," Bishop Arguelles told a news conference after a four-day meeting of the country's Catholic bishops. "Today, we are appealing to the government to accept our plea to give these Vietnamese asylum seekers the right to stay, the right to work...until such time that they can freely go either to a third country or to their home when they are convinced that the situation has already changed," he said.

Manila officially closed down its refugee camp in Puerto Princesa on southwestern Palawan island on June 30, but the more than 1,000 Vietnamese continue to live there under the care of Catholic nuns. Local authorities cut off the camp's electricity and water supplies, but Bishop Arguelles said the nuns had arranged with local officials to restore the utilities.

Peace plan offered to Muslim rebels

President ignores Catholic protests

Turning aside the complaints of the Filipino Catholic bishops conference (CBCP), President Fidel Ramos has announced that he will go forward with a peace treaty with Muslim rebels, which is aimed to end the fighting that has caused more than 50,000 deaths in the southern province of Mindanao and adjacent islands.

In an open letter to Ramos, the CBCP said, "Any peace that is established in a conflict-ridden area is necessarily fragile, but even more so when such peace is not the product of consensus involving the participation of all." The bishops' letter was also addressed to the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) which is leading a 24-year revolt for Muslim self-rule. "Our purpose is...to help hold back the increasing discordant chorus of protest and threats that have met the agreements you have made," the bishops said.

"I do not wish the peace process to be set back by emotions and preconceived biases that may be based on religious and ethnic differences, President Ramos responded. But in a mildly concilatory gesture he added, AIf it is felt by the Church that more dialogues are needed, then by all means let us have them.

Manila has agreed to set up a Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development led by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) to administer development programs and help keep the peace in 14 provinces in the southern Mindanao region. The council will be a forerunner of an autonomous region the MNLF is demanding as a condition for ending its 24-year-long rebellion.

Former president Corazon Aquino urged Filipinos to give Ramos a chance to prove that his peace plan would work. "Let's give President Ramos a chance...Let's give peace a chance," she said. "...Certainly, if he succeeds here it will not only be his success but the success of the Filipino people."

AUSTRALIA

Suicide law faces reversal

National leaders seek to overturn local bill

In the city of Darwin, the capital of the Northern Teritory (which is not an autonomous state, but a territory of the Commonwealth), the Supreme Court on July 2 met to consider whether the "Rights of the Terminally Ill Act" was a valid law of the Territory. The law, which legalized physician-assisted suicide, had been scheduled to take effect July 1. The courtss decision in the case will not be handed down until a "date to be fixed."

Plaintiffs had argued that the Territory does not have the legislative power to make a law sanctioning the taking of a life. The Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the Territory's Health Department had warned doctors that they could be prosecuted for murder if they assisted a patient to die and the law was subsequently found to be invalid.

The new law allows for processes which mean that it would take up to nine days between a person's initial request for euthanasia and the date on which they would be allowed to "end their life. One condition of the law requires the signature of two doctors, one of whom must be a specialist in the disease which the patient suffers.

By mid-July only one suicide candidate, a Darwin man suffering terminal cancer had made an application to kill himself. The mans physician, Dr. Philip Nitschke, reported: "The final signature is the only thing stopping us from going ahead." An unexpected point in the favor of the euthanasia opponents is the shortage of medical specialists in the Territory, along with a general reluctance among doctors to be the first to sign for euthanasia.

Meanwhile, a Catholic member of the (federal) House of Representatives, Kevin Andrews, has launched a private member's bill which seeks to use Federal powers to overturn the Northern Territory's euthanasia law. He warned yesterday in a radio interview on the ABC (Australia's National Broadcast Network) that

his bill, launched on June 28 (last day of the Federal Parliament's sitting), would be retroactive, although it will not be debated until the July/August sitting of the Parliament.

The Prime Minister, a devout Christian, and Deputy Prime Minister, a Catholic, have both expressed personal opposition to euthanasia as being part of the "culture of death. When Kevin Andrew's interviewer suggested that the Federal Government (recently elected and largely conservative) has no right to overrule the wishes of the Territory, he pointed out that of the ten or so candidates who will lodge applications in the Territory for euthanasia, more than eight are from other states such as NSW. This argument clearly demonstrates how the Northern Territory could become

the "Euthanasia Center" of Australia--surely a Federal issue, he concluded.

The Vatican's official newspaper had decried the new law as a "new monstrous chapter in the history of humanity." And Australia's Health Minister Dr. Michael Wooldridge predicted that the Andrews bill would would win approval and override the Northern Territory's law if a legal challenge fails. The leaders of Australia's three major political parties have all declared their opposition to the law.

Re-writing moral laws

Protestant group embraces divorce, homosexuality

The Uniting Church of Australia, the nation's third-largest after the Catholic and Anglican churches, has issued a new report, redefining its approach to marriage and sexuality. The document, entitled "A Journey Into Sexuality, took four years of study and consultation to prepare; it will furnish the basis for discussions and a vote by church leaders this summer.

"The historical distance between our times and biblical times means we cannot simply translate the writers' conclusions about sexuality into our own time," the report says. "We take the view that sexuality is an integral part of the human person. Though it may include genital activity, sexuality is much broader and may involve many different forms of awareness and expression.[

On the subject of homosexuality, the report said certain texts in the Bible clearly state that homosexual behavior is a sin, yet today "there is no legitimate reason for rejecting homosexuality or

homosexual relationships," and Athe critical moral issue that faces the Church in the field of sexuality is not homosexuality but the unjust treatment of people and their devaluation as sexual-spiritual persons.

On marriage, the report said: "The phase 'living in sin' is an alienating

concept" as it failed to reflect the ethnic and theological diversity of

people's relationships." It said divorce was sometimes the only creative and life-giving direction to take when a marriage fails.

PERU

Opposition mounts to sterilization campaign

poor women tempted with financial benefits

The Catholic Church, in company with other political forces in Peru, has rejected a project launched by the government's Ministry of Health, which would promote sterilization for people living in poverty, providing special economic benefits to anyone willing to undergo the surgery.

Bishop Alberto Brazzini, president of the bishops' Commission for the Family, immediately rejected the program--which is known by the acronym AQV--because "it violates our people's freedom." The bishop described the government program as an unjust and exploitative process, in which "authorities manipulate the needy by buying their consciences with material awards, and making them accept the risk of being mutilated for the rest of their lives."

The protest against the AQV project spread quickly after the

Ministry of Health, in cooperation with the Peruvian Institute of Social Security, launched the "emergency campaign" aimed at the target audience of impoverished citizens. Under the provisions of the AQV program, a woman who accepts sterilization can receive 35 pounds of basic goods, primarily including foodstuffs. The doctors who perform the operation have incentives as well; the doctor who performs the most sterilization procedures will receive free air tickets to any point in the country, as well as a monetary reward.

Meanwhile the president of the Peruvian Medical Association, Dr. Francisco Sanchez-Moreno Ramos, also rejected the program. Although he is a strong supporter of contraception, Dr. Sanchez-Moreno complains that the process involved in the AQV campaign "works against individual freedom for those with fewer resources." The doctor said that the campaign violates the code of medical

ethics.

The government's project has been already tested with a pilot program in the southern city of Puno; it will now be extended to the provinces of Sayan and Oyon in northern Peru. However, in the face of the spreading opposition, government officials are now suggesting that the campaign does not enjoy official support. Martha Chavez, president of the Peruvian legislature, has asked Marino Costa Bauer, the Minister of Health under whose auspices the campaign began, to provide legislators with an explanation of the program and a detailed analysis of its operations. President Alberto Fujimori, who has clashed with the Catholic bishops because of his forthright support for contraceptive programs, nevertheless has now declared that the sterilization campaign "has nothing to do with the official policy."

MEXICO

Guadalupe abbot declares his belief

Vatican reportedly investigating

Heading off criticism for an interview in which he reportedly denied the veracity of the visions of Blessed Juan Diego, the abbot of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Sunday has now said that he believes in the existence of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

During Sunday mass at the Mexico City shrine, Abbot Guillermo Schulenburg said that Our Lady of Guadalupe "is the Empress of the Americas, the Lady that is in all of our homes... He made no mention of rumors that he may resign from his post because of the controversy over his earlier statements.

In an interview in an obscure Jesuit magazine, Abbot Schulenburg was reported to have said that the appearances of the Lady before Juan Diego, on which the belief in her existence is based, was symbolic and not a historical reality. After excerpts of the interview were reported by the mass media, causing outrage across Mexico, Abbot Schulenburg said the reports were misleading, but he had not detailed his beliefs regarding the miraculous appearances that were key to the conversion of Mexico's indigenous population to Catholicism. The Vatican was reported to be reviewing the matter, since Juan Diego has been beatified and the Mexican Church is campaigning for his sainthood.

Latin bishops scold international agencies

Aid attached to contraceptive programs

Officials of the Latin American Bishops' Council (CELAM) have denounced three major international financial organizations for putting conditions on loans and economic aid, including new birth-control policies.

During a press conference held, Mexican Bishop Jose Martin Rabago said that the International Monetary Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the World Bank are insisting on a single campaign to stop a "healthy demographic evolution in the continent."

"In some countries, such campaigns are taking the form of the legalization of abortion," the bishop said. "This policy was made evident during the Fourth International Conference of Women in Beijing, China and now it is being applied in Latin America," he added.

The Mexican bishop said that the three international organizations "frequently tie their loans to some political policies that have nothing to do with the economy." He added: "Unfortunately, our economies are still very fragile and in the need of loans and financial help. That makes our governments vulnerable to such impositions."

CUBA

Bishops worried by sex-education drive

Government aims at all school ages

The government of Cuba has announced its intention to launch an intensive sex-education campaign aimed at adolescents and teenagers. That prospect has stirred some "concern and preoccupation" among the bishops of the island nation.

The bishops worry that a public sex-education program would aggravate the very problems that it is purportedly aimed to solve. Although he asked not to be identified--a sign of the tensions that remain between the Catholic Church and the government of Fidel Castro--a spokesmen for the Cuban episcopal conference said that the bishops hope that they will be able to convince government officials to "reconsider whether such a program is really attacking the causes of the problem, or instead fostering the spread of sexual transmitted diseases."

According to Rolando Ramirez, a health official who will head the sex-education campaign at the national level, the program will be designed to educate young Cubans. He gives the range of that target audience as anywhere from the age of 25 down to the tender age of 6. Moreover, he says, the program will be explicit, even in its approach to the youngest children; "we won't feel embarrassed of showing a condom to six-year old kids."

Although the Castro regime is hostile to the claims of religion, the bishops nonetheless hope that they will be able to persuade government leaders to think twice about the sex-education campaign. As their anonymous spokesman put it: "Even though the Catholic bishops do not want to make this a reason of confrontation, we expect the government to develop an integral campaign in agreement with truly human values."

UNITED STATES

No racial motive?

Varied suspects in church burnings

Contradicting widespread speculation in the mass media, some government leaders saying that many of the dozens of church fires across the South since 1990 are not racially-motivated.

Alabama Governor Fob James released statistics in early July showing that of 38 suspicious church fires since 1990, arrests were made in 20 cases. Of those 20 fires, in which eight were at black churches and 12 at white churches, race was not a motive, he said.

Meanwhile the rash of arson continued. Police in Whiteville, North Carolina announced they were charging two black men with the burning of a black church. Rodney Bullock and Curtis Gilbert, Jr. allegedly burned down the building they were remodeling at Mount Tabor Baptist Church. In neighboring Robeson County, authorities ruled out race as a motive in the arson of the largely black Pleasant Hill Baptist Church. Volunteer firefighter Billy Shawn Baxley, who is white, was arrested Tuesday and confessed to starting the blaze. In Berlin, Maryland, a fire at 100-year-old St. John's United Methodist Church was traced to faulty wiring in a kitchen electrical socket and ruled accidental.

There have been more than 40 fires at predominantly black churches across the South since January 1995, raising fears of racism. The National Council of Churches, the American Jewish Committee and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops have announced plans to raise $4 million to help rebuild burned black churches. Contributions already have been pouring in and a group of foundations plan to announce major grants today.

Jesuit priest named to Disney board

Georgetown head lauds hollywood values

The president of Jesuit-run Georgetown University has been named to the board of directors of the Walt Disney Company, a controversial move following the declaration of boycott against the company by Southern Baptists and other Christians.

Father Leo J. O'Donovan said he hopes to use his experience to help the company when religious values clash with popular culture. The professor of theology said that the values of "secular Hollywood" are not much different from those of popular culture in general.

"You look at painting, sculpture, theater, and the movies--we don't have an easily identified corpus of religious art," he said. "But we do have a recurrence of religious themes in popular entertainment because the American people remain an intensely religious people -- more so than most every European country."

The Southern Baptist Convention asked its members to boycott Disney last month during its annual convention because the company has adopted "anti-family and anti-Christian" policies. Disney came under fire last year for distributing the movie "Priest" which portrays Catholic priests as either repressed and bitter, or openly defiant of Church authority. The company, which in the past was known for strictly family fare, has also instituted Gay Pride days at its theme parks, and has been charged with including subliminal sexual themes in its recent animated features.

CANADA

Defending human dignity

Health official seeks ban on embryo research

Canada's health minister has introduced legislation to ban certain types of embryo research, intrusive reproductive procedures, and surrogate motherhood.

The specific provisions of the proposed ban would prohibit people from sex selection for non-medical reasons; the buying and selling of eggs, sperm and embryos; attempts to create animal-human hybrids; placing human embryos in animals; and creating embryos for research. The new law would also ban research on human embryos later than 14 days after conception on the grounds that the nervous system begins to develop then.

A spokesman for the health ministry said most of the practices pose serious health risks in addition to being ethically objectionable. "They include practices that commercialize reproduction and are contrary to the principles of human dignity, respect for life, and protection of the vulnerable," he added.