Follow Up

 New Developments on Stories Featured in Catholic World Report

 Vatican seeks answers

 Eyes treatment of troubled priests

 The apostolic nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Agostino Cacciavillan, has written to the American bishops asking for information regarding diocesan policies for treating priests accused of sexual abuses. The request from the Vatican came just weeks after Catholic World Report published an essay in which author Lesley Payne exposed apparent abuses in the centers which treat troubled priests.

 Archbishop Cacciavillan's letter, dated March 29, revealed that the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy has been deluged with canonical complaints from American priests accused of sexual abuses. The archbishop's letter raised the question of whether the treatment of these priests has been "congruent with the processes of the Code of Canon Law and other relevant ecclesiastical disciplines." Informed sources at the Vatican report that in fact the Congregation for the Clergy has upheld many priests' protests.

 "Lacking congruence with canonical norms and other aspects of the discipline of the Church, episcopal acts based on the above-mentioned polices and procedures could be canonically null, with consequent negative impact on the same episcopal authority," Archbishop Cacciavillan warned. He said that the Congregation for the Clergy plans a thorough review of diocesan policies.

 Frustrated democracy

 Elections are planned, but opposition thwarted

Saba saba: the seventh day of the seventh month: In Kenya that date has had special significance ever since 1991, when the laws allowing only a single political party were relaxed, and the Kenya African National Union (KANU) grudgingly promised multi-party elections. On that date this year Kenyans celebrated the birth of two new parties. The mood in the streets was euphoric; Kenyans, though known as "the Englishmen of Africa" because of their comparative reserve, found themselves striking up joyful conversations with whmoever came to hand. More than a political springtime, it felt almost like a new independence celebration.

 But President Daniel arap Moi had only given up the privilege of being the sole presidential candidate under heavy diplomatic pressure. The events of June and July make it seem that the elections were a merely tactical concession, to be clawed back once media and diplomatic attention had turned to other things. The brutal treatment of demonstrators further suggests that Kenya is still a one-party state--or more significantly, one in which all the powers are concentrated in the executive--and in which even basic political rights are denied.

On June 19 Finance Minister Musalia Mudavadi attempted to deliver the government's budget in a televised speech. After thirteen false starts he gave up, drowned out by the shouts of "No reforms, no budget" from opposition legislators. Outside the parliament building riot police tried to quell a demonstration organised by Rev Timothy Njoya, an Anglican clergyman who had been campaigning for constitutional reform before the elections.

In the days leading up to July 7, there were peaceful demonstrations in the center of Nairobi, where the parliament building, the university and both the Catholic basilica and the Anglican cathedral are all found a short distance from the press center which houses the offices of the major news organisations based in East Africa. The demonstrations alone brought a violent police reaction: many demonstrators and innocent bystanders, particularly university students, were beaten with pickaxe handles. Hooligans took advantage of the chaos to loot shops, providing a pretext for a government condemnation of the whole demonstration, together with the threat of a tough reaction to any further unauthorized assemblies.

The threats did not deter the planners of the July 7 demonstration. Rev. Njoya had arranged for opposition leaders to gather for prayer in the Anglican cathedral, while students demonstrated nearby. In response, the police invaded the building and beat up anyone they found inside. Rev. Njoya was so badly beaten that he was feared dead. On that day seven people did die--some of them individuals who had taken no part of the demonstration. If Moi had planned to draw the world's outrage to the brutality of his police and his contempt for basic human rights, he could not have done better: invading a church, beating a clergyman almost to death, and killing several bystanders. The events did, however, show the impotence of the Kenyan opposition parties.

Long ago, the most far-sighted people in Kenya had begun to warn that only concerted action by people at all levels of society could produce a general recognition of the right to freedom of association, which would be the first step toward a true multi-party democracy. Bishop Raphael Ndingi Mwana a'Nzeki, head of the Church's Justice and Peace Commission, told citizens that prudent political involvement was their duty, not simply their right. He was one of the first to point out that the opposition parties lacked cohesion and might not survive their tendency toward infighting and factionalism.

Now, nobody in Kenya expects that opposition to defeat KANU even in an unrigged election. John Githongo, a political columnist for the East African newspaper, commented that with the opposition having lost credibility, the only respected authority remaining in Kenya is the newly installed Archbishop Mwana a'Nzeki--who is now newly installed as Archbishop of Nairobi.

The growing movement for a radical reform of Kenya's constitution is fueled by awareness that if there are no changes--to remove the sweeping and arbitrary powers of local officials, separate the powers of government, and protect the right of free association--Moi's party will use the elections to make themselves virtually immovable. Last year the Catholic bishops issued a pastoral letter which, while steering clear of partisan politics, pointed to the need for a properly formed constitutent assembly, made up of all the groups in Kenya with a stake in the constitutional process. The Catholic hierarchy enjoys immense respect and authority in the country because of their consistent disinterested concern for the all-round welfare of Kenyans; the bishops are also admired for their courage in making clear statements on human-right abuses, regardless of the perpetrator. So the bishops' challenge could not be ignored, and Moi was obliged to promise--if only in vague terms--a constitutional-reform process. But it later became clear that what Moi had in mind was a constitutional assembly hand-picked by KANU leaders, to meet only after the elections. This would have been worse than having no assembly at all.

President Moi seems genuinely bewildered by the insistence on replacing his autocratic system. "What democracy is this? You cannot compare Kenya and Zaire. We are very different," said President Moi. He was protesting too late, for media pundits had already coined the nickname "Moi-butu"--a joke that works better than any argument, ensuring that the world sees him as akin to the ousted dictator of Zaire. But that simplification is unjust--not only because Kenya is different, but also because Moi, for all his weaknesses, still is in harmony with Christian leaders on many moral issues.

Whoever finally emerges as Moi's successor, he is not likely to imitate Moi in stopping sex-education programs in the schools or refusing to allow even a discussion of legalizing abortion. These are issues in which Moi intervened because he saw the unanimity of Kenyan parents, across religious differences. There is a special irony here: There are many non-governmental organizations active in Kenya (as everywhere else in Africa), working behind the scenes for social change, with the help of immense foreign financing. These groups have been in the forefront in fostering political change in Kenya. Yet they are also active in destroying traditional moral principles, such as the sexual morality shared by Kenyan's Christians.

The International Bible Society announced in June that it is dropping proposed changes to the New International Version of the Bible (NIV) that would have made it more "gender-inclusive."

The NIV is the most popular English-language translation of the Bible and is popular among evangelical Christian denominations, including the Southern Baptist Convention. The International Bible Society, which owns the copyrights to the NIV, had planned to publish an version that changed "men" to "human beings" or "people" by 2001. The society said it would not have changed references to God the

Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, although the status of symbolic references in the Old Testament was not clear.

That plan was opposed by the conservative Southern Baptist. who had characterized the change as a capitulation to radical feminism and political correctness. The society and its exclusive publisher for the translation, Zondervan Publishing House of Grand Rapids, Michigan, were flooded with hundreds of complaints after plans for the new translation became public.

 Vatican official clarifies intentions

 A leading Vatican official has cautioned American parents against a militant conservative group which opposes all classroom sex-education programs.

 In a letter sent to American bishops, and made public by the Pittsburgh Catholic newspaper, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo--the head of the Pontifical Council for the Family--warned that the Baltimore-based group, Mothers' Watch, has distorted the meaning of a Vatican document on sex education.

 Mothers' Watch has consistently argued that the 1995 Vatican document, The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, supports the position that no sex-education programs should be allowed into the classrooms of Catholic schools. But Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, the head of the Vatican council which released that document, told the American bishops: "The idea that our Catholic schools can play no role in assisting parents is a misrepresentation of Church teaching and of the document." The cardinal continued: "An unqualified call for an end to any and every school program which provides collaboration with parents and attempts to convey the Church's teachings on human sexuality is also unfair to those who create and carry out such programs."

 Keith Bower, who edited the New Corinthians sex-education curriculum, published by the Couple to Couple League, greeted the cardinal's statement with some satisfaction, since it contradicted the criticisms which Mothers' Watch has leveled against the New Corinthians program. However, Bower noted that the Vatican official had reiterated the traditional Catholic teaching that education in sexuality should be done primarily by parents.

Adopting a conciliatory tone toward his critics, Bowers said: "Mothers' Watch did the Church a service in documenting the imprudent sex-education programs that have divided parishes and pitted parents against educators. Their attack on our program was sometimes unfair, but it made us look hard at what we were doing. We did change some things to remedy possible misunderstandings and our curriculum was improved as a result.

Dusko Tadic, a Bosnian Serb convicted of war crimes, was sentenced on July 13 to a term of twenty years' imprisonment. This was the second sentence handed down by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the first in a case in which the defendant had contested the charges against him. (The first war criminal to be sentenced was Drazen Erdemovic, who entered a guilty plea and received a ten-year prison term.) The tribunal--based in The Hague, Netherlands--found Tadic guilty on eleven counts of "crimes against humanity," involving the maltreatment and torture of prisoners and the killing of two police officers. Tadic was found not guilty of nine other murder charges, and eleven charges were ruled outside the scope of the tribunal.

This first full trial by the war-crimes tribunal, in which prosecutors presented evidence that Tadic had raped, tortured, and killed Muslim prisoners in a concentration camp while serving as commandant, lasted for seven months. Immediately after the court's sentence was read, Tadic's lawyers announced that they would appeal--a process which may prolong the case for another year.

German government authorities have stated that they are willing to have Tadic serve his sentence in German prisons, since Tadic in Germany when he was arrested.

The court decision in The Hague was not the only sign of new resolve in the efforts of the international community to bring war criminals to justice. Early in July, NATO forces conducted the first operations designed to capture accused criminals, and quickly arrested a Serbian military officer in Eastern Croatia, charging that he had directed the mass execution of patients in a hospital in Vukovar when the Yugoslav People's Army took control of that town in 1991.

Just days later, in another successful mission known as Operation Tango, international peacekeeping forces arrested another Bosnian Serb, Milan Kovacevic, and killed another, Simo Drljaca, when he resisted arrest and opened fire on the soldiers. Kovacevic is charged with running concentration camps during the bloodiest years of ethnic cleansing, while Drljaca was said to be responsible for the elimination of non-Serbian police officers, and perhaps for the abduction and disappearance of a Catholic priest from the Banja Luka diocese in 1995.

The latest arrests came in response to secret indictments handed down by the international tribunal. Officials at The Hague say there are more such secret indictments, as well as about fifty public indictments. In the latter category the two most important cases involve the Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, who now living in isolation, surrounded with their own privatye guards. Will they be the next one brought to the tribunal?