World Watch

Holding the Moral Line, and...

New Conflicts in the Middle East; US Court Weighs In

For the fourth consecutive year, the consolidated financial reports of the Holy See show a positive balance for 1996, although the "profit" is quite small. While receipts lagged during the year, the Holy See actually cut expenses for the first time in seven years.

The annual report on Vatican finances, made public by Cardinal Edmund Szoka, also emphasized that the Holy See is making preparations for the consolidation of European economies and the introduction of the new common currency, the Euro.

Cardinal Szoka, who was called from Detroit seven years ago to help straighten out the troubled finances of the Vatican, has made his financial reports a regular staple of Church-related coverage for journalists in Rome. And the results of his efforts have been impressive, as persistent deficits disappeared and positive balances became the norm.

This year's positive balance is somewhat disappointing in comparison with those of previous years: a total of $260,000, as against $1.5 million last year. That small setback reflected a decline in overall revenues.

Still, Cardinal Szoka pointed out that the dioceses of the universal Church have, in the course of the past five years, tripled their voluntary contributions to the Holy See. That flow of funds has been the single largest factor in the elimination of the old deficits. In 1996 diocesan contributions amounted to $22 million, or more than 11 percent of the overall budget. Various other "organizations and foundations" added $46 million, with the Knights of Columbus making the single largest contribution.

The Vatican finances are always complicated by the annual debts run up by Vatican Radio and the official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano. While the exact budgets of these agencies is not made public, Cardinal Szoka argued, "The importance of these efforts justifies the loss."

The cardinal said that in the future it would be necessary to "control our expenses very carefully, and continue to increase our receipts." He cautioned that it would be a mistake to think that Catholics might withhold contributions to the Holy See in light of the current surplus. "On the contrary," he revealed, "we are seeing that these favorable accounts encourage gifts."

The Vatican has refused to make any public comment on new reports--which appeared first in the German newspaper Bild early in June, and later were picked up by many Italian papers--that the attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981 was ultimately directed by the Soviet Union, and carried out through intermediaries in the secret service of Bulgaria.

The latest news can be traced to revelations made by a former officer of Stasi, the old secret-police service of East Germany. The archives of the KGB, this officer says, show that immediately after the assassination attempt, the KGB sought to eliminate any evidence which might call attention to a possible Soviet connection. Files relating to the activities of the Turkish Grey Wolves--the radical group of which Mehmet Ali Agca was a member--were suppressed, along with other files that might have aroused suspicion of a Soviet connection.

According to the Italian press Judge Rosario Priore, who is coordinating the ongoing investigation into the assassination attempt, traveled to Berlin in June to seek more information about this new theory. Although Ali Agca himself has denied all such reports, the possibility of Soviet involvement has been taken seriously at the Vatican since the day of the attack.

The Pontifical Academy for Life, founded by Pope John Paul II, has issued its "reflections" on the issue of cloning, which amount to an absolute condemnation of the practice.

The Pontifical Academy described the techniques of cloning--as described in Nature magazine, based on the recent experience that produced "Dolly" in Scotland--and noted that 277 attempts had been necessary in order to produce that result. Along with that cavalier treatment of living beings, the Academy also pointed out the possibility that the manipulation of genetic information could cause new mutations, and urged scientists not to tamper irresponsibly with the genetic code of any living organisms.

Pointing out that it is "impossible to duplicate the soul," the Academy listed the ethical reasons that make cloning of humans completely unacceptable: the radical manipulation of human procreation; the exploitation of women in breeding; the industrial approach to production of human beings; the perverse complication of relations between family members; and the destruction of living embryos which is always a factor in cloning process.

The Pontifical Academy added that along with an absolute ban on the production of human children by cloning, society should also ban "the cloning of a fetal embryo" for experimental purposes. (The latter possibility was not prohibited in the recommendations offered by presidential panel in the United States.) The Pontifical Academy concluded that the effort to stop human cloning should be a high priority "in cultural, social, and legislative terms."

A jailed Mafia boss, captured by Italian police in June, told reporters that he wants to study theology by correspondence courses while he serving his prison term.

Pietro Algieri was reputed to be one of the most ruthless killers in the Sicilian Mafia, and is suspected of having taken control of organized crime there after Salvatore "The Beast" Riina was captured in 1993. Algieri was convicted of murder and other crimes in absentia while he was hiding out from police.

Bishop Luigi Bommarito of Catania said that even if civil law permitted it, he would not allow Algieri to study theology through any Catholic faculty. Italian law limits contact with the outside world for arrested Mafiosi. Bishop Bommarito said he questioned the motives behind the Algieri's expressed desire, suggesting the move was more an attempt to change his public image than a sign of remorse for past crimes.

A German constitutional court ruled in June that new abortion restrictions passed by the state of Bavaria--restrictions that go beyond the limitations imposed by the country's federal laws--need to be further examined before being implemented.

The new regulations, duly enacted by the Bavarian state government, stipulated that doctors could earn no more than 25 percent of their income from abortions, and allowed only specially licensed gynecologists to perform the procedures. Leaders of the Bavarian state, which has a large Catholic population, indicated that they were still confident the judges would allow the law once it had been studied in detail.

The current federal law was approved by parliament in 1995 as a compromise between West Germany's strict restrictions and Communist East Germany's tolerance of abortion on demand. Under the federal law abortion is permitted in the first three months of pregnancy if a woman first seeks counseling, but Bavarian lawmakers felt the law still did not do enough to protect the rights of the unborn child.

The Federal Constitutional Court pointed out that by the time it rendered its decision, only 14 gynecologists in Bavaria had applied for the special licenses required for abortionists under the new state law. That fact, the judges concluded, left Bavaria unable to carry out its legal obligation to provide abortions for women who sought them.

The Archdiocese of Vienna is prepared to allow non-Catholic spouses of Catholics to receive the Eucharist when there is a "pastoral emergency," the British Catholic newspaper, the Tablet, reported early in July.

According to the Tablet coverage, the archdiocese recently published a pastoral guide on ecumenical affairs, authorized by Archbishop Christoph Schönborn, which argues that in some circumstances the stability of a marriage could be imperiled if only the Catholic partner is allowed to receive Communion. The document adds that the parish priest must decide whether such an emergency exists in particular marriages on a case-by-case basis.

The guide carefully notes that for the non-Catholic spouse to receive Communion properly, he must understand and accept in Catholic teaching on the Eucharist. The Tablet added that about 600 mixed marriages--usually between Catholics and Lutherans or Calvinists--take place each year in the Vienna archdiocese.

Even supporters of abortion winced when the Marie Stopes International announced "lunch time" abortions, a walk-in, walk-out service to be made available in London, Leeds, and Manchester. Women enter a "patient friendly" clinic more like a front room than a hospital and leave within an hour. Within a few days of the announcement, 58 women had reportedly used the new service in Leeds alone.

The government's Health Minister, Tessa Jowell, voiced misgivings about the way the idea had been put forward, but it was new regulations she had signed that made the move possible. Interestingly the British Pregnancy Advice Service, a rival abortionist organization, expressed concern about the health of the women in case anything were to go wrong. An observer could be forgiven for believing that this concern was commercially driven.

Cardinal Basil Hume commented that a decision about human life and death was increasingly becoming a matter of trivial and routine choice. And Cardinal Winning said the Marie Stopes message was: "Make it easy, make it simple, remove any moral inhibitions; ten minutes in and out."

The Church of England was scheduled to discuss the controversial topic of homosexuality and the priesthood during a General Synod in July. Archdeacon David Gerrard said he will introduce the discussion at the meeting on July 14, because, he said, the issue needed to be discussed. Gerrard told the London Daily Telegraph that he is neither homosexual nor a liberal. "I simply think it is a very important issue which affects the relationship between Church and society," he told the newspaper. "It affects how we treat a group of people who have suffered appallingly prejudicial treatment by society."

The issue is expected to become the most divisive debate since the church voted to allow the ordination of women. Up to 300 priests left the church in protest after that decision, with many "swimming the Tiber" to become Catholics.

The Church of England currently does not either condone or condemn homosexuality. "Homosexuality is no bar to ordination but, because of their position representing the church, gay priests are asked to refrain from physical relations," a church spokesman said. A 1981 synod concluded that "homosexual acts fall short of (God's) ideal."

New government guidelines to help police dealing with pedophiles are expected, reflecting the powerlessness of the authorities to supervise pedophiles on release after completing their sentences. One case that attracted great attention was of a man who had raped a 10-year-old girl, had been released after serving only six of the nine years to which he had been sentenced, and was then found near a playground carrying a bag of toys and coloring books.

There have been reports of vigilante gangs attacking men believed to be pedophiles and of a mob smashing up houses in Aberdeen where two alleged offenders were thought to be living. The National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders is urging legislation to extend supervision of offenders, but there is a general recognition that the bulk of offenders go undetected and that supervising known offenders will be only marginally effective. Public alarm has been increased by the Home Office's revelation that there are probably 110,000 convicted pedophiles in England and Wales.

Disturbingly, however support is being voiced in radical quarters for the view that sex with children does no harm. A new book, Dares to Speak, published by Gay Men's Press, emphasizes positive accounts of "inter-generational and childhood sexuality" and dismisses current concerns as "hysteria" of "the abuse industry."

According to a story in the London Sunday Times, the bones of St. Thomas a Becket may be buried beneath Canterbury Cathedral--despite the fact that King Henry VIII specifically ordered his tomb destroyed and his bones burned.

St. Thomas a Becket was killed in 1170, on orders from King Henry II, whom he had reprimanded in public. His tomb in the Canterbury cathedral became a popular site for pilgrimages and expressions of loyalty to the Church--especially insofar as the Church was sometimes at odds with the British royalty. When the Protestant Reformation came to England, King Henry VIII ordered the demolition of the tomb to stop such pilgrimages.

However, evidence has arisen that the monks charged with carrying out that task never did so, and that the saint's remains were left at Canterbury in an unmarked grave. Cecil Humphrey-Smith, whose godfather was the canon of the cathedral, has now revealed that in the 1940s several men found what they believe to be the bones of St. Thomas a Becket, along with his signet ring, buried in a stone slab under the cathedral.

Dean John Simpson of Canterbury Cathedral disputes the thesis, arguing that "the weight of the evidence" suggests that the saint's body was burned at the king's request.

Sex outside marriage, homosexual relationships, and contraception are all acceptable to British teenagers, a new survey reports, and there is not a lot of difference between the views of Catholics, Anglicans, atheists or agnostics. Peter Vardy, a philosopher and theologian at London University, is publishing a book, The Puzzle of Sex, based on interviews with 3,000 16-18-year-olds, taking university entrance exams.

Nearly all atheists and agnostics said sex outside marriage between couples in a stable relationship was not wrong, but so did 80 percent of Anglicans and 85 percent of Catholics. On contraception, 99 percent of Anglicans and 92 percent of Catholics said its use was not morally wrong. Nearly two thirds of both denominations did not think male homosexual relationships were always morally wrong.

The British Library in London is refusing to permit the return of the Lindisfarne Gospels to Lindisfarne. Lindisfarne, which is better known as Holy Island--and which really is an island off the northeast coast, accessible on foot only at low tide--is where these famous and beautiful manuscripts were created by monks fleeing the Vikings in 876. They were lodged in Durham Cathedral until Henry VIII looted them in 1530. After a checkered interval they were left to the nation in 1702 and eventually found their way into the British Library.

London's argument is that only 75,000 people saw these historic Christian manuscripts when they were on loan to the north for a year, whereas 6 million visitors see them each year in London. "It is appropriate that the Gospels be displayed with the Magna Carta and other great world treasures," library spokesmen, adding that they are too fragile to be taken to Lindisfarne in any case. Calling the dispute an unholy row, the Times urges the compromise of regular pilgrimages north for the manuscripts.

Quite apart from their beauty, the Gospels carry one of the oldest surviving translations of the Bible into English, a gloss written between the Latin lines by Aldred, Provost of Lindisfarne.

Two television documentaries have quickened public interest in the question of whether the Prince of Wales is trying by slow degrees to prepare public opinion for his eventual marriage to Camilla Parker-Bowles. Prince Charles is said, in a Times report, to be not unhappy with mature discussion of the course his private and public life should take. The outspoken Ven George Austin, Archdeacon of York, said on the BBC program, "Heart of the Matter," that the pretense that nothing was happening at all--when everybody knew perfectly well that it was a relationship--was damaging. The noted Catholic peer Lord St. John of Fawsley has come around to favoring the conjectured marriage, but, like the constitutional writer, Ben Pimlott, he opposes a morganatic marriage. Former Tory minister Anne Widdicombe said that a morganatic marriage would solve the state's problem but not those of the Church of England; she expressed the hope that the matter would not end up with another abdication.

Pimlott, a biographer of Queen Elizabeth, pointed out that the matter could not be left until the queen died because the constitution makes the heir the new sovereign the instant the previous sovereign dies. Thus the issue must be resolved in advance. It is reported that the prince is inflexible on two points: he will do nothing that would jeopardize his succession, but neither will he sever relations with Parker-Bowles. Public opinion will finally determine whether he can keep these two planks under his feet.

Divided views on the source of the "Toronto Blessing"--a charismatic phenomenon under which many people cry or laugh uncontrollably, while some fall down and make animal noises during divine service, have been expressed in a new Church of England report, The Toronto Experience.

Some Christians see the phenomenon as the work of Satan disturbing worship in the guise of God but the report also allows the possibility that God may be behind it. The manifestation took its name from a church at a Toronto airport where it first occurred in 1994. The new report does not fix a church position and leaves open the question whether the source is divine or satanic. A Methodist report last year also suggested that the Blessing might not be the work of the Holy spirit but rather quite the opposite.

President Jorge Sampaio of Portugal has been refused a private audience with Pope John Paul, because he insisted on being accompanied by his second wife, who like himself is divorced and remarried.

"All of the chanceries in the world understand that the protocol at the Vatican allows Catholic leaders to have an audience with the Pope, accompanied by their spouses, only if their marriage is regular in the eyes of the Church," explained Father Ciro Benedettini, the deputy director of the Vatican press office. The Vatican rule applies to baptized Christians. For other world leaders, no such condition applies.

The Vatican had agreed to a private audience for President Sampaio provided that his second wife remain with a larger delegation accompanying the Portuguese leader. But Sampaio, who is not a practicing Catholic, refused to accept that condition.

In Portugal, the Vatican refusal to meet with the country's leader has provoked some protests--not only in the press, but even among Church leaders. Auxiliary Bishop Januario Torgal Mendes Ferreira of Lisbon complained, "these Vatican rules are really outdated."

In a country already plagued by allegations of unethical use of euthanasia, a large majority of Dutch psychiatrists say doctor-assisted suicide is acceptable for some people suffering from mental illnesses, according to a survey published in June by the New England Journal of Medicine.

In an article accompanying the survey Dr. Nancy Ganzini, an American geriatric psychiatrist, said doctors should never assist in the suicide of a patient with a mental disorder. While the author did not say whether she agreed with assisted suicides in general, 12 of the 552 survey participants said they had helped a patient kill himself, citing the person's "unbearable or hopeless physical suffering" and the "failure of all other treatment." One even admitted to helping a patient suffering from "unbearable or hopeless mental suffering" in order to help him avoid committing suicide by violence.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia in the Netherlands has come under increasing scrutiny in the United States as different state legislatures debate possible judicial and legal changes that may allow the practice. Dutch doctors have tacit approval to follow the practice, although it is technically illegal, but recent disclosures have revealed abuses of the system in which many patients who did not express a desire to die were killed by their doctors.

A 1994 Dutch Supreme Court ruling said that in extreme cases, doctor-assisted suicide could be appropriate for people with unbearable mental suffering, provided that the patients did not suffer from mental illness. Thirty-seven percent of the psychiatrists surveyed said they had received persistent requests from at least one patient seeking help in killing himself.

The United Nation's secretary general has announced the selection of Irish President Mary Robinson as the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The announcement by Secretary General Kofi Annan drew a generally warm response from human-rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Robinson's seven-year term as Ireland's president ends on December 2, but Annan said he hoped she would begin her new job late this summer. Annan said he had appointed Robinson because she was an "extraordinary leader" who would bring "dynamism to the job." He called his decision "one of the most important appointments that I will probably have the opportunity of making during my term."

Robinson, a popular figure in Ireland, has been an active participant in international political circles, and for months her name had been mentioned as a candidate for a prominent UN position. A popular politician in Ireland, she has drawn heated criticism from some Catholics for her positions on issues such as abortion, and the flagrant disrespect she showed during an audience with Pope John Paul II earlier this year.

The Red Cross suggested in June that a new code of ethics and professional conduct should be devised for aid agencies to avoid abuses as more groups spring up in the multi-billion-dollar relief industry.

The International Federal of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said that private agencies are beginning to take the place of governments in caring for refugees and victims of natural and man-made disasters around the world. The group added that government funding cuts and the fatigue of private donors is starting to squeeze the pool of money available for relief aid, while the number of aid agencies booms.

The IFRC expressed the fear that aid agencies might be influenced by individuals or organizations seeking partisan political or even financial gain, at a time "when politics, buying influence,

drawing lines on maps can make funding conditional." The group's report said that leading aid agencies would being work this summer on a new code of conduct, aiming to create standards which both donors and disaster victims could use to judge the integrity of humanitarian groups. The IFRC admitted that the development of such a code might discourage new entrants to the field, in which the seven leading agencies account for 75 percent of the emergency-response capacity worldwide.

The three great crosses which overshadow the former "Lenin" shipyard in Gdansk have become, over the past two decades, a symbol of the Solidarity which set in train the domino-effect collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. Their erection was one of the prime demands of the shipyards strikers in 1980, who wanted a memorial raised to the 44 demonstrators who had lost their lives at the hands of the security forces during an earlier workers' protest in 1970. But although the dead were duly commemorated (and the crosses themselves served as a potent symbol of hope during the dark days of martial law), nothing until now has been done for the surviving victims of 1970.

This omission has now been put right, with an amendment to the law on veterans. Under the new legislation, victims of the reprisals will enjoy the same benefits as war veterans, including a 10 percent supplement to wages or pensions, and reduced charges for telephone, electricity, and water. But, for the moment at least, not all the victims will benefit--only the 209 whose names are in the files of evidence compiled against the 12 leading Communists accused of being responsible for the reprisals. And as the sponsor of the amendment, Senator Leszek Lackorzynski, points out, much of the relevant documentation has been "completely destroyed." Nevertheless, Senator Lackorzynski stresses, it should undoubtedly be possible to compile full lists, by consulting work-place records which should have a note of those absent by reason of injury in the aftermath of the clashes.

Romania, like Slovenia, is clearly disappointed at being excluded from the first round of new admissions to NATO. Romanian officials point out that they did everything, right up to the last moment, to try to prove their worthiness for admission, even amending a new Education Act, when the ink was barely dry on it, in order to come into line with the international convention on the rights of national minorities. But while Western journalists speculated that a late-night chat between US President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair had dealt the fatal blow to Romanian and Slovenian hopes--at least for the time being--the Romanians have their own explanation of what happened. It is all the fault, they say, of European media reports that Pope John Paul II had canceled plans for a visit to Romania, owing to objections from the Romanian Orthodox Church.

In vain Romania's foreign ministry rushed out a communiqué on the eve of the NATO meeting saying that plans for the visit were "undaunted," and that the Romanian Orthodox Church was committed to "promoting ecumenism and inter-confessional dialogue, in the spirit of tolerance and brotherly love." Not only were the Romanians looking forward to the papal visit as an expression of ecumenism; they hoped, the ministry said, that it would be crowned by a "full inter-confessional reconciliation" between the Catholic Church and what the communiqué called "the only Latin Orthodox Church" in the world." (The Romanian language, uniquely in Eastern Europe, is a close derivative of Latin). If the communiqué indeed represents the genuine opinion of the Romanian Orthodox, and full "reconciliation" is a real possibility, then this is remarkable and joyful news--all the more so, at a time when the influential Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church is showing itself increasingly hostile to Rome.

Hungary's Prime Minister, Gyula Horn, and the head of the State Secretariat of the Curia, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, have signed an agreement regulating Church-state relations in Hungary. Among other things, it provides for the state to give financial support for the Church's public and religious activities, and guarantees that the country's various churches cannot suffer discrimination in comparison with lay organizations. According to Prime Minister Horn, this Concordat will eliminate all remnants of the "defenselessness" vis-a-vis the state authorities which the churches suffered in communist times.

The prime minister's use of the plural "churches" is significant. Hungary is a multi-confessional state with large Calvinist and Lutheran communities as well as the Catholic Church (Eastern Hungary, in particular, is strongly Calvinist. It experienced the Reformation, but before the Counter-Reformation could reach it, the area had been occupied by the Ottoman Turks, who had no intention of letting Catholic missionaries in.) Although this Hungarian concordat was signed with the Vatican, it does not give any special privileges to the Catholic Church. On the contrary, the pact makes it clear that all denominations have equal rights since, as Horn made clear at a post-signing media conference, "The modern Hungarian state is a secular organization which no one church can claim for itself."

The Hungarian agreement evoked nothing like the four-year-long row in Poland over its concordat. Nevertheless, not all Hungarian politicians favored it. At one point it looked as if the ruling coalition would come to grief over the issue, since the junior partner in the coalition, the Alliance of Free Democrats, was sharply critical of the deal. However the senior partner, the Socialist party, pushed ahead, stressing that the agreement was in effect simply an implementation of its 1994 election manifesto regarding relations with the churches and the settlement of claims for church property confiscated by the communists.

The Vatican seems quite happy with non-privileged status. "The Catholic Church," Cardinal Sodano told the media, "has not asked for and has not received any privileges" in Hungary. Rather, he said, it has been given "a just solution" to the "delicate issues" arising from the communist past--a solution which, he urged, could well serve as a model for other former Communist countries.

Charitable organizations are being forced to close down their aid programs in Belarus owing to obstructive new legislation. The ever more authoritarian President Alaksandr Lukashenka recently approved a package of customs regulations designed to channel all relief supplies through government agents, who will then allot the aid as they see fit. Otherwise supplies will be impounded at the frontier for up to a month, while customs officials check the documentation--which must list every item, down to the last bandage or packet of aspirins, in minute detail.

Belarus was the country most affected by the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power station just across the frontier in Ukraine. Some 70 percent of the total fallout came down on Belarus, making a quarter of the country unfit for normal life. But only in three counties in the extreme southwest was the population evacuated or special precautions taken. Only in 1989 was the extent of the contamination allowed to become public knowledge. The result has been not only a rise in such radiation-related diseases as thyroid cancer and leukemia among children, but also the depression of the immune system, so that "ordinary" illnesses which in normal circumstances would be little more than an inconvenience--influenza, for example--become life-threatening.

Immediately after the Chernobyl accident, many Western charities offered their aid, but were rebuffed by the Soviet authorities, who at that time wanted to cover up the extent of the contamination. When the truth came out in 1989, the Soviet system was in terminal crisis, and authorities had little choice but to let the charities in. Hundreds of initiatives sprang up. But even the largest charities insisted on delivering their supplies straight to the target, to avoid the risk the supplies might "disappear" along the way. Many of the individuals involved in small-scale charities have, over the past eight years, regularly given up their summer vacations to drive trucks full of medical supplies to Belarus--or, in the case of donors from the US and Canada, flying over with a consignment and seeing it safely delivered.

This arrangement clearly does not suit the centralizing tendencies of President Lukashenka, who wants everything under his own personal control. For some time he has been harassing non-government charities. Customs duties which had been waived on medical and relief supplies were reimposed. Intrusive and hostile auditors were sent to examine the books of the Belarusian partners of Western charities. Belarusian ambassadors were instructed to set up committees to "coordinate" all aid coming from the country to which they were accredited.

Now the new rules will make such deliveries virtually impossible. Many charities will undoubtedly simply re-target their efforts to a country where their help is more welcome. To those with a special interest in Belarus, the situation is tragic. Father Alexander Nadson, the London-based apostolic visitor to the Belarusian diaspora, says that he can see no other option than for small charities to close down their operations in Belarus. "Even the Soviet officials were not as bad as this," he said. "But it is a tragedy for the children."

A few days after he made that statement, a further tragedy struck. One activity much favored by small charities in Western Europe has been the organization of vacation trips for children from the contaminated areas, to stay with families in the host country. At the beginning of July one such busload of children was involved in a major accident on a highway in Germany. Four children were killed, and several others injured. The accident occurred just before the new "National Day" of Belarus, introduced by Lukashenka to commemorate the country's "liberation" from the Nazis in 1944 (a "liberation" which in fact meant reimposition of Soviet rule and a resumption of Stalin's purges.) The day was to be marked with an old-fashioned military parade. Chernobyl-related organizations appealed to the president to cancel or curtail the festivities as a mark of mourning for the children who had died. The president ignored their request. The Chernobyl organizations then appealed to the head of the Orthodox Church in Belarus, Metropolitan Filaret, to have a special requiem for the dead children. The Metropolitan refused to do so, and went off, as scheduled, to bless the military parade.

Finally, in July the Lukashenka took yet another step against the young Chernobyl victims, proposing amendments to the Law on Religion which would ban any health camps whose programs include offering religious instruction to the children they serve.

A leading public figure in Azerbaijan--a republic in the Caucasus with a mainly Shi'ite Muslim tradition--has accused neighboring (Christian) Armenia of using Christian missionaries to foment ethnic and religious conflict and undermine Azerbaijani statehood. Intigam Babayev, President of the National Council of Youth Committees, told the Baku newspaper Chag that the missionaries, many of whom come to Azerbaijan as representatives of humanitarian organizations, concentrate on the country's ethnic minorities, and are fostering separatism among them. The missionaries also allegedly urge young men performing their compulsory army service to lay down their arms, and urge, "fraternal relations" with Armenia.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have a long-standing territorial dispute over the enclave of Nagomo-Karabakh, a mountainous region with a predominantly Armenian population which was assigned to Azerbaijan under a treaty between the nascent USSR and Turkey in the 1920s. This dispute escalated into armed conflict in the late 1980s, which eventually provoked inter-ethnic violence in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, itself.

However, Babayev's allegation that "Armenian organizations" are backing the missionaries seems to owe more to conspiracy theory than to reality. The Armenians have their Armenian Apostolic Church, but the missionaries now flooding into Azerbaijan are mainly Protestants, from about 20 other denominations. According to Azerbaijan's Religious Studies Center, these missionaries--who so far have spent some $20 million on their activities--are working under a program called "Evangelization 2000" aimed at converting 20 percent of the population (1.5 million) by the year 2000. Progress has not been rapid: a reported 7,000 converts since Azerbaijan became independent in 1991.

Azerbaijan's fear of inter-ethnic conflict is not directed only against the Christian missionaries--or Armenians. Recently, Azerbaijan state TV stopped relaying programs from (Shi'ite Muslim) Iran, on the grounds that a number of recent Iranian programs had aimed at splitting Azerbaijani society on "regional and ethnic lines," by claiming that the inhabitants of the Apsheron and Shamakha districts of Azerbaijan have Iranian ethnic roots.

Swallowing their own stated objections to defects in a proposal to restrict religious minorities, members of the upper house of the Russian parliament decided on July 4, by a tally of 112-4, to adopt the bill without any changes and send it to President Boris Yeltsin for a final approval or veto.

The Federation Council took only about ten minutes to decide the issue and heard only two speeches. No one spoke out against the bill or even asked questions. "The lobbying pressures for the bill overcame all resistance," a source in the upper house told Keston News Service after the vote. The bill--which puts heavy new restrictions on any "non-traditional" religions, including Catholicism--has been pushed through the Russian parliament by a strong coalition of supporters, prominently including representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Russian Orthodox Patriarch has cautioned that government leaders should proceed with caution in deciding what to do with the embalmed body of Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Soviet state, if and when the dictator's remains are finally taken down from the display in Red Square where they have been venerated for years.

Patriarch Alexei II was responding to President Boris Yeltsin's recent proposal that Lenin receive a "Christian burial." That statement elicited the ire of both Russian nationalists, who see the suggestion as an insult to the Orthodox faith, and Communists, who still revere Lenin and want his tomb kept in Red Square. "Of course it's for the people to decide," the patriarch told reporters. "But my personal opinion is that one should not undertake steps which could further split troubled Russian society."

Lenin's own wish, expressed before his death in 1924, was to be buried in his family's plot in St. Petersburg, but Communist authorities instead had his body preserved and placed in a special mausoleum in Red Square. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, many factions have called for the removal of the last remaining symbols of the Soviet regime, including Lenin's tomb.

The apostolic administrator of Siberia, Bishop Josef Werth, has lodged a complaint with the Russian government about its failure to return church properties which were confiscated by the old Communist regime, the Belgian CRTN agency has reported.

Speaking to the Council for Interaction between Religious Organizations, Bishop Werth said that the Catholic Church is seeking "to build harmonious relations with everyone, and is prepared to make her contribution to the spiritual revival of society." But he pointed out that authorities have failed to restore the hundreds of churches taken by the Communists. Only three church buildings have been returned to Catholics in the seven years since the fall of the Communist government, he observed.

Bishop Werth also mentioned that Catholic priests are being denied visas that would allow them to minister to the faithful in Siberia. "There is a shortage of Catholic priests in Russia," he noted. "Consequently, volunteers come from abroad. Yet, they are too often confronted with bureaucratic obstacle."

An Iranian dissident has charged that the government of Iran bears the ultimate responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Abolghassem Mebahi, who helped to found a new Iranian intelligence agency for the government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but later broke with that regime and went into exile, told the German magazine Der Spiegel that Tehran called on both Libya and Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal for help in carrying out the attack, which killed 259 people on the plane and 11 on the ground. According to the report, the attack was carried out in retaliation for the accidental downing of an Iranian passenger jet by the US warship Vincennes over the Straits of Hormuz. The late Ayatollah Khomeini allegedly order the attack himself.

In 1991 the US indicted two Libyan intelligence agents on charges related to the bombing, and Libya continues to face sanctions for refusing to hand the two men over for trial.

The government of Iraq is not normally noted for its defense of the rights of Christians. But a recent visit to Iraq by an inspection team from the United Nations Special Committee (UNSCOM) was reported by the Iraqi media and news agencies as a violation of the sanctity of shrines of the Chaldean Church. According to the Iraqi authorities, such "acts of provocation" could no longer be tolerated, and they were "seriously thinking of stopping" cooperation with the Commission, whose task is to monitor the removal of weapons of mass destruction from Iraq.

The official Iraqi news agency publicized a letter of protest from Bishop Emmanuel Dali, aide to the Chaldean Patriarch, which it said he had sent to the United Nations Secretary General, with a copy to Pope John Paul II. (The Chaldean Church--one of the ancient churches of the Middle East, has been in communion with Rome since the 16th century). According to the agency text, Bishop Dali complained that the "raid," was not only unjustified, and a violation of the immunity of religious establishments, but was also carried out in a particularly "crude," "brutal," and "provocative" manner. He was quoted as saying that the head of the team had ordered a door in one of the convents to be broken down. Walls and storage sheds were examined with special probes and even the nuns' cemetery, where children were trying to put flowers on the graves, was subjected to scanning.

There is little doubt that the Iraqi authorities are trying to get political mileage out of the incident. They, and the media of the Arab world generally, put all the blame on the head of UNSCOM, Rolf Ekeus. (Significantly, the Jordanian newspaper Al-Majd, in reporting the incident, referred to him as a "Zionist"). In fact, although Ekeus reportedly apologized to the Iraqis for the "big mistake" of the inspection team, it was not, strictly speaking, his responsibility, since the team in question came under the authority of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. But what precisely happened--and why should the inspectors have supposed in the first place that there were nuclear weapons in the church or convent premises?

According to Dr. Hans Meyer, a UN spokesman, the church and convent (he speaks of one convent, not the two claimed by the Iraqis) adjoin a complex of buildings which the inspectors had to check--and therefore, by the rules of inspection, they too had to be checked as a formality. But Meyer insists that the inspection team never went into the church or convent. Only the head of the team went in--without any probes or sensors--and simply had a cursory look around, just to verify that this really was a genuine religious establishment. According to Meyer, no one at the convent or church protested; the inspector was made welcome, and was invited to come back some other time, so that they could all pray together.

The leaders of Israel's governing coalition, led by the Likud Party, have reached a tentative agreement with leaders of the Conservative and Reform branches of Judaism, postponing final action on a proposed law which would have given the Orthodox branch of Judaism full control over the process of religious conversion in Israel.

In April, at the prompting of the religious parties which are partners in the Likud government coalition, the Israeli Knesset gave initial approval to the proposed bill. The measure prompted an angry reaction from Reform and Conservative Jews in other countries--particularly the United States--who charged that the bill raised questions about their Jewish identity.

Under the terms of the new compromise, the Likud coalition agreed to postpone further debate on the measure, while a special commission searches for a solution which would be acceptable to all sides. In return, the Reform and Conservative Jews have agreed to delay legal challenges to the law.

As tensions mounted in the Middle East because of the long stalemate in negotiations toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, a series of ugly incidents demonstrated the depth of religious antagonism in the region, and the willingness of some extremists to goad their opponents deliberately toward violence.

• Israeli prosecutors charged a Jewish woman with illegally putting up posters in the already tense city of Hebron. The posters depicted the prophet Mohammed as a pig scribbling in the Qu'ran. The posters incited days of rioting by Muslim Arabs, leaving dozens wounded and several youths dead. When arrested for distributing the posters--and for hurling a rock at a car driven by a Palestinian--Tatyana Suskin was wearing the symbols of the outlawed anti-Arab Kach movement, which was founded by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane.

• Palestinian Christians and Muslims expressed anger over an Israeli magazine illustration depicting the Virgin Mary with a cow's head, drawing a belated apology from the publisher. The drawing appeared in the science magazine Galileo in April to accompany two articles about cloning. "Our choice of illustration was very poor," publisher Stephen Savitsky said. "It was done in an innocent way, but it showed that we were not sensitive enough." The illustration became a focal point of controversy when the Arab-language newspaper Sunnara reprinted it early in July and asked Christian and Muslim clergymen to respond.

• Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) intervened in an internal church dispute involving the possession of Russian Orthodox churches in the Holy Land. Although Arafat was apparently acting at the behest of Patriarch Alexei II, the intervention provoked a chorus of opposition and charges that the PA had violate the religious freedom of the monks involved.

In a meeting with Arafat last month, Patriarch Alexei asked for help recovering churches, monasteries, and convents in Palestinian-controlled areas. These sites are (or were) now under the control of "White Russians"--churches which split off from the Russian Orthodox Church during the Communist era. Early in July, Arafat complied with that wish, sending police to evict the occupants of several sites. At one monastery in Hebron, monks complained that the police refused to produce any documentation, and the eviction was so violent that five monks and two nuns required hospitalization.

An aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the church raids, saying they violated the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements under which both sides are to respect holy sites. New York-based Russian Orthodox Archbishop Laurus, who opposes Patriarch Alexei's actions, also condemned the action in a statement as "a flagrant violation of international law."

Islamic fundamentalists won a major victory in Egypt in June when a court overturned a new government rule prohibiting female circumcision.

Last July, Egypt's health minister had banned the practice of circumcising female children--a widespread practice in developing countries, which has been roundly condemned by human-rights groups as a form of mutilation. But Muslims led by Yusif Badry challenged the ban in court, and won vindication for their position when a Cairo court ruled that the health minister did not have the authority to impose such a ban. Although the court left open the possibility of a parliamentary move to stop the practice, observers doubt that such a legislative move could win approval, in light of the aggressive Islamic movement in Egypt.

Islamic scholars are divided on whether the practice of circumcision for females is required by their religion. It is estimated that more than 90 percent of the young Muslim girls in Egypt and Sudan are circumcised; on the other hand the practice is virtually unknown in Saudi Arabia.

The June decision was not the first successful effort by Islamic fundamentalists in the courtrooms. Last year another Egyptian court ruled that a married couple must be considered divorced because the husband had become an apostate from Islam. That couple moved to the Netherlands in order to preserve their union.

The court decision came against a backdrop of violence by Islamic terrorists in Egypt. More than 1,000 have been killed in persistent clashes between government officials and militants, and in attacks aimed against tourists and other perceived to be hostile to Islam.

Pope John Paul wants to concentrate the attention of the worldwide Church on Africa, which he sees as "the continent of hope." That is the message of Bishop Crescenzio Sepe, the secretary of the Congregation for the Clergy, which organized an international retreat for priests in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast. The retreat, with 1,500 participating, was scheduled for July 8- 13; a similar retreat took place last year at Fatima, Portugal.

Bishop Sepe said that his dicastery hoped, through this retreat, to "turn the world's attention to Africa and African spirituality," so that the world's faithful would understand that--despite the enormous difficulties the people of that continent are facing--there are enormous spiritual riches in Africa. "This is a contribution to the changing of minds," he said.

The immense new Marian shrine at Yamoussoukro is one of the world's most renowned, the bishop continued, and its recent construction is "a sign of what Africa can accomplish."

The Catholic bishops of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have issued a new statement condemning continued human-rights abuses under the country's new government.

President Laurent Kabila's rebel forces ousted dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and changed their country's name from Zaire to Congo in May, and while the bishops were often critical of human-rights violations under Mobutu's rule, they questioned whether that will change in the future. "Some new authorities carry out acts which do not respect human dignity," they said in a June statement. "The change of people at the helm of the country is not enough. The demise of the former regime does not automatically bring about the desired change."

The statement, signed by the country's 11 bishops and Cardinal Frederic Etsou, said they were particularly concerned about revenge killings and the lack of law enforcement. They cite reports that former Mobutu soldiers have been gunned down in the streets and that thieves and other criminals are being executed by enraged citizens without due process.

The latest civil wars and armed conflicts in Africa are partly caused by international companies, especially oil companies, which pursue their own economic interests regardless of the consequences for civilians, according to two African bishops who expressed their views in interviews with the charity group Aid to the Church in Need.

Bishop Gabriel Mante of Jasikan, Ghana sees the conflicts as a continuation of the proxy wars during the Cold War. "When I recall what happened in Angola, in Mozambique, in Guinea Bissau; these were proxy-wars between the Soviet Union and the United States," he said. "Today, international companies still continue this war with similar means. They supply money and arms. They supply more arms than common welfare. For instance in Zaire and Congo, they pursue their own interests."

Archbishop Anthony Obinna of Owerri, Nigeria expressed similar sentiments: "These multinational companies... are more interested in their economic profit than in the welfare of the people. The strength of the regimes that are contra-populist comes from the oil companies or the multinational corporations in Europe."

The bishops also expressed their regret that relations between the European countries and Africa take place primarily on the economic level. Archbishop Obinna urged Europe to become aware of its own spiritual roots in order to help Africa: "Matters are quite complicated for us, as Europe is becoming openly indifferent to God, indifferent to religion, so that it doesn't really matter what you believe." According to Archbishop Obinna, helping Africa means to give financial support but above all to help rectify the structures of injustice that have been created--and this, he says, can only be done if Europe returns to its Christian roots.

An international Buddhist group has called on Vietnam's government to release hundreds of members of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam who have been jailed for practicing their faith.

The Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau sent a letter to the Communist government demanding the unconditional release of monks and nuns in jail. The letter called for the restoration of the freedom of religious activity for the United Buddhist Church, a halt to a campaign aimed at disbanding the Buddhist Youth Movement, and the restoration of all property confiscated by the authorities from the church.

Both the Buddhist religion and the Catholic Church are heavily regulated under the Communist regime in Hanoi. The Vatican has been engaged in talks with Hanoi to allow the appointment of new bishops, and to stave off efforts by the government to break the ties between Vietnamese Catholics and the universal Church.

Chinese Communist leaders confirmed in June that the leader of an enormous underground Evangelical church has been detained, but denied allegations that it was an example of religious persecution.

Han Wenzao, president of the state-approved Christian Council of China, said Peter Xu Yongze of the New Birth Church was arrested in March for violating laws governing "social organizations." Han denied that Xu's arrest is a persecution of Christians, but said it was "a normal handling of a criminal prosecution."

Officially atheist, the Communist government tolerates membership in state-sponsored and controlled churches, and outlaws all other churches, including the underground Catholic Church which continues to pledge fealty to the See of Peter in Rome.

Followers of Xu's church, which is based in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, number in the millions, according to Hong Kong news reports. But Chinese authorities insist that the group is not religious at all. "Xu's doings entirely ran counter to the teachings of the Bible and the true canons of Christ. Xu is not a Christian at all," Han said. Xu's preaching about the imminent end of world led "people to do no normal work but cry collectively every day," he added.

The most senior bishop in the Communist-sanctioned Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association died in Beijing at the age of 80. Bishop Joseph Zong Huiade was chairman of the association and the Chinese Catholic Bishops' Conference, both of which ostensibly guide the country's Catholics but which maintain no ties with the universal Church.

Bishop Zong was imprisoned during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution when all churches were closed, but was released and appointed to Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association in 1980. The bishop had said in recent interviews that he hoped for a normalization of relations with the Vatican, but said the Church should not interfere in Chinese domestic affairs, which include the country's draconian abortion and family-planning policies.

Official government figures say China has about 4 million Patriotic Catholics, although Western academics estimate the number as closer to 8-10 million. The underground Church, loyal to the Pope, is believed to be considerably larger.

72

KINGDOM OF TONGA OFFERS INTERNET DOMAINS WITH A CATCH

The South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga has found a commodity that may open new economic opportunities for the country: Internet domain names. But prospective customers will have to adhere to Christian guidelines.

Under the Internet's addressing scheme, all countries have their own suffix. For example, Japan is .jp, England is uk, and Tonga is .to. Taking advantage of the serendipitous coincidence with the English preposition, the country wants to offer companies, tired of the intense competition in the popular .com suffix, a unique domain name like www.love.to or www.burri.to. Tonga has registered 1,000 such domain names--admittedly only a fraction of the more than 900,000 domains registered in the .com hierarchy. But Eric Gullichsen, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who helped start Tonga's new enterprise, said: "In .to all the good names are still available."

Those wishing to register the new domain at the country's web site (http://www.tonic.to) will have to abide by certain restrictions. The tiny nation is strongly Christian and will not allow certain names to be registered. If one of the forbidden words is used, the following message appears: "You filthy minded pervert! The Kingdom of Tonga admonishes you. Now go back and think of a name that you wouldn't be embarrassed to say to your mother."

Bishop Carlos Belo of Dili, East Timor held a book-launch party on July 5 and warned of continued worldwide human-rights abuses, but without specifically mentioning East Timor or Indonesia.

Bishop Belo, who was a recipient of last year's Nobel Peace Prize, announced the publication of his book, For Peace and Justice, a collection of his essays written in the Malay language. He warned that although fascism and Communism are fading, human rights are still being abused by governments. He specifically referred to "those governments that treat their people not as individuals who deserve respect, but as people who live from the governments' charity."

East Timor, a former Portuguese colony with a majority Catholic population, was invaded by mainly Muslim Indonesia in 1975 and annexed the following year. The United Nations does not recognize Indonesia's actions, nor does the Vatican, and Bishop Belo is not a member of the Indonesian bishops' conference.

The bishop of East Timor's new diocese of Baucau, Dom Basilio do Nascimento Martins, has taken up the role of spokesman for his flock, following the example of his senior partner, Bishop Belo. In an exclusive interview with Portuguese radio in July (his first since his installation in March of this year), Dom Basilio added his voice to the growing volume of doubt about the alleged death of David Alex, a leader of the pro-independence Timorese resistance movement.

According to the Indonesian military authorities in East Timor, Alex was captured in a shoot-out near Baucau on June 25 and died later in the hospital of his wounds. The East Timorese, however, refused to accept the account of his death. Some argue that since (according to the Red Cross) relatives had not seen the body, they could not be sure that it was really Alex who was killed; others maintained that he was deliberately killed in captivity, since from the point of view of the Indonesian authorities, he would be less trouble dead than alive. Either way, they want the body exhumed and a proper identification and autopsy made. Dom Basilio, who was out of Baucau at the time of the shoot-out, said that on his return he heard that Alex had been buried, but that since no one had seen the body, there was a "wave of suspicion." The uncertainty over Alex's fate coincided with yet another round of UN-sponsored negotiations over the future of East Timor, again failing to produce results, and this can only have added to what Dom Basilio termed the "climate of tension" in East Timor.

Meanwhile, as rumor and counter-rumor circulated about Alex's death, a Dili court imposed sentences of several months apiece on four of the defendants accused of assaulting and causing the death of Alfredo Siga, a member of the Indonesian armed forces, during a procession on Christmas Eve last year to welcome home Bishop Belo from the Nobel prize ceremony in Oslo. And in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, a Catholic priest, Father Ignatius Sandiarwan Sumardi, was charged with having sheltered activists from the banned People's Democratic Party following riots in the city last year.

Western Samoa, whose Church leaders recently expressed their anxiety over the opening of a "American-style" round-the-clock TV station in the region, fearing that it would shock the traditionalism of local Christians of all faiths now face another source of disturbance. This time it comes from a woman who claims to be a Catholic nun from Ireland, Sister Ruth Augustus, who has been going around the country, carrying a large statue of Our Lady, and proclaiming that the world is about to come to an end. The acting bishop, Msgr. Falamiko Mauno Matalino, has disclaimed all knowledge of the woman and her mission, and stressing that the Irish bishops know nothing of her either--not even if she is a Catholic, let alone a nun.

"Sister Ruth," however, clearly does not intend to take the clergy's opposition lightly. Recently, when a priest, Father Michael Adams, preached a sermon against her message in the main Catholic church in the capital, Apia, Sister Ruth, who was in the congregation, began shouting back at him and refused to be silenced, until forcibly escorted out of the church.

A proposed law targeting anyone who provides jobs or shelter to illegal immigrants was grounded by the government of President Carlos Menem in June after the Catholic Church leadership described the measure as "immoral, irrational, and inhuman."

The Argentine bishops' conference addressed a message to President Menem saying that approval of the law, supported by two congressmen and some officials at the Ministry of the Interior, would be "a shame and a stain on Argentina's tradition of openness and human sensibility." If approved, the law would establish a significant reward for any Argentine who informed on persons or organizations providing shelter or job opportunities to illegal immigrants. "Caritas Argentina," the relief service of the Catholic Church, provides shelter to homeless immigrants, most of them from Paraguay, Bolivia, and Peru.

Unlike most Latin American countries, Argentina has no significant native population except in the northern Andean region and the southern plains. More than 90 percent of the country's people are of European descent--most of Spanish and Italian, but also some British, Germans, and Poles. "We have been a generous land, always welcoming to immigrants, because all of us have a relative who arrived as a poor and needy immigrant to this land," said Archbishop Estanislao Karlic, president of the Argentine bishops' conference, in his message to President Menem. "Our country would act against its own identity if it suddenly becomes xenophobic with the help of such an irrational law."

In the last five years, poor immigrants from Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, and southern Brazil have been arriving in Argentina in search of job opportunities. Paradoxically, the two representatives supporting the bill, Pascual Rampi and Carlos Dellepiane, are children of Italian families that emigrated to Argentina.

Late in June the Brazilian house of representatives began what promised to be a long and heated discussion on a proposed law which, if approved, will give legal status to homosexual couples.

According to local newspapers, the proposal will eventually prompt a showdown between two important personalities in the legislature: the author of the project, Marta Suplicy, and its main opponent, representative Severino Cavalcanti. Suplicy, a well known Brazilian sexologist, is a prominent member of the left-wing Workers Party, while Cavalcanti, from the center-right Brazilian Progress Party, is active in the Catholic charismatic renewal. Suplicy is supported by the local community of artists and several noted intellectuals, while Cavalcanti has drawn the support of several Christian denominations.

The bill under discussion would grant all the legal rights of a married couple--with the exception of the right to adopt a child--to those same-sex couples who are officially registered before a public notary. Same-sex couples would be entitled to apply for state housing projects created specifically for low-income families. In order to appease the criticism of Christian and pro-family forces, Suplicy changed the legal name of the status that would be opened to homosexual couples from "civil union" to "registered association."

"The opposition to the legalization of homosexual associations is a consequence of intolerance and misinformation," said Suplicy. But Cavalcanti says that "there is no misinformation in the realization that equating families with homosexual couples would destroy the importance of the family as a basic cell of society." According to Cavalcanti "homosexuals certainly deserve respect, but respect does not mean acceptance of homosexuality as normal."

After a request for clarification from a group of Catholic lay movements, the secretary-general of the Brazilian bishops' conference (CNBB) issued a document stating that the Latin American branch of the US-based "Catholic for Free Choice," known by their Spanish name "Catolicas por el Derecho a Decidir," cannot be considered a Catholic organization. "We concur with the National Conference of Catholic Bishops of the United States that people might be misled to believe that it is a Catholic organization, but it is not and it does not have any affiliation or relation with the Catholic Church," the document concluded.

Since it was established in Montevideo, the Latin American branch of CFC has launched a region-wide campaign to promote abortion as a morally acceptable procedure for Catholics. In a recent document issued in Brazil and signed by the Latin American coordinator, Maria Cristina Grela, CFC said: "We want to open the possibility of being a Catholic and keeping our faith but at the same time live a liberating sexual experience which is more autonomous and open to the right to choose."

Several Catholic organizations have aired strong criticism of the Catholic publishing house Vozes, owned by the Franciscan

order, for its decision to publish a book written by an actress who gained her notoriety by starring in X-rated films. Patricia Nogueira, who is known in Brazil by her screen name "Pat Beijos," recently wrote a book entitled How To Be Extremely Sexy, in which she gives advice to women looking for success with men.

The Vozes house has printed all the books of former Franciscan priest Leonardo Boff and at present prints the Revista Eclesiastica Brazileira, one of Brazil's most influential theological magazines. "My friends told me that I would get nothing from them, but I still decided to take the chance," said Nogueira. Vozes decided to sponsor the book: the publisher will cover the printing and advertising costs and distribution.

Avelino Grassi, manager of Vozes, defended the decision, saying: "There will be no scandal, since we will not place our logo or name in the cover. The book is certainly out of our profile, we are only giving support, but not taking it as ours." But one local Catholic leader responded: "This explanation is ridiculous, since everybody will know perfectly well that a Catholic, Franciscan publishing house is sponsoring a book of that kind. What moral authority will Vozes have in the future to express the Church's teachings?"

As its first step toward overturning a decision that legalized euthanasia in Colombia, the country's bishops' conference has printed a "Pro-life Decalogue" that simply states the teachings of the Catholic Church regarding euthanasia.

The statement, distributed in all Colombian parishes in June, reminds Catholics that "any action designed to result in the death of a patient is immoral," and therefore, "neither the doctors, the patient, nor the family are authorized to decide when a human person will die."

The bishops add, "The state has no right to legalize euthanasia, because the life of a human person is a good that prevails over government's power." The documents ends by stressing that "euthanasia is a crime against human life and divine law. All involved in the decision and execution of this homicide are responsible."

Archbishop Julio Terrazas, president of the Bolivian bishops' conference, sharply criticized a statement of a Bolivian delegate to an AIDS summit in Belgium, after the delegate characterized the Catholic Church as the main obstacle to an effective fight against the disease.

During a summit on AIDS organized in Brussels by the European Union, Javier Mendieta, a delegate of the Bolivian secretary of education, said: "We have been trying to reform the education programs in order to introduce open sex education, but the problem in Latin America is that anything related to sex is seen as a taboo from a Catholic perspective."

Archbishop Terrazas responded, "Mr. Mendieta shows a great level of prejudice and ignorance. In fact, the Catholic Church has been in the front line in fighting AIDS and in dealing with its consequences."

"The Church is not a power structure willing to control the conduct of people. She is a community who wants to serve human beings by bringing them the truth of Jesus," the archbishop added. "It is foolish and simplistic to see the Church as an obstacle only because it does not support the incompetent and dangerous sex-education programs that people like Mendieta would like to see in the Bolivian schools."

In July, just two days after bishops from Honduras issued a warning to Catholics on the proselytism by the Unification Church, founded by Korean leader Sun Myung Moon, the president of the Costa Rican bishops' conference again denounced the sect for "trying to buy consciences with their economic power."

Archbishop Roman Arrieta Villalobos of San Jose criticized the presence of 150 Korean and Japanese women who have launched a "campaign for the family and world peace," organizing lavish meetings "in which," the bishop charged, "Costa Ricans are deceived and pressured to join the Moon sect."

According to the archbishop, Moon's followers are offering Costa Rican families an all-expense paid trip to Washington, DC for a gathering of 3.6 million people that will allegedly take place in November. "In exchange for the trip and other gifts, they are asked to join the cult," said

Archbishop Arrieta. "The Moon sect is one of the 30 biggest economic entities in the world and that is a reason why Catholics should open their eyes and be alert to any materialistic proposal, because with [the Moon sect], there is no such a thing as a free lunch.'" The archbishop observed, "Jesus did not buy his way with millions, and he should always be our example."

In Costa Rica, the Moon sect has established five different organizations, and in June the group began publishing a local edition of Tiempos del Mundo, Moon's weekly newspaper, which is gradually being distributed throughout Latin America. The governor of San Jose has announced that the 150 Korean and Japanese women have been granted temporary residence, which will allow them to stay in Costa Rica only until September. "Whether we renew their visas is still under consideration," he said.

Daniel Ortega, the country's former leader when Nicaragua was under the control of the Sandinista Front, reacted violently to the decision of Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Aleman to invite Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo to join the newly created Commission of National Reconciliation.

Ortega said that Cardinal Obando "does not deserve to join the commission, because he is a chaplain and a servant of the Somocismo." The former guerrilla leader was making reference to the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza as well as to President Aleman, who is accused by Sandinistas of being a "hidden Somocista."

President Aleman had invited Cardinal Obando to join the Committee of National Reconciliation, saying that "all mayor political parties, unions, and organizations have confirmed their participation, and the Catholic Church cannot be absent." The committee is an initiative by Aleman to replace the direct dialogue between the Sandinista Front

and the government.

Cardinal Obando pointed out, "I want to remind Ortega that when he was president, he asked me to join the Commission for Reconciliation and I accepted. Then and now I was nobody's chaplain--just a pastor convinced that dialogue is the only way out of this crisis."

In an indirect but clear reference to violent protests organized by the Sandinista front, the apostolic nuncio in Nicaragua, Archbishop Luigi

Travaglino, issued a plea in early July for "avoiding violence and promoting tolerance among the different political parties." The Vatican representative also endorsed the work of the Committee of National Reconciliation.

In a veiled reference to the violent public protest launched by Sandinista-controlled trade unions, the nuncio said, "Nicaragua will recover its hope in a better future only if we stop conflict and destruction. Let us address our efforts in construction not in destruction, especially those who claim to have a patriotic spirit."

To date Daniel Ortega has maintained that his party will not participate in the national dialogue, and will continue to support the public protests against the Aleman government.

In a series of decisions released late in June, the US Supreme Court overturned a law aimed at expanding religious freedom, but upheld state laws against physician-assisted suicide.

In a ruling released on June 25, the high court found that Congress had overstepped its authority when it passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. That law--which was so popular that it passed without a single dissenting vote in the House of Representatives, and was supported in court by the Clinton Administration--stipulated that no state could pass a law that would religious freedom without first showing a "compelling" state interest in such restriction.

Writing for the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy explained that the First Amendment to the US Constitution protects freedom of religion, and a large body of judicial precedent has defined the scope of that freedom. By attempting a new definition of religious freedom, he wrote, Congress was in effect seeking to amend the Constitution--which is beyond its legal authority. "Congress does not enforce a constitutional right by changing what that right is," Justice Kennedy reasoned.

While conceding that Congress had the right to enact new laws to prevent abuses of religious freedom, Justice Kennedy argued that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was "out of proportion to a supposed remedial or preventive object." The Supreme Court voted 6-3 to overturn the law.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was a reaction to an earlier Supreme Court ruling, in 1990, in which the high court upheld a state law prohibiting the use of peyote, even though some Indian tribes used peyote in their religious ritual. That law was not an attempt to restrict religious freedom, the justices rule, and the First Amendment did not prohibit "neutral laws of general applicability" which happened to have some negative impact on religious groups.

The latest case before the court involved a Catholic church in Boerne, Texas, which was denied permission to expand its church buildings because the parish is located in a historic district protected by special zoning laws. The high court's ruling in effect upheld the judgment of the town authorities who had refused to approve the church's building plans.

On June 26, the Supreme Court issued a heavily anticipated ruling in two related cases, upholding the state laws in Washington and New York with prohibit physician-assisted suicide. In a unanimous decision written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the court ruled that the states have a right to ban the practice.

"The history of the law's treatment of assisted suicide in this country has been and continues to be one of the rejection of nearly all efforts to permit it," Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote. At the moment, only Oregon allows doctors to administer a fatal dose to patients who request it--although that Oregon law is currently facing a court challenge, and a statewide referendum could result in the reversal of that law. In April, the US Congress passed a measure preventing the use of federal funds to pay for assisted suicide.

The Rehnquist decision concluded that suicide is "not a fundamental liberty interest" protected by the Constitution. That finding--while widely anticipated--comes as a relief to pro-life forces who worried that the Supreme Court could discover in the physician-assisted suicide cases the same sort of broad precedent that it set in 1973 by creating a "right" to abortion.

Just a week earlier, in another case involving church-state relations, the Supreme Court in effect reversed its own 1985 decision by ruling that public-school teachers may be used in religious schools to provide remedial help for students.

Under a 1965 law, school districts are required to offer federally-funded remedial help to needy students from low-income families, whether they attend public or private schools. But in 1985, while the high court upheld the requirement, it barred teachers from holding classes at religious schools. Thus states had to spend tens of millions of dollars on mobile classrooms or other accommodations. In New York, the state which had sought relief from the previous ruling, the additional cost since 1985 has been estimated at $100 million.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for the majority, said the court's view of church-state relations has "significantly changed" since the 1985 ruling. But she added, "We do not acknowledge, and we do not hold, that other courts should conclude our more recent cases have, by implication, overruled an earlier precedent."

The Episcopalian first wife of US Rep. Joseph Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, joined 24 groups of Catholic dissidents in a move to demand that the Catholic Church stop granting annulments and begin to allow divorce.

Sheila Rauch Kennedy recently penned a book, Shattered Faith, criticizing the annulment process while offering details of her own experience of the process in which her husband sought a Church declaration that their 12-year marriage had been null. Now, joining with representatives of dissident groups that ranged from Call to Action to the Association of Catholic Lesbians, she has written an open letter to the Catholic bishops of the United States and Canada, calling upon them to change Church policy. The group announced plans to begin collecting stories from Catholics who have had unpleasant experiences with Church tribunals, hoping to gain greater public acceptance for their cause.