World Watch

Abortion Battles, and...

The killing continues in Africa; American lies are exposed

Receiving a group of Christian Democratic members of the European Parliament at an early-March audience, Pope John Paul II told the lawmakers that it is important for the people of European work to perfect their union.

"Today it is far from useless to look into the source of the courage of those who are now called the fathers of Europe," said Pope John Paul. "Their political action was never separated from their Christian faith." He recommended the witness of these early founders as an example to today's European leaders.

The cause of European unity ought to be pursued, the Pope said, in spite of the many sacrifices it will demand. The ultimate goal, he assured his audience, is worth the effort. However, if the "new Europe" which is constructed by this political activity neglects the faith on which her culture is based, the Holy Father warned, "she will lose an enormous portion of her foundation." Without a transcendent reference, he cautioned, the European Union would be based solely on the power of political ideology.

In a major address delivered to a Roman audience in March, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger cautioned against the temptation to expect the millennium to come amid great historic changes and global catastrophes. For believing Christians, he emphasized, the celebration of the Jubilee should be centered on Jesus, who came to save mankind, rather than on "fantastic speculations."

In a meditation on the three temptations of Christ in the desert, Cardinal Ratzinger explained, "The core of every temptation is to put God aside, as something of secondary importance in our lives, in comparison with the urgent things we have to do." Reflecting particularly on the temptation of hunger, he turned to the predicament of countries in the Third World, and applied the test he had just outlined. The cardinal observed: "The development aid from Western countries is based purely on technical and material principles; it not only leaves God aside, but actually draws men further away from him."

Speaking on the third temptation, the cardinal said: "The battle for the freedom of the Church, the struggle to attain the kingdom of Christ, cannot be assimilated in any political form; it must be carried out in every era. The price of union between the faith and political power is always paid; the faith is put at the service of power."

Cardinal Ratzinger's speech was one in a series of addresses scheduled by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the vicar of Rome, as part of the city's preparations for the Jubilee. Cardinal John O'Connor of New York had delivered the first lecture; Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger of Paris will be next.

The Vatican's official newspaper reacted to the announcement that a Scottish scientist had successfully cloned a sheep with "an urgent appeal to reason and to humanity," calling for a ban on the cloning of humans.

The editorial in L'Osservatore Romano by Father Gino Concetti argued that children "have the right to be born in a human way and not in a laboratory." The refusal to approve indiscriminate experiments, the editorial continued, "should be interpreted not as opposition to science or as a brake on progress, but as safeguarding those values which constitute the human being and its existence." Father Concetti added that human life must be conceived within the bonds of marriage.

Lebanon's prime minister traveled to Rome in February for a three-day that was generally seen as a prelude to the Pope's scheduled trip to Lebanon in May.

Although the rumor mill in Rome had already churned out dozens of stories about the Pope's plans, the Vatican did not release an official announcement of the trip--scheduled to take place May 10 and 11--until after the Holy Father met with Rafik al-Hariri. The Pope also used the occasion to release an apostolic exhortation to the Catholic Church in Lebanon--a document which reflected his response to a special synod of bishops in that country, held in 1995.

with the Pontiff.

Pope John Paul had been forced to cancel a five-day visit to Lebanon scheduled for May 1994 after the bombing of a Maronite Catholic church north of Beirut, which killed 11 worshippers and injured 59. Local officials persuaded the Holy See that they could not ensure the security of the Pope or his followers in the wake of that bombing.

Pope John Paul offered a few light-hearted observations as he received the gift of a new limousine from the Mercedes-Benz company.

"Finally, a new car!" he joked at an official ceremony at the Vatican as Jochen Prange, chairman of Mercedes-Benz Italia, handed over the new car. The Vatican's papal vehicle fleet consists of four Mercedes vehicles--two "Popemobiles" and two limousines. But in fact the vehicle in which the Pope usually travels had logged nearly 100,000 miles.

The new car is a customized Mercedes S500 with amenities including two telephones, a single rear seat, and an image of the Blessed Mother. The car has a reported top speed of 125 miles per hour; but the bullet-proof body armor, while unobtrusive, probably cuts down on fuel economy. Mercedes-Benz has supplied cars for popes since 1930.

Protests were heard throughout Italy after a gynecologist revealed that one of his patients was a surrogate mother, who was carrying two unborn children, conceived from eggs donated by two different women and sperm from two different men.

Father Gino Concetti wrote in L'Osservatore Romano that the pregnancy was "a new step towards madness," and urged a ban on such practices. He said surrogate motherhood is "a blatant violation of natural maternity and a grave offense against personal dignity, which calls for conception in a dignified manner and by natural means by a couple united in regular matrimony."

Gynecologist Pasquale Bilotta said that the surrogate mother, whom he would not identify, was three months pregnant as of the beginning of March. He said the operation which began the pregnancy was carried out in Switzerland because the Italian medical certification board forbids surrogate motherhood.

Through her doctor the surrogate mother--who has two children of her own--told newspapers that she had decided to help two childless women "out of love" and was not being paid anything more than her expenses. She said she was a Catholic but had no difficulties in reconciling her faith and her decision. "The Church can say what it wants. I remain a Catholic, I believe in God and don't understand why a person should be condemned for trying to help others," she told the Rome newspaper La Repubblica.

A Sicilian archbishop went on trial in February on charges of corruption and defrauding the European Union, making him one of the highest-ranking clerics ever to be tried in Italy.

Archbishop Salvatore Cassisa of Monreale is charged, along with five others, with extortion and attempted extortion in connection with bribes allegedly demanded from construction companies looking to work on the 12th century cathedral in Monreale between 1990 and 1993. Archbishop Cassisa is further accused of nepotism in distributing contracts and of diverting funds from the foundation into his private bank accounts. Finally, Archbishop Cassisa and two inspectors of a local agricultural board allegedly intentionally overstated the size of a Church vineyard which was put out of production in order to reduce wine production and receive an EU farm subsidy.

The prosecution charges that Daniela Lima and Fulvio Lima, respectively the building supervisor and administrator for the foundation administering the cathedral, demanded bribes at a rate of about 10 percent of the value of each reconstruction and restoration project. Archbishop Cassisa, the foundation's president, was said to be in complicity with the two Limas over the bribes.

The archbishop told prosecutor that he was not informed about the bribery. His lawyer, Angelo Bonfiglio, said his client was the victim of "internal cannibalism" by priests who wanted to smear him.

Tension ran high in Lisbon in February as the Portuguese parliament took up debate on a proposal which would have eased restrictions on abortion in the heavily Catholic country.

As the debate began, political observers suggested that the vote in parliament would be too close to call in advance. With demonstrators from both sides of the issue marching on parliament, one daily newspaper carried the headline: "Tension until the end."

Those predictions were correct. By a single vote, the parliament defeated a proposal to legalize abortion on demand during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy. The final vote was 112-111 against the liberalized law, with three members abstaining. The tight parliamentary vote means that abortion in Portugal will still be restricted by a 1984 law which makes the practice illegal except in cases of rape or serious deformity to the fetus.

Both before and after the crucial vote, debate was noisy and bitter. Advocates of abortion burned Pope John Paul II in effigy outside the parliament building, while pro-lifers prayed quietly beside them. After the vote, police were forced to break up a noisy protest in the parliamentary observers' gallery. And a spokesman for the Communist Party, which had introduced the bid to ease restrictions, said that the Social Democratic Party--whose members were told to "vote your conscience" on this issue--would now bear the blame for "thousands" of unsafe illegal abortions.

More than two dozen Catholics filed a lawsuit asking for a court to rule that a movie poster violates Catholics' freedom of religion.

The group of priests and laymen were directing their protest at a poster advertising "The People vs Larry Flynt," picturing actor Woody Harrelson with his arms outstretched in a position recalling that of Jesus Christ on the cross, against a backdrop of a woman's unclad pelvis. The movie offers a favorable view of American Larry Flynt's career as publisher of hard-core pornography.

"This poster deliberately strikes at the conscience of Catholics in using the very symbol of the Christian faith as publicity for a film on pornography," said Jean-Marc Varaut, lawyer for the plaintiffs. According to the plaintiffs, the poster's presence in public places is an intolerable attack on religious freedom. His plea was unsuccessful, however; a judge allowed the posters to remain.

The Catholic bishops of Switzerland also formally the appearance of billboards advertising the same movie. "The cross is the highest symbol for Christians," the bishops' conference said in a public statement. "Using it to promote a film is unacceptable." The billboard in question had not appeared in the United States, because it was not approved by the Motion Picture Association.

"It is reprehensible to violate the religious feelings of Christians for whom the person of Jesus Christ is sacred," the Swiss bishops said. "Could you imagine treating other religions this way, perhaps

Judaism or Islam?"

Finally, filmmaker Milos Forman said that he would withdraw the posters advertising his film. "Neither Columbia Pictures nor I intended that our poster for 'The People vs Larry Flynt' provoke or offend anyone," Forman said in a statement issued by Columbia. "Its design was meant to reflect the satirical treatment of the themes of the film: fake patriotism, hypocritical piety, the use of nudity as a commodity, and to display the freedom we enjoy in the United States to examine such subjects."

Christian groups in Switzerland have begun raising cash as a goodwill gesture, after Switzerland's banks were discovered to have hoarded unclaimed bank accounts opened by victims of the Holocaust. Willy Vogelsang, a spokesman for the Swiss Friends of Judeo-Christians, told the Swiss news agency ATS that nearly $90,000 had been raised, to be given directly to the survivors of the Holocaust in Switzerland and abroad.

The controversy over Switzerland's wartime treatment of Jews has prompted soul-searching among the Swiss, who are re-examining their country's wartime neutrality and the decision to back thousands of refugees--most of them Jews--who were trying to esecape Nazi genocide. Former Swiss officials have acknowledged that the country made moral compromises to ensure that Switzerland would survive as a neutral state although surrounded by fascist powers.

Prodded into action by international pressure, Swiss banks have agreed to work with Jewish groups to go over their secret banking records and look into claims that banks have profited from unclaimed assets. And the three largest Swiss banks have set up a $70 million fund in memory of Holocaust victims.

The Swiss Catholic bishops' conference weighed into the controversy with a statement of regret for past anti-Semitic episodes. While pointing out that the Holocaust "was instigated by a regime that was hostile to Christianity and that persecuted Christians and churches," the bishops continued: "But we are aware that Christians and those in authority in our churches amassed guilt by isolating and persecuting Jews for centuries and that they promoted hostility to Jews. We must note with horror that religious motives played a role at that time in a way that is incomprehensible today."

Plans by the Irish government to replace a traditional statue of Ireland's patron saint, St. Patrick, with a modern depiction of a "bald man in a mini-skirt" will apparently be scrapped in the face of local opposition.

The original statue, a famous Irish landmark, was located near Tara in County Meath. Tara is noted as the ancient home of the Irish high kings. St. Patrick arrived at Tara in the 5th century, converted the high king to Christianity, and overthrew the power of the pagan Druids.

The statue of St. Patrick had stood on the same site at Tara for almost a century, proudly symbolizing the Christian conquest of Ireland. One of its fingers was missing--allegedly shot off by a local Protestant landowner. But the statue remained as the high point of Tara.

However, five years ago the statue was taken down for renovation, having fallen into disrepair. And when it was accidentally damaged further in the process of renovation, the government announced that the statue was beyond repair. A competition was then held to produce a new statue of the nation's patron.

Traditionally St. Patrick is portrayed wearing a green chasuble, wearing a bishop's miter and carrying a bishop's staff or crosier. Often snakes curl around his feet, recalling the legend that he banned all snakes from Ireland. (There are still no snakes in Ireland.) A shamrock is often on display statues of St. Patrick, recalling the saint's use of the native three-leafed plant to explain the mystery of the Trinity to the ancient Druids.

The Irish Government's Office of Public Works supervised a competition for a new statue. The winning design by Annette Hennessy--chosen in preference to eight other designs--is anything but traditional: an eight-foot tall bronze representation of a bald man wearing a short dress, carrying a stick topped by antlers in place of a normal crosier.

Hennessy said she had heard somewhere that St. Patrick wore a short tunic to distinguish himself and his followers from the Druids in their long robes. She had also read that St. Patrick once turned himself into a deer to escape pursuers--hence the antlers. Supporters of her design said that it paid tribute to the pagan background of Tara, as well as the more recent Christian heritage brought by St. Patrick.

But when Hennessy told a meeting of locals that St. Patrick was just a myth and that the story of the shamrock was a 19th-century invention, that was too much. They flatly opposed the new statue, which was due to be erected by St. Patrick's Day, March 17. They dubbed the figure "The Homo on the Hill" and told the government they didn't want it.

For now, the government has taken the position that if the Hennessy statue is not erected, no other statue will be put in its place. Barring a change in that position, St. Patrick may be missing from his traditional place at Tara indefinitely.

Pro-lifer donors have pledged tens of thousands of dollars to help the Catholic Church carry out a promise to offer financial help to women to prevent them having an abortion.

An English pro-lifer offered $80,000 and a woman promised to hand over a share of the proceeds from the sale of her house towards the ''bold new initiative'', said Cardinal Thomas Winning of Glasgow.

The promises of cash followed Cardinal Winning's offer at a Glasgow anti-abortion conference to provide help or counselling, pregnancy testing, or financial assistance to help buy baby equipment for a woman who was considering an abortion because of financial pressures. The offer at a time when public attention has been called to the abortion issue: the preparation for the British general election in which the new Pro-Life Alliance hopes to field 50 candidates.

Cardinal Winning's offer is the latest move by the Scottish Church leader to move the issue of abortion up the political agenda. Last year he attacked the leader of the British Labor Party, Tony Blair, for refusing to oppose abortion.

Today a spokesman for Mr. Blair said the Labor Party leader remain "true to his personal views that abortion is a moral issue, and choice should not be taken away by changes in the criminal law.''

Cardinal Winning's initiative was backed by Cardinal Basil Hume, Archbishop of Westminster, and leader of Catholics in England and Wales, who said: ''Abortion is one of the greatest scandals of our time. Cardinal Hume said it was encouraging that abortion was being widely discussed in the context of an election, since it is a vital issue of public policy.

But Cardinal Winning's offer was dismissed as a cheap publicity stunt by the Birth Control Trust, whose spokesman, David Nolan, said: ''There have been numerous attempts before now to bribe women not to have an abortion. These bribes are an empty gesture which ignore the reality of why women need access to abortion services and why women have abortions.''

Since the Abortion Act was passed in Britain in 1967, 4.25 million abortions have been performed.

The Anglican Church is learning to grapple with new tensions arising from the decision to ordain women to the priesthood. When St. Paul's Cathedral appointed its first woman priest, Rev. Lucy Winkett, as a minor canon, one of her new colleagues, Canon John Halliburton, said he would boycott services whenever she presided. "I don't believe her to be a priest," he explained. But the Cathedral's dean, Dr. John Moses, defended Winkett as the best candidate for the post. Her claims to the job--in competition with 16 other candidates, all of them men--were heightened by her "remarkable ability as a soprano singer." The Dean claims to be tone-deaf.

A week or two after that appointment the Anglican Bishop Mark Santer of Birmingham wrote an open letter to a black woman priest, Rev. Eve Pitts, calling upon her to resign from her post at the parish of St. Nicholas, King's Norton. The bishop was offended by her having complained during a service that the pastor was "using her as a doormat." Parishioners rallied around Rev. Pitts, and the Association of Black Clergy demanded an inquiry, suspecting unwitting racism and sexism.

Bishop Santer, meanwhile, incurred the wrath of traditionalists when he announced that he would marry the divorced wife of a priest, in a civil ceremony. The Queen and the Archbishop of Canterbury were consulted before the announcement was made, he reported, and Archbishop Carey wished the couple "every rich blessing and happiness together." But the vicar of Scarsbook, the parish where the bishop's intended bride resides, protested that the bishop had shown a flagrant disregard for the orthodox wing of the Church of England. One spokesman for the Church of England said there was nothing in canon law to prohibit the proposed marriage, but another priest replied that the flock would expect more from the shepherd than a quick trip to a registry office.

Finally, the differences among Anglicans were highlighted when Bishop Alan Smithson of Durham announced that he would give up studying the Bible throughout Lent in favor of the Qu'ran, of which he promised to read 20 pages each day. He thought that reading the Qu'ran would make him more tolerant and understanding. He was praised by a respectful Muslim who made the puzzling suggestion that fewer Anglicans would leave the Church of England if they studied the Qu'ran.

In response to a letter from Cardinal Basil Hume, Home Secretary Michael Howard has said the police will promise not to mount surveillance operations in circumstances covered by the seal of confession. The cardinal has expressed his gratitude for the assurance, which eases Catholic fears that a new anti-crime bill would allow the bugging of confessionals.

Doctors anxious about confidentiality in their consulting rooms have thus far been less successful in obtaining similar protection. Medical professionals have expressed concerns in a letter to the Times, and the Home Secretary replied in the same paper, but in this case Howard would go only so far as to say that the police commissioners who had to give permission for surveillance operations would guard against abuse.

A new poll in the UK shows that the British public has become more favorable toward abortion since the passage of laws legalizing the practice thirty years ago.

The poll found a 10 percent swing in support for "legal abortion for all who want it" over the last 17 years, with 64 percent now in favor or that proposition and 25 percent opposed. The survey was commissioned by two non-profit groups, the Birth Control Trust and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. It asked 1,900 people over 15 about their attitudes toward abortion in various circumstances.

The polltakers took pains to point out that 50 percent of Catholics surveyed supported legalized abortion. MORI, the polling agency, did not ask respondents about the time limit when abortion can legally take place, currently 24 weeks. Many pro-abortion lawmakers made the release of the results an opportunity to call for even more lax restrictions on abortion, allowing abortion into the last months of pregnancy.

An anonymous caller caused a sensation in February when he threatened to kill Pope John Paul if the Holy Father visits Sarajevo as planned on April 12-13.

The Catholic archdiocese of Sarajevo received the call on the first day of operation for its new line set up specifically to give out information on the papal visit. To establish his credibility, the caller also said that a bomb had been placed in a Catholic church in the central Bosnian town of Gornji Vakuf; that church was severely damaged by a blast that night.

"A male voice said, without identifying himself, that the church in Vakuf was mined yesterday, and that the Pope will be killed if he dares to come to Sarajevo," the archdiocese reported. Immediately after receiving the call, the information center in downtown Sarajevo closed for security reasons.

Father Marjan Brkic, who headed the information center, said the Vatican had been informed of the threat. But he reported--and Vatican officials soon confirmed--that no changes would be made in the plans for the papal visit. "There is no chance that this will jeopardize the Pope's visit," Father Brkic said. He downplayed the threat as an indication of continuing tensions between Croatian Catholics and Bosnian Muslims in the fractured country, rather than a real desire to injure to hurt the Holy Father.

Early in March another Catholic church was severely damaged by a bomb blast which may have been related to the threats against the Pope. No casualties were reported in the explosion, but the blast caused extensive damage to the interior of St. Joseph church in Sarajevo, as well as to several cars parked outside. An explosive device detonated at the back door of the church early in the morning, shattering windows in nearby buildings, a police spokesman said.

The attack is the latest in a series of attacks on Catholic churches in Bosnia's Muslim-Croat federation as ethnic tensions have risen following a deadly shooting attack on Muslims in the Bosnian town of Mostar last month. A hand grenade was thrown at another Roman Catholic church and a convent in Sarajevo last week. A church in the central Bosnian town of Gornji Vakuf was damaged as well.

The interior ministry for the Sarajevo area said in a statement that it was investigating the explosion and pledged to "correct possible mistakes and determine the responsibility of people who could have stopped the incident." The ministry said four police officers assigned to guard the church had been suspended until the investigation was completed.

The main Muslim party in the Bosnian-Croat federation, the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), said it "most strongly condemns these terrorist acts" and urged authorities to arrest those who had attacked Catholic property. Bosnian Muslim leaders had pledged to step up security around Catholic churches and other buildings before the bombing, and were clearly embarrassed by the latest explosion.

The leader of the powerful Solidarity union has rejected leftist proposals for a new democratic constitution, and demanded that a new Polish constitution represent Christian principles.

Marian Krzaklewski told parliament that the union's proposal for a new constitution should be put before the voters for a referendum, alongside the more secular draft proposed by the leftist parties who now dominate the nation's parliament. "Poland has always founded its system of values and its constitutional law on Christian principles," Krzaklewski told both houses of parliament, gathered as the national assembly for a second reading of the new constitution bill.

The key differences between the parliamentary and "Citizen's" drafts of the constitution revolve largely around how Poles view themselves--issues similar to those which will dominate campaigning in this summer's general elections, in which Solidarity already holds a lead over the leftists.

Solidarity leaders, arguing that Poles have for centuries been overwhelmingly a Catholic nation, want the constitution to start with an invocation of God and to recognize that Christian principles take precedence over man-made laws. The more secular draft stresses that the nation is made up of both believers and non-believers.

Poland's amended abortion law, which reinstated "social and economic hardship" as grounds for the legal termination of a pregnancy, is now in force. But the political arguments surrounding it continue, focusing in particular on a sermon given back in November by Bishop Slawoj Leszek Glodz, chief chaplain to the Polish armed forces.

The bishop had been speaking on November 11, the anniversary of the ending of World War I, celebrated in Poland as Independence Day (since as a result of that war, Poland was re-established as a state after having been partitioned, for more than a century, between the Austrian, Russian and Prussian empires). In his sermon, the bishop spoke of the amended abortion law as contrary to the law of God, and alleged that the government was openly advocating abortion, rather than solving the social and economic difficulties which caused women to seek such interventions. He phrased his remarks, moreover, in a way which could be interpreted as inciting the soldiers to disobey the orders of such a government. Bishop Glodz's sermon caused much comment and controversy both in Poland and in the Polish diaspora worldwide. However, for more than three months, the Polish government and military establishment preserved an official silence.

In January, however, the influential Paris-based Polish monthly Kultura took up the issue in its "Editor's Notebook" column. The bishop's remarks, Kultura wrote, had "glaringly transgressed his professional obligations and the principles of defence readiness of the state." Why, it asked, had no action been taken against the Bishop? Surely the Ministry of Defense should have dismissed him forthwith--or at any rate moved him to another post or retired him to the reserve.

But this, it appears, the Ministry of Defense could not do. In a recent TV interview Defense Minister Stanislaw Dobrzanski explained that none of the options suggested by Kultura were possible under current Polish law. There was no way the Ministry of Defense could oust the bishop. All he could legally do was to inform him, "unambiguously and immediately" that he, the minister, considered such remarks "inappropriate." And this indeed, he had done. Moreover, Dobrzanski told the interviewer, the various members of the Catholic hierarchy whom he had consulted likewise thought the remarks out of line.

The interviewer than reminded Dobrzanski of a similar incident in pre-war Poland, when Marshal Pilsudski had had somewhat similar trouble with an army chaplain, Bishop Gall, and had imposed a fine on him. Dobrzanski replied that naturally he was aware of the case--but that in fact Pilsudski had had no legal right to impose such a penalty. "And today." Dobrzanski stressed, "we cannot allow ourselves to transgress the law."

Meanwhile the implementation of the amended law continues to cause problems in the medical profession. The law runs counter to the code of medical ethics introduced by the ruling body of the Polish medical profession, the "Chamber of Physicians" in 1993. This code forbids abortions to be carried out on "social" grounds--and any doctor who does so is at risk of losing his or her professional license. Immediately after the amendment, restoring "social" grounds for abortion was passed, a large number of doctors and clinics announced that they would refuse to carry out such operations. However, according to Polish media reports, in many cases doctors who refuse to perform "social" abortions in the clinics and hospitals where they are employed, are quite prepared to do so "after hours," privately, in their own offices, for a substantial fee.

Pope John Paul issued a call for dialogue as Albania exploded in domestic violence late in February. The Holy Father told Albania's new ambassador to the Vatican that the Church supports the country "so that it can quickly reach the desired goals of social and human development." He added that a dialogue between opposition groups should begin "with all responsible forces who, despite numerous problems, are seeking to improve the democratic system."

Thousands of protesters, hurling stones, had clashed with riot police and overturned two police vehicles in Tirana the previous weekend, in the latest outbreak of violence in Albania, Europe's poorest country. The protest came just hours after a gun battle in the town of Vlore in which up to nine people were reported killed.

The anti-government demonstrations began in January after the collapse of pyramid investment schemes in which thousands of small investors lost their entire life savings.

An ecumenical olive branch

On February 6 in Kyiv, Metropolitan Volodymyr Sabodan, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, met with Archbishop Lyubomyr Husar, the newly appointed head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. The meeting of the two religious leaders marked an important step toward ecumenical cooperation in a country which has been buffeted by religious tensions. The Moscow Patriarchate is only one of three bodies struggling for control of the Orthodox churches in Ukraine, while many Orthodox leaders have bitterly protested the activities of the Byzantine-rite Catholic community there.

In an exclusive interview for ARI, Metropolitan Volodymyr stated that his meeting with the Catholic leader had been very successful. He reported that Archbishop Husar had stressed the wish of the faithful and clergy of the Ukrainian Catholic Church to serve the cause of Christian unity. The two Church leaders also agreed that priests should encourage their parishioners to treat the members of other faiths with tolerance and respect. Finally, Metropolitan Volodymyr said that the two prelates had agreed to solve any future denominational conflicts between themselves, without making any effort to enlist the help of outside agencies. In recent years, the conflicts among Orthodox churches have been aggravated by efforts to involve the government in religious quarrels.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that his government will soon embark on a new building program in East Jerusalem, with the plans involving some homes for Palestinians as well as a much larger number of homes for Jewish settlers.

The announcement of plans for a major Jewish settlement in the traditionally Arabic quarter of the ancient city inflamed resentments among Palestinian residents. Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian education minister and a regular participant in international negotiating sessions, charged that the Israeli government was "undermining not just peace with the Palestinians but peace in the entire region." The site of the proposed new housing complex includes property which the Israeli government has confiscated from Palestinian families.

While Palestinians hope to build the capital of their nation there in East Jerusalem, the Israeli government shows no signs of backing off its claims to the entire city. "We will build in Jerusalem without any conditions or limitations," Netanyahu said.

Palestinian leaders said that they would appeal to third parties, notably including the United States, for help in convincing the Israelis to shelve their building plans. US President Bill Clinton has cautioned the Israeli government against any building plans which might irrevocably damage the peace process. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have, to date, conducted their peace talks without opening the ticklish issue of Jerusalem's future.

Pope John Paul warned that the Israeli decisions could endanger the Middle East peace process. Speaking from his window during his regular Sunday Angelus address on March 9, the Holy Father said Israeli authorities "have made grave decisions which have attracted the worried attention of the international community."

In Jordan, King Hussein added his voice to the chorus of protest, and warned that the building plans would set back progress toward normal relations between Jordan and Israel. The Arab leader wrote an impassioned letter to Netanyahu, complaining: "I sense an intent to destroy all I worked to build between our peoples and nations."

Israel's tourism minister complicated the diplomatic situation when he rejected calls by the Vatican to improve government relations with Christians in Jerusalem. The Vatican had hinted that some positive changes must be made before Pope John Paul can accept invitations to visit the Holy Land.

But the Israeli tourism minister, Moshe Katsav, denied that Christians face difficulties in Jerusalem. "The Christian world has never enjoyed better status ... in Jerusalem than since the Six Day War," he said, alluding to the 1967 struggle in which Israel occupied the eastern portion of the city. "Their representatives here in Jerusalem and in the state of Israel know it," added Katsav, who also is a deputy prime minister.

The Holy Father was most recently invited to visit Israel by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a January meeting in Rome. But the Holy See's representative for foreign relations, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, said Israel must first improve the situation in Jerusalem.

"Perhaps, if there is an effort in Jerusalem at greater respect toward Christians, it would also be possible that the Pope goes there before 2000," Sodano was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency. "It's certain that Jerusalem must be a city of peace, of collaboration with Christians as well."

Tens of thousands of the faithful and the curious are streaming to the island of Cyprus to see centuries-old icons in a Greek Orthodox monastery shed tears.

A 15th-century icon of the Virgin Mary pressing to her face the hand of the Infant Jesus has drawn more than 20,000 people since the traces of tears were reported flowing from the Virgin's right eye down her red robe. Officials of the 10th-century Kykkos Monastery say that early in February a young novice saw that the icon had started to weep.

Since then claims of weeping icons, heralded by the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus as a "divine omen," have been reported from the village of Mammari, 12 miles west of Nicosia, and at a church in the Nicosia suburb of Strovolos.

In a statement released to international news carriers in February, Algeria's Islamic Salvation Army claimed to have killed more than 150 soldiers of the Algerian army in confrontations scattered across the country. Reporters have been unable to verify those claims.

The Islamic Salvation Army is the military wing of an active Islamic militant group, which has been engaged in bitter fighting against the country's government. In January, the government had reported killing at least 150 guerrillas--perhaps not coincidentally, the same number of casualties which the Islamic group says it has inflicted on government forces.

The shocking murder of ten young people in a Christian church may have been motivated by the youngsters' trip to Israel, Egyptian police have revealed.

The young people were killed when a group of gunmen broke into a Presbyterian church in the town of Abu Quqas and sprayed gunfire into the youthful congregation. Although no arrests have been made, authorities believe that the killers belongs to a militant Islamic group. Muslim terrorists, determined to see Egypt establish a government guided by the Islamic law, or shari'a, had never previously attacked a church, although Christians had occasionally been the target of their assaults.

Today police added what they called a "new dimension" to the story, reporting that most of the murdered teenagers had spent several weeks in Israel a work project. Muslim militants in Egypt have never accepted the 1979 peace accord which established diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.

During the trial of Ethiopia's former Marxist leaders, witnesses described in gruesome detail the torture and murder of two Christian leaders two decades ago.

The first witness, a former vice minister who remained unidentified due to Ethiopian trial rules, spent over seven years in prison for opposing former dictator the military junta led by Mengistu Haile Mariam, commonly known as the Dergue. "We learnt that His Holiness Abuna Tewoflos, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church who was taken out of jail by armed guards, was executed by the Dergue after being subjected to torture," he told the court.

The second witness, the 60-year-old widow of Kess Gudina told the court that her husband was subjected to humiliation and later killed on orders of the Dergue. "Kess Gudina, secretary-general of the Ethiopian Mekane Yesus Evangelical Church, was subjected to humiliation and was later killed by the Dergue," said his widow, herself imprisoned for 10 years by the Mengistu government. Death squads in a terror campaign in 1977 and 1978 hunted down thousands of people from rival Marxist groups and other opposition organizations on behalf of the Dergue.

Mengistu ruled from 1977 until May 1991, when he fled the country shortly before rebels entered the capital. Only 46 out of 71 former Dergue officials accused of genocide and crimes against humanity are on trial; the 25 others--including Mengistu himself--are being tried in absentia.

Canadian officials said in February that Rwandan police have released the lone suspect in the slaying of a missionary priest in that country because the man has successfully established an alibi.

Foreign Affairs spokesman Sanjeev Chowdhury said police are interviewing new witnesses in the murder of Father Guy Pinard, who was gunned down as he distributed the Eucharist in his parish.

Chowdhury said Canadian officials have told the Rwandan government that they expect a quick and thorough investigation and the arrest of the guilty party. He said the investigation points to the innocence of the suspect in custody and that there are no other suspects.

Father Pinard, a native of Quebec, had spent most of the last 35 years in Rwanda as a member of the White Fathers missionary order. He is credited with saving many lives during Rwanda's 1994 genocide. There has been speculation that death squads, hunting down witnesses to the massacre, could have been behind his slaying.

An Indian Hindu whose message of selfless love for the poor has benefited an estimated 20 million people was awarded the world's richest prize for achievement.

Pandurang Shastri Athavale, 76, was given the $1.2 million Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion for his Swadhyaya movement, which has sponsored housing and agricultural projects in nearly 100,000 villages throughout India, all without a single paid employee. He said he would put the prize money back into the movement.

The basic message of Swadhyaya--a Sanskrit word meaning self-study--is that all human beings are brothers and sisters in the family of God. Today, there are some 200,000 swadhyayees, or followers, traveling throughout India, openly mixing with people of all castes, in contradiction of the nation's rigid caste system, and encouraging both personal piety and social programs to build housing and feed the poor.

The Templeton Prize was established in 1972 by investment manager John M. Templeton to recognize people who advance the world's understanding of religion. It will be bestowed at a ceremony at Westminster Abbey in London on May 6.

Christian groups appealed to the West for help in rebuilding their communities in February after two entire villages were destroyed by a Muslim mob, apparently in retaliation for an alleged insult against Islam.

The villages of Shanti Nagar and Boota Abad, about 150 miles from Lahore, were attacked and burned on February 6, after Muslims in a neighboring town claimed that torn pages of the Qu'ran and notes insulting the memory of Mohammed had been thrown into their mosque during prayer services. The Muslims marched on the two Christian towns, were repulsed by police, but returned the following day to burn down Christian churches and homes.

The claim of a blasphemous attack on the mosque was apparently an echo of a similar claim, lodged by Christians in Shanti Nagar a few weeks earlier. The Christian residents had complained that a Muslim policeman in their town had desecrated a copy of the Bible.

Tensions between Christians and Muslims traditionally run high in Pakistan during the Islamic feast of Ramadan, which was concluding as these riots erupted.

In mid-February, Indonesian police freed more than 100 youths who had been detained following riots earlier in the month between Catholics and members of a youth group backed by the Indonesian army. Four youngsters remained in custody, charged with instigating the riots.

The police released their prisoners after a weekend of clashes around Dili, the capital of the former Portuguese colony. East Timor military commander Colonel Mahidin Simbolon denied reports over the weekend that six people had been killed during the fighting between February 7 and 9. Simbolon also denied reports that a number of Catholic priests had been beaten during the brawls.

Violence flared anew just a few days later, when houses and motor vehicles were burned, dozens of people were injured, and at least one death was reported in fighting February 21. International news agencies reported the incident in Ambeno, a former Portuguese community about three hours from Dili. The details of the incident were unclear, but the fighting apparently broke out early in the day between Muslims from a nearby province and the Catholic residents of Ambeno.

Conflicts between Catholics and Muslims have become common in East Timor, where Muslim immigrants now dominate economic life-- just as the political life of East Timor is dominated by the predominantly Muslim country of Indonesia, which invaded the Portuguese colony in 1975 and still holds power there despite protests both from residents and from international organizations. (For a more detailed report on East Timor, see page XX.)

The founding of a Catholic University in Macao, the Portuguese colony on the coast of China, has triggered a major diplomatic row between the Portuguese and the Chinese Communist government in Beijing. Macao is scheduled to return to Chinese rule in December 1999, and during this interim period leading up to the transfer, it is formally under the joint administration of China and Portugal. All decisions which will have a long-term effect are supposed to be negotiated through the special Sin-Portuguese Joint Liaison Committee. However the Portuguese governor, Rocha Vieira, seems to act, on occasion, as if he were the sole decision-maker.

When preparations for the Catholic University got underway, the organizing team asked Governor Vieira to put on the agenda of the Joint Liaison Group--or, at least to inform the Chinese authorities of the plan and the aims of the university. Vieira did not do so. Beijing responded by forbidding students from China to enroll at the new university, until the Portuguese are unwilling to talk, or if the discussions are unsatisfactory, then Beijing may demand the re-negotiation of other issues which had, seemingly, already been settled.

Any arbitrary action by Governor Vieira is liable to be viewed by the Chinese as an infringement of their political authority in the colony. But he opening of the Catholic University has other implications, even more surely guaranteed to inflame Beijing's anger. China's communist leaders permit (grudgingly) churches to exist and function, only if their leadership is exclusively Chinese, and not subordinate to any foreign hierarchy. Since a "Catholic University," by definition is subordinated to the Pope--who, in particular, appoints its rector--the establishment of such a university in Macao is viewed by Beijing as a direct challenge to its policy on religion.

Like all remnants of the Portuguese empire, Macao has a strong Catholic tradition. Like the British colony of Hong Kong, which reverts to Chinese rule this July, Macao is supposed to come under China's proclaimed policy of "one country, two systems"--in other words, the Communist political system of the Chinese mainland will not be applied in these former colonies. But there are growing fears in both colonies that once they are completely under Beijing's power, major restrictions will be imposed on religious freedom, and on that of the Catholic Church in particular. Beijing's anger over the Catholic University in Macao is seen by the Catholics of Macao as a grim portent for their future.

A Nobel Prize-winning scientist became the object of scorn and outrage when he proposed that an unborn child who displays a so-called "gay" gene should be aborted.

Dr. James Watson, 68, who helped discover DNA, reportedly told the London Sunday Telegraph: "If you could find the gene which determines sexuality and a woman decides she doesn't want a homosexual child, well, let her."

Pro-life and pro-homosexual groups were united in their derision for Watson's comments. Right to Life Australia chairman Margaret Tighe said killing unborn children because they could have a predisposition to an unwanted sexuality would be a crude and blatant form of discrimination. "Abortion for whatever reason discriminates against a tiny member of our human family and denies the most fundamental of human rights," she said.

But Tighe also commented on the irony of the nearly universal outrage over the proposal. She said many people would feel repulsed by Watson's views. "Yet how many turn a blind eye to the thousands of unborn babies whose lives are being terminated, just as unfairly, year after year in Australia," she said.

Watson conceded that while he believed researchers were likely to uncover how normal sexuality was determined, that did not mean that homosexuality could be traced to a genetic trait in most cases.

More than two months after the seizure of hostages at the residence of the Japanese ambassador in Lima, the head of a Marxist group held his first face-to-face meeting with representatives of the Peruvian government in a bargaining session on February 21. Nestor Cerpa Cartolini, the head of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), sat down with government negotiator Domingo Palermo to begin discussing the fate of the 72 hostages still being held by MRTA commandos.

The talks, which lasted for almost four hours, were held at a "safe house" in Lima. The event marked the first time that Cerpa had left the Japanese embassy since seizing the building on December 17. He was driven to the house--which was supervised by the Red Cross and equipped with a metal detector to ensure that no one carried weapons--in a Red Cross vehicle. Also present at the bargaining sessions were Red Cross representative Michael Minning, Canadian ambassador Anthony Vincent, an observer for the Japanese government, and Archbishop Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne.

After the discussions, Archbishop Cipriani told reporters that the meeting had been held "in a constructive atmosphere." Explaining that both sides had agreed not to discuss the content of their negotiations, he announced only that the bargaining sessions would continue.

Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori raised expectations for success in the negotiations when he returned home following a two-day foreign trip that was expected to result in an offer of asylum for rebels holding hostages at the Japanese ambassador's residence. Fujimori had made a surprise trip to Havana for talks with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who Fujimori said agreed to grant asylum to the MRTA rebels if all sides agreed.

Fujimori quoted Castro as saying the Communist nation would be willing to take the Cuban-inspired rebels if it received a formal request from the Peruvian government, the Japanese government, crisis mediators, and the rebels.

However, the government's talks with the MRTN broke down early in March, after the rebel leader accused police of planning a surprise attack. Cerpa reported that his fellow rebels inside the Japanese ambassador's residence have head the sounds of digging underneath the house, which they believe is a tunnel being constructed. Police Col. Frenan Zapata, in charge of security around the residence, was quoted by Radio Programa as saying the complaint was "an invention of the kidnappers."

The Catholic relief service Caritas Peru sent an emergency aid package to the southern Andean province of Apurimac to help the victims of a deadly mudslide, but a new landslide prevented most of the help to reach the victims, revealed Mario Rios, secretary-general of Caritas Peru.

According to Rios, Caritas Peru has sent 800 packages of food, tents, blankets, and basic medicines in order to help the survivors of a first landslide which had destroyed the native communities of Ccocha and Pumaranta. According to Rios, Bishop Isidro Sala of Abancay has also helped in providing coffins to bury 30 of the bodies so far recovered from the first landslide. Rescuers believe that another 300 bodies will remain permanently covered after a second landslide has made useless any further recovery efforts.

"Rain is still heavy in the region, making it almost impossible to reach the affected region by air," said Rios, who also explained that "land transportation is also difficult, because there are fears of new landslides in the region." Both Caritas Peru and the civil relief services have guaranteed the provision of food, water, and shelter for the survivors. According to Rios, most of the survivors don't want to move to other, safer places, but "they want to stay close to their land and still hope to recover the bodies of their relatives, even though they are buried under 50 feet of mud and stones."

Archbishop Francisco Errazuriz of Valparaiso has announced that the Chilean bishops' conference is ready to serve as mediator between the government and the Marxist guerrilla group Frente Patriotico Manuel Rodriguez (FPMR).

In February, the Chilean government offered the Marxist rebels the possibility of amnesty, after the spectacular escape of four FPMR leaders raised fears of new activity by the guerrillas. Archbishop Errazuriz told reporters that the Catholic bishops have agreed to cooperate in the process of legalization for the group, "but under the condition that all FPMR members turn over their weapons and renounce violence as a political means."

Lorena Astorga, a spokesman for the FPMR, reacting to the bishops' offer, said: "The Front believes that putting down our arms is not the main problem. We believe that other social problems are first." Nevertheless, she said: "We appreciate the Church authorities' offer to help in ending violence." Astorga also said, "We will take the bishops' offer into consideration," but then underlined the opposition to the peace offer by adding: "No contact with the Catholic hierarchy is being considered in the near future."

Catholic organizations in Venezuela have condemned the massive sterilization campaign launched by the government, in coordination with US officials, to sterilize indigenous women from the poor regions of Venezuela.

The sterilization campaign was recently denounced by Dr. Armando Diaz Lovera who said that the Provincial Sanitary Program--run by the government in coordination with the University of Tennessee--uses indigenous women as "guinea pigs." Dr. Diaz Lovera told the local press that at least 20 sterilizations are performed daily in the state of Guarico. "Indigenous women go to the hospital looking for medical help, however as soon as they get there they are prepared for surgery," he charged. And even though sterilization is an irreversible practice, Dr. Diaz Lovera said the patients are neither informed nor asked permission.

Guarico's Governor Rafael Silveira admitted that sterilizations are being encouraged in the state as part of an "intensive plan of surgery" in which physicians from Tennessee "are giving support."

The Ecuadorian bishops' conference has warned the nation's new provisional president, Fabian Alarcon Rivera, that he must fight against corruption in order to overcome the crisis the country currently faces. The bishops also recommended a thorough investigation into charges lodged against the ousted President Abdala Bucaram.

After the political crisis which reached a climax when Bucaram was displaced by the National Congress, Bishop Antonio Arregui, the secretary-general of the bishops' conference, urged the new provisional leader to "urgently counteract corruption and improve the public services in the country."

The new government has created a commission to investigate corruption and suggest punishment, but Bishop Arregui said that "one commission is not enough. It is also urgent that the people who have the power start fighting corruption by leading a honest and exemplary life." Bishop Arregui said that Church leaders are ready to participate in the anti-corruption committee, but are waiting for an official invitation. "If the corruption is as deep as it seems, the government will need all the help it can get," he added.

Bucaram has been accused by the new government of stealing about $80 million in government funds during his six-month tenure in office, including $3 million in cash taken from the Central Bank to the presidential palace the day before he was removed.

"Those who do damage to the nation, to a people sunk in poverty, cannot go unpunished," said Bishop Arregui. He said authorities should investigate the charges, and punish anyone who is found guilty.

President Armando Calderon Sol has called on the United Nations to condemn the former Salvadoran guerrilla group, the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN), and accused the former rebels of arms trafficking in the region.

On February 9, a large arsenal was found in the Nicaraguan capital city of Managua. General Joaquin Cuadra, chief of the Sandinista Army in Nicaragua and traditionally an ally of FMLN, stated that the arms shipyard belonged to the Salvadoran guerrillas and that it was on its way to Mexico, probably to the Mexican guerrillas or to drug barons.

According to president Calderon Sol, FMLN is involved in the illegal arms trading "in order to obtain enough financing for their electoral campaign in the upcoming congressional elections." Elections in the country were scheduled for March 16. Members of the former Salvadoran rebel group, which became a political party after laying down its arms in 1992, are running in the congressional

primaries, and according to local pollsters, they hold first place in Salvadorans' preference, ahead of Calderon's party.

Cuba's government confirmed late in February that Pope John Paul's visit to the island nation will take place on January 21-25, 1998.

The dates appeared in Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, as it covered the first meeting of a commission set up to organize the visit by the Pontiff to Cuba, the last Latin American country he has yet to visit.

The visit was agreed upon at a historic first meeting last November at the Vatican between the Holy Father and President Fidel Castro. That meeting, and the plans for the papal visit, signaled a distinct improvement in relations between Cuba's Communist authorities and the Catholic Church.

The Cuban bishops have decided to distribute the Gospel of Mark among Catholics as a way to prepare for the Pope's trip. According to a spokesman for bishops' conference, the idea was suggested by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the vicar for the city of Rome, who visited Cuba in early January. "The Gospel of Mark is the shortest, the easiest to read and the one which highlights the identity of Christ as a divine Messiah," Cardinal Ruini reportedly said. With financial help from the Italian bishops' conference--of which Cardinal Ruini is also president--St. Mark's Gospel will be printed in Spanish and widely distributed throughout the country.

America's heated abortion debate took a sharp turn when a public spokesman for the abortion industry admitted that he had "lied through my teeth" during last year's public debate on the partial-birth abortion technique.

Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, had insisted that the procedure was rare in a November 1995 appearance on the ABC Nightline show. Now he confessed that pro-life advocates were right in saying that in a vast majority of cases, the procedure is performed on a healthy mother who is five months pregnant with a healthy, unborn child. "The abortion rights folks know it, the anti-abortion folks know it, and so, probably, does everyone else," he said. Fitzsimmons said he lied because he feared that the truth would lead to curbs on abortions. He added that while he remains committed to legalized abortion, he is now convinced that the debate must be based on the truth.

While abortion lobbyist scrambled to shore up support after Fitzsimmons' revelation, pro-lifers in Congress introduced a new bill to outlaw the partial-birth technique. And reports from the White House suggested the President Clinton, whose veto killed a similar bill last year, might be willing to support a "compromise" bill which would allow the procedure only if the mother's health was in danger.

An Alabama judge has received a final notice that he must modify or remove a plaque of the Ten Commandments which hangs on the wall of his courtroom. But the state's governor says he will defend the judge, and the US House of Representatives has passed a resolution supporting him.

Etowah County Circuit Judge Roy Moore was told by Montgomery Circuit Judge Charles Price that the display of the Ten Commandments is purely religious and does not have a historical, judicial, or educational purpose. The display of the plaque, which Moore made himself, therefore violates the US and Alabama constitutions, Judge Price ruled. Price earlier ordered

Moore to stop opening his court sessions with prayers, a

decision Moore is appealing to the Alabama Supreme Court.

However, Alabama Governor Fob James, a staunch ally of Moore, vowed to use state troopers and the National Guard if necessary to prevent the plaque's removal. In in March the US House of Representatives--in a purely symbolic vote, since Congress has no direct jurisdiction--added its support for the judge who defies the law.

Pope John Paul has appointed the bishop of Rapid City, South Dakota as the new archbishop of Denver, making him the first American Indian ever named to the rank of archbishop.

Archbishop-elect Charles Chaput will succeeds Archbishop J.

Francis Stafford--who was appointed president of the Pontifical

Council for the Laity last August--as leader of the Colorado archdiocese. Archbishop-elect Chaput, a Capuchin, had served as a parish priest in Colorado for eight years before being appointed bishop of Rapid City in 1988.

"My motto as a bishop has always been, and remains, 'As Christ loved the Church.' A bishop should love his people with every ounce of his energy and life, just as Christ loved the Church," Chaput told reporters. "That's the only baggage I bring with me. That's the only gift I have to offer."

The new archbishop, who belongs to the Prairie Band Potawatomi tribe, will be installed in Denver's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on April 7.

The Supreme Court began heard oral arguments in February in a landmark case that is expected to determine the constitutionality of a 1993 federal religious-freedom law.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was passed by Congress in an attempt to limit government's interference with religion, in response to a 1990 Supreme Court decision that said laws otherwise neutral toward religion should not be ruled unconstitutional solely because they may infringe on the religious beliefs of some people. In the current case, the Archdiocese of San Antonio is challenging the town of Boerne, Texas, over its refusal to allow St. Peter the Apostle church in that town to expand to accommodate an increasing congregation.

In 1994, Boerne refused to allow St. Peter's to tear down the 1923 building, citing the church's location in a historic district. The Archdiocese sued, saying the 1993 law protects it from the town's preservation ordinances. A federal judge ruled the 1993 law unconstitutional, but an appeals court reversed that ruling and the town appealed to the Supreme Court.

Boerne officials are asking the Supreme Court to rule that the law violates the 10th Amendment rights of states and local governments by forcing them to allow more protection for religious beliefs than the Constitution requires. But a coalition of religious groups contends the law is necessary to protect religious rights from government incursions. A ruling is expected by July.

The bishop of Rochester, New York celebrated a controversial Mass for homosexuals and lesbians on February 26, as protesters gathered

peacefully outside the cathedral to express their prayerful outrage.

Bishop Matthew Clark did not make any mention of the Church's official teaching that homosexual activity is sinful as he presided over the Mass in Sacred Heart Cathedral. The bishop devoted his homily to a discussion of the parable of the prodigal son, equating homosexuals and lesbians with the disaffected son who returned home to be embraced by his father. "We celebrate the reconciliation of Christ," said Bishop Clark. "May he take away all that divides us."

Outside the church, protesters held signs and prayed. Ida Dentino told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle that she and others "are here to defend the teachings of the Church. You accept the person, but we can't accept the lifestyle." She said she was not angry with Bishop Clark. "We're praying for him. We know he is being blinded," Dentino said.