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New Saints for the
Holy Year,
and . . .
. . . New violence in Indonesia, new murmurs of papal resignation
THE VATICAN A dramatic call for unity
Those were the words with which Pope John Paul II improvised the conclusion of his homily at a January 18 ecumenical ceremony in Rome. Together with representatives of all the major Christian churches, the Pope prayed at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, seeking God’s grace for the cause of Christian unity. The celebration marked the opening of the annual week of prayer for that same intention. The ceremony at the Roman basilica also included the opening of a Holy Door—the final such gesture for the beginning of the Holy Year. “Thank you for raising your voices—for that consoling voice of our brothers and sisters,” the Pope said. “Perhaps we can now leave this basilica shouting, ‘Unity! Unity!’” The Holy Father—who appeared unusually energetic throughout the event—was assisted by the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey; and by the Orthodox Metropolitan Athanasios of Heliopolis, the representative of the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, as he pushed open the Holy Door. More than 50 representatives of other Christian churches assisted in the ceremony. The participants in the ceremony, in their differing religious vestments, formed a colorful procession in the vestibule of the basilica, and were warmly applauded by a large crowd as they approached the Holy Door. After opening the door, Pope John Paul entered the basilica alone, carrying the book of the Gospel. He was soon followed by representatives of the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, and the World Lutheran Federation. “We realize that we are brothers who are still divided, but with a firm determination we have placed ourselves on the path that will bring us toward full unity in Christ,” the Holy Father said during the ceremony inside the basilica. Asking how the Body of Christ could remain divided, he said that such divisions show “the human weakness of Christians.” “During this year of grace,” the Pontiff continued, “there should grow within each one of us the recognition of our personal responsibility regarding the breaks that have marked the history of the Mystical Body of Christ.” These wounds can be healed, he continued, only by beginning with “interior conversion,” so that ecumenical dialogue “goes beyond the limits of an exchange of ideas, and becomes an exchange of gifts—a dialogue in charity and in truth.” “Let us ask Christ’s pardon for everything in the history of the Church that has harmed his cause of unity,” the Pope urged. The pursuit of that unity, he said, could itself become an instrument of evangelization in the new millennium. After the Pope’s homily, the representatives of the Christian churches exchanged the Kiss of Peace. The ceremony concluded with a profession of common faith, which was recited in Greek, Latin, and German by the representatives of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria, the Orthodox Patriarch of Romania, and the President of the Union of Utrecht. After the ceremony, Metropolitan Athanasios told the Italian daily Avvenire that it had been “a glorious day,” and “a great leap forward in the ecumenical movement.” While much more work remains to be done, he continued, “the outlook is positive.” The Orthodox prelate remarked: “I think that dialogue is a good thing, but it will take work, and passion, and struggling through a lot of fatigue and disappointment.” He added: “The Pope, with his public request for God’s pardon, has shown us the way.” The week of prayer for Christian unity came to a close on January 25, with an ecumenical Vespers service at the same basilica. Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, the president of the central committee for the Grand Jubilee, presided at the service. In his homily the cardinal observed that ecumenical work is “a marathon, in fact even a course without an end, from a human point of view.” He added that “Christ did not make unity among Christians a promise, but only a prayer.” Nevertheless, he continued, all Christians must join with Jesus in that prayer. Nulla salus extra ecclesiam Speaking to members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on January 28, Pope John Paul II reaffirmed “the definitive and complete nature of Christ’s revelation.” The Pontiff’s remarks were aimed against theological theories that view the Catholic Church as one of a number of equivalent paths to redemption. The Pope met with the members of the Congregation after they had gathered in Rome for their annual meeting. The theme of the Congregation’s discussions was in line with the thrust of the Pope’s comments: the unique role of Jesus Christ and of the Catholic Church in the universal scheme of salvation. The Holy Father encouraged the members of the Congregation to address the “errors and grave ambiguities” which have arisen “in certain theological and ecclesiastical circles.” He explained that the problems he had in mind were those which tend to call into question “the necessity of the Church of Christ as the universal sacrament of salvation.” Specifically, the Pontiff spoke out against the tendency to see the Church as “one means to salvation among others, which could include other religions.” He added that the tendency to see religions as complementing each other can lead to indifference. He warned that efforts to see the Church as only a complement to other religions “is contrary to the faith of the Church.” Interviewed on Vatican Radio after the meetings of the Congregation, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, the secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, mentioned another topic which had been discussed at length. He set the stage by revealing that this year’s sessions had focused on “the most serious offenses against the faith, the sacraments, and the Christian moral project.” He went on to explain that the Congregation has the duty to intervene “in certain sad and negative cases in the life of the Church.” Archbishop Bertone then mentioned that the Congregation had discussed the ideology of “gender feminism”—which, he explained, is the view that masculine and feminine roles are defined exclusively by social forces rather than by nature. That ideology, he said, has begun to exert dangerous pressures on governments, encouraging laws and policies under which “each individual can choose his own lifestyle according to his sexual orientation, rather than according to God’s original plan.” New decrees, new canonizations On January 27, 11 new decrees regarding candidates for canonization and beatification were read in the presence of Pope John Paul II. In the last previous series of decrees from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which were officially read on December 20, Pope John XXIII was recognized for his “heroic virtue”—and thus qualified for the title “Venerable.” In January, the formal recognition of a miracle in his case—the healing of Sister Catherine Capitani in 1966—cleared the way for his beatification. Later the Vatican revealed that Pope John would be beatified on September 3, along with his predecessor, Pope Pius IX. The new decrees also recognized three Asian martyrs: a Thai priest who was killed in 1944, and two catechists— one Vietnamese, one Filipino—who died in the 17th century. The new decrees also paved the way for the canonization of Blessed Katherine Marie Drexel, who died in New Orleans in 1955 and was beatified in 1988; and for the beatification of Father Francis-Xavier Seelos, who also died in New Orleans, in 1867. Presumption in favor of marriage Pope John Paul II met on January 21 with judges from the Vatican’s canonical courts, and urged them not to accept theories that undermine the teaching of the Church regarding the indissolubility of marriage. Each year the Pontiff meets with the members of the Roman Rota at the start of their judicial year. This year, the Pope warned the canonists against “certain opinions which have sprung up in the domain of theological and canonical research.” These opinions, he said, cast a shadow over the indissoluble character of Christian marriage. He insisted that a Christian marriage cannot be declared null simply because it was contracted in a society that accepts divorce. The Church may, after careful examination in an ecclesiastical court, declare the “nullity” of a marriage, the Pope said. In other words, the Church court may find that a valid Christian marriage never took place. However, such a declaration does not undermine the essential principle that a valid Christian marriage cannot be dissolved—”even if the prevailing mentality in the society in which we live has trouble accepting this fact.” Pursuing the topic further, the Holy Father told the Vatican judges that a marriage cannot be annulled simply because the two parties were affected by the prevailing attitudes of the surrounding society. Specifically, he continued, even if a couple enters marriage without a clear intention of remaining married for life, that lack of conviction is not, by itself, sufficient grounds for an annulment. The marriage can be declared null only if the couple actually denied the principle of indissolubility, and that attitude affected their decision to marry. The Pope pointed out that what he was saying was a direct contradiction of “a presumption that has sometimes, unfortunately, been formulated by some tribunals.” The Pope stressed that the Church does not have the power to dissolve Christian marriages. “A sacramental marriage which has been celebrated and consummated can never be dissolved, even by the power of the Roman Pontiff,” he said. He underlined the importance of upholding Church teaching, particularly at a time when society in general disregards the permanence of marital bonds. Catholicism on the rise For the first time since 1978, the number of priests in the world rose last year. That was one of the key findings in a compilation of statistics about the Catholic Church, issued by the Vatican on February 5. The Annuario Pontificio, released each year by the Holy See, is a thick (this year, 2,350 pages) red volume, which contains a variety of official statistics about Catholic dioceses, religious institutes, the Church diplomatic corps, and the Roman Curia. The latest edition furnishes the latest available statistics as of December 31, 1999. The number of priests in the world at the end of 1999 was 404,626—up by one-tenth of 1 percent from the figure for 1998, which was 404,208. The number of seminarians preparing for the priesthood increased by a slightly greater margin—from 109,171 to 109,828, or 0.6 percent. There have been similarly small but nevertheless encouraging increases in the numbers of permanent deacons, lay catechists, and missionaries. The world’s Catholic population has also grown, by about 40 million. The new Annuario Pontificio sets the number of baptized Catholics at 1.045 billion, or roughly 17.4 percent of the entire world population. Nearly half of that Catholic population—49.5 percent—lives in the Western hemisphere. Europe now accounts for only 27.8 percent of the world’s Catholics; Africa for 11.4 percent, Asia 10.5 percent, and Oceania only 0.8 percent. The only continent on which Catholics constitute a majority is the Americas (which the Vatican treats as a single continent, embracing North and South America); there Catholics constitute 63.1 percent of the total population. In Europe, Catholics comprise 41.4 percent of the population; in Oceania 26.9 percent; in African 15.6 percent, and in Asia only 3.1 percent. Those statistics were essentially unchanged during the past year. Speculation rebutted In its February 2 edition, the official Vatican newspaper belatedly responded to nearly a month of speculation that Pope John Paul II might resign. L’Osservatore Romano asked the secular media to put an end to this line of speculation. The paper observed that the admittedly frail health of the Pontiff should not be taken as an indication that he is losing his capacity to govern the universal Church. Speculative stories about the possibility of a papal resignation have continued to appear in the world press—particularly in Italy—since early in January, when Bishop Karl Lehmann of Mainz, Germany discussed that possibility during an interview on a German radio program. (Bishop Lehmann later released a statement insisting that he had been discussing a theoretical possibility, and he did not mean to suggest that the Pope should resign.) Several journalists have pointed out that bishops are required to submit their resignations when they reach the age of 75; the suggestions that the Pope should follow the same pattern have become more widespread as John Paul II approaches his 80th birthday, which will fall on May 18, 2000. That line of thinking is seriously flawed, wrote Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, the author of the L’Osservatore Romano piece. He observed that the argument “shows a loss of understanding about the unique position that the Bishop of Rome occupies in the Catholic Church.” The archbishop—who is the papal nuncio in Italy—also pointed out that during the discussions of the Second Vatican Council, when the issue of bishops’ resignations was raised, Cardinal Leo Suenens specifically stated that the Pope should be excluded from any requirement to resign at a particular age. Is it not fair, Archbishop Marchetto asked, that the Pope, “who has fought for freedom all his life, could be left free to make his decisions without pressure of any kind?” He added that although the Pontiff’s physical strength has certainly been diminished, he is not suffering from any disease that would affect his mental capacity or his ability to lead the Church. Parking lot opened A new six-story parking lot, built under the Janiculum hill within walking distance of St. Peter’s Basilica, was formally opened on January 31, in a ceremony attended by Pope John Paul II and a number of Italian political leaders. The construction of the parking facility, which has room for over 700 cars and nearly 100 buses, began in February 1998, as part of the preparation for the Jubilee Year. The construction process was marked by controversy, as conservationists questioned whether the project would cause harm to some of Rome’s archeological treasures. In August 1999, during the excavation of an access ramp leading into the garage, workers uncovered what appeared to be the ruins of a home dating from the 2nd century, decorated with frescoes from that era. That discovery led to a series of debates as to whether the construction should continue—and a few accusations that the builders were stealthily removing artifacts from the site in order to avoid further debates. Finally, in December 1999, Italian authorities cleared the way for the completion of the construction project. Along with the parking lot, the building also houses other facilities for tourists, including an information center, cafeteria, souvenir stand, and news kiosk. The construction of this facility—which is similar to that of an airport concourse— was funded by a private Italian agency. The costs of building the parking lot itself were split equally by the Vatican and the Italian government. In his remarks at the opening ceremony, Pope John Paul pointed out that the complex was artfully designed so that it preserved the view from the Janiculum, and facilitated the free flow of traffic around the city, while allowing easy access to the Vatican. Ready for heavier traffic Pope John Paul II also presided at the ceremonial opening of a new entry to the Vatican Museums on February 7. The new entrance was another one of the major renovation projects undertaken for the Jubilee Year. Each year about three million pilgrims and tourists visit the Vatican Museums, which contain innumerable artistic treasures. The highlight of the museum tour, for most visitors, is the Sistine Chapel—itself the object of an extensive restoration project in recent months. The new entryway, which will alleviate crowding in the Museums, is now ready for use—before the main rush of Jubilee pilgrims, which is expected to begin in the spring. Call to demote the Holy See A campaign among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) associated with the United Nations, attempting to demote the status of the Vatican at the international body, has grown to include 400 member groups. The campaign, led by Frances Kissling of the US-based pro-abortion
Catholics for a Free Choice, seeks to have the Holy See’s status at the UN downgraded
from Permanent Observer to NGO, even though the Vatican is a recognized sovereign nation.
Last year, Kissling asked “why . . . an entity that is in essence 100 square acres of
office space and tourist attractions The “See Change” campaign, which includes the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the world’s largest abortion provider, has apparently singled out the Holy See for punishment because Vatican diplomats have demonstrated the ability to form coalitions of Catholic and Muslim countries in order to block efforts to promote abortion, contraception, and population control or to redefine sexuality, morality, and the family in UN documents and conferences. Other members of the See Change campaign include the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, Equality Now, Marie Stopes International, the National Abortion Federation, the Feminist Majority, the Sierra Club, Population Concern, Center for Research on Population and Security, the American Humanist Association, and Atheists United.
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 ITALY Homosexual demonstrations Italian homosexual activists demonstrated outside the Vatican on January 13, the second anniversary of the day when a distraught homosexual immolated himself in St. Peter’s Square. Police refused to let the group enter the square, so the group laid a laurel wreath nearby in memory of Alfredo Ormando of Sicily, who wrote in his suicide letter that he could not cope with the rejection he felt from the Church. Ormando has become a symbol for Italian homosexuals of their struggle to have their sexual choice validated by the Catholic Church. Sergio Lo Giudice, president of Arcigay, Italy’s largest gay-rights group, said activists plan to distribute “open letters” in front of churches throughout Italy asking the faithful to act against the Church’s “hostility” toward homosexuals. Among the group’s pronouncements was a call for the next pope to be a woman. Later in January, Italian newspapers reported that the Vatican would protest plans for a global homosexual pride festival in Rome this summer. World Gay Pride 2000 is scheduled between June 28 and July 9 and is expected to be attended by one million people—thus rivaling the size of the events scheduled by the Vatican for the summer of the Jubilee Year. The festival, which is expected to include the usual expressions of antagonism toward the Catholic Church, has received a substantial subsidy from Rome’s city government. According to Italian newspaper reports, Vatican officials asked why they were never consulted when Rome first considered hosting the gay pride festival during the Holy Year. The Vatican also believes that Rome’s staging of the rally contravenes the spirit of the Lateran Treaty, La Repubblica and Il Giornale newspapers said. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State, issued a statement urging Italian authorities to reconsider their support for the event. “The authorities know that Rome is a holy city, as the concordat says, a city set apart because of the presence of the Roman Pontiff,” he said. But Italy’s foreign minister countered the Vatican criticism. Lamberto Dini insisted that government support for the homosexual festival would not violate the provision of the Lateran accord or any other Church-state agreement. “We must show openness and tolerance towards all citizens, whatever their faith or their orientation,” Dini said. “Certainly in a year like this, such an event creates some difficulties. We must evaluate it, but I certainly don’t think we can stop it.” Prudence needed for mixed marriages The Italian Catholic bishops have called for a careful approach to the “delicate question” of marriages between Catholics and Muslims. At a meeting of the Italian bishops late in January, the issue of Catholic-Muslim marriages prompted a lively discussion, according to Msgr. Elio Antonelli, a spokesman for the bishops’ conference. Although such mixed marriages are not common in Italy, the steady influx of Muslim immigrants makes it likely that the trend will increase. The bishops noted that the differences between the two faiths could be crucial, and include such unavoidable questions as the religious education of the children and the role of the woman within the family. The Italian bishops decided to adopt a “case by case” approach to the issue. Noting the twin dangers of “underestimating the difficulties” on one hand, and accepting the “excessive alarms” raised by Muslim propagandists on the other, the bishops concluded that Catholic-Muslim couples should approach their pastors to obtain the dispensation that is required for a church ceremony.
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FRANCE Threat to the seal? A French magistrate is investigating a Catholic bishop for his failure to warn police that a priest in his diocese had molested children, thus raising questions on the legal sanctity of the veil of confession, according to the French bishops’ conference. Bishop Pierre Pican of Bayeux is being investigated in connection with ongoing investigations into Father René Bisset, who has been accused of the rape of several boys between 1985 and 1996. Bisset has admitted to charges of sexual abuse and is due to stand trial later this year. Archbishop Louis Marie Bille of Lyons, president of the French bishops’ conference, stood behind Bishop Pican, saying the prelate was bound by the seal of the confessional. “I am confident that if Msgr. Pican kept quiet about these things, then he would have done so because he believed that his conscience demanded that he was bound to keep a secret,” he told French Christian Radio. “While sympathizing with the suffering of the victims, [Bishop Pican] points out that this affair goes beyond himself and raises serious and delicate questions notably about the place and role of secrecy in our society,” the Diocese of Bayeux indicated in a public statement. Lawyers for the families of the boys believe Bishop Pican knew about Father Bisset’s actions in 1996, two years before the priest was finally arrested. If Bishop Pican is officially charged with failing to report a crime and failing to report sexual abuse and if he is convicted, he could face up to three years in prison. Contraceptive campaign In January, despite strenuous objections from Catholic leaders, the French
government launched a new campaign designed to inform teenage girls about the availability
of state-funded contraception options, including the abortifacient “morning
after” pill.
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AUSTRIA Wait and see The Vatican is closely monitoring the political situation in Austria, but not rushing to react to the installation of a new government, according to Cardinal Angelo Sodano. Cardinal Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State, cautioned that “we should not move too fast” in reacting to the inclusion of the right-wing Freedom Party in the Austrian cabinet. “The Holy See does not have the habit of making premature judgments about individuals or programs,” he said. The European Union has already announced sanctions against Austria because of the inclusion of the Freedom Party, whose leaders have made (and later retracted) some statements indicating sympathies for the Nazi regime. If the new Austrian government does undertake any projects “contrary to Christian morality,” the cardinal continued, Catholic citizens of Austria should be among the first to respond. The Austrian bishops would be next in line to speak out against such policies, he added, “and then, after that, the Holy See.” He concluded by saying, “If the new government has anything to say, the Holy See is always ready to talk.” The Austrian bishops’ conference has taken a similar approach. Vienna’s Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the president of the bishops’ conference, issued a statement indicating that “the bishops will not intervene in the formation of the government, but will examine its programs carefully.” He said that the bishops would be especially interested in how the government handles “the important questions involving justice, tolerance, peace, human rights, and respect for life in all its stages.” Cardinal Schönborn himself celebrated Mass in the Vienna cathedral on Friday, February 4, offering the Eucharistic sacrifice for “the political situation today” in Austria.
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SCOTLAND Comments cause a furor Remarks spark outrage Scotland’s Cardinal Thomas Winning found himself embroiled in a heated controversy in January, after he branded homosexuality a “perversion.” Speaking in support of businessman Brian Souter who had offered millions of British pounds to help fight the repeal of Section 28—the so-called anti-homosexual law—the cardinal said: “I deplore homosexual acts.” “I hesitate to use the word perversion but let’s face up to the truth,” Cardinal Winning said. “What pains me is that the silent majority are so silent that the silence is deafening. I wish to God they would speak up. But when you do say something about it, you are accused of homophobia which is absolute rubbish.” The prelate continued:
Peter Tatchell, leader of the gay-rights group OutRage!, immediately accused Cardinal Winning of championing discrimination. “He is acting like the leaders of the Afrikaner Church in South Africa during the apartheid regime,” he told the Times newspaper. “They advocated discrimination against black people. He is supporting discrimination against gay and lesbian people. The cardinal is storing up prejudice and intolerance.” Bishop John Cairns, head of the Church of Scotland, added his opinion that Cardinal Winning was being “governed by his own feelings,” and accused him of leading “an unbalanced discussion.” As the debate unfolded, Cardinal Winning heard British Prime Minister Tony Blair lash out at people who, he charges, were seeking to make “political capital” from the debate over the repeal of Section 28. Unaware that the prelate was on hand as he spoke in the House of Commons, Blair said: “I would hope we could get a maturer debate on it than we have had in certain quarters.” The effort to repeal Section 28 had been promised in Blair’s Labor Party election manifesto. “It is not because we believe it is right to promote homosexuality,” the prime minister told the House of Commons, “but we believe it is right for school teachers and others to be able to explain to children properly the facts of life. I think it is a sensible change.” Undaunted by his critics, the Scottish prelate continued to play an active role in the campaign to uphold Clause 28, and rejected the charges that he was promoting a “hate campaign.” Responding to such charges, he said: “In presenting the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on this issue I constantly return to the principle of loving the sinner while rejecting the sin. Unfortunately, this distinction is rarely reported, with certain sections of the press preferring lurid headlines.” Cardinal Winning’s life became more complicated when one of his own priests, claiming to represent a lobby of homosexual clergymen, issued a public attack on the prelate. Father Gordon Brown, a parish priest in Edinburgh, told the BBC that, in this case, the cardinal was “wrong.” “I’ve been a priest for 30 years, but I’ve been gay for longer,” Father Brown said. “There are some who are fairly militant by nature, and want to publicize the stance, but until today, I’ve not been so brave. I’m still scared to have taken this step. But somewhere inside me I feel an inner peace.” Scotland’s eight Catholic bishops declared their support for Cardinal Winning, and priests throughout the country were asked to read a message from the bishops warning that children could be left vulnerable by the repeal of Clause 28. The bishops’ message asked Catholics to pray for their legislators as they prepared for the controversial vote. The bishops’ message read: “To take away a law which prohibits the promotion of homosexuality and replace it with ‘guidelines’ risks leaving our children extremely vulnerable to the message that a homosexual lifestyle is an equally valid moral choice to marriage.” On February 7, a separate legal drive to repeal Section 28 in England was derailed when the House of Lords voted to retain the law, and the Blair government was forced to face the prospect of starting an entirely new campaign. A spokesman for the prime minister said that he was “very disappointed” with the vote, but “remains committed to the repeal of Section 28.” Other English supporters of the repeal drive were less temperate in their remarks. Lord Alli, an avowedly homosexual Labor peer, lashed out at his political opponents. “This is indeed a debate about morality,” he said. “For me it is about the morality of hate.” Lord St. John of Fawsley criticized the role of Cardinal Winning, saying that the prelate “has spoken out in an unappetizing way, which I as a Catholic do not agree with,” he said. In Scotland itself, however, Cardinal Winning’s efforts were unavailing. Just two days after the vote in London, the parliament of Scotland rejected the advice of the Catholic hierarchy, and voted to overturn Section 28.
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ENGLAND Curb arms sales, activists urge The “ethical foreign policy” touted by the British government came under fire in January, as Catholic peace activists complained about arms sales to repressive regimes. The protests began after Foreign Secretary Robin Cook announced that Indonesia was now a democratic state to which British arms could be safely sold. The government decision cleared the way for the sale of fighter jets to Indonesia—a sale which had been held up by a four-month embargo after protests over last year’s massacres in East Timor. “The ‘ethical foreign policy’ is the Emperor’s New Clothes,” said Chris Cole of the Southwark archdiocesean justice and peace commission. “It has no substance to it at all. Holland has always had strong links with Indonesia, as had the United States, but neither of these countries are willing to resume selling arms, yet Britain is.” He continued: “Only a few months ago we had to send peacekeeping forces into East Timor because of Indonesia and now we are looking at rearming them.” Stuart Ullathorne of Pax Christi told the Universe newspaper: “The lifting of the embargo makes a mockery of the ‘ethical foreign policy.’ UK manufactured weapons and military equipment have been used for internal repression in Indonesia in the past and there is no guarantee this will not happen again.” Religious questions Plans to include a compulsory question on religious affiliation in the United Kingdom’s 2001 census have been welcomed by Britain’s major faiths but condemned by the secularists. If the scheme is adopted, the question will ask those filling in the census form to state their religion by selecting one choice from the options to be listed: “None, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jewish.” The Church of England and the Catholic Church have both welcomed the proposal and Churches Together in England (CTE), an inter-denominational body representing most mainstream Christian groups, said it was “very enthusiastic.” CTE’s general secretary, the Rev. Bill Snelson, told the BBC: “We are positive about this, although we would have preferred a question which distinguished between the different Christian churches. That would have helped to plan denominational facilities like schools and hospices.” Snelson added:
But Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society expressed concern that the figures produced would not be realistic. “We are concerned at the possibility of much special provision to different communities on religious grounds,” he said. “And we think the question may produce an inflated idea of the numbers of religious adherents. When people go to hospital, they often say they are Church of England, almost without thinking. The same thing could happen here.” Dissident bows out Broadcaster and feminist theologian Sister Lavinia Byrne has announced she is leaving her religious order because of “bullying” by the Vatican. A member of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary for 35 years, she said she could no longer continue while “my integrity is being called into question” and has asked to be released from her vows. Byrne, who frequently broadcasts on national radio, first upset Church authorities in 1993 when, in her book, Women at the Altar, she argued for the ordination of women and in favor of artificial contraception. The book was condemned by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and in the US 1,300 copies were removed from sale. Over the last two years the Vatican has given Byrne repeated opportunities to declare her support for papal teachings on contraception and the ordination of women. But the 52-year-old nun complains that in offering her those chances to assert her orthodoxy, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was behaving like “the Inquisition.” “After eighteen months of pressure from the Vatican, I have submitted a request to be dispensed from my vows and to leave the community,” she said. “I am profoundly sad this is why I have to leave.” She added:
Byrne says she intends to continue with her writing, broadcasting, and her teaching position at the Cambridge Theological Federation “without constantly feeling that my integrity is being called into question.”
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IRELAND Catholic Mass in Anglican cathedrals? The Archbishop of Dublin has turned down an invitation to authorize the celebration of Mass by Catholic priests in one of the city’s two Episcopalian cathedrals. The Irish capital has two Protestant Cathedrals: St. Patrick’s (the Church of Ireland’s national cathedral) and Christ Church (the diocesan cathedral). Both were Catholic until the Reformation in the 16th century, when they were handed over to the Church of Ireland. Despite the fact that Dublin is an overwhelmingly Catholic city, it has no Catholic cathedral—a reminder of the anti-Catholic Penal Laws, which were finally abolished in 1829. Irish Catholics make do with a 19th century “pro-cathedral,” built on a back street near the city center. In a newspaper interview in November, the Dean of St. Patrick’s, Robert MacCarthy, invited the Catholic Church to celebrate Mass at the cathedral on weekdays. Dean MacCarthy said he made the offer knowing “no issue of principle is involved. Mass is said in houses.” He believed that Catholic Masses in the cathedral would broaden its appeal to foreign tourists, many of whom were not Anglicans. But the invitation was not supported by all members of the Church of Ireland and a series of letters in the Irish Times indicated significant opposition to the proposal Just before Christmas, Archbishop Desmond Connell turned down the invitation. The archbishop’s spokesman said he believed there was “a risk of the Eucharist becoming a divisive issue” because of the division within the Church of Ireland over the proposal. He also pointed out that there were many Catholic churches close to St. Patrick’s where tourists can attend Mass if they wish. Two years ago, Ireland’s President Mary McAleese—a Catholic—received communion at a service in Christ Church Cathedral. Irish newspapers published photographs of the president receiving the chalice at the service. Shortly afterwards, the former United States ambassador to Ireland, Jean Kennedy-Smith—also a Catholic—received communion in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. In a radio interview shortly after those incidents, Archbishop Desmond Connell said that, for Catholics, partaking of communion in a Protestant church is “a sham,” since it implies an ecclesial unity that does not exist. The resulting uproar forced the archbishop to explain that he did not mean that Anglican Communion was cheap or shoddy, but that it was not what it appeared to be. The archbishop said that, if the rules for inter-communion were changed because of public pressure, there could be “a blurring of the boundaries about what we believe about the Eucharist and about who we are.” Dean MacCarthy said he regretted Archbishop Connell’s decision to turn down the invitation. He said that gestures were important and the archbishop had missed an opportunity for “moving things on a bit.” The dean said all ecumenical progress over the past 25 years had been opposed by “a critical minority in all the churches.” Attendance dropping Church attendance in Ireland has dropped to its lowest level ever, according to a new survey. The poll by Irish Marketing Surveys found that only half the population of the Irish Republic attended church weekly, a drop of 13 percent in the past year. Ten percent of those questioned said they went to church once a month, 5 percent went on holy days and 13 percent never went to church at all. A spokesman for the Archbishop of Dublin said the findings were disappointing. He blamed the fall in religious practice on the recent spate of sex scandals which have rocked the Church in Ireland. Spokesman Ronan Mullen also said Ireland’s new economic prosperity was leading to a loss of faith. But Mullen added: “We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the majority of Irish Catholics still practice their faith.” The survey found that 94 percent of the population of the Irish Republic describe themselves as Catholic, 2 percent as Protestant and 3 percent as members of other faiths, atheists or agnostics. Church attendance in Ireland has been falling steadily since the 1960s, when more than 90 percent of the population attended weekly Mass. Tax proposal causes backlash The Celtic Tiger—the catchphrase for the booming economy of the Republic of Ireland— is bringing its own problems for the Irish Government. Once an underdeveloped backwater, Ireland’s economy is today one of the fastest growing in Europe. But in a country where emigration was once the norm, even today’s net immigration is not providing enough workers to fill all the jobs available. The coalition government, in its end-of-November budget, decided to try and resolve the problem by granting bigger tax breaks to two-income families, thus encouraging mothers to go out to work. The measures meant that, next year, a family with one earner bringing in $66,000 would pay $18,000 in tax, whereas a family with the same income but two earners would pay $2,000 less. In three years, the difference would be even greater. If the income of both families had risen to $75,000, the single-income family would pay about $21,000 in tax, whereas a couple where each earned $37,500 would pay a little over $13,000. But the proposed changes provoked an uproar—not just from mothers, but among politicians, financial commentators, and religious groups. Lawyers questioned whether the proposal was constitutional. (Article 41 of the Irish Constitution, dealing with the family and education, recognizes that “by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.” Article 41.1.2 adds: “The State shall therefore endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.”) Archbishop Desmond Connell of Dublin said the proposal was discriminatory, and called on the Minister for Finance to reverse the measure. Ireland’s largest trade union withdrew from talks on a new national wage agreement in protest. The president of the union described the tax proposals as an “indefensible attack on low-income families.” Four independent members of Parliament, whose support was crucial for the coalition government, also demanded that the measure be changed. And Dana Rosemary Scallon, the Independent pro-life Member of the European Parliament for Connacht/Ulster, accused the Irish government of “sacrificing families to the Celtic Tiger.” Eventually on December 8—the Feast of the Immaculate Conception— the government bowed to pressure and announced a £3,000 a year tax allowance for one-income families in which the parents are caring for children or elderly or handicapped people. But many politicians were unhappy with the amendment. They said it did not go far enough to protect families, and that it discriminated against women whose children have grown up. They warn that the battle is only beginning.
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NORTH IRELAND “No” to artificial
fertilization A Belfast, Northern Ireland, woman whose eggs were frozen while she underwent cancer treatment has been told she is not legally allowed to try to achieve pregnancy. But a leading London fertility clinic has launched a High Court challenge to change the rules. Carolyn Neill was told by doctors that radiotherapy would almost certainly make her infertile, so she opted to store some unfertilized eggs for future use. And now that she has been given a clean bill of health she would like to start a family. However, current British fertility legislation says that while a woman’s eggs may be frozen, they may not later be thawed and fertilized. Meanwhile Neill’s ova remain at the Assisted Reproduction and Gynecology Center in London, whose director, Dr. Mohammed Taranissi, is battling for the procedure to be approved. Neill told the BBC, “I feel very cross. It should be down to Dr. Taranissi and myself to discuss what we should do, not the government to have a law that is cut and dried. If you are allowed to do one stage, why not the end stage?” She added: “I just felt it had been a waste of time, that hope was gone all of a sudden, but I know that Dr. Taranissi and other clinics were fighting for the law to be changed.” But the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child has condemned the whole procedure of artificial fertilization, saying that it opened a “Pandora’s Box” which could lead to the commercialization of test tube babies. “I can see a situation arising where the partner would have to use a surrogate mother to carry the frozen egg without the dead woman’s consent,” said a spokesman.
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SWEDEN Church and state to separate The government of Sweden terminated its formal affiliation with the Lutheran Church on New Year’s Day, ending five hundred years of established state religion. The Swedish Parliament approved the change in 1995, ending appointment of bishops by the government and disbursement of tax dollars to the church. Although 90 percent of Swedes are Lutheran, both government and religious leaders think that all of Sweden will benefit from the change. “It’s a happy separation—or a happy divorce—that has evolved over many years, and that is very good,” said Carl-Einar Nordling of the Ministry of Culture. “Swedish society has outgrown the state church system,” Nordling said. “The state church system is founded on the ideology of ‘one country, one people, one ruler.’ You only have to say that to feel how foreign it is in today’s society.” According to recent polls, most Swedes do not attend church services on a regular basis. Just one in 100 attends services as regularly as once a week, a poll commissioned by the church found. The telephone survey, released in November, indicated the vast majority attend no more than a couple of times a year.
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BOSNIA- Midnight Mass once again Thousands of Catholics gathered in Banja Luka on Christmas Eve for the first Midnight Mass to be celebrated in the town since the breakup of Communist Yugoslavia in 1991. Bishop Franjo Komarica celebrated Mass for the two thousand Bosnian Croat Catholics living in the mainly Serbian Orthodox town. After the 1995 Dayton peace accords, Christmas Mass was celebrated only during the day for security reasons. Bishop Komarica has urged the approximately 220,000 Croat Catholics displaced during the war to return to their homes in the northern region of the Serb republic which, with the Muslim-Croat federation, makes up Bosnia. In his Christmas message, the bishop called for a renewal of “peace and love as 2000 was approaching.”
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POLAND Pornography ban advances On December 16, the lower house of Poland’s parliament passed a bill that outlaws hard-core pornography—a measure supported by the Solidarity bloc (AWS) and the Catholic Church. “We are pleased and satisfied. Today’s decision by parliament is a Christmas present for families,” said Antonii Szymanski of the AWS. While the upper house is expected to pass the bill without opposition, President Aleksander Kwasniewski has not indicated whether he will sign the measure into law. The availability of pornography in Poland and the whole of Eastern Europe exploded after the 1989 fall of Communism. Artur Shultz, a spokesman for the Polish bishops, observed: “We are against pornography because it turns human beings into objects. Tightening regulations against pornography is a move in the right direction, but we must wait and see whether the law will be obeyed.”
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BELARUS Bishop fears imminent arrest The leader of Belarus’s Autocephalous Orthodox Church may soon be arrested, after a year in hiding from the secret police in the former Soviet republic. Bishop Petro Hushcha has been subject to an arrest warrant issued by the Security Council of Belarus, and has issued an appeal for international assistance. In December, some of his friends and supporters were detained by the local police and questioned as to the bishop’s whereabouts. Bishop Hushcha was originally arrested in March 1998, allegedly for exposing himself in front of two girls. He was charged with gross and lewd behavior towards minors, but prosecutors later changed that to a charge of “malicious hooliganism, committed with particular impudence and cynicism.” During his imprisonment he was sent to a psychiatric hospital, where the doctors declared he was of sound mind. After his sentence to three years in prison was reduced and he was temporarily released, the bishop went into hiding. The sentence was later reinstated, but police have not been able to find the bishop. Supporters insist that the charges against Bishop Hushcha are spurious, and that the government is actually punishing the Church leader for building up the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Belarus—a body which is separated from the local branch of the Russian Orthodox Church. Belarus’s government leadership has consistently sought to revive Soviet-era ties with Russia, including a religious identity of Belarus as Russian Orthodox territory. |
RUSSIA New pleas for Chechnya peace The official Vatican newspaper has issued an urgent call for a truce in Chechnya. L’Osservatore Romano argued, in the December 19 edition, that a truce was the only way to “avoid a bloodbath.” The paper observed that Russian authorities should not run the risk of enlarging a crisis which could “have an impact on the entire region of the Caucasus.” The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, met with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during his trip to Moscow December 11-15. The cardinal had said, on his return, that the search for peaceful solutions to the conflict in Chechnya could not be abandoned. Harsh words for the Vatican In December, after a visit to Moscow, Cardinal Angelo Sodano downplayed comments by Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II, who had lashed out against the activities of Catholics in Russia and the former Soviet republics. The patriarch accused Catholics of seeking to lure believers away from Orthodox congregations in areas which, he insisted, are traditionally Orthodox territories. He singled out the Vatican for special criticism, and flatly rejected any suggestion of a papal visit to Moscow. But Cardinal Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state, insisted that his visit with the Russian prelate had been “cordial.” The cardinal told reporters that the candid expression of differing opinions can be a means of achieving mutual understanding. Cardinal Sodano conceded that there has been no progress toward the Pope’s goal of visiting Russia. But he did reject the Orthodox patriarch’s suggestion that the Pope had added to tensions between Rome and Moscow by visiting the former Soviet republic of Georgia without first seeking the approval of the Russian Orthodox Church. “There are at lest 15 large Orthodox churches in the world,” Cardinal Sodano observed; “If the Pope sought consent from all of them for his trips, he would never go anywhere.”
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IRAQ Iraq visit
postponed, not cancelled The Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Raphael II Bidawid of Baghdad has said that the proposed trip by Pope John Paul II to Iraq was postponed because of security considerations. But he insists that the plans have not been permanently abandoned. Speaking to the Fides news agency, the patriarch said: “We are very sad that the visit has to be put off yet again, but here in Iraq nothing is stable.” He added: “Nevertheless the Holy Father’s visit is not cancelled, it is only postponed: the Jubilee year is long and the millennium is only just beginning.” Patriarch Raphael also sided with the official Iraqi explanation for scuttling the papal visit. On December 10, in announcing the decision to break off preparations, the Vatican press office had cited a message from Iraqi authorities that “the abnormal conditions in Iraq due to the embargo and no-fly zone, and the situation in the rest of the region, make it impossible to organize adequately a papal visit to Ur of Chaldea in Iraq.” Preparations for the Pope’s visit had been set back since September, when an Iraqi government news agency issued a statement by Muslim leaders sharply criticizing the Pontiff. However, the patriarch insisted that the Muslim leaders’ criticism was not a major factor in Iraq itself. He told Fides that “only in the West was this given space; in Iraq nobody gave any importance to the criticism.” “It is not a question of Vatican-Iraq relations” the patriarch continued. “I can say that the Iraqi government and the Holy See have a good relationship. Iraq would be honored to welcome the Pope.” The Chaldean Catholic leader claimed that organizers were worried that American or British bombers might attack the papal entourage. “The Americans and the British have all the air space in their hands,” he said. “Months ago they bombed an area near Ur. And what if they—or some madmen acting in their name—were to bomb the site during the papal visit? Certainly the international community would blame Iraq; they would give our country all the blame.” Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican’s top foreign-policy official, has also indicated that plans for the papal trip to Iraq have been postponed rather than cancelled. Archbishop Tauran, the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States, lent his own support to the Iraqi government explanation for the breakdown in preparations. The archbishop indicated that the Pope still cherishes a desire to make a pilgrimage to Ur of the Chaldeans—the home of the biblical patriarch Abraham. He indicated that the planning for such a pilgrimage could be resumed at some unspecified future date.
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QUATAR Building permit The Islamic government of Qatar has approved the building of a Catholic church in the capital to serve the estimated 60,000 Catholics—most of them migrant workers—who live in the Persian Gulf country. The Gulf Times newspaper quoted Italian Ambassador Ignazio Di Pace as calling the move “a very important step, consistent with the principles of tolerance and freedom.” The Italian legate praised the country’s ruler, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, for allowing the construction of a Christian church. Some other Persian Gulf countries—including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, and Kuwait—already have churches and allow Christians to practice their faith freely. Other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, do not.
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ISRAEL Historic synod For the first time in 60 years, almost all of the leaders of the world’s Orthodox Churches gathered for a January synod in the Holy Land, meeting under the auspices of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem. The 14 Orthodox patriarchs who participated in the synod represented all of the world’s major Orthodox bodies except the Serbian Orthodox Church, whose patriarch was unable to attend because of illness. The prelates discussed the past and the future of the Orthodox faith during a two-hour meeting, but did not pass any resolutions. Greek Orthodox Patriarch Diodoros I of Jerusalem asked his colleagues to work for the stability of their churches and unity among them, despite rivalries that plague the churches. The most important dispute among the Orthodox bodies today concerns the role of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, whose recent efforts to unify Orthodoxy under his title as Ecumenical Patriarch have been dubbed “neo-papism” by critics in the Russian Orthodox Church. The patriarch has also been criticized for his close ties with Pope John Paul II. After their discussions, all 15 Orthodox Patriarchs participated in a midnight liturgical celebration of Christmas—which, for the Orthodox world, takes place on January 6. The patriarchs were joined by Palestinian and Jordanian choirs and by dozens of Orthodox priests. Also on hand for the ceremony was former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who had resigned from office less than a week earlier. No Israeli political escort When Pope John Paul II visits the Holy Land in March, he will be accompanied by Israeli security guards, but not by Israeli politicians, according to the Latin-rite Patriarch of Jerusalem. Patriarch Michel Sabbah said that the Holy Father will travel alone to emphasize that his trip is spiritual in nature and not political. The patriarch pointed out that if the Pope were to visit east Jerusalem, a disputed area claimed by both Palestinians and Israelis, the presence of Israeli leaders with the papal party might send a message that the Pontiff supports Israel’s political claims. “During the visit of the Holy Father inside the holy city, he will not be escorted by any political authority,” Patriarch Sabbah said. “He will be just escorted by religious people who will pray with him.” Yoav Koren, an adviser to Israeli Cabinet Minister Haim Ramon—the Israeli government liaison for the Pope’s visit—said the final details had not yet been worked out, but that in principle it was up to the Pope to decide who would accompany him. Jordan running dry? Israeli officials have warned that pilgrims to the Holy Land may find that a Jordan River site where many Christians choose to be baptized is running dry. Israeli Water Commissioner Meir Ben-Meir said the water level at the Yardenit site at the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee is at a record low after two years of drought. “It might dry up if we don’t have sufficient quantities of rain,” he said. “But if the water in the lake doesn’t sink below the current level, water will continue to reach the site.” Israel established Yardenit as a site where Christian pilgrims can undergo or renew their baptisms, with up to 700,000 expected to take part in 2000. The actual site of Jesus’ baptism is further south on the river, and is only accessible to tour groups who obtain a special permit.
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EGYPT Christians, Muslims clash Twenty people were killed in three days of fighting between Christians and Muslims in southern Egypt following a dispute between a shopkeeper and a customer at the beginning of January. All of the dead were in the village of el-Kusheh, according to an Interior Ministry statement. Coptic Bishop Wissa, whose diocese includes the villages hit by the unrest, said that the victims, all Christians, died during rampages by Muslim protesters. The Egyptian government said that 44 people were injured and more than 20 buildings destroyed before security forces moved in to quell the riots. Bishop Wissa gave a somewhat higher count of the damages, saying that a church and 50 homes, shops, and warehouses had been burned; he added that many looters had been arrested. El-Kusheh, a village with a large Christian population in a predominantly Muslim land, drew international attention when Christians said police had resorted to torture and other brutality during a 1988 murder investigation.
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MIDDLE EAST Warning on anti-discrimination measure In December, pro-family organizations warned political leaders in the Middle East that they should not sign the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Kinds of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which was originally approved by the United Nations in 1979. The groups’ comments came as UN gender czar Angela King completed a five-day tour of Middle Eastern countries, trying to persuade them to adopt the treaty. Many Muslim countries have signed CEDAW only with reservations, because some parts would conflict with Islamic Shari’a law. The pro-family organizations warned Islamic leaders that the treaty would now create even more problems for Muslim countries, because enforcement of the pact has been “hijacked by radicals” at the UN. Kathryn Balmforth, a civil-rights attorney and director of the World Family Policy Center, argued that Muslim leaders who sign the CEDAW “have exposed themselves to an endless round of browbeating from feminists on the commission.” Balmforth argued that the CEDAW enforcement committee is hostile to motherhood and to religion. “When national governments pass laws protecting motherhood, they are whipsawed by the CEDAW committee, which accuses them of paternalism, or of perpetuating damaging stereotypes,” said Balmforth. She says the CEDAW committee has “ridiculed governments for portraying motherhood as a noble calling.” Balmforth pointed to some of CEDAW’s most controversial pronouncements, including criticizing one government because only 30 percent of children under three years old were in day care, while the rest were being cared for by family members. The committee also called on China to legalize prostitution, even though the treaty explicitly condemns the practice.
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AFRICA Curb weapons trade, Vatican envoy pleads The Holy See has called for curbs on the arms traffic in Africa, saying that without some such restraints, the warfare on the continent is likely to continue and escalate. Msgr. George Panikulam delivered that appeal on behalf of the Vatican at a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, which was looking into the causes of conflict in Africa. Msgr. Panikulam (who was ordained to the episcopate by Pope John Paul II on January 6) argued that, in the many cases of terrorist violence that have troubled the continent in recent years, those who have furnished the weapons are guilty, as well as those who have used them. The Vatican representative also observed that the enormous expenditures on arms and military equipment have drained the finances of African countries, thereby contributing to the poverty of the population. He lamented the apparent indifference of the international community, which has done nothing to stem the flow of armaments into such troubled countries as Angola, Congo, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, and Sudan —all of which are currently embroiled in bloody civil warfare. And he noted that some wealthy countries actually profit from the arms traffic, at the expense of the African people. Since 1970 there have been 30 full-scale wars in Africa, directly affecting 14 of the continent’s 53 countries, Msgr. Panikulam observed. In addition to the millions of battlefield casualties, the devastation caused by those wars has indirectly produced famines, epidemics of disease, and an unprecedented flow of refugees.
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SUDAN Call for reconciliation On the eve of Christmas, Bishop Cesare Mazzolari of Rumbek, in southern Sudan—an area controlled by the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army—launched a plea for peace addressed to the “chiefs and traditional leaders, civil servants, and military commanders” of the Bahr El Ghazal Region. “Today we ask for your full cooperation in the effort to re-establish the observance of the commandments of God, his law of love, and especially respect for the human rights of every individual in the heart of each person in Sudan. Work with your constituents to achieve this goal in a spirit of harmony with all people regardless of their race, creed or color,” he said. In his appeal, the bishop confirmed that in the new century, “the Church wants to lead all the people of Sudan to the light of God, our Father, and to a spirit of unity, justice, and lasting peace.” He added, “As we celebrate Reconciliation, we ask the Lord to forgive the wrongs we have done as individuals and as groups against God and against one another. We also commit ourselves to undo the culture of war that defies our traditional moral tenets and many Christian moral principles.” Sudan’s President Omar al Bashir also voiced a call for reconciliation. In an interview with the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram, he called on the exiled leaders of the country’s political opposition to return to their homeland “and take part in the dialogue about Sudan’s political future.” The call came nine days after the president decreed the dissolution of parliament and proclaimed a state of emergency in a crackdown on Muslim fundamentalists. Bashir launched his message of reconciliation through the Egyptian press because many National Democratic Alliance leaders have taken refuge in Cairo, which hosts opposition groups both from the north and south of Sudan. Religious schools only Sudan’s Islamic government has ordered state governors to convert government primary schools into Muslim schools. Christians in the country have expressed fears that the order will increase hostility against the Christian minority and undermine their right to raise their children in their own faith. President Bashir announced the order at a graduation ceremony for teachers. He said the goal is to change society to enable it to live in accordance with the teachings of the Koran. “We thought the recent removal of the fundamentalist Islamist Hassan al-Turabi from the center stage of Sudanese politics would make the government more tolerant of other religions but it appears nothing has changed,” said one teacher at a school for refugee Christian Sudanese. Bashir sought to curb the influence of Turabi, parliament speaker and secretary general of the ruling National Congress party, when he declared a three-month state of emergency and dissolved parliament on December 12.
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ETHIOPIA/ERITREA Another wartime Christmas In a Christmas message to the leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican envoy to the two African countries, called for peace talks between the two countries, and a redoubled effort to end their long war. “I pray that good sense will prevail and that peace will be re-established since it is the only way to guarantee the development of these two countries which have already suffered so much,” said Archbishop Tomasi. The long border war has already claimed tens of thousands of lives. “At all costs, there must be no outside efforts to destabilize the Horn of Africa region,” the archbishop said. “This would be deleterious for the outset of the new millennium. It is logical to think that if the fighting continues the consequences will be tragic; but in this conflict logic counts for little or nothing.” The conflict, which began as a fight over boundaries, can be explained, the archbishop said, on the one hand by a justifiable demand for national autonomy and identity on the part of Eritrea and on the other by Ethiopia’s desire to maintain its traditional and historical leadership in the Horn of Africa. Recently, fighting has become more intense while peace mediation, which Algeria is supervising on behalf of the Organization for the Unity of Africa (OUA), is extremely slow. The OUA proposes a plan that includes the withdrawal of troops from the contested zone. The plan was at first opposed by Eritrea; now Ethiopia has also indicated opposition. Eritrean President Isaias Afeworki said during a recent visit to Rome that the plan must be accepted unconditionally by both sides.
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KENYA Condom cover-up Kenya’s Catholic bishops have accused the government of deliberately covering up the weaknesses of condoms in preventing AIDS. The bishops, who along with Muslim leaders have urged a campaign to support abstinence and fidelity, said the potential failure rate of condoms has been ignored in official campaigns. “In spite of all the propaganda, the condom has known and recognized shortcomings. The people must be told all the truth about condoms to be able to make informed decisions,” eight bishops told reporters at a December press conference. “The truth is that the condom has a contraceptive failure rate of up to 40 percent. It is also known to burst or tear, and spillage is common. Latex rubber, which condoms are made of, has pores through which viral-sized particles can squeeze through,” said Archbishop Ndingi Mwana a’Nzeki of Nairobi. “These facts must be brought to the attention of our people.” The bishops added that huge international and national resources were being directed toward condom distribution and wondered aloud “whether the real purpose of the whole exercise is not population control rather than AIDS prevention.”
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Two-child limit rejected Indian political parties have rejected a proposed bill to make those with more than two children ineligible to run in elections even to national parliament and state legislatures. At the all-party meeting convened by the federal health ministry in December to discuss the draft Population Policy, representatives of almost all major political parties opposed the pending 79th Constitutional Amendment bill, which was aimed to curb the population growth rate in India. The controversial bill provided for restricting eligibility to run in elections to those with no more than two children. While the population control lobby has advocated measures including denial of voting rights and the right to run for office to those with more than two children, the states of Haryana, Orissa, and Rajasthan have already enacted similar laws that render those with more than two children ineligible to be candidates in municipal elections. However, the latest bill sought a national mandate to make the two-child norm binding on prospective candidates in elections for all civic offices—from village council to national parliament. Addressing a news conference in New Delhi, UN Population Fund (UNFPA) executive director Nafis Sadik endorsed the stand adopted by Indian political parties in opposing “coercive measures” to control population growth. Imposing a two-child norm through legislation is “not the right direction. It would lead to human rights violations,” said the UNFPA chief, responding to a reporters’ question. “It is not a good policy decision at all,” she added. Sadik said that a campaign of forced sterilization, carried out by the Indian government in the late 1970s, had been a “big setback to family planning programs” in the long run, because it roused political opposition to population-control policies. Controversial survey halted Following Christian protests, the police in India’s capital, New Delhi, stopped a controversial survey of attitudes among Christians in some parts of the city—where Christians account for just one percent of the population of 12 million. The United Christian Forum for Human Rights (UCFHR) complained to the Delhi Police Commissioner on December 8, expressing “alarm” over the police visits to Christian schools, hospitals, and several individual homes in search of answers to a series of personal questions. Dozens of Christians, including officials from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, held a candlelight vigil in the capital to protest the survey. The Christian protests led to a furor in the parliament until federal minister Pramod Mahajan assured the legislators that the government was not conducting any such survey on Christians. Meanwhile, Delhi’s police chief issued orders to end any public “survey” that might be taking place—although he told UCFHR coordinator John Dayal that he was not aware of any such poll. Dayal replied that it was “strange that the Commissioner of Police was unaware of what was going on within his jurisdiction.” Several Christian institutions in Delhi were visited by police officials last week and were asked to fill out forms seeking personal and institutional information, Dayal insisted. “Some of the information sought on the forms is usually asked of criminals,” Dayal said. He charged that there was a “sinister purpose” behind the effort to collect such information solely from Christians. Early in 1999, the High Court of the western Gujrath state had stopped a “special survey” on the tiny Christian community in the state after a series of attacks on Christians.
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CHINA More Christians detained Six Chinese Protestant leaders were sentenced to prison terms in “education through labor” prison camps for operating underground churches, a human rights group revealed in December. David Zhang and Zheng Shuqian were sentenced to three years; Shen Yiping and Wang Jiasheng to two years and Feng Jianguo and Jing Rongqi to one year, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China. Communist China recently began a major crackdown on unauthorized religious groups in the country. The Chinese government requires Christians to worship only in state-controlled associations.
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INDONESIA Army backing for urban violence Extremist Muslims and the country’s military leaders were behind a December 15 arson attack on a Christian complex in east Jakarta close to the central military headquarters that left a theology student dead and 17 people injured, according to eyewitnesses. Sources said the mastermind behind the attack was the Islamic Defenders’ Front openly supported by army commander Brig. Gen. Djaja Suparman. Witnesses said about 300 people wearing traditional head-dress and white cloths started the fire, which burned down all the buildings in the compound and destroyed several cars and motorcycles. Machete-wielding zealots then attacked residents who were fleeing from the burning compound. The church complex had provided assistance to about 2,000 people including homeless people, orphaned children, and drug addicts. President Abdurrahman Wahid publicly conceded that political motives were behind the incident, and many groups in Indonesia condemned the attack—including the Catholic bishops’ conference, which said that the attack should be thoroughly investigated. Island violence More than 50 people were killed late in December in the most intense fighting to date between Christians and Muslims on the Indonesian island of Ambon, where off-and-on conflict resulted in over 1,300 casualties during 1999. The December battles flared up after a traffic accident in which a Christian driver injured a young Muslim pedestrian. Ambon, one of the Mollucan or Spice Islands, has seen a series of ugly confrontations between rival Christian and Muslim youth gangs. Christians—who make up only a tiny fraction of Indonesia’s predominantly Muslim population—have traditionally been an important minority on the Mollucan Islands. But after an economic crisis in 1997 prompted thousands of Indonesians to move to the Islands in search of employment, the ethnic balance shifted, and violence began to flare. Church leaders were prompted by the latest wave of violence to call for a UN peacekeeping force on the island of Ambon. “A UN peacekeeping force must be deployed immediately especially to Ambon city and surrounding areas, because the security forces have been unable to restore order,” said Josef Marcus Pattiasina, Secretary General of Communion of Churches in Indonesia. But international help did not arrive, and by early January thousands of people were fleeing from Ambon to escape the mounting violence. Traveling by private boat or being ferried by the Indonesian navy or air force, more than 10,000 people left their homes and were taken to shelter in mosques, churches, schools, and military barracks. On January 6, Muslims rallied in Jakarta, demanding a jihad against Christians on the Mollucan Islands. About 5,000 protesters marched from a mosque in Jakarta to the University of Indonesia campus, shouting “Jihad! Jihad!” The protesters demanded the resignation of Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri, who has been assigned to stop the violence, but has not been able to do so. Before marching, the protesters gathered outside the mosque and killed a goat, then smeared its blood on a wooden cross amid loud calls of “Allahu Akbar” (God is great). Bishop Petrus Canisius Mandagi of Ambon has called for an investigation into the year-long reign of violence. “There must be a serious inquiry into violations of human rights and insistence on dialogue between the groups in conflict,” he said. “This is the only possible way to put an end to the conflict.” He added, “We expect a National Commission for Human Rights to be set up immediately.” On January 5, Bishop Mandagi met with Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid to voice his opinion of the situation in the Mollucas. “Wahid cannot say that the conflict is only an internal affair, which the Ambonese must solve on their own, because it is clear that external forces foment disorder, purposely prolonging the conflict,” the bishop said. He accused the Indonesian army of taking an active role in the conflict, openly violating human rights.
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EAST TIMOR Massacre sites discovered Australian peacekeepers found the bodies of dozens of victims of massacres by pro-Indonesia militias as they investigated two separate locations in East Timor. Navy divers recovered about a dozen bodies, many of them dismembered, from Lake Maubara. A Timorese human-rights group estimates that 67 villagers were shot or hacked to death by Indonesian soldiers and militias at a church in the nearby town of Liquica on April 6, as part of the militia effort to intimidate voters. “We have been asked to search the lake to see if we can find anything else to connect the atrocity to the [Indonesian army] or the militia in the area at the time,” said Lt. Commodore Jonathan Peacock, the Australian who commanded the naval detachment. Meanwhile, peacekeepers retrieved 14 bodies from a mass grave in Oecussi, an enclave that is cut off from the rest of East Timor. Australian peacekeepers believe the site contains more than 50 victims. In a more welcome development, Bishop Carlos Belo of Dili celebrated Mass on Christmas Day at Dili’s only remaining church. His congregation included thousands of Timorese Catholics, who were happily celebrating the first Christmas free from Indonesian rule in 24 years. “This year is the first celebration with freedom—no more Indonesian troops. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,” said Bishop Belo, a Nobel Peace laureate, in his Christmas blessing. During the years of Indonesian occupation, Timorese Catholic churches had been prevented from scheduling midnight Mass on Christmas because of an inflexible 10 pm curfew. “I feel happy to have a celebration in freedom, but sad for those who have paid for the freedom with their lives and property, sad for those who are in refugee camps,” said Vicente de Paula da Costa Tilman, a retired official of the Indonesian government who lost his own house in the September rampage. “Freedom is like a river, people like fish. Timorese have to swim to survive, otherwise we will float away with the tide.”
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BRAZIL Recovering a statue Officials of the Brazilian town of Paracatu have indicated that they want Pope John Paul II to return a statue given to him by Brazil’s President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. In October, Cardoso presented the statue of St. Anne as a gift to the Holy Father, but residents of the town said the 18th-century carving was not Cardoso’s to give and should be returned. “On the religious side, I’m sure it’s in good hands, but for the sake of Brazilian identity the statue has to come back,” said one of the hundreds of residents who signed a petition demanding the statue’s return. The Brazilian Foreign Ministry said that the Holy Father had planned to return the statue to Brazil all along. “As soon as the Vatican chooses a church to house the statue it is coming back,” a ministry spokesman said. But Paracatu residents want the statue returned to them. “With the saint having been in the hands of the Pope and then coming home, Paracatu will be blessed,” one resident said.
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BOLIVIA Jubilee pardon proposal The Bolivian Bishops’ Conference has announced the establishment of a commission to negotiate with the government for the release of some prisoners from jails on the occasion of the Jubilee. Juan Carlos Nunez, spokesman for the conference, said the commission was established to “ensure that all technical aspects are covered to make the release of some prisoners possible.” He explained that, late last year, the bishops’ conference requested the release of prisoners for Christmas, as part of the Jubilee initiatives, but the government released only 27 inmates from prisons, arguing that a greater number would had been “inconsistent” with the new tough policy on crime. The spokesman also explained that the bishops now plan to provide a comprehensive list of inmates who could be released for humanitarian reasons during Holy Week, in the same spirit of the Jubilee. “As an example, there are more than 400 inmates older than 65 or younger than 21, plus many others who have acquired a fatal disease or a significant disability,” said Nunez. “This group is the main target for the Church’s proposal, especially those who have shown good conduct.” He also revealed that the list and a supporting report will be simultaneously presented to the Department of Justice and to the Justice Commission of the Bolivian Congress, requesting the promulgation of a law that would legalize the release. “We have also proposed that the law be named ‘Jubilee 2000,’” Nunez concluded.
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COLUMBIA Rebels asked to show good will After a dramatic increase in Colombian rebel attacks during the month of December, Archbishop Isaias Duarte Cancino of Cali called on the two largest guerrilla groups to evidence “clear signs of peace to show their willingness for serious peace talks.” After a series of guerrilla attacks in the regions of Choco and Antioquia, mostly attributed to the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Archbishop Duarte said: “both FARC and ELN (the National Liberation Army) must show at least a minimal desire for peace to the Colombian people.” He added, “It is absolutely absurd to kill soldiers, policemen, and civilians as a way to demonstrate a will for peace; with war we all lose, as the Holy Father has said.” The December assaults took the lives of 64 police officials. Archbishop Duarte also said that now that the guerril |
