THE VATICAN

Focus on the Cenacle
Annual papal exhortation for priests

In his annual letter to all of the world’s Catholic priests, formally issued on Holy Thursday, Pope John Paul II focused on his visit to the Cenacle in Jerusalem: the site of the Last Supper. The Pope’s letter, made public on March 30, was actually signed on March 23, in Jerusalem, when John Paul celebrated Mass in the Cenacle chapel.

In his letter, the Holy Father relates how as he prays in the chapel, “Jesus is present in my spirit, just as he was present to the apostles who were seated at the table with him.” The Pope concentrates especially on the figure of St. Peter, his predecessor, and writes about the awe that St. Peter must have felt as Jesus instituted the Eucharist.

“Nearly two thousand years have passed since that moment,” the Pope observes. “How many priests have repeated the gesture!” He writes of the “exemplary disciples: saints, martyrs” among those priests, and emphasizes that there are many such saints and martyrs within the Church today. “At the Cenacle, I thank the Lord for their courage,” he says.

The Pope acknowledges that the history of the priesthood has been stained by the sins of the frail men who minister to the Church. And he adds that even at the Last Supper, while it was Judas who betrayed Jesus, Peter too would deny the Lord, and thus give the world an indication of human weakness. “Surely, as he chose men like the Twelve, Christ had no illusions,” the Pope writes. Rather, he chose to make himself present through frail human instruments.

“Let us always celebrate the Holy Eucharist with fervor,” the Pope urges his fellow priests. “Let us stay, often and at length, in adoration before the Eucharistic Christ.” He observes that the priest’s witness, and in particular his reverence for the Eucharist, will inspire the people.

The Pope’s letter to priests also emphasizes the importance of the International Eucharistic Congress, scheduled to take place in Rome on June 18-25, as “a central event of the great Jubilee.”

Priest shortage ending?
Worldwide numbers headed upward

The long slump in the number of priestly vocations has finally ended, according to the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy.

Speaking to journalists on March 30, as he briefed the press on the Pope’s annual Holy Thursday letter to priests, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos reported that there are now 109,828 seminarians preparing for the priesthood around the world—a slight rise over the 108,517 in 1997, and an enormous increase from the 60,142 in 1975.

The cardinal also observed that today’s seminarians are somewhat older than their counterparts of a generation ago. Many have completed undergraduate education, and quite a few have gained some experience in professional life before entering the seminary.

There were 404,626 priests serving the Catholic Church in 1999. Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos noted that some priests have returned to their ministry after having abandoned the priesthood. And the number of defections from priestly life is falling; the cardinal pointed out that in 1975 there were 3,314 men who left the priesthood; in 1997 there were 1,006.

The cardinal also mentioned that on May 18—the Pope’s 80th birthday—the Vatican will observe the Jubilee for Priests. That celebration will be preceded by a three-day period of preparation, during which visiting priests are encouraged to visit the four major basilicas of Rome, and follow the Way of the Cross on May 16 in the Circus Maximus.

Population also rising
Heavier Catholic representation

On April 3, the Holy See released an annual statistical summary of the world’s Catholic population.

The figures show an increase in the number of Catholics around the world. In fact, the Catholic population has grown slightly faster than the overall world population. Consequently, in 1997 there were 17.3 baptized Catholics for every 100 people in the world; by the end of 1998 that figure was 17.4.

Nearly half of the world’s Catholics now live in the Western hemisphere. Latin America accounts for 30 percent of the world Catholic population, and North America another 15 percent. Europe also accounts for nearly 30 percent, and Africa 12 percent. Asia, by far the world’s most populous continent, boasts only 12 percent of the Catholic population—with most of those Catholics concentrated in the southeast of the continent. Australia and Oceania account for the remaining 1 percent of the world’s baptized Catholics.

These figures show a few distinct changes over the past generation. Since 1978, Europe accounted for a much higher proportion of the world’s Catholic population. The decline in religious practice in Europe has combined with the general decline in population growth on that continent to account for today’s lower figures. At the same time, population growth and evangelization have worked together to raise the proportion of Catholics living in Africa and Asia.

The number of Catholic bishops has soared during that same time span. In 1978 there were 3,714 bishops; today there are 4,439. The bulk of that increase can be attributed to Africa.

The number of priests, on the other hand, has decreased since 1978, especially in Europe and North America. For the world as a whole, the number of priests has declined from 420,971 to 404,626. Most of that decline came in the religious orders, which accounted for 158,486 priests in 1978 and 140,424 today. In fact, the number of diocesan priests has increased slightly in the 20-year period: from 262,485 to 264,202. A closer look at those numbers shows a particularly lively growth in priestly vocations in Africa. The decline in the number of priests may soon be reversed, however, because the number of seminarians is much larger today than it was in 1978—109,171 as opposed to 62,670. Again, the growth is most visible in Africa, with Latin America trailing not too far behind.

Caution on elitism
Pope exhorts UN officials to serve everyone

In a meeting with the administrative chiefs of the United Nations, Pope John Paul II stressed that UN decisions should serve the needs of all the world’s people, rather than any elite organizations or interest groups.

Speaking on April 7 to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the administrators of the UN’s main agencies, the Holy Father said that the world organization should promote “a generous and ambitious spirit of global solidarity.” He argued that the UN has a “unique opportunity” to serve as a “point of encounter” among nations, and to help individual nations and groups recognize their common interests.

The UN should also be careful to ensure that important decisions are not made exclusively by the leaders of the world’s most powerful nations, the Pope continued. He reasoned that interaction and cooperation among the representatives of governments and private organizations could help to “assure that the interests of states and the different groups that compose them—legitimate as they might be—are not invoked or defended at the expense of the interests or the rights of other peoples, especially those in the poorest countries.” Genuine cooperation among a broad variety of different groups, he concluded, could promote “social harmony” throughout the world.

The Pope spoke of his “profound concern” about the efforts of some groups to “impose certain ideological views or models of life on the international community.” He mentioned that these groups seemed particularly active in efforts to change international policies regarding the defense of human life and the family. The Pope said: “National leaders should be careful not to overturn” the social structures and legal principles that “the international community and international law have laboriously developed to preserve the dignity of the human person and the cohesion of society.”

Pope commissions himself
To write Good Friday meditations

Pope John Paul II himself composed the meditations used at the Way of the Cross in the Roman Coliseum on Good Friday this year. The Vatican announced on March 31 that the Holy Father had chosen to compose the meditations for the Jubilee year—as he had previously composed them for the Holy Year in 1984.

Every year the Pope presides at a Good Friday service in the afternoon in St. Peter’s Basilica, and then goes to the Coliseum for the Way of the Cross. Since 1985, John Paul II has appointed a different individual to compose the meditations for this service each year.

On several occasions he has chosen literary figures: the Italian poet Mario Luzi in 1999, the French journalist Andre Frossard in 1986, and the Polish writer Marek Skwarnicki in 1989.

Pope John Paul has also shown an ecumenical approach to the assignment. In 1995 the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople wrote the meditations; in 1996 it was a Swiss Protestant nun, Sister Minke de Vries. In 1997 the Pope called on the Armenian Apostolic leader, Catholicos Karekin I; and in 1997 he chose the French Orthodox theologian Olivier Clement.

On other occasions the meditations have been composed by Catholic leaders: Nicaragua’s Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo in 1987; Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar in 1988; Latin-rite Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem in 1990; Cardinal Miloslav Vlk of Prague in 1992, and Cardinal Vinko Puljic of Sarajevo in 1996.

Jubilee for craftsmen
Pope invokes example of St. Joseph

On March 19, the feast of St. Joseph, as Pope John Paul II celebrated the concluding Mass for a special Jubilee for Craftsmen, he said St. Joseph is “a great evangelical model” for all Christians, but especially “for all fathers and for the family.” He voiced the hope “that all fathers, like Joseph, will be just men, ready to make the sacrifices that are necessary for the welfare of their families, and that the love of their wives and children will repay them for the labors.”

The Jubilee celebration for craftsmen drew 40,000 people to St. Peter’s Square —30,000 from Italy and 10,000 from other countries. In his homily, the Pontiff pointed to the virtues that characterize good artisans: care for quality, initiative, the promotion of artistic talents, freedom and cooperation, a proper balance between technology and the environment, concern for the family, and good neighborly relations.” He said that they, too, should see St. Joseph as a model of the good worker, and a patron for their efforts.

Fatima visit confirmed
Pope looks forward to pilgrimage

Pope John Paul II will travel to Fatima on May 13 for the beatification of two of the three children to whom the Virgin Mary appeared there in 1917, the Vatican has confirmed.

The announcement—made by Archbishop Crescienzo Sepe on March 20—confirms the widespread belief that the Pope would preside at the beatification of the two Fatima seers. The Pope has shown a special devotion to Our Lady of Fatima—to whom he gives credit for his preservation from an assassination attempt on May 13, 1981. In fact, the Pontiff donated the bullet that was extracted from his body, to be placed in the golden crown of the original statue of Our Lady of Fatima.

Archbishop Sepe also announced that the same statue would be brought to the Vatican on October 8, for a special ceremony in conjunction with the Jubilee for bishops, in which the world and the third millennium will be consecrated to the Virgin Mary.

Support for gay rights
Prime Minister joined by his wife

British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife, Cherie Booth, has given her public support to the proposition that all the legal rights given to unmarried heterosexual unions should be extended to same-sex couples as well.

Speaking to fellow lawyers at King’s College, London, in March, Booth, a Catholic and a top-ranking employment lawyer, said: “The courts for some time have been indicating that legislators need to revisit this area. I do not think this issue is going to go away.”

She told the seminar that homosexuals are not protected under the Rent Act of 1977, which recognizes unmarried heterosexual couples as “spouses” but not homosexual couples. She questioned whether such discrimination was socially desirable.

Just days after his wife’s speech, Prime Minister Tony Blair claimed that attempts to stop the repeal of Section 28—the law which forbids the promotion of homosexuality in schools—were prompted by a “mischievous propaganda campaign” motivated by anti-gay prejudice. Speaking in the House of Commons, Blair said, “This campaign is based on people who don’t want to come out and say they are prejudiced against gay people, so they hide behind the issue of child protection.”

“No child is going to be forced to take part in gay sex lessons in school,” Blair continued. “These lessons would continue to be the prerogative of teachers, parents, and [school officials].” Britain’s private schools—which are not bound under Section 28—were also warned that they could be sued under new human-rights legislation, which comes into force in October, if they banned homosexual relationships between pupils over 16 or forced pupils to attend church.

In a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research, Home Secretary Jack Straw said that private schools, hospitals, nursing homes, and charities could all be taken to court if they do not do more to prepare for the upcoming Act, which incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into British law. Straw said, “The Act will not only affect individuals, it will affect any organization dealing with the public.”

Same-sex marriage approved
Unusual case involved sex-change patient

In March, British officials allowed two women to marry after one produced a birth certificate proving that she was born a man and had undergone a sex-change operation.

Diane Maddox was allowed to marry Clair Ward-Jackson because the registrar’s office determined the marriage was legally between a man and a woman. The two said they were not trying to make a statement about same-sex marriage, but hoped the law would eventually be changed to allow that practice.

Move toward cloning
Government panel sees significant benefits

The cloning of human embryos for purposes of medical research could soon become legal in Britain, after a government inquiry concluded that the potential benefits outweighed the ethical problems.

The panel of experts led by Dr. Liam Donaldson, has agreed to recommend changes to the law to allow the use of cloned embryos to create tissue to treat the sick and for research that could eventually cure kidney, liver, or heart disease.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Britain reminded the Daily Telegraph that “harvesting an embryo” can never be acceptable. But a member of the research team has said “there will be strict rules.” He added: “We would not want people to do this sort of work for trivial purposes.”

Cardinal under fire
Heavy criticism for stance on gay rights

The controversial Episcopalian bishop Richard Holloway announced his retirement in March, but took one last swipe at Cardinal Thomas Winning of Glasgow at the same time.

Bishop Holloway, who has been called the “barmy bishop” by members of his own church, says he plans to spend more time writing and lecturing. During the last 20 years, Bishop Holloway has advocated homosexual marriages, admitted taking cannabis, and has taught that pedophiles should be given greater understanding. Last year he urged the Church to take a more lenient stance on sexual censorship and said that couples who are living together but are not confident enough to marry should be offered a trimmed-down church ceremony.

The bishop used his formal retirement speech during the Church of Scotland Synod to attack one of his critics, Cardinal Thomas Winning, and particularly to lambaste the cardinal for his public stance on Section 28, the statute which prevents the promotion of homosexuality in schools. “Most Scots do not go to church and many of them are alarmed by the tone of harsh intolerance that comes from the mouth of Cardinal Winning, who has become the voice of traditionalist Christianity in the new Scotland,” he said. “Against that turbulent background, it will become increasingly important for our church to use the language of compassion and understanding as we wrestle with the complexities of the human condition.”

Cardinal Winning was not alone in receiving public criticism because of his position. Members of the Scottish Parliament, including representatives from all parties, joined forces in March to criticize a Vatican statement that had urged politicians not to be pressured into recognizing same-sex unions. The Pontifical Council for the Family said such a move would be “a serious error” and “runs contrary to the common good.” But politicians from all parties replied that the Catholic Church should not try to influence elected representatives.

Kate MacLean, the convener of the Scottish parliament’s equal opportunities committee, said that legislators “are elected to represent everybody in their constituencies, and I do not think any other organization, whether a church or other body, has any right to interfere with that.” She added: “At the end of the day, MSPs are making decisions based on party manifestos for the constituency. They are not delegates from the Catholic Church or from any other organization.”

A spokesman for Cardinal Winning told the newspaper the Scotsman that the Church’s advice to Catholic politicians was to vote in accordance with the dictates of their consciences. But he added, “conscience is something that must take into account the teachings of the Church.”

As the campaign to repeal Section 28 gained steam, the Liberal Democrat Party issued personal attacks on Cardinal Winning and Brian Souter, the businessman who is bankrolling the campaign to retain the legislation. At the Liberal Democrats’ spring conference in Dundee, delegates condemned the tactics used by Keep the Clause campaigners as importing “the worst excesses of American politics.”

The party’s former chief executive, Andy Myles, told the conference: “I deeply regret that a leader of one of our churches has used a position of immense authority to pedal intolerance. If gay men and lesbians are going to be accused in absolute terms of being perverts, the person stating that opinion is a bigot. In response to that statement, a spokesman for Cardinal Winning told the Daily Telegraph: “We have reached a new low when church leaders are attacked for accurately presenting the official teaching of their church.”

Sarum rite upheld
A rare Mass in an ancient chapel

A medieval college chapel marked its quincentenary on April 2, with only the second Mass celebrated in the building since 1560.

Bishop Mario Conti of Aberdeen said and sang the Sarum rite Mass to celebrate the 500th anniversary of King’s College Chapel, Aberdeen. He wore vestments from that historical period, and sang the original chants—some of which have survived in the modern English missal—admitting afterward they took “a fair bit of practice at home.”

Following the Scottish Reformation in 1560, the chapel had been used as a furniture store for 300 years. The only other occasion when Mass had been celebrated there since the Reformation was in 1995, in celebrations marking the 500th anniversary of the founding of the university.

Bishop William Elphinstone, who built King’s College to house the new university in 1495, took five more years to raise the funds necessary for the completion of the campus chapel. When the building was opened, he directed that the Salve Regina should be sung there every day. The bishop’s wishes were respected at least for April 2.

Jane Geddes of the university’s Art History Department, who is the editor of a book on the history of the King’s College Chapel, told the Daily Telegraph it was “one of the few places of worship in Scotland where visitors can experience the unity of a medieval vision.”

Suicide for children
New legislation expands the boundaries

Supporters of legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide are predicting that a new bill before parliament in the Netherlands will make that country the first in the world to grant full legal approval for those practices. They also want to allow minor children to have access to physician-assisted suicide without parental consent.

“I think during the course of this year, and even possibly before the summer, the second chamber [lower house] will address the issue and vote in favor,” Jacob Kohnstamm, new chairman of the Dutch Voluntary Euthanasia Society (DVES), told foreign journalists. While the practice of euthanasia and assisted suicide has been tolerated in recent years, the proposed bill would remove any remaining basis for prosecution.

The bill would also lower the legal age of consent for the two practices to 12; this provision has roused particularly strong opposition. But supporters of the bill argue that since a 1995 bill gives girls from 12 to 15 years old the right to abortion without parental consent, similar conditions should apply to suicide.

“If you think of a child who has cancer, who has gone through medical treatment, when they’re 14 or 15 years old they tend to be more mature than most of the people I meet in one day,” said Kohnstamm, a lawyer and member of the upper house. He also offered the puzzling argument that the need for parental consent could be redundant, since “all doctors concerned say it is very rare for parents and kids not to want the same thing.”

Presidential veto
Tough new approach derailed

On March 27, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski vetoed a bill that would have set up new, tougher anti-pornography measures; the ex-Communist leader said that the measure would have unfairly curbed personal freedoms.

“The president vetoed the bill because its enforcement would institute censorship and limit an individual’s freedom to make ethical and artistic choices,” Barbara Labuda, a presidential adviser on social issues, said. “Pornography is difficult to define and therefore the prohibition of it is hard to enforce. It is possible, however, to protect children and those who do not wish to see pornography, which is what the existing law does.”

The bill passed by Polish legislators would have banned the production and distribution of all pornographic materials, making it the strongest law of its kind in Europe. The measure would have set up punishments of up to five years for dissemination of hard-core pornography, which was defined as the depiction of sex involving children, animals, or violence; and two-year terms for milder forms of pornography.

The bill’s supporters do not have the two-thirds majority that would be necessary to overturn the presidential veto. Recent opinion polls found that Polish voters were evenly divided on the proposed ban.

No communion for abortionists
Orthodox church cracks down

The Serbian Orthodox Church has issued an order that abortionists should be refused Holy Communion in all of the church’s dioceses.

The church’s Holy Synod sent a letter to all priests mandating they refuse Holy Communion to doctors and midwives who perform abortions. “Abortion is a grievous sin before God, condemned by the Scriptures,” the Synod’s letter said. “As such, it threatens the entire Serbian nation with biological extermination.”

The abortionists can return to Communion only after repenting of their involvement in abortion. While abortion is legal under Serbian law—which reflects the country’s years under Communist rule—observers have noted a sharp decline in birthrate in the country due to the practice, and some fear a collapse in the nation’s population.

Papal push for peace
Encourages African negotiations

After celebrating Mass on the Mount of the Beatitudes on March 24, Pope John Paul II made a short interruption of his pilgrimage through the Holy Land to issue a statement of support for peace talks involving Ethiopia and Eritrea.

During his visit to Galilee, the Pontiff said, “my thoughts turn hopefully toward the initiatives taken by the Organization for African Unity to reestablish peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea.” The Pope indicated that these peace talks are now at a “very delicate stage,” and he asked for prayers “that a just solution can be found in that part of the world.”

Thousands face starvation
Crisis in the Horn of Africa

The specter of war is not the only problem facing the nations of the Horn of Africa. Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the papal nuncio in Ethiopia, has issued an urgent appeal for relief efforts to ease a devastating famine.

Archbishop Tomasi said that a massive international effort was the “only way to prevent thousands of deaths on this continent, where tragedies are accumulating, putting solidarity to the test and jeopardizing the future.” The nuncio added that “the region of the Horn of Africa is living yet another tragedy, in its long and tormented history. There is an immediate and concrete danger that other thousands may now die of hunger and war.” Protracted drought is threatening almost eight million people in Ethiopia alone, the archbishop reported. But he observed that Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Sudan will also be affected.

The nuncio painted a grim picture of the situation he saw in Ethiopia: “Carcasses of goats, camels, cattle, lying here and there in the arid and desolate plains, are a warning of what could happen to human communities if sufficient food supplies fail to arrive in time,” he told the Fides news agency. Archbishop Tomasi added that in addition to the emergency food supplies needed to serve the daily needs of the endangered peoples, relief agencies should consider the long-term needs of the population. “The rural communities—that is the majority of the populations in these countries, need seed to guarantee the next harvest, fertilizers, help with digging water-wells and supplies of basic medicines,” he observed.

Radio stations closed down
Government eventually relents

In March the Liberian government shut down two radio stations, including one operated by the Catholic Church, citing public security concerns.

In the early morning of March 15, police officers in riot gear entered Star Radio and Catholic Radio Veritas and shut them down. The office of President Charles Taylor defended the decision to silence the two broadcasters, referring to “the rising incidence of inflammatory comments and radio programming filling the airways in recent times.” In a statement released in London, Amnesty International linked the closure of Star to a March 13 broadcast on a US State Department report on human rights in Liberia.

Star Radio is managed by Fondation Hirondelle, a Swiss non-governmental organization, with the help of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The US government protested the government action and called for the Liberian government to allow the broadcasters to reopen their studios immediately. “The United States vigorously protests the unwarranted closure of these two radio stations and calls on the government of Liberia to reopen them immediately, without conditions, and to return the confiscated equipment,” the US State Department said. “This is an unacceptable infringement on freedom of speech and freedom of the press.”

A government statement issued immediately after the shutdown of the two radio stations promised that Radio Veritas could resume operation if it provided a written guarantee that it would broadcast only religious material. One week later, after a meeting between government ministers and the station’s directors, the government allowed Radio Veritas to resume broadcasting. “The meeting resolved that the government and Veritas will from now on cooperatively ensure that all tenets of professionalism are adhered to,” a government statement proclaimed. It was not clear whether the government had backed away from the demand that Radio Veritas confine itself to religious topics. Star Radio remained out of operation.

New religious violence
Christians, Muslims clash over church building

Thousands of people fled their homes in northern Nigeria during the last week of March, after fighting broke out between Christians and Muslims. About 20 people were killed.

The fighting apparently began because some Muslims were enraged by the construction of a new Christian church. Groups of Muslim youths in the primarily Muslim town of Damboa attacked the church construction project, and Christian youths fought back to defend the building. Within hours, the fighting had spread throughout the town.

Anti-riot police restored order after two days, but residents continued to flee to the state capital. Christian-Muslim tensions have been at a boiling point in Nigeria after rioting broke out earlier this year over plans to impose Shari’a law in the country’s northern states.

Islamic law studied
Commission hopes to ease tensions

A joint Christian-Muslim committee of Nigerians from the country’s northern states will examine the tensions caused by the implementation of Shari’a law in some states, under the terms of an April agreement reached by the northern state governors.
“We have resolved to constitute a committee made up of Muslim and Christian leaders to hold a dialogue on those aspects of Shari’a not included in the penal code and arrive at a consensus for adoption,” the governors said after talks in the northern city of Kaduna.

Riots between Christians and Muslims in the mainly Muslim north have left hundreds dead in the past two months, beginning with the announcement of plans for the implementation of the Islamic legal code. Although the strict laws currently apply only to Muslims, Christians fear the laws could be expanded. They also argue that some aspects of the law are stricter than the Nigerian penal code.

The violence led to growing calls for changes in the federal system of government in Nigeria, and to pressure for the convening of a “sovereign national conference” to determine the shape of future relations among Nigeria’s different ethnic groups. But the governors who met in Kaduna early in April rejected those proposals—as they also rejected harsh criticisms of the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo. “We uphold the federal structure of Nigeria and condemn the call for a Sovereign National Conference in its entirety,” said governors following their meeting. “We reaffirm our total support to the federal government under the leadership of President Olusegun Obasanjo.”

Bishops embrace dialogue
New talks with Muslim clerics

“Our opposition to Shari’a legislation in our country does not in any way diminish our respect for Islam and its adherents.” That statement was part of a communiqué issued by the Catholic bishops of Nigeria at the end of their first meeting of the year 2000, held in the town of Ikeja in March.

Speaking on the recent Christian-Muslim clashes, the bishops reaffirmed their condemnation of violence, and cautioned in particular against efforts to retaliate for Muslim misdeeds. “As Christians we reject revenge and insist on forgiveness and forbearance, while upholding legitimate self-defense in the face of unjust aggression,” the bishops said.

They also said they intend to promote “the overall good relationships existing between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria,” calling for a “strengthening of organs of inter-religious dialogue.” They denounced the use of religion for selfish motives, and said the government must not favor one faith over another.

Vatican concerns over mass suicide
Pope carefully following developments

The papal nuncio in Uganda has revealed that Pope John Paul II is keenly interested in the investigations into the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments, a cult apparently led by excommunicated Catholic priest Joseph Kibwetere.

Archbishop Christopher Pierre said the Holy Father was closely following the investigation in the murder-suicide in March that left nearly 1,000 men, women, and children dead in mass graves at several sites in southwestern Uganda. “It is true the Holy Father is aware. He is very concerned about the unfortunate event. I have informed him,” the prelate told the Sunday Vision newspaper.

The cult deaths first came to light after hundreds of people were found dead after being burned in a church on March 17. The doomsday cult had been predicated on the belief the world would end on January 1, 2000, but after the date came and went, members apparently began agitating against cult leaders, demanding the return of possessions they had given up. While many of the dead in the church were apparently suicides, investigators believe that at least some of the people buried in mass graves outside the church were killed by cult members.

While the bodies of several of the cult leaders were found in the burned church, police said they are still seeking one leader, whom they have declined to identify.

Archbishop Pierre also dismissed claims made by Kibwetere that he had met Pope John Paul II during his historic visit to Uganda in February 1993. “Certainly he did not meet the Holy Father. People don’t meet the Pope just like that,” he said. Just under half of Uganda’s population of 20 million is Catholic and many of the cult members were former Catholics led away from the Church by Kibwetere and other priests.

Former priest led suicide cult
Bishop refuses permission for funeral Masses

A retired Ugandan bishop has reported that he had excommunicated the former Catholic priest who apparently led several hundred people in a mass suicide in March.

Retired Bishop John Baptist Kakubi of Mbarara said he excommunicated Joseph Kibwetere, the founder of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments, after the former priest claimed to be able to talk to God and refused to submit to the bishop’s authority. Kibwetere is presumed to have died with his followers after they barricaded themselves in a church and set it afire—an action they apparently took after their leader’s doomsday prophecies did not come true.

Bishop Kakubi said he never excommunicated the two Catholic priests, Fathers Dominic Kataribabo and Joseph Kasapuraru, who were Kibwetere’s colleagues in the cult. “I did not excommunicate the two priests but only suspended them because they were disobedient and refused to recognize me as the bishop of their diocese,” he said. “I was grossly disappointed to hear that Dominic Kataribabo, a man with a doctorate in theology, had decided to follow Kibwetere’s teachings,” he added.

Meanwhile Bishop Paul Bakyenga, the current head of the Mbarara diocese, announced that the victims of the cult suicide should not receive funeral Masses. Bishop Bakyenga endorsed a March 18 statement, issued by Bishop Robert Gay of Kabale, which had instructed all priests in that diocese to say prayers for the deceased. “The normal burial should take place and where possible, a priest or a catechist should attend prayers for the departed and for his family and friends,” Bishop Gay said.

Former member explains cult
Cites reaction against Catholicism

Another priest who had once belonged to the doomed cult, but later returned to the Catholic Church, shed some light on the bizarre group in discussions with a Ugandan newspaper.

Father Paul Ikazire of Mbarara joined the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God in 1991, but returned to the Catholic faith in 1994. The priest told Fides that he was convinced that the person responsible for the mass suicide was Celedonia Mwerinde—whom he described as “a trickster, obsessed with the desire to grab other people’s property.”

Father Ikazire reported that the Movement began as a protest against the Catholic Church. “We had good intentions,” he insisted. “The Church was backsliding, the priests were covered in scandals and the AIDS scourge was taking its toll on the faithful. The world seemed to be about to end.”

Father Ikazire—who did not inform his bishop that he had joined the cult—was stationed at the time at Rugazi, and traveled each day with his colleague there, Father Kataribabo, to attend meetings of the group. He recalls: “The courses involved prayer, meditation, fasting to intercede for people’s redemption. At the time the bishop of Mbarara diocese was not against the reform, but he wanted it channeled through the Church. The cult leaders were opposed to that idea.”

The cult meetings were held in Kitabi and Kanungu, the priest said. It was in Kanungu that police made the first in a series of discoveries of common graves. At least 900 bodies have now been unearthed.

Speaking to New Vision, Father Ikazire revealed that the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God funneled all communication through Celedonia Mwerinde. Fathers Ikazire and Kataribabo were among twelve founding members of the group —known as the “twelve disciples”—who would set policy; all other members were required to perform hard manual labor. Ordinary members were forbidden to speak to each other, he said; they could only express their thoughts by writing notes which Mwerinde would read, and discard if the ideas were not to her liking.

Father Ikazire insisted that Mwerinde was the true leader of the cult, and Joseph Kibwetere was merely a figurehead. And her motivations quickly became apparent, he said. “Cult leaders were forcing their followers to sell all their property and live a monastic kind of life.” Eventually, while celebrating Mass for the group’s members, Father Ikazire delivered a homily in which he said that the imposed rule of silence was a violation of human rights, and urged the members not to sign over their property. He then announced that he was leaving the cult, and urged others to join him. At least 70 people did so.

Father Ikazire also reported that cult leaders predicted that he would die in June 1994, shortly after he left the group. The leaders had earlier predicted that the world would end in 1992, he adds. He concluded that Mwerinde “had to massacre those people” because she was losing her authority and credibility as a result of failed predictions.

The cult phenomenon
Many groups flourish in central Africa

The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments is only one of many new religious cults gaining followers in central Africa, according to the Fides news agency. The Fides report attributed the rise of “pseudo-religions” to “millennial fever, ambiguous interests, and political manipulation.”

In Uganda alone, the report goes on to note, several groups have flourished. The Lord’s Resistance Army, a group battling against the government, styles itself as a Christian organization; the group has been accused of massacres, kidnapping, and sexual abuse of children. Last year the Ugandan government suppressed another cult, the Church of the Last Message of Warning to the World, which was also charged with kidnapping. Later the government banned yet another group, led by a woman who said she had died in 1969, but come back to life to act as God’s messenger, proclaiming the imminent end of the world.

In Rwanda, Fides continues, government attacks on the Catholic Church have confused many people, and helped the cults to enlist lapsed Catholics as members. A government policy of “religious liberalization” has also contributed to a boom in cults, the report says. Today there are 300 new religious cults in Rwanda, Fides believes. In neighboring Burundi, too, Archbishop Simon Ntwamwan of Gitega says that new sects are flourishing. The archbishop says: “Many are financed from the United States. They start there and then spread around the world destabilizing political situations. They seem to be invading Burundi with the precise intent of destabilizing the Catholic Church and social order.”

From Angola, Father Giovanni Lazara, a Capuchin missionary, observes that sects spread most easily in urban environments. “They mushroom in new suburban areas, often adopting national-patriotic attitudes with magical connotations,” he says. The Italian priest continues: “Although none of the sects are very large, all together they erode the tissue of our Catholic communities. Because of war, many people move to the towns for safety. Finding no Catholic community nearby . . . they are an easy prey for these new pseudo-religions and religious sects.”

Attacks on Church personnel
Rebels keep out an archbishop

Father Remis Pepe, a 30-year-old priest who had been ordained just six months earlier, was killed by assailants at his parish church in Kiliba. Two laymen who served as night watchmen were also killed, and the church building was destroyed by arson. Two other priests survived the attack.

The attack in Kiliba was only the latest episode of violence and intimidation, aimed at Church personnel, undertaken by rebel groups in the eastern part of the country. Church officials report that rebel groups from the Congolese Front for Democracy control large areas in the east, along with occupying troops from Rwanda.

In February, these rebel military forces prevented Archbishop Emmanuel Kataliko from returning to his Bukavu archdiocese after he attended a meeting of the country’s episcopal conference. Archbishop Kataliko still remains in the city of Butembo, unable to return to his people; although there have been reports of negotiations between the Bukavu archdiocese and the rebel leadership, no agreement has been reached. According to the Fides news service, the rebels acted against Archbishop Kataliko in response to a Christmas letter in which he accused “foreign powers, with the collaboration of some Congolese brothers, of organizing wars, using up the resources of our country.” Jean-Pierre Onkedane, a spokesman for the Congolese Front for Democracy (RCD) guerilla force, insisted that he had “nothing against the Church or the Vatican,” but said that Archbishop Kataliko was barred “because his verbal violence is intolerable.”

The rebels’ hostility toward the archbishop may also be fueled by the frustration they feel as the result of the failure of their military efforts. Bogged down in the eastern provinces, unable to gain more territory or to enlist the support of the local populace, the rebels may be looking for a scapegoat. Because the Catholic Church has refused to support their efforts, the rebels have directed their ire against Church personnel—in much the same way that the government of neighboring Rwanda has used rhetorical attacks on the Catholic Church as a means of deflecting criticism. (See related story below.)

In March the exiled Archbishop Kataliko sent a message to his people in Bukavu, assuring them that he is healthy and safe. “I wish to be in Bukavu with my brothers and sisters whom I hold in my heart,” the archbishop wrote. “In prayer I am in communion with you and share in your suffering, and with the efforts taken to support my ardent desire to return among you. Continue to pray for me and for our Church in your families and in the Christian communities, that peace may reign and truth may triumph.”

For two weeks in February, the priests of the Bukavu archdiocese refused to say Mass, in an odd form of protest against the ban on their archbishop. But Archbishop Kataliko urged the priests and people of Bukavu to resume their normal liturgical practices. In a new message, read in every parish on March 26, he wrote: “If it is God’s will that I remain separated from you, I put myself in his hands.” The archbishop told his faithful: “When I think of you all—your sacrifices, your prayers, and of all the people of Kalonge, Bunyakiri, Burhale and the nearby areas—it brings tears to my eyes.”

Reports from Congo suggested that some rebel leaders were willing to allow the archbishop’s return to his people; one spokesman for the RCD told reporters that he believed the prelate had shown “clear signs of conversion.” But the faction that controlled Bukavu remained adamant that the archbishop should not return. Archbishop Kataliko, for his part, named a group of five priests to serve as temporary administrators of the archdiocese—a move that was widely interpreted as an indication of the archbishop’s belief that he would be away from his office for a long time.

Learning to live with peace
Agreements fail to end conflict

The Republic of the Congo (also known as Congo-Brazzaville—not to be confused with the nearby Democratic Congo, once known as Zaire) is not finding it easy to emerge from a long dark tunnel of civil warfare. Two agreements signed in November and December 1999, can be seen as major steps in the right direction, but the situation in the country is still tragic.

The conflict in Congo-Brazzaville began in June 1997. On October 25 of that year Denis Sassou Nguesso—who is today the country’s president, and previously held power from 1979 to 1992—took control of Brazzaville, ousting constitutional President Pascal Lissouba. The ensuing civil war cost about 10,000 lives. Soldiers faithful to Lissouba and to Bernard Kolelas (who was once the prime minister in Lissouba’s government, but later emerged as another contender in the struggle for power), fought the regime of Sassou Nguesso. Each faction had its own army: the Cobra for Sassou Nguesso, the Cocoyes for Lissouba and the Ninja for Kolelas. More than once Sassou Nguesso was accused of using foreign troops (Angolans) and mercenaries (Cuban and Polish) as well.

Between 1997 to August 1999, military conflicts forced at least 500,000 people to leave their homes, mainly in the southern regions of the country. According to a report by the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, issued in June 1999, “the situation of human rights and basic freedom has become catastrophic,” with “deliberate and systematic massacres of disarmed civilians perpetrated by government forces and arbitrary executions carried out by the Ninja.”

In August 1999 Sassou Nguesso launched an effort to reach peace agreements with any individuals who were willing to renounce guerilla warfare. He allowed many members of the opposition to return to the capital, and sought to negotiate, through agents at his embassy in Paris, with Kolelas and Lissouba. On November 16, 1999, the government army and the main rebel factions reached an agreement; a second, more comprehensive agreement was signed on December 29. The agreements called for: an amnesty for surrendering militia, the end of hostilities, free movement of persons and goods and humanitarian organizations, integration into the armed forces or police corps for all members of armed factions who handed over their weapons, the creation of a committee to monitor the cease-fire, and the collection of weapons by the army and rebel factions who signed the agreements.

After the agreements were signed, the Ninjas began to hand over their weapons in Brazzaville, the Cocoyes in Dolise. However, some guerilla fighters refused to surrender. Meanwhile, the situation of the civilian population remains critical. A December 1999 UNICEF report spoke of a degraded health and nutritional situation, wreaking havoc especially among children and women. Government workers have not been paid for 12 months. One Brazzaville dweller reported that “in the city center and outlying districts, increasing numbers of children and old people are begging for food.” The health-care has also collapsed. The Evangelical Church of Congo, which has a small medical clinic at Pointe-Noire, the second largest town in the country, has treated more than 13,000 people in less than a year. According to the clinic’s reports, 480 of the women seeking treatment had been raped by soldiers. The clinic also reported that over 500 children were suffering from severe malnutrition, with at least 100 of them facing death.

“The government is to a great extent responsible for the present situation,” Bishop Anatole Milandou told the Fides news service. Bishop Milandou —who was a displaced person himself for two years—reported that every parish in his Kinkala diocese had been looted, and many of the priests and religious had fled. (In 1997, when the civil war broke out, there were 81 communities of religious in Congo-Brazzaville; today there are fewer than 30.) “Congo, like other parts of Africa, is in a state of war and war seems to be the only social project of which our leaders seem capable,” Bishop Milandou said.

Bishop Ernest Kombo, SJ, of Owando, agreed that the top priority for the country must be the development of a new approach to the resolution of conflicts. “First of all the army must be re-organized,” he said; “the men must be better trained—and not only to defend the people, and to fight if necessary, but also to act with morality.” He argued that the competing armed forces that clashed in the country’s bitter civil war had “abandoned all professional ethics.”

Ethnic conflict continues
Hutu leader ousted by Tutsi rival

Six years after the bloody ethnic conflict that set members of the Hutu tribe against their Tutsi neighbors, the prospects for an ethnic governing coalition have dimmed in Rwanda.

On March 23, President Pasteur Bizimungu submitted his resignation, carrying out a threat that he had made on several previous occasions. His departure allowed his chief rival, Paul Kagame, to step in as interim president. Bizimungu is a Hutu; Kagame is a Tutsi. More to the point, Bizimungu was the last in a long line of Hutu leaders who were forced out of office as a result of Kagame’s political maneuvers.

Earlier in March, Kagame—who simultaneously held the positions of vice president, defense minister, and military leader in the Rwandan government —had secured the resignation of Prime Minister Pierre Celestin Rwigema, a Hutu with close political ties to President Bizimungu. Soon thereafter another one of Bizimungu’s closest allies, Assiel Kabera, was murdered. In January another Hutu leader, Joseph Sebarenzi Kabuye, the speaker of the national parliament, had hastily resigned and sought asylum in Uganda. Kagame remains as the sole survivor among the country’s political leaders.

Kagame and Bizimungu were frequently at odds over the involvement of Rwandan troops in the civil war in Democratic Congo—a campaign which Kagame supported and Bizimungu opposed. But the rival political leaders were apparently united in at least one cause: the prosecution of Bishop Augustin Misago of Gikongoro. More than a year after his arrest, and despite the prosecutors’ failure to produce any substantial evidence that the bishop was involved in the 1994 genocide, Bishop Misago remains behind bars.

Chastity as answer
to AIDS
Church decries reliance on condoms

In Tanzania, Catholic missionaries have undertaken an ambitious campaign to promote chastity as the only reliable response to the AIDS epidemic. Father George Loire, a Missionary of Africa, told the DIA news agency that the effort concentrates on only two simple principles: continence outside marriage, and fidelity within marriage. The campaign has spawned a number of “Youth Alive” clubs, claiming over 250 young members in the capital city of Dar es Salaam.

That approach to AIDS found support in an article published by L’Osservatore Romano on April 5. The answer to the epidemic in Africa can only be found in an aggressive campaign to eliminate the moral, political, and social roots of the disease, according to the Vatican newspaper.

L’Osservatore insisted that the distribution of condoms would not be enough to stop the spread of AIDS. Msgr. Jacques Suaudeau, a physician who works with the Pontifical Council for the Family, called for “discrete and effective” action to combat an explosive growth in AIDS.

Flatly contradicting the propaganda reports in which several governments and family-planning agencies have accused the Church of curtailing AIDS-prevention program, Msgr. Suaudeau wrote that “the Catholic Church has been on the front lines in the war against AIDS in Africa.” He observed that the Church is criticized for failing to approve of the distribution of condoms, but he went on to point out that condoms have been ineffective as a means of curbing the epidemic. “One cannot hope to stop the AIDS epidemic with condoms alone,” he argued, “any more than you can hope to stop a flood with sandbags once the main dikes have broken.”

The only real solution to AIDS, the Vatican official continued, lies in “convincing people to change their sexual behavior, which is the principal cause of the spread of the infection.” He added that the frightening spread of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is abetted by turmoil in the region: the poverty, the lack of adequate sanitation, the conditions of life in refugee camps, and the spread of prostitution.

The most effective method of avoiding AIDS, Msgr. Suaudeau pointed out, is sexual abstinence. The distribution of condoms to young people, he argued, works against that choice, and in effect “continues the vicious sexual cycle which is the cause of the pandemic.”

An African tradition
Animal blood in the liturgy?

One controversy—caused by the suggestions that the role of saints is similar to that of revered ancestors in African cultures—had barely subsided among the Catholics of South Africa. Now a new dispute began, involving suggestions that African culture could be incorporated into Catholic liturgy through animal bloodletting during the Mass.

On the controversy over the status of ancestors, Archbishop Buti Tihagale of Bloemfontein drew a clear distinction, concluding that while respect for one’s ancestors is both natural and laudable, “ancestors are no substitute for saints.” But the Pretoria News implicated the same archbishop with the supporters of a proposal to include elements of animal sacrifice in the Catholic liturgy.

Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, a Catholic priest who is also the deputy minister of education in the South African government, was the first prominent figure to come out in support of the calls—first introduced by some black priests—for the incorporation of animal sacrifices into the liturgy. These calls must be seen against the background of the debate over reverence for ancestors, since the practice of animal sacrifice is used to honor ancestors in traditional African religions. Opponents of the practice have raised the objection that these sacrifices are elements of pagan worship, which have no place in Christian practice.

In response to press inquiries, Father Mkhatshwa said that he supported the calls by some African clerics to incorporate some form of animal bloodletting into the Mass. (The Pretoria News suggested that Archbishop Tihagale was among those calling for such a step.) On a practical note, he admitted that the architecture of Catholic church buildings might have to be “reviewed” in order to accommodate the requirements of animal sacrifice.

Father Mkhatshwa has already shown his willingness to depart from orthodox Catholic teaching, voting in 1996 to support a proposal for legalized abortion on demand. His support for animal sacrifice is not likely to sway the opinions of Church leaders. Nevertheless, the National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals reacted with “disbelief” to the proposal, and has already written to the South African bishops, seeking a clarification.

Massacre condemned
Sikhs victims of religious violence

Archbishop Alan Basil de Lastic of Delhi, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, has led Christians in condemning the gruesome massacre of 35 Sikhs in the northern Jammu and Kashmir states.

“Whatever might be the differences of opinion among people over land, religion, or ideology, no one must resort to violent methods,” said Archbishop de Lastic in a statement responding to the massacre of Sikhs who were gunned down by Muslim zealots battling for independence from India in the troubled Kashmir state. The killings took place late in March, just as US President Bill Clinton began a five-day visit to India. The Kashmir problem was high on the list of items to be discussed when Clinton met with the leaders of the Indian government.

Archbishop deLastic condemned the “dastardly act,” and voiced the hope that militants of all persuasions could eventually be convinced that “no problem could be solved without peaceful dialogue and no end could be achieved through violence and terrorism” in a reference to the militants’ bloody campaign for independence. The massacre of the Sikhs, after the spate of violence against Hindus in Kashmir is “designed to force a division between communities,” said the leaders of All India Catholic Union and All India Christian Council in a joint statement. Reminding the government that the violence exposed “lapses in security,” the Christian groups urged the government “to address the crisis.”

Catholics as targets
Hindu zealots suspected in
latest attacks

A Capuchin center for poor children was looted and the priest in charge assaulted by a group of a dozen people on March 31 at Gaziabad, near New Delhi.

After breaking into the three-story building, the bandits locked up the children living at the home, then assaulted Father Skylark George and held him captive at knife point, and finally looted the money that had been saved to pay the salaries of the teachers at the center.

Three weeks earlier, another Capuchin center—a computer training school —had been looted; 24 computer systems and over $2,000 in cash were stolen from the center, which was also located in Gaziabad.

“This could be one way of terrorizing us,” said Father Xavier Vadakkekara, the Capuchin editor of the Indian Currents Catholic weekly, which has been vocal in condemnation of the attacks on Christian targets by Hindu extremists. The fact that police investigators were more interested in wiping out the fingerprints from the crime scene than recording them, Father Vadakkekara charged, “shows that they do not want to catch the culprits at all.”

Eldest cardinal dies
Papal praise for exiled Chinese prelate

In a message made public on March 13, Pope John Paul II paid tribute to Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei, the Chinese prelate who had died earlier that day.

The Pope cited the “remarkable witness” of Cardinal Kung to the universal Church. The Chinese prelate had spent 30 years in Chinese prisons between 1955 and 1985. He died in exile in the United States.
Cardinal Kung was originally named to the College of Cardinals in pectore by Pope John Paul, in 1979, while he was imprisoned in Shanghai. His elevation was not announced to the public until 1991. At 98, Cardinal Kung was the oldest member of the College of Cardinals at the time of his death.

New arrests
Protestant groups hit in latest crackdown

The Communist Chinese government arrested 16 members of a Christian group in a crackdown on underground churches in March.

The Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said police entered a meeting of the China Evangelical Fellowship at a member’s home in the city of Xinyang and arrested 16 people, confiscating their Bibles and seizing money and property belonging to Hao Huaiping, whose home was used for the meeting. Hao and a church leader, Jian Qinggang, are expected to be sentenced to prison terms in a forced labor camp. Jian had only recently been released after serving another sentence at a labor camp. Four other members of the outlawed group had been sentenced to labor camps in December.

Despite those arrests, the leader of the Communist Party body that oversees state-approved Protestant churches said that religious persecution is relatively rare. During a three-week visit to the United States, Rev. Han Wenzao, the president of the China Christian Council, told American Evangelical leaders that reports of persecution in China are inaccurate. Asked about a US State Department report that had indicated a rise in religious persecution last year, Han disputed the evidence and said that conditions had actually improved since the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s, when thousands of religious leaders and intellectuals were sentenced to forced labor camps. “That period really was mass persecution—all churches closed down, Bibles burned,” he recalled. But now, he contended, the Christian churches are growing.

Han said that more than 13,000 churches have reopened and 23 million Bibles have been printed during the past 20 years. “Now—on the whole, generally speaking—the policy is freedom,” he said, adding that because China is so vast, there may be scattered violations of the overall policy in different provinces and by different local authorities.

More Protestant victims
No Evangelical church gains official status

Vietnam’s Protestants are victims of routine oppression by the country’s Communist government, according to a report by the World Evangelical Fellowship (WEF) early in April.

The report provided detailed reports of the arrest of worshippers, who were beaten and imprisoned for refusing to deny their faith. “Twenty-five years after the reunification of the country under Communism, Protestant Christians in Vietnam remain a marginalized minority unable to enjoy the freedom of religion promised in Vietnam’s constitution,” the report said.

While the Vietnamese government denies reports of persecution of the Catholic, Protestant, and Buddhist faiths, and claims that freedom of religion is guaranteed by the country’s constitution and preserved by the government’s policies, they still retain tight control over the activities of the clergy, and there are frequent reports of persecution.

The WEF report said there were some 800,000 Protestants in Vietnam among the country’s 79 million people. Not one Protestant church group had been granted legal status in recent years, the report said.

Children held hostage
Rebels want to deal with the Church

On March 20, Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines took more than 50 people hostage, including a priest and dozens of students at three Catholic high schools.

The rebels took 47 hostages from a school in a town on the island of Basilan, and 10 more from two other schools before fleeing for the forest, said a military spokesman. “Twenty hostages were released later. Thirty-seven are still being held,” said Col. Hilario Atendido in the government’s first report on the attack.

The kidnappings followed a week of fighting between government troops and rebels of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in a region north of Basilan. Col. Atendido said that the attack on the first school was carried out by the Abu Sayyaf group, while suspected MILF rebels were involved in the other raids. Subsequent events revealed that Abu Sayyaf forces were responsible for all of the raids. Muslim rebel groups are fighting to establish an Islamic state in the southern Philippines. Although MILF has held peace talks with the government, Abu Sayyaf has shunned negotiations.

Shortly after the kidnappings, Abu Sayyaf leaders revealed that they were holding 50 Catholic schoolchildren hostage. The guerilla leaders issued a demand for all Catholics to leave the southern islands so that they could set up an Islamic state.

Reporters who slipped past military patrols into the camp of the Abu Sayyaf rebels said that they saw the hostages, including the priest, who had been taken from a Catholic high school earlier in the week. In retaliation for the raid on the Catholic schools, local vigilantes complicated matters by staging a dramatic raid on the guerillas themselves, kidnapping the wife and daughter of Abu Sayyaf’s leader, Khadaffy Janjalani.

“We will be forced to kill some of the hostages if the relatives of Janjalani are not released,” one of the rebels said by telephone from the Abu Sayyaf camp. The guerillas demanded negotiations with a representative of the Vatican, saying that negotiations with the Filipino government would be useless, and repeated that their goal was to ensure that all Catholics would leave Basilan.

Father Angelo Calvo, a colleague of the kidnapped priest, told reporters: “We must make it clear to the kidnappers that the Vatican cannot engage in talks directly. The local Church can and has the necessary autonomy and can act for the good of the people.” Immediately after the kidnapping, Bishop Romulo De la Cruz of Isabela, the local diocese on Basilan, began efforts to negotiate with the guerilla leaders.

Negotiations produced the release of several young hostages, but the rebels continued to hold most of their captives. On April 5, the Abu Sayyaf leadership indicated that it was prepared to release 15 of the remaining hostages, after hearing that Khaddafy Janjalani’s wife and daughter had been freed. But in fact the rebels released only two children. “We were sort of dismayed, because they only released two instead of 15,” said a government negotiator. As Catholic World Report goes to press, the negotiations continue.

No prayers wanted
President rebukes the Pope

When Pope John Paul II offered his public prayers for the welfare of the young hostages kidnapped by rebels in the Philippines, President Joseph Estrada told the Pontiff that he should concentrate his attention on other parts of the world.

During his Wednesday general audience on March 29, the Holy Father prayed for the Mindanao region, where the guerilla fighting is concentrated and where the hostages were being held. “I pray for all the residents of that region and, in particular, for politicians and the military. I pray that God may enlighten them and move them to do everything possible to end the violence by seeking peaceful solutions to existing problems,” he said.

Asked for his reaction to the prayer, Estrada said: “He should not be praying for peace in Mindanao but he should be praying for peace in the world. It is not only in Mindanao where there is trouble. There is also trouble in Kosovo and Pakistan.” He added: “Hopefully, if he would concentrate on religious affairs, maybe our problem with the rebels will be over.”

No Islam in Catholic schools
Bishops resist government pressure

The curriculum in Catholic schools in Indonesia will not include Islamic instruction, the Indonesian Catholic Bishops Conference said in March. The bishops thus indicated their rejection of government pressure in the most populous Muslim nation in the world.

In October 1999, the Ministers of Education and Religious Affairs sent a joint letter to Catholic schools requesting that instruction in the Muslim faith be added to the school programs. The proposal was motivated by the fact that 40 percent of the pupils at Catholic schools are Muslim.

Father Sumaryo, SJ, head of the Indonesian bishops’ education commission, said: “Islamic instruction is not practically feasible in Catholic schools.” He indicated that government officials had made intensive efforts to convince Catholic school administrators that they should provide Islamic instruction, “but all attempts failed.”

Sister Antoni Hari Surwidiyanti, the principal of the Sang Timur high school in Yogyakarta, confirmed government officials had urged her to teach Islam. “I refused, because this pressure stems from a unilateral decision,” she said. Sister Margaretha Surani added that government officials had threatened to remove some government-subsidized teachers from the Christian schools if the administrators did not agree to include Islamic studies.

Father Pujasumarta, vicar general of the Semarang diocese, said that in keeping with the teaching of Vatican II, the local Church seeks to enhance relations with and understanding of other religions. “However,” he said, “if Islamic instruction is eventually taught in Catholic schools, the private schools must be guaranteed the right to appoint who provides this religious instruction.”

“What we object to is that this pressure against the Catholic schools has been politically motivated, as sectarian tendencies emerged among the people in the country,” Father Pujasumarta added. He lamented: “The bishops’ call for religious harmony has also been twisted into a demand for Islamic instruction in Catholic schools.”

Calls for jihad
Muslims ready to fight in the Moluccas

A group of several thousand Muslims gathered in Jakarta on April 6, vowing to form an army to fight a holy war against Christians in the strife-torn Moluccas province, also known as the Spice Islands.

More than 5,000 Muslims—many of them flourishing swords and daggers—crowded into a sports stadium to mark the Muslim new year with their leaders by proclaiming a jihad, or holy war, against Christians. Ayip Safruddin, head of the Communication Forum for Muslims, told reporters his followers hoped to raise an army of 10,000 and launch a military offensive in the Moluccas by the end of April.

The government of President Abdurrahman Wahid, a moderate Muslim cleric, has ordered a naval blockade around the Moluccas to stop the flow of weapons and warriors into the region. But Ayip said if the government stopped his forces from entering the Moluccas, they would wage war on the main island of Java. “It is up to them to choose — whether we wage jihad in the Moluccas or Java,” he said.

One week later, about 500 Muslims protested outside Indonesia’s parliament, demanding permission to engage in the jihad. The militants demanded a meeting with Amien Rais, speaker of the parliament, and asked him for permission to fight in the Moluccas.

Baby left to die
Premature arrival survived attempted abortion

Doctors and staff of an Australian hospital left a baby that survived an abortion to die as it survived for 80 minutes without care after delivery in 1998, according to testimony provided to a coroner’s court early in April.

The coroner, Greg Cavanagh, testified that the baby would probably not have lived in any case after surviving an abortion at 21 weeks of pregnancy in July 1998. But, he said, there was “a responsibility vacuum” demonstrated by the way in which the hospital staff dealt with the situation.

Carrie Williams, the midwife, told the court she had telephoned the Royal Darwin Hospital obstetrics and gynecology department’s director, Dr. Kai Man Henry Cho, and told him the baby was alive. She testified that he responded: “So?” Cavanagh said Dr. Cho admitted that he had given no instructions about the care of the baby, nor had he warned the nurses of the possibility of a live birth. The coroner said that it was the responsibility of the doctor to give instructions to the nurse on care of a living child.

Cavanagh recommended that all deaths of babies delivered alive should be reported to his office, and that the deceased should not be referred to as “fetus,” “aborted fetus,” “non-viable fetus,” or by any other term that diminished his status as a human being. “The deceased, having been born alive deserved all the dignity, respect, and value that our society places on human life,” Cavanagh said. “The fact that her birth was unexpected, and not the desired outcome of the medical procedure, should not result in her—and babies like her—being perceived as anything less than a complete human being.”

Satanic murder
Shocking story calls attention to cults

The brutal murder of a 50-year-old father at the hand of his two young daughters as part of a satanic rite has shocked Argentine society and raised concern about the proliferation of satanic and other cults in Buenos Aires.

The mutilated body of Juan Carlos Vazquez was found after his two young daughters stabbed their father 100 times and ate flesh from his face. Police, as they revealed the details of the strange crime, announced that both the victim and his killers belonged to a cult known as the Alchemy Center for Transmutation. According to the police, the father and daughters had been engaged in a bizarre ritual that ended with the murder. Juan Carlos’s body was found to be marked not only with 100 knife wounds, but also with cuts forming a strange figure.

The killing took place in the family living room, after the furniture had been moved to one side. Responding to reports of strange activities in the home, police arrived to find the two Vargas daughters still on the scene, apparently in shock; one of the young women was shouting invocations of Satan, while another said that the devil had finally left her father’s body. Both women were taken into the care of psychiatrists.

According to Jose Maria Baamonde, a psychologist from Fundacion Spes, a Catholic institution dedicated to the study of the growing number of sects and cults in Argentina, the sect to which the Vazquez family belonged “is the type of organization that is becoming tremendously popular by combining some elements of gnosticism and strange formulas and rites which they claim have been inherited from the ancient alchemists.” Baamonde explained that, despite the sect’s self-portrayal as an institution devoted to self-knowledge and self-discipline, “some of their rites explicitly invoke the presence and power of the Devil.”

Excommunication for judge?
Move would follow directive on abortion

A judge who ordered doctors to perform an abortion for a 12-year-old girl after she was raped by her stepfather may be excommunicated by his local bishop, according to the Bolivian bishops’ conference.

Bishop Jesus Juarez Parraga, secretary of the bishop’s conference, said he has not yet decided whether or not to excommunicate Judge Juan Luis Ledezma, but said the judge’s order was a serious transgression. “Abortion is a crime that deserves excommunication,” he said. The bishops’ conference said it is also considering legal action against the judge for violating the country’s laws, which forbid abortion. The doctor who performed the abortion could also face legal action.

A doctor aborted the unborn child in La Paz after other doctors in Cochabamba—the city where the girl lived—refused to obey the judge’s order, saying that the girl could suffer physical and mental harm. The doctors also said that they refused to perform the abortion because it would mean the death of a human being.

Jose Rivera, a spokesman for the diocese of La Paz, said that Judge Ledezma should be considered already excommunicated “in the event that he does not repent,” even if no formal excommunication order is presented.

Mediation offered
Bishops hope to forestall conflict

Bolivia’s bishops have offered to mediate a dispute between peasant groups and the military, which has resulted in violent unrest, four deaths, and the imposition of martial law.

President Hugo Banzer declared a state of emergency on April 8, after farmers rose up across the countryside in heated and sometimes violent protests against new government economic policies.

Bishop Jesus Juarez Parraga of El Alto, secretary-general of the Bolivian bishops’ conference, and Archbishop Edmund Abastoflor of La Paz traveled from the capital to Achacachi where they witnessed the violence first hand and charged that the military had used excessive force against the peasants. Bishop Juarez also complained about the “intransigence and intolerance” of the military commander in the region and criticized the authorities for ordering military jets to buzz the city streets where the peasants were protesting.

“These are not the best circumstances” in which to find a solution to the conflict he added. But, Bishop Juarez said, “the peasant leaders want to start talks and let’s hope that happens and the violence ends as soon as possible.”

Appeal against corruption
Bishops decry government abuses

The Paraguayan Bishops’ Conference has launched a strong appeal for social reform and for the end of political corruption, in a collective pastoral letter entitled “A Way for a Paraguay with Solidarity.”

The document was presented to a group of political authorities, social leaders, and the faithful gathered at the Cathedral of Asuncion to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of seven young protesters who were killed by police during riots that followed the assassination of Vice President Argana. The outrage sparked by the deaths of those protestors eventually forced the resignation of President Raul Cubas.

“The bishops want to call your attention to the fact that we are far away from the model of a fair, fraternal society,” said Archbishop Jorge Livieres Bank, president of the Paraguayan bishops’ conference. In the pastoral letter, the bishops called Paraguayans “to revive the spirit of conversion that comes with this Lenten season, which calls us to a deep total conversion to Christ.” They added that the social transformation of the country “is a responsibility shared by all Paraguayans, because each one of us, no matter what his position in society, has something to give to enrich society.”

Nevertheless, in the document the bishops strongly criticize political authorities, who they hold responsible for “the wave of corruption at all levels of government that absorbs the resources desperately needed in many areas.” The bishops also say: “We have always called for a change in this field, but it seems that very little can be done to end corruption.”

The bishops propose “a new social order, a new model of society, rooted in personal conversion but clearly expressed in society.” They added, “This requires us all to recognize the true roots of evil, not only in economic or social policies, but in the human attitudes that have to be transformed, such as greed and the desire for power.”

US death squads?
Prelate lashes out at sterilization programs

Cardinal Nicolas Lopez Rodriguez of Santo Domingo has decried “USAID death squads” in the wake of comments by the wife of the US ambassador praising the large numbers of sterilizations carried out by clinics funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

According to the newspaper Listin Diairo, Kathleen Manatt, wife of US Ambassador Charles Manatt, who is the former head of the Democratic National Committee, said she was pleased that 600 sterilizations had taken place at the Rosa Cisneros clinic.

The US-based Population Research Institute (PRI) said it had placed calls to the head office of USAID in Santo Domingo, and an official there confirmed that USAID funds Profamilia, the local group (affiliated with International Planned Parenthood) that operates the Rosa Cisneros clinic. In turn, Profamilia confirmed that its main source of funding to operate the Rosa Cisneros clinic comes from USAID.

When word of the prelate’s complaint reached US Congressman Todd Tiahrt, the Kansas lawmaker promptly sent a letter to US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. “Cardinal Lopez Rodriguez is the Archbishop of Santo Domingo and a former president of the Latin American Bishops Conference,” Tiahrt wrote. “Clearly a person in his position would not use such intemperate language without provocation. According to those same reports, the cardinal was reacting to certain statements attributed to Kathleen Manatt, the wife of our Ambassador to the Dominican Republic.”

The US embassy subsequently denied that Manatt had praised the Rosa Cisneros clinic’s sterilization program. In fact, officials at the US embassy reportedly made several efforts to quash a story on the subject, which appeared in Our Sunday Visitor on March 5. In that story, Cardinal Lopez is quoted as saying: “I feel profoundly offended, primarily by the insult of [Kathleen Manatt] coming to this country to do what she doesn’t have to do. . . . [S]he can do what she wants [in the US], and her government, which doesn’t know much about morality, either, can do whatever it thinks. . . . We want to be poor but honest, we want to accept the truth; we don’t want anyone to come to take advantage of our condition and defenselessness.”

Priest still focus of prosecution
New charges in bishop’s murder

The on-again, off-again investigation into the 1998 murder of Bishp Juan Gerardi Conedera took a strange new twist in March, when prosecutors arrested Father Mario Najera Orantes—who had previously been arrested, then later released when investigators admitted that they had not been able to come up with evidence to sustain charges against him.

Human-rights groups and Catholic Church officials have repeatedly protested against the prosecution’s focus on Father Orantes, who was living in the same rectory with Bishop Gerardi at the time of the killing in April 1998. The priest and a housekeeper who served at that residence are currently the only suspects formally charged in connection with the crime. But critics of the prosecutors point out that Bishop Gerardi died just after having issued a report sharply criticizing the country’s military leaders for human-rights abuses. The timing, they point out, strongly suggests that the bishop may have been killed by military officials who resented his stand.

Father Orantes had traveled to Houston for medical treatment after his original release from jail. He returned to Guatemala after he was ordered to do so by a judge involved in the case. He remains in a hospital, with his lawyer insisting he is too sick to be taken into custody. Two judges and two prosecutors have resigned from the investigation over the past two years, citing death threats against them and their families.

From his hospital bed, Father Orantes spoke to reporters on March 29, and told them that he had nothing to do with the bishop’s death. “I didn’t see anything, I didn’t hear anything, I didn’t do anything,” Father Orantes said. “All I did was find my brother, Bishop Gerardi, murdered.”

Father Orantes also criticized the conduct of the investigation: “After all this time here I still do not know the reasons I have again been charged. If the evidence was so important you would think I would have heard about it by now,” he said.

Nevertheless, on March 31, Judge Flor de Maria Garcia ordered Father Orantes to stand trial, despite his illness. “We found basis to the prosecutor’s theory that the priest, Mario Orantes, participated in the murder of Bishop Gerardi, along with members of state security forces,” Garcia told reporters after issuing his ruling.

The prosecutor investigating the murder of Bishop Gerardi Conedera, Leopoldo Zeissig, admitted that the investigation is following “a tortuous path.” The prosecutor said: “Too many variables are affecting the process.”

A prelate poisoned?
Predecessor was a murder victim

The Archdiocese of Guadalajara has finally acknowledged a story which for months had been the subject of speculation in several local newspapers. The archdiocese has admitted that the intestinal crisis which forced the hospitalization of Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez last year may have been the consequence of an attempt to poison the archbishop.

In a terse public statement, the archdiocese admitted that the speculation about an attempt to poison the cardinal “has some foundation.” The statement went on: “The cardinal admitted that there is ground for such claims, due to the sudden nature of his disease.”

The archdiocese’s statement explained that the disease which forced the urgent hospitalization and surgery on Cardinal Sandoval in June 1999 was an “intestinal thrombosis, a problem that usually occurs only in the elderly, persons with heart problems, and persons with tumors—none of which describes the cardinal’s condition.” In fact, prior to and after his hospitalization, Cardinal Sandoval had always been known for his robust health.

Nevertheless, the archdiocesan statement went on to make it clear that “nothing concrete can be proved” regarding the possible effort to poison the prelate, or the motives of the people who might have been involved in that effort. It also denied that the cardinal has hired a personal bodyguard, as reported by a local newspaper. “The cardinal continues with his normal pastoral activities as usual,” the statement explained.

The cardinal’s health crisis took place as he was strongly demanding that Mexican authorities solve the case of the murder of his predecessor, Cardinal Jesus Posadas Ocampo.

Staying the course
New bishop sees no change in troubled diocese

The Holy See has announced that Bishop Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel of Tapachula, Mexico, will become the next bishop of the troubled diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas, in Chiapas, Mexico.

Bishop Arizmendi will replace the controversial Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia, who had been a lightning-rod for criticism because of his support for a form of liberation theology and his involvement with the Zapatista guerillas in Chiapas.

In 1995, the Vatican had appointed Bishop Raul Vera Lopez as coadjutor bishop, with the right to succeed Bishop Ruiz when the latter retired. However, on December 30, 1999, the Vatican issued the surprise announcement that Bishop Vera was being transferred to head the Saltillo diocese. That transfer was widely interpreted as reflecting Vatican concerns that Bishop Vera might continue the policies put in place by Bishop Ruiz.

Bishop Arizmendi—who cur