c. 1998 Religion News Service
Pope hopes to help Cubans obtain a `more just’ homeland
(RNS) Pope John Paul II hopes his upcoming visit to Cuba will help the communist nation become”ever more just and united.” Speaking Saturday (Jan. 10), the pope delivered his most specific comments yet about his hopes for his visit to Cuba, which begins Jan. 21.
The pontiff, in his annual”state of the world”message, said he hoped the five-day visit to the island nation would”strengthen not only the courageous Catholics of that country but also all their fellow citizens in their effort to achieve a homeland ever more just and united.” John Paul also said he hoped Cuba _ the only Spanish-speaking country in Latin America he has yet to visit _ might become a nation”where all individuals can find their rightful place and see their legitimate aspirations recognized.” In his talk, the pope also decried the ongoing violence in Algeria _ where suspected Muslim extremists seeking to topple the military government have killed some 1,000 civilians since the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Reuters reported.”We see a whole country held hostage to inhuman violence which no political, far less religious motivation, could legitimate,”the pope said concerning Algeria.”I insist on repeating clearly to all once again that no one may kill in God’s name. This is to misuse the divine name and to blaspheme.” The pope also decried the United Nations boycott against Iraq, which has been in place since Baghdad’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. He said those hurt most by it are children and other civilians.”The weak and the innocent,”said the pope,”cannot pay for mistakes for which they are not responsible.”
Papal visit a financial windfall for Cuba
(RNS) Pope John Paul II’s visit to Cuba will pump $20 million or more into the battered economy of the communist nation.
As many as 10,000 journalists, pilgrims and others are expected to descend on Cuba for the five-day visit beginning Jan. 21, and price gouging is expected to be widespread, the Miami Herald reported Sunday (Jan. 11).”This will be a lot more than pennies from heaven. It’ll be millions from heaven,”Jacques Kiechel, a Canadian travel agent who books trips to Cuba, told the newspaper.
Hotel rates have doubled and already expensive car rentals have increased by 30 percent to 40 percent. Visitors are expected to spend $1.5 million on Cuban cigars alone.
The Cuban government is selling $20 posters and $2 postcards showing the pope and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro at their 1996 meeting at the Vatican. The government is also selling $1 bumper stickers and $40 silver commemorative coins.
Havana has also told several U.S. and European TV stations they will have to pay $100,000 each to broadcast Cuban TV satellite feeds.
Moreover, the fee does not cover the cost of sending reports by foreign TV correspondents back home via satellite. That’s another $10,000 or more for each 15-minute bloc.
All told, at least $20 million in hard currency will be left behind in Cuba when the pope departs, the New York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council estimated.
Some anti-Castro Cuban exiles have opposed the papal visit because they fear the foreign currency realized from the visit will help Castro remain in power despite a steadily declining economy that the exiles hope will eventually cause his government’s collapse.
Jerusalem’s new Lutheran bishop says church will work for peace
(RNS) Bishop Munib A. Younan, the new bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan, has promised his church will be”an apostle of peace, a catalyst for justice and the accomplisher of reconciliation.” Younan, a Palestinian, was consecrated as the new bishop of the church in a Jan. 5 ceremony at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in a section of Jerusalem once controlled by Jordan.
Representatives of the Israeli government and the Palestinian National Authority, as well as officials from the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches and other Protestant denominations attended the installation service.
Special permits were granted for Lutheran laity and clergy from Jordan and the West Bank to enter the city, Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency reported. Younan, 47, is the third bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan, which was formed in 1959. He has previously served as a pastor at Hope Lutheran Church in Ramallah in the West Bank.
He said one of his goals is to”sign a covenant of full communion”between the Lutheran denomination and the Anglican Church by the year 2000.
Leader of `suicide cult’ charged with attempted murder by Spanish judge
(RNS) A German psychologist authorities say is the leader of a”suicide cult”has been charged by a judge in Spain with attempted murder for allegedly planning to lead 31 followers to a mass suicide.
The leader, Heide Fittkau-Garthe, was arrested Wednesday (Jan. 7) in Tenerife, Canary Islands, and jailed without bail, the Associated Press reported. The name of the sect was not made public, the AP said.
On Saturday (Jan. 10), Judge Juan Luis Lorenzo Bragado questioned Fittkau-Garthe for five hours before making the attempted murder charge.
According to news reports, police believe the group had planned to kill themselves at the top of Tenerife’s Teide volcano, where they believed their souls would be picked up by a spaceship.
The reports said the mostly German members of the group had been convinced by Fittkau-Garthe the world was to end last Thursday (Jan. 8).
Early reports linked the group to the Solar Temple sect. More than 70 members of that group have committed suicide since 1994. But on Saturday (Jan. 10), Spanish media cited German police as saying the two groups were not connected.
Germany, Czech Republic establish fund for Czech survivors of Naziism
(RNS) Germany and the Czech Republic launched a $92.4 million”Fund for the Future”on Jan. 1 to compensate an estimated 8,000 surviving Czech victims of Naziism.
Germany agreed Dec. 29 to start the fund on schedule, reversing a decision earlier in the month to delay it until the turbulent political situation settled in the Czech Republic, which officially switched prime ministers at the start of the new year.
Czech Jewish leaders attributed Germany’s latest decision to pressure from U.S. Jewish organizations and leftist German parties.
Germany will contribute $78.4 million and the Czech government $14 million to the fund, which will finance community projects for surviving Czech victims of Naziism, a quarter of whom are Jewish.”I am pleased, but who will be alive when the compensation is finally given out?”Holocaust survivor Oldrich Stransky, chairman of the Czech Union of Freedom Fighters, told the Prague Post newspaper.
Quote of the day: U.S. District Court Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy
(RNS)”Ramzi Yousef, you are not fit to uphold Islam. Your God is death. Your God is not Allah. … You weren’t seeking conversions. The only thing you wanted to do was to cause death. Your God is not Allah. … You … came to this country pretending to be an Islamic fundamentalist, but you cared little or nothing for Islam or the faith of the Muslims. Rather, you adored not Allah, but the evil that you yourself have become.” _ U.S. District Court Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy of New York on Jan. 8 in sentencing Ramzi Ahmed Yousef to life in prison for his role in the 1994 World Trade Center bombing.
MJP END RNS
