c. 1999 Religion News Service

Controversial painting of Virgin Mary sabotaged at Brooklyn museum

(RNS) A controversial painting of the Virgin Mary was smeared with white paint Thursday (Dec. 16) by a visitor to the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Dennis Heiner, 72, was arrested immediately after allegedly committing the act of sabotage on the painting, in which the Virgin Mary is decorated with elephant dung. He was charged with criminal mischief, a felony, the Associated Press reported.

Witnesses said Heiner called the art blasphemous. His wife, Helena Heiner, told the New York Post they considered the painting insulting to Christians and she”encouraged him to do it.””The Holy Virgin Mary,”a painting by Chris Ofili, is part of an exhibit called”Sensation”that has proved successful after receiving much criticism.

Ofili, who is of Nigerian descent, has said the elephant dung is a cultural reference to his African heritage. Museum officials said the painting would be cleaned and returned to display Friday.

Museum spokeswoman Sally Williams said Heiner apparently smuggled the paint into the museum by using a small plastic hand lotion tube.

Witnesses said the retired teacher lured security guards away from the painting by saying he was feeling ill and dizzy. He then ducked behind a Plexiglas panel in front of the painting and defaced it with white paint.”He squirted it on the painting and then smeared it with his hands,”said Williams.

The museum issued a statement saying its trustee board and staff”are shocked and extremely saddened by this incomprehensible act that has attempted to deface an important work of art by a world-renowned artist.” The painting by Ofili has been harshly criticized by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, whose attempt to cut off the city’s funding of the museum was denied by a federal judge on First Amendment grounds.

The Catholic League issued a statement Friday saying”we do not condone the actions of the man who defaced the controversial Madonna painting. There is a right way to protest and a wrong way to protest, and throwing paint on a canvas is wrong.”

Vatican moving toward the controversial beatification of Pope Pius XII

(RNS) Despite continuing controversy over his conduct during World War II, the Vatican is moving toward the beatification of Pope Pius XII, the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints said Friday (Dec. 17).”It is not true that it has been stopped,”Archbishop Jose Saraiva Martins told a Vatican news conference Friday (Dec. 17).”The cause is going according to the normal times foreseen for the procedure.” Saraiva Martins confirmed reports that during Holy Year, Pope John Paul II would beatify Pius IX, the 19th century pontiff who was overthrown as the ruler of the papal states of central Italy by the forces that unified the country, and John XXIII.

The prelate said John Paul would sign a decree on Monday (Dec. 20) to authorize the beatifications, which are expected to be held in St. Peter’s Square on Sept. 3, 2000.

The cause of Mother Teresa, who died in 1997, is still in too early a stage for her beatification in the year 2000, said Monsignor Michele Di Ruberto, undersecretary of the congregation.

Hearings on her life opened in Calcutta in July and will be followed by more in Rome and New York.”We are still waiting for Calcutta. For the jubilee, I think it’s impossible,”Di Ruberto said.

Beatification is the last step before sainthood. To be declared blessed, a candidate for sainthood must have exhibited”heroic virtues”in his or her lifetime and either have died a martyr or be found responsible for a miracle after death.

The causes of John XXIII and his predecessor, Pius XII, were both opened in 1965, but Saraiva Martins denied the Vatican has delayed action on Pius XII because of critics’ charges that he chose to remain silent on the Nazi persecution of the Jews.

The prelate said the causes could not be compared because the reign of Pius XII from 1939 to 1958 was far more complex than that of John XXIII, who was pope only from 1958 to 1963.”Pius XII reigned for a very long and extremely painful period while Pope John reigned briefly in a tranquil situation,”Saraiva Martins said.”Therefore there are more documents (on Pius XII) to examine in respect to other cases like, for example, that of John XXIII.” Saraiva Martins spoke at a news conference called to present his congregation’s”Index ac Status Causarum,”a 730-page compliation of the names of 1,921 candidates for beatification, 1,742 blesseds awaiting sainthood and the status of their causes.

Bishop Edward Nowak, secretary of the congregation, said that popes who reigned from 1588, when the congregation was established, through Pope Paul VI beatified 808 men and women while John Paul II alone beatified another 904.

Of the total of 591 saints canonized since 1609, John Paul created 295, including 103 Korean martyers he elevated in one group in 1984, Nowak said.

Responding to charges that John Paul has turned the congregation into”a factory for saints,”Nowak pointed out that it is not the pope but the bishops of the dioceses where candidates lived that put them forward for sainthood.

Scottish parliament urges lifting bar on Catholic monarchs

(RNS) The Scottish Parliament has added its voice to those calling for the removal of the legal ban on the heir to the British throne marrying a Roman Catholic.

On Thursday (Dec. 16) it unanimously accepted a motion put forward by the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) Michael Russell and signed by 77 of the 129 MSPs asking the Westminster (British) parliament to repeal the 1701 Act of Settlement.

The act bars from the throne”all and every person and persons who … is, are or shall be reconciled to or shall hold communion with the see or church of Rome or shall profess the popish religion or shall marry a papist.” Describing the law as”offensive,”Russell said:”We should not carry down the generations the prejudices of the past.” Supporting the motion, the Conservative Party’s Lord James Douglas-Hamilton noted an heir to the throne could marry someone belonging to any religion except Roman Catholicism.”Such a stigma today, when no other religion is singled out, is grossly unfair,”he said.

British Anglican prelate suggests amnesty for nonviolent prison inmates

(RNS) Anglican Bishop Terence Brain of Salford, England, has suggested a jubilee amnesty for all nonviolent prisoners to mark the millennium.

Brain, taking part in a debate on Britain’s penal system to be broadcast Sunday (Dec. 19), said it is time to look at amnesty in light of the increasing prison population.”There are other ways of finding justice,”he said.”I am not opposed to justice, but I would want to do it another way. I accept there are people who will always be in prison, but I am questioning the purpose of prison.” The question that needs to be asked, he said, is whether putting someone in prison is a benefit either to society or to the prisoner’s family. Brain’s suggestion of amnesty was backed by the former chief inspector of prisons, Sir Stephen Tumim, who said:”If they’re not being treated with humanity, if they’re not being trained to lead a useful life on discharge, then there isn’t any moral authority to hold them there.” But Ann Widdecombe, a Conservative MP and shadow (opposition) home secretary, said Brain was”kind-hearted but wrong-headed.” Prison reform advocates have argued that the British prison system, with 11,000 inmates currently sharing cells designed for a single prisoner. The latest figure for the prison population of England and Wales is 65,279. Quote of the day: Evangelist Billy Graham (RNS)”I admire his courage, determination, intellectual abilities and his understanding of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox differences, and the attempt at some form of reconciliation.” Evangelist Billy Graham, in an interview with the Associated Press, stating why he might chose Pope John Paul II as the man of the century. DEA END RNS