c. 2003 Religion News Service
Ailing Pope to Leave Thursday on Four-Day Visit to Slovakia
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II, speaking on the eve of a four-day trip to Slovakia, said Wednesday (Sept. 10) that he prays for “a renewed spring of faith and civil progress” in the formerly Communist country.
The pope’s words, addressed to some 11,000 pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly general audience, recalled the Prague spring of 1968 when Slovak leader Alexander Dubcek sought to make democratic reforms in what was then Czechoslovakia. Soviet tanks crushed the liberalization movement.
The 83-year-old John Paul, whose health has been undermined by arthritis and Parkinson’s disease, will leave for the Slovak capital of Bratislava on Thursday (Sept. 11) on his 102nd trip outside Italy in almost 25 years as pope and his third to Slovakia.
John Paul told his audience that he departs “with great hope” for Slovakia, a “land enriched by the testimony of heroic disciples of Christ, who have left eloquent imprints of holiness in the history of the nation.”
The pope said he entrusted his trip to predominantly Catholic Slovakia to the Virgin Mary. “May she guide my steps and obtain for the Slovak people a renewed spring of faith and of civil progress,” he said.
John Paul will open his visit Thursday with meetings with President Rudolf Schuster, Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda and Parliamentary President Pavol Hrusovsky and a visit to the 18th century Cathedral of Trnava, 37 miles west of Bratislava.
On Friday and Saturday, he will celebrate Mass at Banska Bystrica and Roznova in eastern Slovakia and on Sunday at Bratislava where he will beatify Greek-Catholic Bishop Vasil Hopko and Sister Zdenka Schelingova, whom the church has decreed martyrs of Communist persecution. Hopko was poisoned after years of imprisonment, and Schelingova died following torture.
The pope strongly supports the entry of Slovakia and other formerly Communist countries of Eastern Europe into the Europe Union next May but has urged them to remain true to Christian values. He is expected to preach to Slovaks about the importance of the family and of Catholic education.
The Polish-born John Paul previously visited Slovakia in 1990 when it was part of Czechoslovakia and again in 1995, four years after it became independent, but he also knows the country from his days as archbishop of Krakow.
Slovakia is just across the Tatra Mountains where he hiked in the summer and visited priests living clandestinely to furnish them with religious books and other aid.
_ Peggy Polk
Conservative Priests’ Group Defends Celibacy Rule
WASHINGTON (RNS) More than 600 members of a conservative Catholic priests’ group told the nation’s top Catholic bishop that ending mandatory celibacy will “do nothing” to boost the numbers of U.S. priests.
The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, which claims 600 members in the United States and Canada, said allowing priests to marry is not “the answer to the current problems facing the universal and local church.”
“Optional celibacy is not the answer, nor is it the panacea; it is a placebo. It will do nothing,” the group’s president, the Rev. John Trigilio, wrote to Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Trigilio was responding to an Aug. 19 petition from 163 Milwaukee priests, asking Gregory for a discussion on celibacy. The letter from the Milwaukee priests said celibacy was keeping qualified men from the priesthood and limiting parishioners’ access to the sacraments.
Since the Milwaukee letter, priests’ groups in Boston, Chicago, New York and southern Illinois have said they may circulate similar letters. Gregory, in a recent letter to Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan, said celibacy is not up for discussion.
The Catholic Church has required its priests to remain celibate since the 12th century, although Eastern Rite churches have married clergy, and Episcopal and Lutheran priests who convert may keep their spouses and children.
Trigilio’s Aug. 29 letter blamed the recent clergy sex abuse scandal on “bad theology, bad liturgy and bad morality.” At the confraternity’s convention in Chicago last summer, members called for gay men to be banned from seminaries and the priesthood.
“Only by restoring the sacred, by defending the revealed truths and by upholding the natural moral law can we achieve any victory over the current crisis of faith now affecting the church,” Trigilio said.
The group was formed in 1975 and is “committed to the ongoing spiritual, theological, pastoral and fraternal formation of the clergy.” Trigilio is a priest in Harrisburg, Pa.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Dalai Lama Meets With Washington Political Leaders
WASHINGTON (RNS) The Dalai Lama said Wednesday (Sept. 10) he sensed “genuine interest and sympathy” at meetings with President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell as he continues his campaign to create an autonomous Tibet.
The Tibetan Buddhist leader’s multicity tour has been criticized as “meddling” by the People’s Republic of China, which has long occupied his native land.
“My main concern is the preservation of Tibetan culture … because I believe the Tibetan Buddhist culture, spirituality, is something useful and something really worthwhile to preserve,” the Dalai Lama told reporters as he departed the White House on Wednesday.
He visited Powell at the State Department the previous day.
The Dalai Lama, dressed in his traditional crimson and yellow robe, said he expressed his appreciation to both U.S. leaders for “showing genuine interest and sympathy regarding our problem.”
He said he considers contact he made with China last September to be “a good start,” but he thinks more serious discussions will take a “longer time.”
“So far our main effort is to build confidence because there’s … so much … suspicion,” the Dalai Lama said.
He said he would consider visiting Tibet when the Chinese government views the “situation of Tibet more realistically.”
The exiled leader fled Tibet in 1959 after a Communist Chinese invasion and heads a government-in-exile based in India.
The Dalai Lama, who also visited with members of Congress, said he is touring the United States to continue his efforts to promote human values and religious harmony.
He has dedicated an interdenominational temple in Bloomington, Ind., and will offer a teaching at the Washington National Cathedral on Thursday, the two-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist incidents in New York, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pa. He also will take part in a dialogue between Buddhists and scientists in Boston and lead a teaching in New York.
_ Adelle M. Banks
McCartney Resigns as President of Promise Keepers
(RNS) Bill McCartney has announced his resignation as president of Promise Keepers so he can continue to care for his ill wife.
The resignation of McCartney, who founded the international men’s ministry 13 years ago, is effective Oct. 1.
McCartney notified the Denver-based ministry’s board of his plans at its meeting Monday (Sept. 8).
“God has assigned me to be a husband and a grandfather,” McCartney said in a statement. “The ministry of Promise Keepers is not finished; it is needed now more than ever. I am confident that the Lord will direct and empower the ministry to move forward in strength and support _ the opportunities for PK are limitless.”
McCartney’s wife, Lyndi, suffers from a severe respiratory illness and he had been on a board-approved leave of absence because of her condition. He eventually plans to pursue “other ministry interests,” the organization’s statement said.
Promise Keepers reached its apex with a 1997 “Stand in the Gap” rally on the National Mall, which was attended by hundreds of thousands of men. Since that time, it has had financial difficulties and reduced attendance, moving events from stadiums to smaller arenas. The organization has expanded some of its activities, specifically including men in foreign countries as well as pastors, prisoners and teen-age boys at some events.
The ministry, which will have 18 conferences during 2003 by mid-October, has plans for 17 more events in 2004.
Until McCartney’s successor is chosen, Promise Keepers will be led by retired Army Gen. Alonzo Short, the board chairman who has served as interim president since McCartney began a six-month sabbatical in March.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Neighbors Seek to Block Muslim Prayers
CHICAGO (RNS) Neighbors of a suburban Chicago Muslim school filed a federal lawsuit Friday (Sept. 5), to stop what they say are illegal prayer meetings being held at the school.
In their suit, members of the Morton Grove Organization claim the Muslim Education Center, located in Morton Grove, Ill., does not have the required “special use permit” needed to hold religious services at their property. They accuse village officials of ignoring parking violations and traffic congestion caused by Friday afternoon prayer services at the school, which draw an estimated 400 people, and of refusing to issue a “cease and desist order” to stop the MEC from holding prayer services.
Under Morton Grove’s zoning code, schools are permitted in residential areas, but “houses of worship” must have a special use permit.
The village’s nonenforcement of parking and zoning regulations, the suit claims, means the MEC has been “selectively and preferentially treated by the Village based on religious grounds.” The Morton Grove Organization argues this violates the constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the 14th Amendment.
Pat Kansoer, organizer of the Morton Grove Organization, told the Chicago Tribune that the lawsuit was not motivated by bias against Muslims. “Our lawsuit deals with parking, not prayer; with trees, not theology; with real estate, not religion,” he told the Tribune.
Earlier this year, the MEC applied for a special use permit to build a mosque on its property, but that application was denied after the village’s planning commission decided the four-acre property was too small for the proposed mosque.
_ Bob Smietana
Vatican Considered Declaring Mother Teresa Blessed, Saint in One Ceremony
VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican, possibly at the urging of Pope John Paul II, reportedly considered taking the unprecedented step of declaring Mother Teresa blessed and a saint in a single ceremony.
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state, made the proposal in a letter sent in late spring to cardinals who head Vatican departments, Italian news agencies reported Tuesday (Sept. 9). The reaction, however, was negative.
Although the pope has the power to act on his own initiative, he apparently was reluctant to go against the advice of the cardinals. It was unclear whether he gave up on the idea or delayed making a final decision.
John Paul will beatify Mother Teresa on Oct. 19 at a Mass in St. Peter’s Square climaxing a week of celebrations of the 25th anniversary of his election as pope on Oct. 16, 1978. To declare her a saint at the same time would break with almost five centuries of tradition.
As it is, the widely admired nun, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for ministering to “the poorest of the poor,” will be beatified in record time _ little more than six years after her death on Sept. 5, 1997, at the age of 87.
John Paul knew and admired Mother Teresa during her life, and it was largely his doing that the Vatican has acted with such speed on the cause of her sainthood. The process normally takes decades, sometimes centuries.
In the early church, a simple proclamation was all that was required for sainthood, but since the 16th century a candidate must first be declared venerable on proof of his or her “heroic virtues.” Martyrdom or proof of a miracle is then required for beatification and another miracle, performed after beatification, for canonization.
To speed up Mother Teresa’s cause, the pope waived the normal five-year interval between a death and the start of the process. He also permitted the examination of a “scientifically unexplainable” miracle attributed to Mother Teresa’s intervention to be carried out at the same time as the investigation into her “heroic virtues.”
_ Peggy Polk
Quote of the Day: Army Chaplain (Capt.) Scott Riedel in Baghdad, Iraq
(RNS) “It’s kind of scary and sometimes I’m envious of those carrying a weapon. I just have to trust in the Lord and I’ve just resigned myself to, `If I’m going to die, I’m going to die.’ I know where I’m going.”
_ Army Chaplain (Capt.) Scott Riedel in Baghdad, Iraq, quoted by Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
DEA END RNS
