c. 2003 Religion News Service

Catholic Prelates to Visit Colombia With Papal Message

VATICAN CITY (RNS) A delegation of U.S. and European bishops, led by the director of papal charities, left for Colombia on Tuesday (May 13) with a message of encouragement from Pope Paul II in the wake of renewed guerrilla killings.

The delegation, led by Archbishop Paul Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, was made up of Monsignor Josef Sayor, director of the German Misereor organization, and representatives of the episcopal conferences of the United States, Italy, Spain, France, Austria and Switzerland.

Cor Unum said the delegation would deliver the pope’s message and offer “mutual encouragement through faith in a country that continually sees peaceful coexistence and human rights threatened by terrorism.”

Guerrillas of the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia, known by the Spanish acronym FARC, on May 5 killed Guillermo Gaviria Correa, 39, former governor of Antioquia, and ex-Defense Minister Gilberto Echeverry Mejia, 62, who were taken hostage in April 2002 while leading a peace march, and eight soldiers.

The pope, in a telegram to Archbishop Alberto Girald Jaramillo of Medellin on May 6, called the killings “abhorrent.” Archbishop Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, arriving on a visit to Medellin May 7, joined in the condemnation.

During a weeklong stay, the church delegation will meet with leaders of church and state, including President Alvaro Uribe Velez, and officials of the United Nations human rights and refugee agencies. The prelates also will visit the Medellin prison and poverty-stricken neighborhoods of Quibdo and conduct a celebration in memory of victims of a massacre at the Church of Bella Vista a year ago.

_ Peggy Polk

Graham’s San Diego Mission Makes Milestones, Focuses on Military

(RNS) Evangelist Billy Graham brought his gospel message to San Diego during a mission May 8-11 that broke attendance records and focused on the military community from which many troops were recently deployed.

“When we saw the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln come in here and saw the people get off that had been at sea for 10 months, the rejoicing _ the thrill of it _ sent chills up and down your spine,” Graham said. “In the same way, there will be great rejoicing when God receives you into heaven. He is willing to forgive you and to change your life.”

Graham preached to crowds that averaged 54,000 over the four days of the event that created a number of milestones for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

A total of 40,000 children and parents attended the Saturday morning “Kids Mix,” marking a record for a Graham mission children’s event. The gathering of 74,000 youth that evening for a concert and Graham’s remarks broke a stadium record.

The San Diego event also marked the first time a Graham mission aired on the Armed Forces Radio and Television Network, reaching military members and their families across the globe.

The local mission committee met its budget after the Friday night gathering, so organizers did not collect an offering at the Saturday events. The Sunday offering will be used to finance future television broadcasts of the mission as well as to support Graham’s next mission June 12-15 in Oklahoma City, Okla.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Spanish Priest Gets 10 Years for Sexually Abusing Girl

MADRID (RNS) A 73-year-old Spanish priest has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexually abusing a girl repeatedly over the course of a decade, starting when she was 9 years old.

Jose Martin de la Peza was convicted by a court in Madrid for abusing the girl, who is now 27, and terrorizing her with death threats.

It is the third case this year in which a Spanish clergyman has been convicted of sexual offenses against minors. Last week a court in Cordoba sentenced a 49-year-old priest, Jose Domingo Rey Godoy, to 11 years for sexual assault against girls ages 8 to 10. However, the newspaper El Pais reported on Tuesday (May 13) that the priest has not been incarcerated yet and is still saying Mass in his parish, where he remains popular.

Unlike in the United States, the abuse cases have hardly been a problem for the church.

While the hierarchy has played down the extent of sexual abuse among the clergy, Spanish media has focused its attention on the church’s stances on Basque terrorism and the Iraq war _ and on church money disappearing in fraudulent investment schemes.

The abuse in the Madrid case took place between 1978 and 1988, according to the ruling.

It began while de la Peza lived for several years in a guest house run by the victim’s mother, a devout Roman Catholic. The priest also knew the mother because he served as an ecclesiastical judge in the annulment of her marriage.

After the priest left the guest house, he was in contact with the girl through her attendance at a religious school, where he was a teacher. The ruling says he threatened the girl with death if she reported the abuse.

The case has been in the courts for seven years since the victim filed charges.

_ Jerome Socolovsky

Church of Scotland Panel Warns About Iraq Precedent

LONDON (RNS) A (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland panel on church and society has issued a blistering report criticizing the war against Iraq and saying the coalition victory has not made the world a safer place.

The report was issued as the denomination’s General Assembly prepares for its May 17-23 meeting in Edinburgh.

“Attacking a sovereign state (without) a U.N. mandate creates a very dangerous precedent for our world,” the Church and Nation committee warned in its May 12 report. “The consequences could be immense in the long term for world peace.”

It said while it hoped a stable democratic nation would be the ultimate outcome, the fear remains that what would replace the old regime in Iraq could be a “violent and unstable” nation divided on ethnic and religious lines.

“This is the present situation in Afghanistan, where President Hamid Karzai has control only over Kabul,” the committee noted.

The committee, which began by quoting from John Brady Kiesling’s letter of resignation from the U.S. Foreign Service, noted that with the invasion of Iraq the “unthinkable” concept of a pre-emptive strike had become a reality.

The war was of “major significance, not only in regard to the removal of an evil dictator who had inflicted appalling suffering on his own people, but also in regard to the future of the Middle East peace process, the Western powers’ relations with Arab states, international law and world peace in general.”

The committee pointed out that the war failed to meet “certain key (moral) principles” in regard to going to war: that it should only be undertaken as a last resort; that it should not make a situation worse; that it must have the backing of the international community and be undertaken only when there was a “direct threat” to a member state of the United Nations or in self-defence; and that those waging war must make “every effort” to avoid civilian casualties.

The report also noted that the reasons for attacking Iraq changed from the need to remove weapons of mass destruction to “regime change” and then to the moralistic argument of “liberating the Iraqi people.”

“On this basis the United States and the United Kingdom should now engage in military conflict with many other regimes which lack democracy and do not respect human rights,” the committee said. “These could include Saudi Arabia, Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea and even China.”

Summing up, the committee warned: “A world in which powerful nations can invade other states without international backing, without that state having posed a direct threat, and without any planning in regard to reconstruction and building up the peace is a very dangerous world.

“Other nations who may choose to invade their neighbors without just cause and (without the support of) international law cannot now be criticized by the U.S. or the U.K. Equally, the U.S. and the U.K. are in a weak position to criticize other nations for not obeying United Nations resolutions … when they have undermined the authority of the U.N. by engaging in a war without its clear backing.”

_ Robert Nowell

Update: Yemeni Sentenced to Death in Murder of U.S. Missionaries

(RNS) A suspected al-Qaida militant was sentenced to death Saturday (May 10) for killing three U.S. missionaries at a Southern Baptist-run hospital in Yemen.

The lawyer for Abed Abdul Razak Kamel, 30, said a Yemeni court sentenced his client in the Dec. 30 shooting deaths of Kathleen A. Gariety of Wauwatosa, Wis., Martha C. Myers of Montgomery, Ala., and William E. Koehn, a native of Cimarron, Kan., the Associated Press reported.

Donald W. Caswell of Levelland, Texas, was wounded in the attack.

The verdict was announced in Jibla, 125 miles south of the Yemeni capital of San’a, where the killings took place.

Kamel pleaded not guilty. His lawyer, Mahrous Oqba, told the AP that he will appeal the verdict because he believes it violated Islamic law.

The hospital’s director, Abdel Karim Hassan, welcomed the death sentence but said, “He deserves even worse.”

Kamel said at an April 20 court hearing that he coordinated the attack with Ali al-Jarallah, another suspected Muslim extremist, who was accused of killing a Yemeni politician two days before the attack on the Jibla hospital. Yemeni security officials say they believe both men belonged to a terrorist cell with ties to al-Qaida.

Kamel said he killed the missionaries “out of a religious duty … and in revenge from those who converted Muslims from their religion and made them unbelievers.”

Jibla residents have said the Americans never talked about religion. Yemeni law bars non-Muslims from proselytizing in the country, which is overwhelmingly Muslim.

Quote of the Day: Lutheran liturgist Michael Burk

(RNS) “At the present, the greatest risk may be in withholding the (communion) cup or the touch of others in the worshipping assembly, potentially contributing to a host of anxieties and to the sense that SARS and other health concerns are themselves obstacles to experiencing God’s mercy and grace.”

_ The Rev. Michael Burk, director of liturgy and worship for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, in a statement on precautions to prevent the spread of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome).

DEA END RNS