c. 2003 Religion News Service
Update: Burundi Rebels Order Catholic Leader Out of the Country
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Hutu rebels linked to the killing of the Vatican’s envoy to Burundi have given the president of the Burundi Bishops’ Conference 30 days to leave the country, reports from the capital, Bujumbura, said Wednesday (Dec. 31).
The National Liberation Forces delivered the ultimatum to Archbishop Simon Ntamwana of Gitega two days after guerrillas shot Archbishop Michael Courtney, 58, to death in an ambush on the car in which he was riding in the countryside south of Bujumbura.
“We are very clear and serious. There are 30 days at his disposition for leaving Burundi and not one more,” FNL spokesman Pasteur Habimana said. “We ask the Catholic Church in Rome to find another country in which Monsignor Simon Ntamwana can be welcomed in the coming days.”
The rebels apparently acted in response to Ntamwana’s charge Tuesday that they had carried out the execution of the envoy. President Domitien Ndayizeye made a similar allegation in a television message to the nation hours after the killing.
Habimana denied that the FNL attacked Courtney.
The prelate played a role in negotiations leading to the signing of a power-sharing agreement Nov. 2 between another rebel group, the Forces for the Defense of Democracy, the main Hutu rebel force, and the government, and he had met with FNL leaders to try to bring them to the negotiating table.
Burundi’s ethnic-based civil conflict, similar to that in neighboring Rwanda and pitting Hutus against Tutsis, has claimed more than 300,000 lives in 10 years.
“We solemly swear to the people of Burundi that we did not organize the ambush against the papal nuncio,” the FNL spokesman said. The rebel forces have accused the government of the assassination.
Ntamwana on Wednesday concelebrated a funeral Mass for Courtney with Archbishop Pierre Christophe, papal envoy in Uganda. The 1,500 mourners attending the Mass included the president and high-ranking military officials.
Courtney was believed to be the first apostolic nuncio to be assassinated since the start of the 20th century. But Fides, the Vatican missionary news agency, said the prelate was one of 29 “ecclesiastic personnel” killed in 2003 _ four more than in 2002.
Vatican sources said Pope John Paul II had planned to announce shortly Courtney’s transfer to Cuba. He had held the post of ambassador to Burundi since Aug. 18, 2002.
_ Peggy Polk
Greek Orthodox Leader Appeals for Help for Calif. Mudslide Victims
(RNS) The head of the Greek Orthodox Church in the United States has issued a special appeal to aid victims of California mudslides that destroyed a church camp and killed at least 14 people.
Archbishop Demetrios asked that a special collection be held on Sunday (Jan. 4) to help the victims of the Christmas Day mudslides at St. Sophia Camp in San Bernardino.
“The intense pain caused by this unexpected tragedy continues for the family members and friends of the deceased victims … which today grieves over a considerable loss, and is in need of assistance, comfort and healing,” Demetrios wrote Tuesday (Dec. 30).
The caretaker of the camp, Jorge Monzon, and his entire family were killed during the mudslides, along with several extended family members who had gathered at the camp to celebrate Christmas.
The Rev. John Bakas, dean of St. Sophia Cathedral in Los Angeles, said Monzon did not have permission to host a gathering at the camp, which the church has owned since 1961.
“He only had a little apartment there with a living room, two bedrooms and a kitchen,” Bakas told The Los Angeles Times. “There was never any authority to bring in the numbers who were there. … He knew any time we had any groups up there they had to be supervised.”
Monzon was a native of Guatemala and had worked at the 26-acre campground since 1997. Many of those killed were members of Iglesia de Dios de Profecia, a small church at the foot of the mountain.
Metropolitan Anthony of Los Angeles said, “At times of calamity and human pain, like these, we as Orthodox Christians must express love and compassion to the victims and their families.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Diocese Says Abuse Lawsuits Impinge on Constitutional Rights
(RNS) A Catholic diocese in Pennsylvania has asked a judge to dismiss 13 abuse-related lawsuits as an unconstitutional infringement on the church’s right to discipline and manage its own employees.
Lawyers for the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown told Blair County Judge Hiram Carpenter that it should not be “hindered” by outside interference, according to the Associated Press.
“Religious communities … have the right not to be hindered by legislation or administrative action on the part of the civil authority in the selection, training, appointment and transfer of their own ministers,” the Rev. John D. Byrnes wrote in a filing last week.
Lawyers for the victims are suing the diocese for failing to protect them from abusive priests. They allege the diocese allowed abusive priests to continue working until at least last year, when the U.S. church implemented new abuse policies.
Richard Serbin, an attorney for the victims, said the diocese’s argument attempts to say the church’s “leaders and priests are above the law,” but sexual abuse “is a violation of the law and should be treated as such,” according to the Associated Press.
The diocese has not used the argument before in county court, although it did reference it when trying to appeal the case of a now-defrocked priest who was found guilty of abuse. A jury awarded $519,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages against the former Rev. Franics Luddy. The punitive damages were later thrown out by the state’s Superior Court.
Cardinal Says Gay Marriage Will Wreck Spain’s Social Security System
MADRID (RNS) A Spanish gay and lesbian organization is suing the country’s Roman Catholic primate for suggesting that homosexual marriages would bring down the country’s social security system.
The Popular Gay Platform, an association of politically conservative homosexuals, filed the action a day after a sermon by Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela at Madrid’s Almudena Cathedral about the Holy Family.
The association’s president, Carlos Biendicho, told the El Mundo newspaper that the primate’s words constitute “slander and an incitement to discrimination” on the basis of sexual orientation.
As in the United States, gays in Spain are demanding the right to be legally married and have access to the attendant benefits.
Spain’s Socialist party and other opposition factions are in favor of same-sex marriage. But it has been rejected by Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, whose conservative Popular Party appeals to many conservative Catholics and holds an absolute majority in Parliament.
In his sermon, Rouco Varela said that if families based on marriage between a man and a woman are put on an equal footing with “all types of unions, including those by nature unable to have children, it will result in the systematic destruction of the social security system.”
He suggested same-sex couples would overburden the state pension system by drawing retirement benefits without having had children whose incomes keep the system going.
Rouco Varela’s comments come as Spain and other European countries face collapse of their state pension systems mainly because of low birthrates.
The primate argued that it is “the fecund love of the Christian family” that is best for the survival of the welfare system, even though large families are rejected as a thing of the past by many young Spaniards.
“How many large families have experienced criticism from the very same people who will depend in their time of sickness and old age on the generous contributions of the children of these families to the social security system?” the cleric said.
Among the many voices on the left critical of Rouco Varela’s comments was the leader of the formerly communist United Left party, Gaspar Llamazares. He said the issue the cleric raised would be solved with legislation that would allow homosexual couples to adopt children.
And the State Federation of Lesbians, Gays and Transsexuals argued that if anything leads to the demise of social security, it will be the church. In a statement, the organization noted that in Spain the church is a nontaxable organization that is granted more than $100 million annually from the state treasury.
_ Jerome Socolovsky
Archbishop of Canterbury Deplores Decline of Trust
LONDON (RNS) Trust in a world that with the growth of terrorism has become increasingly mistrustful is the subject of the archbishop of Canterbury’s New Year message.
“In a world of suspicion, how do we prove ourselves worthy of trust _ not just as individuals but as nations and civilizations?” asks Archbishop Rowan Williams in his address scheduled to be broadcast on New Year’s Eve.
“We are warned that famine is on the increase in the world once again; ground gained in the last 20 years is being lost. This is partly about natural disasters, but partly about the way the global economy works.
“We should not be surprised, perhaps, if the assumption grows that the powerful cannot be trusted in a world where too many feel they have nothing to lose.”
But, he said, religious belief tells believers that they are trusted by a God who trusts people to speak for him and about him, who gives humanity liberty to make mistakes and still gives himself into their hands for them to share his love and promise with others.
“We talk about religious `faith,”’ Williams went on, “but what we mean in plain English is of course trust. A real person of faith isn’t necessarily a person full of a particular kind of religious certainty: it’s a person who has become trustworthy because they know that God is to be trusted and that God has trusted, loved and forgiven them.”
Each person’s life gives a message of one kind or another about what kind of world this is, he said. “As the New Year starts, perhaps one of the biggest questions each of us could ask is, `What message does my life give?”’ the archbishop said. “Am I making the world a place where trust makes sense? And, deeper still, am I confident that even in my failings and my betrayals I am loved and trusted?”
Williams said he hoped over the coming year people would find the strength and imagination to keep alive this sense of being trusted “so that all that you are will speak of a world where promises can be kept, where needs can be seen and met, where we really are committed to each other’s humanity.”
_ Robert Nowell
Pope Saw 2.6 Million People at Vatican Audiences in 2003
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Despite age and infirmities, Pope John Paul II saw more than 2.6 million people in audiences and liturgical celebrations at the Vatican during 2003, according to Vatican statistics.
The Pontifical Household said Tuesday (Dec. 30) that the 83-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff received 501,700 pilgrims at 48 weekly general audiences and 232,410 at private and special group audiences.
The pope preached and prayed to congregations totaling 806,000 people at Masses and other liturgical celebrations, and addressed 1,075,000 at the midday Angelus prayer he leads, usually from his study window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, on Sundays and feast days.
The total of 2,625,110 people did not include the large crowds that John Paul encountered on trips to Spain, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Slovakia and Pompeii, Italy, during the year.
On May 4, an estimated 1 million attended an outdoor Mass in Madrid at which the pope proclaimed five new Spanish saints. There were also especially large turnouts for his visit to Croatia June 5-9, which was his 100th trip outside Italy.
Although John Paul is increasingly debilitated by Parkinson’s disease and arthritis and sometimes is unable to deliver his own addresses, the figures for 2003 tallied roughly with the 2002 total of 2,823,500 and the 2001 total of 2,558,300. In Holy Year 2000, he saw 8,515,088 at ceremonies marking the start of the new millennium.
_ Peggy Polk
Quote of the Day: New York Times Columnist David Brooks
(RNS) “If George Bush and Howard Dean met each other on a political platform, they would fight and feud. If they met in a Bible study group and talked about their eternal souls, they’d probably embrace.”
_ New York Times columnist David Brooks, writing about Bush, born an Episcopalian and now a Methodist, and Dean, baptized a Catholic and now a Congregationalist.
DEA END RNS
