c. 2006 Religion News Service

Vatican Reports `Fat Cattle Year’ With Surplus of $12.4 Million

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Holy See reported a surplus of nearly $12.4 million in 2005 _ the city-state’s best financial results in eight years.

The positive results indicate that Vatican finances have safely rebounded from a four-year dip into the red that ended in 2004. The 2005 results, presented on Wednesday (July 12), saw the Holy See’s surplus rise $8.3 million from 2004.

“There are times when the cattle are fat, and others when they are thin,” Cardinal Sergio Sebastiani, president of the Holy See’s economic affairs office, said at a press conference. “This was a fat cattle year,” the cardinal said, echoing a parable from the Bible.

Sebastiani said the dollar’s stability against the euro in 2005 spurred the turnaround, boosting the Holy See’s investments in dollar-denominated assets. Sebastiani did not disclose any further details on the nature of those assets, and the Vatican does not release its full financial results.

Profits from Vatican investments in the global markets, he said, soared to $54.9 million in 2005 from $7.7 million in 2004.

The gains allowed the Holy See to absorb the costs of maintaining Vatican Radio, which lost about $29.8 million in 2005.

Other expenses included John Paul II’s funeral and Pope Benedict XVI’s election, which combined cost about $8.8 million, according to the Vatican.

Sebastiani said the Holy See managed to offset the expense, because the funeral generated an influx of ticket sales to the Vatican museums and caused sales of Vatican publications to spike.

Most of the Vatican’s finances rely on the contributions of local dioceses. In 2005, the Vatican registered a slight increase in contributions, which totaled $92.6 million. An additional $58.3 million were donated to the Benedict XVI’s personal fund, known as Peter’s Pence.

Donors from the United States led the world, accounting for nearly 33 percent of the contributions to the Holy See and the pope, Sebastiani said.

_ Stacy Meichtry

Vatican Calls African Cleric’s Comments `Deplorable’

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican chastised an African cleric on Thursday (July 13), calling his recent denunciation of the church’s clergy celibacy requirement “deplorable.”

The comments came in a statement from the Holy See a day after former Zambian archbishop Emmanuel Milingo turned up in Washington, D.C., to deliver an address in favor a dropping the celibacy requirement.

Milingo, who scandalized the Vatican in 2001 by marrying a South Korean woman in a ceremony conducted by the Unification Church, said Wednesday (July 12) that “I feel it is time for the church to reconcile with married priests.”

By tradition Milingo retains the title “archbishop” though he resigned as head of the archdiocese of Lusaka, Zambia, in 1982 after the Vatican challenged his endorsement of faith-healing and exorcism.

The 76-year-old cleric’s stateside appearance ended a month-long mystery that began when he went missing from a Catholic convent near Rome and told nuns there he was never coming back.

Milingo was assigned by church leaders to the convent five years ago, after he bucked church tradition and married acupuncturist Maria Sung.

On Thursday the Vatican said it had no information aside from reports in the media. “If the remarks attributed to (Milingo) regarding clerical celibacy are true, there is nothing else to do but deplore them,” the statement said.

According to reports in the Italian media, Milingo told reporters that he still considers his union with Sung valid, though he avoided excommunication by repudiating the marriage.

“Maria is still my wife and she will continue to be until death separates us,” Corriere della Sera of Milan quoted Milingo as saying.

_ Stacy Meichtry

Sikh Funeral Pyre Runs Afoul of British Law

LONDON (RNS) Sikh religious tradition has run afoul of British law in a field in northern England, where the body of an illegal immigrant from India was secretly cremated Wednesday (July 12) on an open-air funeral pyre.

The Anglo Asian Friendship Society, which represents Sikhs and Hindus in England, hired the field from a local landlord in Northumbria on behalf of the family of Rajpal Mehat, a Sikh taxi driver who drowned in a canal in London last December.

Sikh religious practice dictates that for successful reincarnation the dead must be burned in the open air, thus the coffin containing Mehat’s remains was set ablaze atop a wood-fueled pyre constructed in the remote field.

Northumbria police _ who said they let the rite go ahead to avoid causing “any additional upset to a grieving family” _ have now begun an investigation because British law bans the burning of corpses except in officially designated crematoriums.

The friendship society said many families among the 490,000 Hindus and 310,000 Sikhs living in Britain fly the remains of their loved ones back to India rather than risk the “catastrophic consequences for the departed soul” of failing to abide by religious custom.

But Davender Ghai, a faith healer and spiritualist as well as the society’s president, said the decision was made to cremate Mehat on an open-field pyre in England because his remains had been declared unfit for air transport.

“We didn’t want to cause offense and so found a discreet location,” Ghai said. He conceded that “we didn’t tell the landlord what we were going to do _ we just told him we wanted to use the site for a good cause.”

The British Department of Constitutional Affairs, citing the 1930 Cremation Act, said in a statement: “Any funeral pyre is illegal, and to burn human remains in the open air is against the law.”

But Ghai, who lit the blaze that consumed Mehat’s body, told journalists that “Rajpal’s mother personally asked me to do this, and I take sole responsibility for the planning, execution and consequences of this pyre.”

_ Al Webb

Faith-Based Efforts Could Save Immigration Bill, McCain Says

WASHINGTON (RNS) As this year’s legislative session heads into its critical final weeks, Sen. John McCain told church leaders and faith-based activists Wednesday (July 12) that their efforts could still save an immigration reform bill that has been stalled since May.

McCain’s rhetoric grew in volume and intensity as he walked among the crowded luncheon tables in a small conference room at the United Methodist Building across the street from the Capitol. He urged those seated, dining on Mexican food catered by an immigrant-owned restaurant, to push their religiously influenced message of comprehensive immigration reform.

“At least for the short term for church groups, it needs to be the No. 1 agenda,” McCain, R.-Ariz., said.

The lunch was part of a one-day interfaith conference organized by Christian and Jewish groups that drew about 200 religious leaders and members of faith-based organizations to Washington for another round of lobbying.

Having a unified faith-based voice pressuring Congress to act on immigration has a significant impact on the process, McCain said after the luncheon.

With only a few weeks of work left this month _ and several more in September before this year’s Congress is scheduled to end _ McCain told the faith leaders how vital it was to pass immigration reform.

“If we lose and this thing just drags out,” he said, “I don’t want to look back and think to myself that I didn’t do everything I could.”

He added, “How will we fare in the election when we have done nothing?”

_ Peter Sachs

Quote of the Day: Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking

(RNS) “I didn’t fancy the thought of being handed over to the Inquisition like Galileo.”

_ Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who said John Paul II discouraged him from attempting figure out how the universe began.

DSB/LF END RNS