c. 2007 Religion News Service

State Department: Iraq Insurgency Harming Religious Freedom

WASHINGTON (RNS) The continuing insurgency in Iraq is “significantly” harming the freedom of worship in that country, the State Department said in its 2007 International Religious Freedom Report.

The report, released Friday (Sept. 14), lists Iraq among 22 countries it notes for either particular abuses or positive steps related to religious freedom.

“The ongoing insurgency significantly harmed the ability of all religious believers to practice their faith,” the report’s executive summary reads.

It notes that lawlessness by insurgents, terrorists and criminal gangs affected a range of citizens, but impacted religious groups in particular.

“Many individuals from various religious groups were targeted because of their religious identity or their secular leanings,” the summary said. “Such individuals were victims of harassment, intimidation, kidnapping, and killings. In addition, frequent sectarian violence included attacks on places of worship.”

The report said the deteriorating conditions were “not due to government abuse.”

“For the most part, people are getting caught in the crossfire,” John V. Hanford III, the ambassador at large for international religious freedom, told reporters. “In the case of these minorities, though, there have been cases where it’s clear that certain groups have been targeted.”

Last November, the State Department designated Uzbekistan on its list of “countries of particular concern” regarding religious freedom violations and removed Vietnam from that list.

Asked about the most significant development in the new report, Hanford said the Vietnamese government has made progress by granting more religious freedom and permitting places of worship that had been forced to closed to reopen.

“They’ve registered whole new religions that weren’t even legal before,” he said. “`Nevertheless, there are still groups which are banned or where there are leaders which are under house arrest.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Doctor Denies Euthanasia in John Paul II’s Death

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Two days after the Vatican reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s prohibition of euthanasia, Pope John Paul II’s personal physician denied suggestions that the late pope’s doctors allowed him to die at his own request.

Dr. Renato Buzzonetti, who was personal physician to John Paul from his election to the papacy in 1978 to his death on April 2, 2005, made the statement in an interview Sunday (Sept. 16) with the Italian daily La Repubblica.

“It’s not true that the Holy Father’s care was interrupted,” said Buzzonetti, who is now personal physician to John Paul’s successor, Pope Benedict XVI. “He was never left alone, without supervision or assistance, as some would erroneously insinuate.”

Euthanasia advocates have suggested that John Paul, a longtime sufferer from Parkinson’s disease and other ailments, expressed a desire to die on the afternoon of April 2, and that his caregivers complied with his wishes.

According to Buzzonetti, the pope’s dying request, “let me go to the Lord,” was an “original and almost unique example of attachment to faith in God the Father, and at the same time, to life, which John Paul II loved deeply until the last instant.”

John Paul continued to receive fluids intravenously and nutriment via a gastronasal tube, Buzzonetti said, and received treatment for septic shock only two days before his death.

A document released by the Vatican on Friday stated the “administration of food and water … to a patient in a ‘vegetative state’ (is) morally obligatory” even if “competent physicians judge with moral certainty that the patient will never recover consciousness.”

_ Francis X. Rocca

Latin Mass Now Officially Available in Catholic Churches

(RNS) Catholics with a taste for the way worship looked a generation ago are now officially allowed wider access to the old Latin Mass _ a rite that’s rarely been seen since the Second Vatican Council 40 years ago.

As of Friday (Sept. 14), the Vatican is allowing Catholic priests worldwide to offer the so-called Tridentine Mass without having to ask for permission from their local bishops.

The older Mass uses different prayers, written and spoken in Latin, and displays a less intimate relationship between priest and people that devotees say produces a different worship experience than the modern Mass in English.

The July decree by Pope Benedict XVI instructs bishops to allow qualified clergy to celebrate the Tridentine Mass wherever a “stable group” of parishioners asks for it.

The newer Mass remains the most visible reform enacted by Vatican II in the mid-1960s. Most Catholics regard it as the preeminent symbol of the church’s modern understanding of itself: more accessible, more communal and less overtly hierarchical than before.

In the contemporary Mass, the priest faces the people across an altar bearing bread and wine. They pray together in English or the local vernacular, and the ceremony is more clearly a shared meal. Lay people play supporting roles on the altar in keeping with another Vatican II reform, a desire for more participation by rank-and-file Catholics.

In addition, Scripture readings in the newer Mass cover almost three-quarters of the New Testament, compared to less than a fifth in the Tridentine Mass, said Monsignor James Moroney, executive director of the liturgy office of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The disparity between old and new in Old Testament coverage is even greater, he said.

The older Mass, by contrast, with its distant priest, murmured prayers in an ancient language and deep repertoire of classical sacred music, emphasizes awe, transcendence and tradition, its devotees say.

“Prior to the Second Vatican Council, the liturgy was seen by some as something to be watched and adored; after the council it is to be something to be participated in,” said Moroney.

In his ruling, Benedict said he authorized wider use of the Tridentine Mass to reach out to Catholic splinter groups, such as the Society of St. Pius X, which broke away over issues related to the Second Vatican Council.

He said he also wished to offer it to mainstream Catholics who simply preferred it as a richer worship experience.

_ Bruce Nolan

Vatican May Keep Bishop to Help Steer Post-Katrina Recovery

NEW ORLEANS _ The Vatican has indicated it may ask Archbishop Alfred Hughes to remain in office two years past his nominal retirement age of 75, which he reaches Dec. 2, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New Orleans said.

Under church law, bishops must offer the pope their retirements at 75, but it’s up to the pope, working through Vatican advisers, to decide whether to grant or delay a retirement.

Hughes recently asked the Vatican to send a coadjutor archbishop, or designated successor to serve alongside him, to help him manage the recovery of the damaged archdiocese as his 75th birthday approached, the Rev. William Maestri said.

Hughes also asked the Vatican “that he be allowed to return to more hidden spiritual ministry,” Maestri said. Hughes spent much of his career in seminary education, where he developed a reputation in the church as an exceptional spiritual adviser.

“To date the Vatican has not given a favorable answer to his request (for a coadjutor). And it looks like the archbishop will be asked to stay on a couple of years before a coadjutor is given consideration,” Maestri said.

Hughes has told the Vatican he is willing to extend his tenure, Maestri said. “He’s in good health and performing all his duties. We in New Orleans are still very much in recovery mode,” Maestri said. “I think the thinking of the Vatican is it’s very important to make sure the archdiocese continues its recovery.”

_ Bruce Nolan

Quote of the Day: The Rev. Jeremy Lucas of Athens, Ala.

(RNS) “The KKK is our own terrorist organization. They have murdered, lynched and terrorized thousands of people in this country, or inspired the same. It is disingenuous of us to say that someone in Saudi Arabia ought to do something about their (Muslim) hate groups and then us not do the same.”

_ The Rev. Jeremy Lucas, pastor of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Athens, Ala., on his plans to organize a silent counter-protest to a rally by the Ku Klux Klan. He was quoted by the Huntsville Times.

KRE/CM END RNS