A different pope for a different time

c. 2008 Religion News Service Former Catholic bishop elected president of Paraguay (RNS) A former Roman Catholic bishop was elected Sunday (April 20) as the new president of Paraguay after being criticized by his church for running for the office. Fernando Lugo, 56, defeated the Colorado Party, which had reigned in the country for 62 […]

c. 2008 Religion News Service

Former Catholic bishop elected president of Paraguay

(RNS) A former Roman Catholic bishop was elected Sunday (April 20) as the new president of Paraguay after being criticized by his church for running for the office.


Fernando Lugo, 56, defeated the Colorado Party, which had reigned in the country for 62 years, the Associated Press reported. The party was once headed by right-wing strongman Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, who was ousted in 1989. That party’s candidate, Blanca Ovelar, conceded defeat Sunday.

“You have decided what has to be done in Paraguay,” Lugo told thousands cheering his election in the inland South American country. “You have decided to be a free Paraguay.”

The Vatican opposes clergy members holding political office and had demanded that Lugo halt his political pursuits. The man known as the “Bishop of the Poor” said he resigned from the church and no longer must follow its laws.

“Real structural change _ social revindication _ goes through politics, not the church,” he told Religion News Service last year.

While he was bishop of rural San Pedro, Lugo worked with peasants, some of whom had formed groups to protest unequal land distribution.

Lugo will be challenged by the nation’s high poverty and illiteracy rates; of the country’s 6.5 million people, 43 percent live in poverty, according to the Associated Press. Corruption is notorious in the country and 300,000 peasant farmers without land are seeking assistance.

His five-year term begins Aug. 15.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Cardinal who was Vatican’s social voice dies at 72

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, a prominent voice of the Vatican on sexual and medical ethics, died Sunday (April 20) at the Pius XI Clinic in Rome.

He was 72 and died after suffering cardiac arrest, the Associated Press reported. According to Catholic News Service, he had been hospitalized since early April with a respiratory infection.


Pope Benedict XVI will preside at Lopez Trujillo’s funeral in St. Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday (April 23).

As president of the Pontifical Council for the Family since 1990, Lopez Trujillo helped to lead the Catholic Church’s campaigns against abortion, artificial birth control, embryonic stem-cell research and same-sex marriage.

The Colombian-born cardinal provoked controversy in 2003 when he stated that condoms did not offer reliable protection against the transmission of HIV, a claim contested by medical authorities including the World Health Organization.

Outspoken on the political ramifications of church teaching, Lopez Trujillo denounced Spain’s recognition of same-sex marriage in 2005, and called on Spanish officials not to perform such marriages, even if that meant losing their jobs.

On other occasions, the cardinal stated that Catholic politicians who support laws permitting abortion should not receive Communion. Also ineligible to receive Communion, the cardinal said, were Catholics participating in embryonic stem cell research, including women who donated their embryos for experimentation.

Lopez Trujillo was born in Villahermosa, Colombia, on Nov. 8, 1935. He was educated in Colombia and in Rome, where he became a priest in 1960. He became archbishop of Medellin, Colombia’s second-largest city, in 1979, and served in that role until 1991. Pope John Paul II made him a cardinal in 1983.


_ Francis X. Rocca

Dalai Lama urges environmental protection

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (RNS) He takes showers rather than baths, and he turns out the lights when he leaves the room.

Those are small examples of how each of us can contribute to preserving the Earth’s environment, the Dalai Lama said Sunday (April 20) during a lecture on the environment at the University of Michigan.

As he delivered the annual Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability, the Dalai Lama admitted he never uses the world “sustainability,” but likened taking care of the planet to taking care of your own home.

“We have a responsibility to take care of the environment,” he said. “It is our only home.”

The lecture ended a remarkable weekend of pageantry and talks by the Dalai Lama. Earlier Sunday, he conducted his final lecture on “Engaging Wisdom and Compassion,” after giving two other teaching sessions on that topic Saturday. Crowds of about 8,000 attended each of the weekend sessions.

Outside the area during the talks, as many as 700 protesters _ mostly Chinese college students _ continued a second day of peaceful demonstrations.


In introducing the Dalai Lama for the lecture on the environment, U-M President Mary Sue Coleman noted the founding of Earth Day at the university in 1970, cited the fragility of the environment and said that the Buddhist leader is “uniquely positioned to spread this message.”

As he did all weekend, the Dalai Lama mixed self-deprecating humor with anecdotes and insight. Smiling, he said the notion that he has a specific healing power is “absolute nonsense.”

He spoke English throughout the two-hour Wege lecture and question-and-answer session, though he frequently paused briefly to clarify points or phrases with his longtime interpreter Thupten Jinpa. “I’m getting older. My English is also getting older,” he said.

He noted that such things as showering and turning out the lights become habits as one builds a way of life that contributes to our ecology. How we treat the environment can depend on how we treat others on a planet with 6 billion people, the Dalai Lama said.

“We are a social animal,” he said. “Our survival is based on community.”

_ Geoff Larcom and Jo Mathis

Quote of the Day: Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick

(RNS) “I’m not being whupped by the devil; I am being punished by my God. I know that my disobedience put me in the situation I am in.”

_ Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, speaking at Fellowship Chapel Church in Detroit on Saturday (April 19), quoted by the Associated Press. Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff Christine Beatty face perjury and other charges but have denied having a romance despite text messages that have contradicted their testimony in a whistle-blower trial.


KRE/PH END RNSEds: A file photo of Fernando Lugo (first item) is available via https://religionnews.com.

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