Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Cross, Page 2
Headline H©pse©telh
Thursday, April 8, 1999
In Nazareth, Christian-
Muslim violence erupts
on Easter
Jerusalem (CNS)
iots between Christians and Mus
lims in Nazareth, Israel, broke out
as youths from both religions clashed
just after Easter Sunday Mass. Israeli
Radio reported the fighting began
early April 4 when some Catholic
youths threw rocks at the tent mosque
that stands in front of the Basilica of
the Annunciation. According to the
report, some 2,000 Muslim youths
responded to calls from mosque loud
speakers and began to congregate on
the spot. Some pulled out knives and
others threw stones at cars belonging
to Christians. At least 30 people were
injured, said Israeli radio. Israel tele
vision showed pictures of shattered
windows and ransacked offices
belonging to Christians which had
been vandalized by Muslims during
the rioting. “It was just a hooligan
who threw the first stone and now it
has turned into a Christian-Muslim
dispute,” Samih Ghanadri, who is
Greek Orthodox and a local journalist,
said in a telephone interview. He said
some Catholics maintain the fighting
began when they came out of the
church after Easter Mass and found
their car tires slashed, but that version
seems unlikely since there are very
few people at the tent that early in the
morning, he said. “It doesn’t make a
difference now who (started). There
never was any fighting between
Christians and Muslims, and now
people are very saddened, frustrated
and depressed by this,” said Ghanadri.
Military archbishop urges
prayers for peace
Washington (CNS)
nly prayer can bring about the
Easter peace of Christ that “is
poignantly missing on the internation
al scene,” said the head of the U.S.
Archdiocese for the Military Services.
In a Holy Saturday statement, Arch
bishop Edwin F. O’Brien urged U.S.
Catholic chaplains worldwide “to
exhort and to lead our people in
newer and more intense expressions
of prayer for peace, especially now
when many of your very lives are at
stake.”
The archbishop’s statement — “Let
There Be Peace ... Let There Be
Prayer” — was prompted by the
ongoing crisis in Kosovo, Yugoslavia.
It was sent April 5 to all active-duty
and reserve Catholic chaplains in U.S.
service branches and Veterans Affairs
hospitals. In his statement, Archbish
op O’Brien noted that U.S. leadership
was intervening abroad “with massive
military power” for the second time
in three months. Iraq and Kosovo may
be world’s apart politically, he said,
but “each has suffered enormously”
because of its own leadership.
The archbishop condemned “ethnic
cleansing” and said he had seen its
results firsthand last August in Croat
ia. “I am convinced that the civilized
world must do everything possible to
put an end to such ghastly savagery in
any way within the traditional tenets
of international law,” he said.
Though just-war principles should
be used in judging any response to the
atrocities of Iraq and Kosovo, he said,
these principles are not always as con
clusive as desired, “leaving consider
able room for judgments of con
science drawing from many facts and
circumstances.”
He suggested that the strong inter
national support for the joint NATO
action in Kosovo — support that was
absent regarding Iraq — was founded
on “the painstaking negotiations” that
had preceded military action and the
threat of “Belgrade’s belligerent pos
ture” to all Europe.
However, Archbishop O’Brien said,
there are troublesome questions about
the specific objectives of the current
military strikes and whether the over
all results are proportionate to the
good sought.
Pope enters ‘Top 10’ of
longest pontificates
Vatican City (CNS)
arking another milestone in a
historic papacy, Pope John Paul
II entered the “Top 10” of longest
pontificates in early April. The list is
compiled without St. Peter, the first
pope, because there is no exact record
of the length of his papacy. Tradition
holds that St. Peter was pope for per
haps as long as 34 years. At 20 years
and five months, Pope John Paul’s
papacy became the 10th longest in
history on April 3, displacing that of
Pope Leo III, who reigned from 795
to 816. By the end of 1999, Pope John
Paul will have moved into the number
7 spot on the list, surpassing Popes
Sylvester I, Urban VIII and Leo I the
Great. The church has had 264 popes,
and the longest certain pontificate was
the 31-year reign of Pope Pius IX,
who was elected in 1846 and died in
1878. His successor, Pope Leo XIII,
had the second-longest papacy, which
lasted 25 years. The shortest papacy
in history was over before its formal
inauguration. In 1590, Pope Urban
VII died of malaria 12 days after his
election. With the passage of cen
turies, pontificates have tended to be
longer. Four of the longest five papa
cies have occurred over the last 250
years. Pope John Paul II was 58 years
old when elected in October 1978 —
the youngest pope since Pius IX, who
became the longest-ruling pontiff.
Pope John Paul would surpass him in
the year 2010, two weeks after his
90th birthday.
First global Catholic-
Orthodox dialogue in
U.S. meets June 6-15
Baltimore (CNS)
ardinal William H. Keeler of Bal
timore and Archbishop Spyridon
of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of
America stressed their firm commit
ment to dialogue March 30 as they
announced the June schedule of the
International Joint Commission for
Theological Dialogue Between the
Catholic and Orthodox Churches —
the first such meeting to be held in the
Western Hemisphere. Despite new
global tensions over the NATO bomb
ing of Yugoslavia to stem the reli
gious and ethnic violence in Kosovo,
the two said they were hopeful that all
Orthodox members will attend the
June 6-15 meeting, to be held at
Mount Saint Mary’s College in
Emmitsburg, Maryland.
British cardinal: “Modern
society threatens marriage”
Leamington, England (CNS)
nglish Cardinal George Basil
Hume of Westminster said the sur
vival of marriage and the family is
under threat in modern society. “The
idea of marriage as a permanent life
long commitment is often regarded as
unrealistic, and even undesirable
because it limits future choices. And
the notion of confining sexual rela
tionships to marriage is seen by many
as an unattainable fantasy. The link
between life and love is broken,” he
said in Leamington at the annual gen
eral meeting of LIFE, one of Britain’s
biggest pro-life organizations.
Christian-Jewish ties an
example to troubled
world, cardinal says
Chicago (CNS)
he Vatican’s top official for rela
tions with Judaism told a Chicago
gathering that Catholic-Jewish ties
can be an example to a world full of
troubles. “At a time in history when
ethnicity continues to divide nations
and cause untold suffering to millions
of innocent people, surely we Jews
and Christians have something that
we can say together to a troubled
world through the example of our
own profound reconciliation,” said
Cardinal Edward I. Cassidy.
Nuns mark jubilee year
by forgiving debt interest
Baltimore (CNS)
ased on the biblical jubilee call to
debt forgiveness, the Baltimore
province of the School Sisters of
Notre Dame canceled interest pay
ment on two debts for the fiscal year
2000. They took the action in hopes
that other religious communities, and
even banks, corporations and nations,
might take the Jubilee Year 2000 as a
time to reduce or forgive debts of
those who are poor. “The whole idea
is to start the ball rolling and maybe
get it to become a contagion,” said
Sister Joan Hart, director of the
province’s Office for Justice, Peace
and the Integrity of Creation.
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