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The Southern Cross, Page 2
Relatives of slain
churchwomen sue Sal
vadorans
Washington (CNS)
he relatives of the four U.S.
churchwomen murdered in El
Salvador in 1980 have filed suit in
U.S. District Court against two high-
ranking Salvadoran military officers
who were implicated in a cover-up of
the murders. No damages were speci
fied in the suit, filed May 11 in
Miami. The Salvadorans, former
national guard director Carlos Euge
nio Vides Casanova and former
defense minister Jose Guillermo Gar
cia, have been living in Florida since
1989. Their presence in the United
States was not known to advocates of
the slain churchwomen, though, until
last year. Vides Casanova and Garcia
are being sued under the provisions of
the federal Torture Victims Prevention
Act, which allows U.S. citizens to sue
foreigners living in the United States
for damages from human rights abus
es committed in other countries.
Course for women
seeking ordination called
“gimmick”
Vienna (CNS)
group of Austrian Catholics has
launched a training course for
women wishing to become priests
someday, but the initiative was dis
missed as a “gimmick” by a theolo
gian. Hubert Feichtlbauer, chairman
of the Austria-based We Are Church
movement, said recruits for the three-
year course were expected to have
“substantial theological knowledge”
already, including diplomas from a
divinity school or diocesan teaching
program. “We are certain it will be
possible to ordain women some day
— first as deacons, then as priests —
and we think those who feel a voca
tion shouldn’t be left unprepared,” he
said. An Austrian theologian, Father
Paul Zulehner, said “This initiative is
really just a protest and a gimmick —
particularly given the organizers’
insistence that they won’t seek female
ordinations unless the church agrees.”
ARCIC II chairmen say
new statement will
challenge churches
Manchester, England (CNS)
he chairmen of the Second Angli
can-Roman Catholic International
Commission said the commission’s
agreed statement on authority would
challenge both churches. “Authority,
particularly the authority of the bish
op of Rome, had been a key element
in the division that occurred at the
time of the Reformation,” said a May
12 statement from the ARCIC II
chairmen who presided over the
report’s writing, Catholic Bishop Cor-
mac Murphy-O’Connor and Anglican
Bishop Mark Santer. The document
proposed that both churches might
accept a “shared” universal papal pri
macy, one that would offer prophetic
leadership, uphold legitimate diversity
of traditions and welcome theological
inquiry. The document described
papal primacy and other forms of
authority in the church as a divine gift
and said its application should be
modeled on Christ’s role of service.
Such authority is often exercised by
the hierarchy but must be open to
renewal and influence from the lay
faithful, it said.
Jesuit leader says
“60 Minutes” not proper
forum for lawsuit
Los Gatos, California (CNS)
television show is not the place
to try a lawsuit, the head of the
California Jesuit province said after
the CBS News program “60 Minutes”
aired allegations by a former Jesuit
seminarian that he was sexually
harassed by members of the order. In
a “60 Minutes” segment broadcast
May 9, John Bollard claimed that
when he was a seminarian at the
Jesuit School of Theology at Berke
ley, Calif., several priests of the order
including the president of the school,
Father Thomas F. Gleeson, made sex
ual advances toward him, creating an
intolerable environment which even
tually forced him to leave the order.
In a statement May 10 from provin-
Hopseotelh
cial headquarters in Los Gatos, Jesuit
Father John A. Privett, the provincial
superior, said Bollard’s $1 million
sexual harassment lawsuit against the
order was dismissed May 15, 1998,
by the U.S. District Court of Northern
California. Bollard has appealed that
ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals.
Coordination lacking in
Kosovo relief effort
Rome (CNS)
s donations poured in from
around the globe, Albanian ware
houses were overflowing with the
wrong kind of aid for refugees from
the crisis in Kosovo, said a Catholic
relief official working in Albania.
“Right now, rice and pasta are of no
use to us because there are not
enough pots,” Father Segundo Tejado
of Caritas Albania said on the side
lines of a Vatican-sponsored charity
conference May 12. “But we keep
getting more rice and pasta. Mean
while, we are running out of diapers.
And soap.”
One-fifth of new U.S.
priests are immigrants
Washington (CNS)
ore than one-fifth of the U.S.
seminarians to be ordained
priests this year were bom in another
country, according to a national sur
vey released in May. The new ordina
tion class will also help to increase
the racial-ethnic mix of the U.S.
Catholic clergy. One-fourth of those
to be ordained this year are of non
white origins. Of 418 diocesan and
religious seminarians preparing for
ordination in 1999 who answered the
survey, only 78 percent said they were
bom in the United States. Five per
cent were born in Vietnam, 3 percent
in Mexico and 2 percent each in
Colombia and Western Europe.
Priest’s WWII heroism to
be featured during
Memorial Day concert
Washington (CNS)
he first priest to be awarded the
Congressional Medal of Honor
will be remembered during the
Thursday, May 20, 1999
National Memorial Day Concert May
30 at the U.S. Capitol. Jesuit Father
Joseph T. O’Callahan was serving as
a Navy chaplain during a kamikaze
attack in 1945 against the USS
Franklin. His first-person account of
the horror of the attack will be recited
by actor Charles Duming during the
program, which will be televised live
by PBS 8-9:30 p.m. (EDT) Sunday,
May 30.
Protesters at Auschwitz
say they will fight
removal of crosses
Warsaw (CNS)
rotesters vowed to resist attempts
to remove crosses from outside
the Auschwitz concentration camp,
despite a new Polish law. “The cross
es will be taken away over my dead
body — I don’t want to die, but I’ve
long since been ready to,” the protest
leader, Kazimierz Switon, told
Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza daily May
11. “Our bishops have sold the cross
to the sons of Satan — in other
words, the Jews,” he said. Switon was
reacting to the new law establishing a
more than 60-foot protected zone
around the former Nazi-run camp, in
which 1.5 million people, most of
them Jews, were killed during World
War II.
Cardinal meets with for
mer POW Ramirez fol
lowing Mass
Los Angeles (CNS)
ardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los
Angeles met former prisoner of
war Andrew A. Ramirez May 9 fol
lowing a Mass at Saint John the Bap
tist Church in Baldwin Park. Army
Staff Sgt. Ramirez and his mother,
Vivian, brought the offertory gifts to
the altar during the special Mother’s
Day Mass. Earlier, members of
Ramirez’s family had credited faith,
prayer and family unity for his safe
release and that of Staff Sgt. Christo
pher J. Stone, 25, of Smiths Creek,
Mich., and Spc. Steven M. Gonzales,
22, of Huntsville, Texas.
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