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The Vatican and Poland have jointly issued stamps commemorating
the 80th birthday of Pope John Paul II. Two of the three stamps are
seen here. The Polish-bom pope celebrates his birthday May 18.
The Southern Cross, Page 2
Well-wishers to post
BIRTHDAY GREETINGS TO
POPE ONLINE
Vatican City (CNS)
irthday well-wishers for Pope
John Paul II won’t have to gar
ner tickets to a private papal audience
to extend their congratulations: They
can post them online. A Web-based
initiative, expected to be up and run
ning by the pope’s 80th birthday May
18, will allow Internet surfers to send
their greetings via a special link,
“Happy Birthday Pope John Paul II,”
available on popular portals like
Yahoo! and msn.com. Vatican offi
cials said the link would be active for
a minimum of a week but could be
extended further, depending on how
many people sign their names to the
virtual birthday card.
Vatican gives prior
approval to Chinese
bishop’s ordination
Vatican City (CNS)
he Vatican gave prior approval to
the ordination of a Chinese bish
op and requested for the first time
that all the ordaining bishops be in
communion with Rome, said the
Vatican’s missionary news service,
Fides. Bishop Zhao Fengchang, 66,
was ordained bishop of Yanggu and
apostolic administrator of Linqing,
both ecclesial territories in China’s
eastern Shandong province. The May
7 ordination Mass, attended by some
1,500 Catholics and several govern
ment officials, began with a public
announcement that the Vatican had
explicitly approved the ceremony.
French bishops express
COMMUNION WITH BlSHOP
Gaillot
Vatican City (CNS)
n a sign of reconciliation with his
fellow French bishops, controver
sial Bishop Jacques Gaillot expressed
his thanks for an invitation to partici
pate in an ecumenical meeting. In a
May 10 letter to Archbishop Louis-
Marie Bille of Lyons, president of the
French bishops’ conference, Bishop
Gaillot said his colleagues’ expres
sion of brotherhood “touches me
deeply and will bring joy to many.”
Archbishop Bille’s letter of May 5,
released by the French bishops’ con
ference May 10, said the May 13
meeting in Lyons “could be an occa
sion to express the communion that
we have felt for so long” and to heal
the five-year-old wound caused by
Bishop Gaillot’s ouster from his dio
cese. The Vatican removed Bishop
Gaillot from his post in Evreux in
January 1995 after he publicly chal
lenged church teaching on several
issues.
Vatican’s U.N. nuncio
APPLAUDS STATEMENT ON
KlSSLING GROUP
United Nations, NY (CNS)
he Vatican’s U.N. nuncio said
May 11 that a new statement
from the U.S. bishops denouncing
Catholics for a Free Choice for a
campaign against the Vatican’s U.N.
permanent observer status will be
useful in reminding leaders at the
world body that the organization is
not Catholic. The organization has
consultative status as a nongovern
mental organization at the United
Nations, and its president, Frances
Kissling, has been an active lobbyist
at U.N. meetings. In a telephone
interview, Archbishop Renato R.
Martino commented on a May 10
statement issued by Bishop Joseph A.
Fiorenza of Galveston-Houston, as
president of the bishops’ conference,
that said the group’s campaign
against the Vatican’s U.N. status is
reminiscent of “other episodes of
anti-Catholic bigotry.” Archbishop
Martino said the group’s campaign
has not affected church relations with
the world body and that not one of
the U.N.’s 180 member nations has
indicated any support for it.
Gunman who shot pope
SAYS HE WAS INSTRUMENT
IN DIVINE PLAN
Rome (CNS)
fter the Vatican said the third
secret of Fatima foretold the
1981 assassination attempt against
Pope John Paul II, the Turkish gun
man in that attack proclaimed himself
an “unwitting instrument” in a divine
plan. Mehmet Ali Agca, who is serv
ing a life sentence in an Italian prison
for shooting and seriously wounding
the pope in 1981, said through his
lawyer May 14 that he felt relieved
from the weight of responsibility by
the disclosure of the secret. “I was an
unwitting instrument in a mysterious
Thursday, May 18, 2000
design: Now I know this with cer
tainty,” Agca was quoted as saying
by his lawyer, Marina Magistrelli.
Agca said he would further explain
his thoughts in a letter to the pope on
the occasion of the pontiff’s 80th
birthday May 18.
Cardinal: priests needed
TO PREVENT “SACRAMEN
TAL STARVATION”
Manchester, England (CNS)
atholics will be starved of the
sacraments without an influx of
new priests, Belgium’s most senior
Catholic churchman warned. Cardinal
Godfried Danneels of Mechelen-
Brussels said the vocation crisis
would wipe out the church’s sacra
mental traditions in Western coun
tries. The 66-year-old cardinal pre
dicted that Catholics would become
like Protestants, forced to rely more
on the Bible and less on the seven
sacraments of the church. The cardi
nal’s comments came during an inter
view with the British Catholic week
ly Catholic Times at Saint Philip’s
University Church, Salford, England.
Donations, prayers
URGED FOR VICTIMS OF
New Mexico fire
Albuquerque, NM (CNS)
rchbishop Michael J. Sheehan of
Santa Fe authorized a special
collection to be taken up in parishes
May 13-14 to aid residents who lost
their homes and possessions when an
intense fire surged through Los
Alamos. The town, which is where
the atomic bomb was built and is the
site of Los Alamos National
Laboratory, is 70 miles north of
Albuquerque in the 61,000-square-
mile Archdiocese of Santa Fe. The
fire was started as a controlled bum
May 4 to clear out bmsh in nearby
Bandelier National Monument but
dry, windy conditions caused it to
quickly grow out of control. By May
12, it had raged through 28,000 acres
and in Los Alamos destroyed 280
homes and forced 25,000 people to
evacuate.
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