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The Southern Cross, Page 2 Hundreds mark third anniver sary of Mother Teresa’s death Calcutta (CNS) H undreds of people paid their respects at Mother Teresa’s tomb in Calcutta September 5, the third anniversary of her death. Nuns, priests and visitors crowded the long room and packed even the cement courtyard outside the tomb during the September 5 religious services which began with a 6:00 a.m. Mass, reported UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand. The Missionaries of Charity nuns organized prayer services for the occasion that were to continue until September 13. Visitors included elderly, young, blind and lame people. Hindus, Muslims and Christians prayed at the tomb for peace and harmony, and read from their respective scriptures. Vatican says Catholic Christianity necessary Vatican City (CNS) aking aim at the notion that “one religion is as good as another,” a new Vatican document emphasized the “exclusive, universal and absolute” value of Jesus Christ and said the Catholic Church is necessary for salvation. While acknowledging that non-Christians can be saved through a special grace that comes from Christ, the document said the church can never be considered merely as “one way of salvation alongside those constituted by the other religions.” And despite a certain level of commun ion with other Christian churches, the “church of Christ... continues to exist fully only in the Catholic Church,” said the document, released at the Vatican September 5. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said the Vatican’s new document responded to the spread of a new “ideology of dialogue” that attempts to replace mission and conversion in the church with a “false sense of religious tolerance.” Overemphasis on interreligious collaboration has led Catholic the ologians and faithful to downplay Christ and reject the absolute necessity of the church’s dogma and sacraments, Cardinal Ratzinger said. Group places ad depicting fetus on New York subways New York (CNS) he president of the American Life League said only after threatening a court suit was the organization able to get an ad placed in New York subways for the month of September. “Please don’t do it. She’s your baby,” says the ad, which shows an eight-week fetus in the womb. Speaking at a press conference in New York September 1, the organization’s president, Judie Brown, said the ad ■ Head!ins Hopscotch originated in a suggestion from a man in New York who was disturbed by seeing Planned Parent hood ads on the subways. He raised the $36,000 necessary to put the American Life League ad on 1,400 subway cars for one month, Brown said. Pope sends condolences after death of Peruvian Cardinal Vatican City (CNS) ope John Paul II offered his condolences to the people of Peru mourning the death September 4 of Cardinal Augusto Vargas Alzamora of Lima. The 77-year-old cardinal was known as a promoter of dialogue within Latin America’s Catholic com munity and in Peru’s violence-tom society. Cardi nal Vargas, who retired in January 1999 but contin ued serving at a homeless shelter he founded in Lima, died from complications of a stroke he suf fered in May. In a September 5 telegram to the car dinal’s successor, Archbishop Juan Luis Cipriani Thome of Lima, Pope John Paul described Cardi nal Vargas as “a diligent pastor” known for his “self-sacrificing pastoral work and also for his fidelity to Christ and to the successor of Peter.” Gore notes reservations about BILL TO LIMIT ASSISTED SUICIDE Portland, OR (CNS) ice President A1 Gore told reporters in Port land that despite his personal aversion to assisted suicide, he has reservations about a con gressional bill that would thwart Oregon’s contro versial Death with Dignity Act. “I am personally opposed to physician-assisted suicide,” the Democrats’ presidential nominee told reporters who pursued him after a town-hall rally at Portland State University August 30. “However, I don’t want to see the criminalizing of doctors’ ability to deal with severe pain.” Gore and mnning mate Sen. Joseph Lieberman came to Oregon to talk health care. Lieberman, a Democrat from Connecticut, is a primary sponsor of the Pain Relief Promotion Act, billed by some supporters as a way of thwarting assisted suicide. The nation’s Catholic bishops are among those supporters. U.S. BISHOPS SHARED IRISH BISHOPS’ CONCERN ON READINGS Washington (CNS) he U.S. bishops shared concerns about certain New Testament readings on women that the Irish bishops recommended be omitted from their new Lectionary, said a U.S. bishops’ official. Father James Moroney, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for the Liturgy, said in an interview August 31: “This is an issue that the Thursday, September 7, 2000 U.S. bishops addressed 10 years ago and one which I am gratified to see the Irish bishops deal ing with as well.” A document titled “Domestic Violence,” issued August 27 by two Irish bishops’ commissions, denounced all forms of violence in marriage and identified seven New Testament readings they said should not be used at Mass because they give “an undesirably negative im pression regarding women.” Retired Bishop Federal of Salt Lake City dies at 90 Salt Lake City (CNS) ishop Joseph Lennox Federal, retired bishop of Salt Lake City, died August 31. He was 90. Ordained to the priesthood December 8, 1934, Bishop Federal served as priest and bishop under six popes—Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, and John Paul II. He was one of the last living U.S. prelates to have participated as a bishop in all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council. A Mass of Christian burial was scheduled for September 6 at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City. Parole denied for man jailed for 1980 church women’s murders San Salvador (CNS) 1 Salvador’s Supreme Court rejected a petition for parole for one of five former national guards men convicted of the 1980 murders of four U.S. church women. The request for parole for Carlos Joaquin Contreras Palacios was “turned down because it does not meet the requirements estab lished by the law,” Supreme Court Judge Eduardo Tenorio told reporters August 30. The decision was unanimous, said Tenorio, based on the fact that Contreras “had not been favorably rehabilitated.” China reportedly arrests more THAN 20 UNDERGROUND CATHOLICS Stamford, CT (CNS) he Chinese government arrested a priest, a sem inarian, 20 nuns and two lay people of the underground Catholic Church in Fujian province, eastern China, reported the Cardinal Kung Foun dation. The August 30 arrests occurred in Qibu township, Luoyuan county, the foundation reported September 1. The foundation, headquartered in Stamford, said 38-year-old Father Liu Shao-Zhang was beaten brutally, causing him to bleed severely and vomit blood. Two of the nuns were released one day later after parishioners paid “a large sum of money” to the Public Security Bureau, it said. The other people remained held and their whereabouts were unknown, it added. 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