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The Southern Cross, Page 2
Guyana’s bishops say nation in
SHOCK AFTER VIOLENCE
George Town, Guyana (cns)
atholic and Anglican bishops described their
nation as being “in a state of shock” following
post-election violence that included attacks on
church buildings. “The political leaders and others
who encourage subtly destructive action and racist
remarks on television must take a large share of
responsibility for what has happened to date and
which now has our people living in a state of ten
sion,” said Catholic Bishop Benedict Singh and
Anglican Bishop Randolph George.The bishops
called on the two main political leaders to urge their
supporters to respect the rights of their fellow Gu
yanese of whatever race or religious background.
Lay Catholic community,
Mozambique to work against
AIDS
Rome (cns)
Catholic lay community in Rome and the gov
ernment of Mozambique believe that working
together with just $5 million, they can begin to
save the African country from AIDS. While most
African nations have an AIDS education and pre
vention program, Mozambique hopes to become
the first country on the continent with a widespread
AIDS treatment program. The project of the Rome-
based Community of Sant’Egidio, which mediated
the Mozambican peace talks a decade ago, will
focus first on pregnant women. Each year it plans
to offer 10,000 pregnant women tests for the virus
that causes AIDS and to put those who are HIV
positive on the anti-AIDS drugs. The therapy,
which will begin in the 22nd week of pregnancy,
has been proven to drastically reduce the risk of a
baby contracting the virus during birth, said Dr.
Leonardo Palombi, a physician and Sant’Egidio
member who has been working for a year to set up
the project in Mozambique.
Church, civil leaders shocked at
FBI finding in priest’s death
Nairobi, Kenya (cns)
hurch and civil leaders expressed surprise and
shock at an FBI investigation that concluded
an outspoken U.S. missionary’s death probably was
suicide. Bishop Colin Davies of Ngong, the Ken
yan diocese where U.S. Mill Hill Father John Kai
ser worked, called the suicide finding “a cheap way
of getting out of the problem.” Bishop Davies told
Catholic News Service the church will not rest
until Father Kaiser’s murderers are apprehended.
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“This was a clear case of murder, and obviously
there was a murder,” said the bishop. FBI officials
presented an 80-page report at an April 19 press
conference and said there was “no credible evi
dence that points toward Father Kaiser’s demise at
the hands of someone else.”
Pope tells Europeans to pro
claim Christ with one voice
Vatican City (cns)
s European church leaders were preparing to
sign a major document on ecumenical cooper
ation, Pope John Paul II offered his encouragement
and said Christ must be proclaimed on the conti
nent with one voice. “The unity for which the Lord
prayed in the Upper Room is a condition for the
credibility of Christian witness,” the pope wrote to
Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant lead
ers meeting in Strasbourg, France. “A clear procla
mation of the Gospel is particularly urgent in Eu
rope,” the pope said in his message to the April 19-
22 meeting of the 123-member Conference of
European Churches and the Catholic Council of
European Bishops’ Conferences.
Catholic-backed adoption
REFORM BECOMES LAW IN FLORIDA
West Palm Beach, Fla. (cns)
lorida Governor Jeb Bush allowed an adoption
reform bill to become law without his signature
April 17, bringing to a successful conclusion years
of effort by Catholic Charities and other agencies
concerned with the quality of adoptions in the
state. “This is the product of working together with
a wide group of other nonprofits and agencies for
six years,” said Patricia Chivers, social concerns
director for the Florida Catholic Conference in
Tallahassee. “We have very high hopes that this
reform ... will bring about finality in the adoption
process to help couples to open their hearts and
homes and feel more secure about the process,” she
told The Florida Catholic newspaper. The new law
includes a provision for allowing the birth mother
48 hours or until she is released from the hospital
before signing the consent to adoption.
Arizona Catholic youths build
CHURCH FOR MEXICO’S POOR
Puerto Penasco, Mexico (cns)
ouths from three Catholic parishes in the
Phoenix Diocese have been spending time in a
popular Mexican tourist town. But they’re not there
to go to the local hot spots, but to rebuild a Catho
lic church in the poor outskirts. Youths from Sa
cred Heart in Prescott, Saint Germaine in Prescott
Thursday, April 26, 2001
Valley and Saint John Vianney in Avondale have
been working in Puerto Penasco, 60 miles south of
the Arizona border along the Sea of Cortez in the
state of Sonora. The plan, conceived by Ed Johan
sen, youth minister at Sacred Heart in Prescott,
calls for replacing a one-room chapel on a “barren
lot filled with garbage” with a more permanent
church structure. The youths also are working on a
new caretaker’s house, an office for the priests,
showers, and a clinic where locals could receive
medical and dental care from the University of
Mexicali.
Canadian church leaders say
FREE-TRADE POLICIES CAUSE
SUFFERING
Ottawa (cns)
embers of a Canadian churches’ delegation
said they witnessed “soul-wrenching human
suffering” during a fact-finding trip to Mexico to
study the impact of free-trade policies. “It was in
Ciudad Juarez that I saw the worst living condi
tions I’ve ever seen in my life,” Auxiliary Bishop
Jean Gagnon of Quebec told Canadian Catholic
News following a news conference on Parliament
Hill April 19. The bishop, who is also a member of
the social affairs commission of the Canadian
Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he had visit
ed other Latin American countries but that the con
ditions in the border city—home to almost 400
“maquiladoras,” or foreign-owned factories—were
the worst. He and four other church leaders visited
Mexico March 28-April 6 to see what has hap
pened to poor people under free-trade policies that
culminated in the 1994 North American Free Trade
Agreement.
Pope clears way for beatification
of 27 Ukrainian martyrs
Vatican City (cns)
ust seven weeks after the local study of 27
Ukrainian martyrs ended, Pope John Paul II
cleared the way for their beatification during his
June 23-27 trip to their homeland. The Vatican
published the decrees recognizing the martyrdom
of the 27 members of Ukraine’s Eastern-rite church
who died at the hands of Nazi invaders and com
munist occupiers, in Soviet gulags or as the result
of their imprisonment. The same day, April 24, the
Vatican promulgated a decree recognizing the mar
tyrdom of Ruthenian Bishop Teodoro Romzsa,
apostolic administrator of Mukacheve, Ukraine,
who was killed in 1947. He, too, is expected to be
beatified by the pope in late June.
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