WORLD

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 5, 2001 by Teresa Malcolm

Egypt bars cassette of David and Goliath

Citing allegations that Israel has used excessive force against Palestinians in the ongoing violence in the Middle East, a senior government official in Egypt has nixed production of a children's music cassette that included a song about the biblical tale of David and Goliath.

"Presenting this subject now is not in line with the Egyptian social and political stance on the Palestinian uprising," said Madkour Thabet, head of the predominantly Muslim nation's Audiovisual Censorship Authority.

Thabet's objections came despite the stamp of approval the album earned from the Coptic Christian church in Egypt, which represents about 10 percent of the country's 65 million people, the Associated Press reported.

One popular Egyptian magazine praised Thabet's decision. The magazine, Rose El Youssef, said Egyptian children who listened to the cassette tape would have been taught about "Israel's glories." The magazine also claimed the tape "bluntly refers to the superiority of the Israelites."

Though Israel's first peace treaty with another Arab country was with Egypt, relations between the two countries have been strained. Recently Egypt has expressed its disappointment with Israel's role in months of violence between Palestinians and Israelis, and in November it recalled its ambassador from the country.

Jesuit magazine backs regulated brothel laws

The influential Jesuit magazine La Civilta Cattolica suggested regulated brothels as a means to combat the evils of prostitution.

In the Dec. 16 edition of the magazine, whose contents are reviewed by the Vatican prior to publication, an article said that while governments should discourage prostitution, allowing it in "more protected places" could help eliminate exploitation.

The article, by Jesuit Fr. Paolo Ferrari da Passano, came amid ongoing debate in Italy over revamping current laws on prostitution. Some parliamentarians have called for a return to regulated brothels, outlawed in 1958.

In the article, the priest detailed the slave-like conditions in which many prostitutes live. Today, he said, most prostitutes are foreign, controlled by crime organizations that require them to hand over their daily intakes to pay for their "miserable housing" and repay their bosses for their passage to Italy.

Da Passano called prostitution an activity that, even if chosen freely, "must be considered degrading and contrary to human dignity."

Any good legislation, he said, even while adopting the "realistic conviction that the phenomenon cannot be abolished completely," must therefore try to prevent prostitutes and clients from turning to prostitution.

Although he agreed that Italy should maintain its current ban on prostitution in public places, discourage any advertising related to prostitution and prohibit soliciting, da Passano said the "crime of facilitating prostitution could be eliminated in order to direct the practice to more protected places rather than the street."

While Italy's current legislation, adopted in 1958, does not ban prostitution per se, it outlaws public solicitation, any establishment that allows prostitution in its premises, and agents of prostitution.

Subdued Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem

Subdued Christmas celebrations in rain-soaked Manger Square were in sharp contrast to the sparkling festivities of the 1999 opening of the Jubilee Year, said local Christians.

"It is so different than last year. This is so sad, there are so few people," said 24-year-old Catholic Amir Musleh, looking around Bethlehem's Peace Center building.

Festivities were curtailed by three months of Israeli-Palestinian violence, in which over 340 people, most Palestinians, have been killed.

Although it had been decided at the last minute to allow some of the performances scheduled for Manger Square, rain had forced the group of some 100 locals and a few foreigners inside the Peace Center building, where performers sang Christmas carols and danced on a much smaller makeshift stage.

The festivities were to be the culmination of a year of hard work for the Bethlehem 2000 committee, and over $100,000 was poured into what was going to be a dazzling celebration to top last year's event.

As an international choir broke into a rendition of "Joy to the World," followed by "Jingle Bells," Musleh and others at the center clapped their hands in tune to the music, even dancing a bit, and began to smile.

"I want to feel that there is still Christmas. It is nice to go out just once at night and see people, see them smiling," Musleh said. "Look around. I haven't seen people smiling like this for months."

Allah Awad, 25, of nearby Beit Sahour, came to celebrate, saying, "We wait for this day all year long. I couldn't just stay at home. I hope that next Christmas will be better than this Christmas."

Findings or priest's suicide challenged

Colleagues and friends of Mill Hill Missionary Fr. John Kaiser, the outspoken American missionary found dead on a Kenyan roadside in August, have categorically rejected suggestions that he committed suicide.