WORLD

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 29, 1999

Row follows suspension of non-celibate priest

A dispute has erupted in Peru between a bishop and local parishioners over the bishop's suspension of their non-celibate priest.

"The people of Morrope still want me because ever since I arrived I have respected their customs and traditions," said Fr. Jorge Arbanil, the suspended priest. "They think that if a new priest arrives he won't do the same."

Morrope is a desert town of about 3,500 people in the Chiclayo diocese. Late last year, Bishop Jesus Moline Labarte suspended Arbanil for violating his vow of celibacy. In a Jan. 6 statement, the bishop accused the priest of celebrating Mass between six and 10 times a day. Local priests are allowed to say Mass only twice a day during the week and three times on Sundays.

Local residents blocked a new priest appointed by the bishop from taking possession of the parish and harassed him until he left.

The bishop has said that until the new priest is allowed to take possession of the church, the church and the parish office will be closed, and all aid from Caritas, the Catholic charity, will be halted.

The Associated Press reported that priests in Peru's Andes mountains and provincial cities have a long tradition of noncelibacy. It is estimated that 50 to 80 percent of them have children.

Rebels in Sierra Leone 12 missionaries

Rebels in Sierra Leone were holding 12 missionaries amid fighting between rebel groups and government-backed forces.

The attacks occurred on the heels of the kidnapping of Archbishop Joseph Henry Ganda of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone (NCR, Jan. 22). Details of the most recent incidents were made available Jan. 19 by MISNA, an Italian Catholic missionary news agency.

The agency reported that Xaverian Fr. Mario Guerra, 64, kidnapped in mid-November, was released briefly Jan. 12 but returned to his captors according to a prior agreement.

The Italian-born priest had reached a Xaverian community in Kissy, east of Freetown, on foot. He had lunch at the mission and spoke by radio with Bishop George Biguzzi of Makeni, Sierra Leone -- the diocese from which he had been kidnapped -- before returning to his captors on foot.

Shortly thereafter, MISNA reported, rebels raided the community and kidnapped four Xaverian priests, three Italian and one Spanish. One of them, 67-year-old Fr. Luis Peres, had traveled to the region to help re-educate child soldiers and reportedly took refuge in Kissy when the fighting started.

On Jan. 14, the rebels returned to the Kissy community and kidnapped six nuns from the Missionaries of Charity and an Italian Xaverian brother.

Congo's cardinal says army attacked institutions

The Democratic Republic of the Congo's cardinal said government soldiers sacked several Catholic institutions in the nation's capital and attempted to break into the Vatican nunciature.

Cardinal Frederic Etsou-Nzabi-Bamungwabi of Kinshasa, in a Jan. 15 letter to the people of his archdiocese, said the Jan. 12 raids were led by members of the army's 50th brigade and resulted in varying degrees of damage to the buildings.

MISNA news service reported the incidents started in the Gombe neighborhood with the pillaging of the Bethanie Center, a church-run institution that housed Rwandan refugees. MISNA said the soldiers almost destroyed the building, then moved on to the student dormitory at a nearby Catholic school and to the Sacred Heart Convent before arriving at the gates of the Vatican Embassy.

According to MISNA, the cardinal said the soldiers gained entrance to the grounds of the nunciature after threatening the porter. They forced open the gates and tried to break into the building before fleeing.

Polish priest ordered to stop selling books

Officials of the Gdansk archdiocese have ordered a Polish priest to stop selling anti-Semitic books in his church.

The priest, Fr. Henryk Jankowski, said he would move the bookstall to his parish office. He accused critics of attempting to "suppress free speech."

The chancellor of the archdiocese, Fr. Stanislaw Zieba, and the vicar general, Fr. Wieslaw Lauer, told Jankowski in a Jan. 7 letter that canon law allowed churches to be used only for "faith, devotion and religion."

"It is unacceptable to sell items through the church that spread hatred and attempt to divide bishops, priests and the Catholic community," they said.

They added that Archbishop Tadeusz Goclowski had urged the bookstall's "immediate removal," adding that the parish had "enough places outside the church" for selling devotional artifacts and religious publications.

Poland's mass circulation daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, reported that anti-Semitic books were being sold at St. Brygida Church two months after Jankowski was released from a one-year preaching ban for anti-Jewish statements.

The paper said one book had accused Archbishop Jozef Zycinski of Lublin of making Poland's chief rabbi his "indirect superior" and had charged Archbishop Henryk Muszynski of Gniezno, an expert on Catholic-Jewish ties, of "ingratiating himself with Jews and the Israeli government."