WORLD

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 29, 1999

Pakistani Christians, Muslims seek amendment for women

Ten Christian and Muslim organizations in Pakistan have urged a constitutional amendment reserving a third of the seats in legislative bodies for women as recommended by a Senate commission.

In a Jan. 9 statement, women's and human rights groups in Islamabad and Rawalpindi demanded that the government institute direct election of women legislators at both the provincial and national levels.

Election of women to 33 percent of the seats in both houses of parliament and provincial assemblies through direct, constituency-based elections by a joint electorate was recommended by the Commission of Inquiry for Women 1997.

The demand has been conveyed to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and to ministers and members of the Constitutional Reform Committee, notably the minister of parliamentary affairs, the organizations stated.

Vatican, utility company disagree over sewer payment

A Rome municipal utility company sent the Vatican a $23 million bill for sewer services, which Vatican officials insist does not have to be paid.

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Vails said in a Jan. 16 statement that the 1929 Lateran Treaty that created the sovereign Vatican City State within Rome exempts the Vatican from paying for water services.

Italian media reported that the bill by the utility company, ACEA, was for decades' worth of water purification and removal.

Navarro-Valls said the subject of billing was "undoubtedly founded on a misunderstanding." He added that after discussions with Vatican officials, ACEA had chosen "unilaterally" to apply Italian law while the Vatican had tried to demonstrate the legal and historical reasons by which the law could not be applied to the Vatican City State. He said the Vatican has reaffirmed its readiness to negotiate the matter.

ACEA President Fulvio Vento told the daily Corriere della Sera that the issue "cannot be resolved like a normal case." Normally, the utility would cut off service to a customer who fails to pay the bill.

Pinochet's wife defends husband

The wife of Gen. Augusto Pinochet said her husband believes he has nothing to ask forgiveness for, despite allegations of genocide and torture during his 17-year reign in Chile.

"If he did something, that is in his conscience. God should judge him, not people that aren't that good and noble," Lucia Hiriart told Megavision, a local television station in Santiago, Chile, Jan. 14.

When the interviewer suggested to Hiriart that Pinochet should ask for forgiveness as Pope John Paul II did for the Catholic church's not doing enough on behalf of the Jewish people during World War II, she exclaimed: "But the pope is a saint!"

Pinochet "does not feel he must ask for forgiveness. Augusto does not feel at all that he is guilty," she added.

Hiriart, who said her 83-year old husband is in good health, flew to London Jan. 14 to be with her husband.

Forces destroying family, Scottish prelate says

Secular forces in society are "hell-bent" on destroying the nuclear family, and the Catholic church must step up to defend its vision of the family, Cardinal Thomas Winning, archbishop of Glasgow, said Jan. 17 in a homily at the Mass marking the golden jubilee of his ordination to the priesthood.