WORLD - international current events related to Catholic Church

National Catholic Reporter, August 13, 1999 by Matt Kantz

Mexico City launches pro-life signature campaign

The Mexico City archdiocese has launched a signature campaign to ask President Ernesto Zedillo to promote a constitutional guarantee of the right to life, beginning with conception.

Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera told reporters that even though the constitution includes a statement on the right to life, the church would press for a change that would specifically guarantee the right to life from the moment of conception through to natural death.

The cardinal was the first to sign the letter, which also includes a statement of support for continued bans on the use of the death penalty and euthanasia in Mexico.

Rivera said the campaign was in response to efforts by the state congresses of Nuevo Leon and Baja California Sur to decriminalize abortion.

The president of the archdiocesan health commission, Fr. Jorge Palencia, said the campaign's goal is to collect 4.5 million signatures from throughout the country.

Self-appointed bishop claims he is heir to Joseph's mission

Efforts by coworkers of the late Pakistani Bishop John Joseph to keep his mission alive are being complicated by a self-appointed evangelical bishop's claim to be the heir to that mission.

Joseph, the late bishop of Faisalabad, was known for fighting for the rights of religious minorities and others in Pakistan. He took his own life May 6, 1998, after a Christian was sentenced to death for allegedly blaspheming Prophet Mohammed.

The movement for minority rights has lost direction since the activist bishop's death, with many of his supporters seeing the generally small and low-key commemorations of the first anniversary of his death as a wake-up call.

Complicating the situation, however, is the prominent media attention being given Javed Albert, who supported Joseph but now claims to be bishop of all of Pakistan and the heir to Joseph's work.

Suspected of being used by the government for propaganda purposes, Albert has appeared on government-controlled electronic media saying that there is no discrimination in Pakistan against religious minorities.

His episcopal "ordination" ceremony, in an Evangelical sect not known to have a hierarchical structure, was reportedly held in several cities and shown on cable television in sparsely populated western Pakistan.

Albert's acceptance of Law 295-C, which mandates death for conviction of the loosely defined offense of blaspheming Mohammed, places him squarely at odds with Joseph, who campaigned for the repeal of the law.

South Africa official opposes halt in prosecutions

The head of the South African bishops' justice and peace office opposed a call for a moratorium on prosecution of people not granted amnesty by the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The truth commission was "an opportunity for people to come forward and tell the truth about their activities and, in return for this, to receive amnesty," said Ashley Green-Thompson, who heads the bishops' justice and peace department in Pretoria.

"It is totally unacceptable to let those perpetrators who did not avail of this gilt-edged opportunity to clean their records walk away now," he said July 29.

The truth commission was criticized for allowing perpetrators of violence to be given amnesty from criminal and civil action by giving a full account of their crimes. To qualify, they needed only to show that their actions were politically motivated and not done for personal gain or through malice.

In mid-July, Barney Pityana, chairman of the government's Human Rights Commission, called for a moratorium on prosecutions intended by the government. In essence, that would mean scrapping pending trials of those known to have committed atrocities and halting advanced investigations against killers of antiapartheid activists.

"The Human Rights Commission has cautioned against selectivity in prosecutions. We have noted that prosecutions as recommended by the [Truth and Reconciliation] Commission would drag on for a long time without any guarantee of convictions," Pityana said.

Sri Lankan bishops condemn murder of Tamil leader

The Catholic bishops of Sri Lanka condemned the assassination of a moderate Tamil leader and called on the country's politicians to get serious about a dialogue for peace.

Politicians must accelerate the process to end the country's ethnic conflict, "eschewing petty party politics and bickering, which are of no consequence," the bishops said.

The bishops expressed hope that the murder of Neelan Tiruchelvam would be seen as an urgent call for peace. Tiruchelvam, vice chairman of the moderate Tamil United Liberation Front, was killed July 29 when a suicide bomber hit his vehicle.

Investigators believe the assailant, who died in the attack, was a member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the rebel group fighting for the establishment of a separate state in the predominantly Tamil areas of Sri Lanka's north and east coasts.

The Liberation Tigers reject the political leadership of the Tamil United Liberation Front, a recognized political party.