WORLD

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 6, 2000 by Teresa Malcolm

Brazil bishops asked to mediate land dispute

The Brazilian bishops' conference has been asked to mediate an accord between the government and the landless peasant movement.

The bishops' conference secretary-general, Auxiliary Bishop Raymundo Damasceno Assis of Brasilia, and the minister of agrarian development, Raul Jungmann, were to meet Sept. 21 and schedule a meeting with landless peasant movement leaders.

After spending nine days camped out in front of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's sons' farm, 350 landless peasants decided to remove the tents and travel more than 40 miles to the nearby town of Buritis in the state of Mines Gerais.

The near invasion of the farm had provoked a crisis between the federal government and the state of Minas Gerais.

Because the Minas Gerais governor, former President Itamar Franco, refused to send in state police to guard the entrance to the farm, the federal government sent in soldiers to keep the would-be invaders away.

As tension grew, the landless movement and government officials searched for a solution. Finally both sides agreed to ask the bishops' conference and the Brazilian Lawyers Association to mediate an accord between the two parties.

Rush to missal changes problematic for Canada

The availability of a study translation and an English summary of the new "General Instruction on the Roman Missal" from the Web site of the U.S. bishops' conference is causing some concern to the Canadian bishops' liturgy commission.

"People are grabbing it and running with it and saying, `We have to implement this right now,' "said Notre Dame Sr. Donna Kelly, secretary of the liturgy commission of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Canadian bishops' liturgy commission published an explanatory note Sept. 18 on the Canadian bishops' Web site, pointing out that the study translation made available on the U.S. bishops' Web site "is currently not official even in the United States, much less in Canada."

Several steps are necessary before the full implementation of the instruction in Canada, including asking the church's international liturgy commissions for official English and French translations of the text, said the Canadian commission.

An official at the Congregation for Divine Worship told Catholic News Service Sept. 25 the instruction "does not have legal force" until the new missal is promulgated, which may not be before the end of the year.

The Canadian bishops' conference received the Latin text of the instruction at the end of August but has yet to receive the new updated text of the Roman Missal.

The bishops of Canada are to vote on the translated texts and can also request an "indult," an exemption from the missal for some pastoral practices, such as the requirement that only priests are to prepare Communion cups or place Communion hosts in containers for distribution. When there are 500 to 600 people at a Mass "you don't want the preparation for Communion to take an unnecessarily long time," said Kelly.

Cardinal ends visit hopeful for future of church in China

A senior Vatican official said a weeklong visit to China gave him hope that the Chinese Catholic church was moving toward unity and that dialogue with communist authorities would increase.

In an interview with Vatican Radio Sept. 25, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, head of the Vatican's Jubilee committee, said he was happy to find devotion to Pope John Paul II among Catholics of the government-approved church, which, he said, "in no way diminishes my recognition of the heroic fidelity of the church in silence" in China.

Following his attendance at a Sept. 14-16 Beijing conference on religions and peace, Etchegaray met with government officials and leaders of the government-approved church. He celebrated Mass at a Marian shrine near Shanghai and visited seminaries in Beijing and Shanghai.

Etchegaray said he expressed deep disappointment to his Chinese hosts that he was not allowed to meet with members of the underground church. He said he also protested arrests of members of the underground church. On Sept. 14, Chinese authorities arrested two bishops and a priest of the underground church in the southeastern province of Jiangxi.

Government authorities and bishops of the official church objected to the cardinal about a planned Vatican canonization ceremony for Chinese martyrs Oct. 1, China's National Day, which marks the beginning of communist rule.

Etchegaray dismissed the idea that the pope was trying to embarrass the Chinese government by the choice of the canonization date, saying: "John Paul II, a great friend of China, would not stoop to such base calculations."

Despite the divisions, Etchegaray said he viewed the church in China as "a single church in which a common faith is trying, bit by bit, to overcome that which, up to now, unfortunately separates 'clandestine' and `official' -[Catholics].

Vatican official apologizes for preface to book

Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, dean of the College of Cardinals, issued a public apology for having written the preface to a small book of Vatican anecdotes, which he said lacked respect for the Vatican "and especially for the person of the supreme pontiff."