NATION - warning given on financial improprieties of Bishop G. Patrick Ziemann; suit against Louisiana school prayer law; other religious news

National Catholic Reporter, Dec 17, 1999

The other $13 million in the U.S. law goes to relieving poor countries' debts incurred for forest revival or restoration. This may include other countries besides those targeted in the Cologne Initiative.

Brooklyn bishop decries acts against religious items

A "chilling" number of incidents involving "violation of religious symbols" have occurred at Brooklyn churches in recent months, the local bishop said.

In a statement dated Dec. 2, Bishop Thomas V. Daily expressed concern about "the desecration of the symbols of faith."

He cited four churches that had been vandalized, and said that while "it may or not be the result of bias," the offensive incidents were happening "too often to be ignored."

At Holy Cross Church, the corpus, or figure of Christ, was taken from an outdoor crucifix in May of 1998, and recently found in charred condition outside a nearby store-front that had burned. The corpus was rehung and blessed on the feast of Christ the King, Nov. 21, but defaced two days later.

In June, beer bottles were thrown through a stained glass window at Holy Innocents Church. A statue of Our Lady of Fatima and the three children in front of the rectory of St. Jerome's Church was toppled Sept. 27. The fourth incident was the smashing of a statue of Mary with the infant Jesus outside the rectory of Our Lady of Refuge Church Oct. 24.

"It is regrettable that the sacred is profaned through wanton acts and insensitive attitudes that permeate part of our culture," Daily said. "I recognize that the victims are not only Catholics, but, in other circumstances, other Christians, Jews and Muslims as well."

Catholic, Jewish leaders call end to death penalty

A coalition of Catholic and Jewish leaders has issued a statement calling for an end to the death penalty.

The Dec. 6 statement, titled "To End the Death Penalty: A Report of the National Jewish/Catholic Consultation," was cosponsored by an ecumenical committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Council of Synagogues, which represents Conservative and Reform congregations.

"Both traditions begin with an affirmation of the sanctity of human life," the statement reads. "Both ... acknowledge the theoretical possibility of a justifiable death penalty, since the scriptures mandate it for certain offenses. Yet both have, over the centuries, narrowed those grounds until, today, we would say together that it is time to cease the practice altogether."

The document quotes from second-century Jewish rabbinical writings, a homily delivered last January in St. Louis by Pope John Paul II, as well as recent statements from Jewish and Catholic organizations.

Defrocked priest in Boston charged with rape

John J. Geoghan, a defrocked priest whose decades of molesting children cost the Boston archdiocese millions to settle lawsuits, was indicted in two counties Dec. 2 on charges of raping and molesting three boys in the 1980s and 1990s.

The indictments against Geoghan, 64, in Middlesex and Suffolk counties involve three alleged victims, but about 100 children and their parents have come forward in recent years to accuse the former parish priest. Until now, the charges against Geoghan were only civil lawsuits while the Dec. 2 indictment contained the first criminal charges to be brought against the former priest.