WORLD - international Christian news

National Catholic Reporter, Dec 24, 1999 by Matt Kantz

Trial of Catholic relief worker in Georgia postponed

Prosecutors in the case of an American Catholic Relief Services worker facing charges of vehicular manslaughter have pushed back the trial date until at least the end of January, a defense lawyer said Dec. 10.

The delay angered aid worker Loren Wille's Iowa family, which had been lobbying for his release from Tbilisi, the capital of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, where the fatal crash occurred five months ago.

Margaret Wille, Loren Wille's sister, said the delay in her brother's trial date underscores her conviction the charges are politically motivated. Shortly after the crash that claimed the life of Wille's translator, provincial investigators equated Wille's predicament with that of Georgy Makharadze, a Georgian diplomat convicted of killing a Washington pedestrian while driving drunk in the U.S. capital. Makharadze is currently in a North Carolina prison.

New Georgian investigators assigned to the case this autumn have since denied any such link between Makharadze's conviction and the charges faced by Wille. They claim Wille was simply negligent in his operation of the vehicle during a rainstorm on a country road in provincial Georgia.

The lawyer hired by Catholic Relief Services to represent the 54-year-old Wille said he was mystified by the delay. "Either you have the evidence or you don't," Ivan Khokhlov said. "This just indicates that the authorities continue to consider this a political case."

Hong Kong church criticizes immigration ruling

The Catholic church in Hong Kong has supported the claim of Chinese mainlanders born of local residents to the right of abode here and criticized the territory's highest court for undermining the rule of law.

In a Dec. 8 statement, the Catholic diocesan Justice and Peace Commission denounced the latest ruling on the right of abode issue for doing serious damage to China's "one country, two systems" principle for Hong Kong.

Mainlanders born of Hong Kong residents who overstay visas or are in the territory illegally now face deportation following the Dec. 3 ruling by the Court of Final Appeal that seems to end a two-and-a-half-year battle. In ruling against the claim of right to abode by 17 mainland-born children of Hong Kong residents, the court overturned its own ruling of Jan. 29. That ruling said the petitioners could be entitled to the right of abode under a law that persons of Chinese nationality born outside Hong Kong of permanent residents are eligible for permanent residency here.

The January ruling was overturned following a reinterpretation of the law by China's legislature, the National People's Congress, five months later at the Hong Kong government's request.

The Hong Kong court's latest decision will affect about 6,000 mainlanders in Hong Kong who could face deportation.

Vatican calls for December day of prayer for AIDS orphans

The Vatican asked Catholics around the world to make Dec. 28, the feast of the Holy Innocents, a day of prayer and support for AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa.

Archbishop Javier Lozano Barragan, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, told participants of a Vatican HIV/AIDS conference Dec. 9-11 that he made his request in an early-December letter to the heads of all the bishops' conferences.

The conference, which drew some 70 church and health experts, aimed to promote assistance for sufferers of HIV/AIDS, discuss church teaching in relation to HIV/AIDS and coordinate the efforts of Catholic HIV/AIDS caregivers.

Barragan, whose office organized the meeting, said that the Catholic day of prayer and charity for sub-Saharan Africa's estimated 2 million AIDS orphans was a concrete sign of the church's love for those suffering from the "new and menacing calamity" of AIDS.

The countries worst hit by HIV/AIDS, and for which the archbishop's letter specifically asked economic support, were Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi. In sub-Saharan Africa, some 22.5 million people are infected with the HIV/AIDS virus. The total number of infected people worldwide is estimated at 33.4 million.

Six Indian nuns killed after collapse of building

Six Catholic nuns were buried in a southern Indian village after they were crushed to death when a century-old building collapsed.

The six Cluny sisters were killed when St. Joseph Convent collapsed after torrential rains early Dec. 13. The convent was in Cheyyur Parish, about 50 miles southwest of Madras, the Tamil Nadu state capital.

Lay and political leaders and hundreds of children -- including Hindus and Muslims -- attended the funeral services in Cheyyur Parish, where the nuns managed a school.

The victims include the principals of the primary and high school sections of the Little Flower School in the parish.

The youngest among the dead was 26; the oldest was 68. All six were natives of Tamil Nadu.

One of the seven nuns sleeping on the first floor of the collapsed building survived, but sustained serious head injuries and was hospitalized.