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Catholic World Report

Light in darkness
Christians of the Holy Land struggle to maintain hope

Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, serving as the personal representative of Pope John Paul II, brought a message of hope to the Christians of the Holy Land as he celebrated Mass in Jerusalem on January 1. “Take courage, you are not alone!” the cardinal told the Christians of Jerusalem.

Cardinal Etchegaray, the chairman of the Vatican’s committee coordinating the Jubilee, traveled to the Holy Land for ceremonies closing the Holy Year there. On January 1—the World Day of Peace —he presided at Mass in the cathedral of the Latin-rite Catholic patriarchate of Jerusalem.

“This land is your land, too; you have the right to live here, and the duty to work for peace here,” the cardinal told the Arab Christians. He said that today the Christian presence in the Holy Land is “more necessary than ever, for the future of peace in your land.” And he added that no peace agreement could endure without “peace in the people’s souls and in their hearts.”

On January 2, Cardinal Etchegaray delivered the same message to Christians in Bethlehem. After a delay caused by the insistence of Israeli officials that the Vatican delegation show a special permit before entering the town, the Pope’s envoy celebrated Mass in Bethlehem, and urged the Christians there to work together with both Muslims and Jews to restore peace in the Holy Land. On his return to Rome, Cardinal Etchegaray told reporters that the “real problem” in the Middle East is the number of extremists, both Israeli and Palestinian, who “will always reject peace.”

Bishops’ Christmas message
To mark Christmas 2000, the patriarchs and heads of all the Christian communities in the Holy Land addressed a joint message to their people in which they affirmed that “our people will not enjoy many of the customary Christmas celebrations in this land this year” because of violence and insecurity, and they urged international leaders to “rekindle their hope.”

The message said that “the land of Jesus’ birth cries out in pain—hope has been replaced with fear, despair, pain, loss, and death. Stones and shells are competing unequally on a daily basis. Palestinians and Israelis are living once again with the painful realities of violence, terror, injustice, closures, insecurity, and dehumanization.”

“We remain conscious that our people will not enjoy many of the customary celebrations for Christmas this year,” the Church leaders said. “Yet we urge them not to lose sight of that event in Bethlehem some 2,000 years ago.” They called on all Christians, in the Holy Land and throughout the world, to work and pray for peace. “We have heard and accepted the Gospel of the peace of Christ and we are his witnesses and ambassadors who are entrusted with the message of reconciliation,” they wrote. Referring to the shepherds of Bethlehem who heard the first news of the Messiah’s birth, the message concluded: “We—not unlike the shepherds—can go forth into the darkest of nights, glorifying and praising God who came to save mankind and to fill the earth with justice and peace.”

Bishop under attack
A car carrying a Catholic bishop came under fire from Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint on the West Bank on Wednesday, January 10.

Bishop Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo, a Jerusalem auxiliary, was traveling from his residence in Nazareth to the village of Zababdeh, in the Israeli-occupied territories. He was riding in a car clearly identified as a diplomatic vehicle, flying the Vatican flag, as he approached an Israeli military checkpoint. There, the soldiers refused to let them pass.

Father Elie Kurzum, the bishop’s secretary, was driving the vehicle. He reported that when he was turned away from the checkpoint, he stopped by the side of the road, hoping to talk with the soldiers and convince them to let the car pass. Instead, a soldier shot at the bishop’s car. When Father Kurzum shouted at him to hold his fire, the priest reported: “He answered me, ‘Go away or I’ll put a bullet in your head.’” Father Kurzum says that two more shots were then fired at the car, as he accelerated away from the checkpoint.

Bishop Marcuzzo immediately went to a nearby military post and complained to the commanding officer there. The officer apologized, and agreed to accompany the bishop back to the first checkpoint, so that they could pass without further incident. The officer also agreed to tell the soldiers that the bishop would be returning within an hour, and should be allowed to pass through the checkpoint once again.

However, when Bishop Marcuzzo returned after visiting the sick priest, the soldiers again stopped his vehicle at the same checkpoint, and leveled their guns at the car. This time the driver immediately reversed his tracks, without attempting to talk to the soldiers. The bishop eventually returned to Nazareth by another, more circuitous route.

No one was hurt in the checkpoint incident. However the bishop’s secretary, Father Kurzum, remarked: “It’s just to say that the Israeli soldiers—they are very quick to use their guns.” A spokesman for the Roman Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem observed that the incident was a clear violation of the right of freedom of movement. He added: “If this happens now, with such a high-ranking personality, what could happen every day and night to our simple common people?”

—CWR Staff

Time for revival
A new president faces his daunting task

When President Vicente Fox decided to start his term on December 1 with a prayer before the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, it was certainly his most eloquent indication that he was breaking from the strict secular traditions of the deposed Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). But it was not the only such gesture by the new Mexican leader. When he left his hotel on the morning of his inauguration, Fox went in the direction opposite the route to the congressional building where the ceremony would take place—toward the Guadalupe basilica. And during the inauguration ceremony itself, his young son broke through security lines carrying a crucifix, which—to the amazement of the assembled legislators—the new president devoutly kissed.

The meaning of Fox’s gestures was abundantly clear. Maria Angeles Fernandez, a columnist for the daily El Heraldo, characterized his behavior as “certainly a slap in the face of anti-clericalism—a quick and eloquent break with the past that many people had predicted Fox would try to avoid.” The elderly women who cheered Fox at the Guadalupe shrine also clearly grasped the importance of his gesture, shouting: “This is the end for the atheists and Freemasons!”

The president’s open demonstrations of faith have been strongly criticized by PRI leaders as well as by representatives of the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Miguel Bartlett, a PRI militant and a former Minister of the Interior, accused Fox of striking “cinematographic poses.” He said: “We are not against religion, but using religion as an instrument for popularity is absolutely regrettable.”

“PRI members will have to get used to the fact that this is a new era, in which expressing religious beliefs in public is a completely natural thing,” responded Jose Luis League, the leader of Fox’s PAN party in Mexico City. Fox, he explained, “is breaking old myths and putting an end to the false ‘separation of Church and state’—which was basically an excuse for an anti-religious system.” A similar opinion was expressed by Bishop Raul Correa, of Saltillo: “President Fox is part of the Mexican people and Mexico is mostly Catholic. There is nothing strange or irregular in expressing publicly what he is.”

A new Code
But the visit to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the breakfast with homeless children at a shantytown in Mexico City were not the only signs of change in the new president’s administration. Other measures seem to show that Fox wants much more than just cosmetic changes in the stew of patronage, persuasion, bribery, corruption, and vote-rigging that has marked Mexico’s political and economic systems for most of a century.

During his inaugural speech, Fox asked Mexicans to judge him, at the end of the 6-year term, by his success in implementing seven key reforms:

• consolidation of a truly democratic system;
• “critical advancements” in social justice;
• educational reform aimed to “ensure the possibility for all Mexicans to become educated;”
• a steadily growing economy;
• de-centralization of Mexico’s government powers;
• the establishment of a transparent, accountable public administration, to end widespread corruption; and
• a forthright war against violence and crime, “so that Mexican families may sleep safely at night.”