World Watch

More pastoral journeys, and...

Fears of assassination in Italy, terrorism in Jerusalem

First Gypsy beatified

On Sunday, May 4, the Vatican audience hall known as the Nervi echoed with the music of guitars, mandolins, and castanets, as Gypsy musicians entertained Pope John Paul II and celebrated the beatification of Ceferino Jimenez Malla, the first Gypsy thus recognized by the Church.

While the seguedillos, rumbas, and flamenco dances made it difficult to avoid discussion of Blessed Ceferino, Pope John Paul took pains to notice that the Gypsy martyr, who was executed during the Spanish Civil War, was only one of five people beatified during that first May weekend. The list also included Msgr. Florentino Asensio Barroso (1877-1936), another victim of the Spanish Civil War; Enrico Rebuschini (1860-1938) and Gaetano Catanoso (1879-1963), Italian priests dedicated to serving the poor; and Maria Encarnacion Rosal (1820-1886), whose dedication to evangelization in her native Guatemala made her the first native of that country to be beatified.

With the beatification of Ceferino Jimenez Malla--generally known by his nickname "El Pele"--the Church has now recognized 219 martyrs from the Spanish Civil War. Pope John Paul has encouraged the recognition of martyrs of the 20th century, especially in Tertio Millennio Adveniente.

The cause of Ceferino moved especially quickly through Vatican channels, as Church officials saw an unusual opportunity to recognize and encourage the world's gypsies. El Pele lived in Barbastro, and although he was nearly illiterate, his natural intelligence was enough to bring him to prominence; he became a member of the city council, and the bishop regularly consulted him for advice. At a time when the militia was hunting down priests, Pele was arrested for harboring a young cleric, and eventually--after refusing to renounce his beloved Rosary--shot by a firing squad.

The beatification of a Gypsy is an indication of the Church's pastoral care for a people who have been, as one bishop put it, "baptized but never evangelized." Gypsies have suffered through numerous persecutions in Europe, most recently under the Nazi regime, and when Pope John Paul visited Auschwitz in 1995 he alluded to the "tragic end of our Gypsy brothers and sisters" there.

As Rome buzzed with rumors about a possible meeting between Pope John Paul and the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II, a top Vatican official cautioned reporters that no plans were set--although preparations for the possibilities of a meeting were certainly being pursued.

Cardinal Edward Cassidy, the president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, told journalists that stories which had already appeared in the Austrian press, saying that a meeting was scheduled to take place in Vienna in June, were at best premature. But the cardinal left the door open to the possibility that such a meeting could quickly be arranged.

"You know that we have been trying to organize this meeting for a long time," Cardinal Cassidy said. "Right now we are at the same point where we were last year, with the plans for a meeting at Pannonhalma in Hungary." (Those plans were scuttled when advisers to the Patriarch decided that the timing would be inauspicious.) The Vatican official said that negotiations were advancing slowly, in view of the "difficult conditions" facing the Orthodox churches--an allusion he declined to explain.

As for an encounter in Vienna, the cardinal disclosed that "we have been discussing this meeting in principle since last year." Vienna--the gateway between the predominantly Orthodox east of Europe and the mostly Catholic west--might be a logical site for the ecumenical session. But Cardinal Cassidy admitted, "I can say in all honesty that I am not sure it is a possibility."

A Jewish advocacy group in April demanded that the Vatican withdraw a postage stamp because it depicts an anti-Semitic scene. The Center said the stamp encourages anti-Semitism and violates the international standards of the Universal Postal Union.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center's European bureau sent a letter to the Vatican's Pontifical Council on Jewish Relations regarding the stamps depiction of a 7th-century print showing Jesus confronting Jews wearing the pointed hats then common in a Jewish ghetto. The statement said the hats were "discriminatory and the direct precursor to the Nazi yellow star" which Jews were made to wear during World War II.

May 6 is a festival day for the Swiss Guards at the Vatican, marking the anniversary of the day when 147 Swiss soldiers died defending the Pope during the sack of Rome in 1527. The day was observed this year with several events, beginning with an audience of the Swiss Guards with the Holy Father, followed by a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Angelo Sodano for the Guards and their families. May 6 is also the day when members of the Swiss Guards remember their dead, and honor their living with promotions and decorations.

After noon, new recruits to the Guards took their oath in the courtyard of St. Damaso. This year there were 23 new members, among whom the clear majority--19--are German-speaking. The Swiss Guard was established by Pope Julius II in 1506. The Guard is a company of 100 volunteers, organized along military lines for the personal protection of the pope and his residence. Today the Guard is comprised of four officers, 25 non-commissioned officers, and 70 enlisted men. Each serves for two years: a commission which can be prolonged either be re-enlistment or by promotion.

The physical security of the Holy Father was much more than a ceremonial concern in mid-April, when Italian officials received tips that an Islamic terrorist group might make an attempt on the Pope's life.

A dozen armed vehicles were visible outside St. Peter's Square on Sunday, April 18, and Italian paramilitary officers joined the regular Vatican security force on patrol for the Pope's regular weekly audience. But despite the obvious concern displayed by security officials, the Pope continued with his regular schedule, and Cardinal Angelo Sodano insisted that the Pontiff was "not particular alarmed" by the threats. Papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls declined to comment on any special precautions, although pilgrims visiting the Vatican could hardly ignore the metal detectors they encountered there. "For obvious reasons, we do not comment on reports that concern matters of security," Navarro-Valls explained.

Secular journalists faced no such constraints, and so they reported that an Italian military intelligence agency had been warned of a terrorist threat soon after the Pope returned from Bosnia-Herzegovina--where some Muslim extremists viewed his presence as an affront to their plans for an Islamic state. Published reports suggested that a trained terrorist group had entered Italy early in April, and might carry out an assassination attempt.

Talk of terrorism was also in the air after a fire swept through the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin on April 12. Within hours after the blaze was extinguished, and the famous Shroud of Turin safely transferred to a safe location, Italian reporters began to speculate that the blaze had been deliberately set. And when reports circulated later that week about a terrorist group already on Italian soil, journalists quickly connected the two stories.

Had Islamic terrorists set out to destroy the Shroud? There was no evidence to prove such a charge. But Giuseppe Peronzi, the Italian official assigned to investigate the fire, soon determined that the blaze had begun sometime in the middle of the night, in the Guarini chapel where the Shroud was held; from there the fire spread through the rest of the cathedral.

An Italian judge and his staff have scheduled a visit to Berlin, as part of a continuing investigation into the 1981 assassination attempt which nearly claimed the life of Pope John Paul II. Judge Rosario Priore, who heads the investigation, will meet with German police officials and examine records from Stasi, the old secret police force of the Communist regime in East Germany.

Judge Priore will pay particular attention to document regarding Bulgaria--following up the persistent stories of a "Bulgarian connection" in the assassination attempt. He is also expected to visit Turkey, and speak with Oral Celik, a member of the "Grey Wolves" organization to which the convicted papal assailant Mehmet Ali Agca belonged. Although Celik has offered to sell his "confessions" regarding the plot to the magazine Paris-Match, Judge Priore reportedly remains suspicious that Celik-- who was in Geneva on the day the Pope was shot--is bluffing.

Meanwhile Ali Agca, who has now spent 16 years in prison, continues to insist that he acted alone. His lawyer has said that Celik is an "unreliable" witness, who is interested only in the profit he could realize by inventing a more complicated story.

An Italian doctor who campaigned for the legalization of abortion and doctor-assisted suicide killed himself late in April, his son said. Dr. Giorgio Conciani, 67, hanged himself in his home in Fiesole.

"I expected this at any time. He had often said that he would kill himself and I believe that a man's ideas should be respected," Ferruccio Conciani said. He added that his father had been suffering from a debilitating illness, whose nature he did not disclose.

The elder Conciani had been jailed in 1975 for performing an illegal abortion, and then had his license to practice medicine revoked in 1995 after allegedly helping a terminally-ill patient kill himself by giving him a fatal dosage of medicine.

On May 3, Germany's government agreed to a Vatican request, exonerating a priest who had been executed by the Nazis in 1944 after he was convicted of treason against the Third Reich.

Father Max Josef Metzger wrote a letter to the British government during World War II denouncing the Nazi regime, but it was intercepted by a Nazi spy. He was sentenced to death for treason in the Nazi People's Court on October 14, 1943, and was executed in April, 1944.

Following a request by the Vatican last year to clear Father Metzger's name, the Berlin State Court said the conviction was based on laws "solely for the preservation of the Nazi dictatorship." The cases of other priests executed by Hitler are also under review.

Germany's bishops have issued a joint statement, together with the country's Protestant leaders, calling for government regulation of the Internet and warning of the control of the media by a privileged few.

"Existing forms of regulation and voluntary control must be expanded in light of the demands of new media technology,"

said Bishop Karl Lehmann, head of the German Catholic Bishops Conference. "Especially in regard to the increasing instrumentalization of violence and intimacy for the purposes of entertainment we must demand voluntary commitments from providers. This is particularly true for Internet providers."

The statement called on industry executives and politicians to keep the needs of society in mind when developing new technology and media content, and not just focus on profits. Germany has already begun taking steps to regulate Internet content, including charging the manager of the German division of the on-line service Compuserve with aiding the trafficking of pornography, neo-Nazi writings, and violent games.

Leaders of Great Britain's Pro-Life Alliance expressed bitter disappointment at a court decision which barred the television broadcast of their campaign advertisements.

Bruno Quintavalle, the director of the new pro-life political party, said he was "very, very disappointed" with a decision by the High Court, upholding a policy decision by the British Broadcasting Company, which had refused to show the film of aborted children on the grounds that the broadcast would be "unpleasant and shocking." The Pro-Life Alliance had appealed to the courts after initially being

denied permission to broadcast the ads on the British television network as national elections approached. [For a fuller report on those elections, see page XX.]

The advertisements were broadcast in censored form, with the most dramatic images removed. Cardinal Basil Hume commented, "It is regrettable that the public are to be denied an opportunity to see on television the original Pro-Life Alliance broadcast." He questioned the logic of the court's decision, adding: "If the pictures of aborted humans are so offensive, surely we would not be allowing 500 abortions to take place every day in this country."

Paul Diamond, who appeared before the High Court to represent the Pro-Life Alliance, conceded that the uncut ads were "indeed shocking," but argued that the broadcast was necessary in order to get across "the nature of the slaughter." He pointed out that the ads were designed for late-night broadcast, so that they would not be seen by many impressionable children. And he observed that other

"unpleasant and shocking" images--such as those of corpses in Rwandan refugee camps, or pictures of Nazi death camps--were readily shown in the mass media. The Pro-Life Alliance, he insisted, was only looking for a "level playing field" in the national debate.

Members of a radical homosexual group climbed over the walls surrounding the residence of the spiritual leader of the Church of England on Sunday, April 18, to confront Anglican bishops and lodge a protest against the church's policy on homosexual priests.

Archbishop George Carey of Canterbury was meeting with 16 other bishops from around the world when members of OutRage accosted the archbishop and accused him of ignoring representatives of homosexual Christian groups. Witnesses said one of the interlopers grabbed the archbishop's arm and a brief scuffle followed. Archbishop Carey finally told them, "I find your manner offensive. That is enough. I'd like you to leave my grounds." Police were not called to the scene.

OutRage leader Peter Tatchell said his group objected to the archbishop's restatement of the church's policy that only recognizes celibacy or heterosexual marriage as legitimate options for priests.

The Polish government opened the month of May by announcing plans to spend $3 million on sophisticated security equipment to protect Pope John Paul during his visit to his homeland at the end of the month.

Interior Minister Leszek Miller said the parliament had agreed to allocate an additional 10 million zlotys ($3.2 million) for security services and for new equipment. "Some is for revealing metal objects, or generators of so-called white noise--special electromagnetic waves which prevent the remote detonation of explosive devices," Miller said.

Security officials said they were tightening their security following an assassination attempt during last month's papal visit to Sarajevo, when a cache of unexploded mines was discovered under a bridge on the papal motorcade route. General Miroslaw Gawor, head of the Government Protection Office, said border guards were also making sure that "no unwanted people, such as Muslim fundamentalists, could come in from abroad."

The campaign preceding a national referendum on a new Constitution has evoked strong feelings from all political and quasi-political groups. Many of the most hotly disputed points have had religious overtones--including whether there should be a reference to God in the preamble, and whether there should be constitutional guarantees of the right to life from the moment of conception. Some leaders of the union have been extremely vocal in their attacks on the draft produced and approved by Parliament, on which the Polish electorate simply has to vote an overall "Yes" or "No." Unless new options were allowed, they urged, the public should reject the draft constitution, or simply stay away from the voting stations on May 25, the day of the crucial vote.

In making their protest, in the name of traditional Polish Catholic values, the "anti-constitution" campaigners clearly thought they could call on the support of the Church. One cleric who did speak out in support of a boycott was Father Henryk Jankowski, the controversial parish priest of St. Bridget's Church in Gdansk, the parish church of ex-president Lech Walesa. And the independent Catholic-oriented "Radio Marija" waged a vigorous campaign for the rejection of the draft. But the Polish hierarchy as such refused to be drawn into the debate. When the "anti-constitution" faction of Solidarity appealed to the Episcopate to back their campaign, Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, secretary of the bishops' conference, stated unequivocally that politics is the realm of politicians, and not of the Church and God. As for Radio Marija's campaign against the draft Constitution, Bishop Pieronek said that the radio was not authorized to present the political views of the Church, and that in his opinion, Radio Marija was doing the Church "considerable harm" by the current campaign.

Bishop Pieronek's pronouncement was echoed by Poland's Primate, Cardinal Jozef Glemp, in a homily delivered at the national Marian shrine--the Jasna Gora monastery at Czestochowa, on Poland's national day (May 3)--a date which commemorates Poland's adoption of an earlier constitution in 1791. The cardinal said he himself was "concerned" that the draft did not sufficiently meet the expectation of the majority of Catholic Poles, and that the parliamentarians who adopted it had shown a lack of understanding of the majority of society who believe in God. Nevertheless, he said, voting on the draft must be left to the individual consciences of believers.

Arriving in Prague on Friday, April 25, to begin his third visit to what is now the Czech Republic, Pope John Paul II was greeted warmly by the country's president, Vaclav Havel. Havel told the Pontiff, "We listen to your message very attentively, because we really need to hear it."

Upon leaving Rome, the Pope had told reporters that he had high hopes for the future of central Europe, but no illusions about the problems currently facing the countries in that region, such as the Czech Republic. "After so many years," he observed, "on can foresee that the situation is not going to be brilliant." Indeed, the Czech Church is suffering from a decline in religious practice, as well as a series of disagreements with the government regarding the ownership of Church property which had been confiscated by the Communist regime. The country as a whole is also living through a sometimes painful economic adjustment, after the early thrills of the free marketplace.

A February survey by the Center for Empirical Studies, a polling agency, found just 37 percent of respondents believed in God and that among people aged between 18 and 29 only 28 percent were believers. A separate survey showed just 6 percent of Catholics went to church every week while 54 percent never attended a Mass.

As he greeted the Holy Father, Vaclav Havel alluded to the immediate reason for the papal visit: the celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the death of St. Adalbert. That great saint, the president said, "is often seen--correctly, in my view--as the first true European of Czech origin." The saint, he said, personified the spiritual unity of the European continent, set upon the basis of Christian principles. That same theme was the central point of Pope John Paul's message to the Czech people.

The highlight of the papal visit, the celebration of St. Adalbert's anniversary, brought together 130,000 people. The Holy Father observed that the saint's work and his example had led directly to the growth of Christianity across the continent, particularly in his own native Poland. St. Adalbert, he insisted, "is a saint for the Christians of today."

As he presided at an ecumenical prayer service in Prague's St. Guy Cathedral, the Pope remarked: "Today we are living in the hour of truth." He underlined the urgency of greeting the 3rd Christian millennium as a Church unified in faith and in prayer. Toward that end, he cautioned, all Christians should be prepared to make a rigorous examination of conscience.

However, the Pope added, while "the hour of truth" is essential in that it allows Christians to understand their differences, it must be followed by "the hour of charity," in which the different groups freely offer and accept pardon for the offenses that caused their divisions.

Father Gleb Yakunin, once a notable dissident and prisoner-of-conscience under the Soviet regime, and now chairman of Russia's Public Committee to Protect the Freedom of Conscience, has launched a libel case on behalf of "non-traditional" faiths in Russia. The defendant, one Alexander Dvorkin, is the author of a brochure entitled "Ten Questions to an Obtrusive Stranger, or a Handbook for those Who do not Want to be Recruited." Dvorkin claims that a number of these non-traditional "sects"--including the Hare Krishna Association, the Unification Church, and the Church of Scientology--are "preparing to take over," in pursuit of which aim they are prepared to lie or steal, or even "eliminate an objectionable person (or group of people)." Moreover, he alleges, anyone who gets involved with one of these sects "constantly subjects him/herself to violence (beatings and rape)," According to Father Yakunin, these allegations are false, and legally actionable.

All the churches and groups attacked in the brochure are at the moment legally registered in Russia--although back in 1993, attempts were made to introduce legislation which would ban missionary activities within the Russian Federation and give full rights only to what are deemed its traditional faiths (Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism). This draft bill fell by the wayside in the confusion following President Yeltsin's siege of parliament in October 1993. However, a new attempt is currently being made to introduce such legislation--and, in the Russian idiom "it is not by chance" that Dvorkin's brochure has appeared at this time.

Dvorkin replied to the indictment by demanding that the publishers of his brochure--the religious-education Department of the Russian Orthodox Church --be arraigned and prosecuted, since church experts had examined and approved his text. This suggestion clearly alarmed the Hare Krishna Association, which, with the Scientologists, had formally backed Yakunin's suit, and which now withdrew from the case, saying that "a suit against the Patriarchate was never part of the Hare Krishna Association's intentions."

The direct involvement of the Patriarchate adds a special dimension to the case, for back in 1993, Father Yakunin, an Orthodox priest, was excommunicated and laicized by Patriarch Alexei II for standing as a candidate in the Russian parliamentary elections. (Ironically, the Patriarch had himself sat in the Congress of People's Deputies--the super-parliament which had presided over the last days of the Soviet union). Father Yakunin, however, refused to acknowledge the Patriarch's ban and continues to practice as a priest, while also continuing his political activities.

The fear of new "cults," on which Dvorkin's brochure plays, is widespread in Russia today. Although there are certainly some real grounds for concern, the psychological (and at times physical) dangers posed by certain of these movements have been melded in the public awareness with the xenophobia that is the legacy of centuries of isolationism under first tsars and then Soviets. Even the Catholic Church is considered "foreign" in Russia. (Moscow's Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz tried to negotiate a special status for Catholics, on the grounds that, after the partitioning of the Polish Commonwealth in the 18th century, several million Catholics were incorporated into the Russian empire--and two centuries was surely long enough to qualify as a "traditional" faith.)

How large is the "threat of the cults?" A recent report from Russia's Health Ministry stated that the number of "Zombie sectarians" is between three and five million (the population of Russia is some 170 million). But this figure has almost certainly been inflated, both by "anti-sect" campaigners who want to emphasize the danger, and by the members of such faiths themselves wanting to magnify the popularity and influence of their teachings. As to how many sects there are--the investigative weekly Moscow News recently revealed an interesting statistic: the anti-sect campaigners routinely claim that currently there are 6,000 "dangerous sects" operating in Russia. But according to the official figures, there are 13,000 "religious organizations" (i.e., parishes or equivalent) registered in Russia, of which 7,000 belong to the Russian Orthodox Church. To the "anti-sectist," it appears, any non-Orthodox parish counts as a "dangerous sect."

Moscow's General Prosecutor's office has announced that Ando Re, leader of the Russian branch of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, would be placed under arrest and prosecuted in accordance with the laws prohibiting "religious organizations that cause harm to the health of Russians". If found guilty, Ando Re might face up to three years in prison.

Aum Shinrikyo, a sect which incorporates a number of Christian, Buddhist, and apocalyptic beliefs, was accused of organizing Sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo underground in March 1995. At the time of the attacks this organization allegedly boasted 30,000 Russian members. Aum Shinrikyo first appeared in the Russian Federation in 1984 and obtained legal recognition in 1989. The cult reached its zenith of its growth in Russia in 1993, when its Japanese leader, Chizuo Matsumoto (also known as Shoko Asahara) visited the Palace of Congresses in the Kremlin under the sponsorship of Ruslan Chasbulatov, the chairman of the Supreme Soviet.

Fulfilling an ambition which he had cherished for several years, Pope John Paul traveled to Lebanon May 9, spending a weekend in what he characterized as a "martyr nation," and assuring the people, "the suffering of past years will not have been in vain."

The civil war which raged for years in Lebanon, the Pope assured crowds in Beirut and its environes, will serve in the long run to "strengthen your liberty and your unity." But for the immediate future, the Pope said, Lebanon desperately needs international recognition of its own national sovereignty.

On Sunday, May 11, after celebrating Mass in Beirut, the Pope formally issued the final document of a special synod of Lebanese bishops, which had taken place in Rome in 1995. The formal promulgation of the synod document had been anticipated months earlier, and postponed along with previous plans for a papal trip to Beirut.

In his apostolic exhortation which represented the final summation of the synod findings, the Pope twice insisted on the necessity for Lebanon to regain its territorial integrity. Without actually mentioning Syria, the Pontiff was clearly alluding to that country, which now has 35,000 soldiers stationed inside Lebanon, and exercises de facto control over the government in Beirut. The Pope also mentioned "the menacing occupation of southern Lebanon," where Israeli troops routinely cross the border on their own military missions. In closing the synod document, John Paul speaks of a future Lebanon which has recovered its hope, along with "complete sovereignty and unambiguous freedom."

To the Christians of Lebanon--once a majority of the country's people, but now a vanishing minority--the Pope issued a special request, asking them to recognize "the gravity of their mission in this part of the world." He urged them to redouble their efforts at dialogue with Muslims.

Some Christians had protested the plans for a papal visit, complaining that by visiting Lebanon under current conditions the Pope would be offering recognition to the Muslim-dominated regime, at a time when young Christians are leaving the country, discouraged at their economic prospects at a time when Muslim enterprises receive special favor. But speaking to reporters on the plane as he approached Beirut, the Pope underlined that his visit was to the people of a great nation, not a particular government. "I am going to Lebanon--sovereign Lebanon," he stressed.

With relations rapidly deteriorating between the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, some Palestinians called for a renewal of the intifada, while Israeli authorities pushed for a more aggressive campaign to control Jerusalem and its environs.

Early in May, the Palestinian Authority (PA) made the dramatic announcement that any Arab who sold land in disputed areas to Israeli Jews would face execution. Soon thereafter, that announcement was tested by the news that a home on Jerusalem's Mount of Olives had been sold to developers for a Jewish yeshiva. Palestinians reacted angrily to the sale, claiming it is aimed at strengthening Israel's hold over territory the Arabs insist will one day form part of the capital of a Palestinian state. Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli Arab lawmaker who acts as an aide to PA chairman Yasser Arafat, said: "Whoever sells his house to Jews, has sold his soul to the Satan and has done a despicable act."

The man who had sold the property--Armenian Archbishop Shahe Adjamian--has apparently left Jerusalem for Armenia, and does not

plan to return. But if he escaped the wrath of would-be PA executioners, another Arab land dealer apparently did not. Just one week later, the Israel government accused Arafat's personal security unit of murdering an Arab who was considering another real-estate deal.

Farid Bashiti, an Israeli citizen who lived in eastern Jerusalem, was found dead in the Palestinian town of Ramallah with his hands bound, his skull crushed, and his mouth sealed with plastic tape. A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press, "There is no doubt at all that [Arafat's personal guard] killed him." The government official said that Bashiti had been seen earlier in the day, negotiating the possible terms of sale for his property in Ramallah with an Israeli woman.

For their part, Israeli officials added to the rising tensions early in May with an announcement that they would soon inaugurate new an effort to make a the Western Wall more accessible to Jewish pilgrims. The Western Wall is located at the foot of the Temple Mount, the site of the Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Last September, the opening of an archeological tunnel near the same location provoked widespread rioting by Muslims, who feared the project would jeopardize access to the Islamic shrines.

Next, Israeli officials said that they would extend the authority of Jerusalem's city government, to include legal control of the eastern and southern suburbs. Again, the move was seen as a direct affront to Palestinians, who have vigorously protested any new Jewish building campaigns in the Holy City.

More radical Palestinians have asked Yasser Arafat to rewnew the "intifada" (uprising) against Israel, after a month-long deadlock in Middle East peace talks. The group Hamas, which has claimed responsibility for recent suicide bomb attacks in Israel, said the intifada is the only option still available to Palestinians. The original intifada begin in 1987 and ended in 1993 with the Israeli-Palestinian autonomy accords, which Hamas still opposes.

Muslim pilgrims making the hajj--the ritual trip to Mecca--were camped on the nearby plain of Mina in mid-April when a fire broke out, burning 70,000 tents. The flames left 343 pilgrims dead, and another 1,300 injured.

In a message sent to Islamic leaders all around the world, Cardinal Francis Arinze, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, said, "We pray to Almighty God that the pilgrims who died may find the grace and compassion of the Lord and that those who were injured may receive the comfort and support which they need so much."

Mongolia, an ex-Communist republic sandwiched between Siberia and China, is introducing "morality tests" for top officials. At least 198 leading figures will have to satisfy the State Audit Committee that they posses the required moral and ethical qualities. Plans for the scheme were revealed by Mongolian radio a few days after President Punsalmaagiyn Ochirbat (who is about to run for a second term of office) promised that if re-elected he would introduce major reforms in the government structures, and also personnel changes in the judicial branch in order to step up the fight against corruption.

Mongolia, the homeland of Genghis Khan and other warriors who once terrified medieval Europe had, by the beginning of this century, become effectively a client state of Russia, and under the influence of the latter became Communist in 1921. Until then, its main religion was a bland of Tibetan-type Buddhism and animism. But the Communists closed or destroyed more than 2,000 monasteries, and by the 1980s only one remained, in the capital, Ulan Bator, served by a few aging monks, as a showpiece to convince the occasional foreign visitor that there was no repression of religion. A few elderly shamans (often women) also continued to practice their traditional rituals, but (officially at any rate) this was only as a demonstration of ancient folklore.

Like other formerly Communist lands, Mongolia over the past few years has seen a major revival of religion--in the sense of the restoration and reopening of shrines, temples, and monasteries, and attendance at traditional rites. But after seven decades of Communism, the return to the moral standards of the past is not easy--particularly as the country's economic problems provide considerable scope for corruption. Five years ago, when the abbot of what had been the "showpiece" monastery visited London, he spoke of the people's yearning for religion--which was at the same time coupled with an almost total ignorance of what that religion meant. To supply them with the externals of religion--holy pictures, Buddhist prayer beads, incense burners and the like, was fairly easy. But to teach them what lay behind these symbols was a far longer and more complex process. First, he said, it would be necessary to train teachers of religion--and, before that, to train the instructors who would train the future teachers.

Western efforts at building democracy likewise can on occasion produce results not intended by their sponsors. The Free Press printing house, established in Ulan Bator by the Danish government at a cost of $2 million was used to produce the weekly Yellow Newspaper, which was recently banned by the Mongolian Ministry of Justice, on the grounds that its content was predominantly "vanity fair and sensations."

Vietnam's leaders have clearly been piqued by a recent report delivered to the United Nations Human Rights Committee by its rapporteur on religious intolerance, Abdelfattah Amor, which listed Vietnam among the 79 countries in the world which currently violate freedom of religion in many ways. The official government news agency and the English-language service of Hanoi radio immediately rushed out denials, drawing attention to the current spate of spring festivals of Vietnam's six major faiths, and a national conference to review the religious situation, which was graced by the presence of senior government and Communist Party officials. One of these latter, the head of the Party Central Committee for Mass Mobilization, Pham The Dyet, was reported by VNA as praising the "active" part which religious believers have taken in "socio-economic development" as well as their good response to the "hunger-elimination and poverty reduction" and "population and family planning" programs.

The authors of these English-language reports, however, appear to have been working in some haste. The VNA remark that over the past year "efforts have been made by central agencies and localities to boost state management over religious activities" is hardly likely to convince outsiders that Vietnam is (as the reports try to claim) a land of religious freedom. The radio report contained some even more curious slips. It listed the six major faiths of Vietnam as "Buddhism, Christianism, Caodaism, Haa Hao, Protestant and Islam"--as if Protestantism were not a Christian denomination. Furthermore, it quoted the General secretary of the Vietnam Communist Party as saying (back in 1993) that both religion and socialism oppose repression and exploitation since "Jesus Christ's ideology is humanitarian and Buddha's ideology shows great mercy and benevolence. St. Allah of Islam and other saints of other religions all want happiness and prosperity for all people." Whether this is a direct quote from Do (which no one had picked up over the previous four years) or a slip by the translator is unclear. But Muslims are hardly likely to be impressed by a claim of religious tolerance from someone who cannot distinguish between the Almighty and a saint.

Mother Teresa declines an honor

Mother Teresa has turned down a request from the government of Calcutta to declare the Mother House of her Missionaries of Charity order and the adjoining buildings housing the headquarters of her congregation as "heritage buildings." Once a building is included in the "heritage building" list, the owners lose the right to modify or demolish the building. But the designation entitles owners to government funds for maintenance of the buildings.

The 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner politely declined when Calcutta Mayor Prasanta Chatterjee called her to request permission to include the three-story-building complex at Lower Circular Road in Calcutta among the buildings which the city plans to declare as "heritage buildings" in the metropolis, which was founded by the colonial British rulers. While Calcutta has already served notice to the owners of other historic buildings, the city left the final decision on the Missionaries of Charity buildings to Mother Teresa, in an indication of the respect she commands.

Japan's parliament has passed a new law legally recognizing "brain death" as legal death, allowing legal organ transplants for the time.

"We must respect the wishes of those who wish to become donors and patients who wish to receive organs and prepare an environment (for such operations)," Health and Welfare Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters. Previously, legal death was only defined as the end of heart function.

Doctors have refused to consider any transplants in Japan since 1968, when a heart transplant from a brain-dead donor resulted in a criminal investigation. For the past three decades, Japanese citizens wishing to receive organ transplants had to travel overseas, but the situation received new scrutiny last week after an 8-year-old girl who had been taken to the United States for a heart transplant died before a donor could be found.

The new law would allow organ transplants from those declared brain dead, provided the donor gives prior written consent and the family does not object.

While international attention was concentrated on neighboring Zaire [see related story, page XX], Rwanda continued to be haunted by bloodshed, past and present.

In April, two Rwandan nuns who are now living in a Benedictine abbey in Belgium were accused of complicity in the genocide of ethnic Tutsis during massacres in 1994. "We have more information on the terrible things that they have done," said Rakyia Omaar, co-author of a report on the killings for African Rights, a London-based human rights group. Omaar said that he has eyewitness testimony to support claims that Sister Gertrude Mukangango ordered Tutsi refugees out of her missionary compound on April 25, 1994 as Hutu soldiers and militia members waited outside to kill them. Sister Julienne Kizito is accused of giving gasoline to the mob to burn the refugees alive inside buildings. French troops evacuated the nuns when a Tutsi-led rebel force took over Rwanda.

"Those accusations were not well-founded," said Father Celestine Cullen, abbot of the Benedictine Congregation of the Annunciation. He said the nuns are innocent refugees who fled the massacres that bathed their country in blood in the spring of 1994 and now only seek peace. After an initial public outcry against groups in Belgium who are sheltering some of the people who reportedly committed the atrocities in 1994, law-enforcement authorities began criminal proceedings against some of the Rwandan exiles in 1995. A few were briefly jailed. Now the investigation appears to have stalled.

The killing, however, continues. Hutu gunmen murdered 17 schoolgirls and their teacher in northwestern Rwanda in an ethnic-based attack during the last week in April, according to a government spokesman.

The Rwandan News Agency reported that Hutu gunmen stole into the country from Zaire and entered the compound of a Catholic school near the border. After the girls refused to separate into Hutu and Tutsi groups, the attackers opened fire on the whole class. Sister Griet Bosmans, a Belgian missionary who was the headmaster of the school, was killed along with 17 of the girls. Fourteen more were wounded, nine of them seriously.

A similar attack occurred on March 18 in the same area, when gunmen fired automatic weapons and threw grenades at schoolchildren who also refused to separate into different ethnic groups. Five children and an adult were killed in that attack.

May began with news of another massacre in Burundi, as 46 people were murdered and 30 wounded at a Catholic seminary in southern Burundi, according to an Army spokesman on Wednesday.

Hutu rebels attacked the seminary outside the provincial capital of Bururi, killing 34 seminarians and seven seminary workers, said Lt. Col. Isaie Nibizi. The army had warned that Tanzania-based rebels are posing an increasing threat to Burundi. Nibizi did not say whether Tanzania-based rebels were responsible for the latest attack. But the government did claim that its soldiers had killed at least 50 of the Hutu rebels responsible for the attack. Still Foreign Minister Kalonzo Musyoka added warnings that his country is "degenerating into unpredictable political chaos," and that dozens of people are being killed every day.

Just a few weeks earlier, Africa's bishops had ended a weeklong symposium on April 18 with a call to Africa's leaders to find a peaceful solution to ethnic violence in the Great Lakes region. Two cardinals, 10 archbishops, and 33 bishops gathered for the Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar to search for solutions to the crises in central Africa. "Despotic, corrupt, military regimes must be done away with if this continent is to regain its lost glory and reclaim its position among the civilized world community," they said. "In this direction the Church in Africa will play its part."

The bishops also called on Western nations to accept the greatest share of responsibility for the problems. "They are solely to blame for the social strife in the Great Lakes region," they argued, in a reference to the colonial period as well as interference by the superpowers during the Cold War.

Development Minister Janet Mukwaya has erased all doubts about her public position by repeating a clear call for the legalization of prostitution, and the integration of "the world's oldest profession" into the social-services industry.

"I need to be advised by lawyers," Mukwaya told a parliamentary committee which summoned her to clarify her position after the first public reports of her proposal. During a meeting of the committee on public service and local government last year, Mukwaya had asked for prostitution to be legalized. "There is need for this service," she told the committee. "The demand and supply is there."

Gender minister Mukwaya said that as a Muslim she regarded prostitution as a bad practice but wanted it be legalized. "It is up to the government to implement and enforce the laws for it," she said.

The latest moves for legalized prostitution come as calls for legal cohabitation and polygamy are starting to gain momentum in Uganda. Both non-governmental agencies and some church groups have been advocating a change based on the growing disproportion between the numbers of men and women in the population.

Rev. Njeru Wambugu of the National Independent Church of Africa in Kenya has called for the release of a report prepared by a presidential commission which had been empaneled to investigate reports of devil worship to churches. The Protestant minister reasons that if the report becomes public, the country's religious and political leaders they can use its findings to fight the evil.

"If the churches get the recommendations of the inquiry, they could help in the fight against the increasing cases of devil worship but we have not been given copies," Wambugu complained.

Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi appointed a Commission of

Inquiry in 1995 in the wake of an outcry against devil worship in Kenya. The commission was chaired by Archbishop Mwana'a Nzeki Ndingi of the Catholic Diocese of Nakuru and, after a year of investigations, a report was presented to the government. But the document was never made public and Wambugu speculated that it was suppressed because it implicated both high government and church leaders in satanic practices.

Spirits were high in Khartoum on April 16, after several different factions in the Sudanese civil war signed a peace treaty, apparently bringing an end to the long and bloody fighting. But hopes were crushed when it was learned that the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the largest of the groups fighting in the south of the country against the Muslim-dominated government based in the north, was not a party to the agreement. Spokesmen for the SPLA scoffed at the pact, and promised to continue fighting.

The SPLA, which is sustained by the population of the southern Christian and animist territory of Sudan, has enjoyed unprecedented success this year in launching attacks into the north. Even as the peace treaty was signed, SPLA forces were threatening to cut off Khartoum from its route to Port Sudan.

However, the successes of SPLA have come about as the result of alliances with other rebel groups, backed by Sudan's neighbors Ethiopia and Uganda. It is not yet clear whether the Khartoum government has succeeded in drawing those allies out of the fight.

A South African newspaper has published a report by a Catholic social justice commission detailing thousands of atrocities committed by the Zimbabwe military during a rebellion in the 1980s.

The report of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission included reports of thousands of cases of torture, rape, and human-rights abuses, including the massacre of 2,000 civilians in Matabeleland province during a six-week period between 1981 and 1987.

Father Oskar Wermter, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Harare, said the report had been presented to President Robert Mugabe on March 17. The president's office said that it wanted to study the report--which was then published in the Weekly Mail and Guardian. Mugabe's administration had previously claimed that any civilians killed in Matabeleland were victims of war, and not premeditated atrocities.

The report alleged that the civilians were killed for supporting the Ndele rebels fighting against the government at the time. The rebellion ended in 1987 after rebel leaders signed peace accords and were given a role in the government.

In April, while American bishops appeared poised on the brink of a very different decision [see Follow Up, page XX], the Catholic bishops of New Zealand issued a statement of support for the use of "gender-inclusive" language in the Scriptures and liturgical texts. The bishops' statement says that the new translations are required because of "a change taking place in the English language."

Meeting in Whangaparaoa, the New Zealand bishops announced that "when changing language begins to conceal the equal dignity of all persons or their equal belonging, this does need to be addressed." They indicated specifically that the use of terms such as "man" and "mankind" was not widely interpreted as excluding women.

The bishops' statement did not address the findings of a recent poll taken in the United States by this magazine, which showed that most Catholic Americans, at least, are indifferent if not hostile to the use of inclusive language.

The New Zealand bishops argued that inclusive language should not be interpreted as changing the sense of the Scriptures. "It is a matter of being faithful to them," they said; "When the text intends to include both men and women, then the translation should clearly do the same."

The Southern Pacific is not usually thought of as a stronghold of formal, traditional religion. But when plans were announced recently for a new, round-the-clock American religious TV channel, beamed at both America and Western Samoa, there was an immediate and strongly critical response from the National Council of Churches of the latter state, who fear that it could "brainwash," or at least, scandalize, what its secretary, Rev. Efepai Kolia describes as "conservative" Christians.

Western Samoa, once a protectorate of Germany, and then after World War I of New Zealand, became an independent state in 1961. It has an entirely Christian population, the major denominations being Congregational, Catholic and Methodist. According to the Rev. Kolia, the sight of foreign preachers who wear casual or unconventional clothes and who deliver their sermons to the accompaniment of flashing lights make him--and the older generations of Western Samoans, personally uncomfortable--although he does admit that "young people could be attracted" to new religious movements and style of worship. Recently, he said, he had asked Prime Minister Tofilau Eti Alesana, to ban new faiths from Western Samoa--only to be told that, as the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, this is impossible.

Uruguay's bishops have called on President Julio Maria Sanguinetti's government finally to reveal the fate of citizens who disappeared during the years of the country's military dictatorship, which lasted from 1973 to 1985.

"In accord with the Catholic Church's magisterium and our earlier statements, we reaffirm the right of the relatives of the missing to acknowledge their loved ones' location in order to give them a Christian burial," the bishops said in a statement. The document was released amid a debate which began when Senator Rafael Michelini denounced the existence of clandestine graves at two army bases.

"The national desire for social peace demands the avoidance of any step backward in our progress toward full national reconciliation," said the bishops. "So every act will have to work toward mutual forgiveness on the part of both the survivors and those who perpetrated this violence."

The bishops cited the Expiration Law--approved by the Uruguayan Parliament in 1986 and ratified three years later in a public referendum--which grants amnesty to soldiers involved in human-rights' violations. However, according to the Law, every case must be investigated and verified through the presidential office.

President Sanguinetti, like leading military officials, has said that the investigation into the fate of Uruguay's missing persons could provoke serious confrontations and that the issue was closed by the Expiration Law. During the military regime, around 150 Uruguayans disappeared.

More than 25,000 protesters demanding faster land reform in Brazil demonstrated in the capital following a months-long protest by 1,500 of their compatriots.

The members of the peasant-class Landless Movement (MST) called for an end to President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's market reforms and demanded the equitable redistribution of land. "Comrades, do not give in. We can still dream of a better future," MST leader Joao Pedro Stedile urged protestors.

The group has engaged in occupying unused farmland and then cultivating it, usually ending in armed conflict with powerful landowners and sympathetic police forces. Stedile said the squatting tactics would continue. "There will be more and more occupations. We don't expect the government to carry out a proper land reform program as an act of generosity," he said.

Cardoso defended his government's actions, saying that he is doing as much as he can to bring about reform. "In my government I have settled more people than in any other period of Brazilian history. We have disappropriated 3.4 million hectares; that's the size of Belgium," the president said in an interview with Globo television.

Brazil's bishops joined in the condemnation of Cardoso's economic policies. "The impoverishment of the people cannot be accepted as the inevitable price of economic development," Brazil's National Bishops Conference (CNBB) said in a statement.

However, the bishops took pains to distance themselves from public remarks in which Leonardo Boff, the former priest and noted exponent of liberation theology, had argued that land-reform activists in Brazil are "today's people of Israel on their pilgrimage out of Egypt."

Bishop Dadeus Grings of San Joao de Boavista, Brazil, a member of the Brazilian bishops' committee on doctrine, noted that such language can be used "only in a very loose, metaphorical sense." While "we all agree that landless peasants have the right to a piece of land," he continued, "we make a clear distinction between the history of salvation and current events."

Catholic education could be totally suppressed in Brazilian public schools if the government approves a proposed law presented by the government of president Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Traditionally, Catholic education was mandatory in all public schools unless parents requested exemption for their children. Last December, the government approved a new law which made Catholic education "non mandatory"--which in practice meant that Catholic religion would be taught, but there would be no grades given for the subject. At that time Cardinal Lucas Moreira Neves, president of the Brazilian bishops' conference, said that "the law was already respectful to non Catholics, but by taking Catholic religion out of the scoring system it sends a clear message to students: 'religion is irrelevant'."

In April, the government presented to Congress a law that would definitively suspend Catholic education and replace it by "ecumenical education," which is described as "a knowledge that promotes religious sensibility in respect to different cultures." The proposal suggests that each Brazilian state would determine the contents of the curriculum as well as the number of school hours and the criteria for recruiting teachers.

According to Cardinal Moreira Neves "the project is totally absurd, since the large majority of parents with their children in public schools prefer specifically Catholic education." The cardinal also said that by leaving the decision to determine the contents to the education board in each state, "we are breaking the unity and continuity in the teaching of a matter that constitutes the heart of Brazilian identity."

A Brazilian court on April 29 sentenced a televangelist to two years in prison for kicking a statue of Our Lady of Aparecida during a broadcast in 1995.

Sergio von Helde of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God was found guilty of public disrespect for a religious symbol. The Virgin Mary as Our Lady of Aparecida is Brazil's patron saint. Von Helde said he kicked the statue during a sermon on October 12, 1995 to show that it "had no power." His actions outraged the nation and Edir Macedo, founder of the Universal Church, apologized for von Helde's behavior.

Archbishop Fernando Saenz Lacalle of San Salvador has said that membership in Protestant sects is steadily decreasing after a period of expansion.

"Recent independent reports confirm that fundamentalist groups, after their explosive expansion during the 1980s, are now decreasing," said Archbishop Lacalle, who added that during the first five years of this decade Evangelical groups did not experience any growth.

The archbishop said that fundamentalist groups "had an important impact in regions in which the Catholic Church was not present" to the extent that the Evangelical population in the country rose to include 17.8 percent of the population. "New reports show that they are now decreasing--I believe because they propose a pessimistic view of life in the world, a rigid moralism, and an isolationist attitude toward other groups," the archbishop said. He added that a new challenge for the Catholic Church is secularization; according to the

study from the Central American University, 23.2 percent of Salvadorans claim to have "no religion."

The president of the Latin American Bishops Council (CELAM) lamented US immigration policies in an April speech, saying: "We are not angry, we can only feel sad with this demonstration of nationalistic egoism."

In a ceremony commemorating the 200th anniversary of the arrival of Africans in Honduras, Archbishop Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, said: "we are also extremely worried because of the burst of racism against immigrants in the US."

"Immigration is neither an evil nor a menace to a country's stability, because it is simplistic to say that immigrants jeopardize jobs for the locals," the archbishop said. He pointed out that the US is preparing to expel immigrants at a moment in which economic signs show that unemployment is decreasing. "It is clear that Hispanics are not a problem and is also easy to demonstrate that they also bring wealth to the US economy and culture," Archbishop Rodriguez said.

The president of CELAM said that new US policies will provoke new problems in Latin America. In fact, countries such as El Salvador and Nicaragua receive between 2 to 5 percent of their foreign currency in money sent by immigrants to their families. "It is clear that cutting this flow will deeply affect the region's economy, while it will bring no evident benefit to the United States," Archbishop Rodriguez concluded.

The Mexican government on May 1 expelled 12 foreigners who were living in the country on tourist visas, because immigration officials said they engaged in political activities by aiding rebels in the state of Chiapas.

The 12 people, including five Catholic priests and several human-rights workers, were given two days to leave the country--or, in the case of several who were not in Mexico at the time, told that they would not be allowed to re-enter.

Officials accused the group of having participated in a protest march by Indians demanding release of prisoners. The government has become suspicious of foreign activity in Chiapas since a rebel uprising on New Year's Day, 1994. Mexico's constitution strictly forbids political activity by foreigners with any type of visa.

A Boston girl has been acknowledged as the recipient of a miraculous healing which advanced the cause of canonization for a Polish nun who died in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Teresa Benedicta McCarthy--who was named for Sister Teresa Benedicta, the name Edith Stein took when she entered the Carmelite order--was not expected to survive an accidental overdose of Tylenol when she 2-1/2-years-old in 1987. Even if she survived, doctors said she had suffered irreversible kidney and liver damage.

Teresa's father, a Melkite-rite Catholic priest, prayed to Blessed Edith for his daughter's healing and attribute the results to her intercession. "The choices are either it's an accident or purposeful--there's nothing in between," said Father Emmanuel Charles McCarthy. "And our position is that this is not an accident, that it is purposeful and it is within the providence of God."

"I think it was miraculous that she recovered," said Teresa's doctor, Dr. Robert Kleinman of Massachusetts General Hospital, who testified before a Vatican commission. "I think you have to be humble. We do our best and in spite of that some children die. But when they turn around, I think you have to acknowledge that there are other forces in play there that are beyond what we're capable of doing."

The Vatican announced April 8 that Pope John Paul II had officially recognized the miracle, the final step before canonization for Blessed Teresa Benedicta Edith Stein, a noted student of philosophy who was born in Poland and converted from Judaism in 1933. She was imprisoned in Auschwitz by Nazis for her Jewish heritage and died on August 8,1942.

The Alabama judge who ordered a colleague to remove a plaque of the Ten Commandments from his courtroom was named the winner of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.

Judge Charles Price ordered Judge Ray Moore to remove the plaque and to stop praying before court sessions, but his decision was soon opposed by many prominent Americans. Alabama Governor Fob James declared that he would send in the National Guard to prevent anyone from removing the plaque, and Judge Moore is appealing the decision to higher courts.

"Though he may have been vilified by many of his constituents as being anti-religion, Judge Price has in fact made a heroic stance to defend our country's proud history of religious tolerance and diversity," said Caroline Kennedy, the late president's daughter, in a statement announcing the $25,000 award.

Just days earlier, between 20,000 and 25,000 protesters, including Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, Governor James, and former presidential candidate Alan Keyes rallied in support of Moore. The Profile in Courage Award, named after the John F. Kennedy's 1957 Pulitzer prize-winning book, is presented annually to public officials who, in the opinion of the Kennedy Foundation, withstood opposition from constituents in order to express their beliefs.

Masons honor Bernardin

The Fraternal Order of Masons has presented a posthumous award to Chicago's late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, citing the prelate as ""a man who removed barriers and built bridges of understanding and tolerance." The cardinal's sister, Elaine Addison, accepted the award in a Chicago ceremony.

Catholics have always been forbidden to accept membership in Masonic societies, whose beliefs conflict with the teachings of the Church. Several popes have condemned freemasonry, and at least one American bishop--Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska--has recently reiterated the traditional teaching that membership in a Masonic lodge is punishable by excommunication. Nevertheless, before his death Cardinal Bernardin agreed to accept the award as a sign of his commitment to dialogue.

Masonic leader Howard Graff of Illinois, who said he was a longtime admirer of the cardinal, reports that he had petitioned the Grand Orient for permission to bestow the award--the Masonic Order of Galileo Galilei--on Cardinal Bernardin. Previous recipients of the award have included the Dalai Lama and President Bill Clinton.

The publishing company, Simon & Schuster, will recall 4,000 copies of a children's book because it portrays the prophet Muhammed in a negative light.

The book, Great Lives: World Religions, contains biographies of 32 religious figures, including Buddha, Moses, Jesus, St. Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mother Teresa. Although author William Jay Jacobs paints most in a sympathetic or neutral light, the biography of Muhammed said he "loved beautiful women, fine perfume and tasty food ... took pleasure in seeing the heads of his enemies torn from their bodies by the swords of his soldiers" and "hated Christians and Jews, poets and painters, and anyone who criticized him."

The publisher was contacted by the Council on Islamic-American Relations with a complaint after a Moslem child brought the book home from a library. Simon & Schuster issued a letter of apology to the council and pointed out the book had originally been published by MacMillan Company, which it acquired in 1994.