c. 2007 Religion News Service

Vatican Clarifies Meeting With Controversial Polish Priest

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Responding to protests from Jewish groups in Europe and the United States, the Vatican on Thursday (August 9) issued a “clarification” regarding a meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and a Polish priest accused of anti-Semitic remarks.

Benedict met with the Rev. Tadeusz Rydzyk last Sunday (August 5) at the papal summer home, Castel Gandolfo, following the pope’s weekly Angelus prayer. Two days later, Polish newspapers published photos of the two together.

Rydzyk is founder of Radio Maryja, a Polish radio network with a Catholic and nationalist orientation and millions of listeners. Last month, a Polish magazine reported that Rydzyk had been recorded denouncing Jews and their influence on Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski. Rydzyk has said that he “didn’t intend to offend anyone.”

The papal meeting provoked denunciations from Jewish leaders on both sides of the Atlantic.

“You have unfortunately lent him the priceless credibility of your office and integrity in the eyes of the world,” wrote Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the New York-based Anti-Defamation League, in a letter to the pope. Radio Maryja “regularly broadcasts” anti-Semitic programming, Foxman wrote.

The European Jewish Congress declared itself “astonished by the fact that Pope Benedict XVI has granted with (sic) a private audience and his blessing (to) a man and an institution that have tarnished the image of the Polish church.”

In a one-sentence statement, the Vatican insisted that the pope’s meeting with Rydzyk “does not imply any change in the well-known position of the Holy See on relations between Catholics and Jews.”

In May of 2006, Benedict visited the former concentration camp at Auschwitz, Poland, where he denounced the “vicious criminals” who “wanted to crush the entire Jewish people.” On a trip to Austria next month, he is scheduled to visit a memorial to victims of the Nazi genocide in Vienna’s Jewish Square.

_ Francis X. Rocca

China Claims Control Over Reincarnated Buddhas

WASHINGTON (RNS) Against the backdrop of celebrations to mark the one-year countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government has angered religious freedom activists by attempting to assert greater influence over the successor to the Dalai Lama.

“The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” Beijing said in a 14-part order purporting to regulate the reincarnation of Tibet’s Buddhist leaders.

Tibetan Buddhists believe their lamas are reincarnated from departed lamas dating back to the 12th Century.

The Aug. 3 order implements a provision that was put in place as part of the Chinese government’s 2005 regulations on religion, said Scott Flipse, a senior policy analyst at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

“The system of reincarnation is one of the core beliefs of the Tibetan religious tradition,” said Kate Saunders, spokeswoman for the International Campaign for Tibet. “These new measures are nothing less than a violation of one of the fundamental tenets of Tibetan religious life. It is a source of deep resentment among Tibetans that an atheist state has claimed the legitimacy to preside over a centuries-old religious practice.”

This is not the first time the Chinese government has involved itself in the theology of reincarnation.

In 1995, Beijing rejected the Panchen Lama, believed to be the second-highest spiritual leader, chosen by the exiled Dalai Lama; Beijing later admitted to taking him away to an undisclosed location. The Chinese government then ordained its own Panchen Lama.

“What happened last time with the Panchen Lama is the catalyst for all of this,” Flipse said. “That’s why they have their own Panchen Lama, who will play an important role in selecting the next Dalai Lama.”

Flipse said the rules represent an attempt by the Chinese government to assert control over the search for the next Dalai Lama.

“The process cannot be influenced by any group or individual from outside the country,” the rules state, in a likely reference to comments that the present Dalai Lama had made about the possibility of finding a successor in India or elsewhere.

_ Jennifer Koons

Second Episcopal Bishop Leaves for Catholic Church

(RNS) The former Episcopal bishop of Fort Worth, Texas, has rejoined the Roman Catholic Church, becoming the second bishop this year to switch from Episcopalian to Catholic.

Clarence Pope, 76, bishop of Fort Worth from 1986 to 1995, also became Catholic upon his retirement 12 years ago, but he returned to the Episcopal Church later that year because he was reluctant to give up his episcopacy, according to Episcopal News Service.

Pope was restored to the Episcopal House of Bishops in August 1995, ENS reported.

Last March, Daniel W. Herzog, the Episcopal bishop of Albany from 1998 to January 2007, also announced his intentions to join the Catholic church. Herzog was an outspoken critic of the Episcopal Church’s liberal drift, especially its 2003 election of an openly gay bishop.

At the time, Herzog was just the third bishop since the Episcopal Church was founded in 1789 to convert to Roman Catholicism, according to ENS. Since January, five bishops, including Pope and Herzog, have resigned from the Episcopal Church. The other three left to join different Anglican churches.

_ Daniel Burke

Quote of the Day: Republican Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani

(RNS) “My religious affiliation, my religious practices and the degree to which I am a good or not so good Catholic, I prefer to leave to the priests. That would be a much better way to discuss it. That’s a personal discussion and they have a much better sense of how good a Catholic I am or how bad a Catholic I am.”

_ Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, addressing an Aug. 7 town-hall meeting in Iowa where he was asked if he considered himself a “traditional, practicing Roman Catholic.” He was quoted by The Associated Press.

KRE/CM END RNS