c. 2005 Religion News Service
Pope Will Give Sunday Blessing From Hospital Window
VATICAN CITY (RNS) An aide will lead Sunday prayers at the Vatican again this weekend, but Pope John Paul II will give a silent blessing from the window of his hospital room, papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said Friday (March 4).
“The Angelus will be like last Sunday. The pope will participate, giving the blessing with his hand,” the spokesman said.
Navarro-Valls talked briefly to reporters after making his daily visit to John Paul in the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic hospital where the pope underwent surgery on Feb. 24 to ease severe breathing problems caused by influenza. Doctors inserted a breathing tube in his throat to bypass his swollen larynx.
The next full medical bulletin is scheduled for Monday, but the spokesman, who has a medical degree, said that John Paul’s daily exercises to rehabilitate his breathing and speaking “continue well.”
It was reported earlier in the week that the pope can speak briefly in a strong voice and that he has resumed work with aides in his hospital room. At his request, he is wheeled into a small private chapel in his hospital suite twice a day to pray.
The 84-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff spent nine days in the hospital in early February after suffering his first breathing crisis. Discharged on Feb. 10, he was rushed back a week later when he suffered a relapse.
Last Sunday, John Paul had been scheduled simply to watch Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, deputy secretary of state, on television as the prelate led prayers and read a prepared papal message from the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica. But in a surprise move, the pope appeared at his closed, 10th floor window to make a gesture of blessing.
_ Peggy Polk
Catholics and Politicians Lambast Newspaper’s Jokes About Pope’s Death
(RNS) An off-color column in a Manhattan newspaper that lists the “52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope” has been lambasted as “disgusting” by New York politicians and Catholic leaders.
The column, by New York Press writer Matt Taibbi, pokes fun at Pope John Paul II’s illness. It imagines, among other things, the pope’s thoughts after death and the decomposition of his body.
“Beetles eating pope’s dead brains” is listed as No. 46. “Upon death, pope’s face frozen in sickening smile, eyes wide open and teeth exposed, like a baboon” is listed as No. 47.
John Paul, 84, remains hospitalized after an emergency tracheotomy on Feb. 24 to help him breath. The ailing pontiff, who suffers from Parkinson’s Disease, has been fighting off the flu since Feb. 1.
Taibbi’s column was called “the most disgusting thing I’ve seen in 30 years of public life” by Sen. Charles Schumer, according to the New York Daily News. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton called it “outrageously offensive.”
“As disgusting as this is, it’s sadly par for the course for this publication,” a spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the Daily News’ gossip columnist, Lloyd Grove.
Grove called the free weekly “a handout that is best used to line birdcages.” The paper’s editor in chief, Jeff Koyen, did not return phone calls for comment.
Bill Donohue, the president of the New York-based Catholic League, called the list “crude and vulgar.” The pope is “the one man whose commitment to the truth has literally driven them over the edge,” Donohue said in a statement.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Lay Catholics Urged to Demand Accountability in Sex Abuse Scandal
CLEVELAND (RNS) It is now up to average Catholics to hold their church accountable to protect children from sexual abuse, says a former head of the national lay review board monitoring the church’s response to the sex abuse scandal.
“Raise some hell. . . . Be vigilant. Be outspoken. And demand transparency,” Illinois Appellate Justice Anne Burke said in an impassioned appeal to members of a national lay reform group on Wednesday (March 2). “No more passive Catholics. That is my mantra now.”
Following her own advice, Burke has not slipped quietly away since her term on the lay review board appointed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops ended last November. A member of the review board from its inception in June 2002, Burke is continuing her clarion call for lay oversight in public lectures such as her recent talk at St. Joseph Center in Cleveland. The lecture was sponsored by FutureChurch, a national independent lay Catholic advocacy group based in Cleveland.
In an earlier interview and in her speech, Burke said some bishops want to see the church’s charter for protecting young people “die a quick death,” and there already have been efforts to stop the annual national audits of each diocese’s compliance with the document.
Some bishops still give more support to offending priests than victims, she said, posing a serious danger to the “zero tolerance” policy prohibiting abusive priests from returning to ministry. Burke said some bishops even proposed replacing the word “victim” with the word “accuser” in the charter.
She appealed to lay Catholics to demand safe environments free of known abusers.
“The church needs to be reborn, and it needs the heroic service of the laity in our nation to do it,” Burke said.
_ David Briggs
`Elder Statesman’ of Jewish Republicans Dies at 96
(RNS) Max Fisher, a Jewish leader and philanthropist who advised every Republican president since Dwight D. Eisenhower, died Thursday (March 3) in Detroit. He was 96.
For a half century, Fisher was a major figure in American Jewish philanthropy, leading, at different times, the American Jewish Committee, B’nai B’rith International, the United Jewish Appeal, the United Israel Appeal and the Council of Jewish Federations, the latter three merging in 1999 to form the United Jewish Communities (UJC).
“In the world of Jewish volunteer leaders, Max Fisher was a giant,” said Howard Rieger, who is the president and chief executive officer of UJC, in a statement.
“He was known to all, whether heads of state in Israel or the United States, or the leadership of the Jewish and general communities in the United States, as a prime mover _ as someone who made things happen,” Rieger said.
Fisher was politically active, founding the Republican Jewish Coalition and advising U.S. presidents and Israeli prime ministers on issues ranging from the Six-Day War to the plight of Ethiopian Jews. He also successfully urged the United States to airlift arms to Israel during the Yom Kippur war in 1973.
Fisher, who had recently financed the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Max M. Fisher Music Center, earned his wealth in the oil business and in real estate.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Moscow Lawmakers Seek Ban on Occult Activities
(RNS) Moscow city lawmakers are calling on the Russian government to impose a ban on fortune tellers, magicians, witches and others who offer occult services. But some Russian experts in the United States are concerned that the measure may limit religious freedom.
The Moscow city government health commission has sent a draft law to national legislators that would criminalize uncertified individuals who sell medical or psychological advice to customers, reported MosNews, a Russian online newspaper. Lawmakers say the law will target occult services, which they consider a threat to consumer health.
A 1993 law in Russia banned mass healing _ particularly healers claiming they could cure individuals through television and radio broadcasts. The current draft law would amend the 1993 law to ban all occult activities and fine violators.
More than 100,000 occult service providers currently work in Russia, according to unofficial estimates cited by Novosti, the Russian News and Information Agency.
“This phenomenon is definitely widespread and popular,” said Vera Shevzov, professor of religion at Northampton, Mass.-based Smith College, who has traveled to Russia to study the religious landscape.
Lawrence Uzzell, president of the Fisherville, Va.-based International Religious Freedom Watch said the Moscow officials’ effort is one of several proposals for national legislation in Russia limiting non-traditional religious practice.
“If you’re not careful how you draft a law you can end up affecting all kinds of respected religious traditions involving prayer and healing,” said Uzzell, who lived in Moscow in the early 1990s.
A 1997 law _ supported by the Russian Orthodox Church _ banned religious organizations not registered with the government that have practiced in the country fewer than 15 years.
British Muslims Object to Comment on Stops and Searches by Police
LONDON (RNS) A British government official has angered Muslims by saying they are more likely than others to be stopped and searched by the police.
Laws designed to combat Islamic terrorism mean that a disproportionate number of innocent Muslims are likely to be targeted by police, said Home Office Minister Hazel Blears, who is responsible for crime reduction, policing and community safety.
“The threat is most likely to come from those people associated with an extreme form of Islam, or who are falsely hiding behind Islam,” she told a House of Commons committee on Tuesday (March 2). “It means that some of our counter-terrorism powers will be disproportionately experienced by the Muslim community.
“I think that is the reality, and I think we should recognize that. If a threat is from a particular place, then our action is going to be targeted at that area.”
Describing her remarks as “certainly offensive,” Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, asked what these police powers had achieved. Home Office figures showed that, of 700 people arrested on suspicion of terrorist activities since Sept. 11, 2001, only 17 had been convicted, and the majority of these were not Muslims.
Earlier he told The Guardian newspaper: “It is wholly unacceptable if a government minister is using her office to scaremonger at the expense of our community to ease the passage of legislation designed to curb our civil liberties.”
Blears’ remarks were described as “outrageous” and “irresponsible” by the chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, Massoud Shadjareh, who told The Independent: “She is demonizing and alienating our community.”
Ihtisham Hibalullah, for the Muslim Association of Britain, said Muslims were very alarmed. “The Muslim community is constantly being asked to help harmonize relationships within society, and we strive towards this.
“But how can it possibly help when the government admits that Muslims are being targeted?”
_ Robert Nowell
Quote of the Day: Crisis Magazine Editor Brian Saint-Paul
(RNS) “While it’s tempting to ask God to give the Holy Father a few more years with us, it seems to me a bit wrongheaded. God is sovereign and knows best what his church (and the world) needs. Let us then trust him, and ask that his will be done, and that we all have the grace to accept it.”
_ Brian Saint-Paul, the editor of Crisis magazine, writing about Pope John Paul II’s declining health.
MO/JL RNS END
