c. 2007 Religion News Service
Pope Urges Iranian Cooperation Over Nuclear Stalemate
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI pressed Iran on Monday (Jan. 8) to address global concerns over its nuclear program, which he described as a source of rising tension in the Middle East.
In his annual address to the Holy See’s diplomatic corps, Benedict said turmoil in the Middle East was a source of “great anxiety” that could be stabilized “if a country like Iran, especially in relation to its nuclear program, agrees to give a satisfactory response to the legitimate concerns of the international community.”
Benedict’s appeal came after the U.N. Security Council passed a unanimous resolution in late December imposing trade sanctions on Iran and calling for a suspension of its uranium-enrichment program.
Iran’s cooperation with the international community, Benedict said, would “surely help to stabilize the whole region, especially Iraq, putting an end to the appalling violence which disfigures that country with bloodshed, and offering an opportunity to work for reconstruction and reconciliation between all its inhabitants.”
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has continued to resist international pressure, referring to the U.N. resolution as “trash paper.” In late December, Iran’s foreign minister met with Benedict at the Vatican and delivered a letter to the pontiff from Ahmadinejad that addressed the U.N. resolution.
The Vatican did not release any details on the content of the letter. But a statement from the Holy See press office said Benedict used the meeting to reaffirm “the role that the Holy See intends to carry out for world peace, not as a political authority but as a religious and moral one.”
The Vatican has recently clashed with Tehran over Ahmadinejad’s decision to host a conference of Holocaust deniers. Ahmadinejad has previously called for Israel to be “wiped off” the map.
_ Stacy Meichtry
Warsaw Archbishop Steps Down Over Cooperation With Secret Police
BERLIN (RNS) Instead of celebrating his appointment as archbishop of Warsaw on Sunday (Jan. 7), Stanislaw Wielgus gave up his office after confirming media reports that he had collaborated with Poland’s secret police in the 1960s and 1970s.
The special service had been planned to celebrate Wielgus’ official ascendancy to archbishop of Warsaw, the most important position in the Roman Catholic Church in Poland. Instead, in a hastily rescheduled service, Wielgus announced his resignation. Supporters shouted “No!” and “Scandal!” as the statement was read.
Cardinal Jozef Glemp, the former archbishop of Warsaw who will now resume those duties until another successor can be named, then delivered a homily on confessing sins, according to Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Southern German Newspaper).
The allegations have forced Polish Catholics to choose sides. Glemp argued for Wielgus to be allowed to continue in his new role, arguing that Wielgus was being judged “based on shreds of paper and copies of copies” and “without lawyers or witnesses.”
But Polish President Lech Kaczynski reportedly called the pope directly to argue that having a confessed informant as archbishop would harm both Poland and the church, especially since Poland’s favorite son, the late Pope John Paul II, worked hard to defeat communism.
Allegations that Wielgus cooperated with the secret police were first published in the anti-communist magazine Gazeta Polska, shortly after Pope Benedict XVI appointed Wielgus as archbishop of Warsaw. The issue largely simmered until Jan. 4, when more mainstream publications printed the allegations with quotes from government documents. Those allegations were later confirmed by government and church experts, although Wielgus denied them until Sunday.
According to the newspapers, Wielgus cooperated regularly with the SB, the Polish secret service, between 1968 and 1973, eventually suggesting other members of the Catholic Church to approach as potential informers. With the SB’s help, he traveled to Germany in 1973, apparently with directions to report on the activities of the Polish exile community in Germany.
It is unclear if Wielgus’ assistance led to the punishment of any dissidents.
_ Niels Sorrells
Former Imam at Largest Ohio Mosque Deported to Middle East
(RNS) The former leader of Ohio’s largest mosque has been deported to the Middle East, ending a nearly two-year battle to force Fawaz Damra out of the United States.
Damra, 46, flew with agents from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement from Detroit to Newark, N.J., to Amman, Jordan, said ICE spokesman Tim Counts.
“It happened Thursday (Jan. 4) morning about 4 or 5 a.m.,” Counts said Friday. “He was flown into Jordan and from there crossed the bridge into the Palestinian territories.”
Damra, the longtime leader of the Islamic Center of Cleveland, had agreed to be deported after a trial and conviction linking him to terrorist groups.
Friends and relatives said the suddenness of the departure surprised them, and they expressed alarm that they still had not heard from Damra by late Friday.
Nesreen Damra, Fawaz’s wife and mother of their three American-born children, declined to comment, but friends described her as anxious and distraught.
“For two, three days she didn’t know where her husband was. She still doesn’t know,” said Haider Alawan, an elder at the mosque in Parma, Ohio, and a friend of the Damra family’s. “Everything is running through her head. What do you do now?”
Damra was in jail in Michigan for more than a year as federal officials searched for a country willing to take him.
He had been convicted in June 2004 of lying on his citizenship application because he did not disclose his links to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist organizations.
At his trial in U.S. District Court, prosecutors played a video from 1991.
It showed Damra at a Muslim gathering in Cleveland, disparaging Jews in Arabic as “pigs and monkeys” and raising money for the killing of Jews by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Until the tape surfaced, Damra was often seen at public events with politicians and leaders of other faiths, including several prayer services after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“People make mistakes in their past, and they repent,” said Ahmad Al-Akhras, national vice president of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group. “He made a mistake. He asked people to forgive him.”
But others say Damra’s sins proved hard to forgive, no matter his religious or ethnic background.
“This was more than saying bad things. This was taking actions to essentially support terrorism,” said Alan Melamed, president of the Cleveland chapter of the American Jewish Committee, which enjoyed amiable relations with Damra before his past came to light.
_ Mike Tobin and Robert L. Smith
U.S. Episcopal Bishop Tapped to Lead Canadian Natives
TORONTO (RNS) Canada’s Anglican Church has appointed the Episcopal bishop of Alaska as its first national indigenous bishop who will minister to all of Canada’s native Anglicans, no matter where they live.
Bishop Mark MacDonald’s appointment to the newly created post is “an historic moment” for the church, said the Canadian Anglican primate, Archbishop Andrew Hutchison.
“This has been the fruit of our elders’ dreams,” said MacDonald, 54, who has worked with native peoples for nearly all his professional life. “It really signals a deeper and more important reality that is the recognition by a major denomination in North America … of the God-given character of aboriginal life and culture.”
MacDonald said he will concentrate on blending Christian theology with aboriginal spiritual beliefs. In fact, he foresees the emergence of a separate stream of native Christianity “that will not be a replication of the European church” and which has existed since the first aboriginal contacts with European clergy.
“There’s a lot out there already,” he said. “It’s a treasure that has been undervalued at best.”
Hutchison said MacDonald’s appointment is the culmination of a process that began in 2005 when indigenous Anglicans petitioned him for a national native bishop.
Observers say the move will allow greater self-determination for natives within the church, which has been rocked in recent years by revelations of abuse at church-run native residential schools.
MacDonald also said his task “is to midwife the creation of a native jurisdiction within the Canadian church. In my opinion, it is the most important work that anyone could do in the church at this day and hour. As many people have said, it will bring transformation to the whole church.”
While bishop of Alaska, MacDonald was a vocal opponent of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, partly because most of the native tribes living there are Episcopalians.
_ Ron Csillag
Quote of the Day: Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk
(RNS) “Ultimately, we depend on free-will offerings. If people don’t like the product, they are likely to be less generous. We have no power of compulsion.”
_ Roman Catholic Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk, talking to the Cincinnati Enquirer about his archdiocese’s debt and declining revenues.
KRE/PH END RNS
