c. 2007 Religion News Service

Pope Unharmed as Man Jumps Barricade in St. Peter’s Square

VATICAN CITY (RNS) A 27-year-old German man jumped a barricade and briefly touched a vehicle carrying Pope Benedict XVI through St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday (June 6).

The unidentified man, wearing a red T-shirt, beige baseball cap and sunglasses, was one of an estimated 40,000 people gathered in the square for the pope’s weekly Wednesday audience.

As Benedict rode past him in the open-topped white jeep known as “the popemobile,” the man jumped the wooden barrier holding back spectators and tried to mount the vehicle. He managed to touch the popemobile briefly before bodyguards wrestled him to the ground. The pope appeared not to notice the disturbance behind him.

A spokesman told reporters that the man was then interrogated by a Vatican judge and admitted for “obligatory treatment” at an unnamed psychiatric treatment facility.

“The intention of the young man was not to threaten the pope’s life but to perform a demonstrative act to attract attention to himself,” said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office.

Lombardi referred to “clear signs of mental imbalance” and said that the case was “to be considered closed.”

The incident is likely to prompt questions about security measures taken to protect the pope in the 26 years since Mehmet Ali Agca shot and gravely wounded John Paul II on May 13, 1981. That attempted assassination also took place as the pope rode through St. Peter’s Square in the popemobile.

The modified jeep is usually covered with a bulletproof glass top when the pope rides in it outside Vatican territory.

Concerns about terrorism have inspired heightened security at the Vatican in recent years. It is now necessary to walk past police and in some cases to pass through metal detectors in order to enter St. Peter’s Square.

_ Francis X. Rocca

Bishops, ACLU Plead for Two Deportees

WASHINGTON (RNS) U.S. Catholic bishops and the American Civil Liberties Union are separately lobbying immigration officials on behalf of two men, saying they could be killed or tortured if they are returned to their home countries.

Mohuiddin A.K.M. Ahmed will almost certainly face the death penalty if he’s returned to Bangladesh, wrote Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando, Fla., in a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Known as Din Ahmed, the former Bangladeshi diplomat was accused in 1996 of participating in the murder of Bangladesh’s prime minister during a coup in 1975, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Din Ahmed denies the charges and has remained in California while unsuccessfully applying for asylum in the U.S., the bishops said.

Deporting Din Ahmed would be a “miscarriage of justice,” wrote Wenski, who is chairman of the bishops’ international policy committee. “The Catholic Church rejects the use of the death penalty because there are alternative means of protecting society. Out of our respect for the sanctity of life, I ask that Mr. Din Ahmed not be deported.”

Separately, a number of human rights groups, including the ACLU, have asked the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to allow a Coptic Christian man to remain in the U.S. for fear that he will be tortured if sent back to Egypt.

Sameh Khouzam, 38, has said that he was tortured and detained in Egypt because he refused to convert to Islam. After Khouzam fled to the U.S. in 1998,an Egyptian court found him guilty of murder.

Egypt has assured the U.S. that Khouzam will not be tortured if he is sent back to the African nation. But Egypt’s history of torture throws that claim into question, said the ACLU.

“The Egyptian diplomats can cross their fingers and say they won’t torture again, but their full torture chambers tell the real story,” said Christopher Anders, ACLU’s legislative counsel.

_ Daniel Burke

Pope Appoints Deputy to Bishop Who Battled Depression

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI has named a top Vatican official to assist Vancouver Archbishop Raymond Roussin, who has been engaged in a high-profile battle with clinical depression.

The appointment is raising speculation that Roussin may go into early retirement and Vancouver’s large, multiethnic archdiocese will soon gain a larger profile in the global Roman Catholic Church.

The pontiff named Archbishop Michael Miller, head of the influential Congregation for Catholic Education since 2004, to serve as “coadjutor” archbishop.

Coadjutor bishops such as Miller, 60, have the right of succession upon the death or retirement of a diocesan bishop, usually at age 75. Roussin, whose story about his battle with depression made international headlines in February, turns 68 this month.

Roussin was away on a retreat and unavailable for comment. Archdiocese spokesman Paul Schratz acknowledged he was not exactly sure why the Vatican named Miller as coadjutor archbishop for Vancouver.

“Rome would certainly be aware of what the archbishop went through a few years ago. In fact, however, he considers himself fully recovered from the depression. Generally, he’s in good health,” Schratz said.

David Gibson, author of two best-selling books on Roman Catholicism, including “The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle With the Modern World,” said, “With the arrival of Archbishop Miller in Vancouver, Western Canada will get a `player’ in church terms.”

With demographic trends shifting away from the old Catholic strongholds in the eastern half of North America, Gibson said “it can’t be too long before British Columbia gets its first cardinal, and Michael Miller would be an ideal candidate.”

Miller was raised in Canada but became an American citizen in 2002. He made international headlines in 2005 when his Vatican office issued a directive barring men with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” from entering the priesthood.

_ Douglas Todd

Quote of the Day: Faith and Action President Rob Schenck

(RNS) “The Sojourners group last night and CNN conspired to create a fictional class of Christians, the so-called liberal evangelicals, but that’s an oxymoron. It’s self-contradictory.”

_ The Rev. Rob Schenck, president of Faith and Action, a Washington-based Christian outreach to public officials, speaking Tuesday (June 5), a day after Sojourners/Call to Renewal held a televised forum with three Democratic presidential candidates.

KRE/PH END RNS