News Briefs

Catholics Asked Whether Holy Days Should Be Optional

SYDNEY, Australia - Holy Days of Obligation may be on the way out in Australia.

A survey prompted by the Australian Bishops' Conference invites Catholics to state whether they feel Mass attendance on these days should be obligatory (as at present) or optional.

Those who respond "optional" are asked to state whether they would be more likely, or less likely, to attend than at present.

This is followed by the question: If attendance remains obligatory, should Days of Obligation be transferred from a weekday to a Sunday? If this were done, it might be argued that they would cease, in effect, to be a special day.

Survey forms were sent to all Sydney parishes last month. Father John Sullivan, secretary to Archbishop Edward Cancy, said the purpose of the survey was to see "which way the wind is blowing." The response would probably be examined at a future meeting of the bishops, probably in November.

Italian Ex-Priests Vow Fight For Married Clergy

ROME (RNS) - Married Italian Catholic priests fighting for an end to the rule of celibacy plan to host an international synod of married clergymen in Rome next summer, and put new pressure on the Church of Pope John Paul II.

Vocatio, a small but vocal organization whose 2,000 members include 700 married Italian priests, said it will invite priests from countries around the world to the synod August 26-30, 1985.

Italy has an estimated total of nearly 10,000 married priests. "It is time to launch a counter attack," said Piero Barbaini Di Sant'Angelo Lodigiani, a leader of Vocatio and a priest who married shortly after the Second Vatican Council.

Another clergyman compared "the violence of the church system that alienates married priests" to the brutality of totalitarian regimes. He also denounced the church's failure to grant dispensation to priests wanting to marry. The number of dispensations granted dropped following the election in 1978 of Pope John Paul. Shortly after taking power, the Polish-born pontiff sought to stop a rising loss of priests by blocking all action on dispensation requests. Action was resumed in 1981, but petitioners are still forced to wait many years for a response. In Italy, there are an estimated 5,700 priests waiting for an answer to their requests for dispensation from their vows of celibacy.

Vocatio has also voiced support for Brazilian theologist, Father Leonardo Boff, who appeared before a Vatican Commission September 7th, to defend his views on liberation theology, a marxist-oriented doctrine strongly criticized by the Vatican in a document it issued September 3rd.

"At this moment, the burning theme of liberation theology also involves us," the Vocatio statement said. "With joy, we have watched the church in Brazil, united and courageous, defend in the person of Leonardo Boff, the experience of communitarian life and the theology that results from it."

Number Of Roman Catholic Priests Continued Decline In 1982

VATICAN CITY (RNS) - The number of Roman Catholic priests, worldwide continued to drop in 1982, with deaths and defections outnumbering ordinations of new priests, according to Church statistics.

An annotated summary of 1982 statistics, issued September 10, said the number of priests worldwide dropped from 411,329 at the end of 1981, to 408,945 a year later.

Ordinations in 1982 totaled 5,957 compared to 7,115 deaths and 1,226 defections.

Suit Opposing Ambassador To Vatican Filed In Philadelphia

WASHINGTON (RNS) - More than 15 national church organizations have gone to court to put an end to U.S. diplomatic relations with the Vatican.

"There has been a rising concern in the religious community about the appointment" of a U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, said Robert Maddox, president of Americans United for Separation of Church & State, which led the groups in filing the suit in a Philadelphia federal court.

Among the religious bodies were the two major umbrella groups of American Protestantism— the National Council of Churches and the National Association of Evangelicals. They charged that U.S. diplomatic recognition of the Vatican violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

Joining in the legal challenge were two small Catholic groups—the National Association of Laity and the National Coalition of American Nuns. Mr. Maddox said these groups feared U.S. "intervention" into the affairs of the Catholic Church and felt "their own input into their church has been reduced by the exchange of ambassadors."

Protestant leaders were concerned that the Catholic Church would have undue leverage with the U.S. in pursuing such causes as opposition to abortion and international population-control aid.

Catholic Research Center Distributes Statement On Abortion

WASHINGTON (RNS) - A prestigious Catholic medical ethics research center, which normally keeps a low profile outside the Church, has plunged into the national debate over religion and abortion.

Every member of Congress, every American Catholic bishop, and the governors of the fifty states have received copies of a long statement on "Catholic Teaching on Abortion and Secular Society," issued by the Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research and Education Center in St. Louis.

The Center, which usually limits its contacts to within the Church, decided to make wide distribution of the statement because of current "confusion about what the Church teaching on abortion is," said the Rev. Larry Lassing.

The statement says that it is not enough for Catholics to say that their religion prevents them from having abortions.

"Every Catholic is obliged in conscience not only to oppose abortion as a personal decision, but also to oppose its practice in society," the Center said, adding that "to approve public funding (of abortion) is to cooperate directing with the doing of abortion."

This is because, according to the statement, Church teaching views abortion as not "merely" a violation of personal religious beliefs, but as a "violation of the basic human right to life."

Therefore, it said, "This firm Catholic teaching on abortion does not merely support the right to life of the unborn children of Catholic parents. It supports the basic human rights of all unborn human beings from fertilization onward."

At the same time, the statement acknowledged that "sincere public officials may disagree with" efforts to pass a constitutional amendment limiting or banning abortion. But, it added that the "onus falls upon them to find other ways of protecting the unborn."

Answering a question on the matter, Father Lassing said the statement was, in part, a response to comments by New York Governor Mario Cuomo, Democratic vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, and Catholic theologians who are "pro-choice" on abortion and have received extensive media coverage.

Mr. Cuomo said in August that, on the matter of abortion, Catholics are faithful to Church teaching as long as they do not have abortions themselves.

Miss Ferraro has said that she is personally opposed to abortion, but could not impose that religious belief on others who do not share her faith.

The Pope John XXIII Center was founded by individual Catholic bishops, theologians and Catholic health-care providers 10 years ago, as a forum to express Church teaching on issues ranging from abortion to infanticide and euthanasia.

Cardinal Slipyj Used Will For Final Attack On Soviets

ROME (RNS) - The late Ukrainian Cardinal Joseph Slipyj, a foremost enemy of communist regimes in recent decades, used his last will and testament to launch a final attack on Soviet authorities.

In a special testament message addressed to Ukrainian Catholics worldwide, Cardinal Slipyj recalled how he suffered at the hands of the Soviets during 18 years of imprisonment.

The prelate, who died in Rome September 7, at the age of 92, worked in his native Ukraine until 1945, when communist authorities imprisoned him for unspecified crimes. Pope Paul VI obtained his release and moved him to Rome in 1963, where the cardinal continued to criticize communism, often being too outspoken for the Vatican hierarchy's tastes.

In the testament message, Cardinal Slipyj remembers his "arrest by night, the secret accusations, the indiscreet questions and suspicions, the perfidious spies and the judges before whom I was brought as a defenseless galley-slave-prisoner, a mute witness of the Church."

He recalled how he came "face-to-face with death, in Siberia, in unbearable climatic conditions in the most terrible of death camps" and prayed "the celestial Queen Mother of God to give her powerful protection to our Church and people."

The prelate's views and frequent attacks on the Soviet government caused considerable embarrassment to Vatican diplomats seeking dialogue with East Bloc regimes. Cardinal Slipyj's view was that the Church should refuse all contact with communist leaders.