On this, that and the other

This week we decided to take a different approach. Why not a roving commentary on several items instead of one long piece on one particular topic? So here we go.

News is about what is not common. If that is correct, then the canonical notification by an American bishop taking disciplinary action against Catholic politicians who support the "culture of death" is news indeed.

Archbishop Raymond L. Burke has formally notified Catholic lawmakers in the La Crosse diocese that they cannot receive Communion if they continue to support procured abortion or euthanasia. The four-paragraph canonical notification, published in The Catholic Times, the La Crosse diocesan newspaper, on January 8, called on Catholic legislators in the diocese "to hold the natural and divine law regarding the inviolable dignity of all human life".

A ten-page pastoral letter addressed to the Catholics of his diocese accompanied the notification. "To fail to do so is a grave public sin and gives scandal to all the faithful," it said. This follows the statement made in California by Bishop William K. Weigand, who told a governor that he was endangering his soul, and should not receive Communion while he persists in this grave public sin by favouring abortion.

In Massachusetts, Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley took the position that a pro-abortion politician should not receive Communion, but would not be barred from doing so.

Bishop Burke's canonical decree applies only to his diocese of La Crosse. But presumably he will take the same policy with him to his new assignment as Archbishop of St Louis - a post he assumes on January 26.

In the pastoral letter, titled "On the Dignity of Human Life and Civic Responsibility", Archbishop Burke said many Catholics misunderstand the concept of "separation of Church and state", taking it to mean that Church teachings have no application to political life. The letter affirms, on the contrary, that Catholics have the obligation to form their political judgments from Church teachings, "especially in what pertains to the natural moral law, that is, the order established by God in creation".

"If the Catholic Church insisted to legislators that they vote for laws that punish people who steal, no-one would find anything objectionable in that," the archbishop said in the document. "People all recognise that to take someone else's property is a crime. Natural law teaches us that. So it also teaches that human life is inviolable."

(The pastoral letter and the notification are posted on the Website of the diocese of La Crosse: www.dioceseoflacrosse.com.)

A piece of disquieting news came from Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran who says Christians are considered as second-class citizens in Muslim countries. The former 'foreign minister' of the Vatican (who resigned from the post recently for health reasons) said recently that Christians in Muslim countries are treated much more harshly than Muslims in Christian countries and that peaceful coexistence between the two religions was "an enormous task".

Cardinal Tauran told the French Catholic newspaper La Croix that Christians and Muslims will have to work hard to learn to live together in mutual tolerance, voicing a new Vatican concern about relations with Muslims. "There are too many majority Muslim countries where non-Muslims are second-class citizens," he said, noting Saudi Arabia as an extreme case where churches are banned and celebrating Mass is forbidden, even in private homes.

"Just like Muslims can build their houses of prayer anywhere in the world, the faithful of other religions should be able to do so as well," the cardinal said.

Cardinal Tauran's comments make one pause and reflect. It is essential that human rights are respected everywhere. In the case of religious belief and practice the disregard for the human rights of others is a travesty of religion. One hopes that more moderate Muslims will put their pressure so that the situation referred to by the cardinal will slowly be rectified.

A variation on the same tune is the controversy now raging in different European countries about religious symbols in public places. We remind our readers that we had a similar controversy years ago under the Dom Mintoff government. We were then discussing whether crucifixes should be removed from government offices.

The controversy was sparked off in France because of the use of veils by Muslim women. President Jacques Chirac has recently taken a position in favour of the removal of religious symbols from schools and public places. The ban would adversely affect the wearing of veils by Muslims in schools and the use of large crucifixes. French Church leaders have criticised a similar law in their country, saying a proposed ban on religious symbols in state schools risked infringing human rights. The controversy had a kind of resonance in Germany where some politicians were taking a position similar to that of President Chirac.

German Church leaders are cautioning against calls to ban religious symbols from public schools following a similar move in neighbouring France. Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne said that "Christianity isn't a private affair - it's the most public thing in the world. Twentieth-century history shows what tragic consequences threaten the world when God becomes a private matter."

The German states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg have introduced legislation to ban Muslim veils, but not Christian or Jewish symbols, from state schools after accepting claims that the headscarf is used politically.

President Johannes Rau called for legislators to extend a proposed ban of Muslim veils to Christian crosses and Jewish skullcaps. Supporters of the ban, which is being considered by five other states, said new legislation was needed after a September ruling by Germany's Supreme Court that a Muslim teacher had been wrongly barred from wearing the veil.

Cardinal Meisner said religious faith was needed to "save humanity from tyranny" and should be publicly expressed. "Where God is no longer present, human beings take His place and become absolutes for themselves," the cardinal said.

President Rau's remarks were questioned by German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and dean of the College of Cardinals, who cautioned that a ban would "not serve peaceful coexistence of citizens or the cause of tolerance".

"I wouldn't bar any Muslim from wearing a veil - but even less can we accept that anyone should prohibit us from carrying the cross," he said.

On a more positive note we refer our readers to a significant development in China. A new bishop has been ordained in China, with the Beijing government grudgingly accepting the Vatican's choice. Bishop Peter Feng Xinmao was ordained on January 6 as coadjutor bishop of the Hengshui diocese in Hebei province, the Asia News service reported. Bishop Feng is the first bishop ordained in China since the government-sponsored Catholic Patriotic Association ordained new bishops, without Vatican approval, in January 2000.

Perhaps this is a sign of thawing relations between the Catholic Church and the country with the world's largest population. We will keep our fingers crossed.