Church in the World

Pope deplores 'blind violence' of Morocco bombers

Rome

The Pope has condemned the suicide bomb attacks in the Moroccan city of Casablanca on 16 May in which 41 people were killed and some 100 wounded.

In a telegram sent by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State, to Archbishop Domenico De Luco, the Apostolic Nuncio to Morocco, the Pope assured the victims and their families that he would be praying for them. He also expressed his 'profound sympathy' for the Moroccan people and their leaders. The message deplored 'once again the blind violence that strikes the innocent', and asked 'the Almighty to illuminate consciences and sustain the efforts of people of peace'.

Simultaneous explosions rocked a Spanish social club, a Jewish community centre, and a Jewish-owned restaurant in front of the Belgian Consulate. Thirteen suicide bombers, all aged between 20 and 24, were among the dead. The victims were mainly Moroccan but included three French nationals, three Spaniards and an Italian.

A French parish priest in Casablanca told The Tablet that calm had been restored to the city and that Christians trusted the authorities to find those responsible. Police have so far arrested dozens of Islamic militants, and suspect local terrorists working on the instructions of al-Qaida.

However, a priest in Agadir, Fr Gilbert Bonouvrie, told Vatican Radio that Morocco's Christian minority were more nervous after the Casablanca attacks. The number of tourists was in sharp decline, he said, and the local economy was struggling. His church was guarded round the clock by police, he added.

Although his parish was involved in social welfare work in rural villages, many Moroccans saw only the bad or licentious behaviour of tourists, which they connected with the western, Christian world, he said. |snip!|Tridentine Mass for Pope's jubilee. Catholics from around the world who have a special attachment to the Latin Mass will mark Pope John Paul II's 25th anniversary as Pope with a Tridentine Mass in a Rome basilica in late May, the Vatican has said.

Cardinal Dar?o Castrill?n Hoyos will celebrate the Mass on 24 May at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. Cardinal Castrill?n is the Colombian president of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, established in 1988 for the pastoral care of Catholics who preferred the liturgy used before the Second Vatican Council.

Although news about the celebration had been circulating for months and was being promoted by Una Voce, an association dedicated to promoting use of the old Mass, the Vatican's 17 May statement was its first comment on the celebration.

According to Vatican sources, a more frequent use of the preconciliar Mass is being encouraged partly in order to accelerate the reconciliation between the Vatican and the followers of the late French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the traditionalist Society of Pius X.

According to Fr John McCloskey, the Opus Dei director of the Catholic Information Centre in Washington, the desire for such reconciliation was one contributing factor in the Vatican's plans for a return to liturgical stringency. In his recent encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia the Pope promised a new set of guidelines to correct liturgy abuses (The Tablet, 26 April).

'Now, as I understand it, nothing will stand in the way of a priest wishing to celebrate the Tridentine Mass any more', Fr McCloskey told United Press International. 'So at least on this score there will no longer be a reason for disagreement with the Lefebvre people.'