Church in the World

Cardinals push boundaries of universal Church.

Pope Benedict's elevation of two Americans to the College of Cardinals later this month will bring the United States' bloc of papal electors to a record high of 13. The jubilation was muted, however – even from one of the honoured prelates.

Cardinal-designate Sean O’Malley, 61, the Capuchin friar charged with rebuilding the Archdiocese of Boston in the wake of widespread revelations of clerical sex-abuse, sounded drawn and at points barely audible in remarks after his promotion was announced. He asked for prayers that he may receive “the strength and the light to be able to accept this responsibility and serve the Church in the best way possible”.

While the news of his elevation led cardinal-designate O’Malley to “reaffirm a commitment” to the Church of Boston, his tenure there has been marked by tensions over the continuing abuse fallout and a widespread reconfiguration programme which closed 62 parishes. Increasing speculation in US church circles has focused on the possibility that Archbishop O’Malley could be transferred to Washington in succession to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 last summer and is expected to stand down before the year’s end.

Some church observers were surprised that only one Latin American figured on the list (Archbishop Jorge Urosa of Caracas), and none was from Brazil, which has the biggest Catholic population in the world and only three voting-age cardinals. In Venezuela, cardinal-designate Urosa, 63, has been trying to soothe Church-State relations, which have been strained during the six-year presidency of Hugo Ch?vez, by shifting the Church’s attention away from partisan politics and towards the country’s larger moral and social issues. Speaking to El Nacional newspaper this week, the archbishop argued that clergy should be neither pro- nor anti-Government. He sees the Church’s role as bringing together the two sides of an often highly polarised confrontation.

This does not that mean the Church will have nothing to say during the campaign leading to presidential elections in December, when Mr Ch?vez, a left-wing populist, will seek re-election. Archbishop Urosa has no intention of remaining politically neutral on the issue of religious education. Mr Ch?vez is proposing far-reaching educational reforms, which would bring both schools and the contents of the curriculum under much tighter state control. The Venezuelan Church runs schools that cater for half a million children, and Archbishop Urosa does not want to see the Church’s role in education reduced.
Rocco Palmo |snip!|Colombian priests accused of swaying voters. ABORTION and homosexual marriage have become key issues in the campaign for congressional elections in Colombia on 12 March.

Supporters of legalisation complain that priests have been instructing their flocks not to vote for candidates who call for changes to the law, and have been reading out their names from the pulpit. A Catholic pressure group, the Christian Information Association (ACI), has also been organising a letter-writing campaign, by children as young as seven, encouraging them to petition the Constitutional Court not to allow any softening of Colombia’s absolute ban on abortion, in any circumstances. A bill to decriminalise abortion will be put before the new Congress when it assembles on 20 July.

Tensions have been running high. One female newspaper columnist commented this week “We are, after all, a secular state, and the Church and pro-life organisations should pursue their campaigns with arguments, not instructions, or by taking refuge behind the innocence of the young.”

The controversy began last month at the close of the annual Colombian bishops’ conference (CEC) meeting when Cardinal Pedro Rubiano, Archbishop of Bogot?, introduced a CEC statement with the remark that “Catholics should not vote for candidates who back abortion and gay marriage”. This provoked a furious response from one of Colombia’s most revered elder statesmen, 93-year-old former President Alfonso L?pez Michelsen, of the traditionally anticlerical Liberal Party. He upbraided the bishops for intervening in politics, and for adopting such rigid positions.

This in turn produced a rejoinder from the general secretary of the CEC, Bishop Fabi?n Marulanda, emeritus of Florencia, who accused Mr L?pez of using emotional rather than rational arguments, and denied that the bishops’ document had instructed the faithful how to vote. Instead, it invited people to vote “in accordance with their consciences for candidates who give full guarantees that they will defend life”. On gay marriage, he said the bishops’ view was that gays had a perfect right to form unions to protect their interests, but they had no right to call their unions marriage.

Opinion polls suggest that a majority of candidates are in favour of lifting the ban on abortion in exceptional circumstances, such as rape, danger to the mother’s life or when the foetus has a congenital abnormality. A gay marriage bill, the fourth in five years, will also be put before Congress, but it stands less chance of being passed. A recent opinion poll showed a majority in favour of granting some civil rights to same-sex partnerships, but against allowing them to adopt children or call their unions marriage.
Colin Harding