Fast ends for removal of troops

SEOUL, South Korea (CNS) — A religious brother has ended his two-month fast aimed at getting the South Korean government to withdraw its troops from Iraq. Marianist Brother John Kim Jae-bok said at a Sept. 21 press conference that now he would oppose the war in Iraq by organizing a campaign for a "people’s court" to try U.S. President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun for war crimes, reported UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand. About 70 Catholics and members of nongovernmental organizations working on human rights issues participated in the press conference, held near the presidential office in Seoul. Park Gi-bum, a writer who fasted with Brother Kim, also attended the press conference. Brother Kim began fasting July 26, and Park began two weeks later. They joined forces and took their fast to several places around the country. They said they consumed nothing but water, salt and tea until Sept. 21, when they both stopped fasting. "During the pilgrimage, I met a lot of children and grass-roots people who already understood (the values of) peace and life even before I came to explain my anti-war protest," Brother Kim told UCA News Sept. 21.

Pope speaks to prison guards

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) — Upholding human dignity must lie at the heart of all professions, but especially for prison guards, Pope John Paul II said. "Every civil, professional and work training ethic must have at its foundation the primary value of the human person," the pope told some 400 representatives from Italy’s prison guard system. He made his address Sept. 27, the feast of St. Vincent de Paul, whom the pope said "personally suffered the harshness of prisons." St. Vincent taught his followers to "pay special attention to that category of poor people known as convicts," said the pope. "He asked them to show understanding and to demand humane treatment" for prisoners. Part of the group who met with the pope at his apostolic palace in Castel Gandolfo included female prison guards who had just completed a year of training. The pope had special words for them, urging them to take care of their spiritual lives. "Your work calls for a solid human maturity that allows you to wed firmness with attention to the individual," he said. "To this end, being women certainly helps you," since women possess qualities that benefit "interpersonal relationships," said the pope.

BBC withdraws ‘Popetown’

LONDON (CNS) — A controversial cartoon program that lampooned the papacy has been canceled by the British Broadcasting Corp. following months of protests by British Catholics. The BBC announced Sept. 23 that it would not broadcast the cartoon series "Popetown." The show was said to feature the pope as a childish retiree whose every fickle whim must be indulged. Thousands of Catholics had written the BBC in protest. In announcing the decision to cancel the show, Stuart Murphy, controller of BBC Three, said, "There is a fine judgment line in comedy between scurrilously funny and the offensive. I knew when we developed the series that there was risk involved, but unfortunately, once we saw the finished series, it became clear that the program fell on the wrong side of that line," he said.

‘Red tide’ disrupts fishermen

TRIVANDRUM, India (CNS) — A bloom of red tide is disrupting the lives of fishermen, many of them Catholics, on a coastal stretch in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Since Sept. 17, hundreds of people, mostly children, have been hospitalized after collapsing from a nauseating stench wafting in from the ocean, reported UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand. Thousands of rotting fish have been floating on the sea near the state capital of Trivandrum. But the phenomenon that killed them, a mass of quick-multiplying algae called a red tide, also produces noxious gas emissions. The result has been panic that has affected thousands of Catholics along 10 miles of coastline in the Archdiocese of Trivandrum. "Now nobody is buying fish. They think the fish is poisonous," said Philomina John, a fish vendor in the state capital. Valiyathura, the biggest fishing village in the area, has about 5,000 Catholic families who survive solely on fishing and related businesses. Fishermen said they face starvation because the red tide has cut off their source of food and livelihood.

Catholic, Muslim win peace prize

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A former papal envoy and a Muslim leader in the Balkans were awarded a UNESCO peace prize for their efforts in promoting interreligious dialogue and peace. French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray and Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric of Bosnia-Herzegovina received the 2003 Felix Houphouet-Boigny Award in a Sept. 21 ceremony at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Besides serving as head of several Vatican offices, Cardinal Etchegaray served as the pope’s special envoy in urgent missions worldwide. He took part in negotiations to end the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, West Bank, in May 2002; he traveled to Iraq in 1986 and 1998, then again in February 2003 in a bid to avert the U.S.-led invasion of the country. He also led diplomatic missions in Iran, Mozambique, Angola, Sudan and Cuba. In an interview Sept. 22 with Vatican Radio, Cardinal Etchegaray said he felt proud because the Houphouet-Boigny Award "is a prestigious prize." Yet despite working to bring peaceful resolutions to many of the world’s "hot spots," he said he felt his efforts have been dwarfed by the vastness of the world’s problems.

Bill threatens Zimbabwean church

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) — A bill that seeks to clamp down on nongovernmental organizations is a serious threat to Zimbabwe’s Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, said national director Alouis Chaumba. The NGO Bill of 2004, expected to become law before the end of the year, would ban international human rights groups from Zimbabwe and cut off overseas funding to local organizations that deal with issues of governance. Most Zimbabwean nongovernmental organizations, including the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, survive on outside funding, Chaumba said in a Sept. 21 telephone interview from Harare. If the bill is passed, it would be mandatory for all charities and aid agencies to register with the state. This would allow President Robert Mugabe’s government to deny accreditation to organizations that criticize human rights abuses in the country, such as the justice and peace commission, Chaumba said.