Weakened Brazilian bishop ends hunger strike after negotiations

SAO PAULO, Brazil (CNS) — Brazilian Bishop Luis Cappio, weakened and suffering from memory lapses and dizziness, ended his 11-day hunger strike to protest government plans to divert some of the water from the Sao Francisco River to irrigate the arid northeastern region of the country. The announcement of the end of the hunger strike came after five hours of negotiations between Brazil’s Institutional Relations Minister Jacques Wagner and Bishop Cappio, 59. The government agreed to further discuss the project with Brazilians before starting the operation; continue and intensify efforts to revitalize the Sao Francisco River by trying to approve legislation that would assure annual investments of approximately $133 million in the revitalization of the river; and set up a meeting between Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Bishop Cappio as soon as the bishop has fully recovered his health.

German newspaper says pope was spied on when he was cardinal

OXFORD, England (CNS) — A German newspaper has published details of how East Germany’s communist secret police, or Stasi, spied on Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger three decades before he became Pope Benedict XVI. "Long before his nomination as prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, state security ministry agents kept watch on him," the Bild am Sonntag weekly reported Oct. 2. The newspaper also noted that one agent "wrote with concern that, as congregation prefect, he would have an influence on the growth of anti-communist attitudes in the Catholic Church, especially in Latin America."

Mudslides in Central America affect work of Maryknoll sisters

WASHINGTON (CNS) — When massive flooding and mudslides hit Central America following Hurricane Stan, the staff of a Catholic AIDS clinic in San Salvador pitched in to help with emergency relief. U.S. Maryknoll Sister Mary Annel, a medical doctor, and Maryknoll lay missionary Deborah Northern, both associated with the clinic, helped deliver food to communities outside San Salvador. "The government’s emergency system didn’t reach all the people needing help, and many went to the churches, where they have more confidence that any goods donated will be given directly to them," Sister Annel said in an Oct. 11 e-mail.

‘Prospects for religious freedom in China improve’

ROME (CNS) — Prospects are improving in China for religious freedom and reunification of the Catholic community, said a leading Jesuit magazine. Already there are "signs of a future understanding" between China and the Vatican, in particular the current pragmatic arrangement on the nomination of bishops, said the Oct. 15 issue of La Civilta Cattolica. The magazine said the government-approved and clandestine wings of the Chinese church are increasingly operating in harmony. While full normalization of the church’s activities may take a long time, there is reason for optimism, it said.

LA BAJADA, N.M. (CNS) — One New Mexico family has had a devotion to St. Michael the Archangel since their ancestors braved the harsh elements of the New World as colonial settlers from Spain, homesteading 400 years ago in sometimes hostile territory. Eloy Montoya Sr.’s ancestors helped build San Miguel Church in La Bajada in the 1600s, and for generation after generation family members have been caretakers of the church. So the saint’s feast day, Sept. 29, has always been a cause for celebration for the family, the church and the village.

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (CNS) — A federal jury in Binghamton Sept. 26 found Catholic activists known as the St. Patrick’s Four guilty of misdemeanor charges of trespassing and damaging federal property for pouring blood throughout the foyer of a military recruiting center in Lansing on St. Patrick’s Day in 2003. Danny Burns, Teresa Grady, Clare Grady and Peter De Mott — all members of the Ithaca Catholic Worker community — poured blood on the wall, on the floor, on posters and on the flag at the center. At the time, the U.S. was on the cusp of invading Iraq, and the four said they took the action because they were answering what they heard as desperate pleas from the Iraqi people. They were found not guilty on the most serious charge facing them — "conspiracy to impede an officer of the United States by threat, intimidation and force." Conviction on that charge carried a possible six-year sentence in federal prison. Each of the four was found guilty of two misdemeanor counts and could be sentenced to up to one year in federal prison, though it was likely they would go to jail for several months. De Mott, Burns and Clare Grady were convicted of an additional count of trespassing.

WASHINGTON (CNS) — With governments and transnational bodies such as the United Nations unable to deal with the role of religion in global violence or uninterested in addressing it, the responsibility falls to religious organizations, especially the Catholic Church, said the Rev. John Danforth, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Speaking Oct. 12 as part of a panel on the role of religion in peacemaking, Rev. Danforth, an ordained Episcopal priest who is also a former U.S. senator from Missouri, said whether religion has been "hijacked" or simply injected into disputes with secular origins, "it still is an element in the divisiveness and bloodshed in the world." While that is nothing new in human history, Rev. Danforth said, "my guess is that of the 200 or so people in this room, probably everybody thinks the proper role of religion is to hold us together. And if at least those of us in this room agree, the first step is to shore up that conclusion."