Regional Conflicts

Bishops who make a case for one-issue politics or openly oppose a political candidate are in violation of the guidelines set out repeatedly in their own documents on political responsibility, said noted theologian Fr. Richard McBrien in a recent talk here. 1. Although bishops and other Catholic officials have the constitutional right to participate in public policy debates and in the political process generally, they impose certain limits upon themselves as a matter of prudence. 2. Catholic voters and their bishops should examine the positions of the candidates on the full range of issues as well as their integrity, philosophy and performance. 3. Catholic voters and their bishops must not forget the distinction between moral principles and their application in the political order. It is possible to agree on an important moral principle and yet disagree, in good conscience, on the way that principle is applied in the political order. 4. Because there is a distinction between the moral law and the civil law, Catholics and others--Christians and non-Christians alike--cannot expect that every element of the moral law, as they understand it, can or should be translated into civil law. 5. Given the principle of sacramentality, in the final analysis the most effective way for the church and its members--or for anyone--to influence public policy is by force of their own example.

The Vatican newspaper said the U.S. plan to install a missile shield in Eastern Europe could seriously threaten U.S.-Russian relations and the future of global disarmament. Russia has strongly objected to the plan, saying placement of the missile shield would endanger its own security. The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, ran a front-page story about the dispute under the headline: "Multilateralism and disarmament at risk." The article appeared Aug. 21, the day after the United States and Poland signed an agreement to place 10 interceptor missiles in Polish territory.
"The signing of the missile shield agreement ... has produced a dynamic that seems able to threaten multilateralism and the process of international disarmament," the newspaper said.

Despite the dispatch of United Nations peacekeepers to Darfur and the issuing of international arrest warrants for leaders of the genocide, the killing goes on. So does the burning of villages, the bombing of schools and the systematic rape of women and girls. And it will continue until the Security Council shows the will to stop it. The Council needs to get more peacekeepers, helicopters and reconnaissance planes in the field, enforce the arrest warrants and increase diplomatic and financial pressure to get Sudan to stop obstructing the work of the peacekeepers. But the Council has shown little urgency in doing any of that.

President Robert Mugabe, despised and distrusted, has rained both blood and terror on his beleaguered people in advance of the presidential election runoffs on June 27. The most recent addition to his government's lengthening list of outrages is the detention of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and a threatened attack on U.S. and British diplomats. Credible witnesses report that Tsvangirai's supporters have been beaten and killed. Mugabe recently banned humanitarian organizations from distributing food because, he said, they are campaigning for his opponent - a charge that they deny.

A surprise cease-fire agreement between Somalia's central government and the armed opposition was greeted with more rocket and machine-gun fire in the capital of Mogadishu on Tuesday even as the residents of that beleaguered city hoped that the deal might at last bring stability to Africa's most war-devastated nation. Still, the ongoing violence underscores the frailty of the United Nations-brokered truce, the latest in a stack of similar peace deals between Somalia's warring parties that have failed to calm the shattered country throughout 17 years of warlord criminality, clan power struggles and now a growing Iraq-style insurgency against the weak U.S.-backed transitional federal government.

New Orleans residents are upset about Congress' plan to spend $212 billion to finance the war in Iraq. In the spending bill, $350 million is set aside to help Iraqi refugees, while $73 million has been allotted to help shelter physically and mentally disabled Katrina victims -- and that money could be cut as early as Tuesday. Along with funding the war through the first month of the next president's term, the bill provides Jordan's military with $100 million and Mexico's armed forces with $50 million. In response, Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu and other lawmakers have attached more than $30 billion to the proposal for what they see as domestic priorities. However, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., must trim the bill or face a veto from President George W. Bush. Though Pelosi supports the housing money for 3,000 rent-aid vouchers, it is part of $2.9 billion in Katrina aid that may be cut.

Race and place of residence can have a staggering impact on the course and quality of the medical treatment a patient receives. The study, by researchers at Dartmouth, examined Medicare claims for evidence of racial and geographic disparities and found that on a variety of quality indices, blacks typically were less likely to receive recommended care than whites within a given region. But the most striking disparities were found from place to place.

Saudi Arabia's king urged a gathering of Muslim scholars Wednesday to open religious dialogue with Christians and Jews. But politics intruded as a senior Iranian figure said the Islamic world should stand up to the U.S. and its "international arrogance." King Abdullah spoke at the start of a three-day conference of Islamic scholars, clerics and other figures in the holy city of Mecca called to get Muslims on the same page before the kingdom launches a landmark initiative for talks with adherents of other monotheistic faiths.

In a rare show of bipartisan unity, the three presidential candidates lent their names to a statement and newspaper ad Wednesday accusing the Sudanese government of genocide in the Darfur region and urging an end to the violence. Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton joined with Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain in signing the ad in The New York Times headlined "GENOCIDE." "We stand united and demand that the genocide and violence in Darfur be brought to an end," says the ad.

Despite a Supreme Court order requiring that the renegade Anglican bishop Nolbert Kunonga, a supporter of President Robert Mugabe, share dozens of churches in Harare, the capital, with followers of Bishop Sebastian Bakare, church officials and parishioners said the police had continued to harass and lock out the bulk of the city’s Anglicans. “The police have continued to brutalize our people, which is sad,” said Bishop Albert Chama, the dean of the Anglican Province of Central Africa. “This is political interference. I’m sure the police are getting orders from above. They’re protecting Kunonga.”