Feminists Desecrate Montreal Cathedral

THE NATIONAL POST , March 21— Feminist vandals celebrated the International Women's Day of the Woman by strewing condoms around the sanctuary and sticking used sanitary napkins to pictures and walls in Montreal's Mary Queen of the World Cathedral, the Toronto daily reported.

Seven were arrested — three women and four men — after they spray painted slogans on an altar, turned over flowerpots and attempted to overturn the tabernacle.

Sister Rejeanne Poulin, who witnessed the vandalism, said: “They came in yelling things against religion. They said they were claiming the right to abortions and freedom of speech.”

The words “Neither God Nor Master” were spray painted in foot-high letters at the altar, on the frame of a 19th-century painting. Outside, another slogan, “Religion, A Trap For Fools,” was painted on a pillar at the front of the cathedral.

Anglicans Re-Consider Rationalizing Divorce Laws

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR , March 22 — The Church of England has published a “teaching document” which recommends that individual parishes be able to decide whether or not to re-marry divorcees, the national weekly reported.

The document would have to be approved by the Church of England's ruling synod of bishops to be put into effect. Victoria Combe, religious affairs correspondent of London's Daily Telegraph told the Monitor that she expects the bishops to support the document.

Last September a Church of England spokesman admitted publicly that all 43 dioceses in Britain do allow second marriages. The new report is an attempt to rationalize the present situation in Great Britain, where the divorce rate is nearly 1 out of 2 marriages.

Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey is reported to be sympathetic to change in the divorce laws.

Added Monitor writer Alexander MacLeod, “If put into effect, the proposed change in doctrine on remarriage after divorce will further distance the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church.”

N. Ireland Inquiry Opens on Bloody Sunday Massacre

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS , March 27 — The 1972 “Bloody Sunday” shooting of 13 Catholic protesters by British soldiers in Northern Ireland is being opened to a public inquiry after three decades of controversy and grief, the news service reported.

“Relatives and friends of the victims filled Londonderry's Guidl Hall for the biggest public inquiry in British legal history. The hearing, before three judges, is expected to last two years and will take evidence from 500 people.

“The soldiers claim they fired after being provoked by IRA gunmen — an assertion that has long infuriated Catholic residents of Londonderry, who insist the soldiers fired first and killed only unarmed people.

“The killings were a defining moment in Northern Ireland's past three decades of conflict, engendering a deep-rooted bitterness toward the British and driving scores of Catholics to join the Irish Republican Army.”