China Continues Persecution

THE CARDINAL KUNG FOUNDATION, July 27— Three Catholic priests were sentenced to several years in a labor camp for saying Mass and for rejecting membership in the “patriotic church” okayed by the communist government in China.

The Cardinal Kung Foundation, based in Stamford, Conn., said that Father Pang Yongxing, Father Ma Shunbao and Father Wang Limao were arrested for breaking anticult laws and “disturbing the peace of society.”

Apparently Father Pang, 30, was arrested at his home in December 2001; Father Wang, 32, was arrested March 24 while saying Palm Sunday Mass; and Father Ma, 50, was arrested the next week during Easter Mass.

Associated Press noted that despite harsh punishments, “millions of Chinese remain loyal to the Pope and worship in underground churches, whose leaders are appointed in secret by the Vatican.”

Monks Fight Atop Holy Sepulcher

THE LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH, July 30 — “Traditionalist” critics of Pope John Paul II who object to his ecumenical outreach might want to reflect on recent events at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the traditional site of Christ's burial.

Control over the church has been subdivided over the centuries among five Christian denominations — Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Egyptian Coptic, Ethiopian Orthodox and Armenian Orthodox — that have long competed for every inch of sacred ground, to the consternation of Muslim, British and now Israeli authorities.

Last week, 11 monks went to the hospital after a fracas erupted between Ethiopian and Coptic monks, who have been fighting for centuries, sometimes literally, over control of the church's roof.

The fight began because of the position of a chair an Egyptian monk uses to stake his claim to the rooftop, part of which the Coptics use as their monastery. On a hot day the monk decided to move his chair out of the sun.

According to the Daily Telegraph, “This was seen by the Ethiopians as violating the 'status quo’ in the church, set out in a 1757 document which defines the ownership of every chapel, lamp and flagstone.”

Tension rose for several days, until at last “black-clad monks threw stones and iron bars at each other” until the Israeli police arrived and took 11 injured monks to the hospital.

“The Egyptians said their monk was teased and poked and, in a final insult, pinched by a woman,” according to the paper, which called the site “the most un-Christian place on earth.”

Terror Suspects Die By the Sword

ASSOCIATED PRESS, July 28 — Six Pakistani men accused of being Islamic militants died during a firefight with police last week. Four of them were suspects in a bloody attack last year on St. Dominic's Church in Behawalpur, during which 16 people died.

Pakistani police had been escorting the four suspects, members of the illegal Islamic group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, outside the city of Behawalpur when a car full of attackers started firing at them and freed the militants, wounding nine policemen.

Police gave chase for miles, finally catching the escapees and their accomplices near Kherpur Tamewala. Six radicals died, including all four escaped prisoners. Two of the men who tried to free the suspects did escape.