China Calls for Vatican Apology for Canonizations

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Nov. 24 — China's foreign minister said that before relations between Beijing and the Vatican can be restored, Pope John Paul II should apologize for canonizing the first Chinese saints.

Tang Jiaxuan said in an interview with the Italian daily La Stampa that while the Pope has asked for forgiveness for past mistakes of missionaries in China, the canonizations offended the Chinese people.

China described the 120 martyrs who were canonized, both Chinese nationals and foreigners, as criminals.

Pope Holds Vatican Summit on Holy Land

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Nov. 28 — Pope John Paul was scheduled to meet Dec. 13 at the Vatican with Catholic leaders from the Holy Land and heads of various bishops conferences in the Middle East.

The Pope, who visited Israel last year, wanted to confirm “his spiritual closeness” to Catholics in the region and “share the drama of their daily existence too often tested by violence and discrimination,” the Vatican said. The Vatican said the meeting would show the “common commitment to the continuity” of the Church's long presence in the Holy Land.

According to the wire service report, Christian influence has waned in the Middle East in recent decades. Where it was a majority 15 centuries ago, Christians today make up only 2% of the population in the Holy Land.

Cardinal Calls for Muslim Help on Bioethics

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Nov. 29 — Cardinal Francis Arinze, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, invited Islamic religious leaders to a dialogue in order to collaborate more closely on the technological challenge to human life, particularly that posed by genetics. Cardinal Arinze said that although advances in genetics are exciting, they endanger human life and the respect due to it.

“Can we not work together to protect the most important human values which are threatened by a world in continual transformation?” he asked in a message to Muslims marking the end of the month of Ramadan.

“The most exciting and at the same time controversial field of technology is genetics,” the cardinal said, “which touches human nature directly, as human beings try to pierce its mysteries with the aid of technology, with the risk that human life itself and the respect due to it are endangered.”

Muslim-Produced Film Featured at Vatican Festival

BBC, Nov. 28 — An Iranian Muslim film about the friendship between a Muslim boy and a Catholic priest is one of the films showing at the Tertio Millennio film festival, which runs through Dec. 19 at the Vatican. The British radio and television agency described the festival as part of the Vatican's “battle for spiritual substance in contemporary cinema” and said the religious tolerance theme of the Iranian film, “Son of Mary,” makes it ideal subject matter for the festival.

Fereshteh Taerpour, the film's Muslim producer, said at a press conference that he considered his presence next to Vatican representatives a sign that the two religions can look toward a future of dialogue.