Angolan Rebel Asks Church to Mediate

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, May 14 — Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi has sent a letter to the war-torn country's bishops asking the Catholic Church to mediate between rebels and the government, the wire service reported.

The rebels had announced earlier that they would pursue “a military campaign throughout the land,” and their attacks in the week of May 5 left hundreds dead or missing. However, there are signs that Savimbi and his supporters may be ready to return to the negotiating table. One bishop told the RDP Africa Web site that Savimbi's letter might become the basis for a cease-fire.

Angola's civil war, which has claimed at least 500,000 lives, resumed in 1998.

Irish Priest Shortage Easing

BELFAST NEWS LETTER, May 14 — Ireland's Catholic authorities said that vocations to the priesthood are slowly increasing after years of steep decline, the Belfast newspaper reported.

While there is expected to be only one ordination this year in the Dublin archdiocese, Ireland's biggest, across the country there will be 32 ordinations this year, six more than last year.

The numbers are much stronger for seminarians. Last year only 25 men began preparing for the priesthood, whereas this year there are 139.

Poland's Bishops Plan Apology to Jews

ASSOCIATED PRESS, May 15 — Cardinal Jozef Glemp, head of the Catholic Church in Poland, said that the country's bishops plan to apologize for evils committed against Jews by Polish Catholics during World War II, the wire service reported.

However, Cardinal Glemp rejected accusations that the Church had fostered the anti-Semitism that led to pogroms like the one in Jedwabne.

The ceremony will be held at a Warsaw church that bordered the Jewish ghetto set up by the Nazis. The church's wartime provost, though he had been known for anti-Semitic views before the war, helped many Jews fleeing the ghetto.

Poland had 3.5 million Jewish citizens before the war, about 10% of the population. About 3 million were killed in the Holocaust, along with more than 3 million non-Jewish Poles. Most Jewish survivors fled after the war due to communist-sponsored anti-Semitic propaganda. About 20,000 Jews live in Poland now.