Italian Catholics Can Get ‘Unchristened’

ZOOMATA.COM, Feb. 17 — Disaffected Catholics might soon be able to renounce their baptism legally, according to the Italian news site Zoomata.com.

The Italian Bishops’ Conference has outlined a formal procedure for adult nonbelievers to note officially that they are no longer practicing Catholics, to be noted alongside baptismal information in parish records. The procedure was set up under pressure from anticlerical forces, according to the site.

Some 98% of Italians are baptized, while only 36% attend Mass regularly and 14% never attend. It is unknown how many Italians will take advantage of the new procedure, which has no sacramental significance, according to Cardinal Camillo Ruini, president of the bishops’ conference.

“You can't cancel a sacrament,” he said, “any more than you can cancel the act of being born.”

Chinese Government Seizes Faithful Priest

VOICE OF AMERICA, Feb. 12 — Another Catholic priest has been imprisoned for saying Mass, according to Voice of America, an international broadcast service funded by the United States, and the Cardinal Kung Foundation, a human-rights organization and advocate for the underground Catholic Church in China.

He joins the dozens of priests and bishops currently imprisoned for loyalty to Rome, the organizations reported. Communist officials arrested the 37-year-old Father Dong Yingmu in Baoding en route to saying last year's Christmas Mass.

Some 4 million people take part in the schismatic “patriotic church” loyal to Beijing, while it is estimated millions more remain faithful to the underground Church that answers to Rome.

According to the news service, a representative of the Chinese government has insisted the arrest never happened.

Korean Bishops Call for Peace

FIDES, Feb. 14 — The Catholic bishops of Korea issued a statement addressing the proposed U.S. war in Iraq and the burgeoning development of nuclear weapons in North Korea, according to Fides, the Vatican missionary news agency.

“Peace is the task par excellence for humanity,” the statement said. “Today the whole world trembles at the threat of war about to break out before our eyes. … Peace is not reached with arms or with international decrees; it is built with a firm decision to stop the production of weapons. If powerful nations assigned only 1% of their military expenses to solving the problem of world hunger, this would lead to peace. It is not right to sacrifice the lives of thousands of innocent people in the name of ‘war on terrorism.’

“We fail to understand why the United States wants to go to war with Iraq. War produces nothing but war. We unite with the Pope, the bishops of the United States [and] our brothers in the Middle East to say: ‘We want peace not war!’

“We implore North Korea to renounce its threat, which will only worsen the situation and create greater tension instead of helping to solve the crisis through dialogue. We must find a way to live as brothers and sisters and we must reach peace for the good of all.”