Don't Curse in Zapopan

ASSOCIATED PRESS, July 5 — When in Mexico, watch your language — at least in the western city of Zapopan, whose city council has just adopted a ban on public use of profanity, punishable by fines of up to $400 or a day and a half in jail.

The suburb of Guadalajara passed the law last week, which was proposed by a member of the once-dominant Party of the Institutionalized Revolution (PRI), according to Associated Press.

The law doesn't spell out which “bad words” are forbidden, leaving that up to police, who must determine which words offend “morals and good customs.”

The wire service reported that other Mexican cities have seen proposed bans on miniskirts in municipal buildings and homosexuals in public swimming pools.

Britain's Ban on Catholic Kings

CWNEWS.COM, July 3 — Great Britain's lord chancellor, Lord Irvine, a Catholic convert, doesn't think the United Kingdom needs to permit a Catholic monarch, according to CWNews.

Lord Irvine, addressing the House of Lords, said he did not plan to repeal a law dating from 1701 that specifically prohibits a Catholic from inheriting the throne and a monarch from joining the Church or marrying a Catholic.

Lord Irvine said he saw “no clear or pressing need” to change the law, which was enacted after the overthrow of Catholic King James II in 1688.

While Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose wife is a practicing Catholic, called the Act “plainly discriminatory,” Lord Irvine said the status quo was widely accepted “by leaders of both the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches. … This is not an issue that troubles people from the Catholic tradition or indeed from most religious traditions. Most people in this country who have a religious belief are full of joy that we have so little discrimination and that there is such a pluralistic and tolerant situation.”

If a future monarch should object to the act, Lord Irvine said, “then the matter would have to be addressed.”

New Priests are Channels of God's Love

FIDES, July 5 — To crown his pastoral visit to Seoul, South Korea, Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe conferred the sacrament of holy orders on 43 deacons.

In his homily, the missionary prefect emphasized the Church's teaching that priests are called to be channels of God's love. The priest represents the love of God, who is the Father “rich in mercy” and forgiveness.

“The ministry of reconciliation is first of all for the forgiveness of sins,” he said. “This comes about through the sacrament of confession, but it is also reconciliation in a general sense. That is, harmony among brothers and sisters, reciprocal forgiveness, human collaboration and social peace.”

He reminded the young priests that they had just put their lives in the hands of Christ and henceforth belong only to him and his Church.

“In order to be a visible and authentic sign of this reconciliation, the priest must be free,” he said. “He must not take sides, he must be free of ethnic, social or political ties, even of family bonds. He belongs only to Christ and to the Church, the mystical Body of Christ.”