Vatican Urges End to Tensions With China

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Oct. 16 — The Holy See hopes that tensions between the Catholic Church and China will end soon, Associated Press quoted the Vatican secretary of state as saying Oct. 25.

“Let's hope that soon these tensions of the moment will end,”’ Cardinal Angelo Sodano was quoted as saying by Ansa and Apcom, two Italian news agencies.

Pope Benedict XVI has been seeking to re-establish diplomatic relations with China, where worship is allowed only in government-controlled churches.

“The Holy See has always said that it is ready for dialogue, ready for contacts, ready to explain its traditions,” Cardinal Sodano said in the report. “However, we must always insist on this concept that the Church is one, in all the world, in all cultures, in all nations, and governments do not have the right to tell men and women how they must live their faith.”

Vatican Marks 40 Years of Jewish Dialogue

EUROPEAN JEWISH PRESS, Oct. 26 — The Vatican was to celebrate 40 years of dialogue with Judaism by holding a special conference Oct. 28 to retrace the relationship between the two religions, Cardinal Walter Kasper said.

The cardinal is the president for the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. The celebration is due to take place on the anniversary of Nostra Aetate (In Our Time), the declaration on the relationship between the Church and non-Christian religions adopted by the Second Vatican Council and promulgated on Oct. 28, 1965, by Pope Paul VI.

Jewish-born French Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger and Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee were to retrace the four decades of dialogue between the Church and Judaism at Thursday's anniversary conference, Cardinal Kasper said.

The late Pope John Paul II made many efforts to improve this relationship, and Pope Benedict XVI reiterated the call for a deepening of the dialogue during his visit to the Cologne synagogue in Germany last August.

Joint Ceremonies Impossible Without Unity

AGENZIA GIORNALISTICA ITALIA, Oct. 11 — Cardinal Angelo Sodano went over Pope John Paul II's writings concerning the hosting of a joint Mass by Roman Catholic priests and priests of other denominations, Agenzia Giornalistica Italia reported.

The Pope's guidelines are contained in Ut Unum Sint according to which “no such ceremony is legitimate unless approved,” the cardinal said, adding that exceptions, if any, apply solely to provision of Communion to single persons of other Churches.

Hence, according to Cardinal Sodano, joint ceremonies “are impossible prior to an open joint acceptance of a common understanding” between the Church of Rome and other prospective Churches. Cardinal Sodano's comments were topped up by a call for greater unity among Catholic priests on this issue, as a means of ensuring that Christians of other denominations are drawn closer to Catholicism. According to the cardinal, “the only way for that to be achieved is through our strict abidance by the Church's current discipline.”