Lech Walesa on Clinton, America, and the Law

WALL STREET JOURNAL, October 22-"Lech Walesa was inspired by American ideals to found the solidarity trade movement that toppled Polish Communism and made him the country's president for a term,” wrote the Wall Street Journal editorial staff. “On a recent trip to the U.S. he had advice on how to keep American democracy vibrant.

“He said President Clinton was his friend, but that he must be removed from office if it's found he broke the law.”

The paper quoted Walesa's words from the Cedar Rapids Gazette in Iowa: “There is no democracy if even the least of the laws is broken…. People will begin to ask, ‘Why should I pay taxes? Why should I obey the speed limit if he doesn't have to obey the law?’”

Assumption-Day Arrests Reported

AGENCE FRANCE, Oct. 14-Chinese authorities interrupted Assumption day Mass Aug. 15 to arrest Father Wei Jingkum in Nansong, said a news report by the U.S.-based Qingyuan group, according to a French wire report. The group monitors Chinese efforts to suppress Chinese Catholics who remain faithful to the Vatican rather than join the state-approved Patriotic Church.

Qingyuan says that six other priests were fined or questioned by police, while in another Beijing-area village, 100 people — mostly women — were stopped on their way to secret Assumption day Masses and detained for as many as 15 hours, interrogated, and fined, according to the news service. Zhang Yanzhi was reportedly held for 15 days for teaching the catechism to children. The woman who owns the house where Yanzhi's students met has been arrested.

“The freedom in religious belief is clearly stipulated in the Chinese constitution and various other relevant laws,” countered Li Ruihuan, the communist state's fourth most senior official, after the Oct. 14th news report was published.

“The Chinese government continues to sincerely implement that policy,” he said. His quotes come from an official Chinese government news agency, according to a follow-up report by the French news service.

Cardinal Accepted Martyrdom, Hoped for Help

BERGEN RECORD, Oct. 16-Progress was finally being reported with President Slobodan Milosevic in the most recent attacks on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo when Sarajevo's Archbishop was quoted wondering what took the world so long to notice the dire situation there, according to the Bergen Record.

At 53 the Church's youngest cardinal, Cardinal Vinko Puljic, the Catholic archbishop of Sarajevo, is a survivor of Serbian aggression in Bosnia. Catholics in his diocese have been reduced by more than half by war. He sees the Serbian minority's aggression toward the Kosovar majority as following the same pattern, said the report.

“I believe that the action, or international intervention, should have taken place earlier,” he told a New Jersey press conference recently after touring the United States. “It is more efficient to prevent than to treat” a crisis, he said, adding that, “If the political decision-makers had done something sooner we would not have had this situation. The conscience of humankind requests it should be stopped.”

After surviving an assassination attempt in April, the cardinal was quoted saying “The fact that I may die is an integral part of my vocation…. One does not stand up for peace without realizing that he may be killed.”

At the news conference, a reporter asked if Cardinal Puljic trusted Milosevic and the concessions he has made. Puljic laughed. “I can fully trust only in God,” he said.