THE HUNGARIAN primate, Cardinal Laszlo Paskal, has issued an urgent appeal to the international community in an attempt to prevent Romania from embarking on a village demolition project which would "destroy the culture, the history and, hence, the national indentity" of millions of ethnic Hungarians, living in Romania.
A MEASURE designed to control the spread of AIDS in the Philippines, namely the free distribution of 60,000 condoms to prostitutes, has been stopped before it began. This was as a result of extreme disapproval by Catholic Church leaders.
THE POPE celebrated the Ukrainian Church millennium at a special service in Rome last Sunday before 7,000 traditionally-dressed Ukrainians. The Pope, who was not invited to the Soviet Union to mark 1000 years of Russian Christianity in June, repeated a call for Moscow to recognise Ukrainian Catholics.
BISHOPS of the Episcopal Church in Washington last week voted to forbid discrimination against homosexuals seeking to become clergy. This move reverses a 1979 decision that it was inappropriate, though another vote claimed that "no right to ordination is hereby established".
THE CONTROVERSIAL MacBride Principles, aimed at improving the rate of Catholic employment in the north of Ireland, have been adopted by the State of Florida. Florida Governor Robert Martinez, who is a Catholic, refused to veto the legislation apparently after seeking advice from the local bishops.
FR CARLOS Gallagher, an Irish national and parish priest in Lima, Peru, has been released by Peruvian police; he had been held for allegedly helping Maoist Shining Path guerrillas.
THE RELIEF Society of Tigray (REST), the only organisation allowed by the Ethiopian government to provide famine and medical relief in the war-torn area of Northern Ethiopia, has asked the British government to condemn the continuing attacks on civilians in Tigray. The Ethiopian government expelled foreign aid workers in April.
AT 7.15am on August 15, Pope John Paul II will mark the end of the Marian Year with a special Mass in St Peter's Basilica in Rome. The ceremony will be broadcast with a commentary in five languages, one of which will be English.