Church-State breach in African republic healed

FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
CARDINAL MALULA has returned to his archdiocese of Kinshasa, in Zaire, Africa, after an explosive situation, which had threatened the entire Catholic Church in the republic, was resolved.
The Church in Zaire (formerly Belgian Congo) has been forced to give way slightly, but has achieved a modus vivendi with the government on a better than expected basis.
During the Cardinal's fourmonth exile in Rome, negotiations for an agreement with president Mobutu Sese Seko.
Broken homes can lead to prison
AVERY large proportion of
the people who approach the Catholic. Prisoners' Social Service for help have come from broken homes, says the service's annual report for 1971.
"A man should only be sentenced to prison 4,en all other alternatives have failed." says the report, "In the majority of cases a man comes out in. a worse state than when he went in." During 1971, 1,257 men called at the office for help.
who heads the only political party permitted, were carried on by the Apostolic Nuncio and the President of the episcopal conference.
SISTERS DRAFTED The tension 'between the Church, headed by Cardinal Malula, and the State came to a head last year when students at the Catholic university of Louvain in Kinshasa (now renamed the university of Kinshasa) demonstrated against the government.
President Mobutu drafted them into the army—lock, stock and 'barrel — the seminarians, the priests and even the sisters.
When the government further announced that it intended establishing junior branches of the Popular Revolutionary movement (M.P.R.) in all sem. manes, Cardinal Malula refused. All seminaries were ordered to be closed, and on Feb. 11 the Cardinal left for Rome in virtual exile Seeking to appease tempers — the personal long-standing animosity 'between the Cardi
nal and the President was considered a major factor in the sudden explosion and rupture —the Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Torpigliani, worked hard at smoothing ruffled feathers.
He was ably assisted by Bishop Lesambo of Inongo, president of the Episcopal Conference, and after several meetings the agreement was hammered out.
The full terms have not been published, but the Church has agreed to accept President Mobutu's junior political cells within the seminaries provided there is no government interference with religious teaching.
Similarly, the government has lifted its "drafting" orders and restrictions on seminaries subject to the Church not intervening in political or State affairs.
In April, Bishop Lesambo, in the name of the conference, accepted "the setting up of the J,M.P,R. in the seminaries as a national movement for the political education of all Zairians if the party authorities undertake on their side to respect the specific aim and the proper running of these religious establishments."
Finally, a meeting chaired by President Mobutu announced that Cardinal Malula could return "to continue to contribute to the development of the country in the sphere of his competence."