Americas

Abortion law challenge
CATHOLICS for a Free Choice, a pro-abortion group recently condemned by the US bishops, have endorsed a new project to circumvent abortion laws in countries around the world.
The group, whose "See Change" campaign aimed to oust the Vatican from its position as a permanent observer at the United Nations, is supporting a project which involves a ship called the "Sea Change" picking up women in countries where abortion is illegal and then aborting their babies on board the ship, 12 miles off shore.
While endorsed by CFFC. the campaign is led by The Women on Waves Foundation. WWF was founded in 1999 by Dutch abortionist Rebecca Gomperts and is based in the Netherlands.
Cuba ousts pro-life priest
CUBA'S communist government has expelled a missionary priest for campaigning against abortion.
Spanish priest Fr Miguel Jorda said he was expelled because he distributed pamphlets criticising the island's permissive abortion laws, which have led to 130,000 legal abortions each year.
When communist officials discovered the pamphlet they began to harass Fr Jorda, placing megaphones with piped music outside his church.
"Under such conditions, it was impossible to baptise or pray," he said. "One day, I took another megaphone and publicly denounced that human rights were trampled in Cuba even before birth. That was the spark that resulted in my expulsion. However, the people have the message and know abortion is evil."
Fr Jorda said Cuba's high abortion rate was due to promiscuity, prostitution and sex tourism.
Liberation theology 'alive'
A BRazusaN cardinal has said liberation theology is "alive and growing in strength" in parts of the Latin American church.
Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns, retired archbishop of Sao Paulo, told Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza that liberation theology was re-emerging after a decade of stagnation.
"We can't say liberation theology has ended, even if it has faced afflictions, as well as a certain phase of stagnation," the 79-year-old cardinal said. "The struggle for justice and for ending hunger is also a great idea ofJan Paul II."
Cardinal Arns said Pope John Paul had been "very favourable" to liberation theology, although the doctrinal warnings issued by the Vatican in the eighties had dealt a blow by silencing all its "great spokesmen".
"He once told us liberation theology was embodied in the Bible from first to last page. But Cardinal Ratzinger's words inflicted great pain on the architects of this theology," the cardinal said.