BISHOP Dominic Tang. apostolic administrator of Canton, had a half hour audience with the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli on Monday. Bishop 'Fang had an audience with Pope John Paul at the end of last week.
He came to Rome from Hong Kong where he has been convalescing after a stomach operation. Last .year Chinese authorities released him after 22 years in prison.
As he is regarded as legitimate both by Peking and the Vatican. he could be a bridge for improving relations between them. Some interpret his visit to Rome as a pointer that Peking is prepared to aeknoriledge that the patriotic association of Chinese Catholics (PACC), does not represent all Catholics in China.
FR CHRISTIAN DELORME. with a French Protestant and an Algerian called off their 29-day hunger strike in Lyons, designed as a protest against expulsion of second generation immigrants on slender grounds. The new Archbishop of Paris had been among their supporters. The strike stopped when the Minister for the Interior offered to suspend expulsions for three months, except in cases of serious crime, and to set up a commission to report in that time.
AN ANTI 'XUCLEAR war demonstration ended in the arrest of 54 persons, most from the Catholic 1Vorker movement and a local I nitarian church in California last week. The demonstrators were protesting against the involvement of the Rockwell International Corporation in the defense industry. Rockwell has contracts with the US government for the Mx missile.
ER A NC ISCA NS around the world will begin an International Year of St Francis on October 4. to commemorate the eighth centenary of their founder's birth. The theme of the year is "Let us love and serve the Lord."
GENERAL Alexander Haig. the t.S Secretary of State, met with Pope John Paul in a private audience at the Vatican last Saturday. The 45-minute audience, which lasted 25 minutes longer than scheduled, was held without the aid of an interpreter in the Pope's private library. No details of their talks were released.
THE HOTLY debated concept of a New World Information Order was endorsed by UN Secretary C'eneral Waldheim in an address marking the US national Catholic observance of World Communications Day last week. The concept has been attacked by Western nations and news agencies on grounds that totalitarian countries could use the plan to justify limits on freedom of the press.
THE CAUSE of beatification of the founder of Opus Dei, Mgr Josemaria Escriva. who died in 1975, is to open in Rome on Tuesday. The Sacred C'ongregation for the Causes of Saints will scrutinise his life and writings, and favours attrihuted to his intercession during the process which may lead to his canonisation as a saint.