Gays Italianos Querem que Próximo Papa Seja uma Mulher

ROMA (Reuters) -- Ativistas que participavam de um protesto contra a posição da Igreja Católica em relação ao homossexualismo lançaram uma campanha, nesta quinta-feira, para que o próximo papa seja uma... mulher!

Os manifestantes se concentraram a poucos metros do local onde o papa João Paulo II realizava uma audiência e se pronunciava contra estilos de vida considerados fora das convenções.

O protesto tinha o objetivo de lembrar um siciliano, Alfredo Ormando, que há exatamente dois anos ateou fogo ao próprio corpo, em plena Praça de São Pedro, para rejeitar a discriminação contra os homossexuais.

Sérgio lo Giudice, líder do Arcigay, um grupo italiano que defende os direitos homossexuais, disse que a Igreja precisa de um toque feminino. E expressou confiança em que o próximo pontífice seja uma mulher, um ser "muito mais sensível e aberto".

A Igreja Católica ensina que o homossexualismo, em si, não representa um pecado, mas sim a prática do ato sexual entre parceiros do mesmo sexo. O Vaticano também se opõe firmemente à idéia de ordenar mulheres.

Em audiência com autoridades locais, o papa pediu-lhe que fizessem de tudo a seu alcance para ajudar a família tradicional, através da concessão de auxílio médico mais barato para as crianças.

"A fim de proteger a família, que é o elemento básico da sociedade, peço a todos os que têm autoridade que evitem qualquer iniciativa que possa encorajar ou endossar a igualdade da família sob outras formas de coabitação", declarou João Paulo II.

Os ativistas escolheram uma pequena praça, junto à Praça de São Pedro, para realizar o protesto. No ano passado, a Polícia proibiu um grupo de homossexuais de entrar em São Pedro para celebrar a memória de Ormando.

"Mesmo no ano 2000, a Igreja não consegue chegar a um acordo com a comunidade gay", declarou o ativista Mauro Cioffari. "Na melhor das hipóteses, opta por uma atitude de silêncio total. Na pior, condena".

http://www.cnnbrasil.com/2000/mundo/europa/01/13/gays.reut/index.html

Estudiosos Confirmam Esquentamento da Terra

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Un selecto panel de científicos difundió un informe que asegura que el recalentamiento mundial es un fenómeno "indudablemente real".

El estudio fue divulgado en la noche del miércoles por la Academia Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas de Estados Unidos y marcó una posición sorprendentemente fuerte ante el controvertido tema.

También desacreditó uno de los principales argumentos empleados por los científicos que niegan la existencia de un proceso avanzado de recalentamiento global y sus consecuencias ambientales posiblemente funestas.

El panel no dejó lugar a dudas cuando subrayó que hay un "vínculo certero" entre la actividad humana y el recalentamiento mundial.

En los últimos 20 años las temperaturas mundiales han subido más que en cualquier época del siglo, según indicó el grupo de expertos liderado por John Wallace de la Universidad de Washington.

Los científicos tampoco titubearon en el momento de referirse a las pruebas en contrario provenientes de datos satélitales que son citadas por varios científicos y activistas políticos para desestimar los informes sobre recalentamiento planetario. El adjetivo que eligieron para calificar esas pruebas fue "irrelevantes".

El científico de la NASA, John Christy, cuya recopilación de datos satelitales se remonta a 1979, ha venido diciendo que las mediciones de la temperatura en la atmósfera superior de la Tierra indican un enfriamiento de dos grados Fahrenheit en las dos décadas pasadas.

Su investigación ha sido empleada como argumento básico por quienes niegan el calentamiento mundial, debido a que la mayoría de los científicos han presumido que el mencionado fenómeno podría afectar todas las capas de la atmósfera de un mismo modo. Pero dos años atrás, Christy reconoció que errores matemáticos en sus cálculos reducían el enfriamiento en casi medio grado Fahrenheit. Hoy Christy forma parte del panel que elaboró el informe difundido el miércoles.

El informe sostiene que factores externos, como la destrucción de la capa de ozono en la atmósfera superior de la Tierra, el rápido crecimiento de la contaminación provocada por la quema de los combustibles fósiles, y algunos desastres naturales como la erupción del volcán del Monte Pinatubo en las Filipinas hicieron posible el enfriamiento de la atmósfera superior de la Tierra aun cuando en la superficie la temperatura sigue creciendo.

"La diferencia entre el comportamiento del clima en la superficie y la atmósfera alta de la Tierra no invalida de modo alguno la conclusión de que la temperatura de la Tierra está subiendo", dijo Wallace. La evaluación más completa hasta la fecha de los posibles impactos del calentamiento global están contenidos en el estudio de 1995 del Panel Intergubernamental de Cambio Climático (IPCC), un esfuerzo apoyado por las Naciones Unidas con la participación de más de 2.500 científicos.

El IPCC llegó casi por unanimidad a la conclusión de que el calentamiento global es al menos producido parcialmente por la actividad humana, en especial por la quema de los combustibles fósiles que arroja a la atmósfera dióxido de carbono, metano y otros gases, formando una manta que retiene el calor próximo a la superficie terrestre.

El IPCC predijo un incremento en la temperatura global entre 2 y 6,3 grados Fahrenheit para el año 2100. El panel pronosticó que los efectos de la expansión de los océanos templados y la fusión de los hielos polares podrían sumarse y elevar el nivel el nivel de las aguas entre 30 y 90 centímetros.

Predijo además un incremento en la frecuencia e intensidad de las tormentas y las sequías; la propagación de enfermedades tropicales, un crecimiento agudo de las inundaciones costeras, y la extinción de las especies animales y vegetales que no se adapten al cambio climático.

También participaron en el panel del miércoles Benjamin Santer, el autor principal del informe del IPCC, y James Hansen, que con sus dramáticos testimonios sobre el cambio climático en 1988, disparó la difusión de los primeros informes sobre recalentamiento mundial.

El tema del recalentamiento global también ha generado debates en la comunidad política.

En 1997, una conferencia mundial en Kyoto, Japón, finalizó con un acuerdo en el que las naciones industrializadas se comprometieron a reducir las emisiones contaminantes de gases de invernadero. Pero el senado de los Estados Unidos se mostró radicalmente opuesto a ratificar el tratado.

Los críticos del acuerdo dijeron que las economías de las naciones industrializadas podrían verse muy afectadas por él, puesto que consideraron que imponía límites al crecimiento en procura del llamado desarrollo sustentable, que contempla la defensa del medio ambiente.

El ejemplo cundió. Se estima que China, con una economía en auge basada en el carbón, superará a Estados Unidos en las emisiones de gases invernadero para 2025.

http://cnnenespanol.com/2000/tec/01/13/calentamiento/index.html 

Cidades Italianas Fazem do Domingo Dia de Descanso... para os Carros!

A passion that causes 15,000 deaths a year is being curbed

Rory Carroll in Rome
Thursday January 13, 2000

Fourteen Italian cities, including Rome, Florence and Milan, will from next month ban cars every Sunday in their boldest effort yet to banish the smog which kills thousands of people every year and destroys ancient monuments.

An army of volunteer traffic guards will seal off city centres and urge residents to walk, bike or use beefed-up public transport, according to a plan unveiled yesterday.

Environmental groups praised the initiative for daring to take on Italy's love affair with the car, which has produced one of the highest ownership ratios in the world: 32m cars for 57.5m people.

The scheme will officially start on February 6, but Milan and Como jumped the gun yesterday by allowing only cars with catalytic converters to enter the city centre between 8am and 8pm.

During a trial day without cars last September, eight cities recorded an average 35% drop in carbon monoxide levels.

More than 15,000 Italians die from smog-related illnesses each year, according to the World Health Organisation. The Europe-wide figure is 80,000. Italy is also estimated to lose 16m working days each year because of related illnesses, such as bronchitis and asthma attacks.

Edo Ronchi, the environment minister, and Leonardo Domenici, the mayor of Florence, promised that trams, buses and underground trains would run more frequently on Sundays. Residents would also be encouraged to try more ecological modes of transport, such as electric scooters or cars that run on methane gas.

The cities joined the experiment on a voluntary basis but the government has offered a £300m honeypot of aid to those that sign up, which includes Naples, Turin and Bologna.

Italy's leading environmental group, Legambiente, praised the initiative but said more should be done to reduce traffic during the week. It will go ahead with its planned one-day blockade to "liberate" 100 streets in April.

Car-free weekends have been mooted for many years but politicians hesitated for fear of angering one of the most car-addicted electorates in the world.

Formula One racing is a national passion, and many Italians are reluctant to walk even short distances. Despite the mayor's pleas for Romans to leave their cars at home on New Year's Eve, people converged on the capital's centre in a 12-mile (20km) traffic jam.

Rome has also banned tour buses from the centre to avert gridlock caused by the more than 20m pilgrims expected for the Vatican's holy year of 2000.

The last concerted attempt to ban vehicless from city centres was during the oil crisis of the early 70s when the government wanted to conserve petrol. It spawned a brief revival of horses and carts.

http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/Distribution/Redirect_Artifact/0,4678,0-121821,00.html 

Monja Inglesa Deixa o Hábito por Discordar do Vaticano

Enero 12, 2000
Actualizado: 9:44 AM EST (1444 GMT)

LONDON -- Una monja católica y teóloga de Inglaterra anunció el miércoles su decisión de abandonar su orden religiosa debido a las discrepancias del Vaticano con su libro sobre el papel de la mujer en la iglesia.

La hermana Lavinia Byrne, docente de la Federación Teológica de Cambridge y colaboradora de programas religiosos, abandonará el Intituto de la Santa Virgen María luego de 35 años de dedicación.

"No puedo seguir trabajando como si llevara un brazo atado a la espalda. Así me he sentido en los dos últimos años," dijo en una entrevista con la BBC. "Es una decisión que tomo con disgusto".

Cuando se le preguntó si estaba en desacuerdo con las enseñanzas de la Iglesia Católica sobre las mujeres sacerdotes, repuso:

"Ese no es el punto, sino cómo la iglesia actúa cuando disiente con algo", indicó

Su libro "La mujer en el altar", que expone argumentos para que se nombren mujeres sacerdotes, fue publicado en 1993, momento en que el tema estaba en pleno debate en la Iglesia Católica luego de que Iglesia Anglicana ordenase dos mujeres sacerdotes.

"Posteriormente, el Vaticano tomó acciones contra el libro y en una comunidad monástica de América del norte pidieron al editor que lo almacenara o quemara"

Si bien uno de sus votos como monja es la obdiencia --los otros dos son la pobreza y la castidad-- ella subrayó que ante todo la obediencia es a Dios y no a los líderes de la iglesia.

"No tengo nada en contra de la fe católica, no estoy dejando la Iglesia".

El número de mujeres en comunidades religiosas en Gran Bretaña ha caído en la última década de 11.000 a 9.000.

Fonte: CNN em Espanhol

Igreja Católica Quer Separação do Candomblé

By LARRY ROHTER

SALVADOR, Brazil -- To the traditionalists who dominate the Roman Catholic Church here, the choice is clear: the word of God versus resurgent paganism.

But to a predominantly black group of local clergy and lay people, the doctrinal dispute that has erupted in Brazil's oldest diocese is merely the latest round in a 400-year struggle for religious tolerance and respect.

With positions on both sides hardening, the schism has taken on racial overtones. Since mid-1998, the diocese's most prominent black bishop has been transferred to a remote parish, black laymen's groups have complained that certain churches have closed their doors to them and charges that blacks have been systematically excluded from the priesthood are increasing.

At the center of the conflict is the African-derived faith known as Candomblé, which has particularly strong roots in this city of two million that the Italian writer Umberto Eco called "the Black Rome" in one of his novels.

Like Santería in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean or voodoo in Haiti, Candomblé merges the identities of African deities and Roman Catholic saints, so that St. George, for instance, is also Ogum, the god of war and of metals.

Followers of Candomblé, created by slaves, were persecuted by both religious and civil authorities throughout the colonial period and well into modern times. But the faith was never stamped out. The number of Candomblé adherents has grown rapidly across Brazil in recent years, as what was once a lower-class religion has come to be valued as authentically Brazilian, and its increasingly assertive clergy have begun to demand greater recognition.

Many in the Catholic Church, however, see that trend as harmful. "I am going to continue combating syncretism," Cardinal Lucas Moreira Neves said soon after arriving here in 1987, adding that while such practices may have been understandable when slaves were forced to abandon African beliefs, "now, with total freedom of religion in Brazil, everyone must follow their own faith, without mixtures."

So when an annual conference of black priests and bishops here in July included a visit to the city's two principal Candomblé temples, criticism came quickly. A French-born priest, the Rev. Pierre Mathon, announced that he intended to celebrate a "Mass of repudiation" of religious practices that he described as "demonic" and accused the black clergy of deviating from the one true faith.

"Dialogue is fine, but to condone Catholic priests receiving blessings from Candomblé priests just is not acceptable," Father Mathon said in a sermon. "These priests are the Church itself, and they are setting a bad example."

Brazil is the world's largest Roman Catholic country, at least nominally.

More than 80 percent of the country's 165 million people identify themselves as Catholics, though many, perhaps even a majority, also profess or practice Candomblé and its variants.

But the dispute here has repercussions that go far beyond Brazil. Early this year, Cardinal Neves was promoted to a new post in Rome, prefect of the Bishops Congregation, which put him in charge of the process of selecting new bishops and gives him powers to see that orthodox views are enforced around the world. The Vatican has made proselytism in Africa and Asia its top priority for the new century, and in those places, clerical leaders sympathetic to Candomblé note, Catholicism will encounter other religions with animist elements.

"The real issue here is the evangelization of Africa and who is going to go there and what they are going to say," said the Rev. Alfredo Souza Doria, chaplain of the Church of Our Lady of the Black Rosary, a center of black religious consciousness here since freed slaves founded it in the 1700's. "After 500 years, we believe that we, the colonized, have a right to speak, because we have a theology and philosophy too."

Cardinal Neves has been replaced here by Msgr. Geraldo Majella, who was transferred from Rome, where he had been Secretary of the Congregation for the Divine Faith and Discipline of the Sacraments, which oversees questions of the liturgy.

Though Monsignor Majella has attended some ecumenical events since his arrival last March, he made it clear in an interview that he intends to continue enforcing doctrinal orthodoxy. "Syncretism arises when people may not have a profound knowledge of religion and their faith," the monsignor said. "Therefore they believe that anything goes, that everything is fine, that you can mix the faith of the Church with that of another creed, as if with some kind of blender."

But, he continued, the notion that "I can go to a church and take the sacraments and also go to Candomblé" is a misconception, "the result of a lack of training in catechism." He added: "We must respect the doctrine of the Church, respecting the faith of each and every person, but we want that faith to be enlightened, without confusing people."

Within Candomblé, there are also disagreements as to the proper relationship with the Catholic Church. María Estella Azevedo dos Santos, who is the ialorixá, or high priestess, of the Ilê Axé Opo Afonjá terreiro, or temple, has also condemned syncretism in terms that Monsignor Majella said he applauds with "the greatest admiration and respect."

"We are not against the Catholic religion, but we do oppose syncretism," Ms. Azevedo dos Santos -- better known by her religious name, Mãe Stella de Oxossí, or Mother Stella -- said recently. "One thing does not take away the validity of the other, but you cannot mix them together very much."

But another influential Candomblé figure, Mãe Cleusa, who was until her death last year the leader of the

Gantois temple here, argued that since "all roads lead to God," opposing syncretism was unrealistic. "After all these centuries, you cannot separate them," Mother Cleusa said of Catholicism and Candomblé in an interview a few years ago.

The Brazilian government, which has long had political differences with the National Council of Bishops, has largely remained aloof from the theological dispute here other than to note that the Constitution of 1988 guarantees full freedom of religion. Nevertheless, Candomblé followers got an important boost when the Minister of Culture, Francisco Weffort, came in late November to declare the Ilê Axé Opo Afonjá temple part of the "national patrimony."

"This is a national monument and we should protect it," Mr. Weffort said in a speech at the temple, adding that the measure was part of an effort to "right wrongs done to blacks in the past."

The local governor and mayor also attended the ceremony. Ignoring criticism from the church hierarchy, Msgr. Gílio Felício, the black bishop who had been reassigned, came too and was wildly applauded when a speaker described him as a "companion and partner in our struggle."

"That event was an enormous victory for Candomblé followers," said Juca Ferreira, a city councilman. "The state was saying it finally recognizes that not only Catholic churches are part of our national legacy and birthright."

In addition, a prosecutor, Lidivaldo Britto, has started an investigation of Father Mathon with the intention of filing charges against him for violating Brazil's freedom of religion statute. "It is against the law to create a climate that discourages others from practicing their faith, and that is what he has attempted to do," Mr. Britto said.

Monsignor Majella said he agreed that the Brazilian church must do more to address the spiritual needs of its black parishioners and urged them to be patient, saying that an effort is under way to attract and train more black priests and bishops.

But Albérico Paiva Pereira, leader of the Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Black Rosary, a Catholic layman's group, argues that is not enough.

"The church must come to understand the religious dualism that has always existed in Bahia and Brazil,

and recognize that its values are not the only ones that are worthwhile," he said. "In a country in which most people are black, you have to do this, or else the Church itself will die."

http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/americas/011000brazil-religion.html

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