A Catholic priest who performs musical keep-fit routines after Mass is revolutionizing the Church in Brazil, where he has gained superstar status for his preaching.
The London Sunday Telegraph reports that Fr. Marcelo Rossi is so popular that a compact disc of one of his live services — which includes the original “hymn” “The Lord’s Aerobics” — this year became the best-selling Brazilian CD of all time, with more than three million copies sold.
The 31-year-old priest was a gym instructor before he took his vows, and two years ago he began to incorporate fitness exercises into his Masses. His parishioners in the industrial city of Sao Patio loved the singing and dancing, and soon thousands of people were showing up to take part. He now says Mass five times a week in a hangar-sized building that holds 30,000 people. After completing the liturgy, he sings and dances on a stage, surrounded by choir members performing choreographed routines. As in an aerobics class, the audience copies the moves in front of them.
“Aerobics is letting your body do the praying,” Fr. Rossi said. “Taking exercise has got to be healthy — for body and soul.” The priest’s youth, good looks, and stage presence have contributed to his superstar status. In late July, during Fr. Rossi’s visit to the palace of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso in the capital, Brasilia, teenage girls outside screamed as though he were a pop star.
In addition to his normal parish duties, the young priest also presents a daily show on a religious cable channel and has two daily radio shows that attract up to ten million listeners.
So far, he has had little criticism from the traditional wing of the Church because he is bringing people back to the faith. Two years ago, only four percent of Brazilians went to church. Now that figure has tripled. There are more Catholics in Brazil than any other country-83 percent of its 160 million population are thought to be members-so the numbers involved are significant.
Religious commentators have explained Fr. Rossi’s rise in popularity as the Catholic counter-reaction to the surge in Protestant Evangelicalism. Until recently, it was estimated that 600,000 people a year were swapping Catholicism for Evangelicalism.
“The big thing that the Evangelicals were doing was that they understood communication better,” Fr. Rossi said. “We hesitated a little in our methods, but now hopefully we have adapted.”
Longtime Hollywood star Faye Dunaway is now a daily communicant. “I’m a new Catholic,” she told Esquire magazine in its August 1999 issue. “I love the Church; I love Mass. I go every morning at 6:30. When I’m on the right track spiritually and emotionally, things happen in my life. It’s mysterious.” Though she’s worked steadily in movies for over thirty years, Dunaway is perhaps best known for her roles in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Chinatown (1974), and Network (1976).
Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic invited the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to target the Kosovar population in a “reproductive health” campaign, according to a report from the Population Research Institute (PRI). The report cites an interview with Sterling Scruggs, UNFPA’s head of external communication, where he says that the UNFPA was invited into Kosovo by Milosevic to conduct a reproductive health “needs assessment” among the Kosovar population. In addition, Scruggs confinned, the UNFPA will conduct regular “reproductive health programs” in Kosovo in the coming months, as the persecuted ethnic group returns home.
The UNFPA campaign will consist of the distribution of “reproductive health” supplies to the largely Muslim Kosovar population. These supplies include abortifacient “morning after” pills, outmoded IUDs no longer used in other Western countries, and “manual vacuum.aspirators” (MVAs) used for early-term abortions. (While the UNFPA claims that MVAs are only used to remove the products of incomplete abortions, the PRI report cites firsthand documentary evidence that Albanian doctors and health care workers are being trained to use them as abortion devices.)
The PRI report, based on interviews with dozens of Kosovar refugee women, confirms that there is virtually no demand among the Kosovar population for “reproductive health” services. In fact, claims of widespread rape, promiscuity, and male oppression were largely fabricated to justify shipments of “reproductive health” supplies to the region.
In fact, the Kosovars pride themselves in having one of the highest birthrates in dying Europe. “Milosevic has been forced to withdraw his troops from Kosovo,” the report concludes, “but, aided by the UNFPA, a new form of ethnic cleansing will continue under the guise of’ reproductive health.'”
The Mexican Commission for the Jubilee Preparation has proposed that the canonization of twenty-five Mexican blessed of the “Cristero” period, already promulgated by the Holy See, take place on May 21, 2000, the day the Jubilee will be celebrated in Mexico. Moreover, Jesuit Paulo Molinari, postulator of Juan Diego’s cause, suggested that the Indian visionary of Our Lady of Guadalupe could be canonized in the year 2000. He also revealed that the miracle attributed to Juan Diego, the cure of a youth who attempted suicide by jumping from a high place, was certified by the medical commission. The youth’s cure was total, not only of the mortal wounds, but also of his drug addiction.
It was long in coming, but on July 13 a Notification from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) regarding Sr. Jeannine Gramick and Fr. Robert Nugent was made public. For more than two decades the two religious, founders of New Ways Ministry in Washington, D.C., have been involved in pastoral activities for homosexuals. The Notification says they are “permanently prohibited from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons and are ineligible, for an undetermined period, for any office in their respective religious institutes.” Below are some excerpts from the document, published in English, Italian, Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese and signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone:
“From the beginning, in presenting the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, Father Nugent and Sister Gramick have continually called central elements of that teaching into question. . . . In 1995, the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life transferred the entire case to the competence of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. At this point, with the hope that Father Nugent and Sister Gramick would be willing to express their assent to Catholic teaching on homosexuality and to correct the errors in their writings, the Congregation undertook another attempt at resolution by inviting them to respond unequivocally to certain questions regarding their position on the morality of homosexual acts and on the homosexual inclination.
“Their responses, dated February 22, 1996, . . . demonstrated a clear conceptual understanding of the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, but refrained from professing any adherence to that teaching. Furthermore, the publication, in 1995, of their book Voices of Hope: A Collection of Positive Catholic Writings on Gay and Lesbian Issues made it clear that there was no change in their opposition to fundamental elements of the Church’s teaching.
“The Congregation decided that . . . they should be asked to formulate a public declaration . . . to express their interior assent to the teaching of the Catholic Church on homosexuality.
“Sister Gramick, while expressing her love for the Church, simply refused to express any assent whatsoever to the teaching of the Church on homosexuality. Father Nugent was more responsive, but not unequivocal in his statement of interior assent to the teaching of the Church. It was decided by the members of the Congregation, therefore, that Father Nugent should be given yet another opportunity to express unequivocal assent . . . His response, dated January 25,1999, showed that this attempt had not met with success. Father Nugent would not sign the declaration he had received and responded by formulating an alternative text that modified the Congregation’s declaration on certain important points. In particular, he would not state that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and he added a section that calls into question the definitive and unchangeable nature of Catholic doctrine in this area.
“The ambiguities and errors of the approach of Father Nugent and Sister Gramick have caused confusion among the Catholic people and have harmed the community of the Church.”
A trove of rare, thousand-year-old coins bearing the likeness of Jesus has been discovered in an area of the Holy Land that was predominantly Muslim at the time. The fifty-eight “Jesus coins” — the largest such collection uncovered to date were among thousands of bronze items found last October at an archaeological site near the Sea of Galilee.
“There’s nothing like it in the whole world,” Gila Hurvitz, the curator and designer of the coin exhibit now on display at Hebrew University’s archaeological school, told the Associated Press.
Some of the uneven, blue-green coins show Jesus standing with a cross behind him. Others have him sitting on a throne or are depictions of Jesus’ face. The Greek inscriptions read, “Jesus the Messiah, the King of Kings” and “Jesus, the Messiah, the Victor.” Three large jugs were discovered in Tiberias, filled with treasures — coins, broken pottery, oil lamps, candelabras, and a single blue glass vase — that date to between the tenth and eleventh centuries, when the Muslim Fatimid empire ruled Palestine. Researchers believe Christians seeking to evangelize Muslims used the coins as currency during this period.
They were hidden underground, untouched for a thousand years, until October 1998, when Hebrew University professor ¥izhar Hirschfeld directed a “rescue” excavation — a dig required by law before major construction takes place. He never dreamed that he would unearth the largest cache of Islamic-period objects ever uncovered in Israel.
The owner, likely a collector or a dealer, may have buried the vases for fear of theft or invasion from Christian Crusaders, Hirschfeld said. “So among all this Muslim-Arabic atmosphere, here they are, the Christian holy of holiness, Jesus.”
The only other “Jesus coins” ever found were located through dealers.
Judicial Watch, a watchdog group, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department and FBI in July seeking to uncover documents on a government database on pro-life leaders. Judicial Watch requested documents related to this database in March, but, even while admitting “voluminous” documents exist, the Clinton Administration had as of press time yet to produce a single document.
Judicial Watch claims the database was created using abortion clinic violence as an excuse. Some members of the FBI reportedly objected to the database, concerned that it violated the FBI’s own rules and regulations governing data kept on American citizens. But the upper levels of the Clinton Justice Department ordered its creation anyway. Judicial Watch claims it has information that the database contains biographical information on well known pro-life leaders.
Get rich quick: Become a charismatic Evangelical! Gold dust appearing on worshipers is the latest bizarre trend to hit Britain’s charismatic Evangelical churches.
The so-called “gold phenomenon” began in Mexico, but Evangelical congregations in Britain have reported gold “miracles.” The Pioneer network of churches said that fifty members were affected in July. A few of the 3,000 attending a Pioneer conference in Norwich’s Norfolk claimed to see gold dust on their hands and faces after praying together.
Gerald Coates, head of Pioneer and a well-known Evangelical preacher, claimed that the gold dust was a “sign from God.” He said that other worshipers had also reported that their teeth or their amalgam fillings had turned to gold while they were praying.
On Sunday Christoph Stang, a German musician working for Pioneer in Britain, opened his mouth to show the congregation of Hinchley Wood, Surrey, his new gold-coated molar. “I am more amazed than anyone else,” Stang told the congregation. He said he experienced a “strange tingling” before noticing the tooth in the mirror.
Perhaps Stang could lead his Evangelical compatriots in a rousing new rendition of an old favorite: “Nearer My Gold to Thee.”
Up to sixty members of a Colombian doomsday cult have gone missing in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada in Northern Colombia. They were due for an alleged rendezvous with a spaceship the first weekend in July, and at press time nothing had been heard of them since then.
The members of the Stella Maris Gnostic church were hoping to be carried off by extraterrestrial beings before what they believe will be the imminent end of the world at the turn of the millennium. Police checked the sect’s half-finished temple in the Caribbean city of Cartagena but found no clue as to where the cult had gone or what their intentions were.
Mariela Tovar, whose 23-year-old daughter Patricia is among the disappeared, said the group’s failure to return prompted worried relatives to contact the police. The head of the sect apparently assured followers that the Sierra Nevada — a sacred territory to indigenous Indians — was where they could contact a spaceship. According to the cult’s interpretation of the Bible, they believe that extra-terrestrials will take 144,000 people from the earth before the end of the world — a sort of second Noah’s Ark.
At press time authorities had not discounted any theory about the disappearances and were exploring the possibilities of a mass suicide, mass kidnapping, or a lift from a passing UFO.
Recent Catholic breast-beating over the Shoah turned to finger-pointing in July when a Vatican representative said the problem was not just perceived Catholic anti-Semitism, but also Jewish anti-Catholicism.
During a conference in Israel on Catholic-Jewish relations, Fr. David Yager said the Catholic Church is not anti-Semitic and that all traces of the ideology have been purged from the Church’s institutions, but Israel continues to hold an anti-Catholic attitude that is harming prospects for better relations. Fr. Yager cited continuing accusations by some Jewish leaders that Pope Pius XII did not forcefully enough condemn Nazism and the Holocaust.
“The Catholic Church and the Jewish people are now allies and friends,” said Fr. Yager, who said Israel’s continued coolness toward Vatican overtures is harming relations as millions of Catholics prepare to visit the Holy Land during the Jubilee Year 2000. He said that continuing criticism of Pope Pius is essentially a “blood libel.”
“Our desires to search the truth are not ‘blood libelous,'” said Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League. Foxman praised efforts by Pope John Paul II to emphasize the incompatibility of anti-Semitism with Catholic teaching but said the message was not filtering down to churches at the grassroots level. “We both have responsibilities that we haven’t fulfilled,” he said, suggesting, according to Catholic World News, that levels of anti-Semitism were still higher than average among Catholics.
Only the prompt action of Fr. Juan Bautista Diaz in Yacuanquer, Colombia, prevented a day of proselytism by Jehovah’s Witnesses from ending in tragedy. On July 22, as three hundred villagers were preparing gallons of gasoline and torches to use against twelve visiting JWs, Fr. Diaz’s intervention returned peace to the village. Later the priest said that the Jehovah’s Witnesses “arrived to disturb the social order” and maintained that, without resorting to acts of violence such as nearly occurred, the community has the right not to accept a religion that is different from the one they profess.