GARBAGE CITY

By GARY LANE

A visit to Egypt’s Mokattam district is an unforgettable experience. The ever-present odour of spoiled garbage lingers in the memories of visitors long after they leave. This is one of four Cairo neighbourhoods known as “Garbage City.” In Arabic, each neighbourhood is called Zebbaleen: the place where the garbage collectors (Zebbaleen) live. Nearly 50,000 people—most of them Christians—reside in the four Zebbaleen ghettos.

Poor, uneducated and treated as second-class citizens in a society dominated by Muslims, these Egyptians live and work in the stench and squalor of the trash societies. Trash is piled everywhere along the dusty, narrow, rat-infested streets. Each day the garbage men awaken at dawn, collect trash throughout Cairo and dump it in the Zebbaleen neighbourhoods. The hands and arms of women and children are blackened as they help the men eek out a living by sorting and picking through trash for recyclables.

Soon the Zebbaleen Christians in Garbage City may lose the one trade they know. Egypt’s government has plans to stop renewing Zebbaleens’ licenses, awarding the task of garbage collection to foreign contractors.

Christian schools in India refuse Hindu practice

An Indian Court has ruled temporarily that a Hindu practice is voluntary for students. Participation of children in a state government-ordered Surya namaskar program would be voluntary, the Madhya Pradesh High Court declared on Jan. 24, a day before the program was to take place.

Muslim and Church leaders had joined secular protestors to say that the  government order was against their religious beliefs. The state BJP government had ordered a state-wide compulsory surya namaskar and yoga programs in December after Baba Ramdev, a guru popular for his yoga classes, visited the state. The petitions said surya namaskar or Sun Salutation was part of the “worship system” of a religion. It asked the court to make the program voluntary because worshipping the sun was forbidden in some religions.

The state government had threatened to de-recognize schools that do not participate in the program. The state has been asked to file a reply to the petition within four weeks. Fr. Anand Muttungal, spokesman for the Madhya Pradesh Bishops’ council, said, “We are not against yoga; in fact it is good for health; but the way it is being done is objectionable.” ICNS

Vatican says death penalty “difficult to justify today”

A Vatican declaration regarding the death penalty was released Feb. 7. Rather than condemning the practice outright, the Vatican used nuanced language to indicate that while it found the practice “an affront to human dignity,” it could in some circumstances be necessitated. The language is starkly different from that used to condemn abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage--which the Vatican argues can never be justified.

“The Catholic Church continues to maintain that the legitimate authorities of State have the duty to protect society from aggressors,” says the document. “Some States traditionally include the death penalty among the means used to achieve this end,” an option “that is difficult to justify today.”

The Vatican explains its aversion to the death penalty noting that states now have new ways “of preserving public order and people’s safety,” which include “offering the accused stimuli and encouragement” to mend their ways. Such non-lethal means of prevention and punishment, suggests the document, “correspond better to the ... common good and conform more to the dignity of the human person….Any decision to use the death penalty involves many dangers,” including “punishing the innocent, and the temptation to foment violent forms of revenge rather than true social justice,” warns the document.  www.LifeSiteNews.com

No exemption for gay adoption

On Jan 29 British Prime Minister Tony Blair (right) announced that Catholic adoption agencies could not refuse to place children with same-sex couples. Despite support from the Anglican Archbishops of Canterbury and York, Catholic adoption agencies lost their bid to be exempt from Sexual Orientation Regulations prohibiting “discrimination” in the provision of goods, facilities and services. Rowan Williams and John Sentamu had written Blair that “The rights of conscience cannot be made subject to legislation, however well meaning.”

Cormac Cardinal Murphy O’Connor told the BBC, “Here the Catholic Church and its adoption services are wishing to act according to its principles and conscience and the government is saying: ‘No, we won’t allow you to ... you have no space, you have no place in the public life of this country.’” O’Connor added that this is “just one step and there will be further ones.”

In 2003 a Vatican document (authored primarily by the present pope) stated that it would be “gravely immoral” for Catholic agencies to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. The Catholic agencies have a strong record of working with difficult-to-place children. About 4,000 children could be affected by the new regulations. The law comes into effect in April although Catholic agencies will be given a 21-month transition period to comply. Scottish Catholic adoption agencies will continue to apply Catholic moral law and, if necessary, defend themselves in court.