News/International

HAMILTON, Ont. - It was after dark when the Canadian medical team pulled up outside the rural Ugandan clinic. Just outside of Kampala, St. Stevens was, as is often the case, shrouded in darkness due to a power outage. Inside, they found that many of the 20 patients were suffering the effects of malaria. A nurse was triaging a patient by the light of a kerosene lamp.

ROME - A Catholic archbishop and an Anglican bishop who lead work on a document about witnessing to commonly held points of faith said the document will be “very honest” about current tensions within the Anglican Communion and the problems that poses for ecumenical dialogue.

ROME - South Korea’s leading Catholic churchman welcomed the news that North Korea had agreed to wind down its nuclear program in exchange for fuel assistance from outside countries.

ROME - Pope John Paul II consulted with top aides about possibly resigning in 2000 and set up a “specific procedure” for papal resignation, says a new book by the late pope’s former secretary.

WARSAW, Poland  - The Polish archbishop who resigned after admitting he collaborated with his country's communist secret police denied claims that he failed to inform the Pope about his past.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI asked the government of Turkey to grant full legal recognition to the Catholic Church and to establish a formal dialogue with the nation's Catholic bishops to work out concrete problems.

TORONTO - The outgoing president of the North American Academy of Liturgy and a leading Catholic liturgist has told The Catholic Register the most recent translation of the Roman Missal is "a step backwards" for ecumenical relations.

OXFORD, England - Polish Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus of Warsaw resigned just two days after formally taking office, after admitting that he acted as an informer for Poland's former communist secret police and that his co-operation harmed the church.

VATICAN CITY - Executing someone guilty of a crime "is not the way to restore justice and reconcile society," the Vatican spokesman said after Saddam Hussein was hanged Dec. 30.

ROME - Unless the Catholic Church can show the world concrete models of male-female co-operation in positions of responsibility and decision-making, the church will continue to struggle against charges that it is chauvinistic, said Mary Ann Glendon.