POPE WARNS AGAINST WITHCRAFT IN ANGOLA

LUANDA — Pope Benedict XVI issued a warning against witchcraft Saturday during his visit to Angola, after calling on African leaders to battle corruption and drawing a tough line against abortion.
The pope celebrated a private Mass for Angola's clergy and laypeople in the modernist Sao Paulo church, which along with much of the surrounding neighbourhood has been freshly painted and upgraded for his visit.
He praised the work of activists within the Church, and called on them to work to convert people to Catholicism, saying evangelising remains as important today as it was when Catholics first arrived in this region of Africa 500 years ago.
"Today it is up to you, brothers and sisters, following in the footsteps of those heroic and holy heralds of God, to offer the risen Christ to your fellow citizens," he said to the invitation-only crowd.
"So many of them are living in fear of spirits, of malign and threatening powers. In their bewilderment they end up even condemning street children and the elderly as alleged sorcerers," he said.
The issue has particular resonance in Angola, where traditional and home-grown faiths are flourishing, even though some sects have been linked to child abuse and human sacrifice.
Benedict criticised the idea that seeking to convert people was an affront to believers of other faiths.
"We do no injustice to anyone if we present Christ to them and thus grant them the opportunity of finding their truest and most authentic selves, the joy of finding life," he added.
Sao Paulo claims the largest congregation in Luanda, with seating for 1,500 people. Next door is the headquarters of Radio Ecclesia, a Catholic radio station that is one of the few independent voices in Angolan media.
Local Church leaders hope the pope's visit will push Angola's government -- run by the formerly Marxist Movement for the Popular Liberation of Angola -- to allow the station to broadcast nationwide, rather than only in the capital.
In a speech at President Jose Eduardo dos Santos's residence late Friday, Benedict urged African leaders to allow greater press freedom, as he made a stern call for the continent to do more to fight poverty and corruption.
Dos Santos has ruled Angola for 30 years, and the country is ranked among the most corrupt in the world by Transparency International.
But in a country still recovering from decades of war, two thirds of the population lives on less than two dollars a day, despite Angola's oil riches.
"The multitude of Angolans who live below the threshold of absolute poverty must not be forgotten. Do not disappoint their expectations," Benedict said Friday.
He called on Africa to show "a determination born from the conversion of hearts to excise corruption once and for all".
"Armed with integrity, magnanimity and compassion, you can transform this continent, freeing your people from the scourges of greed, violence and unrest," he said.
Benedict has also sought to reinforce Catholic teachings on social issues, taking aim at a part of the African Union's charter that guarantees women a right to an abortion in cases of rape, incest, or major health risks to the mother, saying abortion was not a health issue.
Those remarks followed his controversial denunciation of condoms as a tool to prevent AIDS, which has sparked an international uproar among activists and some governments.

CHIEF RABBINATE CUTS TIES WITH VATICAN

Pope Benedict XVI insisted on Wednesday that he felt "full and indisputable solidarity" with Jews.
Benedict spoke days after his decision to revoke the excommunication of a bishop who says no Jews were gassed during the Holocaust provoked an outcry among Jews.
Benedict said Wednesday that he hoped the memory of the Holocaust would also serve as a warning against the "unpredictable power of evil when it conquers the hearts of men."
He spoke during a public audience at the Vatican.

The Vatican already distanced itself from comments by bishop Richard Williamson, who has denied that 6 million Jews were murdered during World War II. The Holy See said that removing the excommunication by no means implied the Vatican shared Williamson's views.
But on Tuesday the Chief Rabbinate of Israel broke off official ties with the Vatican indefinitely in protest over the Pope's decision to reinstate a known Holocaust denier.

The Chief Rabbinate also canceled a meeting scheduled for March 2-4 in Rome with the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews.
In a letter to the commission's chairman, Cardinal Walter Casper, Chief Rabbinate Director-General Oded Weiner wrote that "without a public apology and recanting, it will be difficult to continue the dialogue."
According to a Chief Rabbinate source, the letter was leaked to the Israeli press before it was received by the Vatican, which might further complicate relations between the Chief Rabbinate and the Catholic Church.
Last week, in an attempt to heal a decades-old rift between the Church and a group of ultra-conservative breakaway group of clergymen, Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of four bishops. The four Catholic bishops belong to the Society of Saint Pius, which opposed changes in Catholic doctrine made in the 1960s under the Second Vatican Council.
One of them is Britain's Bishop Richard Williamson, who is being investigated for Holocaust denial in Germany, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
In a recent interview with Swedish state television, Williamson denied the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis.
"I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews died in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them in gas chambers," Williamson told the interviewer.
"The historical evidence is hugely against six million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler. I believe there were no gas chambers," Williamson reportedly said.
He has also reportedly endorsed the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion and claimed that Jews are bent on world domination.
In a parallel development Tuesday, Bishop Bernard Fellay, the superior general of the Society of Saint Pius, distanced himself from Williamson's comments.
Fellay said he has forbidden Williamson from speaking publicly about any historical or political questions and that his views "don't reflect in any way the position of the society."
"We ask forgiveness of the Supreme Pontiff and all the men of good will for the dramatic consequences of this act," Fellay said.
Haifa Chief Rabbi Shear Yishuv Cohen, chairman of the Rabbinate's commission, told The Jerusalem Post that he expected Williamson to publicly retract his statements before meetings could be renewed.
"I understand the Pope's efforts to bring about unity in the Church, but he should be aware that, indirectly, he hurt Jews. We expect him to do the best to repair the situation." Weiner's letter called Williamson's comments "odious" and "outrageous."
Rabbi David Rosen, Director of the American Jewish Committee's Department for Interreligious Affairs, and an advisory member of the Chief rabbinate's commission, said that the Pope's decision has created an atmosphere of "bad faith."
Rosen reckoned that the Pope's move to lift Williamson's excommunication, which was made public just days before International Holocaust Day, was made due to a lack of proper consultation.
"I tend to believe that the Pope simply was not informed about Williamson in advance and now he is in a very uncomfortable situation."
Rosen said that the Pope had a history of improper preparation, leading to large-scale blunders. He cited a speech made in Regensburg, Germany, in which he quoted a medieval emperor who called Islam "evil and inhuman," comments that sparked a wave of Islamic-led violence against Catholic churches around the world.
Rosen said that the Rabbinate expected the Pope to take tangible steps against Williamson.
"I don't think it is my place to tell the Church precisely what to do. But Williamson should be censured in some way or forced to retract his statements.
"Until that happens, we may be in contact with the Vatican on an individual level, but there will be no official meetings."