Watching the World
Priest Shortage
● United States: Roman Catholic seminary enrollment dropped from 22,963 in 1972 to 11,500 in 1982, reports The New York Times. The climbing rate of death among aging priests and resignations among younger clerics have added to the shortage problem. If present trends continue, the next decade will see the number of American priests cut in half, predict analysts. In addition, since 1966, the year after the Second Vatican Council, the number of nuns has fallen from 181,421 to 121,370 and the number of Catholic brothers in religious orders has decreased more than 60 percent to 7,880. These drastic drops are of “grave concern” to the pope, who was moved to say: “The median age of religious is rising and their ability to serve the needs of the church is becoming increasingly more limited.”
● Austria: “No later than in 15 or 20 years every second parish in predominantly Catholic Austria will be without its own priest,” reports Schwäbische Zeitung of Germany. Even now a fifth of all parishes are without “a parish priest of their own,” according to the study that was made. The study also called attention to the advanced age of most of Austria’s clergymen.
● Canada: Due to the severe shortage of Roman Catholic priests in Toronto, the archdiocese put up 35 billboards around the city portraying a crucified Christ as part of an advertising campaign to recruit clerics. They fear that in the next five years the present ratio of one priest for every 3,000 parishioners will drop to one for every 5,000. An editorial in The Toronto Sun summed up this approach by saying: “If there is a shortage of priests it is because God, not the local Archdiocese, has decided to stop calling them.”
Risk of War Increases
● Modern technology is increasing the risk of nuclear war, warns the research group Worldwatch Institute of Washington. Communications and information technology have developed so quickly that they are taking on an “increasingly central role” in the arms race, says the author of the report, Daniel Deudney. Instead of holding war weapons in check, information technologies increase the temptation to launch a nuclear attack, asserts the report. It reasons that sophisticated communications systems are highly vulnerable and this “makes first strikes more tempting in crisis situations.”
Africa-to-Europe Link
● For more than a hundred years the idea of linking Europe with Africa has been discussed. Now, a project to unite the two continents by tunnel has the green light to move ahead, as a result of a recent conference held in Madrid, Spain. The 14-kilometer (9-mi) tunnel will go under the Strait of Gibraltar and will link Spain with Morocco. It will take some five years to construct the tunnel and will cost in the neighborhood of two billion dollars (U.S.). The goal is to have it finished by the end of this decade.
China’s Crime Problem
● Despite a three-year crackdown on crime, China still has “quite a problem” with lawlessness, says China’s new security chief, Liu Fuzhi, in the People’s Daily. “There was no obvious decrease in major crimes such as murder, robbery, rape and larceny” since 1981, notes Mr. Liu. China’s new middle class is the main target of criminals, for The Age of Melbourne, Australia, says: “The Ministry of Public Security has sent a circular to its officers throughout the country ordering ‘immediate action’ to protect wealthy peasants.” What makes the crime problem worse is “the continuing view of many peasants that ‘all property should be divided equally,’” reports the Peking correspondent for The Age.
Soviet Economy
● A 30-page memorandum by Soviet economists to Kremlin officials recommends “a profound restructuring of state economic management” in order to turn around the Soviet economy from its slowdown of more than a decade. The economists, associated with the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk, finger a bulky and dated bureaucracy as a cause of the Soviet’s negative economic trend. “Within the framework of that system,” notes the document, “people were regarded as ‘cogs’ in the economic mechanism, and they behaved accordingly—obediently (passively), like machines and materials” thereby stifling their “creative impulses.” The result? The report charges Soviet workers with “an indifferent attitude to work, a shoddy quality of work,” and ‘widespread pilfering.’
Islam Modernization?
● At the opening session of the 43-nation Islamic Conference Organization meeting held in Mecca, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia called for a new worldwide theological body to revamp Islamic laws and find answers to “the challenges of modern life.” He proposed the return of ijtihad—interpretation of Muslim sacred law—as a means to reappraise the application of some Islamic laws. Although not all Muslim leaders desire such a change, Anwar Ibrahim, a Malaysian minister, said: “The revival of ijtihad would do away with outmoded thinking and ideas . . . It is necessary for us to reconcile Islamic laws with the modern world.”
Nutritional Anemia
● Many women in developing countries, at least 230 million, are anemic, estimates the World Health Organization’s statistical quarterly. They suffer from a deficiency of one or more essential nutrients, mainly iron. Pregnant women are hit the hardest by what WHO calls “one of the most frequently observed diseases in the world today”—iron-deficiency anemia. “About half the non-pregnant women and nearly two-thirds of the pregnant women” have nutritional anemia, states WHO statistician Erica Royston. After examining areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America, the report noted: “Most nutritional anaemia can be prevented.”
Childless and Elderly
● “What will happen to you in your old age if you have no children?” is a question often asked the childless. Family Relations journal published a recent study by Pat M. Keith of the Department of Sociology, Iowa State University, on “how the childless manage in old age and whether they fare less well than their age peers who are parents.” Professor Keith’s research, based on interviews of childless persons and parents aged 72 or older, found that “children did not assure these older parents less loneliness, more positive appraisals of life,” and therefore, “it was concluded that the presence or absence of children did not seem to appreciably alter the lives of the very aged.”
French Reject Sin
● Ninety percent of the French population no longer believe in sin, and only 4 percent accept the concept of sin, according to a survey published in the Catholic weekly Le Pelerin. In addition, in a country where 82 percent of the population are Roman Catholic, the survey revealed that 69 percent said they never went to confession and that 13 percent go only once a year or less.
Sinai Opens Archives
● The discovery of Greek Bible manuscripts at Mount Sinai’s St. Catherine Monastery caused quite a stir back in 1975. Theology professors Barbara and Kurt Aland of the Institute for New Testament Textual Criticism, Münster, Federal Republic of Germany, have finally reached an agreement with the monastery whereby they will be allowed to study and analyze these texts. Over 60 unknown Greek Bible manuscripts have been filmed. This material will be compared in the Münster institute with the other 1,200 previously known ancient manuscripts found at the St. Catherine Monastery. According to the German newspaper Westfälische Nachrichten, this agreement between the institute and the monastery is in the form of an exclusive contract for which prominent Greek Orthodox officials acted as mediators.
A Very Long Tail
● One of the best-known short-period comets, Tempel-2, surprised British astronomers at the University of Leicester, England, by exposing its 20-million-mile (32-million-km) tail for the first time. Its once invisible tail, thought to be composed of dust blown off the comet’s one- to two-mile (1.6- to 3.2-km) nucleus by solar pressure, was sighted by IRAS (the American-British-Netherlands Infra-Red Astronomy Satellite). Short-period comets, those that return relatively often (Tempel-2 returns about every 5.28 years), were assumed to have no visible tails. But IRAS’ infrared wavelength sighting of Tempel-2’s very long tail may signify that all comets have tails.
Tooth Saver
● Tired of nagging your children to brush and floss their teeth? Well, nag no more. Instead, brush and floss their teeth yourself, suggests Dr. Ronald Johnson, chairman of pediatric dentistry at the University of Southern California. “Children under the age of 7 or 8 are simply unable to do a thorough job,” says Johnson. “Some lack the manual dexterity. Others lack a sense of responsibility. Parents can clean a child’s teeth far better.” Dr. Johnson believes that a daily, thorough brushing and flossing before bedtime is too important to be entrusted to children.
Cheep Pet
● Rent-a-chicken is flying high in the Netherlands. The Children’s Farm Foundation of Nuenen in Brabant, reports Holland Herald, hatched the idea to sponsor a campaign to breed familiarity between children and animals. But why brood about chickens? Why not lease-a-lamb, or charter-a-cow, or hire-a-hog? Chickens, they say, are comparatively easy to manage and, in addition, the family that keeps them gets a return, in eggs, for the $11 (U.S.) they shelled out for two chickens and a coop.
Abortions in Poland
● Abortions outnumber live births in Poland, according to a report in American Medical News. Official statistics indicate 702,000 births in Poland compared to an estimated 800,000 to one million abortions in 1982. Why so many abortions in a country where the Roman Catholic Church, which strictly forbids abortions, has such a powerful social influence on many of Poland’s 36 million inhabitants? Some experts blame it on “food shortages” or “a desperate housing shortage,” says the report, “while others contend that many couples consider abortion to be the only reasonable method of contraception available.” And, the report notes, “the Polish government and the Communist Party apparatus provide incentives [free clinical services] for abortions.”