Colombo, 21 December (ENI)--Church officials and charity workers say the resurgence of ethnic fighting in Sri Lanka has stalled the tsunami reconstruction in the troubled east and the north. "The situation is very frustrating," the Rev. Jayasiri Peiris, general secretary of the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka, told Ecumenical News International ahead of the second anniversary of the catastrophe that hit Sri Lanka and a dozen other nations on 26 December 2004.

"We have funds but unfortunately, we cannot help the needy people as we want to," said Anglican pastor Peiris, who coordinates the tsunami relief work of the NCC, a grouping of eight Protestant churches in Sri Lanka. More than 31 000 people were killed and more than half a million displaced by the tsunami, according to government estimates, said to be conservative, while NGOs put the casualty and the displacement figures much higher. Sunil De Silva, who is in charge of the NCC's tsunami rehabilitation programme in the troubled east, told ENI that "one of the biggest casualties of the fighting is post tsunami reconstruction." Most housing reconstruction in the ethnic Tamil areas, he pointed out, has been suspended due to the conflict and the consequent lack of security and a shortage of building material.

The A9 highway - the only land route to the northern Jaffna peninsula - has been closed by the government since August due to the near full-blown civil war. The road runs through the Vanni region, which is under the control of the rebel Tamil Tigers. More than 3500 people, including civilians, security forces and Tamil rebels have been killed in the renewed fighting which resurfaced after Mahinda Rajapakse won the presidential election in November 2005 with the support of Sinhala nationalist parties.

Known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the rebels have been engaged in a violent campaign for autonomy for ethnic Tamil majority areas in the north and in the east. This had resulted in more than 65 000 deaths prior to a 2002 ceasefire brokered by Norway. With the government imposing severe restrictions on the movement of building material to "uncleared areas" as those under rebel control are referred to, churches and charities have had to rein in their reconstruction work there and in the Jaffna peninsula area beyond Wanni.

"We completed 50 houses in Jaffna. Work was in progress on 100 more houses when the trouble began," said the Rev. W. P. Ebenezer Joseph, president of Sri Lanka's Methodist Conference. But he noted. "We have stopped the work altogether." Due to the non-availability of building material, and with workers and contractors refusing to work in the troubled region, he said: "there is no alternative but to stop the work".

Andrew Lanyon, operations director of World Vision Sri Lanka said more than 90 per cent of 2000 houses planned in the trouble-free Sinhala south had been built, but only 60 per cent of the 1500 houses planned in the north and east had been completed. "As for Jaffna, the work has come to a complete standstill," he added. Lanyon cautioned that if the situation remained unchanged in coming months some of the NGOs would have to take a decision about the future of their projects. "If there is no access to your project areas what can you do?" said Lanyon. [566 words]

[COURTESY TO ENI AS SOURCE]

Rome, 13 December (ENI)--Pope Benedict XVI and Patriarch Alexei II of the Russian Orthodox Church may meet in early 2007, according to unconfirmed reports circulating in Rome and Moscow. There has been no official church confirmation of the rumours, but if such an encounter did take place, it would be the first meeting between a Pope and a Russian Orthodox Patriarch.

The Vatican is mulling the possibility of a meeting in Hungary in 2007 between Pope Benedict and Patriarch Alexei, the Italian weekly Panorama has reported. Benedict's predecessor, Pope John Paul II, spoke repeatedly of his dream to visit Russia, but met resistance from the Moscow Patriarchate, which accused the Vatican of seeking converts and infringing on its jurisdiction by creating Roman Catholic dioceses in Russia.

There have also been tensions about the activities of Ukrainian Greek Catholic leaders, who observe the Eastern Rite, but come under the jurisdiction of Rome. A church historian contacted in Moscow noted, "In the past, every time a meeting between the Pope and the Russian Patriarch was scheduled, or even just contemplated, something happened at the last minute which meant it had to be cancelled. We don't know if the same thing will happen again."

However, relations have been improving since Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope in April 2005. "Benedict has had a better reception than John Paul among Orthodox leaders because of his affinity for early Christianity traditions and his respected theological scholarship," noted Associated Press religion writer Brian Murphy. "Alexei has suggested he might consider meeting Benedict, perhaps in a neutral third country, if there is progress on the Eastern Rite quarrels and other issues."

Unofficial church sources have told Ecumenical News International there is a growing possibility that Pope Benedict and Patriarch Alexei will meet towards the end of January at the Benedictine abbey of Pannonhalma, in northwest Hungary, near the border with Austria. A proposed meeting at the abbey in 1996 between Pope John Paul and Patriarch Alexei was cancelled, and speculation that the two leaders would meet the following year in Vienna also came to nothing.

The Hungarian abbey was founded a millennium ago before the 1054 split between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, and is seen as a neutral meeting place, even though it now belongs to the Catholic Church. [396 words]

[COURTESY TO ENI AS SOURCE]

New Delhi, 7 December (ENI)--Indian's constitution may have outlawed the caste system, but Dalits, as the lower castes are known now, still have to fight for equal treatment in a society in which they face being shunned and discriminated against. There was some small cheer for Christian and Muslim Dalits in Uttar Pradesh this week. Churches and Christian activists welcomed the northern state's decision to recommend official Scheduled Caste status to Christian and Muslim Dalits. This will make them eligible for free education and being able to take government jobs that had been reserved for Dalits of other faiths.

"Depriving them [Christian and Muslim Dalits] is not only against the spirit of the Constitution of India but also not based on the rule of justice," said a resolution adopted on 5 December by the legislature of Uttar Pradesh. This is India's most populous state with a population of more than 180 million people. The resolution passed, but with roars of protest by the Bharatiya Janta Party, which has been accused of promoting a Hindu nationalist agenda. The measure seeks the abolition of the exclusion of Christian and Muslim Dalits from the legislative benefits that had been aimed at uplifting the group.

Dalit means "trampled upon" in Sanskrit, and refers to low castes still treated as "untouchables" under a rigid caste system that has not disappeared in reality. Under the Scheduled Caste Act of 1950, Hindu Dalits in India have been entitled to free education and access to government jobs to improve their social status. Later, these benefits were extended to Sikh Dalits in 1956 and to Buddhist Dalits in 1990.

These rights had, however, been denied to Christian Dalits who account for two thirds of an estimated 27 million Christians in India. "This is a very positive development," said the Rev. Raj Bharat Patta, executive secretary of the Dalit desk of the National Council of Churches in India, which groups 29 Orthodox and Protestant churches.

Patta, who spoke to Ecumenical News International from Nagpur in central India, said the decision would put further pressure on the central government to introduce a similar measure. Uttar Pradesh is the 12th Indian state to pass a resolution endorsing the demands of Christian and Muslims for equal rights. [388 words]

[COURTESY TO ENI AS SOURCE]

New Delhi, 4 December (ENI)--Church leaders in India, aware that Christian institutions are responsible for running many of the country's medical facilities, are deeply concerned that the world's second-most populous nation now has the most people with HIV and AIDS. On World AIDS Day, Protestant and Catholic archbishops had led a candlelit procession in Delhi. On the march, were Church of North India (CNI) Bishop Karam Masih, Roman Catholic Archbishop Vincent M. Concessao and Vijay Aruldas, general secretary of the Christian Medical Association of India (CMAI).

"AIDS is a very serious problem. That is why we are undertaking this procession," Bishop Masih told the Christian gathering in the courtyard of the Catholic cathedral. Church health workers, activists, Christian school students and hospital staff joined the march organized by CMAI in collaboration with the healthcare commission of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI).

"Everyone has a right to dignity, but HIV positive people are being denied this right," said Aruldas who heads the CMAI, the health arm of the National Council of Churches in India representing 29 Orthodox and Protestant churches. It runs 330 Christian hospitals and has more than 6000 health professionals among its members. Ahead of the international AIDS Day, UNAIDS had noted that India has more than 5.7 million HIV positive cases - overtaking South Africa as the country with the highest number of carriers of the virus.

In its 2006 report, UNAIDS further pointed out that only 7 per cent of those requiring treatment are receiving it while it is projected that the number of estimated AIDS-related deaths in India in 2005 was more than 400 000, the highest in the world. "Unless the government and others start focusing on making [anti-retroviral] drugs freely available, the death-toll is only going to rise," Aruldas told Ecumenical News International.

Meanwhile, the Catholic healthcare commission in its AIDS day message warned: "The impact of the stigma from HIV/AIDS can be as detrimental as the virus itself." [341 words]

[COURTESY TO ENI AS SOURCE]