The Simon Wiesenthal Center criticized Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Scotland’s Catholic leader, for condemning the U.S. system of justice as based on “vengeance and retribution” and a planned renewed investigation by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee of Scotland’s release of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. In defending the release of al-Megrahi, who allegedly had three months to live and who received a hero’s welcome when he arrived in Tripoli Libya last year, Cardinal O’ Brien praised Scotland’s “culture of compassion” where “justice is tempered with mercy.”

“It was misplaced compassion in the first place that led to this travesty of justice,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish Human rights NGO. “Now Cardinal O’Brien’s words only add to the suffering of the families of 270 innocent people blown out of the sky over Scotland.”

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A one-week All African Bishops’ Conference (AABC) will take place in Uganda from August 23 to 29.

This year’s theme is “Securing Our Future: Unlocking our Potential,” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

According to Edward Gaamuwa, the chairman of the organising committee, the council of Anglican provinces of Africa meeting in Pretoria, South Africa in 2001 resolved to hold an African Anglican Bishop Conference to focus on African needs.

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In Mombasa, Anglican Church bishop Julius Kalu said the church has no apologies to make for opposing the new law that was endorsed by Kenyans.

Kalu said they will stand by their position adding that they continue to push for the necessary amendments to be made.

The leaders at the same time commended Kenyans for maintaining peace during and after the referendum. Bishop Kalu was speaking during a harvest service held for ASK show officials.

He said the church had not lost any moral credibility saying that it was only expressing God’s law.

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The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland has attacked the US over the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien said the Scottish government was right to free Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi last year on compassionate grounds.

US lawmakers want Scots politicians to explain their decision to a committee, but the cardinal said ministers should not go “crawling like lapdogs”.

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Kenya’s president heralded the passage of a new constitution Thursday as a “national renewal,” after results showed that close to 70 percent of the country had backed the document replacing a British colonial-era draft that inflated the powers of the presidency.

Opponents of the new constitution conceded defeat gracefully, paving the way for a peaceful transition to the new draft document. Ethnically charged violence left more than 1,000 people dead following the disputed 2007 presidential election, raising concerns about the aftermath of Wednesday’s vote.

“The historic journey that we began over 20 years ago is now coming to a happy end,” President Mwai Kibaki told hundreds of supporters in downtown Nairobi, some of whom blew the loud vuvuzela horn made famous during the recent World Cup. “Indeed, may the new constitutional dispensation be our shield and defender.”

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On Wednesday Kenyans will vote on a new constitution that proposes to take on the corruption, tribalism and impunity that have bedeviled this would-be powerhouse of East Africa since its independence in 1963. But these are anxious days for ordinary Kenyans, despite the peace songs blaring on radio stations, assurances of ample security from the government and even a peace caravan complete with camels. Most people are still shell-shocked after the last national vote, a flawed 2007 poll that led to violence which left 1,300 dead and hundreds of thousands homeless.

Jamia Abdulrahim remembers all too well the weeks when frustrated supporters of opposition candidate Raila Odinga, now the Prime Minister, wrought havoc in the slum of Kibera where she lives. Amid the fires and looting, the children of one of her neighbors were burnt to death. Members of Abdulrahim’s family have not returned to Kibera to this day. Now, as members of parliament and politicians horse-traded and calculated their next moves, the people in Kibera worry. “For a long time, so many of the MP’s were silent,” Abdulrahim says. “When we saw that most of the MPs were voting for ‘yes’ [on the constitution] that was when I slept. Our leaders are our shadows. They reflect whatever we are thinking, whatever we are doing. If they are divided Kenya goes nowhere.”

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The bombings orchestrated by Somalia’s al-Shabab militia that killed at least 74 people watching the World Cup finals on television Sunday night are the latest sign of the growing ambitions of al-Qaeda’s regional affiliates outside the traditional theaters of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

The attacks, intended to inflict maximum damage on civilian targets, mark the first major international assault by Somali militants in a region where the United States and its allies are attempting to stem the rise of Islamist militancy. At least one American was killed and several were wounded in Sunday’s strikes.

The United States has provided millions of dollars in military and economic aid, training, equipment, logistical support and intelligence to regional counterterrorism allies such as Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya. Uganda is a training ground for soldiers for Somalia’s transitional government, which al-Shabab is seeking to overthrow, in a program backed by the United States and European nations. Troops from Uganda and Burundi make up a U.S.- and Western-backed African Union peacekeeping force in the Somali capital of Mogadishu that protects the fragile government.

A top spokesman for al-Shabab, speaking from Mogadishu, said the militia carried out the bombings, and he alluded to the group’s aspiration to use Somalia as a launching pad for international attacks. Ali Mohamud Raghe, the spokesman, threatened further attacks if Uganda and Burundi continue to supply troops to the African Union force.

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Senior religious leaders in south Sudan have called on people to vote for independence in a referendum to be held January next year.

The vote was promised as part of a 2005 deal to end years of war between the mainly Muslim north and the south, where Christianity is common.

“The way to unity is destructive,” Bishop Paul Yugusuk said.

He said southerners would be treated as second-class citizens if Africa’s largest nation remained united.

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At one level the World Cup has been a short-term boon. Tourists emptied out of the tour buses, made purchases from street merchants and visited the Hector Pieterson Museum situated across the street from Holy Cross. They got back on the buses to return to their hotels in suburbs with high walls, confident that they saw the real Soweto.

“I live on the other side of Soweto and I haven’t seen a tour bus yet,” [Anglican priest Stepehn] Morero said.

But now that the monthlong circus has left town, the hard questions that were raised by community activists before the World Cup are back: Who won? Who lost?

The event has generally been hailed as a great success, with talk now turning to a South African Olympics as a possibility. New stadiums were constructed along with new roads leading to the stadiums, construction that helped create thousands of jobs. But is South Africa ”” and a majority of South Africans ”” better off than before the World Cup came to town?

“How much of the profit FIFA makes will be left to develop the poor communities?” Morero said. “I do not think it is going to move the ball forward. There has been a concern from the community over who profits from the World Cup.”

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Ugh.

For other countries, a second-round World Cup match is a big step. For the United States, Saturday’s game against Ghana is so much more.

The television audience back home could top the U.S. national team record of 13.7 million, set during the 1994 World Cup loss to Brazil.

With a victory, the Americans would advance to a quarterfinal matchup versus Uruguay or South Korea on July 2 and match the farthest the U.S. team has advanced since the first World Cup in 1930. Confidence is soaring.

“If we continue to build on the successes so far, we can go to the end,” coach Bob Bradley said Friday.

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Manute Bol, who died last week at the age of 47, is one player who never achieved redemption in the eyes of sports journalists. His life embodied an older, Christian conception of redemption that has been badly obscured by its current usage.

Bol, a Christian Sudanese immigrant, believed his life was a gift from God to be used in the service of others. As he put it to Sports Illustrated in 2004: “God guided me to America and gave me a good job. But he also gave me a heart so I would look back.”

He was not blessed, however, with great athletic gifts. As a center for the Washington Bullets, Bol was more spectacle than superstar. At 7 feet, 7 inches tall and 225 pounds, he was both the tallest and thinnest player in the league. He averaged a mere 2.6 points per game over the course of his career, though he was a successful shot blocker given that he towered over most NBA players.

Bol reportedly gave most of his fortune, estimated at $6 million, to aid Sudanese refugees. As one twitter feed aptly put it: “Most NBA cats go broke on cars, jewelry & groupies. Manute Bol went broke building hospitals.”

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France exited in disgrace from the World Cup on Tuesday with no victories and little sympathy for a team that infamously used an intentional handball to get into the tournament and self-destructed on the way out.

France’s petulant image did not gain much redemption in its final match, a 2-1 defeat to host South Africa in Bloemfontein, south of here. Les Bleus, as the team is known, played the final 65-plus minutes a man short after midfielder Yoann Gourcuff was ejected for elbowing an opponent in the head.

Afterward, the eccentric and departing French coach, Raymond Domenech, declined to shake hands with his South African counterpart, Carlos Alberto Parreira. Apparently, Parreira said, the snub was related to his criticism of the way France had qualified for the World Cup: the illegal handling of the ball by forward Thierry Henry, which was unseen by the referee and led to the decisive goal in a cumulative playoff victory against Ireland in November.

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CHARLIE ROSE: And soccer’s popularity or football as they say everywhere else, grows like crazy?

TOMMY SMYTH: Yes, it’s continuing to grow, there is no question about it. I mean, you travel the streets of any major city in the United States now and you will find kids wearing the jerseys of Barcelona–

CHARLIE ROSE: And every bar’s got it turned on along with baseball.

TOMMY SMYTH: Yeah, everybody’s watching it now, and the ratings on ESPN have been tremendous, through the roof.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, and high-definition television, unbelievable.

TOMMY SMYTH: It’s almost like you were on the field, Charlie. You have to look out or somebody will kick you.

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Months after Morocco deported nearly 100 Christian foreigners, the US Congress and Morocco are sparring over religious freedom, with both countries opening investigations that could strain relations between the two allies.

On Thursday, a congressional human rights commission is scheduled to hold a hearing on the status of religious freedom in Morocco, which receives nearly $700 million of American aid through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).

Rep. Tom Wolf (R) of Virginia, co-chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, urged suspension of MCC funding “to a nation which blatantly disregards the rights of American citizens residing in Morocco and forcibly expels American citizens without due process of law” in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

That’s unlikely to happen, since the US closely cooperates in military and antiterrorist programs with Morocco and has a long-standing free trade agreement with the country.

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Almighty and everlasting God, who didst enkindle the flame of thy love in the heart of thy holy martyr Bernard Mizeki: Grant to us, thy humble servants, a like faith and power of love, that we who rejoice in his triumph may profit by his example; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The National Council of Churches accused Kenya’s government on Monday of involvement in a grenade attack on a rally against a draft constitution that would allow abortions in life-threatening pregnancies and recognize Islamic courts.

The accusation over Sunday evening’s attack, which killed six people, could set a contentious tone between the groups supporting and opposing the draft constitution, which the country votes on Aug. 4. Political analysts said leaders of the groups needed to tamp down emotions or violence could flare.

The August referendum will be the first nationwide vote since Kenya’s 2007 presidential election, which saw more than 1,000 people killed following days of rampaging violence after the contentious vote.

Political leaders on Monday tried to separate the blasts, which the police said were caused by grenades, from the political issues around the referendum. Prime Minister Raila Odinga said the attack was an “isolated case.” But the National Council of Churches blamed the attack on the government and supporters of the draft constitution.

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Awil Salah Osman prowls the streets of this shattered city, looking like so many other boys, with ripped-up clothes, thin limbs and eyes eager for attention and affection.

But Awil is different in two notable ways: he is shouldering a fully automatic, fully loaded Kalashnikov assault rifle; and he is working for a military that is substantially armed and financed by the United States.

“You!” he shouts at a driver trying to sneak past his checkpoint, his cherubic face turning violently angry.

“You know what I’m doing here!” He shakes his gun menacingly. “Stop your car!”

The driver halts immediately. In Somalia, lives are lost quickly, and few want to take their chances with a moody 12-year-old.

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Ghanaians thronged the streets of the capital and launched what promises to be an all-night celebration to mark the first win by an African team at the World Cup in South Africa.

Large crowds gathered around major streets in Accra to celebrate the 1-0 victory against Serbia. Cars draped in the national flag swarmed the streets, and some drivers honked their horns as others sang.

Radio stations also said celebrations were taking place nationally.

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It might seem like an example of reverse mission: young African men leaving their homeland to pursue ordination as Catholic priests in a religious order that has no missionary presence in Africa, but a long-standing ministry to African-Americans.

For six Nigerians who will be serving in the United States as Josephite priests, it has been a 10-year journey, starting with four years spent in formation and undergraduate studies in a program the order has established in their home country and six years in the United States for the novitiate and graduate theological studies.

That journey concluded with their ordination in Washington May 29 by Bishop John A. Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Fla., who himself was ordained as Josephite priest.

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Government leaders in Nigeria have chastised Archbishop Nicholas Okoh and the Church of Nigeria over the consecration of Mary Glasspool in Los Angeles. The Governor of the Rivers State in the Niger Delta this week told the Archbishop that the consecration of a lesbian bishop by the Anglican Communion diminished the moral authority of the Church in Africa and weakened its spiritual and social witness.

Enthroned as Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Communion’s largest province earlier this year, Archbishop Okoh has begun a tour of the national Church, meeting with Diocesan leaders and local officials. During the Archbishop’s meeting in Port Harcount with government officials a spokesman for Governor Rotimi Amaechi said the Glasspool consecration was a symbol of western moral decadence.

The governor told the new Archbishop, “Primate, you have a lot in your hands; the times are not good and the challenges are daunting.” By adopting the standards of the world and turning a blind eye to “moral laxity” the church was in danger of losing its prophetic voice, he said.

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The top American commander in the Middle East has ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region, according to defense officials and military documents.

The secret directive, signed in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, authorizes the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to gather intelligence and build ties with local forces. Officials said the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate.

While the Bush administration had approved some clandestine military activities far from designated war zones, the new order is intended to make such efforts more systematic and long term, officials said. Its goals are to build networks that could “penetrate, disrupt, defeat or destroy” Al Qaeda and other militant groups, as well as to “prepare the environment” for future attacks by American or local military forces, the document said. The order, however, does not appear to authorize offensive strikes in any specific countries.

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At home in Nigeria, the Pentecostal preacher Helen Ukpabio draws thousands to her revival meetings. Last August, when she had herself consecrated Christendom’s first “lady apostle,” Nigerian politicians and Nollywood actors attended the ceremony. Her books and DVDs, which explain how Satan possesses children, are widely known.

So well-known, in fact, that Ms. Ukpabio’s critics say her teachings have contributed to the torture or abandonment of thousands of Nigerian children ”” including infants and toddlers ”” suspected of being witches and warlocks. Her culpability is a central contention of “Saving Africa’s Witch Children,” a documentary that made its American debut Wednesday on HBO2.

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Fast growing African Christianity, both evangelical and Catholic, is transforming global religion and affecting American Christianity, particularly its debates over homosexuality. The U.S. Episcopal Church, of course, has been prominently roiled by controversy since its 2003 election of an openly homosexual bishop, now joined by a newly elected openly lesbian bishop. African Anglican bishops, overwhelmingly conservative, have steadfastly encouraged the global Anglican Communion to sanction U.S. Episcopalians for their heterodoxy. But the Anglican Communion’s authority is mostly symbolic, and the Episcopal Church governs itself. A new communion, the Anglican Church in North America, is largely for orthodox former Episcopalians, many of whom have placed themselves under the authority of African bishops.

Considerably less publicized but no less significant is the United Methodist Church, which now almost uniquely among liberal-led, old-line denominations continues to affirm orthodox teachings on marriage and sexual ethics. The traditionalist stance, dismaying to its liberal elites, is thanks partly to the denomination’s growing African membership. Unlike the U.S. Episcopal Church, which is almost entirely U.S. members plus some small dioceses from Latin America and Taiwan, United Methodism is more fully international, with about one third of its members in Africa. Amid growing United Methodist churches in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, among others, and a U.S. church losing about a 1,000 members weekly, the 11.4 million denomination likely will soon be majority African. At the church’s next governing General Conference in 2012, probably 40 percent of the delegates will come from outside the U.S., even further diminishing liberal hopes.

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Here in Kinshasa, we met Emilie Lunda, 25, who had nearly died during childbirth a few days earlier. Doctors saved her life, but her baby died. And she is still recuperating in a hospital and doesn’t know how she will pay the bill.

“I didn’t want to get pregnant,” Emilie told us here in the Congolese capital. “I was afraid of getting pregnant.” But she had never heard of birth control.

In rural parts of Congo Republic, the other Congo to the north, we found that even when people had heard of contraception, they often regarded it as unaffordable.

Most appalling, all the clinics and hospitals we visited in Congo Republic said that they would sell contraceptives only to women who brought their husbands in with them to prove that the husband accepted birth control.

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Nigeria buried its president on Thursday and swore in his successor, Goodluck Jonathan, amid fears of a debilitating power struggle in the ruling party.

Politicians hailed the smooth power transfer, but the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua on Wednesday night after a five-month illness could lead to infighting between northerners and southerners in the ruling People’s Democratic Party should Jonathan, a southerner, decide to run for the presidency in elections due next year.

Jonathan’s candidacy would shatter an unwritten deal in the PDP that rotates the presidency for eight years to a leader from the mainly Christian south and eight years to someone from the mainly Muslim north. The rotation is seen as vital to Nigeria’s political stability.

The arrangement, known as the “zoning” policy, was recently affirmed by the party and means an Islamic candidate should run as the PDP candidate because Yar’Adua, a Muslim, served less than four years.

BBC America World News led with this story yesterday morning–read it all.

Maybe the Catholic Church should be turned upside down.

Jesus wasn’t known for pontificating from palaces, covering up scandals, or issuing Paleolithic edicts on social issues. Does anyone think he would have protected clergymen who raped children?

Yet if the top of the church has strayed from its roots, much of its base is still deeply inspiring. I came here to impoverished southern Sudan to write about Sudanese problems, not the Catholic Church’s. Yet once again, I am awed that so many of the selfless people serving the world’s neediest are lowly nuns and priests ”” notable not for the grandeur of their vestments but for the grandness of their compassion.

As I’ve noted before, there seem to be two Catholic Churches, the old boys’ club of the Vatican and the grass-roots network of humble priests, nuns and laity in places like Sudan. The Vatican certainly supports many charitable efforts, and some bishops and cardinals are exemplary, but overwhelmingly it’s at the grass roots that I find the great soul of the Catholic Church.

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Church leaders in Kenya have abandoned constitutional talks with the government, announcing that they will rally Christians to vote against the draft basic law for the east African country when it is put to a referendum.

The leaders cited insincerity on the government’s part when announcing their withdrawal on April 28.

“We will instead focus energies on educating the people of Kenya on the meaning of the cardinal issues and on campaigning for the rejection of the draft,” the Rev. Peter Karanja, an Anglican priest and general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Kenya, told journalists in Nairobi.

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Since ancient times, one of the world’s most terrifying ailments has been caused by what the Bible calls “the fiery serpent,” now known as Guinea worm.

Guinea worms grow up to a yard long inside the body and finally poke out through the skin. They cause excruciating pain and must be pulled out slowly, an inch or two a day. In endemic areas like this district in Lakes State of southern Sudan, people can have a dozen Guinea worms dangling from their bodies.

Yet this is a good news column.

This district is, in fact, one of the last places on earth with Guinea worms. If all goes well, Guinea worms will be eradicated worldwide in the next couple of years ”” only the second disease ever to be eliminated, after smallpox.

For the last 24 years, former President Jimmy Carter has led the global struggle against the disease. When he started, there were 3.5 million cases annually in 20 countries. Last year, there were fewer than 3,200 cases in four countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali and Sudan. The great majority of the remaining cases are here in southern Sudan.

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Over long days and nights, I asked Africans about the course of international activism. Should we just pack it up and go home, I asked? There were a few nods. But many more noes. Because most Africans we met seemed to feel the pressing need for new kinds of partnerships, not just among governments, but among citizens, businesses, the rest of us. I sense the end of the usual donor-recipient relationship.

Aid, it’s clear, is still part of the picture. It’s crucial, if you have H.I.V. and are fighting for your life, or if you are a mother wondering why you can’t protect your child against killers with unpronounceable names or if you are a farmer who knows that new seed varietals will mean you have produce that you can take to market in drought or flood. But not the old, dumb, only-game-in-town aid ”” smart aid that aims to put itself out of business in a generation or two. “Make aid history” is the objective. It always was. Because when we end aid, it’ll mean that extreme poverty is history. But until that glorious day, smart aid can be a reforming tool, demanding accountability and transparency, rewarding measurable results, reinforcing the rule of law, but never imagining for a second that it’s a substitute for trade, investment or self-determination.

I for one want to live to see Mo Ibrahim’s throw-down prediction about Ghana come true. “Yes, guys,” he said, “Ghana needs support in the coming years, but in the not-too-distant future it can be giving aid, not receiving it; and you, Mr. Bono, can just go there on your holidays.”

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