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Christians celebrate Easter, pope calls for Tibet solution
2008-03-23
From the foothills of the Himalayas to a rain-soaked Saint Peter's Square in the Vatican, Christians around the world celebrated Easter Sunday, hearing messages of renewal, peace and hope. At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI called for "solutions that will safeguard peace and the common good" in Tibet, the Middle East and Africa during his traditional Easter message. Tens of thousands of pilgrims turned out to hear the "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message, sheltering from the pelting rain under a sea of umbrellas in the flower-bedecked Saint Peter's Square. "How can we fail to remember certain African regions, such as Darfur and Somalia, the tormented Middle East, especially the Holy Land, Iraq, Lebanon, and finally Tibet, all of whom I encourage to seek solutions that will safeguard peace and the common good," said the pope. As the faithful marked the resurrection of Christ after his crucifixion on Good Friday, worshippers found ways to celebrate this holiest date in the Christian calendar in even the most difficult circumstances. President Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor attended an Easter Mass in northern Australia, where he is still recovering from the an assassination attempt in February that put him in a coma for 10 days. And the tiny Tibetan Christian enclave in China's Cizhong, in the Himalayas near the border with the Tibetan Autonomous Region, faced a curtailed Easter celebration. After the deadly unrest in Tibet, the authorities called on church officials to restrict Easter services to fewer than 100 people. The Christian community counts fewer than 1,000 souls in what is an overwhelmingly Buddhist area. In Australia, the head of the country's Anglican church, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, took an environmental theme. "We've had the longest drought on record really oppressing communities in Australia, and yet just recently in many places we've received long-awaited rain," he said. Aspinall cited new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's apology to Aborigines for past wrongdoings and Australia's decision to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change as examples of the possibility of change. In Seoul, some 20,000 Christians held a non-denominational Easter service in front of city hall. Proceeds from the traditional collection went to help South Korea's west coast recover from the country's worst-ever oil spill last December. Russian Catholics, a minority in this mainly Orthodox Christian country, celebrated Easter on Sunday at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Moscow, Interfax news agency reported. Before the start of Easter Service, believers made a fire outside the cathedral from pussy willow branches, which in Russia replace palms, blessed the week before on the church holiday of Palm Sunday. Priests at the church then lit the Easter candle from the fire, as a symbol of the light of God, before going into the cathedral for the service, the agency reported. The Eastern Orthodox Church, which still uses the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar, will wait until April 27 to celebrate Easter. Its patriach, Alexy II, wished the pope joy, health and God's help in all good work, Interfax reported. In Jerusalem, psalms and incense filled the air, as thousands of Christian pilgrims from around the world prayed along the traditional route Jesus took to his crucifixion. "This is where Jesus suffered, and we are following in his footsteps," said Flora Seguirante, a doctor from Toronto, Canada, her voice quivering with emotion. "I can't describe my joy at being here, at praying here." In Khartoum, tens of thousands of Sudanese Christians marked Easter while church leaders complained that the country's Islamic sharia law, imposed three years ago, discriminated against their faith. "On Easter, I think we reflect on the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ. At the same time we also reflect on the suffering of the community," Reverend Canon Sylvester Thomas told AFP at Khartoum's Episcopalian All Saints' Cathedral. Last November, a British teacher was arrested, put on trial and jailed for insulting religion in allowing pupils to name a teddy bear Mohammed. Clerics say state schools ban Bible study, employers grant fewer holidays to Christians, and place restrictions on the building of new churches. In Britain, Easter celebrations have been overshadowed by a political row over a government bill to allow embryo research. Some prominent Catholic ministers in Gordon Brown's Labour government have called for a free vote in parliament on the issue. Catholic priests in Colombia appealed for prayers on behalf of the hundreds held hostage by the Marxist-inspired rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), including the half-French politician Ingrid Betancourt.
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