Balance of terror fragile, warns Vatican – 1980

The Vatican has warned that the world is currently at the mercy of errors in judgement, information and interpretation regarding nuclear policies due to the fragile balance of terror regarding existing nuclear arms. According to Audrys Backis, Vatican representative at the recently concluded UN conference on the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the focal point of concern for the Vatican continues to be disarmament and detente, and that the Holy See will not and does not hesitate to use its moral and spiritual authority. He continues by stating that the peril of the nuclear war is still in continuance, and that soothing information regarding a scaling down of the nuclear arms race should not be easily accepted.

Underground Ukraine Catholics go public – 1987

Rome – Two bishops and 23 priests of the illegal Ukrainian Catholic Church in the Soviet Union stated that they will practice their ministry openly rather than continue ministering in secret. This was stated in a declaration signed by the bishops, priests and 186 religious and laity, also asking Pope John Paul to pressure the government to legalise the church.

Oldest school in PE turns 140 – 1987

Port Elizabeth – The feast of St. Augustine on August 28 marked the 140th anniversary of the oldest school in Port Elizabeth, St. Augustine’s Primary School. When it was founded in 1847 by Fr. Corcoran, it was initially a boys’ school, which has been run by the clergy, the Marist Brothers, the Dominican Sisters and the Assumption Sisters over the past 140 years. Although there are no religious teachers now, the staff is predominantly catholic.

Science must heed moral limits, pope tells academics – 2001

Pope John Paul warned that scientific researchers must answer to the moral limits of good and evil, not just the financial laws of the free market. According to the pope in his address to a group of Polish university rectors, unless science is carried out with a sense of service to humanity, its advances can become the focus of competitive bidding that places financial gain above the common good, and that globalisation has helped increase the risk of unhealthy rivalry among scientific researchers, fuelled by financial ambition.