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PLANTER: 'You will be killed' Father Brian Gore's bishop A rchbishop Fortich says the government's case is so flimsy that three offers, including one from President Marcos himself, have been made to the priests to leave the country quietly so the case can be dropped. At the same time on the crucial day w hen Father Gore's trial was aborted he pub• l icly named • sugar plantation o wner Alfonso Zayco as the one who is making death threats on the priest and who has connections with the military to enable witnesses to be intimidated. A t Bacolod gaol before the hearing on Tuesday, Zayco shouted at Father Gore: "If you don't get deported you will be killed. F ather Gore said Z ayco has military connections. "He's tried to get at us before. Two weeks ago he offered money t o two of the lay leaders charged with us to testify against the priests and they refused. He told them: I have s omeone else to liquidate. "There is no doubt he meant me," Father Gore said. He said Mr Zayco's sugar plantation was in his parish and he blamed him for trade
Aborted trial in a furore
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Italian government move
URCH STATUS REA'T
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The Australian Catholic Church is being r epresented at Father Gore's trial by Bishop Myles McKeon (pictured above) who ordained Father Gore in Perth in 1968. Bishop McKeon, now retired in Bunbury has been appointed by the Australian bishops so that they can receive a firsthand and accurate version of what takes place during the trial.
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union activism among sugar cane workers. In 1982 he had circu-
Number 2376
PERTH, WA: FEBRUARY 10 — FEBRUARY 16, 1984
lated a petition to h ave the Australian priest deported as an undesirable alien.
R OME (NC) — Catholicism would not be the state religion in Italy under proposed revisions of the Concordat, the treaty governing relations between the Church and Italy.
• Cont page 3
The revisions also would make religious instruction in state schools optional and would require parallel civil action to make Church marriages and annulments legal. Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi outlined the proposals to the Italian Parliament last month. It was the first time the proposals w ere made publ ic by the government. Italian newspapers already had reported many of the proposals based on leaks from sources involved in the negotiations. Craxi, in his nationally-televised presentation, said the changes would establish "equality of religion and citizens in Italy." "The state has decided to adopt the pluralistic model of society envisaged by the constitution," he said. c. E•
A t last Saturday's full day seminar on Death A Part of Dying heat did not deter nearly all of the 300 enrolees turning up at the Redemptorist Retreat House. Pictured is Mr Joe O'Dea Mr one of the conference sponsors chaffing with two of the speakers Miss Joy Brann and Rev Dr Douglas MacAdam who are respectively co-ordinator-educator and director of the Hospice Palliative Care Service in Western Australia.
The proposals are the r esult of 15 years of Church-state negotiations over the Concordat, an agreement that is part of the Lateran Pacts signed by the Vatican and Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini in 1929. The proposals also would eliminate reference to the "sacred character" of Rome as the location of the Vatican.
by JOHN THAVIS (NC News)
Revision of the concordat will touch some of the arrangements between the Italian State and Vatican City State (above) the half square mile of territory around St Peter's that was declared a sovereign state in 1929, 59 years after the former Papal States had been annexed by the new Italian state.
Long negotiations One of the most delicate issues, however, the administration and tax status of Church holdings in Italy, are not resolved in the proposals. Under the plan a special commission of Church and state officials would have six months from the signing of a new concor-
dat to reach an accord on the issue. The proposed concordat is a simplified, shorter version leaving many potential areas of disagreement to be worked out by Italian authorities and the Italian bishops. • Cont page 5