WATCHING THE WORLD

Watching the World
"A Source of Great Suffering for the Church"
In his audience with the bishops of eastern Canada, John Paul II turned his attention to sexual abuses committed by priests. As reported in L’Osservatore Romano, the pope told the Canadian prelates that "the scandal given by those members of the clergy and those Religious who have failed in this regard has been a source of great suffering for the Church in Canada." He added that he had prayed "for those who have been victims of sexual misconduct, as well as for those who have been guilty of it." Some believe that abolishing obligatory celibacy for priests could both contribute to the reduction of scandals connected with sexual abuse by the clergy and resolve "the shortage or uneven distribution of priests" mentioned by the pope. But according to John Paul II, "the difficulties involved today in keeping celibacy are not sufficient reason to overturn the Church’s conviction regarding its value and appropriateness."
Why Drug Addiction?
"Many people believe that modern pharmacology has a little pill that can solve any of our problems. If a person cannot sleep, he takes a little pill. If he wants to improve his performance at work, he takes another one," explains São Paulo’s chief of police, Alberto Corazza, as quoted in the Brazilian magazine Veja. "It is logical that such culture influences youths." He adds: "Eighty percent of drug addicts have serious family problems. They come from a very repressive or a very permissive family or from a home without a father." But how can parents protect youths from drugs? Says Corazza: "It may seem romantic, but in a well-balanced home in which there is love for the children and dialogue, drugs will find hardly any room."
"Most Violent Nation"
"America is the most violent nation in the world," writes columnist Ann Landers. "In 1990, handguns murdered 10 people in Australia, 22 in Great Britain, 68 in Canada and 10,567 in the United States." It is also the most heavily armed nation. Its people possess over 200 million firearms—almost one for each of the 255 million inhabitants. Schools are not immune from the violence. Nearly 20 percent of all high school students carry a weapon of some sort. Almost three million crimes a year occur on or near school campuses. Each day 40 teachers are physically attacked, and about 900 are threatened with bodily harm. According to the National Education Association, 100,000 students carry guns to school each day, and a typical day will see 40 children killed or injured by firearms. "Our tolerance for violence is extraordinary, and schools are merely a reflection of that," says John E. Richters of the National Institute of Mental Health. One English teacher, who previously had only a 10-percent success rate in getting his 12th-grade students to write an essay, had 100-percent success when he assigned them the topic "My Favorite Weapon."
Church Dilemma
Bishops from western Canada have asked the Vatican to relax the church’s celibacy rule and allow married priests to serve the native populations in the Northwest Territories. The bishops feel that cultural considerations, coupled with the shortage of priests in the northern regions, justify their request. "Bishop Denis Croteau," reports The Toronto Star, "says the Inuit and Dene peoples have a family value in their culture where, unless a man has married, raised a family and become an elder, ‘you’re not a leader and people won’t listen to you.’" Although Pope John Paul II and other Vatican officials gave attention to the bishops’ plea, no change will be forthcoming. Cardinal Jozef Tomko, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, expressed fear that "an exception granted in Canada would become the focus of media attention and open a floodgate of requests in Africa, South America and elsewhere," says the Star.
Depression Increases
"Twelve independent studies involving interviews with a total of 43,000 people in nine countries have corroborated earlier American research by indicating that the rate of major depression has risen fairly steadily in much of the world during the 20th century," states The Harvard Mental Health Letter. After grouping the subjects "into cohorts determined by decade of birth, beginning before 1905 and ending after 1955," almost every study showed that "people born later were more likely to have been seriously depressed at some time in their lives." Most studies also showed a steady increase in major depression throughout the century.
Keeping Children Healthy
"More than 230 million preschool children in the developing world, or 43 per cent, are stunted because of malnutrition due to lack of food and to disease," says a UN press release. In 1993 an estimated four million children died because of malnutrition, either directly or because it worsened the impact of infectious diseases. What is the answer? The World Health Organization recommends that "all infants be fed exclusively on breast milk from birth to 4-6 months of age. Thereafter, children should continue to be breast-fed, while receiving appropriate and adequate complementary food for up to 2 years of age and beyond." Mothers and health-care providers are urged not to misinterpret the growth patterns of breast-fed infants as growth faltering and prematurely introduce other foods. This can be dangerous for the infants and contribute to malnutrition and disease, especially where the introduced foods are contaminated and nutritionally inadequate.
Slavery Today
Although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "no one shall be held in slavery or servitude," hundreds of millions of people are nonetheless suffering as slaves. The number of people subject to slaverylike practices today, points out UN Chronicle magazine, is in fact even greater than the number of slaves during the 16th to the 18th centuries, "the peak slave-trade era." One alarming aspect of today’s slavery is that many victims are children. Seven-to-ten-year-olds toil in factories for 12 to 14 hours a day. Others slave as household servants, prostitutes, or soldiers. "Child labour is in great demand," reports the UN Centre for Human Rights, "because it is cheap" and because children are "too frightened to complain." Slavery, notes the UN, remains a grim "modern reality."
Formula for Obesity
The number of hours a day that preschoolers spend watching television is directly linked to an increase in body fat later in childhood, claims Dr. Munro Proctor of the Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Proctor made a four-year study of 97 preschool children who, at the start, were between the ages of three and five. Parents monitored the hours of television viewing by their children daily, while measurements of skin folds throughout the body were taken annually. As reported in The Medical Post of Canada, "each child sat in front of the tube a mean of two hours daily. For every additional hour of TV watched per day, there was a 0.8 mm [0.03 in.] increase in triceps skinfold change and a 4.1 mm [0.2 in.] increase in change in the sum of skinfolds." Dr. Proctor concludes that television viewing leads to reduced physical activity and lower metabolic rates and exposes children to advertisements for high-calorie foods that are consumed while being inactive.
Holiday Isle
"The [World] Bank and the [International Monetary Fund] are asking the government to reduce Sri Lanka’s number of non-working days, at present 174 of the 365, possibly a world record," says The Economist. "How can a country progress when its people are on holiday for almost half the year?" The high number of days off reflects Sri Lanka’s mixture of races and religions. In addition to the 5 secular holidays, there are 20 religious holidays for the Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and Christian faiths. Civil servants get an additional 45 days off each year—matched by many private businesses. Yet, Sri Lanka’s economy keeps growing. "Agriculture is the heart of the economy and depends on the two monsoons that sweep across the island in the cropping seasons," states The Economist. "Monsoons don’t take time off."
Walking While Intoxicated
"Drinking and driving don’t mix," the advertisements say, and stiff penalties are imposed on those who drive while intoxicated. Although most of the attention has been on drunk drivers, little has been focused on drinking and walking. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 5,546 pedestrians were killed in the United States by cars in 1992, and over a third of those pedestrians were drunk. They accounted for 14 percent of vehicle-related fatalities. Of those over age 14, some 36 percent had a blood-alcohol level high enough for them to have been cited for drunken driving if they had been behind the wheel. Little is known at present as to how to prevent those deaths and who is most at risk.