News Briefs: April 07, 1997

—A Roman Catholic bishop was shot to death while leaving his cathedral in the Muslim-dominated town of Jolo in the Philippines on February 4. A female bystander also died, and five others were injured in the shooting. Masses and classes at church-run schools have been suspended until the murder of the 56-year-old bishop, Benjamin de Jesus, is solved. Tensions arose in the Philippines after a moderate Muslim separatist group signed a peace accord with the government (CT, Oct. 28, 1996, p. 81).

—Patriarch Pavle, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, led a march of more than 100,000 demonstrators through Belgrade, Yugoslavia, January 27 to show support for the country's prodemocracy movement. Marking the feast of Saint Sava, founder of the church, the march was the city's largest religious procession since World War II.

—Guiquita Waewae, leader of a group of Auca Indians who killed five U.S. missionaries in Ecuador in 1956 and later converted to Christianity, died February 11 at age 80. At Waewae's prodding, the Aucas, translated savage, abandoned spearings and changed their name to the Huaorani, which means the people.

—Peter Deyneka, president of Russian Ministries, has been elected chair of CoMission II, a mission campaign to create nationally led Bible-discussion groups in 70 cities throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States. CoMission sponsors hope that the Bible-discussion groups will produce indigenous churches and missionaries.

—A London newspaper survey found almost two-thirds of 200 Anglican vicars unable to name the Ten Commandments. The Sunday Times survey also found two vicars do not believe in heaven, but more than half believe in life on other planets. "They are very negative," one vicar said of his reasoning for not knowing the commandments.