News,

Cardinal John O'Connor, Archbishop of New York and prominent pro-life campaigner, died yesterday aged 80. He has been fighting brain cancer but his health took a dramatic turn for the worse this week. As archbishop he headed the influential bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, participated in marches against abortion and recommended excommunication for Catholic politicians, such as New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who supported abortion. However, the cardinal always opposed any kind of violence and said in 1995, "If anyone has an urge to kill anybody at an abortion clinic, he should kill me instead." [CNN and Associated Press (from Pro-Life Infonet), 4th May] The number of legal abortions in Croatia since the end of communism have plummeted. In 1987 the total was 48,608, but the number has fallen steadily each year since then and in 1998 the figure was only 8,907. The official government statistics also indicate considerable regional variations. In 1998, the region of Split had only 30 abortions compared with 5,592 births, but in the region of Rijeka there were 1,241 abortions compared with only 3,032 births. Marijo Zivkovic, director of the Obiteljski (family) Centre in Zagreb, credits this success to concerted efforts over a number of years to distribute pro-life information literature, the clarity and consistency of the Catholic hierarchy in addressing the issue of the unborn, and the visits of Pope John Paul II in 1994 and 1998. [Obiteljski Centar, 22nd March] [This bulletin is privately circulated by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, www.spuc.org.uk, 5/6 St Matthew Street, London, United Kingdom, SW1P 2JT, +44 20 7222 3763. The reliability of the news herein is dependent on that of the cited sources, which are paraphrased rather than quoted. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the society. Please forward this bulletin to other interested parties. To unsubscribe, send an appropriate email to information@spuc.freeserve.co.uk]