NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      VATICAN (CWNews.com) -- At a conference in Rome on plans for the Jubilee Year in Bethlehem, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray has expressed the hope that the Palestinian people "will enter the year 2000 with all the resources they need to assure their full flowering."

      This week's conference on Bethlehem was organized by the "Committee for the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People," a group which seeks the full enactment of resolutions adopted by the United Nations in December 1998 in support of the Palestinian cause. The particular goal of the conference is to "mobilize as much international support as possible" for the "Bethlehem 2000" project, which in turn is being designed as a showpiece for Palestinian autonomy.

      Cardinal Etchegaray, who heads the Vatican effort to coordinate plans for the Jubilee celebration, said that his own participation in the conference was meant as a "gesture of encouragement" for the group's plans. He said that the Catholic Church would enthusiastically participate in the "Bethlehem 2000" plans.

      The cardinal added the hope that the many Christian pilgrims who are expected to flock to the Holy Land during the Jubilee year will find it "a land of welcome and of peace." Any lasting peace, he said, would necessarily be founded on "respect for the dignity of all men, without discrimination and without any impediment to free participation by everyone in professional and social life."