NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      NAIROBI (CWNews.com) - Sudanese Catholic and government officials said on Wednesday that a US Seventh-Day Adventist aid agency baptized hundreds of Catholic school children without permission of their parents or school officials.

      The National Association for the Prevention of Starvation (NAPS) visited war-torn southern Sudan at Christmastime to deliver food and teach Bible stories, but witnesses said the group baptized about 275 Catholic school children in the village of Panlit without getting permission from parents or authorities.

      Peter Ring, spokesman for the Diocese of Elobeid, said the whole school had been baptized as Adventists in the local river. "It is un-Christian," said Ring. "It was like going to someone's house as a guest and while he is not looking burning his house down." A NAPS spokesman in the US said the children were only baptized at the headmaster's request and they had believed them to be orphans. Ring said the baptisms were performed in collusion with the Catholic teaching staff, which also consented to be baptized. The headmaster and the head catechist at the school were later arrested and charged with acting without county authority and without consulting the diocese, officials said.

      Dozens of foreign agencies are pouring aid into Sudan as part of a massive United Nations program to stem the effects of the country's ongoing civil war and resulting famine. Local Catholic officials said NAPS' actions contravened an agreement to limit itself to humanitarian work.