DAILY CATHOLIC WEDNESDAY August 26, 1998 vol. 9, no. 167
NEWS & VIEWS |
BOGOTA (CWNews.com) - A high-school teacher who professed belief in Gnosticism won a civil rights lawsuit on last week against a local priest who accused him on Satanism.Father Juan Carlos Jaramillio said he denounced Rube Giraldo in the small town of El Santuario last year because the teacher was teaching spells to his students and the children even tried to conjure spirits. Giraldo said he was not involved in the incidents and suggested that the priest denounced him because he believes in a religion long ago considered a heresy by Catholics. After townspeople began making death threats and started calling him "Satan's professor," Giraldo filed a civil rights lawsuit against the priest.
Last week the country's highest court, the Constitutional
Court, ruled in his favor in a surprise climax of what has
become a national debate about the relationship between
church and state. The Constitutional Court in recent years
has struck down several laws favorable to the Catholic
Church in Colombia including mandatory Catholic education
in public schools, tax breaks for the Church, military
service exemptions, and the requirement for a Church
annulment in order to receive a civil divorce.
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Articles provided through Catholic World News Service. |
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