Religion news in brief

Saudis might not send women to Olympics

LONDON — IOC President Jacques Rogge cannot guarantee “100 percent” that female athletes from Saudi Arabia will compete at the London Olympics, although he remains optimistic the Gulf kingdom will send women to the Games for the first time.

Rogge told The Associated Press that the International Olympic Committee is discussing the “operational details” with Saudi officials for ending their four-decade-old policy of sending only men to the Games.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei have never included women in their Olympic teams.

While Qatar and Brunei have committed to sending female athletes to London, whether Saudi will do the same remains uncertain just weeks before the start of the London Games.

Saudi Olympic Committee President Prince Nawaf said in April that female participation had not been approved by the country’s leaders and that Saudi-based women traveling to London would be contrary to the kingdom’s traditions and norms.

But a statement released by the Saudi embassy in London recently said female athletes who qualify could be allowed to participate.

Athletes in judo and in track and field are considered possibilities.

Saudi Arabia is a deeply traditional and ultra conservative Muslim society, and women are severely restricted in public life and are not even allowed to drive.

Judge: Diocese can shield accused priests

IOWA CITY, Iowa — The Diocese of Davenport likely will release the names of two nonclergy members suspected of sexually abusing minors decades ago, but will withhold the names of 18 priests whose accusers received financial settlements during its bankruptcy, its attorney says.

A diocese review board was expected to add the names of a volunteer football coach and a former janitor at a long-closed school to its online list of perpetrators of abuse, attorney Rand Wonio said. But he said a recent ruling allows the diocese to keep secret the names of priests who were the subject of abuse allegations that a review board found to be not credible.

The developments come as the diocese emerges from bankruptcy protections that it sought during the sex abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic church. The diocese, which covers much of eastern Iowa, filed for bankruptcy in 2006, saying it did not have enough money to cover all the legal claims it faced for alleged abuse dating back to the 1940s.

The bankruptcy filing led to a $37 million settlement — funded by the diocese and its insurer — that compensated more than 160 victims and a reorganization in which the diocese took steps to investigate and prevent abuse and better protect minors.

China, Vatican spar over bishop ordination

BEIJING — China and the Vatican are again sparring over the ordination of a new bishop, underscoring the glaring lack of progress toward resolving the most contentious issue dividing the sides.

A statement issued Wednesday by China’s State Bureau of Religious Affairs accused the Holy See of obstructing the development of Catholicism in China by wielding the threat of excommunication over the ordination of a new bishop of the northern city of Harbin.

“We urge the Vatican to rescind the so-called ‘excommunication’ threat and return to the correct position of dialogue,” the statement says.

That followed a note from the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in Rome that China’s candidate, the Rev. Yue Fusheng, did not have papal approval and risks excommunication if he agrees to be ordained, along with any bishops participating in the ceremony.

China’s officially atheistic communist government ordered Chinese Catholics to cut ties with Rome more than five decades ago, and Beijing and the Vatican have no formal relations.

In China, worship is allowed only in state-backed churches, although millions of Chinese belong to unofficial congregations loyal to the pope.

4 arrested over theft of religious manuscripts

MADRID — Spain’s Interior Ministry says police have arrested four people in connection with the theft of a priceless collection of 12th-century religious manuscripts.

A ministry spokeswoman said an electrician who worked at a cathedral in the northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela from where the Calixtinus Codex was stolen a year ago was arrested along with his wife and son, and another woman.

The missing, richly decorated tome is considered the first guide for people making the ancient Christian pilgrimage known as the Camino de Santiago, the Spanish name for the Way of St. James.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with ministry regulations, said Wednesday police found some $1.26 million in a house belonging to one of the detainees.

Polish Jews museum wins major donations

WARSAW, Poland — A museum on the history of Polish Jews has made huge strides toward its planned opening next year thanks to several million dollars in new donations announced last week.

The Museum of the History of Polish Jews, going up in the heart of the former Warsaw Ghetto, will narrate the 1,000-year history of Jews in Poland. It is a history that is unknown to many and that has been overshadowed by the tragedy of the Holocaust, which was carried out by Germany in occupied Po-land.

The highly anticipated museum is expected to open in the fall of 2013, during the 70th anniversary year of the doomed Warsaw ghetto uprising.

The museum said it received a joint $7 million donation from the Koret Foundation and the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture, California-based philanthropies chaired by Tad Taube, a Polish-born American businessman.

Jan Kulczyk, a Polish oil tycoon, also announced a gift of $6 million this week.

Museum officials hailed the gifts Wednesday, saying the money will allow them to finish the museum’s core exhibition, a multimedia space that will guide visitors chronologically from the Middle Ages to the present day.

Wire reports