A Dutch law allowing homosexual couples to convert their current "registered same-sex partnerships" to full-fledged marriages was approved by Netherlands lawmakers in September. The law is expected to take effect in 2001. In a meeting October 23 with the Netherlands’ new ambassador to the Vatican, Pope John Paul II said the Catholic Church insists that marriage between a man and a woman is a fundamental part of human reality and is the basic unit of society. "No other form of relationship between persons can be considered as an equivalent to this natural relationship between a man and a woman out of whose love children are born," the pope said.

Yasser Arafat urged Pope John Paul II to condemn what the Palestinian leader said was a "bloody and brutal war" waged by Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians in recent weeks. In a three-page personal letter October 20, Arafat wrote: "We appeal to Your Holiness, with your exalted spiritual and religious standing, to raise your voice...against this intentional barbaric war waged against our people, our towns and villages." The Vatican had no immediate reaction. A copy of the letter was made available to Catholic News Service October 24.

South Korean President Kim Daejuing, 74, was awarded the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize in October for defending human rights in Asia and, in particular, for promoting peace with North Korea. Due to his efforts, there may now be hope that the cold war between North and South Korea will come to an end, the Nobel Committee said. It also cited Kim’s efforts on behalf of democracy in Burma and against repression in East Timor. Kim has said his Catholic faith supported him through periods of torture and imprisonment. He became a Catholic in the late 1950s. Under previous South Korean administrations he faced kidnapping, exile, the death penalty and beatings. He once said that, faced with death and imprisonment, "I was able to remain peaceful and firmly resolved in my mind to face the threat of death because of my resolute faith in the risen Jesus Christ and my belief in the existence of the living God."

An initial question for people studying Vatican Council II and its reception is deciding what they mean by Vatican II, Father Joseph Komonchak, a professor of theology at The Catholic University of America in Washington, said. He spoke with Catholic News Service after participating in an international colloquium of scholars October 16-19 on Long Island that assessed the council’s reception. The colloquium was sponsored by the Cardinal Suenens Center at John Carroll University in Cleveland and Laval University in Quebec. Those at the colloquium "all agreed [Vatican II] was not simply the 16 documents produced by the council," Komonchak said. Rather, he said, Vatican II was "a watershed event in the life of the church" that included everything from the announcement in 1959 that it would be held through its sessions from 1962 to 1965, and the effect that these developments had on "the Catholic consciousness." Komonchak said participants held different views about whether Vatican II’s reception was best studied historically, according to pontificates, or thematically, or perhaps some other way. "Our colloquium was more successful in raising these questions than in answering them," he said.