Jacques Gaillot

Dismissed French Bishop Jacques Gaillot on Thursday criticized Pope John Paul II's encyclical on the defense of life for failing to mention AIDS. "One should recall that AIDS kills so many people and that condoms are the only effective existing means (of protection)," said Gaillot, who was dismissed last January after upsetting the Vatican with his liberal views.

French bishop Jacques Gaillot, fired by the Vatican five years ago for his liberal views, has reconciled with church authorities, church sources said Thursday. They said Gaillot exchanged letters with the head of the bishops' conference and would attend a rally of French church leaders in Lyon on the weekend. Pope John Paul II ousted Gaillot as bishop of Evreux, in Normandy, for promoting the use of condoms to curb AIDS and urging greater tolerance of homosexuality.

French bishop Jacques Gaillot, fired by the Vatican five years ago for his liberal views, has reconciled with church authorities, church sources said Thursday. They said Gaillot exchanged letters with the head of the bishops' conference and would attend a rally of French church leaders in Lyon on the weekend. Pope John Paul II ousted Gaillot as bishop of Evreux, in Normandy, for promoting the use of condoms to curb AIDS and urging greater tolerance of homosexuality.

Dismissed French Bishop Jacques Gaillot on Thursday criticized Pope John Paul II's encyclical on the defense of life for failing to mention AIDS. "One should recall that AIDS kills so many people and that condoms are the only effective existing means (of protection)," said Gaillot, who was dismissed last January after upsetting the Vatican with his liberal views.

He defended homosexuals, recommended using condoms and said priests should be free to marry. By Friday, the Vatican had heard enough and took an extraordinary step--it fired French Bishop Jacques Gaillot. Although the Vatican publicly warns priests to obey theological guidelines and avoid partisan politics, the Pope in recent times has almost never taken the ultimate step of dismissing a bishop.

The Vatican said Friday that it had removed a leading liberal French bishop from his post because of his unacceptable behavior and his public stance on certain issues. The rare sanction was taken after Msgr. Jacques Gaillot, bishop of Evreux in Normandy since 1982 and dubbed "The Red Cleric," upset the Roman Catholic hierarchy with his unorthodox views on issues ranging from AIDS to workers' rights.

When the Vatican summoned Bishop Jacques Gaillot to Rome, he was otherwise occupied. In fact, France's outspoken liberal prelate was in Haiti visiting President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, another priest who has had disputes with the Holy See. Call it an omen. Gaillot eventually made it to Vatican City, where he was dismissed last week as head of the diocese in Evreux, west of Paris, becoming the first French bishop since World War II to be so harshly disciplined.

The signals are as diverse as condom water bombs, an alliance of left-wing protesters, a unifying king dead for 15 centuries and a modern bishop stripped of his flock and left to wander the Internet. But the message is the same: France, the "eldest daughter" of the Roman Catholic Church, has lost enthusiasm for its faith. The pope's passe in France.

Andrea Ambrogetti revealed his homosexuality in a parish confessional many years ago and still remembers the disembodied voice of clerical condemnation--one that has driven legions of gay Roman Catholics from the church. Branding gay sex sinful, the priest offered him a choice: "Marry a woman, or don't do anything." Ambrogetti, an Italian academic who is now 36, chose neither marriage nor celibacy and eventually stopped going to confession.

As always, the images on French television that came back from the Paris-to-Dakar rally this year were spectacular: Powerful cars zooming through African sandstorms in the eerie blue twilight, the wheels of motorcycles setting off geysers of golden sand as they crossed the Sahara, trucks struggling like helpless white monsters through great sand dunes. But the rally ended in the third week of January without the usual glory and pride and sense of excruciating accomplishment.

Every Friday, as the sun begins to creep past its apex, Gemal Seede squeezes past the crowded rows at the Islamic Center of Southern California in Los Angeles. A blank tape clutched in one hand, Seede prepares to record the weekly sermon, which he'll upload into the virtual mosque at IslamiCity, a site he helps to maintain on the World Wide Web. Many hours later and a continent away, Ahmad Phelps slips out of bed and flips on his computer.