(CNA/EWTN News) - "There's a huge gulf now" between China and the Catholic Church, Smith stated during an Oct. 9 conference call with reporters. He acknowledged that "the underground church has been brutally persecuted in China, both Protestant and Catholic," but said that now even the state-recognized church is facing persecution.
   
"The Patriotic Church, the Catholic Church, they are being targeted with church demolitions and other kinds of repression which we have not seen before. So there's a great deal of concern that religious freedom, as bad as it was, has further deteriorated in China."

Smith and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) co-hosted the teleconference, focusing on the latest annual report from the human rights monitoring group, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Both lawmakers cited various ways that the Chinese government has infringed upon the freedom of its citizens, including gross violations of human rights and targeting churches.

• Joseph A. Kechichian Senior Write

Beirut: Fought over 15 bloody years, the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) finally stopped after protagonists accepted the October 22, 1989 Ta’if Accords, even if its recommendations were never implemented. On Wednesday, senior officials inaugurated a two-day conference—“The Ta’if Agreement 25 Years Later”—to mark the agreement’s silver jubilee, ostensibly to initiate a long overdue conversation on its provisions, including plans to abolish political sectarianism in parliament, create a Senate that would preserve the 1943 National Charter, balance development needs across the country, and draft an election law that ensured fair representation.