While inviting the 2.6-million Catholics in the...

While inviting the 2.6-million Catholics in the Los Angeles archdiocese to join him in praying and fasting for the success of next week’s U.S.-Soviet summit meeting, Archbishop Roger M. Mahony expressed concern this week for religious liberty in the Soviet Union.

Mahony noted that the Lithuanian Catholic community of LosAngeles recently celebrated the 600th anniversary of Christianity in Lithuania, now a Soviet republic. Along with the joy of that observance, Mahony said, “was the sadness of minimal religious liberty in Lithuania,” including “the imprisonment of brother Catholic priests.”

Mahony also cited the religious limitations on Jews and Muslims in the Soviet Union. Restrictions on Islamic practice, though less known, “is a religious freedom issue of major importance,” Mahony said.

His statement reflected a similar approach by the Vatican toward Soviet relations--raising religious freedom issues even as praise is extended for progress in slowing the arms race. “We all rejoice that finally there is a glimmer of sanity in the insane proliferation of nuclear armaments,” Mahony said.

The National Council of Churches has invited prominent church officials from the Soviet Union to join them in a prayer vigil at the Washington Cathedral during next week’s summit meeting between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Many U.S. and Soviet church officials participated in a similar vigil in Geneva during the November, 1985, meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev.

In addition, the newly formed American Buddhist Congress issued a statement asking the two leaders to dedicate themselves to further peaceful efforts. The three co-presidents, two of them located in Los Angeles, also urged that space not be used in any extension of the arms race.

DATES

The 15th annual Portraits of the Prince of Peace Pageant will be held from 7:30 to 9 nightly in Long Beach, beginning Wednesday and ending Dec. 13. Church members and animals create scenes related to the Nativity story of Jesus. The pageant is the joint effort of five churches on Wardlow Road: St. Cornelius Catholic, Truett Memorial Baptist, St. Luke Lutheran, University Baptist and Long Beach Christian Reformed.

MEDIA

“The Little Troll Prince,” an animated Christmas special produced by Hanna Barbera Productions in conjunction with the Lutheran Laymen’s League, will air in the Los Angeles area at 8 p.m. Dec. 13 on KCOP (Channel 13). The story is about a trickster troll turned into a gnome “by the power of God’s love,” according to publicists.