Satanists are blamed for priest's death

POLICE and clergymen in Colombia are warning that a Satanic sect may be responsible for the chilling and bizarre death of a priest and a woman member of his congregation from a poisoned bottle of wine.

Bottles of poisoned wine, believed to be laced with arsenic, were sent along with chocolates and sweets to at least 12 churches in the centre of the South American country.

The presents, sent by mail just before Easter, appeared on the surface to be the innocent and customary seasonal offerings of devout parishioners.

But at the church in Villavicencio, 55 miles south of the capital, Bogota, the unsuspecting parish priest, The Rev Jesus David Saenz, and Marina Rojas died almost immediately after opening the bottle and drinking a celebratory toast. Other members of the church saved themselves from a similar fate by spitting out the wine and forcing themselves to be sick.

Another two people became ill after trying the wine at a church in Sibate, just outside Bogota. The Rev Ricardo Martinez, from the church at Cumaral, near Villavicencio, also received the poisoned wine. He warned that Satan- worshippers were preparing human sacrifices for Easter.

"Satanic sects could be involved, or criminal elements that want to hurt the church," General Luis Enrique Montenegro, head of Colombia's security police, told national radio.

The gruesome attack has fuelled widespread fears among South American Catholics about their church's loss of respect and control. The almost exclusive preserve of the Catholicism since the Spanish and Portuguese conquests of the 16th century, the continent has seen the arrival recently of a range of religions and sects mocking the Catholic church's claim to hegemony.

Many of these come from the US, especially fundamentalist protestants, and have won the allegiance of political right-wingers opposed to the Catholic hierarchy's perceived support for Indians, landless peasants and social change.

By Agencies