The world is going to end, `prophets' tell St. Lucia police

 BY GUY ELLIS
 Associated Press

 CASTRIES, St. Lucia -- Two men who attacked worshipers in a cathedral on this
 small Caribbean island, setting them ablaze and killing an Irish nun, told police
 they were sent by God to combat corruption in the Roman Catholic Church.

 ``The way they're talking is that the world is going to end and that the time had
 come for what they had to do,'' police Inspector Gregory Montoute said Monday.

 The suspects -- Kim John, 20, and Francis Phillip, 34 -- identified themselves as
 Rastafarians, Montoute said. Police spokesman Albert Fregis said St. Lucia's
 Rastafarian leaders denounced the Sunday attack at the Basilica of the
 Immaculate Conception in this port town.

 Monsignor Theophilus Joseph, the cathedral's administrator, said John told police
 ``that God asked him to do it because there is so much corruption in the Catholic
 Church.''

 The men told police they were ``prophets'' sent by Haile Selassie, the late
 Ethiopian emperor worshiped by Rastafarians.

 Police said they do not think the men belonged to an organized group.

 Rastafarianism, followed by perhaps one million people worldwide, emerged in
 Jamaica and spread throughout the Caribbean in the 1930s out of the anger felt
 by descendants of slaves with the colonial powers' oppression of blacks. It is
 based on peaceful principles. Adherents are often noted for their belief that
 marijuana encourages the calm necessary for religious meditation.

 The attack Sunday occurred while more than 400 people were inside the
 cathedral. The men burst in carrying machetes and a blowtorch while many
 worshipers lined the aisles preparing to take communion, police and witnesses
 said.

 One of the attackers doused people with a flammable liquid, while another used a
 blowtorch to ignite the flames, witnesses said. Police said the attackers hacked
 at people with the machetes. But Joseph, the cathedral administrator, said the
 intruders beat people with pieces of wood and used torches to set worshipers
 afire.

 The attackers then made their way to the altar, where they set fire to the Rev.
 Charles Gaillard, injured an altar server and burned the altar.

 Gaillard, who suffered a collapsed lung and third-degree burns over his body, was
 flown to Martinique for treatment. He was in critical condition. At least 12 other
 people were hospitalized, and five were in critical condition Monday, police said.

 The slain nun was identified as Sister Theresa Egan, 72, of Ireland. She belonged
 to the Order of St. Joseph of Cluny, an Irish order that has been involved in
 education programs on the island for nearly 100 years.

 Egan had lived in St. Lucia for decades.

 After the attack, worshipers grabbed John and held him until police arrived. Phillip
 was captured Monday morning in the suburb of Pave.