c. 1996 Religion News Service

Vatican, other religious groups condemn Israeli attacks in Lebanon

(RNS)-The Vatican on Friday (April 19) joined other religious groups condemning Israel’s missile assault on a United Nations peacekeeping compound in southern Lebanon Thursday in which at least 75 were killed, and urged the warring parties to seek a political solution to the recent border incursions.

Israeli officials said they were unaware that refugees had taken shelter at the U.N. base that Israeli gunners hit in response to a Hezbollah guerilla rocket attack from the area.

While not mentioning Israel by name, the Vatican statement was clearly aimed at the Jewish state, which has launched fierce retaliatory strikes at Hezbollah strongholds in response to the Katyusha rocket attacks lobbed into northern Israel.”There is no political or military reason that can possibly justify these dramatic consequences,”Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement.

Saying Pope John Paul II had expressed”profound concern”about the volley of assaults between Israel and Hezbollah, the statement added,”the spiral of violence has not stopped and every attempt to end it has been in vain. The victims, mostly Lebanese, are increasing day after day.” The Vatican statement made no mention of the Hezbollah offensive that touched off the recent wave of attacks.”There is no mention of Hezbollah because our main concern now is the victims of the acts, those people who have been the victims of the situation,”Navarro-Valls said in an interview.

He said the Vatican’s position”against any act of terrorism has been clear throughout the years. So I don’t think there is any doubt about that.” Israel has also drawn criticism from other religious bodies for the eight-day battle with Hezbollah guerillas.

The Geneva-based World Council of Churches labeled Israel’s naval blockade of major Lebanese ports”an act of aggression”and said the battles in southern Lebanon”put in jeopardy the painstaking gains made through the ongoing peace process.” Churches for Middle East Peace, a Washington-based umbrella organization of Protestant churches and Roman Catholic religious orders, said Israel’s action in southern Lebanon”has led to a severe, premeditated humanitarian crisis”intended to pressure the governments of Lebanon and Syria, which support Hezbollah.”Such a strategy that holds the entire population hostage to armed attack must be condemned as totally unacceptable and in grave violation of international standards for the protection of civilians in times of conflict,”the group said.

A first for Baylor: Students dance the night away

(RNS)-Baylor University students put on their dancing shoes Thursday (April 18) and with howls and hoots started a new tradition at this Southern Baptist school in Waco, Texas.

The tuxedoed Baylor President Robert Sloan Jr. and his wife, Sue, in a sequined evening gown, first danced to the strains of Beethoven’s”Minuet in G.”Then they switched to the jitterbug when the band abruptly shifted to Glenn Miller’s”In the Mood,”with the onlookers roaring their approval, the Associated Press reported.

A variety of bands performed rhythm and blues, country and rock music throughout the evening.

Sloan lifted the ban on dancing in January but warned students could not dance in ways that were”obscene or provocative.”Pelvic gyrations and excessive closeness were prohibited, as was alcohol.

Ninety-four percent of Baylor students approved lifting the campus dancing ban, according to a poll last fall.

Sophomore Randy Nelson was among the six percent on campus who oppose dancing.”It could lead down a road to something that’s a little less innocent than dancing,”Nelson said.”We have a pretty conservative campus. I don’t want Baylor to become like some universities, where there are protest marches and people are burning things.” Baylor fraternities, sororities and other groups have held off-campus dances-dubbed”foot functions”-for several years. But dances had never been allowed on the 12,000-student campus since the school was founded in 1845.

Anglican bishop says southern African nations fail on human rights

(RNS)-The governments of southern African countries have failed to protect their citizens against human rights abuses and have instead made”pleasant noises”about human rights, said Anglican Archbishop Walter Makhulu of the Province of Central Africa, based in Botswana.

Makhulu made his comments Tuesday (April 16) in a keynote address to a three-day international human rights workshop for non-governmental organizations in Gaborone, Botswana.

Makhulu said it was”regrettable that our governments are still failing to ensure that violations of internationally recognized human rights cease to happen,”Ecumenical News International, the World Council of Churches-based news agency reported.”(The) time is overdue for our leaders to put their money where their mouth is,”he said.

Makhulu did not mention any government by name but a number of governments in the region, including Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, have been accused of human rights abuses.

Even as Makhulu was laying out his case, church leaders in Zambia issued a warning that a proposal to give the Zambian president power to oust judges would undermine the independence of the judiciary and potentially lead to rights abuses.

American Bible Society’s board gets first female chair

(RNS)-A former Presbyterian missionary has been named as the first woman to head the board of the New York-based American Bible Society.

Sally Shoemaker Robinson, executive director of Episcopal Social Ministries, an affiliate of the Episcopal diocese in Maryland, has been appointed to the post at one of the nation’s largest non-profit Bible publishers.

Robinson, a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA), was the first non-Episcopalian to become a canon, which is an administrative assistant to an Episcopal bishop. The role of canon is usually reserved for ordained clergy.

She will succeed James Wood, the chairman since 1985, who decided not to run for re-election.

Kalim Siddiqui, British Muslim critic of Salman Rushdie, dies

(RNS)-Kalim Siddiqui, a British Muslim who supported the late Ayatollah Khomeini’s death sentence on author Salman Rushdie, died Thursday (April 18) of a heart attack.

Siddiqui, 62, died in Pretoria, South Africa, while attending a conference, Reuters reported. He had a heart bypass operation last June.

Siddiqui kept a hardline stance concerning Rushdie since the late 1980s, when Khomeini issued his religious edict. Three weeks ago, he said the sentence should still be carried out against Rushdie, who wrote the book”The Satanic Verses.”

Quote of the Day: Carrie Brown, sister of victim of Oklahoma City bombing

(RNS)-Carrie Brown, sister of Dana Cooper, child care director at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that was destroyed in a blast a year ago today, spoke recently about the effect of the tragedy on her life.

Brown, whose sister and 2-year-old nephew died in the blast, said in an interview with Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention:”I’ve definitely learned to live for the moment a little bit more. Not so much disregarding consequences, but realizing this is the only chance God gives us, and if we don’t do his work the first time around, we’re not going to have a chance to do it.”

MJP END