c. 1996 Religion News Service
Russian panel rejects ban on foreign missionaries
(RNS)-A committee of the State Duma, or lower chamber of the Russian Parliament, has rejected a call by the Russian Orthodox Church to ban foreign missionaries.
The committee is at work on a new religion law to replace a 1990 statute. Many government and Orthodox officials consider the current law too liberal because it gives preachers of all organizations and sects, both foreign and domestic, freedom to operate in Russia.
The Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church asked the parliament to ban missionary work by foreigners unless the missionaries had an invitation from Russia and worked within the framework of a Russian religious organization.
In 1993, a proposed law similar to the Orthodox Church’s call for a ban, was vetoed by President Boris Yeltsin after international protests.
Although the committee rejected the Orthodox Church’s proposal, it agreed to a compromise requiring foreign religious organizations to register with the government.
The first round of debates on the proposed law is expected shortly before the June 16 presidential election, Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency, reported.
Since the collapse of communism, Russia has had an influx of foreign missionaries. The issue is a sensitive one for the Russian Orthodox Church, the nation’s largest religious body, because many of the targets of the mission work are Orthodox believers.
Colorado rights panel asks equal protection for gays
(RNS)-The Colorado Civil Rights Commission has adopted a resolution asking Gov. Roy Romer to push for legislation next year that would give gays and lesbians the same protection against discrimination that blacks and women have.
The resolution, adopted unanimously by the seven-member commission at a May 22 meeting, comes in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that a Colorado law barring local communities from passing civil rights statutes for homosexuals is unconstitutional.
It urges Romer to seek legislation that would add the words”sexual orientation”to the list of categories protected by the state’s civil rights law prohibiting discrimination. Currently, the law bars discrimination based on age, sex, national origin, religion, color, and physical or mental disabilities. It covers discrimination in housing, employment and public access.
Rabbi Steven Foster, the panel commissioner who proposed the resolution, said he offered the measure because the Supreme Court ruling”doesn’t change the status quo in Colorado”except in the handful of jurisdictions that had passed anti-bias laws protecting homosexuals.
A spokesman for Romer said the governor would take the resolution”under advisement.”Romer was an early opponent of Amendment 2, the law passed by Colorado voters in 1992 that barred localities from adopting gay rights laws.
Will Perkins, whose organization, Colorado For Family Values, sponsored Amendment 2, criticized the civil rights commission’s action.”This is exactly what we anticipated,”Perkins said.”Fortunately, people will still be able to make an expression of their will to their legislators.”The idea that sex has anything to do with civil rights is just what we were getting at in Amendment 2,”he said.
Focus on the Family, a national conservative advocacy group based in Colorado Springs, Colo., and a strong supporter of Amendment 2, issued a statement after the rights panel action saying it”believes that sexual behavior is not a legitimate criteria for creating a special civil rights category in law.”
French prelate vows to stay in Algeria despite murders of church workers
(RNS)-Bishop Pierre Claverie, a French national who heads the diocese of Oran in Algeria, says he will remain in Algeria despite the murder of seven Trappist monks and calls by the French government for all French citizens to leave the nation.”I am no more afraid than previously,”Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency, quoted the bishop as saying.”I shall stay.”Most of the Christians in Algeria have linked their lives to those of the Algerian people, for better or for worse,”he added.”They therefore must suffer the violence with the people.” Claverie is one of the most prominent Christians in Algeria.
Eighteen priests, monks and nuns-14 of them French-have been killed in Algeria over the past two years. The Armed Islamic Group (GIA), a militant Muslim organization, has claimed responsibility for many of the deaths.
On May 23, GIA announced that it had killed seven Trappist monks who were abducted from their monastery March 27.
In a related development, French Muslims, Roman Catholics, Protestants and Jews joined in a demonstration in Paris to protest the killing of the seven monks, Reuters reported.
The demonstrators, several thousand strong, gathered under banners reading:”If we keep quiet, the earth will cry out.” Roman Catholic Archbishop Jean-Marie Lustiger of Paris, French Chief Rabbi Joseph Sitruk and Paris Mosque head Dalil Boubaker, in a sign of interfaith solidarity, held hands before the crowd.
In the United States, meanwhile, two U.S. Roman Catholic bishops joined in a statement Wednesday (May 29) decrying the murder of the monks.”Such an offense is a most serious sin against God and an unspeakably horrible crime against humanity which deserves universal condemnation,”said Bishop Daniel P. Reilly of Worcester, Mass., chairman of the Committee on International Policy of the U.S. Catholic Conference, and Bishop Joseph Gerry of Portland, Maine, episcopal moderator for interreligious relations of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
In a separate but related development, Mohammed A. Cheema, president of the American Muslim Council, extended his group’s condolences over the murders to Roman Catholic Bishop Anthony M. Pilla of Cleveland, president of the bishops’ conference.”The brutal execution of the Trappist Brothers … has deeply saddened us all,”Cheema wrote. He said that both faiths must strengthen their commitment”to find alternatives to extremism, wherever it occurs.”
Principal apologizes for trying to stop students from praying aloud
(RNS)-Harry Lambert, principal of Westminister West Middle School in Westminster, Md., has apologized to students at his school for temporarily halting their practice of praying aloud during recess, the AP reported Wednesday (May 29).”I guess we should have realized that if they were allowed to pray in small groups, they should be allowed to pray in a larger group,”Lambert said.
Lambert said he first barred the group of about 25 8th-graders from praying during recess because he was concerned about the large numbers and felt their activity might be inappropriate. But he said school board attorneys advised him otherwise.
Trial of Coptic Christian convert to Islam opens in Egypt
(RNS)-A Christian family went to court in Cairo Tuesday (May 28) to win back custody of their 17-year-old daughter who they claim converted to Islam with the tacit help of the police.
The AP said the case is potentially explosive in Egypt because conversion to either Christianity or Islam is officially frowned on. Coptic Christians, an ancient branch of Christianity that believes Jesus had only a divine nature, make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s predominantly Muslim population of 60 million people.
Many Christians claim their children have been coerced into converting to Islam, but AP said this is apparently the first case to go to court.
The family of Sadek Mikhail contends that Sadek’s Muslim boyfriend, a 34-year-old man, took advantage of their daughter’s naivete. They say that he persuaded Sadek to convert and that she has lived with his family for the past two months.
The Mikhail family lawyer argued that under Egyptian law, police should have brought the girl back to her parents because she is a minor.
A further hearing was set for July 9.
Quote of the day: Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Christian Life Commission, on the burning of black churches.
(RNS)-Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Christian Life Commission, testified before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on the wave of arsons at churches, mostly African-American, in the rural South:”… There is an evil, insidious, almost intuitive logic to burning black churches. The church has been a unique and powerful presence in the African-American community since the days of slavery. The church has been at the very heart and soul of the bittersweet black experience in America. It was the formative and central structure in developing a vibrant and rich African-American culture amidst the horrible deprivation of slavery. … To strike at the black church is to drive into the heart of the black community and the black experience in America.”
MJP END
