c. 1996 Religion News Service
Religious leaders oppose school prayer amendment on eve of House hearing
(RNS) Leaders from several major religious groups said Monday (July 22) that a proposed constitutional amendment aimed at assuring”religious equality”is not only unnecessary but would end the historic separation of church and state.”Why, if it’s not broke, are some Republicans now trying to fix our Constitution? In an election year, do we really have to ask?”said the Rev. Meg A. Riley, director of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Riley was one of nearly a dozen religious officials from Protestant, Jewish and Buddhist groups who held a news conference on the steps of the Supreme Court to declare that the proposed”Religious Equality Amendment”to the Constitution is really a back-door way of restoring state-sponsored prayer in the public schools and permitting taxpayer-supported financial aid for religious schools.
Supporters of the amendment argue that it is necessary to protect people from religious discrimination, especially public school students who are sometimes barred from various forms of religious expression such as carrying a rosary or saying grace at lunch.
After languishing for more than seven months, the proposed amendment has been put on a legislative”fast track.”A hearing on the amendment, drafted by House Majority Leader Richard Armey, R-Texas, is scheduled for Tuesday (July 23) before the House Judiciary Constitution subcommittee. Supporters hope for a House vote in early September.
Armey’s amendment, which has the backing of a number of politically conservative religious groups, including the Christian Coalition and the National Association of Evangelicals, says that the government may not discriminate against students who wish to pray in public schools. It also guarantees equal access to government benefits, which opponents say would mean the use of vouchers to pay tuition for religious schools.
The Rev. David Ramage, the retired president of McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago and a board member of People For the American Way, said the proposal is part of a Republican effort to push through a vote on the issue before the November election.
Last week, Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, said an early September congressional vote will allow his organization to report House members’ positions in the 45 million voter guides the Coalition plans to distribute before the election.”Will Ralph Reed call it (opposition to the amendment) a vote against religious freedom … a vote against God?”Ramage asked.
Among those represented at the news conference were the Baptist Joint Committee; the Presbyterian Church (USA); the National Council of Jewish Women; the National Jewish Committee Advisory Council; Soka Gakkai International _ USA, a Buddhist group; Americans United for Separation of Church and State; the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church; the American Jewish Congress; the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; B’nai B’rith; the Church of the Brethren; the American Jewish Committee and the United Church of Christ.
Speakers called the proposed constitutional amendment unnecessary, saying current laws, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Equal Access Act, sufficiently protect religious expression. They said their personal religious commitments impel them to defend the separation of church and state.”I’m a born-again, Bible-bred, Texas-born, Baptist preacher. And that’s why I oppose any government meddling in religion,”said James M. Dunn, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee.
Even the proposed”student-sponsored”prayer would lead to peer pressure and would make students who are members of religious minorities feel like”second-class citizens,”said Bill Aiken of Soka Gakkai International _ USA.”To be genuine, prayer of any sort must be completely voluntary; when, where, and how to carry it out should be a matter of personal choice,”Aiken said.
Abortion foes to fight”abortion pill”on safety grounds
(RNS) Anti-abortion activists _ who fear approval of the abortion drug RU-486 will dramatically increase the number of abortions in the United States _ plan on combating the drug’s use by stressing what they believe are its serious health risks to women.
On Friday (July 19), an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration voted to recommend FDA approval of RU-486, a controversial”abortion pill”also known as mifepristone. FDA Commission David Kessler is expected to formally okay sale of the drug in the United States within six months.
Anti-abortion activists said Monday (July 22) they believe that many more doctors will be willing to prescribe RU-486 than have been willing to perform surgical abortions _ thereby adding to the overall number of abortions.”The more abortionists there are, the more abortions you have,”said Susan Muskett, a policy analyst in the Christian Coalition’s Washington office.
Muskett said her organization, founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, will fight the use of RU-486 by stressing its”considerable health risks.” RU-486 works by blocking the action of a hormone needed to sustain a pregnancy. Women who have been pregnant for five to nine weeks are given a 600-milligram dose of the drug. Two days later, a 200-microgram dose of a second drug, misoprostol, is administered, which triggers uterine contractions. Misoprostol has already received FDA approval.
The combination of RU-486 and misoprostol produces an abortion in most cases, but not all, and can also produce painful side effects such as severe contractions, headaches and dizziness. In rare cases, it can also produce heart palpitations.
In urging approval the FDA’s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee noted that although RU-486 is”safe,”it is not”risk-free.” Muskett said RU-486’s risks”will be publicized so that women understand what they are getting into.
Carrie Gordon, a bioethics analyst for James Dobson’s Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, Colo., said”women have a right to know the possible risks”involved with RU-486. But the FDA, which she accused of tilting toward’s President Clinton’s abortion rights supporters, is”unlikely”to provide”accurate information about the dangers of RU-486.”
Virginia direct mail firm identified in Christian Coalition probe
(RNS) Hart Conover, a direct-mail firm in Alexandria, Va., has been identified as the outside firm that the Christian Coalition’s suspended chief financial officer has said engaged in alleged irregularities in its billing practices.
Christian Coalition spokesman Mike Russell said Monday (July 22) that the accounting firm of Coopers & Lybrand has been given”full authority”to investigate Hart Conover on behalf of the Coalition.
Liebert, who has been suspended with pay from her $85,000-a-year job, took her complaints about Hart Conover to the United States attorney’s office in Norfolk, Va., after she received what her lawyer called an inadequate response from Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed.
Reed’s reaction, said attorney Moody Stallings, was”not what you would expect from an organization … when the chief financial officer tells you someone is conning you.” Reed’s response included placing Liebert on suspension, but it is unclear why he did that and spokesman Russell has declined to explain the action.
The U.S. attorney’s office has not commented on what, if anything, it is doing in response to Liebert’s allegations.
However, Benjamin Hart, Hart Conover president, told the Associated Press that”we’re 100 percent confident”that the Coopers & Lybrand probe would turn up no wrongdoing.
Hart also acknowledged that he added a 10 percent markup to services such as printing and mailing list rental that his firm had subcontracted, saying that was a standard industry practice.”Any vendor has to make money to pay salaries and so forth,”Hart said.”Markups are part of the whole business.” Hart also described Reed as a close friend and frequent golf partner.
U.S. Catholic bishop questions British response in Northern Ireland
(RNS) Roman Catholic Bishop Daniel P. Reilly of Worcester, Mass., chair of the U.S. Catholic Conference’s International Policy Committee, has called for an independent investigation into the British government’s response to clashes earlier this month between Protestant unionists and Catholic nationalists.
In a July 18 letter to John Kerr, the British ambassador to the United States, released Monday (July 22), Reilly expressed his concern about the”turmoil of the past week”and what appeared to be police appeasement of militant Protestants.
Reilly referred to a decision by officials of the Royal Ulster Constabulary _ Northern Ireland’s police force _ to reverse themselves and allow a march by Protestant militants through predominantly Catholic neighborhoods.
The march sparked several days of renewed clashes between Protestants and Roman Catholics in which one Catholic died. The violence has endangered the fragile peace process that could end three decades of sectarian strife in the six counties of Northern Ireland.
In his letter to Kerr, Reilly said that”every effort”must be made to restore nationalist (Catholic) confidence in the police force and the rule of law, and to insure that the RUC will never again allow itself to succumb to threats from the Orange Order.”An independent inquiry that would assess the decisions that were made and the exercise of the use of force by the police would be appropriate and could help prevent a recurrence of last week’s events,”Reilly said.
He also called on the British government to renew its commitment to the peace talks and pursue a settlement”with vigor.”
The Rev. Lawrence Jenco, Lebanon hostage in 1980s, dies at 61
(RNS) The Rev. Lawrence Jenco, a Roman Catholic priest who was seized by Shiite Muslim radicals in Lebanon and held hostage for 18 months in the mid-1980s, died Friday (July 19) at the age of 61.
Jenco, who had been ill for several weeks, had been undergoing chemotherapy for pancreatic and lung cancer. He was an associate pastor at St. Domitilla Church in the Chicago suburb of Hillside. Jenco died at home, the AP reported.
Jenco was the head of Catholic Relief Services in Beirut when radicals from the group Islamic Holy War snatched him from a Beirut street on Jan. 8, 1985. After 18 months in captivity, Jenco was freed on July 26, 1986.
In a 1995 book,”Bound to Forgive _ the Pilgrimage to Reconciliation of a Beirut Hostage,”Jenco wrote that he could not forget the experience but could forgive his captors. He said he wanted to return to Lebanon to visit those who held him captive.”I don’t believe that forgetting is one of the signs of forgiveness,”he wrote in the book.”I forgive, but I remember. I do not forget the pain, the loneliness, the ache, the terrible injustice. But I do not not remember in order to inflict some future retribution.” He said that while his faith never wavered, he sometimes became impatient. He wrote that he once told God:”I’m not a Job. I want to go home now.” Jenco was born in Joliet, Ill., on Nov. 27, 1934. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1959 and much of his ministry was centered on working with the poor, the mentally ill and the physically handicapped. Before going to Beirut in 1984, he had served in Yemen and Thailand.
After his release from captivity, Jenco first spent time with his family _ he is survived by two brothers and two sisters, all of Joliet _ and then served as campus minister at the University of Southern California.
Court sacks Danish minister for his views on baptism
(RNS) A court of Denmark’s Ministry of State Affairs has removed from office a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark, the state church, because of his views on baptism.
Danish Church News, which reported the incident, said the court _ made up of a civil judge and two theologians _ found that Pastor Bent Feldbaek Nielsen from 1992 to 1995 repeatedly maintained that”it is not the Triune God who is (the) acting subject in baptism; man is not reborn by baptism; and man does not by baptism receive the Holy Spirit, the remission of sins, and eternal life.” Instead, the pastor preached that the baptism of infants is only an act symbolizing a future rebirth by faith.
Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency, reported that the case had been taken to a secular court because the Church of Denmark has no disciplinary body to deal with such issues. The pastor is appealing the decision.
Quote of the day: The Rev. James Dunn, director of the Baptist Joint Committee, on Bob Dole’s school voucher plan.
(RNS) On Thursday (July 18), presumptive Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole outlined a $2.5 billion federal program that would provide tax dollars to help middle- and low-income families pay tuition at private and religious schools. The Rev. James Dunn, director of the Baptist Joint Committee, an umbrella organization of Baptist denominations and agencies, took Dole to task for the proposal:”Mr. Dole’s push for a voucher scheme to use public monies for parochial purposes is an outrage. School choice plans are correctly named only in that it is the schools that wind up with the choice. Private and parochial schools can deny students who are disabled, distant, learning-impaired or have discipline problems. No one talks about the child who will be left in public schools that have been robbed of their public funds.”
MJP END RNS
