c. 1996 Religion News Service

Ohio court says Cleveland voucher plan for religious schools is okay

(RNS) An Ohio state court ruled Wednesday (July 31) that a school voucher program in Cleveland that allows students to use public money to pay tuition at private and religious schools is constitutional.

The ruling, certain to be contested, is a major victory for school-choice supporters. If the ruling is upheld, it would make Ohio the first state to allow parents to use tax money, in the form of government-issued vouchers, to pay for tuition at religious schools.

A similar program in Milwaukee is awaiting a court ruling to see if vouchers there can be used at religious as well as secular private schools.

Under the Ohio program _ aimed at between 1,500 and 2,000 mostly poor, public school students in kindergarten through the third grade _ parents will be given up to $2,250 to spend at local private and religious schools this fall. The program is expected to cost about $5.3 million.”This decision is a huge victory for school choice and a major breakthrough for the hopes and opportunities for low-income children,”said Clint Bolick, litigation director of the Washington-based Institute for Justice, which helped defend the controversial program.

But Barry Lynn, executive director of the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and States, said he is confident the ruling will be overturned.”There is no other court in America that has upheld vouchers for religious schools,”he said.

The Cleveland program, which is due to go into effect this fall, was challenged in court by two Ohio teachers’ unions and the American Civil Liberties Union.”The precedents are so horrendous, we will move as quickly as possible for a temporary restraining order to stop the voucher program from taking effect this school year,”Ron Marec, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers told the Associated Press.

Teasury Department, Methodists reach pact on computers for Cuba

(RNS) The U.S. Treasury Department and the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church have reached an agreement on shipping to Cuba 374 computers seized by the federal government earlier this year from Pastors for Peace.”The low-grade computers, currently located in a San Diego storage and Vermont church facilities, will be distributed to Cuban clinics and hospitals to support the United Nations’ and Pan American Health Organization’s INFOMED network, a medical information network,”said the Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett, general secretary of the Methodist agency.

The computers were seized in a series of incidents in January and February when Pastors for Peace, a Minneapolis-based activist organization, attempted to bring them across the U.S.-Mexican border for shipment to Cuba.

Treasury agents seized the computers because Pastors for Peace did not have an export license. Under terms of the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba, trade with Cuba is forbidden but churches and other charitable organizations are allowed to send humanitarian aid to the country if they receive a U.S. government license.

The seizure of the computers led to a 72-day fast by the Rev. Lucius Walker, head of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization, Pastors for Peace’s parent organization.

In a compromise designed to end the fast, Treasury agreed to release the computers to the Methodist agency, but Pastors for Peace insisted that the agency could not apply for a license.

Fassett said the board”has never applied for or requested a license from the Treasury Department for the computers.”It did, however, provide all the information Treasury requires of groups seeking a license.

Fassett said the computers are likely to be transported to Cuba by mid-September.”The agreement to negotiate for the release and exportation of the computers to Cuba is a moral victory in U.S. foreign policy,”Fassett said.”This is also a strong witness of the churches not to allow political forces to prevent them from expressing their Christian care and conscience.”

Four charged in connection with 1994 Buenos Aires Jewish center bombing

(RNS) Three Argentine police officials and one retired officer have been charged in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires that killed nearly 100 and injured 250 others.

The four were charged Wednesday (July 31) with homicide for allegedly supplying the van that was later packed with explosives and set off in front of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association building in July 1994. They were not charged with actually setting off the explosives, the Associated Press reported.

However, prosector Eamon Muller told the Reuter news agency that there are”serious grounds for presuming these people knew who they were providing the van to or that they are actually linked with those who carried out the attack.” Mullen said he hoped the names of the actual bombers would surface during the trials of Chief Inspector Juan Jose Ribelli, Deputy Chief Inspectors Edilio Ibarra and Irineo Leal and former Deputy Chief Inspector Mario Norberto Barreiro. All four men were arrested earlier in July in connection with a stolen car ring.

Another man, Carlos Telledin, was charged in 1994 with refurbishing the van and turning it over to the stolen car ring. The ring later sold it to the unknown bombers, according to a judge in the case.

Police originally said 95 people died in the cultural center bombing, but Argentine Jewish groups placed the number of dead at 86.

At the time of the blast, speculation focused on the possible involvement of Middle East terrorist groups. However, no evidence to support that has been uncovered. Some also speculated that the bombers were linked to local Argentines who are either pro-Nazi or anti-Semitic.

Officials did not say what might be the motivation of the four men charged in the bomb attack.

In March 1992, a similar bombing killed 29 and injured more than 200 at the Embassy of Israel in Buenos Aires. No one has been arrested in connection with that attack.

Priebke is acquitted in Nazi murder trial

(RNS) In a stunning, unexpected verdict, an Italian military court Thursday (Aug. 1) acquitted a former Nazi officer of the most serious charges stemming from his involvement in the World War II massacre of 335 civilians, including 75 Jews.

The acquittal of SS Capt. Erich Priebke, 83, who had been extradited to Italy from Argentina last November, sent waves of revulsion through Rome, where the trial was held. Onlookers at the proceedings, many of them relatives of the slain, burst into tears and screamed”shame”and”murderer.” The 3-judge panel ruled that while Priebke participated in the 1944 murders, a charge he acknowledged, he bore no responsibility for premeditated murder and was following military orders. The court also held that the statute of limitations had expired for the crimes he committed.

The March 24, 1944, murders were carried out in retaliation for a bomb explosion by Italian resistance fighters that killed 33 Nazis.

Military prosecutors said they would appeal the case. German prosecutors have issued a warrant for Priebke’s arrest but it was unclear whether the order was binding outside Germany.

The ruling will almost certainly be seen as a major embarrassment to Italy, which proudly sought Priebke’s extradition after it was learned that he had been living in a resort town in Argentina.

But the trial has been plagued by problems from the start. Lawyers for the victims’ families said the chief military judge was biased in Priebke’s behalf.

Jewish groups complained the military tribunal was not competent to rule on issues involving civilian murders. Moreover, they said that the murder was not merely a military homicide but a crime against humanity.

The systematic murder of the 335 Italian men and young boys was the worst civilian massacre in wartime Italy. The Nazis rounded them up and carted them out to the Ardeatine Caves, south of Rome, where they were shot in the back of the head.

Government prosecutors had argued that Priebke not only pulled the trigger in several cases but helped decide which individuals would be put on the murder list.

In addition to Jewish civilians, many of the victims included people believed to be associated with the resistance and political dissidents.

Vandals hit Orthodox cathedral in Belarus

(RNS) Holy Spirit Cathedral in Minsk, Belarus, the most hallowed Russian Orthodox cathedral in the former Soviet republic, has been daubed with anti-Christian slogans and cryptic symbols in what local police described as the work of satanists.

According to Reuters, slogans in black paint smeared on its facade read:”Death to Christians. No to Christians in Slav lands. I am Satan. I am truth.” In addition, the cathedral, built in the 17th century, dynamited by the Communists in 1936 and rebuilt after World War II, had inverted crosses and stars smeared on its facade.”In recent years,”there have been repeated cases of desecration of Orthodox shrines, anti-Christian or openly satanic graffiti, anonymous calls with threats against priests and sacrilegious publications in the press in Belarus,”the Moscow Patriarchate _ headquarters of the Russian Orthodox Church _ said in a statement quoted by Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news service.

Publishers Weekly names Lynn Garrett new religion editor

(RNS) Lynn Garrett, editor of Publishers Weekly Religion Bookline, a twice-monthly newsletter, has been appointed the magazine’s religion editor.”In her expanded capacity, Garrett will oversee the religion coverage in both publications and be responsible for the day-to-day administration of PW’s religion program,”the magazine said in a statement.

Garrett succeeds Phyllis Tickle, PW’s religion editor since 1992. Tickle will continue as a contributing editor.

In addition, the magazine said Henry L. Carrington, a frequent contributor to the magazine and most recently the Library Journal’s religion editor, has been named religion book review editor for both PW and Religion Bookline.

Quote of the day: Republican presidential contender Bob Dole on the movie”Independence Day.” (RNS) Bob Dole, the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency, made attacks on the entertainment industry a central part of his primary campaign. On Monday, Dole took his campaign to the belly of the beast itself _ Hollywood _ where he viewed the summer’s blockbuster film, the science fiction fantasy”Independence Day,”which depicts an alien invasion of the United States. After viewing the film, Dole gave a succinct review:”I like it. We won, the end. Leadership. America. Good over evil.”

MJP END RNS