c. 1996 Religion News Service
Mother Teresa hospitalized
(RNS) Mother Teresa remained in stable condition in the intensive care unit of a Calcutta hospital Thursday (Aug. 22). The frail nun, who will turn 86 next week, was suffering from fever and cardiac problems and was breathing with the help of a respirator, the Associated Press reported.
“With God’s grace, Mother is recovering and we all in the Missionaries of Charity are praying for her fast recovery,” said Sister Shanti, after a brief conversation with the ailing nun.
As a monsoon flooded the streets of Calcutta, nearly a dozen nuns from the Missionaries of Charity mother house waited outside her room at the Woodlands Nursing Home. The hospital switchboard was jammed with calls from hundreds of well-wishers, as news of Mother Teresa’s illness spread.
Despite health problems, Mother Teresa has maintained a challenging schedule in recent months, visiting the missions she established in India and around the world.
She had been hospitalized five months ago after breaking her collarbone in a fall at the Calcutta headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity.
Religious groups support Salt Lake religious liberty case
(RNS) Several religious organizations have filed a”friend of the court”brief in the case of Rachel Bauchman of Salt Lake City, who is appealing the dismissal of a suit that claims her constitutional rights were violated because of religious activities at her public high school.
Bauchman, 16, filed a lawsuit in 1995 against West High School, its school district and choir director Richard Torgerson, claiming that by having the students sing Christian songs, Torgerson’s teaching promoted religion. After a district court dismissed her case in May, Bauchman took her case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Church of Christ, the American Jewish Committee, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, the Anti-Defamation League and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations filed a brief supporting Bauchman on Wednesday (Aug. 21).
The groups argue that the court erred when it did not recognize that certain activities of the school violated the First Amendment. They cite Bauchman’s contention that she was coerced into participating in area religious worship services as a member of the school’s choral class.
The groups also said in their brief that Bauchman had to”overcome extraordinary hurdles”to be heard in court, setting”an unwarranted and dangerous precedent that clearly signals to those who would seek to preserve their religious liberties that they will receive an unwelcome reception in the courts.” Lisa H. Thurau, executive director of the National Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty, which helped Bauchman find a lawyer for her suit, welcomed the ecumenical support.”It proves that this is an issue that affects all of us, and that we must all be vigilant about any effort to undermine religious liberty,”she said.
Debra J. Moore, an assistant attorney general in Utah, declined to comment Thursday (Aug. 22) because she had not seen a copy of the brief.
The case is expected to be heard in the appeals court in late November.
S.A. truth commission hears apologies from deKlerk, ANC
(RNS) As South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation continued its hearings on human rights abuses during the apartheid era, it heard apologies this week from both former President F.W. deKlerk and from leaders of the once-outlawed African National Congress.
While insisting their cause was just, ANC Deputy President Thabo Mbeki said that”excesses did occur”during its struggle to dismantle the apartheid system.”The ANC has acknowledged that in a number of instances breaches in policy did occur, and deeply regrets civilian casualties,”Mbeki said Thursday (Aug. 22), as he presented a 300-page testimony to the committee, the Associated Press reported.
The truth commission, chaired by former Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, is charged with helping South Africans understand their past, find ways to compensate victims of political crimes and recommend amnesty for those who confess to atrocities during the apartheid era.
Earlier this week, the commission heard deKlerk apologize Wednesday for the pain caused by his National Party’s policies, which carried out the practices of apartheid from 1948 until 1990. Like the ANC leader, he said abuses had been unintentional.
Quote of the Day: Kathleen Norris on TV and the Psalms
Kathleen Norris, whose memoir,”The Cloister Walk”(Riverhead), currently tops the list of best-selling hardcover religion books, speculates on the difference between the bad news on TV news shows and the woeful events chronicled in the Bible’s Book of Psalms.”… The relentless realism of the psalms is not depressing in the way that television news can be, although many of the same events are reported: massacres, injustices to those who have none to defend them. As a book of praises, meant to be sung, the Psalter contains a hope that `human interest’ stories tacked on to the end of a news broadcast cannot provide. The psalms mirror our world but do not allow us to become voyeurs. In a nation unwilling to look at its own violence, they force us to recognize our part in it.”
MJP END RNS
