c. 1997 Religion News Service

Public schools approve clergy broadcasts

(RNS) Public school officials in Gary, Ind., have agreed to sell air time on a city high school radio station to a group of ministers who want to broadcast religious programs on the weekends.

The station airs news, educational and musical programming during the week, and has been broadcasting sermons since 1996 under an unauthorized agreement between Vernon Williams, then station manager, and the ministers.

Superintendent James Hawkins said he had first opposed the plan to allow the seven ministers to air their sermons on the weekends because he thought it appeared to violate the constitutional separation of church and state.

But since the school board has agreed to sell the broadcast hours to the ministers following the same guidelines used to rent facilities to community groups, Hawkins has dropped his opposition.

Board members said they would provide equal opportunity for other groups that wanted to buy air time, The New York Times reported Sunday (March 23).

“As long as that group is not promoting violence, criminal behavior, or sending a message that would put the schools in an unfavorable light as far as the community is concerned, we will open this up to any organization,”said Josephine Brooks, a member of the school board.

Critics of the decision said they are concerned the station may look as if it is endorsing a specific religion. Steven Shapiro, the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, said the fact that the station’s call letters are an abbreviation for the city’s vocational and educational training center could cause problems.

“That in itself lends an unspoken endorsement of what the station will and will not broadcast,” Shapiro said.

The critics also said if the ministers are allowed to buy air time, other groups, including controversial ones such as the Ku Klux Klan, would also have to be allowed to purchase time for their messages.

But Brooks said the radio ministry could be a way to motivate children to attend church, and she said the board was considering a plan allowing churches to “adopt” schools to provide mentoring, tutoring and other services.”Religion is something we’ve always advocated for our community,” Brooks said.

Japanese sect said to have planned nerve-gas attacks in U.S.

(RNS) The Japanese sect accused of orchestrating the 1994 nerve-gas attacks on the Tokyo subway system also planned to release the gas in the United States, according to new testimony in the Tokyo murder trial of the group’s leader.

The group, called Aum Shinri Kyo (Supreme Truth), is a hybrid of Buddhist and Hindu teachings as interpreted by sect leader and self-proclaimed messiah Shoko Asahara, and claims some 40,000 followers in Japan and Russia.

According to testimony by a former leader in the group on Friday (March 21), Asahara ordered sect members to go to the United States in June 1994 to pick up a shipment of sarin nerve gas sent by mail and concealed in a Japanese ornament.

“The guru has ordered us to release sarin in several places in America,” Dr. Ikuo Hayashi, the former medical director of Aum Shinri Kyo, quoted the group’s intelligence director as telling him in 1994. Hayashi said he agreed reluctantly to pick up the shipment in the United States, but the plan was soon suspended.

A month later nerve gas was released in the Tokyo subway system, killing 12 and injuring several thousand. On Sunday (March 23), The New York Times said the cult originally attempted to blame the American military for releasing the nerve gas in the Tokyo subways and accused the United States of trying to kill its believers.

Although many former cult officials have admitted plotting the nerve gas attacks, Asahara continues to deny any wrongdoing. His defense lawyers have started a partial boycott of the trial this month, skipping one trial session out of every four to protest the rapid pace at which they say the trial has been moving, leaving them without enough time to prepare. The trial is expected to take up to a decade.

Asahara, an admirer of Adolf Hitler, predicted in 1994 that global civil war would begin in 1997.

Solar Temple Cult members burn themselves to death

(RNS) Five members of the Solar Temple sect, a sun-worshiping cult originating in Switzerland, set themselves on fire in an apparent suicide pact in St. Casmin, Quebec, on Saturday (March 22).

Two Swiss men, two French women, and one Canadian woman died in the fire that destroyed a house owned by a member of the group, which believes a violent, fiery death is necessary in order to reach the afterworld. Sect followers who burn themselves to death believe they will be reborn in a place called “Sirius.”

Investigators said the sect members used propane tanks and gasoline containers to set the wood-paneled house aflame, the Associated Press reported.

Three teen-age children of sect members, who were found dazed and drugged in a nearby shed, were apparently given the choice of living or dying, Reuters reported. In earlier suicides by sect members, adults killed the children of members before killing themselves.”On Saturday, the children spoke with their parents and were given the choice of staying or leaving and they chose to take refuge outside the house,”Mathias Tellier, a police spokesman, told Reuters.”The children took sleeping pills, to lessen their pain or sadness over what was happening inside the house.” Four of the bodies were found in an upstairs bed, positioned in a cross shape, according to police.

The Solar Temple sect first received worldwide attention three years ago when 53 of its members died in two Swiss villages and at a ski resort in Quebec in a mixture of murders and suicides. In a 1995 case, 16 sect members were found burned to death in a house near the French Alps, and 14 of the bodies were arranged in a star shape on the floor.

Swiss police, who were criticized for not taking action against the group, said they were restricted by constitutional guarantees of freedom of worship. But authorities have since vowed to crack down on suicide cults and have said they are monitoring known members of the Solar Temple in Switzerland, most of whom are well-off professionals.

Chinese police ransack home of underground Catholic bishop

(RNS) A bishop in Shanghai’s underground Roman Catholic Church was stripped of money, Bibles and religious artifacts by Chinese police, a U.S.-based Catholic group has charged.

According to the Cardinal Kung Foundation, a nonprofit group that monitors religious freedom in China and supports the Vatican-related underground church, Bishop Joseph Fan Zhongliang, 79, has been under police observation since March 4, when eight officers searched his Shanghai apartment.

The Stamford, Conn.-based foundation said the police may have been trying to stop members of Shanghai’s underground Catholic church from celebrating Easter, according to an Associated Press report Monday (March 24).

Many Catholics in China worship illegally, remaining loyal to the Vatican rather than the government-approved church.

Fan spent 20 years in prison for refusing to join the official Chinese church, and he now heads the church in Shanghai. The church was formerly led by Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pin-mei, who moved to the United States after spending 29 years in prison and from whom the foundation draws its name.

Australia’s Senate overturns euthanasia law

(RNS) Australia’s federal Senate voted early Tuesday (March 25) to overturn legislation approved by the country’s Northern Territory that permitted terminally ill patients to commit suicide with a doctor’s help.

The vote was 38-33, the Associated Press reported.

The House of Representatives had previously voted to overturn the pro-euthanasia law by a wide margin. It now requires only the signature of the governor-general, who is expected to sign the measure and make it law.

Under Australia’s Constitution, the national Parliament has the right to strike down territorial and state legislation.

Four people have committed suicide under the territory’s controversial law, which took effect in July 1996.

Quote of the day: Actor Billy Bob Thornton

(RNS) Actor-director Billy Bob Thornton has been nominated for two Oscars _ best actor and best screenplay _ for his movie”Sling Blade.”But in an interview with The Washington Post, Thornton said if he wins, don’t expect him to thank God for the honor. God’s got better things to do than watch the Academy Awards, he said:”Anytime somebody starts telling me that God told ’em to do something, I get suspicious. We’re supposed to believe in God, God’s not supposed to be running our lives and giving us advice. And people are always thanking God when they win ball games or get Academy Awards. Well, if I win, I’ll be grateful to a lot of people, but I don’t think God wants me thanking him for something like that.”

MJP END RNS