c. 1997 Religion News Service
U.S. bishops protest detention of priests in Mexico
(RNS) Two U.S. Roman Catholic bishops have protested the arrest and detention of two Mexican priests earlier this month, calling the incident indicative of a “pattern of official behavior that could well be described as religious persecution.”
In letters to Mexican Ambassador to the United States Jesus Silva-Herzog and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick of Newark, N.J., said the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC) was deeply concerned over the arrest of two Jesuit priests and their two Indian assistants in Mexico’s troubled southern state of Chiapas. The four men were arrested March 8 and accused of being involved in a violent incident that occurred March 7 in the town of Palenque.
McCarrick asserted that the two priests had been in another town when the March 7 violence allegedly occurred. The four were”held incommunicado for over 24 hours”before church officials were allowed to visit them.
All four men have now been released, but the USCC has asked Mexican authorities for an explanation.
“We call for the restoration of the good name and honor of the four men by means of a full and honest investigation of this most recent instance of religious persecution in Chiapas,” McCarrick wrote in his letter to the Mexican ambassador.
McCarrick is chairman of the U.S. bishops’ international policy committee and a member of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad.
Meanwhile, Bishop Anthony Pilla of Cleveland, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, has also written to the head of the Mexican bishops’ conference, expressing solidarity and encouragement for the church in Mexico.”If we can be of any assistance to you in these matters, please do not hesitate to let us know,”Pilla said.
Update: Swiss-American missionary released from Iranian prison
(RNS) Nine weeks after his arrest and incarceration in Iran, a Swiss-American missionary has been released from prison and deported to Switzerland, according to an Iranian Christian group based in the United States.
The Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that Daniel Baumann, who was released to the Swiss Embassy March 16, faced”hard conditions and psychological pressure”during his imprisonment in Iran, according to a March 24 statement released by the Colorado-based Iranian Christians International.
Baumann, 33, and a South African colleague, Stuart Timm, 27, were detained Jan. 10 at the border between Iran and Turkmenistan. The two had entered Iran from Turkmenistan on Dec. 28, 1996, after visiting evangelical pastors and church members among Iran’s various ethnic groups. Baumann, who has dual-citizenship, was traveling on his Swiss passport.
Iranian border officials confiscated the two men’s passports and instructed them to travel to the Iranian capital of Tehran. Upon their arrival in Tehran, they were arrested, detained and interrogated for four days before being transferred to Tehran’s Evin prison. No formal charges were filed against them.
After diplomatic intervention, Timm was released to the South African Embassy on Feb. 17. After his release, Timm reported Baumann’s condition as”fragile.” The United States has no diplomatic ties with Iran, and the Swiss Embassy often represents American interests there. Swiss officials were only allowed one visit with Baumann, on Feb. 18.
In a statement about Baumann’s release, Iranian Christians International urged Western missionaries”to rethink their mission strategies and act in conjunction with Iranian churches and ministries working outside of Iran who have close contact with the church in Iran.” Western missionaries were expelled from Iran in 1979 and 1980 after the Islamic revolution that toppled the shah’s regime.
Church members protest fiery Florida execution
(RNS) Church members at a prayer vigil for Florida death row inmate Pedro Medina expressed horror at the news that flames up to a foot high burst from beneath Medina’s face mask during his execution Tuesday (March 25).”It was just as though God was sending us a message,”said Peggy Madden, who organized a prayer vigil at the First Presbyterian Church of Cape May, N.J. “This is so inhumane, so unbelievable that we can still treat people like this in this day and age,”said Madden, according to USA Today.
Madden was Medina’s sponsor when he first came to the United States on the 1980 Mariel boatlift from Cuba.
Medina was convicted of the 1982 murder of Dorothy James, a 52-year-old Orlando teacher, and sentenced to die in the electric chair. Witnesses said his last words were,”I am still innocent.” Despite the flames, Florida medical examiner Belle Almojera asserted Medina had died”a very quick, humane death.” Nonetheless, Florida Attorney General Bob Buttworth said Medina’s death should be a warning to those contemplating murder that”they better not do it in the state of Florida because we may have a problem with our electric chair,”reported USA Today.
Pope John Paul II was among those who asked Florida officials not to execute Medina.
World Relief names British evangelical as new president
(RNS) Clive Calver, a veteran leader of the evangelical movement in Great Britain, has been named president of World Relief, the international assistance arm of the Illinois-based National Association of Evangelicals.
Calver, who spent 14 years as director general of the Evangelical Alliance of the United Kingdom, will assume the presidency May 1.
World Relief’s Board of Directors said Calver was hired because of his experience in building successful ministries, including programs to help the poor and homeless both in Britain and overseas.”Dr. Calver is praised by his colleagues and constituency as one with a high Christian vision of holistic ministry, an organizational genius, a team builder and persuasive public advocate of the kingdom of God’s claims on society,”said board member Clyde D. Taylor.
Calver is the author of six books and the co-author of 13, and he has been regularly interviewed by the BBC and national British papers for an evangelical perspective on current issues.
“My heart’s interest is backing up Christian words of hope with substantial deeds of mercy and help,” Calver said.
International evangelist Luis Palau, a close friend of Calver’s, praised his selection.
“Clive Calver has been a voice for the suffering and disenfranchised poor even while leading the widely influential Evangelical Alliance of the United Kingdom,” he said. “Evangelicals recognize in Clive Calver a Christian leader of international reach.”
Conservative Christians urge boycott of upcoming “Ellen” episode
(RNS) The Rev. Jerry Falwell has joined the American Family Association and other conservative organizations in urging advertisers to boycott an upcoming episode of the ABC sitcom “Ellen” when the lead character will reveal she is a lesbian.
Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, encouraged hundreds of conservatives to pressure advertisers, as well as ABC and Disney, to withdraw support for the half-hour comedy starring Ellen DeGeneres.
Falwell also wrote letters to General Motors, Chrysler and Johnson & Johnson asking them to withdraw advertising from the show to protest its story line, according to an Associated Press report.
“Stop spending your dollars to underwrite a program that Disney and ABC have decided to use to corrupt the views and values of our children,” Falwell said.
The sitcom, to air in an hour-long special April 30, would be the first prime-time TV show to have an openly gay lead character.
“We were persuaded that the quality of the story lines presented were worth pursuing,” said ABC spokeswoman Janice Gretemeyer. Actress Laura Dern plays Ellen’s love interest in the episode, and Oprah Winfrey plays the therapist to whom Ellen first reveals her feelings.
“It’s really a brave step,” said Chastity Bono, spokeswoman for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
Advertisers have shown no signs of pulling out from the show, despite statements earlier this month from the American Family Association threatening to organize an advertiser boycott.
Catholics commit $500,000 to welfare-reform programs
(RNS) The Campaign for Human Development (CHD), the Roman Catholic Church’s domestic anti-poverty program, is supporting new initiatives designed to give low-income people a say over how welfare-reform legislation is enacted at the state and local levels.
The Campaign will make up to $500,000 in grants available to explore ways to implement welfare reform without hurting what the CHD calls the”most vulnerable”in society _ children, single mothers and immigrants.
“In light of the extraordinary uncertainty that exists about the impact of many welfare-reform measures, CHD is acting now to give poor people a voice in how those policies are enacted and carried out at the state level,” said Bishop Ricardo Ramirez, chairman of the United States Catholic Conference.
The CHD will distribute grants of $15,000 to $20,000 to people based on need, not religious affiliation. But the group says it will give top priority to projects that involve collaboration between organized groups of poor people and Catholic organizations.
The grants will be awarded by mid-April, and larger grants of $35,000 to $50,000 will be awarded after May 15 to help monitor long-term efforts. Funding for the grants comes from money raised during CHD’s 25th anniversary year.
German conservatives urge limits on Jewish immigration
(RNS) German conservatives _ including members of Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) _ have called for a limit on the number of Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
The move elicited immediate outcries from German Jewish leaders and Kohl’s political opponents.”This is encouraging right-wing extremists to spread anti-Semitic slander,”said Volker Beck, a spokesman for the liberal Greens party.
The controversial proposal has been floated by Wolfgang Zeitlmann, a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU) party in Kohl’s ruling coalition, and in a working paper drafted by a group of legislators from the CSU and the CDU, the Reuter news agency reported.
Zeitlmann, the CSU’s domestic policy spokesman, said it was time to rethink Germany’s policy of unrestricted Jewish immigration from the former Soviet Union because of Germany’s record postwar unemployment. Some 4.7 million Germans are without work.
Zeitlmann said the Kohl government needed to meet with German Jewish leaders to set a limit on the number of Jewish immigrants. However, German Jewish leader Ignatz Bubis said he would never do that because it reminded him of World War II-era Polish Jewish leaders negotiating with the Nazis over Jewish lives.
About 60,000 Jews from the Soviet Union have settled in Germany as part of a plan by the Kohl government to breath new life into a Jewish community that was virtually wiped out during the Holocaust.
Quote of the day: Dutch mission expert Henrik Kraemer
(RNS) Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, in his new book”A Good Time to be the Church”(Augsburg), argues against the conventional wisdom that mainline Protestant denominations are in a crisis of decline. He quotes Dutch mission expert Henrik Kraemer:”Strictly speaking, one ought to say the church is always in a state of crisis, and that its greatest shortcoming is that it is only occasionally aware of it.”
MJP END RNS
