c. 1998 Religion News Service

Controversial D.C. voucher plan passed by Congress

(RNS) A controversial voucher program for District of Columbia public school students has been passed by the Congress but faces a veto from President Clinton and a legal challenge if it ever becomes law.

The bill passed in the House of Representatives by a 214-206 vote on Thursday (April 30), the first time a voucher plan for the District has won final approval. It passed in the Senate in the fall.

The program would give $2,300 annual tuition to about 2,000 students from low-income families who want to attend a private or parochial school. An additional $500 per student would pay for tutoring.

Republican leaders, led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey, R-Texas, said the D.C. program is urgently needed.”The District of Columbia schools are in a crisis,”said Rep. Frank Riggs R-Calif. He called vouchers”the last best hope for many District of Columbia families.” Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., had sought Republican support of efforts to improve public education for all students and raise money through private donors for private school scholarships for some children.”Christ said render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things which are God’s,”Norton said.”Public money belongs in public schools.” Organizations long concerned with religion and public affairs voiced different opinions about the vote.

The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America praised the vote and urged Clinton to reconsider his planned veto.”Let our nation’s capital serve as one of America’s `laboratories of democracy’ and let us test the thesis of whether voucher plans can provide children with greater educational opportunities,”said Nathan Diament of the union’s Institute for Public Affairs.

The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, however, predicted the plan would be challenged in court as a violation of the constitutional separation of church and state if it became law.”People frequently forget that vouchers are more than bad public policy, they also raise serious constitutional concerns,”Lynn said.

National Day of Prayer to be observed May 7

(RNS) The National Day of Prayer will be celebrated next Thursday (May 7), with more than 20,000 events planned across the country.

Observances have been scheduled in churches, schools, courthouses, prisons and a range of other venues. The theme this year is”America, Return to God.””In all honesty and humility, we must get down on our knees, search our own hearts, face the cold, harsh truth about ourselves and seek the Lord’s forgiveness and healing,”Shirley Dobson, chairman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force said in a statement.”If people of faith will do this, I’m convinced that our prayers will have a powerful impact on our nation.” The annual event was established by an act of Congress in 1952, and was given a specific date for observance _ the first Thursday of each May _ in 1988.

Family Christian Stores to purchase Joshua’s Christian Stores

(RNS) Family Christian Stores, the largest Christian retailer in the country, has reached an agreement to buy the 56-store Joshua’s Christian Stores retail chain.

Officials of Family Christian Stores, which is based in Grand Rapids, Mich., said the purchase will be the largest-ever acquisition in the Christian retailing industry. Family Christian Stores has 210 stores in 34 states and will add 56 with the purchase of Joshua’s Christian Stores, based in Fort Worth, Texas.”Joshua’s similar operating structure, complementary store network and community-based Christian ministry strongly support the growth strategy of Family Christian Stores,”said Leslie E. Dietzman, president and chief executive officer of Family Christian Stores.

Tandycrafts Inc., Joshua’s parent company, said the sale will include Joshua’s inventories and assets. The sale is expected to be complete on May 31. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.”Our decision to sell the Joshua’s chain represents one more step in our continuing effort to focus on our most promising and profitable operations,”said Michael J. Walsh, president and chief executive officer of Tandycrafts, said in a statement.

Tandycrafts is a specialty retailer and manufacturer whose operations include Tandy Leather Company and Sav-On Office Supplies.

Dietzman said Family Christian Stores hopes to purchase an additional 30 stores in 1998.

Family Christian Stores recorded sales of about $168 million for the fiscal year ending January 1998. Joshua’s Christian Stores had sales of $32 million for the fiscal year ending June 1997.

Teen birth rates decrease in every state and across all races

(RNS) Teen birth rates decreased across all races and in every state in the early 1990s, the government reported Thursday (April 30).

Black teen-agers gave birth at the lowest levels ever recorded. Their birth rates dropped by 21 percent between 1991 and 1996, but they still are nearly double the rate of white teens, the Associated Press reported.

Hispanic teens now are giving birth at the highest rates, with more than one in 10 giving birth each year, according to an analysis by the National Center for Health Statistics.

The statistics were released as the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy marked its second anniversary of efforts to get parents more involved in their teens’ lives.

Birth rates have declined steadily nationwide since 1991, but have varied across the country.

Nationwide, in 1996, there was about one birth for every 20 women between the ages of 15 and 19. But the rates ranged from 28.6 per 1,000 female teens in Vermont to 105.5 per 1,000 in the District of Columbia.

Teen birth rates decreased 8.5 percent between 1991 and 1995 nationwide. The national rate fell more dramatically among young teens _ those between ages 15 and 17 _ than for 18- and 19-year-olds.

Experts say the decreases are due to an ebbing of steady increases in the number of teens having sex and more teens using contraception, especially condoms, with the hope of preventing the spread of HIV.

Archbishop of Canterbury urges Vatican to ease communion rules

(RNS) Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, has called on the Roman Catholic Church to ease its rules barring non-Catholics from taking Holy Communion.

Carey, in a April 26 sermon at Luxembourg’s Roman Catholic cathedral, said laity in all Christian traditions”are impatient for change.””They are aware that we have so much in common, and shared mission in a broken world only highlights the distressing situation of eucharistic separation,”Carey said.

Recalling Pope John Paul II’s invitation in his encyclical on ecumenism,”Ut Unum Sint,”for other churches to give their views on the nature of the office of the bishop of Rome, Carey asked whether the”great jubilee”of the millennium might provide the Catholic Church with an opportunity to deepen the bonds joining Roman Catholics and Anglicans.

Carey said as long ago as 1996, when he and the pope issued a joint statement urging deeper relations between the two churches, the Anglicans had felt”more could be done with a generous and hospitable spirit.””In my (Anglican) tradition we regularly invite those who are baptized and full members of other Christian churches to receive eucharistic hospitality on occasions, as we receive it from them,”he said.”We have found this to be a source of great fellowship and joy _ a visible sign and foretaste of the unity to which we are called. It is also a reminder that the Eucharist does not belong to us: we do not own it _ rather, it is a gracious gift from God.” Carey said he knew such a practice is not”normally”the practice of the Catholic church but said extending such hospitality”would be especially valued in those situations, such as mixed marriages, which seem to cry out for special and pastoral considerations.””It hurts to be denied the Lord’s Supper by a fellow disciple of Jesus Christ,”he added.

Congressman calls for release of documents on Guatemala rights abuse

(RNS) Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Mass., Thursday (April 30) called on the U.S. government to declassify documents about human rights abuses in Guatemala.

McGovern also called on both the U.S. and Guatemalan governments to take strong action in tracking down all of those who might have been involved in the murder of Guatemalan Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera last Sunday, just two days after the bishop released a church-sponsored report alleging the Guatemalan military was responsible for much of the violence and terror during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war in which some 150,000 people _ mostly civilians _ died.

McGovern made his comments at a press conference at a Washington, D.C. Roman Catholic Church shortly before a memorial Mass for Gerardi.

At the same time, McGovern commended the State Department for providing assistance in investigating the bishops murder.

But he said the U.S. has been “far from forthcoming in releasing significant documents to the Guatemalan Clarification Commission,” which is investigating human rights abuses during the war.

The Massachusetts Democrat is co-sponsor of legislation introduced by Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., and Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., that would release such documents to truth commissions in Guatemala and Honduras.

Hearings on the proposal will be held May 11.”The government of Guatemala, the police and the judiciary all have the possibility of demonstrating before the Guatemalan people and the world that impunity has ended and the perpetratorsâÂ?¦can be brought to justice,”he said. Those perpetrators, he said, should include any”intellectual authors”may have ordered the killing.

Thursday evening, guatemalan police announced that they had detained a 24-year-old man for questioning in the bishop’s slaying.

“The investigation and prosecution of those responsible for their heinous crime will be a true litmus test for the peace process in Guatemala,”he added.”The failure to do so will irrevocable taint Guatemala’s future with the blood of its past … I hope and pray that Bishop Gerardi’s death will become a catalyst for peace.”

Quote of the day: Slain Guatemalan Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera

(RNS)”Discovering the truth is painful, but it is without a doubt, a healthy and liberating action. The thousands of testimonies of the victims and the recounting of the horrific crimes are the current day manifestations of the figure of the `suffering servant of Yahweh,’ who is incarnated in the people of Guatemala.” _ From the last speech of Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera at an April 24 news conference releasing a church report on human rights abuses in Guatemala. Two days later the bishop was murdered.

DEA END RNS