c. 1998 Religion News Service
CWS seeks funds to aid Iraqis with medicine
(RNS) Church World Service, the relief and humanitarian arm of the National Council of Churches, said Monday (Feb. 9) it is seeking $150,000 from U.S. churches and other supporters to provide Iraq with critically needed medicine and medical supplies.
The effort is part of a $2 million international effort by Action by Churches Together, the joint relief agency of the World Council of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation, intended to aid 120,000 Iraqi civilians over the next 10 months.
The request comes as the United States is considering taking unilateral military action against Iraq and the government of President Saddam Hussein.”The humanitarian situation in Iraq is alarming and deteriorating despite the `food for oil’ agreement (Iraq has) with the United Nations,”said Stein Vilumstad, acting director of international programs for Norwegian Church Aid, who recently visited Iraq as part of a World Council of Churches delegation.
The New York-based Church World Service said $100,000 of the money raised in the United States would be used to purchase medicines, medical supplies and other essential medical treatment items for use in hospitals and clinics throughout Iraq and $50,000 would contribute to operational costs, such as transportation and warehousing of goods in Jordan.
Church World Service is also sending $325,000 of in-kind donations, including 50,000 blankets and layettes for 10,000 newborn children.
Independent Catholic groups urges German bishops to talk with women
(RNS) Catholics for a Free Choice, an independent U.S. Catholic group favoring legal abortion, has asked Germany’s Roman Catholic bishops to listen to German women before they end their participation in the country’s pregnancy counseling system.”On these matters, women have as much wisdom and more experience than bishops or the Holy Father himself,”said Catholics for a Free Choice in a letter to the German bishops.
The U.S. group was joined by nine other independent Catholic women’s organizations from throughout the Americas.
The letter was written in reaction to recent news stories that the German bishops would bow to the wishes of Pope John Paul II and re-examine their participation in Germany’s pregnancy counseling system. Under German law, a woman may not obtain a legal abortion without a certificate from a counseling center, many of which are in church institutions.
The bishops indicated they will consider continuing to provide the counseling without issuing certificates. The women’s group said such an action would lack”integrity.””It seems to us,”the womens’ groups said,”that taking government money to simply offer pregnant Catholic women a curriculum of church teaching _ and even then a curriculum that includes only those teachings that support an absolute anti-abortion position _ violates the Second Vatican Council’s articulation of the separation between church and state.” The letter said John Paul and the Vatican”have so politicized abortion that a pastoral approach is almost impossible.” Said Francis Kissling, president of the Washington-based Catholics for a Free Choice,”German bishops have in the past shown some backbone on controversial issues such as divorce and contraception. We hope in this case they find a way to respect women as moral decision makers.”
Foundation to match millions for `Jesus’ film effort
(RNS) A Tennessee foundation has offered a $15 million matching grant to boost the work of the Jesus Film Project of Campus Crusade for Christ.
Hugh Maclellan, president of the Maclellan Foundation of Chattanooga, said the matching gift aims to help the project’s effort to present the Christian message to people across the globe who are illiterate or who would watch a film but never enter a church.
Maclellan traveled to Nigeria and attended a showing of”Jesus”in a suburb of Jos.”Not only was there no electricity, there was no church,”he said.”We think there are unbelievable opportunities out there for many indigenous denominations and churches, as well as mission boards, to use the”Jesus”film to help reach the goals they have set for planting churches.” Paul Eshleman, director of the Jesus Film Project, said the foundation’s gift will help speed up the organization’s plans for international use of the evangelistic film, which is based on the Gospel of Luke.
Confiscated Bibles for children released in Mongolia
(RNS) Mongolia has reportedly released from custody some 10,000 children’s Bibles sent from abroad and confiscated by the government in May 1997.
At the same time, the government of the largely Buddhist Asian nation continues to hold some 600 video Bible cartoons also sent from abroad, according to Keston News Service, a London-based agency that monitors religious freedom issues in former communist countries.
The children’s Bibles were released from custody as a”goodwill Christmas gesture”in early January, Keston reported Monday (Feb. 9). The Bibles had been shipped to the Mongolian Bible Society by foreign Christian groups, but were confiscated under a law restricting the organized importation of foreign faiths.
The state-run Ardiin Erkh newspaper said the videos were still being held because they portray Christianity as superior to Buddhism.
Keston said that although Mongolia officially subscribes to freedom of religion,”Christians complain that it is still difficult to register churches.”However, the government also controls the number of Buddhist monasteries, monks and nuns allowed, the news service noted.
Quote of the Day: Elizabeth Dole
(RNS)”It was a taste of heaven but I think it was also a signal of potential change here on Earth. … I think it’s clear that the heartland of America recognizes the bankruptcy of the ’60s mindset, that it is ready to reassert solid moral values in our nation, values like honesty, personal responsibility and respect for one’s fellow man.” _ Elizabeth Dole, president of the American Red Cross, speaking Feb. 3 at the National Religious Broadcasters convention about last year’s Promise Keepers rally in Washington.
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