c. 1999 Religion News Service

Update: Two more Christian chapels in India torched

(RNS) Two more Christian chapels in western India have been attacked by mobs and set ablaze in a new round of the anti-Christian attacks that began over the Christmas holidays.

A Roman Catholic prayer hall in Dhuda and a chapel in Lahan Chriya, both villages in the Dangs district of Gujarat state, were attacked Tuesday (Jan. 12) night, Reuters reported.”The pattern in the attacks was the same, with the mob reaching the place of worship at night, carrying out the attack and escaping from the scene within minutes,”a police official told Reuters.

About 15 percent of the district’s 144,000 people are Christians. Overall, it is estimated Christians account for about 2 percent of India’s population of 960 million.

Christian activists say right-wing Hindu groups are responsible for the recent round of attacks. Hindu leaders, however, say the attacks are a response to aggressive Christian proselytizing and forced _ or bribed _ conversions, using the offer of food as an inducement to convert. Christians say they are only offering charity, not forcing people to embrace the faith.

Meanwhile, German officials said the government intends to discuss with Indian officials the spate of attacks on churches and prayer halls.”The ambassador has indeed been instructed by the foreign ministry … to take up the issue in an appropriate way with New Delhi, an embassy official said Wednesday.

But officials of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party criticized Germany and other foreign governments that have commented on the anti-Christian incidents.”India, as a sovereign nation, is a mature democracy and fully capable of managing its internal affairs without external or gratuitous advice,”the party said in a statement.

Gays barred from demonstrating in St. Peter’s Square

(RNS) Italian police Wednesday (Jan. 13) barred a group of gays from entering St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican to hold a vigil and demonstration in memory a man who immolated himself a year ago to protest discrimination against gays.

The group of about 15 wanted to lay a wreath and flowers at the spot where Alfredo Ormando set fire to himself on Jan. 13, 1998 protesting both the Roman Catholic Church and society’s views on homosexuality, Reuters reported.”You cannot enter the square because it is a place of worship,”a police official told the demonstrators.”There is nothing more central to Catholic worship than commemorating your dead,”replied Sergio Lo Giudice, head of Arcigay, a national gay rights group.

Lo Giudice said gays”could have come here in masse but we chose not to. We do not want to create any disorder. We just want a bit of time and space to commemorate our martyr.” But Italian police guarding the square, which is part of sovereign Vatican territory, did not budge and said they would not let the demonstrators enter the square without Vatican permission. That permission was not forthcoming.

In a compromise, the gays were allowed to place their wreath on a police barrier at the white marble borderline that separates Rome from the Vatican.

Catholicism teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are and in Italy it opposes allowing gays to teach in elementary schools and opposes moves to legalize gay marriages.”Sooner or later,”Lo Giudice told reporters at the vigil,”the Vatican will have to ask homosexuals for forgiveness just like it did to the Jews.”

British `back to church’ poster creates controversy

(RNS) A poster campaign designed to promote church attendance at Easter in Britain is provoking controversy for its use of an image depicting Jesus like the Latin American Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara.

The poster uses an image similar to the famous red and black portrait of Guevara that sold in the millions around the world in the 1960s and 1970s. But instead of Guevara’s trademark beret there is a crown of thorns.

The text on the poster reads:”Meek, mild. As if. Discover the real Jesus. Church. April 4.””We want to get across the idea that Jesus Christ was the greatest revolutionary who ever lived,”Tom Ambrose, secretary of the Churches Advertising Network told Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.

The network, which includes representatives from many of Britain’s mainline denominations, produced the poster.

The poster was criticized as”trivializing and misleading”by Anglican Bishop Nigel McCulloch, the Church of England’s episcopal spokesman for broadcasting and the media.”Although the poster is clearly well intentioned, it is biblically ill founded,”he said.”Jesus was a revolutionary, but he made clear that he was not a political and violent revolutionary.” A spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church of England and Wales agreed, saying,”The image of a revolutionary is fair enough in principle, but Jesus did not lead a militaristic revolution.” But the Guevara-style poster won the support of a top leader of the Salvation Army in England.”The idea of Jesus as a revolutionary is part of it,”said Major Bruce Tulloch, defending the poster.”The image excites interest. The original picture (of Guevara) is very well-known to many people.” Guevara, a cultural icon to a generation of students and activists, was an Argentine-born doctor who became a key supporter of the Cuban revolution of Fidel Castro. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to become a guerrilla leader in other parts of Latin America. He was captured and killed in Bolivia in 1967.

Orlandus Wilson, founding member of gospel quartet, dies

(RNS) Orlandus Wilson, one of the founding members of the Golden Gate Quartet gospel group, died Dec. 30 in Paris.

Wilson, 81, died at the American Hospital. The cause of death was not disclosed.

He and three other high school singers formed the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet in 1934 in Norfolk, Va. The group, later named the Golden Gate Quartet, became one of the most influential gospel groups, updating popular spirituals with swing and jazz, The Washington Post reported.

In 1941, the quartet was the first group of black singers to perform at Constitution Hall in Washington.

Like other black musicians who were frustrated with racism in the United States, the group moved to Europe. Wilson had lived in Paris for decades.

In addition to managing the quartet, Wilson composed original works and did musical arrangements.

Quote of the day: Talk show host and actress Roseanne

(RNS)”Everyone thinks I’m crazy because I talk of God all the time.” _ Talk show host and actress Roseanne in an story by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about her study of the Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition.

DEA END RNS