c. 2000 Religion News Service
Falwell Differs With Robertson On Death Penalty Moratorium
(RNS) The Rev. Jerry Falwell said he is at odds with religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and does not support Robertson’s recent call for a moratorium on the death penalty.
Falwell says the appeals process for prisoners needs to move more quickly, the Associated Press reported.
“Pat and I do not disagree on many things, but on this one we do,” Falwell told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “While courts do make mistakes, I do not believe the mistake level is at the point where we need to rethink our whole system, and I personally believe that we need to reduce the time between conviction and execution.”
At a symposium Friday (April 7) at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., Robertson said he believes the death penalty is morally justified but he believes it is being administered in a way that discriminates against poor people and blacks.
In response to a question from the audience, Robertson said a short moratorium on executions would be appropriate.
Lutherans Consider Exception to Ban on Non-Celibate Gay Clergy
(RNS) Leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have asked for a report on whether an exception can be made to a churchwide ban on active homosexuals in the pulpit so that a lesbian could pastor a church in St. Paul, Minn.
The ELCA, with 5.2 million members, allows celibate homosexuals to pastor churches, but prohibits active homosexuals in the clergy. A church in St. Paul is asking for an exception to that rule to allow its lay minister to become an ordained pastor.
Anita Hill, pastor of St. Paul-Reformation Church, has led the church as a lay pastor for several years. She expects to graduate with a divinity degree soon and wants to become ordained. Hill is in a committed relationship with another woman.
The St. Paul Area Synod petitioned the ELCA’s Church Council, the highest ranking legislative body outside of churchwide assemblies, to allow an exception to the ban on active homosexuals. The Church Council met in Chicago April 7-9 and forwarded the request on to the church agency that sets standards for the clergy.
Under the current guidelines, church rules state, “Ordained ministers who are homosexual in their self-understanding are expected to abstain from homosexual sexual relationships.” The proposed amendment to that rule states, “Exceptions … may be granted by the Conference of Bishops. The Conference of Bishops may consult the Division of Ministry concerning exceptions it seeks to make.”
In a vote, church leaders forwarded the proposed change to the Division of Ministry and asked for an opinion. They will reconsider the issue when the Council meets again in November.
At last year’s Churchwide Assembly, the church voted down attempts to suspend the ban on non-celibate clergy and a similar move to develop strategies for ending the ban.
Anti-Semitic Violence Declines
(RNS) Anti-semitic violence within in the United States last year fell to its lowest level since 1989, but in New York and California such violence was on the rise, according to a report issued Tuesday (April 11) by the Anti-Defamation League.
Reports of anti-Semitic acts in 1999 decreased by 4 percent from the previous year, but that decrease was mitigated by three incidents in the summer, said Abraham Foxman, ADL’s national director: the June firebombing of three synagogues in Sacramento, Calif., the July shooting of six Orthodox Jews in Chicago who were walking home from Sabbath services, and a shooting spree in August that injured five people at a Los Angeles Jewish community center.
“The horrific acts of violence and extremism we have witnessed in the last year overwhelm the statistics,” said Foxman.
Culling the statistics for 1999 from law enforcement as well as its 30 offices, the League identified 1,547 reports of anti-Semitic harassment, hatred and violence in 1999, a 4 percent drop from the previous year when 1,611 such acts were reported.
The number of anti-Semitic incidents reported in California last year jumped by 23 percent from 223 to 275, due in part to the synagogue and community center attacks.
In New York, the number of such acts increased 9 percent in 1999, rising from 324 to 352.
New York, California, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Florida reported the most anti-Semitic incidents in 1999, accounting for 1,054 of the 1,547 incidents reported that year.
Vatican: Economic Interests Attack Church in Africa
(RNS) A Vatican official has contended international economic interests are behind a concerted attack on the Roman Catholic Church in Rwanda and the Congo.
“They want to weaken the church so as not to have to face a force that opposes an inhuman system,” Archbishop Marcello Zago, secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, said.
The prelate leveled the charge in an interview with the congregation’s missionary news agency Fides to mark the first anniversary of the arrest of Rwandan Archbishop Augustin Misago of Gikongoro on genocide charges.
Misago is one of several Catholic prelates Rwandan authorities have accused of complicity in the massacre of some 800,000 Tutsies by Hutu extremists in 1994. Misago denied the charges, and Fides accused authorities of mounting a witch hunt to diminish the church’s moral influence.
Zago, who only spoke in general terms, noted that religious “sects” are winning numerous converts in the Great Lakes region of Africa just as they did earlier in Latin America.
“Such a phenomenon is not only the fruit of deep cultural changes that facilitate this outcome but also of international plans tied to the economy, to economic advantages, so that the church will not have the force of its word and witness today and in the future,”the Vatican official said.
Archbishop Emmanuel Kataliko, who has been forced out of his archdiocese of Bukuvu in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, called Misago’s arrest “a very sad event” but praised Misago’s conduct and the unified stand of Rwanda’s other bishops.
Kataliko told Fides that Misago has accepted his imprisonment with “great dignity” and is devoting himself to “defending the truth and what he has done and lived.”
Noting the bishops came from various ethnic groups, Kataliko said their presence together at Misago’s trial shows “their unity, which is necessary in the countries of that area to witness to the Gospel and to what is not acceptable.”
Kataliko said that if the court finds Misago innocent, “the authorities will have to take more care in their persecution of the church.”
But he said he did not believe that the persecution would end because “the church cannot approve what is happening: the ethnic clashes, the predominance of one ethnicity over others and the proceedings that accuse and condemn without verification in the absence of any prospect of reconciliation.”
Mahony Celebrates Mass for Striking Janitors
(RNS) Culminating a procession through the streets by striking janitors bearing symbolic white carnations, Cardinal Roger Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles, showed his support by celebrating Mass for the strikers on Monday (April 10).
On strike since April 3, the janitors belong to the Service Employees International Union. They are seeking a wage hike of $3 an hour over three years to bring wages to an hourly average of $9.80, according to SEIU executive vice president Eliseo Medina.
Estimates of the worshippers varied from 700, suggested by the Rev. Greg Coiro, spokesperson of the archdiocese, to 1,500, according to SEIU’s Medina.
The procession before Mahony’s Mass, which began at the Arco Plaza, targeted in the current strike. Workers paused en route to the religious celebration to leave carnations at other sites they were striking, Medina said.
Among those accompanying the workers were auxiliary bishops from two of the archdiocese’s five pastoral regions, along with California State Assembly speaker Antonio Villaraigosa. Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan awaited the procession at the church.
Medina said the flowers carried by the mostly immigrant workers “symbolize their faith.”
When the Mass concluded, Medina noted,”All the strikers then filed by and deposited their flowers at the foot of … the Virgin,”referring to an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, patron saint of Mexico and symbol of social struggle from the 19th century Mexican fight for independence from Spain to the labor campaigns of the United Farm Workers in the last third of the 20th.
Mahony’s public actions crowned reports of behind-the-scenes efforts by the cardinal last weekend to nudge labor and business leaders closer to a solution.
Despite reports of progress, SEIU’s Medina said no formal negotiations are scheduled. “But I’m an optimist,” Medina added, expressing hope a resolution would come in the wake of the church’s show of support.
New Attack on Christians in India
(RNS) Indian police and church officials reported Tuesday (April 11) that a Christian missionary school in north India was attacked by armed men.
Police said no one was seriously injured in the attack, which occurred Monday night (April 10) in Kosi Kalan town in the state of Uttar Pradesh, less than 70 miles from the tourist town of Agra, Reuters reported.
“According to information reaching here, some unidentified persons attacked St. Teresa’s Convent School in the small town of Kosi Kalan sometime last night,” said state Police Chief Sri Ram Arun.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India said the attack was an example of religious intolerance, and reported that the school’s principal received serious head injuries.
“The principal … Rev. Fr. K.K. Joseph was seriously injured when he tried to save nuns from attack by the armed looters,” the group said in a statement.
The conference said Monday’s incident was the second violent attack against a convent in Uttar Pradesh in less than seven days.
Attacks on Christians in the western state of Gujarat early last year sparked a rash of similar attacks on Christians across the country. Though many Christians claimed right-wing Hindu organizations were responsible for the attacks, Hindu leaders said forced religious conversions were to blame.
Quote of the Day: The Rev. Thomas Reese, editor, America magazine.
(RNS) “How can you blame them? We sell them `Baywatch.’ They sell us `Masterpiece Theater.’ They don’t understand us and we don’t understand them.”
_ The Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of America magazine, speaking at the annual Religious Education Congress of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles on why the Vatican considers the American Catholic church as “uncultured Europeans.”
DEA END RNS
