c. 2003 Religion News Service

Poll: Active Churchgoers More Likely to Express Life Satisfaction

(RNS) Americans’ views about life satisfaction are shaped by their faith and religious practice, a Barna poll shows.

Pollsters questioned people with an active faith _ those who attend church, read the Bible and pray during a typical week _ and found that 73 percent strongly agreed that they were very happy with their lives, compared to 64 percent of those who are less active.

The poll was released Wednesday (April 23) by Barna Research Group of Ventura, Calif.

Eighty-three percent of those in the active-faith category said their faith is consistently growing deeper, compared to 38 percent of the less-active group. Seventy-two percent of those with an active faith said they felt connected to other people, compared to 63 percent of those who were not as active.

People with an active faith also were more likely to say they were in excellent physical condition _ 42 percent, compared to 34 percent of those less active in their faith.

The poll found that 66 percent of all adults believe religion is losing its influence in our society but 70 percent say their “religious faith is constantly growing deeper.”

Pollsters compared evangelical Christians to atheists and agnostics and found that 84 percent of evangelicals strongly state they are very happy with their lives compared to 57 percent of agnostics and atheists. While 14 percent of evangelicals said they feel their lives get more stressful each year, 29 percent of those in the category with no faith feel their lives are increasingly stressful.

Researchers also found linkages between faith and money when they compared those who are “upscale” _ having completed college and with a household income of $60,000 or more _ with “downscale” people _ who had no college degree and household earnings of less than $30,000. Fifty-six percent of downscale adults strongly agreed that their faith is constantly growing deeper, compared to 44 percent of upscale adults.

George Barna, president of the Barna Research Group, said of the findings: “Americans continue to struggle with the teachings of their faith and the desire to lead a comfortable, low-stress life, and with the question of whether these ideals are mutually compatible.”

The results are based on a nationwide telephone survey of 1,010 adults in late January and early February, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

_ Adelle M. Banks

John Paul II Becomes Fourth-Longest-Serving Pope in Church History

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II, who is less than a month away from his 83rd birthday, on Thursday (April 24) became the fourth-longest-serving pontiff in the history of the Catholic Church.

Elected pope on Oct. 16, 1978, and invested with the pallium, the symbol of office, six days later, John Paul has now led the world’s 1 billion Catholics for 24 years, six months and eight days, one day longer than Pius VI, who was pope from 1775 to 1799.

Of the church’s 264 popes, only Leo XIII, Pius IX and St. Peter, the first of the popes, have had longer reigns, and John Paul could surpass Leo and move into third position in March of next year.

Leo XIII reigned for 25 years and five months from 1878 to 1903 and Pius IX for 31 years, seven months and 21 days from 1846 to 1878. According to convention, St. Peter was pope for a period of between 34 and 37 years, 25 of them in Rome.

Although he suffers from arthritis and a debilitating neurological condition believed to be Parkinson’s disease, John Paul has continued an active ministry and in recent months appears to have gained new energy. Doctors have attributed his improvement to adjustments in his medicines, more rest and better physiotherapy.

The pope will visit Spain May 3-4 on his 99th trip outside Italy, Croatia June 5-9 on his 100th, and will also travel to Bosnia, Slovakia and possibly Mongolia this year. So far he has covered almost 711,000 miles, the equivalent of three times the distance to the moon and 29 times around the world.

On Maundy Thursday (April 17), he issued his 14th encyclical, and on Sunday (April 27) he will beatify six candidates for sainthood for a total of 1,313 during his reign, three more than all his predecessors put together since the process of creating saints was reformed in 1588. He has canonized 464 saints, also more than the total of his predecessors.

_ Peggy Polk

Catholics Asked to Aid Iraq in Special Offering This Weekend

(RNS) The nation’s Catholic bishops have been asked to hold a special collection this weekend (April 26-27) to fund humanitarian relief efforts in Iraq.

Catholic Relief Services, the international relief agency for U.S. Catholics, plans to send food and medicine into Iraq to help feed 10,000 malnourished children and treat 25,000 sick Iraqis.

“While the Catholic population (in Iraq) is small, the opportunities for the church to be a compassionate healing force are great,” Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg, Fla., chairman of the CRS board, wrote to the U.S. bishops.

There are some 280,000 Catholics in Iraq, only about 1 percent of the total population. CRS says it will work with its sister agency, Caritas Iraq, to distribute aid through 14 medical centers and 87 churches.

Lynch asked his fellow bishops to hold a special second collection at all weekend Masses and donate the money to CRS. Individual donors can also give to the relief efforts on the CRS Web site at http://www.catholicrelief.org/iraq.

“Now we all have an opportunity to help, and to demonstrate once again the generosity not only of the U.S. Catholic Church, but of all the American people, in alleviating the suffering of the Iraqi people,” said Ken Hackett, the agency’s executive director.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Muslims Launch Legal Defense Fund for Accused Terrorists

WASHINGTON (RNS) A coalition of Muslim civil rights groups has formed a legal defense fund to help represent Muslims who are accused of having links to terrorism.

The National Liberty Fund, sponsored by the American Muslim Council, will “focus its initial attention” on the case of Sami Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida professor who prosecutors say is a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which has been linked to terrorist attacks against Israel.

Al-Arian has long proclaimed his innocence. Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Muslim groups say Al-Arian has been subjected to harsh prison conditions, and innocent Muslims have been profiled for possible terrorist connections.

The new legal fund will be used for Al-Arian and other “similar cases. The goal of the NLF is to educate the public on the facts of these cases, raise awareness among Muslims and other Americans about the dangers of inaction, and mobilize the community in defense of our constitutional rights.”

The AMC said in a statement that “the government has never proved its allegations of `terrorist financing’ by Muslim charities.” The statement said Al-Arian is not a terrorist and pointed out that he met with former President Clinton and President George W. Bush.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Family Court Judge Prevents Child From Ingesting Sacramental Peyote

(RNS) A family court judge has ruled that a 4-year-old boy cannot take peyote at American Indian spiritual ceremonies.

In his decision Tuesday (April 22), Judge Graydon W. Dimkoff of White Cloud, Mich., ruled that “peyote is dangerous, and in general should be avoided.”

But the judge also said the boy could ingest the substance when he is fully aware of its implications, is emotionally and physically ready and has the permission of both of his parents, the Associated Press reported.

Jonathan Fowler, 36, the father of the boy and a member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, asked Dimkoff to overturn a previous decision and permit his son to ingest sacramental peyote with him at the Native American Church of the Morning Star.

The request was fought by Fowler’s ex-wife, Kristin Hanslovsky. She said she did not want to violate religious freedoms but thought the substance could cause long-term neurological defects in the boy.

Peyote, a bitter-tasting cactus that grows in northern Mexico and southern Texas, has been a part of Indian culture for centuries. Those who ingest the plant _ usually in tea or as a greenish paste _ believe it provides physical and spiritual benefits such as enlightenment.

The U.S. criminal code classifies peyote, whose active chemical ingredient is a hallucinogen, as a controlled substance.

Congress recognized the sacramental use of peyote eight years ago when it protected the practice across the country by amending the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978.

Quote of the Day: America Magazine.

(RNS) “It is not too much to say that if the job of school reform in American cities continues to be deferred in order to pay for a pre-emptive war in Iraq, there will be casualties of that war in Harlem, Chicago and Los Angeles as well as in Baghdad.”

_ The editors of America magazine, a Jesuit weekly, in an April 28 editorial about the nation’s school system.

DEA END RNS