c. 2006 Religion News Service
Fate of Afghan Convert to Christianity Remains in Doubt
(RNS) The fate of an Afghan convert to Christianity who faced a criminal trial and possible death sentence remained uncertain Monday (March 27) after conflicting reports about his release.
An Afghan court dismissed charges against Abdul Rahman on Sunday, citing lack of evidence and questions about his mental fitness to stand trial. But Afghan authorities continued to hold Rahman in a Kabul prison Monday while prosecutors said they would conduct a mental evaluation and then make a decision.
Rahman’s freedom does not guarantee his safety, however, as some Afghan clerics have said they would incite followers to kill him if the court releases him. On Monday, hundreds of demonstrators in Afghanistan protested the court’s decision to drop the case.
Rahman’s arrest last month after being found with a Bible drew international outrage and sparked the second culture clash in as many months between the Islamic and Western worlds. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has had to walk a fine line between respecting international human rights standards and not angering conservative religious leaders.
“Simply dismissing the charges based upon lack of evidence does not sufficiently address the lack of religious freedom in Afghanistan. As the United States continues its work in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is vital that the Bush administration secure a clear understanding of religious freedom from these new governments,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian advocacy group based in Washington.
“If we can’t secure the most basic of human rights, Americans will increasingly question whether we should continue the expenditure of lives and resources in these countries.”
American Muslims have condemned Rahman’s arrest and disputed claims by conservative clerics that Islamic law mandates death for apostates. Maher Hathout, a senior adviser at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, argues in his recent book, “In Pursuit of Justice: The Jurisprudence of Human Rights in Islam,” that the Quran makes no mention of death for apostasy, and states instead that “There is no compulsion in religion.”
“While apostasy may be a sin in the eyes of God, it is not considered to be criminal behavior,” Hathout writes. “We strongly oppose the state’s use of coercion in regulating Islamic belief in such a manner, since faith is a matter of individual choice on which only God can adjudicate.”
_ Omar Sacirbey
Advocate of Pope John Paul II Sainthood Cites `Dozens’ of Miracles
VATICAN CITY (RNS) The campaign for the sainthood of John Paul II is moving into high gear with new reports of miracles in the United States and China.
In an interview with the official newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference Sunday (March 26), Monsignor Slawomir Oder, a polish priest who is the late pope’s leading advocate for sainthood, cited “dozens” of miracles reported since the death of John Paul on April 2, 2005.
“Of all of these, three seem promising,” Oder said. “One comes from South America. Another comes from the United States, and a third from China.”
“I’d like to get documentation of this as soon as possible,” he said without elaborating.
Oder described as “very impressive,” the previously reported case of a French nun who credits John Paul with her mysterious recovery from Parkinson’s disease, the illness that struck John Paul in his last decade of life.
In an interview published Monday (March 27), Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls appeared to add his voice to the cries of “Santo Subito,” or “Sainthood Now,” that echoed across St. Peter’s Square the day of John Paul’s funeral.
“The public’s belief in his sainthood is a fact,” he told the Turin daily La Stampa, referring to the funeral chants. “That which is technically known as the `fame of sainthood’ does not need to be further investigated.”
According to Oder, the Vatican will gather official testimony in private hearings that are expected to take place in Rome, Krakow, Poland and possibly in the United States.
Benedict will travel to Poland in late May to pay homage to his predecessor.
The Vatican needs to verify two miracles attributable to John Paul in order to declare him a saint.
_ Stacy Meichtry
Editors: To obtain a recent photo of Oral Roberts, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.
Faith Healer Oral Roberts, 88, Falls at Home, Injures Hip
TULSA, Okla. (RNS) Oral Roberts, the 88-year-old televangelist and faith healer, fell Thursday (March 23) while walking to the kitchen of his California home, where he had been watching an NCAA basketball game.
Ron Potts, Roberts’ son-in-law, told the Tulsa World on Monday (March 27) that Roberts is doing “very well” and is expected to be released from the hospital Wednesday or Thursday.
David Wagner, vice president of university relations at Oral Roberts University, said doctors described the surgery as “100 percent successful.”
Two screws and a rod were place in Roberts’ hip.
University President Richard Roberts flew to Newport Beach, Calif., to be with his father.
“Dad’s spirits are great,” the younger Roberts said. “The doctors say it was a clean break and they are confident he will make a complete recovery.”
Richard Roberts said he received a call at 3 a.m. Friday telling him that his father had been injured in a fall in his home. “Of course, my father is 88 years old. So I thought it was important for me to fly out here to be with him. But he’s always been strong,” said Roberts. “We are confident he’ll be fine.
Roberts, who lives in retirement in California, was in Tulsa last May for the funeral of Evelyn Roberts, his wife of 66 years. She died a day after injuring her head in a fall at home.
Some 3,000 people, including political leaders and some of America’s best-known Charismatic Christian leaders, were at that service.
Roberts has faced a number of health problems in recent years. Since 1991, he has had prostate surgery, surgery to alleviate narrowing of the carotid arteries that carry blood to the head, surgery to improve blood flow to his heart and shoulder surgery that failed to heal for more than a year.
Roberts is a pioneer of the healing evangelism movement in the 1940s and 1950s, and of radio and television ministry, which made his name a household word to generations of Americans.
In addition to building the university that bears his name, he built the now-closed City of Faith Medical and Research Center and the University Village Retirement Center, all in Tulsa.
_ Bill Sherman
Editors: To obtain a photo of the United Church of Christ ad, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.
Second UCC Ad Rejected as `Too Controversial’
(RNS) A new television ad by the United Church of Christ that stresses the church’s diversity has already been rejected by major networks as “too controversial,” the second time a UCC ad has been banned from the airwaves.
The 30-second “Ejector” ad features several people _ a black woman, a gay couple, a Middle Eastern man, an elderly man in a walker _ who are ejected from their church pews.
“God doesn’t reject people,” the ad says. “Neither do we.”
The new ad, which cost about $1.5 million to make, will debut on April 3, but not on ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox. The three networks rejected the commercial as an inappropriate “advocacy” ad because of its references to homosexuality, race and ethnicity.
Last year, the networks rejected a similar ad featuring bouncers behind a velvet rope keeping various people out of a church.
“The message of the commercial is simple,” the Rev. John Thomas, the UCC’s general minister and president, said Monday (March 27). “No matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here at the United Church of Christ.”
Thomas said he found it “odd and bewildering” that the ads would be rejected. The UCC has launched a new Web site, http://www.accessibleairwaves.org, to prod the networks towards including mainstream religious voices.
The ad will be shown for at least three weeks, with hopes to extend its run through Mother’s Day (May 14). It has been accepted on a dozen cable networks, including CNN, the Discovery Channel and A&E.
Ron Buford, who directs the UCC’s “God is Still Speaking” campaign, said the 1.3 million-member church was not trying to take a swipe at other churches by billing itself as more welcoming and diverse.
“It does not mean to suggest that other churches reject people and that we have not; we have,” Buford said. “We too can forget our core business, and these ads speak to us as well.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Mass in New Orleans Church Halted as Protesters Swarm Aisles
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) The first Mass celebrated at St. Augustine Church since it was absorbed into neighboring St. Peter Claver parish last week ended midway into the service Sunday (March 26) after church officials said they felt threatened by protesters.
The Rev. William Maestri, who attended the Mass, said he told the Rev. Michael Jacques to end the packed service “for the sake of public safety” after a group of mostly young people holding signs paraded the aisles of the Treme church while people in pews began “trying to shout as Father Jacques was trying to speak.”
The Archdiocese of New Orleans combined the two church parishes after determining that St. Augustine does not have enough parishioners to support its mission.
Maestri said the bulk of Sunday’s protesters were members of Common Ground, an activist group, or were people who are being influenced by the group.
“This is beyond protesting,” Maestri said. “This is interfering with people’s basic right to worship.”
Protester Lorie Seruntine, 21, who carried signs during the Mass, said she has worked with Common Ground but is a local resident acting on her own at the church. An Ursuline Academy graduate, Seruntine said she is among a group of young people who’ve occupied the church rectory for a week because they believe church officials are closing St. Augustine “without ever going through canon law.”
Seruntine held a sign saying: “Upon this rock I shall build this church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Seruntine said she was inspired to protest on Sunday after she looked out of a rectory window and “saw parishioners coming out of church crying” after Mass started.
“It moved me, and that is what sparked me to move,” she said. “I walked into the church and a long-time parishioner was already walking down the aisle” carrying a sign, Seruntine said.
Church officials “did not properly go about dissolving the parish,” she said. “This is still St. Augustine parish.”
Maestri said he, Jacques and Archbishop Alfred Hughes would discuss what to do about the protesters.
Maestri said he asked 10 police officers in plain clothes _ many of them members of St. Peter Claver -_to attend Mass on Sunday in order to “make sure we had taken precautions in case things got out of hand.”
If things had gone peacefully, the officers would have been “part of the welcoming that we wanted, but that never happened,” Maestri said.
Sandra Gordon, head of the St. Augustine parish council, said parishioners had peacefully placed signs such as “Many races. Many colors. Save our parish,” around the church, but she was not aware of plans to stage a protest march.
Maestri said Common Ground activists have taken charge the church and that they “do not have the good of St. Augustine at heart.” Maestri said he “felt threatened” by protesters on Sunday. “I was followed to my car with police protection,” he said.
_ Lynne Jensen and Sarah Griffin Thibodeaux
Judge Retains Ruling on Pregnant Teacher Fired by Christian School
(RNS) A federal judge on Friday (March 24) declined to change his ruling that upheld the firing of a pregnant teacher at a Christian school in Alabama. Senior U.S. District Judge William Acker Jr. encouraged attorneys for Tessana Lewis to take her case to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Lewis sued the school, Covenant Classical School of Hoover, Ala., on the grounds that she was discriminated against after officials learned she was unwed and pregnant. The school argued that Lewis was fired not because she was pregnant but because she’d had sex outside marriage, violating the Bible-based values and principals taught there.
Acker ruled in February that a jury correctly found that Lewis’ pregnancy was a motivating factor in her firing. The religious school was exempt from federal pregnancy discrimination law because it is an institution that can make employment decisions based on its belief system, the judge found.
Lewis’ attorneys asked Acker earlier this month to reconsider his ruling that prevented a $15,600 jury award to Lewis, arguing that lawyers for the school never used the exempt defense during trial. Lewis’ attorneys provided affidavits from two jurors who stated it was the jury’s intent that she proved her case and intended for her to receive the money.
Friday, the judge said he stood by his earlier decision in the case, which he called unique.
David Arendall, a Lewis attorney, said the case would be appealed.
_ Val Walton
Quote of the Day: Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley
“Nobody can doubt my sports affiliation now. I have Red Sox.”
_ Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley on his new vestments (which include red socks), speaking in Rome following his Mar. 24 installation as a cardinal. He was quoted by Catholic News Service.
MO/RB END RNS
