c. 2007 Religion News Service

Council Sets Dates for Ramadan, But Not Everyone Agrees

(RNS) A council of Islamic legal scholars in North America has revised a fatwa from last year that determines when Muslims mark major holidays and other important dates such as the start of Ramadan.

According to the new changes made by the Fiqh Council of North America, Ramadan begins Sept. 13, while Eid ul-Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of the holy month, will be celebrated on Oct. 13.

In the Islamic calendar, a new month begins when a new moon is first sighted. But because people in different places see the new moon at different times, Muslims across the globe and even within North America often disagree on when Ramadan begins.

The disagreement has been not only a practical annoyance _ for example, to imams planning services or parents who want to take their children out of school for a religious holiday _ but a psychological one to followers who emphasize unity.

Last year, the Fiqh Council of North America joined Islamic scholars in Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey and other Muslim countries to rely on astronomy.

The moment a new moon is born is called the time of conjunction, when the moon passes between the earth and the sun. The Fiqh Council said the conjunction is “precisely predictable by astronomical calculation,” and made its point of reference Greenwich, England, home of Greenwich Mean Time.

But some Muslim Americans disagreed with the ruling, and many imams chose to follow religious authorities in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, who pegged the start of Ramadan a day earlier than the North American Islamic scholars. The council defended its position, but said it was non-binding, and urged Muslims to follow whatever ruling their spiritual leaders make.

This year, the European Council for Fatwa Research also decided to rely on astronomical calculations to determine the start of a new month, but made Mecca, not Greenwich, the reference point for the conjunction.

_ Omar Sacirbey

Religious Charges Swarm Around Louisiana Campaign

BATON ROUGE, La. (RNS) A Republican gubernatorial candidate accused Louisiana Democrats of reaching “a new low” with TV ads that accuse him of insulting Protestants, and demanded the ad be taken off the air.

Democratic Party officials continued to defend the spot, as did its two leading candidates for governor, despite cries of outrage from Republican officials about the ads aimed at U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal.

The commercial began running Monday in the Shreveport, Alexandria and Monroe media markets, which are more heavily Protestant than the southern part of the state. It features an unidentified woman narrator proclaiming that Jindal “insulted thousands of Louisiana Protestants” via articles he wrote in the mid-1990s.

“He has referred to Protestant religions as scandalous, depraved, selfish and heretical,” the narrator says. It then directs viewers to a Web site, http://www.jindalonreligion.com, where links to the articles are found.

Jindal, who converted to Catholicism as a teen after being raised by Hindu parents, said the commercial is defamatory and misleading and denied that he has ever insulted another branch of the Christian faith.

“They’re absolute lies. We’re not talking about an exaggeration,” Jindal said. “They’re completely out of bounds here.”

Late Tuesday (Aug. 21), a lawyer hired by Jindal’s campaign sent a letter to north Louisiana TV stations demanding the ad be taken off the air.

According to the letter, “each claim made in the advertisement distorts Mr. Jindal’s positions with false and grossly distorted statements.”

Democratic Party spokeswoman Julie Vezinot said the commercial is backed up by voluminous documentation.

“The writings referenced in the ad are Bobby’s own words and are not taken out of context, as his campaign claims,” Vezinot said. “This is just another example of Bobby’s pattern of telling one side of the story: the one he wants voters to hear.”

In several of the articles linked on the Web site, most of which first appeared in the Catholic magazine New Oxford Review, Jindal describes a spiritual journey that led him to explore various Christian churches and denominations before deciding in his late teens to convert to Catholicism.

Jindal said that while his religious beliefs have evolved over the years, nothing he wrote in his 20s could be construed as an insult to other faiths.

“I’m sure that there are tons of things that I’ve said or wrote that reflect an immature mind,” he said. “(But) nothing I’ve said or written could be mischaracterized” the way it’s portrayed in the campaign commercial.

_ Jan Moller

Church Bankruptcy Legal Bill Totals $18.8 Million

PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) Lawyers have submitted an $18.8 million final bill to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland for handling the church’s bankruptcy proceedings.

The total includes only the lawyers and experts who worked on the case in Bankruptcy Court. Attorneys for priest accusers who filed the lawsuits that sent the archdiocese into bankruptcy in 2004 earned an estimated one-third of the $50 million in sex abuse settlements.

That puts the total payout to lawyers at about $35 million.

The Portland Archdiocese emerged from bankruptcy in April by settling with about 175 people who claimed they were sexually abused by priests or other employees of the archdiocese.

The archdiocese also set up a $20 million fund for future lawsuits.

The archdiocese paid for the bankruptcy with about $50 million in insurance money, other assets and a line of credit.

No parish assets were used, and parishioners were not asked to contribute toward the settlement. That’s in contrast to places such as Spokane, Wash., where Catholic leaders sought contributions from rank-and-file Catholics to pay for settlements against priests.

The bankruptcy legal bill included $10.8 million in fees and $1 million in expenses charged by four law firms representing the archdiocese. The rest are expenses and fees charged by attorneys and experts working for other parties, including a committee of plaintiffs.

In Bankruptcy Court, the party seeking protection pays for everyone’s lawyers.

Portland was the first archdiocese in the country to seek bankruptcy protection from priest sex abuse litigation. An archdiocese spokesman declined to comment on billings.

_ Ashbel S. (Tony) Green

Quote of the Day: Prayers by the Archbishop of Canterbury

(RNS) “Her vulnerability and her willingness to reach out to the excluded and forgotten touched us all; her generosity gave hope and joy to many. May she rest in peace where sorrow and pain are banished, and may the everlasting light of your merciful love shine upon her.”

_ A prayer by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, to be used to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, on Aug. 31.

KRE/LF END RNS