c. 2008 Religion News Service
Protests lead pope to cancel speech
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Facing increasingly vociferous protests, Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday (Jan. 15) canceled a long-announced plan to speak at Rome’s La Sapienza University.
“Following the widely noted vicissitudes of recent days … it was considered opportune to postpone the event,” the Vatican said in a statement quoted by the Italian news agency ANSA. The statement added that the pope would send the text of the speech he had planned to deliver in person.
The pope had been scheduled to address a gathering of faculty and students at La Sapienza, Europe’s largest university, on Thursday morning.
But over the weekend, a group of more than 60 La Sapienza faculty members wrote to the university’s rector objecting to the pope’s presence, citing words from a 1990 lecture in which he seemed to justify the Vatican’s condemnation of the astronomer Galileo Galilei in the 17th century.
“In the name of the secularity of science, we hope that this incongruous event can still be canceled,” the professors wrote.
On Monday, student protesters at the university began a planned four days of demonstrations; on Tuesday morning, a group of some 50 students briefly occupied the rector’s office until granted assurances that they would be allowed to protest on campus during the pope’s visit.
Following the pope’s cancellation, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi “condemned” the protests, which he said had created a “climate that does no honor to Italy’s traditions of civility and tolerance.”
According to the Italian news agency AGI, the Vatican had not canceled a papal visit because of controversy or security concerns since 1994, when Pope John Paul II called off a trip to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the midst of the Bosnian civil war.
_ Francis X. Rocca
Clark Sisters big winners at Stellar Gospel Music Awards
(RNS) The Clark Sisters, who toured together in 2007 for the first time in 20 years, were the big winners at the Stellar Gospel Music Awards ceremony on Saturday (Jan. 12).
The group, whose latest reunion recording is “Live _ One Last Time,” won in four categories: for artist, CD, group/duo and traditional group/duo of the year. The four women _ Dorinda Clark-Cole, Twinkie Clark, Jacky Clark-Chisholm and Karen Clark-Sheard _ had pursued solo recording careers.
Right behind them with three wins was gospel newcomer DeWayne Woods, who won awards for male vocalist, new artist and urban/inspirational single or performance.
The ceremony was at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tenn., and co-hosted by gospel artists Kirk Franklin and CeCe Winans.
Tramaine Hawkins was honored with the James Cleveland Lifetime Achievement Award for her influence on the development and advancement of gospel music. She also won in two categories, female vocalist and traditional female vocalist, for her “I Never Lost My Praise _ Live” CD.
Other honorees included:
Choir: Bishop T.D. Jakes & The Potter’s House Mass Choir, “Grace: The Kenya Experience.”
Song: “Let Go” by P. Morton, from “Introducing DeWayne Woods & When Singers Meet.”
Chevrolet Most Notable Achievement Award: CeCe Winans.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Assisted suicide falls off national radar
WASHINGTON (RNS) Oregon has an assisted-suicide law and Washington state is talking about one. But for now, how we die is just a Northwest anomaly.
Republican presidential candidates in a battle for anti-abortion votes tout their positions against abortion, funding embryonic stem-cell research and human cloning. Democrats proudly tout abortion rights and vow to end the ban on funding embryonic stem-cell research.
But nobody, Democrat or Republican, in Congress or in the presidential race, is talking about physician-assisted suicide, once a top agenda item of many anti-abortion groups.
Since 1994, when Oregonians first voted to allow doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients, social conservatives have vowed to pass a federal law to prohibit the practice.
But as Democrats took control of both houses of Congress last year and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., vowed to continue blocking any attempts to overturn Oregon’s law, the issue has fallen out of the focus of the anti-abortion movement.
For now, Oregon’s law appears safe from federal intervention.
“We are breathing fairly easy with regard to Congress,” said Barbara Lee, president of Compassion & Choices, a group that advocates for the Death With Dignity Act.
Assisted suicide is not mentioned in the platforms of the major presidential candidates, and it does not come up in national debates.
For example, Mitt Romney, who has struggled to build anti-abortion clout after having supported the right to an abortion as Massachusetts governor, delivered a nearly 2,000-word speech to a national anti-abortion group in June. He mentioned abortion, human cloning, embryo farming and abstinence education _ but not assisted suicide.
“The Republican caucus has for whatever reason let this issue drop, and we haven’t received a call from anyone running for president, Republican or Democrat, on this issue,” said Josh Kardon, Wyden’s chief of staff. “If I had to guess, they’ve decided there’s no political percentage in talking about Oregon’s assisted-suicide law.”
In previous congressional sessions, senators have proposed amending the federal Controlled Substances Act to prevent doctors from prescribing life-ending drugs. Wyden placed a hold on such a bill, the Pain Relief Promotion Act, in 2000. Proponents were never able to get the 60 votes necessary to overcome Wyden’s procedural move.
The Bush administration has argued that Oregon’s law violates the Controlled Substances Act. The dispute made it to the Supreme Court, which, in a 6-3 vote, upheld the Oregon law in January 2006.
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., introduced the Assisted Suicide Prevention Act the following August. The bill never made it out of the Judiciary Committee.
The Democrats’ takeover of Congress last year makes a federal law less likely now.
“It’s not going to happen in this Congress,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who along with Oregon’s four other House members has fought federal attempts to override Oregon’s law. “This leadership is not going to interfere with the rights of states like Oregon.”
_ Jeff Kosseff
Quote of the Day: Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani
(RNS) “I’m not coming here to ask for your vote. That’s up to you and it’s not the right place. But I am coming here to ask you for something very special and more important: I’m asking for your prayers.”
_ Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, speaking at Sunday services at El Rey Jesus Church in Miami. He was quoted by the Associated Press.
KRE DS END RNS
