c. 2008 Religion News Service

Evangelist Tony Alamo charged with illegal transport of children

(RNS) Evangelist Tony Alamo was charged Thursday (Sept. 25) with transporting children across state lines for sexual activities, just five days after authorities raided his Arkansas ministry.

Alamo, 74, was charged after police and social workers interviewed six girls who were removed from the compound on Sept. 20, The Associated Press reported.

The former street preacher, who leads Tony Alamo Christian Ministries, has said that he believes girls are suitable for marriage when they become sexually mature.

“Consent is puberty,” he said in a recent interview with the AP.

FBI spokesman Steve Frazier would not disclose what the children told authorities, but he said he did not think children were with Alamo when he was arrested at a resort near Flagstaff.

In FBI documents, Alamo was identified by his birth name, Bernie Lazar Hoffman, the AP reported. He has said he was born Jewish but became a Christian convert.

Alamo and his late wife Susan were street preachers on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip who went on to form a commune near Saugus, Calif. When his wife died of cancer in 1982, Alamo claimed she would be resurrected. He kept her body on display while their supporters prayed for six months.

In 1994, he was convicted of tax-related charges and served four years in prison after the Internal Revenue Service said he owed $7.9 million to the government.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Archbishop condemns proposal to sterilize the poor

NEW ORLEANS (RNS) Roman Catholic Archbishop Alfred Hughes has denounced a lawmaker’s proposal to pay poor people to undergo sterilization as “an egregious affront to those targeted and blatantly anti-life.”

“Our lawmakers would do better to focus on policies that promote education and achievement to counteract poverty and the bigotry of low expectations, ” Hughes said in a statement Thursday (Sept. 25).

Hughes spoke out in response to a proposal by state Rep. John Labruzzo, a Republican from suburban Metairie, to combat poverty by offering poor women and men $1,000 to undergo reproductive sterilization and vasectomies. In addition, the lawmaker said he is considering whether to propose tax incentives for college-educated people to have more children.

Hughes appears to be the first major local clergyman to take a public stand on the issue, which Labruzzo broached Tuesday. Archdiocesan spokeswoman Sarah Comiskey said the Catholic Church would oppose Labruzzo’s plan in Baton Rouge if he turns it into legislation.

Hughes based his opposition on two elements of Labruzzo’s proposal: the technique of direct sterilization and the underlying purpose of manipulating the birth rate to reduce certain populations as a matter of public policy.

Catholic teaching holds that tubal ligation and vasectomy are wrong, because they rob sexuality of one of its main purposes, the transmission of life.

More broadly, the plan “would also constitute a form of eugenics that the church and this country have always condemned,” Hughes said.

FBI opens probe into Obama stunt on Christian college campus

NEWBERG, Ore. (RNS) The Federal Bureau of Investigation has open an investigation into an incident in which presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama was hanged in effigy at George Fox University.

Beth Anne Steele, spokeswoman with the Portland office of the FBI, confirmed the agency has launched a preliminary investigation into Tuesday’s (Sept. 23) incident at the college, which was founded by Quakers in 1891.

“We will take a look at the information that is out there and determine whether or not there’s a potential violation of federal law,” she said. “If there is, we would move forward with a full investigation.”

A janitor spotted a cardboard cutout of Obama hanging by fishing line outside a campus building early Tuesday morning. A sign on it read “Act six reject,” referring to a scholarship program that has brought minority and low-income students to the school.

The janitor removed the cutout with help from some students.

Rob Felton, director of public information at George Fox, said he had not been contacted by federal authorities about an investigation.

Regarding possible suspects, the FBI’s Steele said, “We wouldn’t go down that route at this point.”

She said intimidation based on race, religion or national origin _ if a motive _ could be a violation. But she stressed that any potential findings are “way down the road.”

“It’s not something that’s going to happen overnight,” she said.

_ Wade Nkrumah

Quote of the Day: ABC News analyst Cokie Roberts

(RNS) “I’d like to see the CEOs of these companies march down Wall Street in sackcloth and ashes.”

_ ABC News analyst Cokie Roberts, about the Wall Street executives who are asking Washington to bail out their companies. She spoke on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

KRE/LF END RNS