c. 1996 Religion News Service
Kuwaiti Christian convicted of apostasy flees to U.S.
(RNS) Hussein Qambar Ali, a Christian convert from Islam who was convicted of apostasy in Kuwait earlier this year, fled to the United States Saturday (Aug. 17) and is deciding whether to seek religious asylum here.
Jim Jacobson, president of Christian Solidarity International-USA (CSI), a human-rights group based in Front Royal, Va., confirmed that his group helped Hussein obtain the necessary visa and make arrangements to leave Kuwait.
CSI representatives took Hussein, who has taken the Christian name Robert, to an undisclosed location after his arrival Saturday.”My organization basically responded to a plea for help,”Jacobson said.”Our organization helps persecuted Christians, and we helped get Robert out of harm’s way.” On May 29, a Shiite religious court in Kuwait found Hussein guilty of apostasy because he had converted to Christianity nearly two years earlier. The court recommended that under Sharia (Islamic law), Hussein”should be killed.”Since then, Hussein, who received several death threats, had been in hiding.
Hussein, 45, made his conversion public last December when he told Kuwaiti newspapers that his estranged wife had forbidden him to see their two children because of his new faith. After the interviews were widely published throughout Kuwait, three lawyers filed a lawsuit charging Hussein with apostasy for leaving Islam, the majority religion in the Persian Gulf state.
On June 29, Hussein filed an appeal of the apostasy decision, and the court had scheduled the first hearing in the appeal for Sept. 15. This is the first known apostasy case in modern Kuwait, and it is uncertain what will now happen in the case.
Jacobson said his organization has offered to help resettle Hussein in the United States, but he is unsure whether Hussein will accept help.”Robert is a free man now living in a free country. He can now do what he wants to do,”Jacobson said.”He needs time to collect his thoughts, pray and rest before he makes any decisions about his future.”
Archbishop Stafford of Denver to head pontifical laity council
(RNS) Archbishop J. Francis Stafford of Denver, whose Roman Catholic archdiocese hosted World Youth Day in 1993, has been appointed the new president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
Stafford, 64, will become the second American cleric to head one of the 12 councils within the governing body of the Vatican. The other is Archbishop John Foley of Philadelphia, who heads the Council for Social Communications, which handles mass media projects.
The Pontifical Council for the Laity is the Vatican administration department responsible for promoting lay participation in the church through baptism, confirmation, marriage and the study of catechetics, or religious instruction.
The Laity Council also sponsors World Youth Day, an annual gathering of young Catholics, with biennial international meetings with the pope. Pope John Paul II met with 500,000 young people in Denver in 1993.
Stafford will succeed 75-year-old Cardinal Eduardo Pironio, who is retiring. Pironio, an Argentinean, has held the post since 1984.
Stafford’s appointment, which begins in November, was applauded by Bishop Anthony M. Pilla, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.”The World Youth Day programs, as well as all the other activities of the council, which is of such significance in this `age of the laity,’ are in trustworthy, competent and creative hands,”Pilla said.
Rector brews beer for church repair
(RNS) A Church of England rector has started a small brewery to help raise money for the three churches he serves in Sussex, England.
The Rev. Godfrey Broster hopes to earn a profit of about $3,100 by the end of the year.”I have three churches, and I need to maintain the bricks and mortar,”he told the Church Times, a weekly Church of England newspaper.
Broster, who is in his mid-40s, worked in a brewery about 20 years ago before he was ordained.
He is now rector of the combined parish of Plumpton, East Chiltington and Novington, a group of villages about eight miles northeast of the southern England coastal town of Brighton.
The brewery, set up in a local farm, produces three kinds of beers: Rector’s Pleasure, a sharp-tasting beer; Rector’s Revenge, a strong ale; and Parson’s Porter, a dark beer. The beer is sold to local pubs and individuals.
The revenue from the beer sales will be used to defray parish expenses, including the maintenance of church buildings. Some of the proceeds will help pay for the restoration of medieval frescoes that were whitewashed during the Reformation in one of the parish’s churches, St. Michael’s in Plumpton.
Rabbi Hugo Gryn, Reform Jewish leader in Great Britain, dies
(RNS) Rabbi Hugo Gryn, a leader of Reform Jews in Great Britain, died in London Sunday (Aug. 18) of brain cancer.
Gryn, 66, was president of the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain since 1990 and executive director of the World Union for Progressive Judaism from 1960 to 1962, The Washington Post reported.
Gryn, a Holocaust survivor, was known for his work to foster understanding among those of different faiths. For more than two decades, he served on the Standing Committee for Interfaith Dialogue in Education, which emphasized religious understanding in schools. He also was joint chairman of the Interfaith Network, an umbrella organization of interfaith groups, from 1987 to 1994.
A writer and broadcaster known for his sharp wit, Gryn was featured frequently on BBC radio programs, including”The Moral Maze,”in which prominent intellectuals discussed philosophical and ethical issues.
Quote of the day: Nancy Ramsey, a professor at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
(RNS) Nancy Ramsey, the Harrison Ray Anderson Professor in Pastoral Ministry at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky., in an interview in The Mosaic of Louisville Seminary, spoke about the issue of theological questions in times of crisis, citing the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City:”Theologically, a crisis discloses the pretense of control _ that we are in control of our lives and self-sufficient. It leaves us with the understanding of reality that each of us is `a traffic accident away from death,’ _ that we cannot always keep ourselves safe.”For instance, the violence in Oklahoma _ there is no sense to that sort of violence. A crisis like this can pose deep questions about the nature of God, the nature of God’s love, and of God’s power to be effective. It can rip open your whole world. It raises questions about what we call `theodicy’ the theology of suffering. … `Where was God? Does God care about me or the people affected? If God cares about us, how could this happen?”
MJP END RNS
