c. 1997 Religion News Service
Group urges IRS probe of Pa. church for partisan politicking
(RNS) A church-state separation group has asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate an Elizabethtown, Pa., congregation for alleged violations of its tax-exempt status by engaging in partisan politicking.
In a letter to the IRS, Americans United for Separation of Church and State said the Rev. Joe Carter of the Mount Calvary Church may have broken federal tax laws when he encouraged members of his congregation to vote for three specific political candidates in a hotly contested school board race.
Carter could not be reached for comment.
But associate pastor Dan Gilbert issued a statement on behalf of the church board saying the church does not endorse candidates.
According to Americans United, however, Carter acknowledged in local interviews that he recommended from the pulpit that parishioners support three specific candidates, arguing they were”good, conservative candidates with conservative moral values who share the backgrounds and feelings of the congregation.” Americans United, in its letter to the IRS, said that by encouraging church members to vote for specific candidates, Carter and the church violated the tax code’s ban on participation in campaigns for political office by tax-exempt organizations.”Churches and church pastors must obey the law,”said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United.”Most churches leave the partisan political activities to the parties and the candidates. But endorsing candidates from the church pulpit clearly crosses the line.”
U.S., British Methodists oppose oil companies’ involvement in Burma
(RNS) The involvement of French and U.S. oil companies in Burma is being challenged by Methodist agencies in Britain and the United States.”We are particularly concerned by allegations of the use of forced labor to clear the route of the gas pipeline which will take natural gas from Total’s Yandana gas field to Thailand,”the Central Finance Board of the British Methodist Church said in a Wednesday (May 28) statement from its London office.
Total SA is a French oil company. Both the U.S. government and the European Union have imposed trade sanctions on Burma and its military-led government. Burma, also known as Myanmar, has come under sharp criticism from human rights and religious groups for its violent crushing of dissent and its lack of democracy.
The British agency said it has sold its shares in the French firm, saying it had”come to the conclusion that it would not be appropriate for us to continue to hold an investment in Total.” In the United States, the United Methodist Board of Pension and Health Benefits, based in Evanston, Ill., said it is”closely monitoring”Total and Unocal Corporation of California, a U.S. firm also involved in Burma.
Agency officials expressed sympathy with the British Methodist action but said they were using a different strategy. The agency’s Committee on Corporate Fiduciary Responsibility”currently is seeking to constructively influence corporate management to re-evaluate its strategic business operations.” On Monday (June 2), Unocal stockholders will be faced with two shareholder resolutions asking that management report on the costs and benefits of doing business in Burma and on allegations that the government-owned Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise is involved in drug money laundering.
The United Methodist pension agency said it would vote its stocks in support of the two resolutions.
According to United Methodist officials, the $1 billion joint venture of the two oil companies and the government accounts for approximately one-third of all foreign investments in the country.
Religious groups oppose legislation to block aid to North Korea
(RNS) A coalition of 18 religious and relief groups said Friday (May 30) two Republican-sponsored amendments to pending legislation would make it impossible for the United States to aid victims of the famine in North Korea.
One, sponsored by Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., would prohibit either direct or indirect U.S. assistance to North Korea and redirect U.S. food aid currently earmarked for North Korea to the African countries of Burundi, Rwanda and Zaire.
A second amendment, sponsored by Rep. Doug Bereuter, R-Neb., would require the president to certify that South Korea does not oppose U.S. aid to North Korea.”Reps. Bereuter and Cox clearly are forgetting former President Reagan’s statement that `a hungry child knows no politics,'”said Lionel Rosenblatt, president of Refugees International, one of the 18 groups in the Committee to Stop Famine in North Korea coalition.”The United States has traditionally provided assistance to famine victims around the world, regardless of political considerations,”he added.
Rosenblatt said the effect of Bereuter’s amendment”would be for the United States to allow the South Korean government to determine our foreign policy with respect to North Korean famine victims. I don’t think that’s wise.””North Koreans are slowly starving, and death on a large scale will be the ultimate result if intervention is not provided,”said Ells Culver of Mercy Corps International. Culver returned last week from a trip to North Korea.”To legislate that we walk away from the emergency is an abdication of our crucial leadership role in the world and a denial of the humanitarian values that are the foundation of our democracy,”Culver added.
Jewish group to Wisconsin court: voucher plan is unconstitutional
(RNS) The American Jewish Congress (AJC) has filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Wisconsin Court of Appeals urging it to uphold a lower court ruling prohibiting government-funded vouchers from paying the tuition of former Milwaukee public school students now attending private religious schools.”Although the narrow issue before the appellate court is whether a particular school voucher scheme is constitutional, the larger issue presented is whether a state may walk away from a failed public school system and turn to religious schools to provide children with a quality education,”said Phil Baum, executive director of the AJC.
The brief filed with the court repeats a position that the AJC has taken consistently _ government subsidies to parochial schools are unconstitutional.
Earlier this month, a state appeals court overturned a voucher plan in Ohio.
The Ohio and Wisconsin voucher cases _ both of which are likely to end up in the U.S. Supreme Court _ are being closely watched by both opponents and supporters of the idea of using taxpayer funds to help parents defray the cost of sending their children to religious schools.
Supporters of vouchers argue that public schools, especially those serving the poor, are in such bad shape that parents ought to have the choice _ and thus the economic means _ to send their children to non-public schools.
Minority churches in Poland welcome new constitution
(RNS) Leaders of Poland’s minority churches have welcomed the results of the May 25 referendum by which Polish voters narrowly approved a new constitution, which had been vigorously opposed by the Roman Catholic Church.”Although the (low) turnout was a shock for everyone, this should not compromise its legitimacy,”Bishop Jan Szarek, the Lutheran head of the Polish Ecumenical Council told Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency. Just 42 percent of Poland’s 28 million eligible voters turned out.”In a democracy, people have a right to vote, as well as not to vote,”he said.
Catholic church leaders campaigned against the constitution because it”dethroned God”and because it failed to be explicitly anti-abortion.
But Szarek said the constitution would promote”democratic activities and procedures.” A spokesman for the country’s 570,000-member Orthodox church said the new constitution recognizes that”people think differently.””The constitution ensures equality for all confessions under the law and gives minority churches the same rights as the (Catholic) majority,”Henryk Paprocki told ENI.
Controversial Catholic wins Gloria Award
(RNS) Frances Kissling, president of the controversial Catholics for a Free Choice, has been given a Gloria Award by the Ms. Foundation for Women, citing her work in supporting the reproductive rights of women around the world.
The awards are named in honor of feminist writer Gloria Steinem, a founder of the pioneering women’s magazine Ms.”Frances is being recognized for championing the reproductive rights of women all over the world in the face of the Vatican’s immense power,”said Marie C. Wilson, president of the Ms. Foundation for Women, the national women’s group that created the Take Our Daughters to Work Day.
Catholics for a Free Choice is an independent organization with no affiliation with the church and has been sharply criticized by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops for using the word Catholic in its title.
The group, which has attracted a number of prominent Catholic dissidents, has often battled church leaders in this country and abroad over the issue of what should be the church’s proper approach to the volatile issue of abortion rights.”Frances Kissling represents the majority view of Catholics in this country, and she does so with the courage and commitment of a long-distance runner,”Steinem said in a statement.
Kissling, in a statement expressing her thanks for the award, said being named a recipient”is a symbol of the growing recognition of the importance spirituality plays in the life of many feminists and the importance of feminist challenges to the increasing incursions into political life by religious fundamentalists.”
Quote of the day: Margaret B. Hess
(RNS) Margaret B. Hess, pastor of First Baptist Church in Nashua, N.H., recently contemplated a”family photo”of Adam and Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden and saw there a”portrait of shame.”Writing in Christian Century magazine, Hess also observed:”… I see God reaching out to this couple. God the seamstress aches to give them a way beyond their humiliation, a sign to remember that their disobedience is not the final word in defining who they are. … Before they brought the sweet fruit to their lips they were God’s beloved. This will always be true. Maybe, as they tug at their new clothes, their memory will be jogged.”
MJP END RNS
