c. 1997 Religion News Service

`Nothing Sacred’ to last all season, gets Catholic support

(RNS) Despite some highly visible criticism from a conservative Roman Catholic group, ABC says it has ordered a full season of the drama”Nothing Sacred.” The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights began campaigning against the one-hour drama before it premiered in September. The show depicts a Catholic priest’s struggles with contemporary times.

The league’s campaign prompted many advertisers to avoid airing ads during the program. Catholic League president William Donohue said he attributes the show’s low ratings in part to the boycott led by his group.”Nothing Sacred”ranks 94th for the season in Nielsen Media Research’s ratings, the Associated Press reported. It airs at 8 p.m. EST Thursdays _ the same time as”Friends,”a high-rated show on NBC.”Nothing Sacred”will not air during the final two weeks of the November”sweeps”period and the network is considering moving it to Saturday nights.

In a move to counter the Catholic League’s efforts, a group called Catholics Speak Out has taken out a full-page ad in support of the series. The ad, which appears in the Monday (Nov. 17) edition of Advertising Age, a trade publication, includes the names of 117 Catholic priests and nuns from 20 states.”The Catholic League represents only a minute segment of the American Catholic community,”said Sister Maureen Fielder, spokeswoman for the group.”We believe `Nothing Sacred’ provides very honest and thought-provoking glimpses into the lives of American Catholics, and we are personally offended by the Catholic League boycott.” The ad includes the names of four bishops who have been supportive of the show _ Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton of Detroit; Bishop Peter A. Rosazza of New Haven, Conn.; Bishop P. Francis Murphy of Baltimore; and Bishop Raymond A. Lucker of New Ulm, Minn.”As concerned Catholic leaders, we cannot in good conscience stand idly by while a wonderful television show is unfairly maligned,”the ad reads in part.”We believe `Nothing Sacred’ has wit, intelligence and compassion and can serve as a positive vehicle for discourse. We hope advertisers will continue to support `Nothing Sacred.’ We certainly do.”

Wimber, founder of Association of Vineyard Churches, dies

(RNS) John Wimber, founder and international director of the charismatic Association of Vineyard Churches, died Monday (Nov. 17) after suffering a massive brain hemorrhage the previous evening, his ministry announced. He was 63.

Wimber was an international conference speaker as well as a best-selling author and writer of worship songs.”John was one of those rare people who was a molder of a generation and his contribution has come in beginning the Vineyard movement, which when he did that was quite innovative,”said the Rev. C. Peter Wagner, professor of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.”But now it has developed into … the fastest growing segment of Christianity on all continents.” The charismatic movement is based on”apostolic networks”rather than denominational bureaucracies, Wagner said.”It congealed more around relationships than written bylaws,”he said.

One of the significant decisions Wimber made was to ask the Toronto Airport Vineyard Fellowship to leave the parent church body in 1995 because the church had placed”extra-biblical”meaning on its”exotic”expressions of the Holy Spirit, including animal sounds, laughing and groaning.”At heart he was a Bible-believing and teaching evangelical,”Wagner said.”Vineyard would be considered by almost all observers as a charismatic church, but he certainly did not want to go to any extreme in that.” But Wagner said Wimber tried to be a bridge builder between the charismatic and evangelical wings of the church.”He and I taught a course in signs and wonders at Fuller Seminary the first part of the ’80s,”said Wagner, recalling how controversial it was.”Now, hardly anybody’s arguing about it.” Through his Anaheim, Calif.-based association, Wimber was the spiritual leader of 450 Vineyard congregations in the United States and 250 more abroad. He also served as senior pastor of the Anaheim Vineyard Christian Fellowship from 1977 to 1994.

Before he became a Christian, Wimber was the manager of the Righteous Brothers, a secular music group popular in the 1960s.

Wimber also was part of the Calvary Chapel movement before he founded the Vineyard association.

Priest kidnapped in Philippines; Muslim guerrillas take responsibility

(RNS) A Belgian Roman Catholic priest was kidnapped Tuesday (Nov. 18) from a church in the southern Philippines. A Muslim guerrilla group immediately claimed responsibility.

The Rev. Bernard Maes was leaving a taxi when two men with guns grabbed him and shoved him into a car, Reuters reported. A group of Muslim guerrillas known as”Lucky 9″took responsibility for the abduction and demanded 4 million pesos _ $114,000 _ in ransom for the priest.”If the army, the politicians move in, we will just kill him and go back to the mountains,”Makil Mama, a leader of the group said in a telephone interview with a local cable television station, according to Reuters.

Mama is one of nine former rebel commanders who surrendered in 1990 under a government amnesty. The group said the money represents funds for projects the Manila government had promised as part of the surrender deal.

Maes, 53, is the second foreign priest kidnapped in less than a month by guerrillas demanding funds. Another group took Irish priest Desmond Hartford last month and freed him 12 days later after officials promised to pay a ransom. Maes is the eighth church worker kidnapped since 1991.

Raiser defends WCC’s role during Cold War

(RNS) The Rev. Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, says he will”continue to defend”the international ecumenical agency’s role during the Cold War.

Raiser made his comments in an interview with Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency, in response to criticism that the WCC might have done more to help dissident movements in the Soviet-controlled countries of Eastern Europe.

The Rev. Paul Oestreicher of Coventry Cathedral in England, a leading expert on Eastern Europe, recently told a German magazine that the WCC was duty-bound to examine its own past and that, like himself, the WCC had sometimes stressed the importance of dialogue with Eastern Europe at the expense of giving support to Christians who opposed communist authorities.

Raiser, in response, said a”self-critical”assessment was certainly necessary but he would not want to make a”generalized statement”about the organization.”In retrospect, we might have done more publicly,”he said.”But we would continue to defend without apology what we did to draw the churches of Eastern Europe into the ecumenical movement, in full recognition of the limitations of their positions, to draw them out of isolation … accepting that this could only be done within certain narrowly defined limits, but within these limits to do as much as possible,”he said.

He noted that the WCC’s archives are open to independent researchers and it is cooperating with a meeting being sponsored by various research institutes in Germany to assess, among other things, the WCC’s role in Eastern Europe.

Report: Americans caught trying to smuggle icons out of Russia

(RNS) Eight Americans were caught trying to smuggle more than 1,000 antique icons and other religious relics into Finland, the Associated Press reported Tuesday (Nov. 18).

Citing the Russian news agency Interfax, the AP said Russian customs authorities detained the eight Americans after finding 29 bags of religious relics. It is illegal to take such artifacts out of the country.

The bags were found in the cargo compartment of a bus at a border check point in Vyborg, Russia, Interfax said.

Andrei Trakhanov, deputy chief of the Vyborg customs department, said it was the largest attempt to smuggle antiques over the Russian-Finnish border in the past eight years. The report did not identify the U.S. citizens, say when the incident occurred or mention any charges.

Baptist Joint Committee names new board chairman

(RNS) The Rev. Aidsand F. Wright-Riggins III has been named chairman of the board of directors of the Washington, D.C.-based Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs.

Wright-Riggins, executive director of American Baptist National Ministries and BJC board member since 1991, will serve as chair for one year beginning Jan. 1.”We are pleased to have as our new chair an outstanding African-American minister in the American Baptist Churches USA who has a `fire in his belly’ for religious liberty,”said James M. Dunn, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee.

Wright-Riggins will oversee the board’s administrative work, advise the staff on implementing board directives, and be a national spokesman for the committee. The BJC is made up of 10 national Baptist groups. Additionally, a number of state Southern Baptist conventions support the religious liberty agency.

John Paul names new bishop for Kalamazoo, Mich.

(RNS) Pope John Paul II has appointed the Rev. James A. Murray, currently chancellor of the diocese of Lansing, Mich., to be the new bishop of Kalamazoo, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops said Tuesday (Nov. 18).

Murray, 65, succeeds Bishop Alfred J. Markiewicz, who died Jan. 9.

Murray,, a native of Jackson, Mich., was ordained to the priesthood in 1958.

The diocese of Kalamazoo covers nine counties in Michigan and has a Catholic population of 100,000 out of 909,000.

Quote of the day: Family counselor Tim Geare

(RNS)”There’s no point ripping a Pooh stuffed animal out of the arms of a 3-year-old. If Disney already has your money, there’s no point in setting fire to the items you already have.” Tim Geare, a family counselor in Colorado Springs, Colo., quoted in”Citizen,”a Focus on the Family publication about how parents who support a boycott of the Walt Disney Co. should not be overzealous about Disney items already in their homes.

MJP END RNS