c. 1997 Religion News Service

Adventists issue statement opposing child sexual abuse

(RNS) Seventh-day Adventists have adopted a statement on child sexual abuse that acknowledges their church community is not immune from the problem and emphasizes the need for its members to be actively involved in preventing such abuse.”This statement gives expression to our condemnation of child sexual abuse,”said Ron Flowers, family ministries director at the church’s world headquarters in Silver Spring, Md.

Lay leaders and church professionals need to be responsible for maintaining personal behavior that is appropriate to their positions as trustworthy, spiritual leaders, said Flowers.

The”Statement on Child Sexual Abuse”was adopted during the spring meeting of the denomination’s General Conference Executive Committee, held April 1-2 in Loma Linda, Calif.”The Adventist Christian community is not immune from child sexual abuse,”the statement reads.”We believe that the tenets of the Seventh-day Adventist faith require us to be actively involved in its prevention.” The statement notes that sexual abusers come from a variety of _ and often reputable _ backgrounds.”They are often men who are married with children, have respectable jobs and may be regular churchgoers,”the statement says.

The statement cites various ways the church could help both those who are abused and abusive individuals”in their healing and recovering process.” Among the suggestions are providing”an atmosphere where children who have been abused can feel safe when reporting sexual abuse and feel that someone will listen to them.”The statement also encourages providing support and access to professionals in the community who can help abuse survivors and abusers.

It also suggests creating policies to fairly treat those accused of child sex abuse and to appropriately discipline whose who have been found guilty of it.

Sudanese police destroy one chapel, prevented from damaging more

(RNS) Police destroyed a chapel in the Sudan capital of Khartoum on Easter Monday (March 31) but were prevented by local Christians from destroying two others, a Roman Catholic missionary group reported.

The Comboni missionaries said in a statement that officials in the Islamic government had ordered police to demolish the churches on Easter Monday, Reuters reported.

The authorities destroyed the chapel of Terea but were unable to raze the other two, Kalakla Qubba and Wad Amara.”The police bulldozer found all the approaches to the chapels blocked by people who sat on the street while others packed the chapel,”said the missionary group, which is active in Sudan.

The targeted houses of worship were multipurpose centers set up by the Catholic Church to help displaced southern Sudanese who moved to Khartoum for work and shelter. Run under government permits, the centers are used for religious, social, medical and educational activities.

The missionaries said the government did not give a reason for its order to destroy the chapels.

The Islamist government of Sudan is under attack from rebels based in the Christian and animist southern part of the country who have been seeking for more independence from the Arab and Muslim north.

Amnesty International: Russia allows widespread torture

(RNS) Amnesty International issued a report Thursday (April 3) condemning what it called widespread and systematic torture by law enforcement groups in Russia.

The London-based human rights organization also said Russian President Boris Yeltsin is partly responsible for the alleged torture, Reuters reported.”Torture occurs every day and everywhere,”said report author Mariana Katzarova.”Anyone could be subject to torture in Russia.” At a news conference, she said the torture of prisoners and suspects occurs in prisons, in the army and while in police custody. Those most at risk are members of ethnic minorities, such as Chechens, and the homeless.

Katzarova said Yeltsin has made the situation worse by signing decrees aimed at fighting organized crime that permit suspects to be held without the right of contacting others for 30 days, instead of the legal limit of 48 hours.”I am very much concerned that the president has allowed himself to violate the constitution by issuing decrees and by keeping them in place for years,”she said.

Little has changed since Russia committed itself to outlawing torture last year by signing the European Convention on Human Rights, the report added.

Common forms of torture, according to Amnesty International, include chaining suspects to chairs, placing gas masks over their heads and cutting off their air supply until they start suffocating. In other cases, prisoners have had their hands tied behind their backs and suspended from the ceiling and beaten.

Katzarova and the human rights group asked the Russian government to curtail the practices.”Why does the Russian government, knowing people have been tortured, do nothing to stop these brutal acts?”she said.

Catholic school enrollment continues upward climb

(RNS) Enrollment in the nation’s Catholic schools is up for the fifth straight year.

More than 10,000 additional students enrolled in Catholic schools during the 1996-97 academic year, said Leonard DeFiore, president of the National Catholic Educational Association.

There are now 2,645,462 students enrolled in Catholic schools, an increase of almost 79,000 students since the 1992-93 academic year.”Catholic schools are experiencing a true renaissance,”DeFiore said.

He made the announcement during the association’s annual convention in Minneapolis, which began Tuesday (April 1) and ends Friday (April 4).

DeFiore also noted that 155 new Catholic schools have opened during the past 12 years. There are now 8,231 Catholic schools.

Quote of the Day: author Naomi Wolf

(RNS) Naomi Wolf, author of the forthcoming”Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood,”wrote in a column in The New York Times on Thursday (April 3) about the diverse religious assumptions in the debate about so-called”partial-birth”abortions:”While Judaism generally maintains that in a choice between the fetus and the mother, the mother’s life, with its adult obligations, must always come first, traditional Catholic teaching holds that you cannot directly kill a fetus to save the life of the mother. Americans must be reminded that people of faith can reach different conclusions about abortion.”

MJP END RNS