c. 1997 Religion News Service

Vatican marks Hanukkah for the first time

(RNS) For the first time, the Vatican noted the start of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah in a ceremony that also coincided with the launching of Israel’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

Cardinal Edward Cassidy, head of the Vatican commission for Jewish relations, lit the Hanukkah candles Tuesday (Dec.23), the start of the eight-day holiday. The ceremony was held in a Vatican garden where Pope John Paul II often strolls and where an olive tree first planted in Jerusalem in 1965 as a symbol of Vatican-Israel relations had been replanted.

The menorah, or Hanukkah candelabra, used was borrowed from the Jewish Museum of Rome.”This is an important chapter in the historic process of reconciliation,”said Aharon Lopez, Israel’s ambassador to the Vatican, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Cassidy said he hoped Israel’s 50th anniversary as a nation”would bring joy to the people of Israel and also peace to all those who live within the confines of the state.”Israel achieved independence in 1948.

Cassidy called Hanukkah _ which commemorates the defeat of Greek-Syrian overlords who sought to stamp out Jewish religion and culture in what is now Israel more than 2,100 years ago _ a”victory of principle over compromise, of faith over power …” Under Pope John Paul II, the Roman Catholic Church has reached out to Jews more than ever before.

In a separate ceremony, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi officiated over a Hanukkah candle lighting at Rome’s Arch of Titus, built to celebrate the Roman Empire’s destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The site was selected as a gesture of atonement.

The Italian government was one of more 30 _ including the United States _ that reportedly marked the start of Israel’s 50th anniversary year by staging a Hanukkah candle lighting.

In Washington, President Clinton used the opportunity to urge progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

N.J. pastor protests ad depicting beer drinking in heaven

(RNS) A Newark, N.J., pastor has mounted a campaign to protest a commercial that depicts beer drinking in heaven.

The Miller Brewing Co. has produced a TV ad featuring three beer-guzzling angels partying in the clouds. The Rev. Edward Smart, pastor of Israel Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church, is lobbying to get the ad pulled.”It’s theologically dangerous to assume that angels in heaven … are alcoholics,”Smart said Tuesday (Dec. 23). The commercial”says that God sanctions beer, alcohol, substance abuse. … God doesn’t do that. I haven’t read that.” Smart gathered 3,000 signatures on a petition and last week won a city council resolution condemning the ad from the Milwaukee-based beer company, the Associated Press reported.

Miller spokeswoman Gina Shaffer said the ad was not intended to be taken seriously.”We have received a tremendous amount of positive feedback,”she said.”People get that it’s very light-hearted, it’s very fun.” The Minneapolis ad firm Fallon and McElligott created the commercial, which depicts three young men with wings and white suits dancing to hip-hop music as they chug Miller Lite.

When the”angels”deplete their beers, they look down on Earth, create a gust of wind and cause a tree to fall in front of a Miller truck. When the bottles fall out of the back of the truck and float up to heaven, the party continues.

Other clergy also were concerned about the appeal of such advertising, saying alcohol adversely affects young people in inner cities.”It portrays a degenerative type of lifestyle,”said Henry Muhammad, a Muslim leader in Newark.”It’s a place where there’s drinking and dancing and singing and having a good time. That is a travesty.”

Ordination service by dissident Anglican’s in England blocked

(RNS) A dissident Anglican parish in Newcastle-upon-Tyne has been prevented by the courts from going ahead with an ordination of a deacon because the congregation refuses to recognize the authority of the incoming local bishop.

The ordination of the deacon _ the first step toward ordination as a priest _ would have been valid but irregular.

The linked parish of St. Oswald, Walkergate, England, and St Mark, Byker, England, is one of two parishes in the Newcastle diocese that have refused to recognize the authority of Bishop Martin Wharton, due to be enthroned in February, because he is regarded as too tolerant of homosexual behavior.

The Walkergate-Byker parish had proposed the ordination of deacon candidate Ed Moll should be done by retired missionary bishop Howell Haydn Davies, who from 1981 to 1987 was bishop of Karamoja, Uganda.

But the diocese’s assistant bishop and director of ordinands, Bishop Kenneth Gill, obtained an injunction from England’s High Court to prevent the ordination from taking place.

Gill argued Moll was being ordained to a specific parish in Newcastle and if he could not accept the authority of the bishop of Newcastle he should not be ordained.

Wharton has said he follows”the (Anglican) Church line that homosexuality within a loving, permanent relationship is no sin, but I think that it would be inappropriate within the priesthood.” He later amplified his comment by saying he took as guidance the Church of England’s House of Bishops’ 1991 report”Issues in Human Sexuality,”which expressed toleration of _ though not support for _ active homosexual relationships among the laity. It rejected homosexual activity among the clergy.

Wharton said the report’s stance was”the best pastoral approach while the debate continues.”

Mob burns down church near Indonesian capital

(RNS) A mob burned down a church outside the Indonesian capital of Jakarta Wednesday (Dec. 24).

No one was injured, police and church leaders said.

The Rev. Frank Magnis-Suseno of the Driyarkara School of Philosophy, said the small church was set on fire in the Bumi Serpong Damai district by a crowd that attacked and ransacked the building.

Magnis-Suseno said he had not heard of any casualties in the attack, whose motive was unclear.

Other officials said police had been dispatched to the area and tensions had waned, Reuters reported.

Magnis-Suseno said the congregation in the Protestant church had celebrated Christmas on Tuesday.”This morning, the church was burned down. I don’t know why,”he said Wednesday.”It was attacked by a mass of people.” Churches often are the target of rioters in Indonesia, a Muslim-majority nation of 200 million people.

About a year ago, at least four people were killed when mobs rampaged through the Central Java town of Tasikmalaya and set churches on fire after reports that police had attacked Muslim teachers.

In October 1996, a temple and 25 churches were burned down and five people were killed in riots in the Situbondo area of East Java.

Quote of the day: The Rev. Wenzao Han, president of the China Christian Council”Everyone sees China as a mission field and we in the China Christian Council want to work with others. Self-isolation is not one of our goals, but Christianity done in the Western way is threatening, and this affects our relationship with the (Chinese) government.” _ The Rev. Wenzao Han, president of the China Christian Council in remarks Dec. 17 at the headquarters of the Baptist World Alliance.

MJP END RNS