c. 1998 Religion News Service
Church women call for canceling poor nations’ debts
(RNS) The 125-member U.S. delegation who attended the festival marking the end of the Ecumenical Decade of the Churches in Solidarity with Women has written President Clinton calling for”the complete cancellation of debts for the most heavily indebted countries as a first step in changing the unjust economic policies which govern our world.” The global debt issue was a primary concern during the four-day festival in Harare, Zimbabwe, marking the end of the World Council of Churches-sponsored ecumenical decade which highlighted progress and setbacks for women in church and society.
The campaign to reduce or cancel the debts of some 41 heavily indebted nations _ many of them in Africa _ as a means of marking the turn of the Christian millennium in the year 2000, has become a major drive by religious leaders and groups, including Pope John Paul II.
The U.S. women’s letter to Clinton, his wife Hillary, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and the presidents of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund said the debt burden of the poorest countries falls heaviest on women and their children.”We as Christians need to help our government and the IMF to reflect on how they are asking these countries to pay their debts,”said Thelma Adair, the prominent U.S. ecumenist and member of the Presbyterian Church (USA).”And we need a Marshall Plan of Christian sympathy that goes in to these areas (suffering from poverty) to get them where they can participate. We need a new form of sharing.
In a separate but related development, the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, and 13 denominational representatives, wrote Clinton urging the U.S. government to cancel the debts of Central American nations devastated by Hurricane Mitch and to give”temporary protected status”to immigrants from those countries in danger of being deported.
The letter praised the administration for steps already taken to aid victims of Mitch but urged”additional measures which we feel are essential to relieve the great burden which countries face as they seek to rebuild.” The United States, they said, should”follow the example announced by France … and write off all of the aid and development debt owed by Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala.” Besides canceling the debts, the U.S. church leaders asked for an 18-month”temporary protected status”for nationals from the four countries.”This status was created precisely to respond to crises like the one Central America is now facing, where countries are temporarily unable to handle the return of its nations.”
Priest pushing pope’s canonization critical of Jews
(RNS) The Jesuit priest directing the case for the canonization of Pope Pius XII has reportedly said Jews acted as Soviet communism’s”managers”and”may be massive accomplices in the destruction of the Catholic Church”during World War II.
The Rev. Peter Gumpel’s comments were reported in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard Nov. 23. He was quoted as saying that Jewish criticism of the effort to canonize Pius”makes one wonder what the Jewish faction has against Catholics.” Pius, who led the church during World War II, has been criticized by some Jewish leaders as not having done enough to oppose the Holocaust, the Nazi effort to eradicate European Jewry. The church contends that Pius did all that was feasible.
Gumpel’s comments were called”extraordinarily hurtful”by Rabbi Paul Chaim Eisenberg, chief rabbi of Vienna,”as they travel all the old roads of pure anti-Semitism.”Gerhard Bodendorfer, a leading official in the Catholic-Jewish dialogue in Austria, said Gumpel’s remarks”come out of the lowest drawer of anti-Semitism.
However, Gumpel, a former official of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints who is directing the canonization process concerning Pius XII, insists his comments were taken out of context.”It is not a question of attributing these things to Jews in general. That would be false and unfair,”Gumpel told National Catholic Reporter, an independent American Catholic newspaper.”But since the Catholic church is making an examination of conscience, what I said is that we would appreciate … that on the other side as well. Some Jews have greatly damaged the Catholic church.” Gumpel also told the Reporter that”it is a historical fact that many of the Bolsheviks who persecuted the Catholic church as well as the Orthodox church in Russia were Jews. That is the simple truth.” In addition, Gumpel said the Talmud, the authoritative body of Jewish law,”says the most hateful things about Jesus and Our Lady (Mary), suggesting that she was a public woman, an adulteress …”
Baptist World Alliance leader calls Cuban embargo”failed policy” (RNS) The leader of the Baptist World Alliance has issued a statement calling the U.S. embargo of Cuba”a failed policy”and is planning for the group to meet in Cuba for its General Council meeting in 2000.”The embargo of Cuba by the USA is a failed policy which hurts precisely the people we want to help _ the children, the poor, and the elderly,”said Denton Lotz, general secretary of the alliance, in a statement released Thursday (Dec. 3), shortly after his return from a visit to the island nation.”Children and elderly and many patients in hospitals suffer from lack of antibiotics and other medical supplies.” Lotz, who works out of headquarters in McLean, Va., said the embargo prevents organizations like his from ministering easily to hurting people in Cuba.”American Christians should be given freedom for quick and easy access to minister in Cuba,”said Lotz.”The embargo prevents Christians from performing their Gospel requirements of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and visiting the sick. If China and other more repressive countries are open to trade, why not Cuba?” Three Baptist conventions have invited the alliance, which has 192 member bodies, to hold a meeting in Havana in July 2000. If the meeting takes place, it would be the first global gathering of the alliance in Cuba since Communist rule started there and the United States halted relations with Cuba in 1961.
Lotz also made an appeal to the Cuban government, saying Cubans would like evangelist Billy Graham to visit them in their homeland.”Billy Graham should not die before coming to Cuba,”said one Baptist leader in Cuba.
Los Angeles Episcopalians reject Lambeth condemnation of gays
(RNS) The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has voted to reject a resolution condemning homosexuality adopted by last summer’s Lambeth Conference, the worldwide gathering of bishops of the Anglican communion.
At its annual convention here Dec. 5-6, a majority of clergy and lay delegates _ balloting separately _ voted to”not receive that portion of Lambeth Conference Resolution 1.10 … rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture.” The Los Angeles diocese covers six counties and 147 churches with 85,000 members.
The vote was among the first official Episcopalian rejections of the Lambeth statement. It came after a scheduled 15-minute debate stretched to 45. Opponents of the original resolution included Episcopalians allied with the traditionalist American Anglican Council movement. Efforts by conservative and moderate Episcopalians to modify the diocesan resolution were defeated.
At Lambeth, Los Angeles Episcopal Bishop Frederick Borsch voted against the anti-gay statement. In his convention speech Dec. 5, Borsch said,”We would be remiss not to listen with care to our brother and sister bishops from around the world, but in my view they would need to gain considerably more pastoral experience and engage in more thoughtful study and Christian conversations before I could regard them as well informed and wholly guided by the Spirit on this issue.”
Quote of the day: Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo.
(RNS)”We must never confuse politics and piety. For me, it is against my religion to impose my religion.” _ Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., a potential candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000 strongly supported by religious conservatives, in a speech to the Detroit Economics Club that has raised fears among those supporters that the senator may be moving toward the middle in his presidential quest.
DEA END RNS
