c. 1998 Religion News Service
Lutherans back away from signing joint declaration with Vatican
(RNS) After expressing high hopes that one of the central theological issues leading to the Protestant Reformation was about to be laid to rest, the Lutheran World Federation says it is not now ready to sign a major doctrinal statement drawn up between representatives of the Vatican and the LWF.
In June, the LWF had announced its backing for the”joint declaration on justification”that said both faith bodies had essentially the same understanding of the doctrine about how people are saved and that would have led to the lifting of the mutual condemnations Lutherans and Catholics leveled at each other during the Reformation.
It was hoped that a festive, public joint signing ceremony would be held before the end of the year.
But a week after the LWF announced its support of the joint declaration, the Vatican issued its official response and while Cardinal Edward Cassidy, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said the Roman Catholic Church would sign the document, the official response appeared to cast doubt on the Vatican’s willingness to state that the Catholic condemnations no longer applied to the Lutheran teaching outlined in the declaration.
On Nov. 14, however, Ishmael Noko, general secretary of the LWF, issued a statement saying that despite two days of intense negotiation between Vatican and LWF officials, the two sides could only agree on”further consultation,”according to Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.”Joint signature can take place only if there is a common understanding of what is being signed,”Noko said.
Bishop Christian Krause, president of the LWF, said it is unlikely there will be any definitive ruling by the Lutheran body on signing the statement until at least the middle of next year.”We are in the last phase of a 30-year dialogue,”he said referring to the official international theological discussions between Lutherans and Catholics.”What is six months?”
U.S. to up its aid to Hurricane-ravaged Central America
(RNS) First Lady Hillary Clinton, on the first leg of a week-long trip through storm-ravaged Central America, has said the U.S. will provide $100 million in new food aid, debt relief and other disaster assistance to the countries most devastated earlier this month by Hurricane Mitch.”All of us are standing with you as your friends and partners in dealing with the aftermath of this tragedy,”Clinton said in brief remarks in Tegucigalpa.
The new aid raises official U.S. relief to Central America to about $250 million, the Washington Post reported.
Included in the aid are 16 additional helicopters, 11 water purification systems, a field hospital, road building equipment and $51 million in new food aid.
The United States has been criticized by some relief workers on the ground for not recognizing the severity of Hurricane Mitch and therefore not responding with either the urgency or level of aid needed.
On the debt relief question, which has been pressed by Central American and U.S. church officials as a key component of assistance necessary for the countries _ especially Honduras and Nicaragua _ to begin rebuilding, Clinton said the United States would”provide up to $54 million for Nicaragua and Honduras”by allowing them to suspend bilateral debt payments for the next two years.
And she said the United States is working with other international donors such as the International Monetary Fund for a similar suspension. Nicaragua and Honduras pay out about $1 million a day each to service their debts.
Odyssey Channel to be re-launched with new partners
(RNS) The Odyssey Channel cable network, founded by an interfaith coalition of religious organizations, has finalized its partnership with Hallmark Entertainment and The Jim Henson Company and will be re-launched in the spring of 1999 with new programming from Henson and Hallmark.
The two existing shareholders _ the National Interfaith Cable Coalition, Inc., the channel’s founding group, and Liberty Media Corporation _ will remain as partners in the re-configured network.
Odyssey also announced that Margaret Loesch, who has been president of The Jim Henson Television Group, has been named president and chief executive officer of Odyssey. She will have complete oversight responsibility of the network and will report to a board of directors comprised of representatives from all four partners.
While the re-launched channel will have at its disposal more than 4,000 hours of programming from the Hallmark and Henson library, Odyssey said in a statement it will”continue its commitment to keeping faith visible on television by presenting quality original and existing faith-and-values programming which has been the tradition of the channel.” Wilford Bane of the National Interfaith Cable Coalition said the new partnership will be an opportunity to win an audience for both religious and family television.”By weaving exceptional values-based entertainment programming with broad-based and inquiring religious programming, we hope our channel will more closely reflect (the) reality where values and searching for meaning are a part of everyday lives,”he said.
Sweden Catholic Church gets first Swedish bishop in four centuries
(RNS) For the first time in four centuries, Sweden’s small Roman Catholic community will be be led by a Swede. The Vatican has named the Rev. Anders Arborelius, born in Switzerland of Swedish parents, to be the new bishop of Stockholm, a jurisdiction that includes all of Sweden.
Arborelius will replace Bishop Hubertus Brandenburg, a German, who offered his retirement Tuesday (Nov. 17), upon reaching the Vatican’s normal retirement age of 75.
Arborelius is the first Swede to head the Swedish Catholic Church since the 1500s, when the Scandinavian nation came under the influence of the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation turned Sweden from a Catholic country to one in which Catholicism was banned. Until 1860, it was illegal for Swedes to be Catholic.
Today, about 165,000 Swedes _ about 2 percent of the population _ are Catholic, according to the Associated Press. Most priests in Sweden are foreign born.
Quote of the day: Al Jah Murad of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(RNS)”We told them them to release him or we will attack. Of course, our primary consideration was the safety of the priest.” _ Al Jah Murad, vice chairman for military affairs of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front telling reporters Sunday (Nov. 15) of the efforts by the MILF to win the release of the Rev. Luciano Benedetti, an Italian Roman Catholic priest held for 10 weeks by gunmen in the Philippines.
DEA END RNS
