c. 1998 Religion News Service
Supreme Court allows religious group’s role in Minnesota school
(RNS) The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to a Minnesota school district’s operation of a rural school rented from a religious group and attended only by members of the group.
Without comment, the justices declined Monday (April 27) to hear arguments that the arrangement was a violation of the constitutional mandate of separation of church and state.
The Independent School District No. 640 runs public schools in an agricultural area of southwest Minnesota that includes the towns of Vesta and Wabasso.
After the district closed a Vesta elementary school building in 1984, it was bought by Lloyd Paskewitz in 1991. He offered the next year to rent it to the school district, the Associated Press reported.
Paskewitz is a member of the Brethren, a Christian group that shuns the use of technology, including radios, television and computers. Court documents indicated that about one-third of the residents of Vesta are Brethren members.
The rental proposal included a request that the Vesta school not contain technological equipment and be multi-age. Paskewitz said about 20 Brethren children were interested in going to the school.
The proposal was approved unanimously by the district’s school board, whose members cited savings in transportation costs and the prevention of lost state aid if Brethren families chose to home-school their children.
Two taxpayers in the district sued, arguing the agreement would foster state-sponsored advancement of religion. A federal judge ruled in their favor and prevented the district from opening the school.
A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, reversed the federal judge, ruling 2-1, and said the district could run the school.
The appeals court noted no non-Brethren child had been prevented from attending the school.
Lawyers for the suing taxpayers said the appeals court decision conflicts with past Supreme Court rulings that”prohibit the tailoring of public school curricula for religious believers to satisfy their religious objections to curricula components.”
Guatemalan Roman Catholic bishop murdered after issuing rights report
(RNS) A Roman Catholic bishop in Guatemala, noted for his outspoken advocacy of human rights, has been murdered just two days after presenting a scathing report on human rights violations during the country’s 36-year civil war.
Auxiliary Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi Conedera was killed by blows to the head with a concrete block in the garage of his Guatemala City home Sunday (April 26) night, church officials said.
Although prosecutors said Monday they had not determined a motive in the killing, a layworker who helped the bishop in the three-year investigation, said the timing was suspicious, the Associated Press reported.
Edgar Guiterrez, the head staffer on the report”Never Again in Guatemala,”said”we can’t ignore”the fact that the report had just been released on Friday.
The report cast blame on the Guatemalan army and civilian paramilitary groups it started for close to 80 percent of rights abuses in the civil war.
Jean Arnold, director of the U.N. mission for Guatemala, called the murder”a violent contrast, given that Gerardi was a man who played a role in the peace process.” Leftist rebels fought the often repressive government during the 36-year period, one of Latin America’s longest civil wars. A peace accord was signed in 1996.
Gerardi is the first bishop murdered in Guatemala and his slaying is the first killing of such a high-ranking church official in Central America since the peace accord was signed.
Methodists set August date for judicial hearing on same-sex union issues
(RNS) The United Methodist Church’s highest judicial body has called a special session for Aug. 7-8 in Dallas to consider the meaning and force of language related to the denomination’s ban on blessing same-sex unions.
A question about the prohibitory language _ added to the 8.5 million-member church’s Social Principles by the 1996 General Conference _ was submitted to the Judicial Council, the denomination’s equivalent to the Supreme Court, on April 8 by the bishops from its South Central Jurisdiction.
The bishops asked the judicial council for a ruling on whether a pastor who violates the ban on blessing or officiating at a same-sex union ceremony has committed a”chargeable”offense under church law.
The bishops’ action stemmed from the March 13 acquittal of the Rev. Jimmy Creech, senior pastor of First United Methodist Church, Omaha, Neb. Creech, who performed a covenanting ceremony for two women last September, was charged with violating church law.”We may well hear other petitions concerning the same subject and related ones from other parties,”the council said in a statement issued during its regular semi-annual session April 22.
A key area of controversy concerns the location of the prohibition in the church’s Social Principles, a statement included in the denomination’s Book of Discipline along with its constitution and historical and doctrinal statements. While the Book of Discipline is church law, traditionally, the Social Principles have not carried the same weight but have been seen more as guidelines for church action in the world.
British bishops criticize proposed trade agreement
(RNS) – The Roman Catholic bishops of England and Wales have strongly criticized the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) currently being negotiated within the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international organization of developed nations.
The bishops, noting the agreement would in effect provide the framework for future patterns of world trade, said in a statement issued Friday (April 24) that all countries whose futures were at stake, and not just the 29 wealthy countries of the OECD, should be invited to take part in the negotiations.
The bishops also pointed to what they called a”fundamental contrast”between the proposed agreement’s treatment of the obligations of governments to investors _ obligations to be enforced by international tribunals _ and the commitments of investors for such things as fair employment practices and environmental protection, which would be subject only to voluntary codes of practice.
They noted several OECD members”have already demanded far-reaching exemptions”for their governments on a number of such issues and suggested the agreement was primarily aimed at deregulating the flow of investment”in those countries which, not being OECD members, are effectively excluded from the negotiations.” The bishops’ statement said the agreement, if enacted, would”seem to disable (poor) governments from fulfilling their primary function of protecting and enhancing the social well-being and the common good of their peoples.” The bishops also decided to set up within the bishops’ conference’s structure a new committee to deal specifically with questions of the environment _ both”life-style”issues, such as educating people to become aware of their responsibilities to the environment, and global issues such as climate change, pollution, and the plundering of natural resources.
Update: China won’t let two Catholic bishops go to Rome
(RNS) China has refused to let two Roman Catholic bishops attend the Vatican’s Synod on Asia, currently underway in Rome, because the Vatican lacks diplomatic relations with China, according to one of the bishops.
Bishop Matthias Duan Yinmin told the Associated Press that he had been informed by government officials who oversee religious affairs that he and his deputy, Bishop Joseph Xu Zhixuan, would not be issued passports for the meeting.
The monthlong synod, bringing together bishops from throughout Asia to discuss the future of the church in the region, began April 19. The Vatican had issued the invitation to the two bishops _ who are in the unusual position of being part of the government-sanctioned Catholic church in China while also maintaining allegiance to Rome _ but government officials said the invitation did not come through a state-approved religious organization.
China’s Communist Party expeled papal representatives in 1950 and set up a government-controlled church to eliminate the Vatican’s influence and that church insists on the right to name bishops. An underground church, whose worshipers remain loyal to Rome, has sprung up and John Paul is believed to have named bishops and cardinals to lead the underground.
As China has modified its harsh repression of religion, however, the two churches are co-existing.
Quote of the day: Marilyn Dineen, a non-churchgoer in Edinboro, Pa.
(RNS)”I don’t usually come. But today I needed something. I needed to be with people who believe in something.” _ Marilyn Dineen, 21, a non-churchgoer interviewed by USA Today on Sunday (April 26) after she attended church services at the United Methodist Church, Edinboro, Pa., following the killing Friday of science teacher John Gillette, allegedly by a 14-year-old boy at a school dance.
DEA END RNS
