c. 1999 Religion News Service
Black churches urged to address father absence
(RNS) A new document on the absence of African-American fathers urges black churches to help reverse the trend through programs that promote”gender and family healing.””We agree that there are profound spiritual dimensions to this crisis, and that in order to make the way for nurturing relationships between fathers and their children, much healing must be done between fathers and mothers, men and women,”reads the consensus statement supported by a politically diverse group including prominent African-American scholars and nationally known leaders of the fatherhood movement.”Turning the Corner on Father Absence in Black America,”a 30-page document, is a product of the African American Fathers project, co-sponsored by the Morehouse Research Institute, an Atlanta-based clearinghouse of information about African-American males, and the Institute of American Values, a New York-based organization focused on family well-being.
Among the statement’s 10 recommendations is one urging increased programming by black churches to address father absence.
It suggests initiatives to improve relationships between black men and black women as well as those between parents and children. It also recommends more programs focused on helping prepare men and women for marriage and”rites of passage”that help young men and women make the transition into adulthood. The black church also can help reunite imprisoned fathers with their children, the report said.
The report views the black church community as a focal point _ often as a partner with other institutions and agencies _ for dealing with the spiritual side of father absence in the African-American community.”It is tied to a spiritual brokenness that is, in turn, linked to economic, political, cultural, and social patterns that are partly rooted in slavery and continuing adversities,”the statement reads.”The church’s challenge is to rise to this most vital mission of helping the African-American community to heal through ministries of forgiveness and reconciliation.” Other recommendations include the increased support of churches and other organizations in the education of black children through”alternative community-based and values-oriented educational systems.” The report also recommended legislation to support community-based programs that seek to reduce father absence.
The 50 signatories include Ken Canfield, president, National Center for Fathering; Stephen Carter, professor of law, Yale University; John J. DiIulio Jr., professor of politics, religion and civil society, University of Pennsylvania; Rev. Robert M. Franklin, president, Interdenominational Theological Center; Wade F. Horn, president, National Fatherhood Initiative; and Glenn C. Loury, director, Institute on Race and Social Division, Boston University.
Presbyterians elect Princeton educator as new moderator
(RNS) Delegates to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A), meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, have elected Freda A. Gardner, a former Princeton Seminary professor of Christian education, to be the denomination’s new moderator.
Gardner was elected on the second ballot.
In a speech before the balloting, Gardner said she wanted to tell the”amazing story of the Presbyterian Church … not the story of what divides us but the stories of the many ways in which Christian ministry is being carried out.” She said the denomination, sharply divided over issues of human sexuality, needed”to find new ways to talk about what bothers us about the ordination issue.”We need to learn to listen,”she added.”I think we can do that and then live with it until the truth breaks through and we are all the better for.” The moderator, who serves a one-year term, is primarily responsible for presiding at the 3.6 million-member denomination’s General Assembly _ its top legislative body _ and to travel throughout the church as a spokesperson for the denomination.
In other action at the General Assembly, the General Assembly Council, the top policy-making body under the Assembly, upheld the decision of its executive committee to allow a lesbian minister to receive a prestigious award during the meeting.
By a 41-40 secret ballot, the council allowed that one of the annual Women of Faith Awards may be presented to the Rev. Jane Spahr of San Rafael, Calif., an evangelist who, contrary to longstanding PCUSA policy, advocates the ordination of gays and lesbians to the Presbyterian ministry.
Spahr is one of three 1999 recipients of the award that was first presented in 1920, when women won the secular right to vote. Her selection as one of the recipients has sparked controversy throughout the church.
The narrow margin of the vote prompted the GAC to approve a”pastoral letter”to the Assembly insisting the vote was not an endorsement of”anyone’s position for or against the policies and standards of the church.”
Greek Orthodox official urges U.S. for Yugoslavia reconstruction
(RNS) The head of the American Greek Orthodox church has urged President Clinton to commit American aid to the reconstruction of Yugoslavia, even as the president ruled out such assistance at the U.S.-European Union summit in Germany on Monday (June 21).
Clinton said Yugoslavia, aside from Kosovo, should receive nothing but humanitarian aid as long as President Slobodan Milosevic remains in power. Milosevic’s Serbian nationalist policies are viewed by the United States and other NATO nations as the cause of recent Balkan conflicts in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia.”Not a bit, not a penny,”Clinton said of American reconstruction aid to Yugoslavia.
However, Archbishop Spyridon, head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, said the protection of the Serbian Orthodox minority and Serbian Orthodox religious sites in Kosovo plus the reconstruction of Yugoslavia must be assured if real peace is to be achieved in the region.
In a letter to the president, Spyridon noted the call by Archbishop Pavle I of the Serbian Orthodox Church for Milosevic’s resignation. Pavle also announced he would move to Kosovo for an indefinite period to lend support to Serbs there and help protect Orthodox religious properties.
Archbishop Chrystodoulos, who leads the Orthodox Church of Greece, said on Monday he also would go to Kosovo. Tens of thousands of Orthodox Serbs are reported to have fled Kosovo in fear of ethnic Albanian retaliation for their suffering at Serb hands. Serbs consider Kosovo their historic and spiritual homeland.
Spyridon also said his archdiocese has contributed $85,000 to the International Orthodox Christian Charities, a pan-Orthodox aid group, for humanitarian relief in Yugoslavia.
Castro on hand as Cuban Protestants hold mass outdoor rally
(RNS) As President Fidel Castro looked on from a front-row seat, tens of thousands of Cuban Protestants held an unprecedented outdoor celebration in Havana on Sunday (June 20) in another sign of the Cuban government’s growing religious tolerance.
The rally was held in the same Havana plaza where an estimated 500,000 people gathered for the final Mass of Pope John Paul’s 1998 visit to Cuba. The Cuban Evangelical Celebration at the Plaza of the Revolution was billed by organizers as the largest Protestant event of its kind ever in a Caribbean nation.
At the rally, the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, secretary-general of the U.S. National Council of Churches, urged those in attendance to pardon the United States for its ongoing economic embargo against Cuba. The NCC has long called for an end to the embargo.”It is on behalf of Jesus the liberator that we work against this embargo, Campbell said.”We ask you to forgive the suffering that has come to you by the actions of the United States.” Sunday’s event was jointly organized by Cuba’s 49 Protestant denominations, which claim an active membership of about 250,000.
News reports from Havana said the rally often resembled a political event. The Associated Press said the Cuban government viewed the event as a way of bolstering its support among American Protestant leaders for lobbying the U.S. government to end the embargo.
Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, Cuban Protestant churches are not seen by Castro’s communist government as having identified with the upper class that held power in pre-Castro Cuba.
Clinton decision on Jerusalem embassy draws mixed Jewish reaction
(RNS) President Clinton’s decision to block plans to relocate the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has gained the support of liberal American Jews, as well as the condemnation of more conservative ones.
In 1995, the Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation mandating the embassy move by June 1999. But the law also contained a waiver provision that allowed Clinton to block the move on national security grounds.
Running for the presidency in 1992, Clinton promised to move the embassy to Jerusalem, which most countries do not recognize as Israel’s capital but rather as disputed territory under international law. Once in office, Clinton said moving the embassy would complicate Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
Friday (June 18), Clinton invoked the waiver to block the embassy move.
The Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism, a liberal group, said that while it believes”Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Israel,”there were”nevertheless understandable reasons not to force a decision on moving the embassy at this precise moment.” The center pointed to the United States’s need to remain”a trusted partner”in the peace process agreeable to Palestinians and Israelis alike, new Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s attempt to form a coalition government, and the agreement of both sides that Jerusalem’s status is to be decided by Israeli-Palestinian negotiations alone.
However, the Orthodox Union’s Institute for Public Affairs, a conservative group, said Clinton’s action”will, unfortunately, be misconstrued by Israel’s enemies to suggest that Jerusalem’s future status is somehow uncertain. The institute urged Clinton to reverse his position and to”obey”the law passed by Congress.
The American Committee on Jerusalem, an Arab-American organization, said it”welcomes”Clinton’s decision.
In the weeks leading up to Clinton’s decision, 10 U.S. senators and 63 House members had urged Clinton to authorize the embassy’s move.
Reward posted in Sacramento synagogue fires
(RNS) A $10,000 reward has been offered by a national group of rabbis in connection with the apparently coordinated arson attacks on three synagogues in Sacramento, Calif.
The reward was posted by the North American Boards of Rabbis for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in the attacks, which caused moderate damage to two synagogues and destroyed the library of a third on Friday (June 18).
In a statement, Rabbi Marc Schneier, the group’s president, said”the horror of this past Friday, as Jews around the world were preparing for the Sabbath, is reminiscent of Kristallnacht, when the synagogues of whole communities were set ablaze.” Kristallnacht, which occurred on Nov. 8-9, 1938, refers to attacks on synagogues, businesses and other Jewish-owned properties across Nazi Germany. It is generally regarded as the start of Hitler’s full-blown effort to destroy European Jewry.
In Sacramento, literature blaming the”International Jewsmedia”for the war in Kosovo was found at one of the synagogues set ablaze. The fires are being investigated as hate crimes.
Meanwhile, the American Jewish Committee announced it would donate $30,000 to the repair of the three synagogues Temple B’nai Israel and Knesset Israel Torah in Sacramento, and Temple Beth Shalom in the suburb of Carmichael, Calif.
Pope to open year 2000 by telling the world”peace is possible” (RNS) Pope John Paul II, deeply concerned about the conflicts over Kosovo and Kashmir during 1999, will open the year 2000 by telling the world”peace is possible,”the Vatican said Monday (June 21).
The Vatican announced that John Paul has chosen as the theme of the 33rd World Day of Peace, to be celebrated Jan. 1, 2000,”Peace on Earth to Men Whom God Loves.””With his first message of the year 2000, the Holy Father wants to manifest to everyone his profound conviction: peace is possible if humanity searches for and finds God, who is the God of peace. God wants peace; thus peace is possible,”the Vatican said.
The pope, who returned Thursday, from a grueling 13-day trip to his native Poland, told pilgrims who gathered in St. Peter’s Square below his study window for his Sunday noon blessing that he is concerned over consolidating peace in Kosovo and ending the conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.”My thoughts go in particular to Europe, which bears the still bloody wounds of the recent conflict in Yugoslavia; they also go to two countries of Asia, India and Pakistan, where peace is gravely compromised,”he said.”Let us pray together that the peace process is consolidated in Europe; let us pray that India and Pakistan will newly undertake the road to dialogue, striving to immediately put an end to combat with its burden of violence and death,”he said.
The Vatican said the pope wants to dedicate the Holy Year 2000 to the search for peace.”The last months of the second millennium have unfortunately been marked by tragic and bloody conflicts in various parts of the world in which the great majority of the victims are innocent civilians or fraternal peoples,”the Vatican said.”The Great Jubilee must become a moment of intense prayer and renewed commitment to overcoming war as an instrument to resolve differences.” Calling armaments an inadequate means to build peace, John Paul said economic development and respect for human rights and the environment are needed.
The Vatican, in announcing the the World Day of Peace theme, said the world faces the”great challenge of peace”in a time of paradox _ globalization, on the one hand, and, on the other,”a general fragmenting that leads to instability and social insecurity.”It is not enough to silence the arms to have peace.”it said,”Peace embraces every aspect of the life of a society: development, the economy, human rights, the safeguarding of the creation. To face the modern challenges, new peace programs and structures that are adequate to new world configurations are needed.”Furthermore, without eliminating misery, without integral development of all peoples, peace will always remain fragile. Peace, in fact, is founded on the human person, endowed with an inalienable dignity and called to live together with others in a society open to peaceful co-existence in diversity.”
Update: Group urging married priesthood finds replacement for bishop (RNS) An Australian priest who has come under Vatican criticism for his outspoken support of ordaining married men and women will address an international gathering of reform-minded Roman Catholics when they meet this summer in Atlanta.
On Monday, CORPUS, the North American association for a married priesthood, said the Rev. Paul Collins will be the keynote speaker to the Fifth Worldwide Congress of the International Federation of Married Catholic Priests.
Collins will replace Bishop Remi De Roo, a retired Canadian prelate who withdrew as a speaker after being told by the Vatican not to address the group.
Collins, an opinionated priest, broadcaster and church historian, has fought censorship efforts by the Vatican.
The gathering, to be held July 28 to Aug. 1 at Emory University, will address concerns from mandatory celibacy to divorce to the priest shortage.
CORPUS, also said that the Rev. Jim Callan of Rochester, N.Y., will be honored at the event. Callan was ousted as pastor of Corpus Christi church for distributing Communion to non-Catholics, blessing gay unions and allowing a female pastoral associate at the altar.
The Catholic Organizations for Renewal, a group of leaders from more than 30 reform organizations, and several similar groups have scheduled meetings in Atlanta to coincide with the Congress.
Held every three years, the upcoming Congress is expected to draw 300 church activists from 15 countries to the hometown of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The 1996 gathering was held in Brazil. The International Federation is based in the Netherlands and has a membership of more than 40 organizations of married priests and other church activists.
Quote of the day: Kevin Carlyon, head of the British White Witches.
(RNS)”Stonehenge should be a place of worship. It is not for sex, drugs and rock and roll.” _ Kevin Carlyon, head of the British White Witches, commenting on the hundreds of revelers who broke through barricades and invaded the prehistoric Stonehenge monument forcing the cancellation June 20 of a planned druid celebration of the summer solstice.
DEA END RNS
