c. 1999 Religion News Service
Pope arrives in New Delhi to bolster Catholic presence in Asia
(RNS) Pope John Paul II arrived in New Delhi amid tight security Friday (Nov. 5) to begin a three-day visit aimed at bolstering the minority Roman Catholic presence in India and the rest of Asia over the angry protests of Hindu fundamentalists.
The papal plane set down at Palam Military Airport, and after a brief welcoming ceremony, John Paul was driven directly to the residence of the apostolic nuncio, the Vatican envoy, where he will stay during the visit.
From New Delhi, the pope will travel on to Tbilisi, the capital of the Caucasian Republic of Georgia, on Monday.
The 79-year-old pontiff began his second visit to India in 13 years at a time of tension over attacks in recent months by fundamentalists who have killed priests and other Christian missionaries, raped nuns, destroyed prayer halls and burned Bibles.
Authorities said they added 3,500 men to the police force to ensure there would be no demonstrations or acts of violence in the Indian capital during the pope’s stay. They planned to search the tens of thousands of worshippers expected to attend a papal mass Sunday in a sports stadium.”We do not fear for the pope’s safety,”Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro- Valls told reporters during the seven-and-a-half-hour flight from Rome. He said protests against the visit were”small in number and exploited”by anti-Christians.
But Navarro-Valls said the attacks against Christians constitute a”very serious”threat to religious liberty in a country where Christians make up less than 2 percent of the population.”It is not an inter-religion problem but regards human rights because what is in discussion is the right of freedom of religious choice,”he said,”and it is happening in the largest democracy in the world, seeing that India has almost 1 billion inhabitants.” Despite the anti-Christian campaign, the 14,000 Catholic schools in India have 5 million pupils and are receiving”more and more requests from parents”to enroll their children, he said.
In reply to questions about the pope’s hope to make a series of Holy Year pilgrimages to Biblical sites in the Middle East, the spokesman said the Vatican will decide after the pope’s return whether he will travel to Iraq to visit Ur of the Chaldees, home of the Patriarch Abraham. He said a controversial plan to build a mosque close to the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth”does not facilitate the prospect of a papal trip to the Holy Land.” John Paul traveled to India to present his”apostolic exhortation”that will formally conclude a meeting of Asian bishops at the Vatican in 1998. It was one of a series of continent-wide synods the pope called to set the course of the church in the third millennium of Christianity.
The pope will sign the document, which is expected to include a call for Asian Catholics to join in a”new evangelism”to mark the new millennium, at a ceremony late Saturday in the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart.
Earlier in the day he will call on President Kocheril Raman Narayanan and Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee and visit the tomb of Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of nonviolence who led India’s struggle for independence from Britain.
John Paul’s only public appearance will be at the Mass Sunday in the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium for an expected 60,000 to 70,000 people. Later, he will meet with Hindu and other non-Christian religious leaders.
Georgia church with woman pastor dismissed by local Baptists
(RNS) The Savannah Baptist Association has dismissed a local congregation from its fellowship because the church has chosen a woman pastor.
Memorial Baptist Church, which called Carolyn Hale to be its pastor in March, was dismissed by a majority of delegates at an Oct. 20 meeting of the association affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
The Savannah church, where Hale arrived in May, was dismissed by a vote of 181 to 96.
Donnie Brannen, chairman of the association’s membership committee, said the decision came after lengthy discussions, reported Baptist Press, the SBC’s news service.”This was the most grievous thing I have dealt with on an associational level,”he said.”There was no joy in it. I have friends in that church. But there is a great deal of relief in that the association did the right thing.” Brannen said the main argument for dismissing the church was the members’ belief that the Bible prohibits women from becoming pastors.
Jimmy Long of Isle of Hope Baptist Church in Savannah voted against dismissing the church.”The issue in my mind was not the matter of calling a woman pastor so much as it was the issue of the autonomy of the local church and a difference in biblical interpretation,”Long said.
Memorial Baptist Church, which was established about 40 years ago and has more than 200 members, has long been supportive of women in ministry. Hale, the daughter of a Southern Baptist pastor, previously served as dean of student life at Georgetown College and associate pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Georgetown in South Carolina.
Armenian Apostolic Church enthrones new church leader
(RNS) The Armenian Apostolic Church, one of the world’s oldest Christian churches, enthroned its newly elected leader on Thursday (Nov. 4) in a ceremony delayed by the recent killing of several top Armenian leaders.
The enthronement of Garegin Narsesyan, 48, as the spiritual head of the 1,700-year-old Armenian Church was scheduled for Oct. 31, Reuters reported. But just hours after Narsesyan’s election to the position of Armenian Catholicos, eight Armenian leaders _ including Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian and the speaker of parliament _ were gunned down by men who broke into the ex-Soviet state’s parliament.
During the ceremony, which was televised live, Narsesyan wore a golden-red crown topped by a cross as well as a white veil to symbolize his purity as the spiritual head of the Armenian Church. Archbishops also poured holy myrrh from an ancient vessel over his head.
New Prime Minister Aram Sarkisian _ brother of the slain prime minister _ and President Robert Kocharian attended the enthronement ceremony, which was held in Etchmiadzin, the seat of the Armenian Church.
Narsesyan succeeds Garegin I, who died of cancer in June at the age of 66. Narsesyan will adopt the name Garegin II.
The Armenian Apostolic Church is one of the ancient Eastern churches which separated from Byzantine Christianity before the Eastern and Western churches split in the Great Schism of 1054.
Update: Last in group of Christians detained in Israel deported
(RNS) Israel has deported the last Christian in a group of 21 who were detained in October due to suspicions they were planning violence during the millennial year, police said.
An American who calls himself Brother David was placed aboard a New York-bound plane on Friday (Nov. 5). He had lived in Jerusalem for 20 years.
The group of 21 people lived on the Mount of Olives across from the Old City of Jerusalem where some Christians believe Jesus will arrive to mark the Second Coming. The Christians said they were involved in peaceful activities, providing shelter and guided tours for pilgrims.
But Israeli security officials believed they were making preparations for doomsday sects to carry out violent acts in hopes they would hasten the Second Coming during the year 2000, the Associated Press reported.
Brother David, who leads the House of Prayer, told reporters he had communicated with Christians who had plans to sell their belongings and move to the Mount of Olives.
He had moved to Jerusalem two decades ago after running a trailer park in Syracuse, N.Y.
His group was the third to be deported in a year, as Israeli authorities cracked down on those they believe are doomsday sects who may be planning mayhem at holy sites in Jerusalem during the millennial year.
Former University of Mobile president gets probation
(RNS) The former president of the Southern Baptist-affiliated University of Mobile was sentenced to three years on probation Thursday (Nov. 4) for tax fraud.
Michael Magnoli, who served as president of the school in Alabama from 1984 to 1997, also was ordered to perform 300 hours of community service work.
U.S. District Judge Charles Butler Jr. could have sentenced him to three years in federal prison and fined him $250,000. The judge said he decided not to impose any financial penalties because Magnoli already had repaid more than $9,600 in restitution and taxes, the Associated Press reported.
Magnoli pleaded guilty to failing to report as income about $15,000 he received from a Nicaraguan businessman in 1993 when he was trying to open a branch campus of the school in Nicaragua.
Earlier this year, a small Catholic college in Michigan bought the university’s Nicaraguan campus for an undisclosed amount. The campus had created financial problems for the university since it opened in 1992. Those problems and tensions with state Baptist leaders led to Magnoli’s firing in 1997.
Fire damages shrine, kills cleric
(RNS) A raging fire destroyed a dormitory and killed one clergyman early Friday (Nov. 5) morning at the LaSalette Shrine in Attleboro, Mass., which is famous for hosting one of the largest annual Christmas-light displays in the United States.
The fire broke out around 4 a.m., destroying a huge stone structure known as”the Castle,” The Providence Journal reported. Firefighters said they saw one body inside the building before they were forced to retreat.”The whole scene was like an inferno,”said Brother Paul Boucher, a witness to the blaze.”The fire went from one end to the other.” The cause of the fire, which began in a third-floor bedroom, is unknown.
The building housed business offices and living quarters for some of the priests of the Catholic order, Missionaries of Our Lady of LaSalette.
Twenty-two residents were in the building at the time of the fire, and all but one escaped, said State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan. Father Dennis Loomis, the head of the Roman Catholic Order of Our Lady of LaSalette, confirmed the clergyman was missing from the shrine’s retreat “Sabbath Program.” The victim’s identity was not released as of late Friday morning.
The LaSalette Shrine’s annual Festival of Lights is one of America’s largest Christmas season outdoor-light displays, drawing spectators from several states and Canada. The display uses an estimated 225,000 lights and 157 miles of wire.
Loomis said the order will install its annual display as planned this year.
Vatican envoy seeks clemency for death-row inmates
(RNS) The Apostolic Nuncio to the United States has urged the governors of Ohio and Texas to grant clemency to two men sentenced to death row in those states.
On behalf of Pope John Paul II, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo wrote letters to Ohio Gov. Bob Taft and Texas Gov. George W. Bush on Oct. 27 requesting clemency for Kenny Richey in Ohio and David Hicks in Texas.
An execution date has not been set for Richey, who was sentenced in 1987 after a murder conviction. Hicks, convicted of the 1988 rape and murder of his grandmother, is scheduled to be executed on January 20, 2000.
In his written request to Bush, the archbishop quoted words the pope spoke at a Mass in January in St. Louis, where the pope convinced Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan to commute the death sentence of a convicted murderer.”A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil,”the pope said.”Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform.”
Vancouver Anglican bishop blocks visit by conservative Asian prelate
(RNS) Vancouver’s Anglican bishop has blocked the planned visit to British Columbia of a controversial Anglican archbishop from Asia who opposes gay rights and believes totem poles contain evil spirits.
Conservative Anglicans around the world are accusing Bishop Michael Ingham,the most liberal bishop in Canada, of censorship.
But Ingham said he barred the visit of Moses Tay of Singapore, the top Anglican in Southeast Asia, because he feared Tay would disrupt sensitive discussions within the Vancouver diocese over blessing same-sex unions and handling past abuse at church-run native residential schools.
Ingham’s decision to stop St. Matthew’s Church in Abbotsford from bringing Tay to an event next year has disappointed and angered many conservative Anglicans in British Columbia elsewhere, who have been criticizing Ingham on an Internet Web site.
But Ingham said Tay”has been very aggressive in his anti-homosexual and homophobic stance.”At last year’s Lambeth conference of the world’s Anglican bishop, Tay was among the most radically conservative. He opposed even discussing homosexual issues because he doesn’t want”any polluting literature”in his churches. And he refused to attend the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council this summer because its host, Bishop Richard Holloway of Scotland, supports gay rights.
When Tay was last in British Columbia about 10 years ago, Ingham said, Tay organized prayer meetings to exorcise the evil spirits from native Indian totem poles after seeing them in Stanley Park.”I’m all for theological diversity, but I’m concerned his visit would harm my attempts to create dialogue and mutual listening in the diocese,”Ingham said.
Even though Tay, primate of the church for all of Southeast Asia, has a higher rank than Ingham, the Vancouver bishop has the right to temporarily ban him. Church protocol says local bishops must give permission before other Anglican officials enter their diocese.
Quote of the day: Dennis Shepard, father of slain gay student
(RNS)”I would like nothing better than to see you die, Mr. McKinney. However, this is the time to begin the healing process, to show mercy to someone who refused to show any mercy.” _ Dennis Shepard, father of Matthew Shepard, speaking at the Thursday (Nov. 4) sentencing of Aaron J. McKinney, who was convicted of murdering his son.
DEA END RNS
