c. 1999 Religion News Service

Mellon Bank won’t do business with Focus on the Family over gay issue

(RNS) James Dobson, president of the Focus on the Family ministry said Wednesday (Aug. 11) the Mellon Bank has refused to do business with the nonprofit organization because of its stand opposing homosexuality.

Dobson’s comments, made on the group’s widely listened-to radio program, were the latest chapter in a saga that began last spring when Focus asked Mellon Bank to help manage its growing gift annuity program.

Last Friday, however, Dobson said on his radio broadcast that the bank had refused to do business with the ministry, terming it”family unfriendly.” He asked listeners to respond to the Mellon Bank directly and a recorded message at Focus’ headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., gave the telephone numbers of the bank’s president and chairman as well as the main switchboard number.

After callers innundated the bank, Ronald Gruendl, manager for media relations of the Mellon Bank, said in a statement the potential business relationship”ended when it was discovered that our non-discrimination policy and federal and state guidelines, which have been upheld in court, and Focus on the Family’s mission statement are in conflict.”Our reason for not doing business with them was purely a business-related matter.” Mellon has also asked Focus to”retract their statement, publicly apologize to Mellon for making such an incorrect statement and ask their audience to refrain from further calls to Mellon. Failure to adhere to our request may result in legal action.” A new statement released on Monday (Aug. 9) was briefer and simply asserted the bank did not choose to work with Focus”for appropriate business reasons,”adding,”Mellon’s nondiscrimination policy adheres to all federal, state and local guidelines.” Tom Mason, executive vice president of Focus, said he talked to David Holtz, a Mellon vice president, after the bank declined the account. During the conversation Mason said he made it clear to Holtz that Focus supports the civil rights of homosexuals but does not believe gays should be treated as a”protected class.” According to Mason, Holtz responded that such a belief is in conflict with the bank’s policy and was one of the”problems”that prevented the bank from moving forward with the relationship.

Focus on the Family’s mission statement is”To cooperate with the Holy Spirit in disseminating the gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible, and, specifically, to accomplish that objective by helping to preserve traditional values and the institution of the family.” Mellon Bank Corporation (NYSE: MEL) is one of the country’s largest financial service corporations with more than $2.4 trillion in assets under management, administration or custody, according to a statement from the Pittsburgh-based bank.

Serbian Orthodox bishops join opposition to Milosevic

(RNS) The Serbian Orthodox Church has stepped up its call for the resignation of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic following the recent NATO military action in Kosovo province. Serbian President Milan Milutinovic, a Milosevic ally, was also urged to step down.

The church’s bishops, meeting Tuesday (Aug. 10), added their voices to an earlier demand that Milosevic resign that was issued in June by the influential church’s senior leadership, the Holy Synod led by Patriarch Pavle.

In a statement, the bishops said”we appeal to the presidents of Serbia and Yugoslavia _ if they genuinely do not want to turn their people and their state into their own hostages _ to immediately make way for other figures to take over the helm of state and take the people out of the cul de sac in which they have been driven,”Reuters news service reported.

Serbia is the dominant republic in Yugoslavia. Kosovo is a province of Serbia. While Serbs are generally Orthodox Christians, Kosovar Albanians who dominate the province are by and large Muslims.

While calling for a change in government leadership, the bishops _ some of whom in the past have supported Milosevic’s attempts to consolidate Serbian control over Kosovo _ were highly critical of the international sanctions against Yugoslavia for its actions in Kosovo and Bosnia.

They also criticized the NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo and the international community’s inability to prevent revenge attacks by Kosovar Albanians against Kosovar Serbs.

Despite the new calls by the church for Milosevic’s resignation, officials said that Pavle would not apperar at a planned anti-Milosevic rally set for Aug. 19 in Belgrade.

Pope cuts general audience short to watch solar eclipse

(RNS) Pope John Paul II cut his weekly general audience short Wednesday (Aug. 11) so some 7,000 pilgrims attending the audience _ and he himself _ could watch the last solar eclipse of the millennium.”I conclude now because I know that some of you are in a hurry to watch the eclipse of the sun,”the Roman Catholic pontiff said.

The audience started 10 minutes early and lasted only an hour, allowing the pope to board an Italian army helicopter 40 minutes earlier than usual to return to his summer residence at Castelgandolfo in the Alban Hills south of Rome.

The eclipse, which began at 11 a.m. in Rome, reached its peak at 12:43 p.m. when the shadow of the moon covered 84 percent of the sun. The pope took off from the heliport in the Vatican gardens at noon and landed at Castelgandolfo at 12:30 p.m.

Vatican television showed an aide offering John Paul dark glasses in what appeared to be a solderer’s mask to protect his eyes as he watched the final stages of the eclipse.

The 79-year-old pontiff is greatly interested in science, particularly astronomy, and among guests meeting with him this week at a symposium on”The Balance of the Century That Is Ending”is the Polish astronomer Michail Heller, Vatican sources said.

The 17th century papal palace, built on the site of the villa that Roman Emperor Domitian inhabited in the 1st century A.D., has an observatory on its roof, installed by Pope Pius IX in the 19th century.

But the pope watched the eclipse with his nine guests, who also included physicists and cosmologists, from the terrace of the palace overlooking Lake Albano.

The Vatican observatory, called La Specola after the Latin word for mirror, now serves mainly as a center for theoretical analysis because interference from the bright lights of Rome and the pall cast by pollution prevent astronomical observation.”You don’t see much at all from here,”the Rev. Sabino Maffeo, a Jesuit astronomer who works at La Specola, said. He said most of the observatory’s staff has traveled to better locations to view the eclipse.

The Vatican in 1994 opened another observatory on Mount Graham in Arizona, considered the best site in North America for viewing the skies. There Vatican astronomers, under the direction of the Rev. George Coyne, seek to discover and describe new stellar formations.

Mount Graham was a controversial choice. The Vatican had to overcome protests from American Indians, who consider the mountain sacred, and from environmentalists intent on protecting a rare species of red squirrel found there.

Court: Pastor must be turned over to Rwanda genocide tribunal

(RNS) The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, has ruled that an elderly Rwandan cleric accused of participating in the genocide in Rwanda must be turned over the United Nation’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

U.S.Circuit Court Judge Emilio Garza, writing for the court majority, said there is enough evidence to establish probable cause that Elizaphan Ntalirutimana, 75, a Seventh-day Adventist clergyman, participated in the crimes for which he’s charged and that the United States’ extradition agreement with the tribunal is constitutional, the Associated Press reported Friday (Aug. 6).

Ntalirutimanai is accused of urging a large, mostly Tutsi group of men, women and children to seek refuge in a church and hospital complex and then taking part in a daylong gun and machete attack on the refugees by Hutus that resulted in hundreds of deaths.

He is also accused of being part of a convoy that continued to carry out attacks in the weeks that followed against Tutsis who escaped the church massacre.

Following the genocide, in which more than 500,000 people, mostly Tutsis, were killed, Ntalirutimanai left Rwanda and came to the United States and settled in Texas.

The extradition case has largely been fought over whether the Rwanda tribunal was legally formed and whether a U.S. decision to surrender the suspect is constitutional.

The ruling, which upheld a lower court ruling by U.S. Circuit Judge John Rainey, was praised by human rights activists.”The decision is tangible proof of the U.S. support for the rule of law,”said Michael Posner, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.”It sets an important domestic precedent as Mr. Ntakirutimana is the first person that the United States has been asked to surrender to either of the international criminal tribunals.”The other tribunal is probing war crimes in Bosnia.

Robertson calls assassination”practical”foreign policy

(RNS) Christian Coalition President Pat Robertson said it might be”practical”foreign policy to assassinate some international leaders.

He was quoted Monday (Aug. 9) on”The 700 Club,”a program airing nationally on his Christian Broadcasting Network.”I know it sounds somewhat Machiavellian and evil, to think that you could send a squad in to take out somebody like (terrorist) Osama bin Laden or to take out the head of North Korea,”the religious broadcaster said.”But isn’t it better to do something like that, to take out (Serbian President Slobodan) Milosevic, to take out (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein, rather than to spend billions and billions of dollars on a war that harms innocent civilians and destroys the infrastructure of a country?”It would just seem so much more practical to have that flexibility.” Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a watchdog group that has criticized the coalition, disclosed the comments in a news release.”As a Christian, Pat should ask himself, `What would Jesus do?'”responded Barry Lynn, executive director of the group.”In my Bible, Jesus never said anything about assassinating heads of state. Forget schools and courthouses, maybe we should post the Ten Commandments in Robertson’s office.” On the show, Robertson said he viewed his comments as”balancing the good vs. the evil”when dealing with some world leaders.”I just think it’s the intelligent thing to do and I don’t see anything un-Christian about it,”Robertson said.

New Christian-Muslim violence leaves at least 25 dead in Indonesia

(RNS) Muslims and Christians have clashed anew in eastern Indonesia, leaving at least 25 people dead. Police and soldiers Wednesday (Aug. 11) opened fire on the rioters, adding to the toll.

More than 300 have died since January in Indonesia’s eastern Malaku province in the inter-religious fighting. The unrest is just one example of the widespread ethnic and religious violence that has erupted across Indonesia for more than a year, fed by the nation’s economic and political uncertainties.

More than 90 percent of Indonesia’s 210 million people are Muslims. However, large numbers of Christians live in Malaku province.

Quote of the day: Druid Ed Prynn

(RNS)”I have never been so excited in all my life. Merlin stepped into the breach for us.” Druid Ed Prynn in Land’s End, England after invoking the spirit of the ancient British wizard to part the clouds for a viewing of the last solar eclipse of the millennium.

DEA END RNS