c. 1999 Religion News Service
June 14, 1999
Pope to visit ailing Armenia patriarch
(RNS) _ Pope John Paul II will make a hastily arranged”ecumenical pilgrimage”to Armenia to visit the seriously ill Orthodox Patriarch Karekin I at the end of his current trip to Poland, the Vatican said Monday (June 14).
In a virtually unprecedented last-minute change of plans, John Paul will spend an extra night in Poland and then fly on to the Caucasus before returning to Rome on Friday (June 18), Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said.
The Roman Catholic pontiff had been scheduled to visit Armenia and meet with Karekin I July 2-4, but the Vatican announced Friday the trip had been postponed”because of the deterioration in the patriarch’s health.” Karekin, who is over the age of 80, reportedly suffers from terminal cancer.
Navarro-Valls said that instead of returning to Rome from Poland on Thursday, the pope will make a brief trip to Armenia”for a personal visit”to Karekin I and a meeting with the president of the Republic of Armenia.”With this visit, which also has the character of an ecumenical pilgrimage, John Paul II wants to express his spiritual closeness to Karekin I in this moment of suffering,”the spokesman said.
Papal trips usually take months, even years, to prepare. Vatican sources said the speed with which the Vatican has acted in this case is another indication of John Paul’s strong commitment to the quest for reconciliation between the Orthodox and Roman churches, separated since 1054.
In a letter earlier this month to Cardinal Edward Cassidy, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, the pope urged renewed attempts to overcome the mistrust that has grown up between the churches since the fall of communism. The disputes center on the return of church property and fears by the Orthodox that the Catholic Church is seeking converts among the Orthodox.”On the threshold of the third millennium of Christianity, ecumenical commitment cannot fail to be animated by renewed and ardent vigor,”he wrote.
John Paul’s hope of visiting Moscow in or before the year 2000 has been blocked by the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexii II, but he made a historic trip to Romania May 7-9, his first to a predominantly Orthodox country, and established warm relations with Romanian Orthodox Patriarch Teoctist.
Armenia, also predominantly Orthodox, has one of the world’s oldest churches. Introduced to Christianity in the era of the apostles, ancient Armenia adopted it as its state religion in the year 301.
Following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia went to war with neighboring Azerbaijan over claims to Nagorno-Karabakh, a mainly Armenian enclave in Muslim Azerbaijan. The country is still struggling to recover from the effects of the fighting and a devastating earthquake in 1988.
Texas religious freedom act becomes law despite criticism
(RNS) The Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act has been signed into law by Gov. George W. Bush despite pleas from Christian conservatives who wanted him to veto it.
The legislation was supported by a wide range of Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders, but some conservative Christians objected because the law was changed before its passage so that it will not permit people of faith to discriminate against homosexuals for religious reasons.
Bush signed the legislation on Thursday (June 10), the Houston Chronicle reported. It requires that a governmental body show a”compelling state interest”before restricting religious freedom.”Recent court decisions have chipped away at the rock of religious freedom, one small action at a time,”said Bush.”That is unacceptable in Texas. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act says loud and clear: Texas will not stand for government interference with the free exercise of religion.” The Texas law follows the 1997 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The high court said the federal law exceeded congressional authority over the states, but states could adopt similar laws on an individual basis.
Justice Fellowship, the public policy arm of Prison Fellowship, was among those who sought Bush’s veto of the law.”We are very disappointed that the governor decided to ignore our request,”Kevin Sanner, communications manager at Justice Fellowship, told Religion News Service.”Now this takes us many steps backward.” In addition to the civil rights exemption, Sanner’s organization was displeased that the law includes wording to restrict religious freedom protections for prisoners.”What this does is allow the warden to exclude any kind of religious or faith-based activity, ministry and the like,”he said.”It basically removes the kind of `compelling interest’ from the equation.”
Supreme Court acts on religion, ethics cases
(RNS) The Supreme Court agreed Monday (June 14) to decide whether computers and other instructional materials paid for with taxpayer money can be used by religious schools in a key test of church-state relations and the government’s effort to connect every American classroom to the Internet.
It was the most important decision by the justices as they acted on a number of church-state and ethical issues nearing the end of their 1998-99 term.
The aid case, with an eventual decision expected sometime in the year 2000, involves a 14-year-old Louisiana dispute over aid to parochial schools.
Last year, a New Orleans-based federal appeals court issued a ruling saying that providing educational materials other than textbooks for religiously affiliated elementary and secondary schools violates the separation of church and state.
The same federal program struck down by the appeals court in New Orleans has been upheld by a San Francisco-based federal appeals court. The justices often will take cases when there are disparate rulings at the appeals court level.
In urging the Supreme Court to take the case, lawyers for parents of parochial school students argued the issue”involves the vital interests of millions of schoolchildren in obtaining access to modern technological equipment and materials. Millions of students nationwide, including over a million attending religiously affiliated schools, receive benefits under the program.” The lawyers argued that the appeals court in Louisiana erred by relying heavily on two decades-old Supreme Court rulings and that more recent rulings have blunted the effects of the justices’ parochial aid rulings of the mid-1970s.
In other action, the justices let stand a ruling refusing to end an investigation of Columbia Union College, a Seventh-day Adventist school in Takoma Park, Md., aimed at determining whether the college is”pervasively sectarian”and therefore ineligible to receive monetary aid from the state.
A federal appeals court had ordered the fact-finding probe last year and Monday’s action by the justices allows the investigation to go forward.
The justices also rejected an appeal by seven individuals and two anti-abortion groups asking the court to set aside some $600,000 in contempt-of-court fines they incurred as a result of efforts to blockade New York City-area abortion clinics a decade ago.
Among the defendants seeking to have the fines set aside was Randall Terry, founder and head of Operation Rescue, one of the most militant anti-abortion groups.
Canadian bishop will close school rather than bow to union
(RNS) A 45-year-old Roman Catholic school in northern Canada is being closed because its teachers have joined a union that won’t accept the regional bishop’s method of dealing with staff who might break Catholic doctrine.
Prince George Bishop Gerald Wiesner says he is closing the only Catholic school in Fort St. John’s, British Columbia, because the British Columbia Government Employees and Services Union refuses to accept a religious morality clause that would make it a firing offense for teachers to live together outside marriage or practice homosexuality.
Wiesner said the 200-student Immaculata elementary school is scheduled to be shut down at the end of this month. Ted West, director of 11 Catholic schools in the Prince George diocese, said the bishop demands a”Catholicity clause”to make sure teachers’ personal behavior is in line with Catholic morality.
Jackie MacIntyre, president of the Catholic Teachers Association, a union that represents roughly 100 of British Columbia’s 1,000 Catholic school teachers, said she feels sympathy for the 13 Immaculata teachers and staff who are trying to negotiate a first contract.”I feel badly about the school. Our heartfelt prayers are with those teachers. We’ve been there ourselves,”MacIntyre said.
Wiesner said Catholicism is not anti-union. The pope frequently speaks out in favor of workers’ right to organize, but he also insists that the Catholic church must be able to determine its employees’ moral lifestyle.
Quote of the day: Southern Baptist Convention executive Richard Land
(RNS)”Just like Saddam Hussein, (Yugoslav President Slobodan) Milosevic has been left in power to continue to cause trouble and constantly probe for political and military weakness within the United Nations peacekeeping force. Milosevic is able to declare victory of sorts _ like Saddam, he has withstood the onslaught of the mighty American eagle. In a very real way, this action has only served to strengthen him in the eyes of some similar thugs in other parts of the world.” _ Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, on the accord ending the NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, as quoted June 11 by Baptist Press.
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