c. 1999 Religion News Service

Cardinal Hume awarded Order of Merit from queen

(RNS) Cardinal Basil Hume, Archbishop of Westminster and the top Roman Catholic leader in England and Wales, has received the rare honor from Queen Elizabeth of being awarded the Order of Merit.

The honor, considered a personal gift of the sovereign, is limited to 24 people.

Hume, who announced recently that he was suffering from inoperable cancer, said,”I would like to think that it is a recognition of the part played by Her Majesty’s loyal Catholic subjects _ laity, clergy and bishops _ in the life of the nation.” Church of England Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, currently visiting South America, said in a statement he was”delighted”by what he called”a well-deserved recognition of the contribution Cardinal Hume has made to the life of the nation.” Other members of the Order of Merit include the church historian and Anglican priest Owen Chadwick, the hospice pioneer Dame Cicely Saunders, the opera singer Dame Joan Sutherland and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Ted Hughes, the recently deceased poet laureate, was a member, as was the musician Yehudi Menuhin.

Gore supports cooperation between government, faith-based groups

(RNS) Vice President Al Gore is encouraging”carefully tailored partnerships”between the government and”faith-based”communities.

In remarks Monday (May 24) at a Salvation Army center in Atlanta, Gore reiterated his commitment to church-state separation, adding”but freedom of religion need not mean freedom from religion.” He voiced support for the”charitable choice”provision of the 1996 welfare reform law that allows faith-based groups to use public funds to provide services such as job training, food and basic medical care.”They can do so with public funds _ and without having to alter the religious character that is so often the key to their effectiveness,”said Gore.”I believe we should extend this carefully tailored approach to other vital services where faith-based organizations can play a role _ such as drug treatment, homelessness and youth violence prevention.” Gore said any extension of the link between public money and faith-based groups should include safeguards including the prohibition of proselytizing, the availability of a quality secular choice and appropriate accountability.”There is a reason faith-based approaches have shown special promise with challenges such as drug addiction, youth violence and homelessness,”said Gore.”Overcoming these problems takes something more than money or assistance. … I believe that faith in itself is sometimes essential to spark a personal transformation.” Gore, who pledged to listen to faith-based organizations if he is elected president, added that he thinks the private sector also has a role in supporting faith-based groups.”I call on the corporations of America to encourage and match contributions to faith- and values-based organizations,”he said.

Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., the author of the charitable choice provision, welcomed Gore’s remarks.”The vice president’s support can be a very important asset to the efforts in Congress to expand this provision to other areas of federal law, such as housing, drug treatment and services for seniors,”Ashcroft stated.

But organizations supporting church-state separation voiced concern that some of Gore’s proposals to expand charitable choice might not be constitutional.”Taxpayer dollars should not be used to pay for programs that promote religion or allow discrimination in hiring,”said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Mark J. Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, called Gore’s proposal”an alarming alteration of the careful balance between church and state which has helped define our great nation and helped guarantee that religion can flourish free of government interference or control.”

Presbyterians express”deepening anguish”over Kosovo war

(RNS) The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has written a second”open letter”to President Clinton, this time expressing the denomination’s”deepening anguish”over the Kosovo war and urging the president”to seek with renewed energy a negotiated peace.” Kirkpatrick said the evidence of rape, pillage and mass murder committed by Serbs against Kosovars seems to be mounting.”This horror must stop,”he said.”And everything possible must be done to help the victims of this outrage.” Nevertheless, he added, there is”growing concern”in the denomination about the impact of the NATO bombing campaign.”There seems to be little evidence that it has actually diminished the violence against Kosovars,”and it appears to have undermined the efforts of those in Yugoslavia who have been working to bring an end to the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, he said.

Kirkpatrick said the church believes a negotiated peace”can best be achieved under the auspices of the United Nations with a significant role for the Russian government and other parties.” In his previous, March 15 letter _ before the bombing campaign began on March 24 _ the Presbyterian leader urged a negotiated peace in which both sides would accept the presence of an international force.

Bill to aid foreign religious workers introduced

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., introduced legislation Tuesday (May 25) that would indefinitely extend a law allowing foreign religious workers who come to the United States to perform religious work to apply for permanent residence.

Under the current program, 5,000 religious workers can enter the United States each year to do charitable and spiritual work. As of Oct. 1, 2000, however, hundreds of religious workers _ from Mother Teresa’s nuns to Hindu monks _ will face deportation as the program expires. “At a time when Congress is seeking to minimize federal social programs, communities across the country are particularly hard-hit when religious workers are forced to leave,”Lofgren said.”We depend on our religious workers now more than ever to work with youth, the elderly, the sick and the homeless.”However, many will not be able to continue their good work if the visa program is allowed to expire,”she said.

Lofgren said the special religious workers”reach out to sectors of the community that otherwise would be without practical and spiritual assistance.” Sister Marie Chin, a Jamaican-born Sisters of Mercy nun, told how the visas have allowed her and her fellow nuns to run soup kitchens, tend to AIDS patients and serve the poor in 48 states and 200 cities.

In 1997, the religious workers program faced a similar termination. Created as a provision in the 1990 Immigration and Nationality Act, the program had run its allotted seven-year course and was due to expire. Critics of the program said the visas were vulnerable to fraud. But an attempt to rewrite the law to tighten restrictions failed in favor of a simple three-year extension of the program.

While Lofgren acknowledged fraud is a legitimate concern and several phony religious organizations have been caught using the law as an immigration loophole, she warned against overreacting to the abuses.

In pursuing fraud, she said,”We must be careful we don’t end up punishing ourselves by not allowing religious workers to enter the country.” Rabbi Abba Cohen, director of Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox Jewish organization, also voiced support for the legislation.

Cohen said his organization has used the special visas to bring over teachers for Russian-born Jewish children who moved to the United States following the collapse of the former Soviet Union.”Forcing religious denominations to come back to Congress every three years `hat in hand’ sends an unfortunate message about our attitude toward the religious community’s contribution to American life,”said Cohen.

Influential cardinal urges curbs on”arrivism and careerism”of bishops

(RNS) Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, dean of the College of Cardinals and prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Bishops, has urged a change in church law to curb what he called”arrivism and careerism”among Roman Catholic bishops.

Gantin, 77, a native of Benin whose views carry great weight in the Vatican although he has retired from active service, called for revision of canon law to provide for a return to the practice of the early church when any transfer of a bishop from his diocese was tacitly forbidden.

Vatican sources said the proposal, which Gantin made in an interview published in the current issue of the monthly magazine 30 Days in the Church and the World, was certain to spur debate.”A bishop, once named to a determined see, generally speaking and in principle must remain there forever,”Gantin said.”The bishop cannot say, `I will be here for two or three years and then I will be promoted.'” Only for”serious, very serious reasons”should church authorities decide”that the bishop should go, so to speak, from one family to another,”the cardinal said.

Gantin said he was shocked during his 16 years as the head of the Congregation for Bishops that many bishops asked for”promotions”on the grounds that they had demonstrated their”talent, capacity and gifts.” He called this a display of”arrivism and careerism”_ unbridled ambition _ unfitting for a prelate.

Gantin also took issue with the assumption that a bishop named to a major archdiocese should automatically become a cardinal. Elevation to the College of Cardinals should depend only on the person, not on his see.”It would not be a diminutio capitis (diminishing of authority) nor a lack of respect if, for example, the archbishop of the very great Archdiocese of Milan, like others just as old and prestigious, were not made a cardinal. It would not be a catastrophe,”he said.

The cardinal said he hoped that”many bishops here in the Vatican, in Europe and in the young countries of evangelization”would read his views and reflect on them.

Gantin’s fellow cardinals elected him dean of the College of Cardinals in 1993. As dean, he will preside as the first among equals over the conclave that will chose the next pontiff after the death of Pope John Paul II.

Pope meets with Moscow mayor and Saudi crown prince

(RNS) Pope John Paul II received the powerful mayor of Moscow and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia in separate private audiences Tuesday (May 25) that could help him to realize his long-deferred dream of visiting both the Russian capital and Jerusalem.

The meetings came amid signs of improved relations between the Vatican and the Orthodox Church and unconfirmed reports that Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak had reached a landmark agreement with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat involving Jerusalem.

The Vatican said only that Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s talks with the pope and later with the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano,”permitted a useful exchange of information in view of a better collaboration for the material and spiritual progress of the city of Moscow.” The Vatican did not comment on a report from Russian sources that Luzhkov invited the Polish-born John Paul to visit Moscow.

Such an invitation would not be the first that the pope has received from civil authorities, starting with then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, but Vatican protocol requires a similar invitation from religious authorities, which the Orthodox Church so far has refused to give.

The collapse of communism has exacerbated relations between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The Orthodox churches of Russia and Eastern Europe have accused Catholics of using increased freedom of religion to proselytize for converts among the Orthodox. Bitter disputes broke out over the return of property confiscated by the communists and claimed by both the Orthodox churches and Eastern churches in communion with the Vatican.

But the success of the pope’s pilgrimage to Romania earlier this month, his first to a predominantly Orthodox country, and collaboration between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church on efforts to end the fighting in the Balkans may have started a thaw.

Following the trip to Romania, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls spoke of a possible”opening”for the pope to finally visit Moscow and hold a historic meeting with Alexii II, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Vatican said that John Paul and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdelaziz discussed”issues of common interest, the question of Jerusalem in particular.” Although both the Israeli government and Christian leaders have said they expect the pontiff to visit Jerusalem and the Holy Land next spring, the Vatican has not confirmed the trip.

A major impediment has been the status of Jerusalem, which both Israelis and Palestinians claim as their capital. The pope seeks international guarantees to give Jews, Christians and Muslims full access to the city and the sites holy to them.

USA Today reported earlier this week that Israeli President-elect Barak and Palestinian leader Arafat have reached agreement on a compromise that will leave Jerusalem Israel’s capital and under Israeli sovereignty but allow the Palestine National Authority to maintain administrative control over the city’s 150,000 Palestinians.

Quoting anonymous sources, the newspaper said Arafat will be able to proclaim a Palestinian state by the end of this year with its capital in Abu Dis, a village about two miles from the Wailing Wall and Dome of the Rock but outside the confines of modern Jerusalem.

Prince Abdullah’s visit was also important to the Vatican because the Holy See does not have diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, which is one of the most rigid states in the Muslim world and prohibits public religious observances by Christians.

The”issues of common interest”discussed almost certainly involved religious freedom, especially for foreign workers in Saudi Arabia, Vatican sources said.

Quote of the day: Rabbi David Rosen

(RNS)”From a Jewish point of view, none of us are in a position to be able to forgive anybody for anything that somebody else did to somebody else hundreds of years ago. It does not make any sense in Jewish teaching. But, as an expression of Christian goodwill, it is a very welcome gesture. In that sense, it is constructive in helping clear the destructive baggage of the past.” _ Rabbi David Rosen, Jerusalem-based president of the International Council of Christians and Jews, commenting on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land by hundreds of Christians to apologize to the local population for the savagery unleashed against their ancestors by the Crusades, as quoted by Ecumenical News International.

DEA END RNS