c. 2000 Religion News Service
Gonzalez Aid Fund Shifted to National Council of Churches
(RNS) The embattled fund set up by a United Methodist Church agency to pay for lawyers for Juan Miguel Gonzalez has been shifted to the National Council of Churches, in part because Florida Methodist churches were upset that church leaders were wading into the custody dispute.
The Methodist church’s General Board of Church and Society set up the fund in March to collect donations to pay for lawyers for Gonzalez, who is in the center of a battle to have his son, Elian, returned with him to Cuba.
Church officials stressed that no offerings or general church funds were being used to pay for Gonzalez’s legal team. The church announced Tuesday (April 25) that the NCC had assumed control of the fund on April 19. So far, about $50,000 has been raised.
The Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett, head of the General Board of Church and Society, said the fund was transferred because church officials said the board cannot raise funds without first following procedures outlined in the church’s Book of Discipline. Fassett said he was only trying to ensure Gonzalez had adequate representation.
“When it works, our democracy allows equal treatment under the law, and Juan Miguel was not receiving equal treatment under the law,” Fassett said.
Some United Methodist churches in Florida, meanwhile, were upset that church officials had entered the custody battle. Cuban-Americans in some churches said the larger church body should not take a position in the dispute, even by raising funds through voluntary donations.
No one “asked our Hispanic-American community in Miami what they, especially the Cubans, are feeling about this,” said the Rev. Daniel Pelay, pastor of the Coral Way United Methodist Church in Miami, according to a United Methodist Church press release.
Miami pastors said they had to defend the church’s actions without being told precisely why the church was involved. Fassett is a close associate of the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, former NCC general secretary, who has led the charge to have Elian returned to Cuba.
“The consensus feeling is tremendous anger over our Board of Church and Society ignoring (Cuban-Americans in the church) about an issue that has affected them for more than 40 years,” said Clarke Campbell-Evans, superintendent of the church’s Miami district.
American Bible Society, Thomas Nelson Halt Publishing Agreement
(RNS) The American Bible Society and Thomas Nelson Publishers have terminated their publishing agreement for the Contemporary English Version translation of the Bible, but the society plans to continue distributing the translation.
Representatives of both the society and the publishing company told Religion News Service the decision was based in part on a “crowded” Bible market.
“We have a very different Bible market than we did back in 1991 … when we first entered into this agreement,” said Bob Briggs, communications director of the New York-based Bible society. “It’s a very challenging marketplace.”
He called the agreement, which was jointly announced on Tuesday (April 25), “amicable” and said the society had purchased the inventory of the translation that remained with Thomas Nelson and will continue to make the CEV available to customers.
“Both organizations are seeing this as a positive step to help the CEV translation to move forward and find its place,” Briggs said.
The CEV, one of the society’s modern language translations, was designed especially for children, youth and “seekers” unfamiliar with the church world, Briggs said. Its New Testament was launched in 1991, when Thomas Nelson became the society’s retail trade publishing partner, and the entire Bible was launched in 1995.
The society will evaluate the “best strategies” to continue distributing the CEV and may seek an arrangement with other publishers, Briggs said.
John Eames, Bible publisher for Thomas Nelson in Nashville, Tenn., said the decision to terminate the agreement came at the end of a process that lasted more than a year.
“We spent a lot of time over the last couple of years refocusing our Bible business,” he said. “In the process of that, we were not spending as much money in product development and marketing on the CEV as the Bible society felt we should be.”
In addition, the CEV was competing with other translations that aimed to reach potential Bible readers.
“The Bible market is very crowded and there are other easy-to-read translations out there,” said Eames. “I think the competitive environment made it very difficult.”
`Pro-Family’ Leaders Request Meeting With Bush
(RNS) A dozen leaders opposing gay activism have written to Republican presidential candidate Gov. George W. Bush to request that he meet with “pro-family” representatives.
Their request follows the April 13 meeting the Texas governor held with a group of gay Republicans.
“Given your highly publicized meeting recently with homosexual activists, we would like to invite you to a meeting with pro-family leaders to discuss the importance of marriage and family,” wrote the leaders.
The April 24 letter writers include Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission; Charles A. Donovan, chief executive officer of the Family Research Council; and Donald Wildmon, president of the American Family Association.
“We respectfully request that you demonstrate your commitment to the family by also scheduling a meeting with those of us who believe that homosexual activism poses a serious threat to our marriage-based culture and to the freedoms of speech, religion and association,” the letter writers said.
The leaders voiced their admiration for Bush’s “stated positions regarding traditional values and the family.” They also said the goals of homosexual activists are “antithetical” to the majority of Americans.
“Homosexual activists are trying to use the Republican Party, much like the Democratic Party, as a vehicle to achieve their strategic objective of harnessing government and corporate power to impose acceptance of homosexual behavior,” they wrote.
The other signatories are Steve Fitschen, president, National Legal Foundation; Janet Folger, national director, Center for Reclaiming America; Alan Medinger, executive director, Regeneration; Rabbi Daniel Lapin, president, Toward Tradition; Beverly LaHaye, chairman, Concerned Women for America; Peter J. LaBarbera, president, Americans for Truth; Linda Harvey, executive director, Mission America; Michael Johnston, executive director, Kerusso Ministries; and Regina Griggs, executive director, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays.
Scott McClellan, a spokesman for Bush’s campaign, told Religion News Service the letter has been received and will be considered.
“We will certainly look at it,” said McClellan. “He meets with pro-family leaders all the time and the governor agrees with them on the sanctity of marriage and the importance of families.”
The Rev. Jerry Falwell, a major leader of Christian conservatives and a Bush supporter, said recently he could not criticize Bush for meeting with gay Republicans after Falwell met with a group of 200 gay Christians last fall.
“George Bush meeting with 12 gay Republicans could hardly draw criticism from me when I met with 200 gay, lesbian and transgendered people, or whatever you call them, in October,” Falwell said recently at a Washington press conference. “It doesn’t bother me at all.”
Churches Reach Out to Aid Ethiopian Drought Victims
(RNS) As the international community scrambles to provide relief to Ethiopia and seven other drought-plagued African countries where more than 7 million people are in danger of dying from hunger and thirst, a number of religious communities in the United States have shifted into high gear to lend a hand.
“If the international community can get supplies to their destination quickly, we are hopeful this famine will avoid the level of desperation it reached in the 1980s,” said Willis Logan, director of Church World Service’s Africa program, referring to the 1984-85 famine that killed about 1 million people.
As many as 16 million could perish in the drought that has plagued countries located in the Horn of Africa, according to United Nations estimates.
“The situation is very serious, but if we can pull together now, we might be able to avert a disaster,” U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said, according to the Associated Press.
Logan’s organization _ the humanitarian relief arm of the National Council of Churches _ has initiated a drive to deliver $1 million in emergency aid and agricultural support for Ethiopia, according to an NCC press release. That campaign is part of efforts led by Action by Churches Together (a worldwide alliance of churches and aid agencies affiliated with the Lutheran World Federation and World Council of Churches) to raise $32 million in assistance for Ethiopia’s churches.
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance has also joined the campaign, sending $100,000 in emergency assistance to the country, while World Vision has set aside about $12 million in emergency assistance for the country, airlifting on Good Friday six tons of food and medicine to the region.
Southern Baptists plan to help establish a water development project as protection against droughts in the future, and Catholic Relief Services has launched its own water project in southern Ethiopia.
“Drought is endemic in Ethiopia,” said Anne Bousquet, Catholic Relief Services representative for Ethiopia. “While responding to the emergency needs of those who are suffering from the effects of drought, we can’t lose sight of the development programs that help build the capacity of those communities to cope when the droughts do occur.”
Brazilian Indians Reject Apologies From Catholics
(RNS) Maintaining that “apologies are not enough,” some Indians in Brazil rejected an apology Wednesday (April 26) from the country’s Roman Catholic Church for “sins” committed by Catholic clergy against Indians and blacks.
“Apologies are not enough,” a 24-year-old Pataxo Indian named Matalaue told the Associated Press. “We want respect. We want our dignity. We weren’t respected 500 years ago and we continue not being respected today. We have been and continue to be the victims of exploitation, rape and extermination.”
The apology coincided with a special open-air Mass near the area where Brazil’s first Roman Catholic Mass was celebrated on April 26, 1500 _ four days after Portuguese explorers landed in Brazil. On Saturday (April 22), police had used tear gas and clubs in the same area to break up an Indian protest against celebrations of the arrival of Portuguese to Brazil.
“We ask the Lord for forgiveness for the sins committed against our brothers, especially against the Indians whose rights have not always been respected,” said the Most Rev. Jayme Chemello, president of the National Brazilian Bishops’ Conference. “We ask the Lord for forgiveness for not always having respected the dignity of our black brothers and sisters, whose ancestors were brought to this country as slaves.”
The apology earned the approval of Guanair da Silva Santos, a representative of the Afro-Brazilian community.
“The apology opens the door to dialogue,” he said, “and the only way to deal with the racism and prejudice that prevail in this country is through dialogue. It is a first step that hopefully will be taken up by the rest of society.”
Church officials reported that about 15,000 people _ including more than 300 bishops and a representative of Pope John Paul II, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano _ attended the event, which also marked the start of the 38th General Assembly of the Bishops’ Conference. During the weeklong conference religious leaders are expected to discuss issues such as economic globalization and land distribution.
Study: American Women Reject Belief-Based Bans on Medical Services
(RNS) A new study shows most American women desire and expect a wide range of health services to be available to them regardless of the religious affiliation of hospitals and pharmacies in their communities.
The survey of 1,000 women on religion and reproductive health was released Tuesday (April 25) by Catholics for a Free Choice, an independent Washington-based organization that often disagrees with the nation’s Catholic bishops on abortion issues.
The survey, conducted by Belden Russonello & Stewart, a Washington-based polling firm, found that 85 percent of those surveyed reject the notion that Catholic hospitals receiving government funding should be permitted to prohibit certain procedures because of religious beliefs.
Seventy-eight percent of those questioned said hospitals in their communities should provide emergency contraceptives for rape victims. Seventy-four percent of respondents said they would oppose a merger between Catholic and non-Catholic hospitals if it would result in women being denied reproductive health services such as abortion or birth control.
The Catholic Church has repeatedly denounced both abortion and birth control.
Pollsters found broad opposition to legislation giving hospitals or pharmacists the right to refuse to provide medication or medical services that conflict with a religious belief. Seventy-nine percent of respondents objected to legislation regarding hospitals and 83 percent opposed legislation regarding pharmacists.
“The trend among Catholic hospitals and HMOs is to restrict reproductive health care services and coverage,” said Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice. “This survey amply demonstrates the extent to which Catholic health care policy is on a collision course with the values and opinions of American women, including Catholic women.”
The poll found that women are closely divided on whether an individual doctor should be allowed to deny a patient medical services that violate the physician’s personal religious beliefs. Forty-nine percent of those surveyed said they support such an exemption while 46 percent said they oppose it.
The survey, conducted from Feb. 22 to March 5, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Quote of the Day: Bible teacher Anne Graham Lotz
(RNS) “When people have a problem with women in the ministry, they need to take it up with Jesus. He’s the one who put us here.”
Anne Graham Lotz, Bible teacher and daughter of evangelist Rev. Billy Graham, who is launching a five-city revival called “Just Give Me Jesus” with an event in Knoxville, Tenn., April 28-29. She was quoted in the May 1 edition of Time magazine.
