c. 2000 Religion News Service

Three Arrested in Slaying of Guatemalan Bishop

(RNS) Guatemalan authorities have announced the arrests of three men with ties to the nation’s military in the 1998 slaying of Roman Catholic Bishop Juan Gerardi.

Gerardi headed the church’s human rights office. Just two days before his murder on April 26, that office had released a report blaming military”death squads”for most of the human rights abuses during the nation’s 36-year civil war.

Wire reports from Guatemala City said National Civil Police on Friday (Jan. 21) arrested Guatemalan army Capt. Byron Lima Oliva and his father, retired Col. Disrael Lima Estrada, in connection with the slaying.

On Saturday, a third military suspect, Army guard Jose Obdullo Villanueva, was arrested.

In the United States, religious human rights activists were quick to point out on Monday (Jan. 24) that Lima Estrada received training at the School of the Americas, the controversial U.S. military school critics say was used to train Latin and Central American military personnel in torture and other forms of human rights abuses during the Cold War era.

A number of religious communities in the United States have led the campaign, which has included thousands of arrests, to shut down the Fort Benning, Ga., training facility although the army maintains it has changed its curriculum.

The arrests follow a pledge made Jan. 14 by new Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo to launch an investigation into the state security forces, or military, for alleged involvement in the bishop’s murder.

Lima Oliva said he was innocent and called the charges groundless.”I’m innocent but I’m a soldier and I will cooperate with justice,”he told the Reuters news agency at the time of his arrest.

According to Reuters, prosecutors have also detained Margarita Lopez, who worked as a cook in the Guatemala City rectory where Gerardi lived, and issued a new arrest warrant for the Rev. Mario Orantes, an aide to Gerardi who also lived at the parish house. Orantes, who discovered Gerardi’s body, and Lopez were first arrested in July 1998 but later released with no charges filed against them.

The long civil war ended in 1996 with a peace accord, brokered by the international religious community, between the government and Marxist rebels. An estimated 200,000 people died or disappeared during the conflict.

Vatican Denies Report Pope Will be Confined to a Wheelchair

(RNS) The Vatican angrily brushed aside Monday (Jan. 24) a published report that Pope John Paul II will be confined to a wheelchair within two years by the effects of Parkinson’s disease.

The article, published in the Sunday Times of London, quoted unidentified neurologists following the pope’s case as saying his condition will worsen because he has refused higher doses of medicine for fear of becoming disoriented.”With regard to an article that appeared yesterday in an English newspaper, it is not the first time that we read these prophecies that later turn out to be unfounded,”chief Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said.”The article, lacking sources and precise information, should not be taken into consideration,”he said.

The Sunday Times article came just two weeks after a report that Bishop Karl Lehmann of Mainz, president of the German bishops’ conference, had called for the pope to resign because of his failing health. Lehmann said he had been misquoted, but the report stirred debate over whether the pope should or even could retire.

Without referring directly to either report, the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano also attacked”revelations”about the health of the 79-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff.

John Paul, who will be 80 on May 18, has had trouble walking since he broke his thigh in a fall in his bathroom in 1994. His left hand shakes constantly, and the Vatican has acknowledged that this is due to a neurological ailment, believed to be Parkinson’s disease.

Referring to Holy Year 2000, L’Osservatore Roman editor Mario Agnes wrote,”The Jubilee proceeds with the pope’s pace: apparently faltering but internally vigorous.”This is, he said,”an objective reality that seems to annoy a hidden, meager group that from time to time announces through some compliant means of communication predictions without sense and without foundation.” The Sunday Times quoted one neurologist as saying that the pope”should be able to walk in his room for some time yet, holding on to the furniture, but he will need a wheelchair within two years.” The doctors disclosed the pope has refused to take larger doses of medicine prescribed to control his debilitating disease because he fears side effects that would interfere with his activities, the newspaper said.”It is a courageous choice,”one unidentified physician was quoted as saying.”When he was taking a larger dose of the pharmaceutical he suffered from a sense of disorientation. He wants to have the most lucid possible mind.” The Italian news agency AGI countered the Sunday Times by quoting another medical source as saying that no physician”can predict with certainty the evolution that a pathology of the Parkinson’s type could have on the pontiff.”

Presbyterians to Consider Letting Liberals Leave

(RNS) A proposed resolution for this year’s General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) suggests permitting liberals who support ordaining gays and lesbians to leave the denomination with their church property.

Two resolutions have been drafted by the Rev. Jeff Arnold of Butler, Pa., one declaring an”irreconcilable impasse”over theological matters including the gay ordination issue, and another suggesting that liberals should leave the denomination.”We’re not trying to create division,”Arnold told Presbyterian News Service.”The division already exists, and nobody has found a way to reconcile the differences.” Typically, when a Presbyterian church disbands or leaves the denomination, its property is returned to the denomination. Supporters of the resolution regarding the proposed departure of liberals say a change in policy would be a concession to keep the peace. Critics oppose such a separation within a church body.

The Presbytery of Beaver-Butler, a conservative regional grouping of Presbyterians in western Pennsylvania, passed both resolutions _ known as”overtures”_ in divided votes. The vote on the one declaring an”irreconcilable impasse”was 61-46 and the vote on the one dealing with separation was 63-50.

Some have criticized the idea that the fight is”irreconcilable”as an insult diminishing the capabilities of God.”(You have to have) a sense of maturity, a sense of trust that the denomination recognizes all sorts of diversity, and you also have to trust the Lord,”said the Rev. Bill Jamieson of Butler, a member of the presbytery for 28 years.

Conservatives have tried before to oust liberals from the denomination. In 1991 _ before the passage of a constitutional amendment forbidding the ordination of sexually active and”unrepentant”homosexuals _ the Presbytery of San Joaquin, Calif., proposed dismissing any person or institution in the denomination that would not declare homosexual behavior unbiblical. The General Assembly of that year dismissed the proposal.

The 2000 General Assembly meets in Long Beach, Calif., June 24 to July 1.

Christian School Severs Ties with Arizona Baptist Convention

(RNS) A Christian university in Phoenix has decided to sever ties with the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention.

The board of Grand Canyon University voted on the move Jan. 13 based on legal advice, the school’s president said, and is not attempting to secularize the liberal arts university.”We’re historically Baptist,”said President Gil Stafford.”We will remain Baptist.” Before the decision, the state Baptist convention named all of the school’s trustees. Now, the board will set its own qualifications and select its own membership when individual trustees depart, the Associated Press reported.

Grand Canyon is one of about 50 universities and colleges that have been chartered by Southern Baptist state conventions, said Herb Hollinger, a spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention.

In the last decade, about half a dozen schools have split from their state conventions, with the most notable departure being Baylor University’s 1990 move to halt the Baptist General Convention of Texas from naming all of the university’s regents.

Stafford said the board’s auditor and legal counsel told trustees that if Grand Canyon was legally tied to the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention, its financial statements should be consolidated with the convention.

He said such a consolidation could jeopardize the school’s accreditation because it might prompt concerns that the university does not have academic freedom.

Elizabeth Young, spokeswoman for the Arizona Baptist convention, said no decision has been made yet on whether the convention will keep financially supporting the university. Convention executive Steve Bass said in a statement that he was”surprised and shocked”by the decision.

Illinois Church Withdraws from United Church of Christ

(RNS) Upset with the United Church of Christ’s liberal policies, including those that allow homosexuals to join the church, an Illinois church voted Sunday to disassociate itself from the group.”We no longer want the United Church of Christ speaking for us, taking stands for us that we don’t agree with,”said Darrell Coons, pastor of the former Hope United Church of Christ. The 527-member congregation voted Sunday to rename itself Hope Church.”Our members say the United Church of Christ is taking stands that aren’t scriptural.” The congregation wanted to cut ties with its parent organization because they disagreed with its policy of extending church membership to homosexuals, said the Rev. Ron Eslinger, head of the United Church of Christ’s Illinois South Conference.

The congregation’s vote follows last week’s release of a declaration, signed by the president of the United Church of Christ, the Rev. John H. Thomas, that supported recognition of same-sex unions and gay and lesbian ministers.

That endorsement was the”last straw,”said Coons. Eighty-one percent of the congregation supported the move to leave the United Church of Christ, he said, well above the two-thirds majority vote required.

Of the Illinois conference’s other 90 affiliates, said Eslinger, none has announced an intention to leave the United Church of Christ.

International Agreement Reached to Ban `Child Soldiers’

(RNS) International negotiators in Geneva, who have worked for six years on an agreement barring the use of child soldiers, have reached an agreement on a draft treaty after the United States dropped its opposition to establishing 18 as the minimum age for sending soldiers into combat.”This treaty could really make a difference to hundreds of thousands of children around the world,”said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.”For the first time, governments have agreed that the use of children in war is simply unacceptable.” An estimated 300,000 children under the age of 18 _ and some as young as 9 or 10 _ are currently participating in armed conflicts around the world, according to the State Department and nongovernmental groups that monitor the issue. Conflicts where the use of child soldiers is considered especially egregious include Uganda, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Colombia, Angola and Liberia.

Becker said the U.S. reversal marked the first time the United States has agreed to change its practices in order to support a human rights standard.

U.S. armed forces currently accept 17-year-old volunteers with parental permission. In recent years, the United States has deployed 17-year-old troops to conflicts in Somalia, Bosnia and the Gulf War. But U.S. officials say there are fewer than 3,000 17-year-olds serving among the 1.2 million-member active duty force.

In its policy shift, the United States said it would take”all feasible measures”to keep those under 18 out of combat. During previous negotiations the United States had vigorously opposed the 18-year-old threshold.

President Clinton, in a statement, called the accord”an important advance in human rights”that also”fully protects the military recruitment and readiness requirements of the United States.” Becker called on the United States to”move quickly to ratify and implement”the treaty.

Quote of the Day: Cuba’s Roman Catholic bishops

(RNS)”Moderation, dialogue and gradualness are the guarantee of peaceful solutions and the gestation of a new civilization of truth, justice and love.” _ Cuba’s Roman Catholic bishops in a 13-page statement,”A New Heaven and a New Earth,”marking Pope John Paul II’s 1998 visit to the island.

DEA END RNS