c. 2000 Religion News Service

Virginia Judge Allows Moment of Silence to Continue for Now

(RNS) A Virginia judge ruled Thursday (Aug. 31) that public school students can continue observing a moment of silence until he makes a final decision on whether a new law regarding the matter is constitutional.

“This Virginia statute … permits a student to do whatever he wants as long as he remains silent,” said U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton at a hearing in Alexandria. “Whatever bit of coercion could possibly be, there is not going to be irreparable harm between now and when I resolve this case.”

The judge set a hearing on the merits of the case for Sept. 8, The Washington Post reported.

Stuart H. Newberger, a D.C. lawyer representing 10 students and their families for the American Civil Liberties Union, had requested a temporary injunction in the case. He now plans to seek an emergency injunction from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals until Hilton completes the case.

School starts in most Virginia districts on Tuesday.

“The government and the Legislature are trying to take the place of parents and the clergy,” Newberger said.

Virginia Attorney General Mark L. Earley welcomed the decision, calling it an affirmation of “the constitutional guarantees of religious tolerance and freedom for Virginia students.”

Some students said they are seeking permission from school officials to walk out of class during the observation of the moment of silence.

The law in question requires students to “meditate, pray or engage in other silent activity” for one minute daily.

Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice Endorses Stem Cell Research

(RNS) The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice has come out in support of stem cell research, one of the few major religious groups to support the controversial procedure.

The procedure has been called “immoral and illegal” by Catholic Church officials, and anti-abortion groups have called it “false science.”

The developing science is controversial because it involves destroying human embryos for scientific research. Embryonic stem cells are the building blocks of all human tissues, and scientists believe they may hold the cure for such ailments as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

The coalition said moral reservations about the procedure are legitimate, but said the potential for life-saving cures to human diseases should be paramount.

“As people of faith, we are called to be partners with God in healing and in the alleviation of human pain and suffering,” said a statement from the group’s board of directors.

On Aug. 23, the National Institutes of Health released new guidelines that will permit the federal funding of stem cell research. NIH officials said they would be careful to follow legal and ethical guidelines. Officials in Britain also recently adopted such guidelines.

The coalition’s board of directors said it would be unethical to put the status of an embryo above that of a sick, dying or injured person.

“Prohibition … would elevate the showing of respect to human embryos above that of helping persons whose pain and suffering might be alleviated due to the knowledge gained from studying embryonic cells,” the statement concluded.

Evangelicals Concerned About Harry Potter Service at British Church

LONDON (RNS) Evangelicals in England say a Guilford parish has gone “too far” with plans to transform the Church of All Saints this Sunday (Sept. 3) into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for a special family service based on the Harry Potter books.

The church door will be labeled Platform 91/2, the platform at the Kings Cross station from which the “Hogwarts Express” leaves, and the church’s vicar, the Rev. Brian Coleman, will wear a wizard’s robe and hat to play the part of Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts.

Coleman said the service will follow the pattern laid down for a family service in the Church of England’s liturgy and has been drawn up by a member of the congregation, Mike Truman, whose 11-year-old son Mark will take the part of Harry Potter.

The service will end with a game of “Quidditch” _ a Harry Potter version of soccer, or at least as close as one can get without the aid of broomsticks, with worshippers hunting the golden snitch, a small flying ball.

Coleman emphasized that the service was not the usual fare offered at the church; each month the parish holds a family service built around a particular theme, and this time they were using a story very familiar to today’s children to convey a Christian message.

“Any impression that we are designing a new thing to become the Hogwarts Church of England is quite false,” he said. Magic was “an intrinsic part” of Europe’s great storytelling tradition, and it was an invaluable means of stretching children’s imaginations.

The service has come under fire from the Evangelical Alliance, whose spokesman, the Rev. Paul Harris, thought it was “going too far” to use images from the Harry Potter books.

“There is a risk that children are going to be very confused by the use of symbols associated with evil,” he said.

Pope Urges Solidarity to Preserve the `Common Good’

(RNS) Pope John Paul II, who helped the Solidarity movement win its struggle against Poland’s communist leaders, has urged the labor movement to help victims of the post-communist economic and social reforms.

Vatican Radio reported that in a telegram sent to Archbishop Tadeusz Goclowski of Gdansk Thursday (Aug. 31) to mark the 20th anniversary of Solidarity’s founding, the Roman Catholic pontiff appealed to members not to sacrifice the common good to “personal ambitions.”

In Warsaw, Solidarity founder Lech Walesa declined to comment on the pope’s message but called in a television appearance for a new mass movement to fight unemployment and poverty.

John Paul recalled the seminal role that Solidarity played in the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc countries. The Polish-born pope, elected in 1978, gave what is considered crucial moral support to Solidarity and other anti-communist dissidents.

“Solidarity, which started a process of great changes in Poland and in all of central-eastern Europe, had at its foundation a common concern for man and for his dignity,” the pope said.

“Today Solidarity faces new challenges,” he said. “I pray to the Lord that they will be faced with that concern for the good of every Pole and of the entire country that characterized the beginnings of the union.”

The pope called on every member of Solidarity to maintain “a spirit of unity and a sensitivity to the needs of people of the working world in the city and the countryside but, above all, to those people and families that patiently carry the weight of justified economic and social reforms.”

“I pray to the Lord to give strength to everyone so that personal ambitions do not take the place of the common good,” he said.

Walesa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and served as president of Poland, is running as a Christian Democrat in Poland’s Oct. 8 presidential elections against Marian Krzaklewski, leader of the Solidarity Social Action Party.

“Today, as in 1980, Poland again has need of a true mass movement to fight together against the phenomena of unemployment and misery in our country,” the Italian news agency ANSA quoted him as saying.

Quote of the Day: Columnist Cal Thomas

“How would Christians like it if they lived in a community where their faith was the minority one and they were forced to sit through a prayer offered to a different god?”

Columnist Cal Thomas, reacting to efforts by some Christian groups to encourage the reciting of prayers before football games in reaction to a Supreme Court decision in June declaring a Texas school policy permitting student-led prayer before such games unconstitutional. He was quoted in the Wednesday (Aug. 30) edition of The Washington Times.

KRE END RNS