c. 2000 Religion News Service

ACLU, Baseball Team Settle Church Bulletin Discount Flap

(RNS) The American Civil Liberties Union and a minor-league baseball team in Maryland have settled a lawsuit over a team promotion giving discounted admission rates to fans who brought church bulletins to Sunday games.

Under the terms of the agreement, signed Tuesday (Jan. 11), the Hagerstown Suns agreed to extend the $2 price break to families who bring bulletins from any civic or nonprofit organizations. The ACLU agreed it would not challenge the discount promotion through state action or a federal lawsuit, the Associated Press reported.

Plaintiffs in the case argued the team’s promotion violated laws against religious discrimination in places of public accommodation.

The case stemmed from a complaint to the Maryland Commission on Human Relations from agnostic activist Carl Silverman, of Waynesboro, Pa., who said he and his family were not given the $2 admission discount at a Suns game in April 1998 because they did not have a church bulletin.

The Maryland Human Relations Commission concluded in July 1998 that the baseball team’s church bulletin promotion violated a state statute that bans businesses from discriminating on the basis of creed. But in October 1999 an administrative law judge ruled in favor of the Suns, noting Silverman had been offered an extra church bulletin by a ticket seller.

ACLU attorney Michael D. Berman said the settlement was a victory for Silverman.”The Suns’ new discount program does exactly what Mr. Silverman requested when he first told the Suns that the church bulletin discount was illegal,”said Berman.”It makes the discount available on an equal basis, without regard to the fan’s beliefs about religion.”

Prominent British Nun Quits Order Over Vatican `Bullying’

(RNS) One of Britain’s best-known nuns said Wednesday (Jan. 12) she is,”with great regret,”leaving the religious order she joined at the age of 17 because of”bullying”by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Sister Lavinia Byrne, 52, has been a target of the doctrinal watchdog agency since 1993 when she published a book,”Woman at the Altar,”examining the role of women in the church and arguing for the ordination of women.

The book was condemned by the CDF, and in the United States 1,300 copies were withdrawn from sale.

Later, according to Byrne, the CDF put pressure on her to make a public statement supporting”Humanae Vitae,”Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical condemning artificial means of birth control, and Pope John Paul II’s ruling that only men could be ordained to the priesthood.

She said she could do neither with a clear conscience and that is why she was leaving the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary _ the”English Ladies”religious order founded in 1609 by Mary Ward and briefly suppressed by Pope Urban VIII in 1631.”My quarrel is not with the community here or the Catholic Church in this country, but with the CDF in Rome,”she said.”They are using techniques that seem to belong to another age. They are behaving like the Inquisition. I feel bullied.”

Muslim Scholars: `Holy War’ Against Christians Is Wrong

(RNS) Top Indonesian Muslim scholars Wednesday (Jan. 12) said calls for a”holy war”against Christians in the country’s eastern Spice Islands (Moluccas) region were wrong and likely to worsen the bloodshed.”I reject jihad if it means to collect thousands of people to gather around and cry out expressions of hate to take revenge,”said Umar Shihah, co-chairman of the Indonesian Ulemas Council, the country’s top official Muslim body.”But if jihad is to fight against provocateurs, it is allowed,”he added, according to a report from Jakarta by Reuters.

Clashes between Christians and Muslims in the region have resulted in some 1,500 deaths over the past year, according to official estimates, and the government has been unable to stop the feuding.

Although the term jihad is often translated as”holy war,”it can also mean striving hard to protect those who are suffering. Some Muslim militants have blamed the violence on the Christian provocateurs, and in the past week there has been a series of demonstrations in Jakarta urging a”jihad.” On Tuesday, however, President Abdurrahman Wahid, who is also a Muslim scholar, rejected calls for a holy war outright, saying they were likely to inflame the situation.

Meanwhile, the Geneva-based World Council of Churches, in a letter to Wahid, said that despite the deployment of security forces to put down the violence, the situation in the Moluccas has deteriorated over the past several weeks.”The burning of the Silo church in Ambon a day after Christmas came as a rude shock not only to the Christians in Indonesia but also to the people at large,”said the letter, signed by George Lemopoulos, acting general secretary of the international ecumenical agency.

The letter said that while it believes Wahid and other government leaders sincerely wanted to end the strife,”some leaders of the security forces are either responsible for or have directly committed grave abuses of human rights in the past, adversely affecting the credibility of these (security) forces.” It said that the government should act against those committing human rights abuses and try them for the crimes they have allegedly committed.”To allow impunity for official actors to continue will tarnish the image of the Indonesian government in the eyes of the international community,”the WCC said.

Wiccan Teacher in North Carolina Fights Suspension

(RNS) A North Carolina high school teacher is fighting her suspension after telling administrators she practices a pagan religion associated with witchcraft.

Shari Eicher, an 11th-grade English teacher at Scotland High School in Laurinburg, said she was escorted off campus by officials of the school and suspended with pay indefinitely on Monday (Jan. 10) because of her religious beliefs.

Eicher, whose school is about 85 miles southeast of Charlotte, and her husband, Richard, have been practicing Wiccans since 1998. Adherents of Wicca, a pagan religion, worship nature and focus on positive energy. The religion is associated with witchcraft, but Wiccans say the connection is misunderstood and the faith has nothing to do with devil worship.

Eicher, who has taught at the school for three years, said Tuesday she has contacted the North Carolina Education Association for legal assistance in appealing her suspension, Reuters reported.

Scotland County Schools Superintendent Shirley Prince declined to comment except to say that an investigation into the matter has begun.

Eicher said she did not talk to students about Wicca. She disclosed her religious beliefs to administrators after a reporter asked her about an Internet Web site about a local Wicca group that was maintained by her husband.

The teacher also said she did not hide her beliefs from high school administrators. She said she had been told her faith would not present a problem as long as her beliefs did not interfere with her teaching.

Presbyterian Leaders Back NCC Bailout

(RNS) The two top leaders of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have issued a statement supporting the National Council of Churches and announcing their intention to support emergency grants totaling $500,000 to help erase the ecumenical agency’s $4 million deficit.

The church’s General Assembly Council is expected to act on the request at its Feb. 16-19 meeting.”The National Council of Churches is one of several ecumenical organizations that over the past 50 years have looked to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for leadership and financial support,”the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, the denomination’s stated clerk, and John Detterick, executive director of the General Assembly Council, said in their statement.”The National Council of Churches has helped to advance the cause of Jesus Christ for more than half a century,”the two Presbyterian leaders said.”The issue before the General Assembly Council will be whether or not the remedial actions taken to date justify support in return for continued facilitation of our vital mission outreach.” Last fall, the United Methodist Church announced a temporary suspension of its funding of the NCC when the size of the deficit became apparent. The Methodists, the council’s largest funder, also at the time refused to contribute to the special bailout fund aimed at erasing the deficit until the NCC put its fiscal house in order. Several other of the NCC’s mainline Protestant members also pushed council leadership to take remedial action but without suspending funding.

At its November general assembly meeting, council leaders and staff began to put together a reform package, including steep staff reductions. It also installed a new president, the Rev. Andrew Young, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and a new general secretary, the Rev. Bob Edgar, a former member of Congress from Pennsylvania.

The moves have apparently generated confidence among major contributors, including the United Methodist Church, which has lifted its suspension of funding, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which has agreed to a major one-time contribution to the bailout fund similar to that being considered by the Presbyterians.

Quote of the Day: West Virginia volunteer Eddie Henson

(RNS)”It is extremely poor stewardship and maybe even a sin to have Christian materials sitting around, not being used, while other Christians around the world have nothing and would treasure these items if they had them.” Eddie Henson of Huntington, W.Va., a volunteer who travels to the Eubank, Ky., headquarters of Book-Link, a Christian organization that collects unused Christian resources and ships them around the world to needy recipients. He was quoted in the Jan. 11 report of Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.

DEA END RNS