c. 2000 Religion News Service
Only a Quarter of World Population Enjoys Religious Freedom
(RNS) About 75 percent of the world’s population is subjected to restrictions and violations of their religious freedom, according to a survey released Thursday (Oct. 26) by the Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom.
Some 36 percent of people live in countries in which religious liberties are “fundamentally violated,” while 39 percent practice their faith under constraints, declared the global survey.
Religious freedom is rapidly deteriorating in many parts of the world, the report concluded, noting that “Recent violence in the Middle East has increasing religious overtones.” The report cited Burma, Turkmenistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, North Korea and Tibet as countries with the broadest and most systematic violations of religious liberties.
“The world’s largest countries are worsening,” the report said. “After Falun Gong, China has increased its already severe persecution of Buddhists, Christians and Muslims who refuse to submit to state control. In India there is rapidly escalating violence and propaganda against Christians and other minorities, often with the acquiescence of the government.”
Twenty-five percent of the world’s population lives under conditions of broad religious freedom, the report said, singling out Estonia, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands and the United States as countries with the best track records.
Still, the United States should not neglect the issue of religious liberty worldwide, said Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom.
“The survey shows the need for greater attention in U.S. foreign policy and in the international community to the issue of religious persecution,” read a statement released by Shea. “While it does not suggest a `clash of civilizations,’ it reveals that religion-related conflict and repression are now a major factor in international life.”
Update: SBC Official Says He Didn’t Endorse Candidate
(RNS) The president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission said he has not endorsed any presidential candidate.
Associated Baptist Press, an independent news service, ran a story Tuesday (Oct. 24) with the headline “SBC leader backing Bush in race for presidency.” It ran the story again on Thursday with a new headline: “Bush stacks up better than Gore on key issues, SBC leader suggests.”
The report detailed comments by Richard Land during an Oct. 19 address to the Christian Action League of North Carolina.
“If the reporter chooses to draw conclusions based upon my outlining of those contrasts and what he knows of my values, beliefs and convictions, it’s a free country,” Land said, reported Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
“He should not put words in my mouth, particularly when I expressly stated I was not endorsing, do not endorse candidates and never tell anyone how to vote, except to tell them they should vote their values, beliefs and convictions.”
Land stood by his comments about the Clinton administration and the differences between the stances of Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the Democratic and Republican candidates for president, respectively.
“The comments I made about Ms. (Janet) Reno and the Justice Department were mine, and mine alone. Furthermore, I consider them a mild expression of my disdain for her grotesquely irresponsible tenure as U.S. attorney general.”
In his speech, Land referred to Reno as a “deaf, dumb, blind woman.”
French, Guatemalan Christians Protest Halloween
(RNS) Both Protestants and Roman Catholics in France and Guatemala are urging Christians to refrain from participating in Halloween celebrations Oct. 31.
In Guatemala City, where stickers proclaiming “I love Jesus, not Halloween” have recently appeared in store windows, the Roman Catholic Church said Thursday (Oct. 26) the holiday poses a threat to the spiritual welfare of children.
Instead of celebrating Halloween, Guatemalans should emphasize traditions such as the Nov. 1 “Day of the Dead,” when people visit graves to honor the dead.
Alejandra Vasquez, family and childhood coordinator of Guatemala’s Archbishopric, said scary costumes and other aspects of Halloween were unseemly considering the nation’s efforts to recover from a civil war in which 200,000 people were killed. That war ended just four years ago.
“It really worries us to see a child of 7 dressed as the grim reaper,” Vasquez told Reuters news agency. “We’re trying to create a culture of peace here, not more violence.”
On Wednesday (Oct. 25), 200 youth _ some as young as 4 years old _ demonstrated outside a parish church in Saint Raphael, France, to call attention to their concerns about Halloween.
Halloween, the demonstrators said, detracted from All Saints Day, which is celebrated the day after Halloween and is considered a religious holiday by France’s majority-Roman Catholic population. The young people told the Associated Press they thought wearing masks and scary costumes the day before All Saints Day was inappropriate.
Halloween is also too commercialized, said the protesters, who were supported by Roman Catholic priests.
“This isn’t a demonstration or a crusade against Halloween,” said the Rev. Don Jean-Yves. He said he found fault not with the holiday itself but with “the society, the media, the commercial lobbies.”
“Our children need positive things, like bounty and generosity,” he said. “We have to … give them the message of Christian hope in the face of the mystery of death.”
Rwandan Priests’ Guilty Verdicts Overturned for Role in Genocides
(RNS) Two Catholic priests in Rwanda who were found guilty of the 1994 deaths of 2,000 minority Tutsis had their sentences overturned and were set free by an appeals court Wednesday (Oct. 25).
Edouard Nturiye and Francois Kayiranga were found guilty in 1998 of their alleged role in the deaths of 2,000 ethnic Tutsis who had sought shelter in a church that was razed on top of them, the Associated Press reported.
The two priests had maintained their innocence, and the Ruhengeri Court of Appeals overturned their sentences, according to Attorney General Gerald Gahima.
The decision follows a court ruling earlier this year that acquitted Bishop Augustin Misago _ the highest church official charged in the 1994 murders _ on charges of genocide.
More than 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died during the ethnic cleansing campaign at the hands of the Hutu-led government. Tutsi-led rebels overthrew the government in July 1994.
Rwandan churches were criticized for their silence during the genocide, and many Hutu Catholic priests were criticized for not stopping the bloodshed, much of which took place in churches.
Letter: U.S. Knew of Holocaust Deaths in 1944
(RNS) A recently released letter from the U.S. secretary of state in 1944 to the Vatican warned Germany that Nazi officials would be prosecuted after the end of World War II for their roles in the deaths of millions of Jews in the Holocaust.
The Oct. 12, 1944 letter, from Secretary of State Cordell Hull, was sent to the U.S. representative at the Vatican, who was to forward it on to German officials at the Vatican, according to the Reuters news agency.
The letter was released Thursday (Oct. 26) by the World Jewish Congress, the same day that a group of Catholic and Jewish scholars asked for greater access to Vatican archives to find out what, if anything, wartime Pope Pius XII knew about the Holocaust.
Jewish groups oppose the proposed canonization of Pius XII because they feel he did too little to help the Jews. Vatican officials maintain, however, that Pius XII worked behind the scenes to safeguard as many Jews as he could.
Hull’s letter to the Germans raises questions as to how much the United States knew about the Holocaust, and whether more could have been done to save the 6 million Jews who were killed.
The letter said the State Department had information that “Jews in three concentration camps of Birkenau, Naeuss and Oswiecin (Auschwitz) have been ordered to be exterminated. This probably involves some 65,000 Jews.”
Hull’s letter was directed at Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Hitler’s deputy overseeing the “Final Solution.” The letter said Himmler “personally authorized this death order, which certain other officials will carry out.” Hull warned of “appropriate consequences” after the end of the war.
Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress, told Reuters that Hull’s letter is further proof that the Vatican should open its archives to show what church leaders knew about the Holocaust.
“If there is, in fact, documentation refuting (charges that Pius XII did not do enough), it would be in the Vatican’s best interest to open up the archives,” he said.
Quote of the Day: Joe Dallas, founder of the Genesis Counseling Center in Orange, Calif.
(RNS) “We (homosexuals) were so scared and so vulnerable. If there ever was a time when the church could have moved in, evangelistically, that was the time. We could have and should have been there. … But we (homosexuals) did not hear concern. We heard gloating. We heard people say, `They have finally reaped what they have sown.’ That is the message that the gay community will never forget.”
_ Joe Dallas, a former homosexual and founder of the Genesis Counseling Center in Orange, Calif., speaking about the church’s response to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. Dallas’ center tries to help people leave the homosexual lifestyle through prayer. He was quoted by the Presbyterian News Service.
DEA END RNS
