c. 2000 Religion News Service
Three Religious Leaders to Receive Presidential Medal of Freedom
(RNS) Three religious leaders _ the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Gardner C. Taylor and Monsignor George G. Higgins _ will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Aug. 9.
The White House announced the recipients of the nation’s highest civilian honor on Thursday (Aug. 3). President Clinton will award the medals at a White House ceremony.
Jackson, founder and president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition based in Chicago, has worked to expand opportunities for minorities and was a Democratic presidential candidate in 1984 and 1988. He has negotiated the release of several hostages, including three U.S. prisoners of war held in the former Yugoslavia.
Taylor, recognized by Time magazine as the “dean of the nation’s black preachers,” is pastor emeritus of Concord Baptist Church of Christ, a prominent congregation in Brooklyn. Under his leadership, the church grew to 14,000 members.
Higgins, who has been described as “the labor movement’s parish priest,” has devoted more than five decades to promoting worker justice. Currently an adjunct lecturer at Catholic University of America in Washington, he has been honored by major labor groups several times.
In addition to the three religious leaders, Simon Wiesenthal, a concentration camp survivor who has devoted his life to gathering evidence about Nazi war criminals, will be among the 15 honorees. He founded the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles in 1977 to fight anti-Semitism and bigotry.
In a separate but related matter, Roman Catholic Sister M. Isolina Ferre, a 1999 recipient of the U.S. Medal of Freedom, died Thursday (Aug. 3) at the age of 85 in Puerto Rico.
She used her wealthy family’s influence to create charities, including centers for delinquent youth, the Associated Press reported. An official cause of death was not released.
Judge Says State Kosher Laws Unconstitutional
(RNS) State laws regulating kosher food standards violate the First Amendment since they endorse and advance religion, a New York federal court has ruled.
The ruling stemmed from a 1996 lawsuit filed by two butchers against the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. The plaintiffs charged that the department’s 118-year-old kosher food laws violated statutes that separated religion and government.
In her July 28 ruling, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon decided that “the entanglements involved here between religion and the state are not only excessive in themselves, but they have the unconstitutional effect of endorsing and advancing religion,” the Associated Press reported.
One of the plaintiffs in the case, Brian Yarmeisch, said he was “thrilled” with Gershon’s decision. Yarmeisch, who owns a kosher meat shop in Commack, N.Y., said the meat products produced by his shop were approved by “a duly ordained rabbi” even though his business was not an Orthodox one.
He claimed New York’s Kosher Law Enforcement Division has conducted “irregular, arbitrary and capricious inspections” of his store, and has fined the business for violations that range from improperly salting veal to incorrectly labeling kosher chicken.
The judge’s decision will likely face an appeal from New York state and several national Orthodox Jewish groups, a spokesman for New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said.
“We’re committed to protecting kosher consumers,” said Darren Dopp.
Leadership Dispute Hits Falun Gong
(RNS) The man most people believe to be the founder of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement has turned to the Internet to denounce a Hong Kong businesswoman who has staked claim to the title.
“I am the principal being,” wrote Li Hongzhi on the official Internet site of Falun Gong. “Nobody should pay attention to what that saboteur in Hong Kong has instigated or give her an audience.”
Falun Gong is a blend of traditional Chinese slow-motion and breathing exercises and Buddhist and Taoist principles.
The Web site denounces Belinda Pang, 37, who has attracted a small group of followers, as a “vile person in Hong Kong who lost her senses.”
“If there are people who are willing to follow her … they can go with her _ what I want are disciples who practice cultivation in an upright and noble manner, majestic Divine Beings who are unshakable and solid, like diamond,” reads a letter with Li’s signature posted on the Internet.
Representatives of Falun Gong, which Chinese officials banned in July of last year, say Pang has no more than 30 followers and poses no real threat to the group’s estimated 100 million followers around the globe. She is a former member of the Hong Kong chapter of Falun Gong, according to Falun Gong’s New York spokeswoman.
But Pang’s supporters insist she is the “Lord of Buddhas” and the spiritual group’s true master.
“We realized that (she) is the true master who created the universe,” said supporter Mary Qian, adding that she believed Pang is the successor to Li.
Top Executive of Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.) Re-Elected
(RNS) The Rev. R. Lamar Vest was elected to his third two-year-term as the highest executive of the Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.) during his denomination’s recent General Assembly.
Vest now has the title of presiding bishop, following a change in titles decided at the biennial meeting, which concluded July 30 in St. Louis.
“It will take me a while to get used to the new titles, but I would like to use the term `general’ for this address,” he said in a closing speech at the meeting. “If you are the troops, then I don’t mind being your general. … It is time for us to stand up and say Jesus Christ is the only way to God.”
Vest broke with tradition and did not have a formal dedicatory prayer onstage by church officials.
Instead, he walked offstage and asked the audience to lay hands on him in prayer.
During the gathering, the Church of God General Council passed a resolution approving a major expansion of the international offices of the denomination. The council approved a cap of $10 million to fund construction and materials for the new complex. When the current four-story headquarters building was built 32 years ago, the total membership of the denomination was less than 450,000. Now the membership exceeds 5.2 million.
The denomination also received an offering of $5.7 million to help underprivileged children worldwide. The offering, taken on July 28, included one-time pledges and a matching grant from an anonymous donor.
Settlement Accepted by Relatives of School Shooting Victims
(RNS) The families of three students fatally shot during a 1997 Kentucky school prayer meeting agreed Thursday (Aug. 3) to a $42 million settlement in their lawsuit against the teen-age defendant.
The settlement arrived four days before 17-year-old Michael Carneal was scheduled to appear in McCracken County Circuit Court to let a jury determine the amount of damages awarded to the victims’ relatives, who filed a lawsuit against Carneal in December 1998.
Carneal, who pleaded guilty but mentally ill, received a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 25 years for fatally shooting Kayce Steger, 15, Jessica James, 17, and Nicole Hadley, 14, on Dec. 1, 1997 at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky. Five others were injured during the early-morning shooting.
Carneal was the only remaining defendant of 53, including school officials, teachers and the boy’s parents, originally named in the lawsuit, the Associated Press reported. A judge dropped the others from the lawsuit after deciding that Carneal alone was responsible for the shootings.
The families’ decision to accept the settlement offered by Carneal’s lawyers is largely symbolic, Gwen Hadley, mother of Nicole, told The New York Times. Carneal has no assets, so the likelihood the families will collect the settlement is slim.
Former Anglican Bishops Honored by Pope
(RNS) Two former Anglican bishops who left the church and were received into communion with Rome following the Church of England’s decision to ordain women as priests have been honored by Pope John Paul II.
The two, who have since been ordained as Roman Catholic priests, have been appointed “prelates of honor” by the pope.
Monsignor Graham Leonard, Bishop of London from 1981 to 1991, and Monsignor John Klyberg, Bishop of Fulham from 1985 to 1996, were presented with their letters of appointment by Archbishop Cormac Murphy-O’Connor of Westminster in a private ceremony Thursday (Aug. 3).
Quote of the Day: Bible teacher Anne Graham Lotz
(RNS) “Daddy, I want to say that I miss you. I wish you were here. I love you, and everyone in this hall is praying for the restoration of your health and ministry.”
_ Bible teacher Anne Graham Lotz, speaking July 31 at the Amsterdam 2000 conference of evangelists on the absence of her father, the Rev. Billy Graham. She was quoted in the Aug. 3 report of Baptist Press.
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