c. 2000 Religion News Service
Serb Church Urges Police, Army to Back Opposition
(RNS) The leadership of the Serbian Orthodox Church has called on the Yugoslav military and Serbian police to aid in the peaceful transition of government in the wake of mass demonstrations against Slobodan Milosevic.
In a statement by Patriarch Pavle, the church urged the military and police “to do their utmost so that government could change in a peaceful, dignified and civilized manner, thus preserving their reputation before the people and the whole world.”
Pavle’s statement was released Wednesday (Oct. 5) as hundreds of thousands of demonstrators beseiged the Milosevic regime in Belgrade, setting fire to the parliament building and seizing police stations and television broadcasting facilities.
“ .. we invite all the responsible people of good will _ those now in power and those who are not _ to do their best so that riots do not occur and brotherly blood is not spilled,” Pavle said.
The statement was released while it remained uncertain how Milosevic and the military would respond to the demonstrators demanding that he resign and that opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica, winner of last month’s presidential election, be declared the new president. While Milosevic has acknowledged Kostunica won more votes, he has insisted it was not enough to prevent a runoff election.
The report said the church was organizing a prayer service to be held Friday afternoon in front of St. Sava’s Cathedral in Belgrade “for the salvation and reconciliation of the Serbian people.”
In Geneva, where Pavle’s statement was reported by Ecumenical News International, the religious news agency, Keith Clements, general secretary of the Conference of European Churches, called for solidarity with Yugoslavia’s churches.
“Now is the time for Christians and churches throughout to pray anew for the people of Yugoslavia, and to manifest their solidarity with the churches of that country during these critical days,” Clements said, ENI reported.
Clements said the Serbian church had “showed great courage when, immediately after the recent presidential elections, it called for recognition of the democratic will of the people in their choice for a new president.”
Debt Relief Update: Gramm Vows to Block Package
(RNS) Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, said Thursday (Oct. 5) he will block an international debt relief package unless the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund agree to reform themselves and poor countries improve their records on human rights.
The United States has promised more than $900 million to help erase foreign debts owed by poor countries. President Clinton has asked Congress for $435 million this year to fund debt relief, but the measure is currently stalled on Capitol Hill.
Debt relief has emerged as the top policy issue this year for an array of religious groups, from Jews to Catholics and Protestants. Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson recently joined Clinton at a White House strategy session to push for the debt relief package.
On his 700 Club television show on Tuesday (Oct. 3), Robertson said Gramm _ who usually shares most of Robertson’s conservative views _ was “really standing in the way” of debt relief. Gramm told the Associated Press he will continue to block the measure until certain reforms are guaranteed.
Gramm said several poor countries who would benefit from the relief package have abysmal human rights records, and he wants to see economic reforms at the IMF and World Bank before he will allow the measure to move forward.
“I know there are many people who support this debt forgiveness as part of humanitarian assistance, but I want to be sure it’s used for humanitarian purposes,” Gramm said. “As someone with more knowledge than me once said, `The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”’
Religious Leaders Ask Bush, Gore for Leadership on Poverty
(RNS) A coalition of Christian leaders has asked Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush to make elimininating poverty a priority in the next administration and vowed to help cut the childhood poverty rate in half within five years.
The Christian Roundtable on Poverty, a gathering of 48 religious leaders from 45 national church denominations, met on Sept. 20 and agreed that while both candidates have vowed to “leave no one behind,” neither camp has pledged to make reducing poverty levels a top priority.
“At a time of unprecedented prosperity, in the richest nation in history, it should be morally unacceptable to us that 12 million of our children continue to be poor …” read a letter from the Rev. Jim Wallis, convener of the roundtable and editor of Sojourners magazine.
The religious leaders said that if Bush or Gore took on the issue as president, the country’s religious, social and civic organizations would follow.
“There are Republican ways and Democratic ways to cut child poverty by half, but neither will work without the moral and political energy that comes from a national commitment to a concrete goal,” the letter said.
New England’s Catholic Bishops Express Environmental Concern
(RNS) The 21 Roman Catholic bishops of the four northern New England states sounded an environmental alarm for their region this week in a pastoral letter pleading for less consumption and more sustainable business.
“It is increasingly clear that the promotion of human dignity cannot be separated from our care and protection of God’s creation,” the bishops wrote in the seven-page letter. “We call upon the people in northern New England to take up the moral challenge of preserving the environment.”
Regional troubles abound, the letter said. Polluted air and water, toxic parcels, destroyed fisheries, lost farmland, urban sprawl and over-cut forests made the bishops’ list of consequences of New England’s industrial past and commercial growth at present.
Signatories from Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine passed around blame and included some fairly specific references. “Large-scale agri-business,” for instance, was criticized for being “controlled from afar by persons who do not know the local circumstances” and being easily “tempted to introduce environmentally hazardous practices such as large-scale confined animal feeding operations.”
But big business hardly emerged as the chief culprit overall in the bishops’ critique. Rather, a “blind faith in economic growth” and “personal habits of over-consumption and waste” dominated the bishops’ analysis of the problems.
Environmental issues aren’t new for the church. Pope John Paul II called for better stewardship of the creation in his 1989 statement, “The Ecological Crisis: A Common Responsibility.”
The release of the pastoral letter coincided with the church’s Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, whose ways with birds and animals are legendary.
Survey: Most Protestant Pastors Support Vouchers, Student-Led Prayers
(RNS) Most Protestant church pastors surveyed support school voucher programs and student-led prayers at public events in public schools, Ellison Research reports.
The Phoenix-based marketing research company found that 49 percent of ministers strongly support “giving parents school vouchers to help pay for their children to attend private schools (religious or non-religious) if they choose.” Twenty-four percent said they somewhat support the idea, compared to 14 percent who strongly oppose it and 13 percent who somewhat oppose it.
Sixty-three percent of pastors affiliated with denominations that are members of the conservative National Association of Evangelicals strongly support school vouchers. Thirty-one percent of pastors from denominations affiliated with the more liberal National Council of Churches strongly support the school vouchers.
A national sample of 518 active Protestant pastors also were asked about school prayer.
Overall, more than 90 percent of pastors said they support “laws allowing student-led prayers at public events in public schools, such as graduation.” Surveyors found 67 percent strongly support such laws, 25 percent somewhat support them, 4 percent oppose them somewhat and 3 percent oppose them strongly.
Most pastors also voiced support for “laws allowing educators or students to lead corporate prayer in public schools.” Forty-four percent strongly supported such laws and 39 percent somewhat supported them, compared to 10 percent who opposed them somewhat and 7 percent who opposed them strongly.
The survey found that 89 percent of pastors with ties to the National Association of Evangelicals supported permitting corporate prayer in schools compared to 72 percent of those with ties to the NCC.
The study had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.
Quote of the Day: Prison Chaplain Jim Brazzil of Texas
(RNS) “You watch that man take his last breath, and you watch his eyes set and they just have that blank stare. … You can see his shirt pounding, then all of a sudden you see it begin to slow and then it stops. The intensity of that moment _ sometimes you can feel the spirit leave _ I don’t know how to describe it.”
Chaplain Jim Brazzil, a Southern Baptist minister, who has been chaplain for five years at the Huntsville, Texas, prison that houses the state’s death chamber. He was quoted by the Associated Press.
DEA END RNS
