c. 2000 Religion News Service
NCC Leaders Meet With Father of Cuban Boy in Custody Battle
(RNS) Representatives of the National Council of Churches have met with the Cuban father of a 6-year-old boy who was rescued at sea and hope to aid his son’s return from the United States.”We are puzzled why it has taken so long,”said the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, former general secretary of the New York-based ecumenical group.”We thought the child would have been returned by now.” Campbell’s remarks were reported by the Associated Press after her arrival in Cuba on Sunday (Jan. 2). On Monday, she visited Juan Miguel Gonzalez, father of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez, who has been demanding that his son be returned to him in Cuba. A paternal great-uncle is fighting to keep Elian with him in Miami.
The Rev. Oscar Bolioli, director of the council’s office for Latin America and the Caribbean, also was at the meeting with the father, along with other relatives. The boy’s four grandparents and a great-grandmother, who attended the session, all want to see the 6-year-old back in Cuba.
U.S. officials gave custody of Elian to the great-uncle in Miami in late November after he was discovered clinging to an inner tube off the coast of Florida. The boy’s mother died in an apparent attempt to immigrate illegally to the United States.
Campbell, who informed the White House about the trip, has been working on the case with the Cuban Council of Churches. Although she completed her term as general secretary on Jan. 1, she said the new general secretary, the Rev. Robert W. Edgar, requested that she make the trip because she has dealt with Cuba for two decades.
In a statement issued before her departure, Campbell explained the NCC’s position.”Our concern is humanitarian, not political,”she said.”We hold that except in cases of abuse, children are best served when they are with their parents, and all indications are that this is a good, loving father.”It’s not the `way of life’ but the care within the home that’s key to a child’s well-being. Those who say Elian should stay in the United States because `the way of life is better’ ignore the meaning of family.”
Religious Violence Breaks Out in Egypt
(RNS) Egyptian officials say security forces have put an end to three days of looting and violence between Christians and Muslims that left 20 people dead in southern Egypt.
Christian Coptic Bishop Wissa, whose diocese includes several of the villages hit by the fighting, said Monday (Jan. 3) all of the dead were Christians from the village of el-Kusheh, located about 275 miles south of Cairo, the Associated Press reported.
The Interior Ministry said 44 people had been injured in the fighting and a number of buildings and vehicles were torched.
The violence was sparked Friday (Dec. 31) by a dispute between a Muslim street vendor and a Christian shopkeeper, according to reports, and then spread to nearby villages. According to Wissa, who uses only one name, a church and 50 houses, shops and warehouses were burned in the village of Awlad Toq West.”Barbaric people carrying rifles went on a rampage and started firing at Christian shops and Christian houses,”Wissa said.
Catholic Bishops Open Jubilee Year With Ad Campaign
(RNS) The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops have opened their observance of the Jubilee Year 2000 with an extensive advertising campaign in major newspapers stressing people’s power for good when they realize God loves them.
The ad, headlined”Because God loves you,”was placed in the Jan. 2 editions of The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and Houston Chronicle.”New possibilities lie before you _ before all of us _ at the start of the third Christian millennium,”the ad said.”This is a Jubilee Year of Celebration. This is a time to look at the world and decide how to better serve your neighbors. Thanks to God you can do it! Two thousand years ago the Father sent Jesus his son into the world as the Savior. Now through the Holy Spirit, the power of God’s love lies within you.” Bishop Wilton Gregory of Belleville, Ill., chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on the Jubilee Year 2000, said the bishops wanted to note the historic moment of the passing of the millennium with the most powerful message they know: that God’s love empowers people.”This last century found a culture of death pervading society,”the bishop said.”We have come through the unprecedented violence of world wars and the use of the atomic bomb. Our society has institutionalized attacks on human beings by their loved ones through abortion and euthanasia.” Gregory said the bishops hope the ads”testify to the heart of our faith _ the saving love of Jesus _ and suggest a tone for the next millennium.”
White House Spokesman Apologizes for Remarks on Baptists
(RNS) White House spokesman Joe Lockhart has apologized for his comments linking the Southern Baptist Convention to organizations that”perpetuate ancient religious hatred.” Responding to a letter from two Republican congressmen declaring President Clinton should demand Lockhart’s resignation, the spokesman said he was sorry if his words made it appear he was criticizing Southern Baptists.”It was certainly not my intention to make that case,”Lockhart said, the Associated Press reported.
Lockhart said he was attempting to focus on the president’s long-held support of religious tolerance and”it was never my intention to single anyone out”when he responded to a question about the alleged perpetuating of religious hatred.
The Dec. 23 letter from Reps. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., and J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., said Lockhart’s comments were”blatant bigotry against a particular religious group.” Southern Baptist leaders also voiced strong opposition to Lockhart’s remarks.
Anglican Founder of Anti-Suicide Hot Line Honored
(RNS) The founder of the Samaritans, a nationwide telephone counseling service for those contemplating suicide, has been awarded one of Britain’s most select honors in the country’s New Year’s honors list.
The Rev. Chad Varah, who is 88, and who began the Samaritans in 1953 when rector of a parish in London’s East End, has been made a Companion of Honour, joining a select group of just 65.
Varah has said the inspiration for founding the Samaritans came from his experience as a newly ordained Anglican priest in 1936 when he had to conduct the funeral of a 14-year-old girl who killed herself because she thought the onset of puberty was an incurable illness.
Quote of the Day: Evangelist Billy Graham.
(RNS)”I doubt if he could. His views and my views will be very far apart. … We could be friends, but it would be very difficult for us to say that we are the same, or that we could be the same religiously.” _ Evangelist Billy Graham, in a Fox News Sunday interview, stating his opinion about whether Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan could be a unifying force for the world’s religions. Graham was quoted by the Associated Press.
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