c. 2003 Religion News Service
Appellate Court Permits School Distribution of Religious Literature
(RNS) An appeals court has ruled that an Arizona school district cannot prohibit distribution of literature advertising a program with religious content.
The decision Thursday (May 22) by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concerned a Scottsdale Unified School District policy.
“The district cannot refuse to distribute literature advertising a program with underlying religious content where it distributes quite similar literature for secular summer camps, but it can refuse to distribute literature that itself contains proselytizing language,” a three-judge panel concluded.
Mary Ellen Simonson, Scottsdale school district attorney, said the district may ask the appellate court to review its decision or ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the case, the Associated Press reported.
She said the appellate decision puts school districts in the “untenable position” of assessing “how far a brochure can go in promoting a religious event in its advertising.”
The ruling was hailed by the American Center for Law and Justice, which filed suit in 2000 on behalf of Joseph Hills, president of “A Little Sonshine From Arizona,” a nonprofit corporation that planned a summer camp and wanted to advertise it through the school district.
“The appeals court decision sends an important message about the constitutional rights of religious speakers,” said Walter M. Weber, senior litigation counsel for the law firm founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson.
“School districts cannot legally discriminate against the type of literature distributed at schools simply because that literature promotes an event that includes religious speech.”
The camp, which was to feature two classes on the Bible, was never held because its organizer could not find enough participants, said the Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale-based organization that helped fund the suit.
“Equal treatment of Christians and equal access for Christians in our public schools is long overdue,” said Gary McCaleb, a lawyer with the fund, in a statement.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Episcopal Church Elects First `Gen X’ Bishop
(RNS) The Episcopal Church has elected its first “Generation X” bishop, a sign of hope for young clergy in a church where only 4 percent of priests are under the age of 35.
The Rev. Johncy Itty, 40, was elected the new bishop of Oregon on May 17. Once Itty’s election is confirmed, he will lead 21,000 parishioners in 78 congregations in western Oregon.
Itty was born in Bhopal, India, and currently serves as the canon residentiary at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, N.Y. Itty has also served on the national staff of the Episcopal Church headquarters in New York.
The Rev. Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows, president of the Gathering the neXt Generation network of young clergy, said the church needs more young bishops like Itty. Generation X is generally described as those born between 1961 and 1981.
“While much progress needs to be made to make discernment processes for ordination in every diocese open to Gen Xers, there are now many experienced Gen X priests who are well qualified to serve as bishop,” she said.
A 2000 study showed that only 3.94 percent of Episcopal clergy are under the age of 35, compared with 19 percent in 1975. Almost 40 percent of the church’s clergy are over the age of 55.
The Rev. Tom Sramek, a Gathering the neXt Generation leader and vicar of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Albany, Ore., cheered the appointment of his new bishop.
“I’m especially excited about the fact that he is a member of my generation _ Generation X _ and look forward to having someone nearer my own age and life stage as my bishop,” Sramek, 35, told Episcopal News Service.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Vatican Hails U.N. Security Council Vote to Lift Iraq Sanctions
ROME (RNS) A high Vatican official on Friday (May 23) hailed the U.N. Security Council vote to lift the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq, which Pope John Paul II has long opposed.
“We are happy that the U.N. Security Council has abolished the sanctions that weighed on the Iraqi people for 13 years,” said Archbishop Renato Martino. The Vatican’s former observer at the United Nations, Martino now serves as president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
John Paul had repeatedly urged an end to sanctions against both Iraq and Cuba on the grounds that they harmed private citizens without having an effect on government policy.
“Deterrence does not work as a system,” Martino said. “If there must be deterrence, it should be for a limited period. The sanctions, carried to an extreme and for a long time, wound up damaging the people.”
Martino, speaking to reporters at a conference on “The Church and the International Order” at the Pontifical Gregorian University, called the resolution approved Thursday “a point of departure to be greeted with great satisfaction although it is rather limited.”
The resolution gave the United States and Britain broad economic powers and control of Iraq’s oil industry and the United Nations a restricted role in reconstruction.
The prelate said it was now time to restore confidence in the world organization and to begin the “reconstruction of an international order where all nations can feel they have the same rights and duties.”
_ Peggy Polk
Danish Store Yanks Jesus and Mary Flip-Flops
(RNS) A Danish supermarket chain has pulled a line of flip-flops that featured images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary after several churches protested and angry customers ransacked the “flip-flops of shame.”
The Coop chain, which owns the Kvickly stores where the sandals were sold, said it originally thought the footwear was trendy.
“It was never our intention to offend people’s beliefs, but apparently that was the case, and we were surprised by the scale of these protests,” company spokesman Jens Juul Nielsen told the Agence France-Presse news agency. “That is why we have chosen to remove them from the shelves.”
Danish Catholics and the state Lutheran Protestant Church complained to the store about the $6 flip-flops.
“We Catholics pray to Jesus and Mary and now they want us to walk all over them. That’s blasphemy and a serious and indecent violation of the religious sentiments of believers,” said Johannes Gram Kulis, a church official from Vordingborg.
A Protestant minister from Odense told Agence France-Presse the sandals are the “equivalent to wiping your behind with the image of Jesus. It’s horrible.”
Coop officials, who were originally reluctant to pull the flip-flops, said they sold about 4,000 pairs of the sandals before they were yanked. The shoes are now said to be worth double their original value.
Power Team Founder Jacobs to Retire
(RNS) Power Team founder John Jacobs has announced his retirement from the evangelistic ministry that focuses on demonstrating feats of strength at crusades and other events.
Jacobs announced May 7 that his retirement would be effective in July, reported Charisma News Service, affiliated with Charisma magazine.
The 43-year-old evangelical leader attributed his decision to the pressures of leading a ministry amid several personal “hits” in recent years, including marital and financial troubles.
The Power Team said in a statement that it was time for Jacobs “to go on with his life, separated from this ministry, so he can focus on identifying, clarifying, and letting the Lord refresh and purify him in several key areas.”
Jacobs said he had not been asked to retire “but I felt like God wanted me to go deeper.”
He plans to continue to demonstrate his strength through speaking opportunities in churches and schools.
The Dallas-based Power Team, which includes 20 world-class athletes, has evangelized through events across the country and abroad.
Church of Scotland Urges New Probe of Helicopter Crash
EDINBURGH (RNS) The (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland has added its voice to calls for a new investigation of a 1994 helicopter crash that killed 25 senior members of the North Ireland security services along with the helicopter crew.
The proposal came before the general assembly from the presbytery of South Argyll, which includes Kintyre, site of the crash.
A Royal Air Force board of inquiry following the crash blamed the two RAF pilots, and two senior RAF officials reviewing the finding declared the two pilots were guilty of “gross negligence” in flying too low and too fast near high ground in bad weather.
The crash of the Chinook Mark 2 has been an ongoing source of political controversy in Britain.
Three subsequent inquiries _ a fatal accident inquiry in Scotland and investigations by committees of the House of Commons and the House of Lords _ found the “gross negligence” verdict was not justified.
In addition, the Commons select committee on public accounts reported that at the time of the crash the fleet of Chinook helicopters was experiencing widespread and repeated faults caused by its Fully Automated Digital Engine Control software.
With the families of the helicopter crew in the gallery, the assembly unanimously adopted the presbytery’s call for the Ministry of Defense to re-examine the issue.
_ Robert Nowell
Quote of the Day: Kenyan doctor Wilson Ndgu
(RNS) “People are having sex, so we should be promoting condoms as a way to save lives. That is the ethical and, frankly, the most Christian response.”
_ Wilson Ndgu, a Kenyan doctor who distributes condoms in health clinics and bars around the slums of Nairobi. He was quoted by The Washington Post.
DEA END RNS
