c. 2003 Religion News Service
House Approves Call for National Day of Prayer and Fasting
WASHINGTON (RNS) The House passed a resolution Thursday (March 27) urging a national day of prayer and fasting as the nation battles Iraq and the threat of terrorism.
The resolution, which passed 346 to 49, urges President Bush to proclaim a “day for humility, prayer and fasting” for all Americans. A similar bill was passed March 17 by the Senate.
The bill recognized “the public need for fasting and prayer in order to secure the blessings and protection of Providence for the people of the United States and our armed forces.”
Prayer and fasting will help produce “unity and solidarity among all the diverse people of this nation as well as procuring the enduring grace and benevolence of God,” the bill said, adding that it will help the nation “better recognize our faults and shortcomings and submit to the wisdom and love of God.”
White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan told the Associated Press that the president has not considered the resolution but “believes that faith and prayer are important and frequently references the importance of praying for American troops and for freedom around the world.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, meanwhile, found the bill laughable. “The resolution is full of references to `God’ as if belief in one is unanimous,” said president Anne Gaylor. “It is insufferable ego to imagine that, if there were a god, it would respond to these demeaning supplications.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Bush’s Faith-Based Plan Scaled Back by Senate Sponsor
WASHINGTON (RNS) The chief Senate sponsor of President Bush’s “faith-based” initiative has removed its most controversial elements in hopes of gaining wider support.
Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., agreed Thursday (March 27) to remove language from the CARE Act that would have allowed “equal treatment” for religious charities that receive government funding and permitted them to use religious criteria in personnel decisions.
The scaled-back bill now contains only tax incentives for charitable giving and increased federal aid for social service groups. This is the second time that Santorum has agreed to trim the original plan.
“I would have liked to have gotten the whole enchilada, but in the United States Senate this year, you’re lucky to get anything, and I’ll take anything,” Santorum said, according to the Associated Press.
The new bill is a dramatic step back from the plan originally presented by President Bush two years ago. That bill, which would have allowed religious groups to sidestep anti-discrimination laws and preserve their religious identity, passed the House but remained stalled in the Senate.
Santorum said the bill could face a vote in the full Senate as soon as next week; he said he has assurances from House Republicans that they will not try to revive the old bill.
Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, pledged that Bush would continue to push to give religious groups an expanded role in providing social services.
“This is more of a legislative strategy issue _ what you can do now versus what you can do later,” Towey told the Associated Press. “The president remains committed to ending discrimination against faith-based groups.”
The Rev. Barry Lynn, director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and chief foe of the Bush plan, praised the move by Santorum.
“This is a huge step in the right direction,” he said. “This shows that members of Congress can increase aid to religious and secular charities without violating the Constitution.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Pacifist on Paraglider Invades Vatican Air Space in Anti-War Protest
VATICAN CITY (RNS) An Austrian pacifist on a paraglider invaded Vatican air space in an anti-war protest Friday (March 28) and was promptly taken into custody when he landed just outside St. Peter’s Square.
Andreas Siebenhofer, 26, drifted across the square just after dawn on a motor-propelled paraglider emblazoned with the slogan “Peace Not War.” He set down on the Italian side of barriers at the foot of the square where police awaited him.
Although Pope John Paul II shares the protester’s opposition to the war in Iraq, Vatican air space has been closed to aviation since the Lateran Treaty of 1929 between the Italian government and the Holy See. The Vatican asked the Italian Defense Ministry and police to increase enforcement following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
Siebenhofer, a paragliding priest, a handful of other enthusiasts and a busload of mechanics set off on their peace mission Monday (March 24) from the Church of Mary of the Snow atop a 5,500-foot peak near Seckau in Austria.
Making 14 stops as they crossed Italy to the Vatican, they collected some 1,000 signatures on an anti-war petition they planned to present to the pope. The priest, identified only as Father Pascal, took to the air at Assisi, birthplace of St. Francis.
The exploit followed a meeting of ambassadors to the Vatican from European Union countries Thursday with Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the pope’s foreign minister.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said Friday that Tauran, who meets periodically with diplomats accredited to the Holy See, held “an exchange of views on the situation in Iraq, the state of the future European Convention and the international situation in general.”
John Paul held a similar exchange Friday with Sergey Mironov, president of the Russian Senate, and Volodimyr Litvin, president of the Ukrainian Parliament. Navarro-Valls said their talks focused on “church-state relations in the respective countries and on the perspectives for peace at the present hour.”
_ Peggy Polk
Humanists, Atheists Ask Bush to Declare `National Day of Reason’
(RNS) Leaders of national and local secular, humanist and atheist groups have called on President Bush to declare a “National Day of Reason” on the same day that he proclaims a “National Day of Prayer.”
Such an additional proclamation on May 1 “would go a long way toward encouraging the application of reason and tolerance in public discourse and affirming the value of maintaining the separation of church and state,” they said in a letter sent to Bush on March 21.
The leaders proposed language for the proclamation that would highlight the country as “a world leader in fields of endeavor that rely on reason,” such as human rights, scientific research and social reform.
A statement from organizers announcing the initiative said the National Day of Prayer, observed annually since 1952, excludes nonbelievers. Congress established the annual observance and it has been observed on the first Thursday in May since 1988.
“A national day of prayer excludes millions on a deeply emotional level, whereas recognizing reason as well as prayer is an inclusive, respectful gesture,” the statement reads. “While prayer is a source of comfort for many Americans, reason should guide government policy.”
Endorsers of the newer observance and signers of the letter to the president include representatives of the American Humanist Association, Atheist Alliance International, Institute for Humanist Studies, Secular Student Alliance and Secular Coalition for America.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Pope Tells Confessors to Stick to Church Teaching
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II said Friday (March 28) that priests hearing confession must stick to church teaching and not venture personal opinions when questions involving bioethics and matrimony arise.
The Roman Catholic pontiff spoke in a stern tone to 500 members of religious orders attending a course on confession organized by the Apostolic Penitentiary, the church tribunal with authority over the Sacrament of Penance.
“I desire to recall your attention to the proper adhesion to the Magisterum (teaching) of the church about the complex problems that come up in the field of bioethics and about moral and canonical instruction in the sphere of matrimony,” he said.
John Paul said that Catholics sometimes “leave confession with rather confused ideas” because the priests to whom they have confessed do not follow “the same line of judgment” on ethical problems in these areas as the church does.
“In reality,” he said, “whoever carries out this most delicate ministry in the name of God and of the church has the precise duty of not cultivating and still more not manifesting in the sacramental site personal valuations that do not respond to those that the church teaches and proclaims.”
The pope also urged confessors “to offer the charity of considerate welcome without avarice of time and without asperity or coldness of manner” to all those who come to make their confession.
_ Peggy Polk
Quote of the Day: Humorist and Author Garrison Keillor
(RNS) “Scripture tells us to confess our sins to each other, and I wish that the poets I know would do this more often. They could use a little more humility, frankly. We humorists can’t do the whole job alone.”
_ Humorist Garrison Keillor, author of “Good Poems,” in an interview in the March 27 Christian Century magazine.
DEA END RNS
