c. 2003 Religion News Service
Muslim Group: FBI Mosque-Counting Program Unacceptable
(RNS) Referring to a new FBI initiative as “profiling,” a national Muslim advocacy and civil rights group has urged the Department of Justice to rescind the policy, which calls for collecting demographic information on local areas in part by counting mosques.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on the government to set aside the initiative, which was implemented earlier in January.
According to a Newsweek article detailing the program, FBI director Robert Mueller instructed the FBI’s 56 field offices to develop profiles of their areas by filling out a demographic questionnaire that, under a section labeled “vulnerability,” asks for the number of mosques in the area.
CAIR leaders called the measure “religious profiling of the worst kind.”
“This policy makes about as much sense as counting Catholic churches in America in order to initiate an investigation of the Mafia, or as claiming the number of African Methodist Episcopal churches in a given area is indicative of the level of criminal activity,” said Nihad Awad, who is executive director of CAIR.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Methodist Official Urges States to Follow Ryan’s Lead
WASHINGTON (RNS) The head of the United Methodist Church’s social policy office said states and governors across the country should follow the example of former Illinois Gov. George Ryan in emptying their death row prisons.
Jim Winkler, general secretary of the church’s General Board of Church and Society, applauded Ryan’s decision to pardon four death row inmates and commute the death sentences of 167 others.
Ryan, who left office Jan. 13, is a United Methodist. The 8.4 million-member church opposes the death penalty.
“Gov. Ryan’s action corrected an injustice in the Illinois death penalty system,” Winkler said in a statement. “It is time now for other states and the federal government to follow Gov. Ryan’s lead.”
Ryan’s controversial decision was also applauded by Episcopal Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, Roman Catholic Cardinals Francis George of Chicago and Theodore McCarrick of Washington, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ domestic policy committee.
“Our church has a long history of concern for the poor and for minorities who have been executed without the opportunity to prove their innocence or who have been denied the right to competent legal counsel,” Winkler said. “Our prayer is that Gov. Ryan’s decision will be seen as a watershed moment in the movement to end the death penalty.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Pope Asks Orthodox Churches to Join in Prayer for Mideast Peace
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II called on representatives of six Oriental Orthodox churches Tuesday (Jan. 28) to join him in praying “the threat of war and further violence” in the Middle East will be averted.
The Roman Catholic pontiff addressed members of a committee that opened three days of talks Monday to prepare for the second phase of theological dialogue between the Catholic and the Oriental churches, which are distinct from the rest of the Orthodox world.
“Many of you come from the Middle East and surrounding countries,” John Paul said. “Let us pray together that this region will be preserved from the threat of war and further violence.
“May our ecumenical endeavors always be directed to the building up of a civilization of love, founded on justice, reconciliation and peace,” he said.
Although he made no direct reference to the threat of a U.S.-led strike against Iraq, the pope appealed repeatedly for peace in the days leading up to the interim report to the United Nations on Monday by weapons inspectors in Iraq. He linked ecumenism with peace efforts in a series of addresses during the Week of Prayers for Christian Unity, Jan. 18-25.
Closing the ecumenical observances at a vespers service in the Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls on Saturday, John Paul said all Christians, whether Catholics, Orthodox or Protestants, are called to serve “peace and reconciliation, justice and solidarity, especially at the side of the poor and the least of the Earth.”
A young boy and girl joined the pope at his study window during the midday Angelus prayer on Sunday to free two white doves in a peace demonstration organized by Catholic Action.
Vatican officials have made clear the Catholic Church does not consider a preventive war against Iraq a “just war.” The Vatican also opposed the 1991 Gulf War on grounds that disproportionate force was used against Iraq.
The Orthodox members of the committee included representatives of the Copt Orthodox Patriarchate of Egypt, the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, the Armenian Apostolic Church at Etchmiadzine and Catholicossate of Antelias in Lebanon and the Orthodox churches of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Syria of the Malankar.
The churches separated from Rome and Byzantium in a christological dispute after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, some five centuries before the so-called great schism of 1054 divided the East and West.
Rejecting the council’s definition of Christ as one undivided person in two natures, the Oriental churches held that Christ’s humanity was part of his single divine nature.
The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity noted in a statement that the first phase of dialogue resulted in “important declarations of christological agreement,” which were signed by the pope and the Orthodox leaders. The preparatory committee will decide “the themes and the methods of future dialogue,” the council said.
_ Peggy Polk
Pennsylvania Methodists Urged to Work for School Funding
(RNS) United Methodists in Pennsylvania are being urged by their bishops to work for more equal funding of public schools.
A new pastoral letter called on church members to “become informed, involved and intense about the issue of comprehensive public education reform.”
It is in the church’s tradition of “consistently and constantly advocating for justice and fairness on behalf of the most vulnerable,” the letter said. It also reminded Gov. Ed Rendell of his campaign promises to reform public education.
“United Methodist leaders spent the last two years speaking to congregants about the inequities in Pennsylvania’s schools. It is now time to mobilize the four United Methodist conferences across the state for public education reform,” said Bishop Neil Irons of Harrisburg.
The bishops work with Good Schools Pennsylvania _ community and religious leaders who hold monthly prayer vigils to call attention to the disparity in funding among the state’s school districts.
More than half a million United Methodists attend 2,200 churches statewide, according to the denomination.
_ Mary Warner
Northern Ireland School Agrees to Pay Damages for Pregnancy Expulsion
LONDON (RNS) A Roman Catholic convent grammar school in Northern Ireland has paid $10,000 damages in an out-of-court settlement to a former pupil who was expelled from the school and prevented from taking her exams when she was seven months pregnant.
Margaret McCluskey, now 21, mother of 4-year-old Judina and in her final year at Cambridge University, was asked to leave Mount Lourdes grammar school when her pregnancy became obvious. After taking her exams at a local technical college, she gave birth to her daughter and was allowed back to the Catholic Mount Lourdes to study for her A-levels _ the tests that determine qualification for university entrance.
“As a mother I was allowed to go back to school,” she said. “It was just the fact that the bump was showing. They wouldn’t have suspended me from school _ I would have been allowed to carry on as normal _ had I had an abortion.”
She sued the school and said she hoped all schools in Northern Ireland would get the message.
“Real Christian values are inclusive,” she said. “When people are at their lowest point, you help them up, not push them out through the door. It reminds me of the old days when girls that got pregnant were sent off to the workhouse.”
She said the school made special arrangements for girls who had broken legs or had glandular fever. “They could have made special arrangements for me.”
_ Robert Nowell
Quote of the Day: Actor/director Mel Gibson
(RNS) “It’s gonna be hard to take. When the Romans scourged you, it wasn’t a nice thing. Think about the Crucifixion _ there’s no way to sugarcoat that.”
_ Actor/director Mel Gibson, speaking to Time magazine about his shooting of the film “The Passion,” which is about the life and death of Jesus.
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