c. 2003 Religion News Service
Salvation Army Predicts Lower Kettle Donations in Southern California
(RNS) The Salvation Army’s red kettles will likely receive far less donations this holiday season due to the ongoing supermarket strike in Southern California, officials said.
The charity has decided not to place kettles at grocery stores that have picketers, said Carla Jackson, media relations director for the Salvation Army’s Southern California Division.
“Anywhere that is currently having picketers, we’re choosing not to have our kettles at this time,” she told Religion News Service Tuesday (Dec. 2). “No one has told us not to come. It’s just something we choose to avoid at this time.”
Some of the division’s most successful sites in the past have been at Vons and Albertson’s stores, which are currently being picketed.
“When we add up the donations normally solicited from these stores … we are looking at a shortfall of possibly close to half of a million dollars,” said a statement from Lt. Col. Alfred Van Cleef, commander of the division based in Los Angeles.
The strike, which began in October, involves about 59,000 workers who are in a conflict with grocery store owners over health care.
Jackson said the division is seeking alternative locations at major retail stores and considering other ways to encourage donations.
She said some “mom and pop” stores have offered their locations as sites for kettles but “it’s very difficult to get the same type of traffic” that occurs at a larger grocery store.
“The public has been very generous and very kind in their outpouring,” Jackson said. “We need to continue that dialogue so that we can continue our program and events without having to cut back on our social services.”
The Salvation Army, which also is an evangelical church, began placing its kettles on the weekend before Thanksgiving.
“We already know there has been a decrease,” Jackson said. “Because we do not have as many kettles up as we did last year, there are less donations coming in.”
Salvation Army officials in Southern California are requesting donations through other methods than the kettles, such as through their Web site (http://www.salvationarmysocal.org) or their phone number (1-800-725-2769).
_ Adelle M. Banks
Pope Names Bishop of La Crosse, Wis., as New Archbishop of St. Louis
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II has named Bishop Raymond Leo Burke of La Crosse, Wis., a Rome-educated expert on church law, to succeed Cardinal Justin Rigali as archbishop of St. Louis, the Vatican said Tuesday (Dec. 2).
Burke, 55, and a native of Richland Center, Wis., has been bishop of La Crosse since 1994. Previously he was attached to the Apostolic Signature in Rome, the supreme court of the church and of the Vatican city-state.
The post of archbishop of St. Louis has been vacant since the pope named Rigali archbishop of Philadelphia earlier this year. The archdiocese has more than 550,000 members in 220 parishes.
After attending Holy Cross Seminary in La Crosse and receiving a master’s degree in philosophy from Catholic University in Washington, Burke entered the Pontifical North American College in Rome to study theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University.
Ordained a priest in St. Peter’s Basilica in 1975, he served as assistant priest and taught in the dioceses of La Crosse until 1980 when he returned to Rome to study for a degree in canon law at the Gregorian University.
_ Peggy Polk
Billy Graham `Moved to Tears’ by Gibson’s `Passion’ Movie
(RNS) Evangelist Billy Graham said he was “moved to tears” after screening Mel Gibson’s controversial film on the death of Jesus Christ, and said the film does not blame “any particular group” for his crucifixion.
Gibson, who has been criticized by Jewish groups for his upcoming film “The Passion of Christ,” personally met with Graham, along with actor Jim Caviezel, who plays Jesus, at a West Virginia conference center.
“I have often wondered what it must have been like to be a bystander during those last hours before Jesus’ death,” Graham said in a statement. “After watching `The Passion of The Christ,’ I feel as if I have actually been there. I was moved to tears.”
Jewish groups are concerned that the $30 million film, scheduled for release on Ash Wednesday (Feb. 25, 2004) blames Jews for the death of Jesus and will fuel anti-Semitism.
Graham said “the film is faithful to the Bible’s teaching that we are all responsible for Jesus’ death because we have all sinned. It is our sins that caused his death, not any particular group.”
Gibson, a conservative Catholic, has screened the film for numerous evangelical and Catholic leaders, but so far has refused to show the movie to most Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, which has voiced the most concerns.
In a statement issued on June 13, Gibson vigorously denied that his film casts Jews in a bad light, and said he has made revisions to ease some concerns. “To be certain, neither I nor my film are anti-Semitic. … Nor do I hate anybody, certainly not the Jews,” he said.
The film has also received the endorsement of the National Association of Evangelicals. NAE President Ted Haggard screened the film in July.
Graham did not mention Jews by name in the statement released by his public relations firm, which is also handling some publicity for Gibson’s Icon Productions film company.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
British Methodists Urged to Forgo Christmas Trees to Aid Third World
LONDON (RNS) The Methodist Relief and Development Fund of Great Britain is asking people this year to forego buying a Christmas tree and instead to buy trees for Christmas to help small farmers in Africa and Asia.
The agency’s tree-planting project is one of a range of sustainable agricultural development projects it is supporting. Planting trees can prevent soil erosion and help to improve the soil’s organic content, which in turn helps to preserve moisture in the soil and thus increase vegetation cover and crop yields.
In southern Zambia the agency’s partner, the Kaluli Development Foundation, has been encouraging local farmers to plant Faidherbia albida, the apple ring acacia or African winter-thorn. This is a tree that can be grown from seed and has been proven to increase soil fertility and the yield of crops grown round it. Its pods and leaves also provide a valuable source of animal fodder.
In making its appeal the Methodist agency says that a donation of just $8.50 will enable a small farmer to raise and plant a dozen trees, while 10 times that amount will support a community tree nursery during the long dry season lasting for between seven and nine months.
Meanwhile $34 will pay for six locally made watering cans so that several households can water their vegetable gardens and tree nurseries.
_ Robert Nowell
Spanish Church: Future Queen Must `Confess’ About Previous Marriage
MADRID (RNS) The divorced TV anchorwoman engaged to Spain’s Crown Prince Felipe must confess the reasons why her previous marriage was secular rather than in the church, according to church officials.
Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano, 31, and Felipe, 35, will become the next queen and king of this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country after the wedding scheduled for May in the Cathedral of the Almudena in Madrid.
Spaniards celebrated Felipe’s engagement last month to Ortiz, who was a rising star on the state-run broadcasting network, TVE.
Many Spaniards also breathed a sigh of relief. They, and reportedly also King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia, had frowned on some of Felipe’s previous girlfriends, including a Norwegian model who had posed in an underwear ad _ and who is a Lutheran.
At the time of the engagement, the president of the Spanish bishops’ conference, Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela congratulated the parents.
And a statement published by the Archdiocese of Madrid said there was “no canonical impediment” to the wedding because Ortiz’s previous marriage was contracted in a civil ceremony and not in a church. At 27, Ortiz married a literature professor in Madrid, and they went their separate ways a year later. Spain legalized divorce in 1981.
“For the church, Letizia Ortiz has not been married,” Juan Antonio Martinez Camino, the secretary of the archdiocese and spokesman for the national conference, was quoted as saying.
However, after a recent meeting of bishops, Martinez Camino specified that Ortiz will have to undergo a pre-marital course given by a priest and undertake a “period of reflection” on the meaning of church marriage.
A spokeswoman for the bishops conference said it is the same procedure required of all the 150,000 couples that get married every year in Spain according to the church rite.
However, the El Mundo newspaper said it obtained a copy from the Madrid archdiocese of a sworn statement that has been drawn up especially for Letizia. She will have to sign it before next year’s ceremony, the newspaper said, “explaining the reasons that compelled her to have a civil ceremony” with her ex-husband.
_ Jerome Socolovsky
Quote of the Day: Habitat for Humanity Founder Millard Fuller
(RNS) “How can you say you’re an evangelical if you don’t want to work around folks who aren’t Christians? That’s precisely where an evangelical Christian ought to be _ on a site sponsored by an overtly Christian organization with no restriction on what you share with people. Why shouldn’t you be there?”
_ Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity, expressing his frustration with “evangelical brethren” who say they’re uncomfortable working with non-Christians at his organization’s home-building work sites. He was quoted by Associated Baptist Press, an independent Baptist news service.
DEA END RNS
