c. 2003 Religion News Service

Vatican Says Georgian Orthodox Church Lied to Block Religious Freedom Pact

VATICAN CITY (RNS) A high Vatican official has accused the Georgian Orthodox Church of issuing false information in a successful attempt to block the signing of a pact to guarantee religious freedom to Catholics.

Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican foreign minister, leveled the charge Saturday (Sept. 20) in a statement issued by the Vatican as he left Tblisi at the end of a failed two-day mission to the Georgian capital. He had been scheduled to sign the pact on Friday.

“The delegation of the Holy See,” Tauran said, “feels deeply wounded by the attitude of the Georgian Orthodox Church, which has diffused news that does not respond to the truth although the (Vatican’s) readiness to inform (the Orthodox Church) of the progress of the negotiations was shown many times.”

The Georgian government postponed the signing at the last minute after thousands of Orthodox Christians took to the streets to protest the pact outlining the legal rights of Catholics, who make up about 1 percent of the overwhelmingly Orthodox population of 5 million. The agreement would have opened the way to Catholic schools and the study by Catholics of their religion.

The estimated 50,000 Catholics in Georgia will suffer from the lack of an “any juridical guarantee” of their religious freedom, and Pope John Paul II also will feel “great suffering” on their behalf, Tauran said.

The Polish-born John Paul has made the quest for Catholic-Orthodox unity a priority of his papacy. He drew crowds of thousands when he visited Georgia in 1999, but Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Ilya II stayed away.

“We are completely bewildered,” Zaza Kuprala, a monastic novice, said Friday night at Tbilisi’s main Catholic church. “The foreign minister comes all this way to sign the document, and all of a sudden they say, `We are not ready.”’

A participant in the protest, who identified herself only as Bela, said in a telephone interview with RNS in Moscow that up to 6,000 university students demonstrated, snarling traffic in the center of Tbilisi for several hours. Although a spokesman for the Georgian Orthodox Church said it played no role in organizing the demonstration, Bela said about 15 Orthodox priests took part.

The government’s reversal marked a victory for the Orthodox patriarch, who called a news conference Thursday to denounce the agreement with the Vatican as divisive and unfair. Nationalist politicians and partisan television stations quickly joined the fray, saying the Roman Catholic Church was looking for converts in a country that adopted Christianity in the fifth century.

Zurab Tskhovrebadze, a spokesman for the Georgian Orthodox Church, condemned the “secretive” way the Vatican negotiated the agreement but added, “We want to keep good relations with Catholics, just as we do with all faiths.”

Individual Georgian Orthodox clergy, some of them renegade priests, have been accused of taking part in arson, beatings and robberies directed at members of minority faiths, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baptists and Pentecostals. Roman Catholics, with their theological similarities to the Orthodox, are rarely singled out for abuse.

_ Frank Brown in Moscow and Peggy Polk at the Vatican

Survey: Americans Spend 50 Times More on Fast Food Than Aiding Poor Kids

(RNS) Americans spend almost 50 times as much money on fast food in a year than they do on helping poor children, a survey by the Barna Research Group shows.

The survey results, sponsored by Compassion International, were released Sept. 16.

The typical respondent reported that his or her household spends about $240 a year on fast food. In that same period, a typical household spends only $5 a year on assisting children in poverty.

The survey indicated that half of the respondents’ households had not donated anything to causes or organizations helping the poor in the last year.

Six in 10 Americans said they don’t think it’s their job to aid poor children abroad.

“Although it is a disappointment that so many Americans don’t feel responsibility for children in poverty, I believe more people would participate if they knew who to trust and knew what to do,” said Wesley Stafford, president and CEO of Compassion International, a Christian child development organization based in Colorado Springs, Colo., in a statement.

Two-thirds of respondents to the survey said the government of a child’s country and the parents of poor children should bear “a lot” of responsibility to help poor children. Thirteen percent said individuals should have “a lot” of responsibility.

David Kinnaman, vice president of Barna Research Group, a marketing research company in Ventura, Calif., said the survey should cause people to rethink their priorities.

“Americans should consider how to `step up’ their level of commitment and financial involvement,” he said in a statement. “This survey should cause people to consider, `How actively are we engaged in helping needy kids?”’

The survey results were based on 1,002 telephone interviews of adults older than 18 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Prized Preaching Parrot Disappears Despite Prayers

(RNS) A fire-and-brimstone preaching parrot is on the lam and his Alberta owner is praying for the bird’s return.

Dale Doell’s prized African grey parrot, Solomon, has a 2,600-word vocabulary with an evangelical Christian message. “He preaches a full-scale sermon out of the Word of God, just like John the Baptist,” said Doell, who is a born-again Christian. “He preaches fire and brimstone.”

Doell gained renewed hope on Thursday (Sept. 18) that his sermonizing parrot is still alive and spreading God’s word after disappearing last month in central Alberta. The bird has been missing since Aug. 3 when it escaped Doell’s father-in-law’s home in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains while having its picture taken.

However, Doell has learned the radio station in the town of Rocky Mountain House, Big West Country 94.5 FM, broadcast an item last month about a parrot being found. A caller said the bird had flown into his garage. The homeowner intended to buy a cage and hold the parrot until its owner was found.

Unfortunately, said Doell, the station ran the item for a couple of weeks and then threw out the contact information. But the tip has given Doell, who lives in the southern Alberta city of Medicine Hat, the best lead yet that Solomon may be alive and squawking.

“I’m so encouraged,” said Doell, 51. “I’m going to wait a little bit. I’m going to have a little bit more patience to see what the Lord is going to do.”

Solomon had been scheduled to speak to about 1,000 people at a Christian-themed jamboree in Caroline, Alberta, on Aug. 24. Doell was also trying to land the bird an appearance on David Letterman’s talk show.

“He can learn anything in one day. He’s got the intelligence of a 7-year-old,” said Doell. Although Solomon has been missing for more than six weeks, Doell remains optimistic his bird will return home. “I choose to believe in miracles.”

_ Douglas Todd

Promise-Keeper Prisoner Gets Extended Stay After Requesting One More Day

(RNS) An Ohio prisoner convicted for murder who sought to remain incarcerated an extra day so he could attend a Promise Keepers rally will be behind bars for almost three extra years instead.

Willie Chapman, 36, made the request before the Aug. 12 religious gathering inside the Marion Correctional Institution, the Associated Press reported. When the children of the woman he murdered learned about his upcoming parole through news reports about his unusual request, they fought his release.

The Ohio Parole Board reversed itself on Sept. 9 and voted to postpone Chapman’s release until at least May 1, 2006.

“I’m basically devastated,” he said the next day after learning of the board’s vote.

Imprisoned for killing his wife in 1988, Chapman said he does not regret asking to stay long enough to attend the in-prison rally, the first for the evangelical Christian men’s ministry.

“I did that for God, and I could never regret that,” he said. “I’m going to keep my faith. I’m not going to give up.”

Chapman was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the death of his wife, Deborah Chapman, in her Columbus apartment. He was sentenced to six to 25 years in prison.

The inmate became involved in Promise Keepers two years ago. He said he intends to become a preacher after he is released and the extra time in prison will give him a chance to do more work “on the inside.”

Focus on the Family to Continue Suit Over Anti-Gay Ads

(RNS) A federal appellate court has given new life to a lawsuit by Focus on the Family against a Florida bus system that would not advertise its anti-homosexuality conference.

The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals released a decision Sept. 12 that said a federal judge in Tampa was mistaken when he threw out the conservative Christian group’s 2001 lawsuit against the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, the Associated Press reported.

The appeals court said Focus on the Family, which is based in Colorado Springs, Colo., can pursue its claim that the system violated its First Amendment rights when it refused to permit the group to advertise its “Love Won Out” convention in St. Petersburg, Fla.

“This is a great victory _ not just for us, but for the Constitution,” Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family’s vice president of public policy, said in a statement.

The ads, designed for bus shelters, described how those attending the February 2000 event would learn “truths about coming out of the homosexual lifestyle,” the ministry said.

Representatives of the bus system did not immediately return calls from the Associated Press.

Quote of the Day: Council for Secular Humanism Executive Director David Koepsell

(RNS) “It seems to me that it reflects badly upon any religion, when a piece of rock and a whistle-stop tour are deemed necessary to `save’ its most cherished precepts.”

_ David Koepsell, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, reacting to plans of supporters of suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s Ten Commandments monument to sponsor a caravan tour and rallies with a model of the disputed monument starting Sept. 28.

DEA END RNS