c. 2003 Religion News
British Anglican, Catholic Leaders Say War `Deeply Disturbing’
LONDON (RNS) In a rare joint statement, the leaders of Britain’s Anglican and Roman Catholic churches have called on Britain and the United States to work through the United Nations in their effort to make Iraq comply fully with U.N. requirements that it disarm.
In a clear reference to last Saturday’s demonstrations in London, Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin and other cities around the globe, Roman Catholic Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, archbishop of Westminster, and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said, “The events of recent days show that doubts still persist about the moral legitimacy, as well as the unpredictable humanitarian and political consequences, of a war with Iraq.
“We recognize that the moral alternative to military action cannot be inaction, passivity, appeasement or indifference. It is vital therefore that all sides in this crisis engage, through the United Nations _ fully and urgently _ in a process, including continued weapons inspections, that could and should render the trauma and tragedy of war unnecessary.
“We strongly urge the government of Iraq to demonstrate forthwith its unequivocal compliance with U.N. resolutions on weapons of mass destruction.”
The two archbishops said they were “very conscious” of the huge burden of responsibility carried by those who had to make the ultimate decision. But war is always a “deeply disturbing prospect _ one that can never be contemplated without a sense of failure and regret that other means had not prevailed, and deep disquiet about all that might come in its train.”
_ Robert Nowell
Southern Baptists Propose Reducing Baptist World Alliance Funding
(RNS) The Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee has proposed the start of a new global initiative that would redirect 30 percent of the funding it has traditionally given to the Baptist World Alliance.
The recommendation, adopted Tuesday (Feb. 18), comes at a time when the alliance is considering a request for membership from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a moderate group that formed to counter the conservative direction of the Southern Baptist Convention. Last fall, the fellowship declared to the alliance that it is “fully independent” from the denomination.
Morris Chapman, the president of the SBC Executive Committee, said action by the alliance’s membership committee “has caused us to ask the question, `Is the Baptist World Alliance or is the Southern Baptist Convention the best representative around the world of Southern Baptists?”’
The proposal calls for redirecting $125,000 from the $425,000 the Southern Baptists have allocated to the alliance in recent times, the denomination announced.
The new global initiative was developed by a subcommittee that was studying the denomination’s ties with the alliance. The “Kingdom Relationships” initiative would involve “strengthening relationships with other like-minded Christian bodies” across the globe.
The subcommittee did not recommend withdrawing from the alliance.
Wendy Ryan, a spokeswoman for the Falls Church, Va.-based Baptist World Alliance, said alliance officials are saddened by the proposal.
“It’s a disruptive move in a history that has been marked by cooperation,” she said in an interview. “SBC leaders were among the key people that were instrumental in starting this global organization.”
The Southern Baptist Convention’s $425,000 allocation to the alliance has made it “by far the largest contributor” among the 206 member bodies.
“We are thankful that they have made it clear that they are not planning to leave,” said Ryan.
The funding change will be considered at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention this June in Phoenix.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Orthodox Group Chides Patriarch on Standoff With Monks
(RNS) The nation’s most influential group of Eastern Orthodox church members said a group of dissident monks should not be evicted from their seaside monastery in Greece.
Peter Haikalis, president of Orthodox Christian Laity, said he does not agree with the rebel monks on Mount Athos, but also does not agree with attempts by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to evict them.
“We believe their forcible removal from their traditional spiritual home violates the message of the gospel, which commands dialogue and conciliation,” Haikalis said in a statement.
Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, ordered the monks at the Esphigmenou Monastery evicted after they refused to recognize his authority in a long-running dispute. The monks disagree with Bartholomew’s relations with Roman Catholics.
A 25-year-old monk was killed Feb. 8 when he accidentally drove off a cliff while trying to avoid a police barricade of the monastery, located on the Aegean Sea.
The monks say they have enough food and supplies to survive for another two years, although many elderly monks need medical attention. Greek police who enforce the blockade say they will not storm the building.
Haikalis said the hard-nosed tactics are typical for Bartholomew. OCL said Bartholomew ignored requests for more autonomy for the Greek Orthodox Church in the United States and reserved most important decisions for himself under a new church charter granted earlier this year.
“Resorting to court orders and civil authorities to evict these dissenting monks is ill-advised and recalls earlier, unfortunate eras in Christianity’s history when governmental power was used to enforce ecclesiastical discipline and religious persecution,” he said.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Judge Says Archdiocese Can’t Hide Behind First Amendment
(RNS) A Massachusetts judge said Wednesday (Feb. 19) the Archdiocese of Boston cannot hide behind the First Amendment in suits dealing with sexual abuse by clergy.
Superior Court Judge Constance Sweeney rejected a move by church lawyers to dismiss more than 400 cases on the grounds that the First Amendment prohibited civil courts from interfering in internal church operations.
Sweeney said allowing the exception would give church officials “unqualified immunity from secular legal redress, regardless of how negligent, reckless” they might be, according to the Associated Press.
The judge did, however, dismiss claims that church officials were negligent for ordaining abusive priests, or not removing them from the priesthood. Sweeney said those decisions are “purely ecclesiastical matters.”
Attorney Roderick MacLeish, who is representing more than half of the 400 alleged abuse victims, said the ruling proves that the church “as a religious institution is not above and beyond the law.”
Church lawyers said they were forced to file for a dismissal to prove to their insurance companies that they had exhausted their defense options. Officials hope insurance will cover some portion of settlements with victims; both sides continue to say they want to settle out of court.
But MacLeish criticized another move by church lawyers to delay for months the trial of accused priest Paul Shanley. Church officials said they want to wait on a civil trial until after Shanley’s criminal trial on raping four boys.
Vatican Calls Disarming Iraq `Just and Urgent Cause’ but Opposes War
VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican has called disarming Iraq a “just and urgent cause” but said it must be done through the process of weapons inspection and the building of an international consensus to block a U.S. attack on Baghdad.
Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Holy See’s new permanent observer at the United Nations, made the most detailed statement to date on the Vatican’s Iraq policy in an address to the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday (Feb. 19). The Vatican Press Office issued his statement on Thursday.
The statement appeared to be a preview of what Pope John Paul II will tell British Prime Minister Tony Blair when they meet at the Vatican on Saturday. Blair is collaborating with President Bush on a Security Council resolution intended to authorize war against Iraq.
John Paul and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who conferred at the Vatican on Tuesday (Feb. 18), agreed on the “essential role” of the United Nations to defuse the crisis.
“The Holy See realizes that the international community is rightly worried and is addressing a just and urgent cause: the disarmament of arsenals of mass destruction, a threat surfacing not just in a single region, but unfortunately in other parts of our world,” Migliore said.
But, urging the international community to “draw strength from the wealth of peaceful tools proved by the international law,” he said war would not be a “just” tool to use against Iraq.
“To the grave consequences for a civilian population that has already been tested long enough are added the dark prospects of tensions and conflicts between peoples and cultures and the deprecated reintroduction of war as a way to resolve untenable situations,” the prelate said.
The Vatican representative called on Security Council members to line up behind the weapons inspection process instead, presenting a united front against the U.S. push for armed intervention. He said “the vast majority of the international community” has called for a diplomatic resolution of the crisis, and “that call should not be ignored.”
“The Holy See is convinced that even though the process of inspections appears somewhat slow, it still remains an effective path that could lead to the building of a consensus, which, if widely shared by nations, would make it almost impossible for any government to act otherwise without risking international isolation,” Migliore said.
“The Holy See is therefore of the view that it is also the proper path that would lead to an agreed and honorable resolution to the problem, which, in turn, could provide the basis for a real and lasting peace,” he said.
Migliore said the message papal envoy Cardinal Roger Etchegaray delivered to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad last Saturday (Feb. 15) stressed “the need for concrete commitments in faith to adherence to the relevant resolutions of the United Nations.”
“Moreover,” the prelate said, “in view of the devastating aftermath of a possible military intervention, the special envoy of the pope made an appeal to the conscience of all those who have a role to play in determining the future of the crisis in these coming decisive days.”
The pope conveyed a “similar message” to Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz at a Vatican audience last week (Feb. 14), he said.
“The Holy See encourages the parties concerned to keep the dialogue open that could bring about solutions in preventing a possible war and urges the international community to assume its responsibility in dealing with any failings by Iraq,” Migliore said.
_ Peggy Polk
Quote of the Day: The Rev. Joseph Lowery, former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(RNS) “Would you expect the Jewish community to participate in a campaign to raise the swastika?”
_ The Rev. Joseph Lowery, former president of the Atlanta-based Southern Christian Leadership Conference, speaking about how black leaders would boycott a state referendum on returning the large Confederate emblem to the Georgia flag. He was quoted by the Associated Press.
DEA END RNS
