c. 2005 Religion News Service
Muslim Group Creates Hotline for Fingerprinted Hajj Returnees
(RNS) A Muslim advocacy group has created a 24-hour hotline for Muslims who may face fingerprinting or detention upon their return from the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) set up the hotline following reports that dozens of American Muslims were fingerprinted after attending an Islamic conference in Canada.
CAIR has called for an investigation of that incident, but said it has not yet received word from the Department of Homeland Security or U.S. Customs and Border Patrol about whether attending an Islamic event flags a person for fingerprinting.
The hajj, which ends Jan. 20, is one of the “five pillars” of Islam, and every Muslim is required to complete the pilgrimage at least once in his or her lifetime. CAIR estimates that each year up to 10,000 American Muslims go on hajj.
CAIR legal director Arsalan Iftikhar has written to the Department of Homeland Security asking for an accounting of the laws under which Muslims are being fingerprinted, as well as asking what the legal repercussions are if a Muslim refuses to be fingerprinted or detained.
The hotline will be available for Muslims to call upon their return if they feel their constitutional rights have been violated. In addition, CAIR has posted an incident report form on its Web site, and recommends that Muslims download it and keep it with them in case they need to fill it out.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Muslim Chaplain, Cleared in Army Probe, Given Honorable Discharge
(RNS) A former Muslim chaplain has been given an honorable discharge from the Army after being the subject of a high-profile military probe into alleged espionage.
The honorable discharge of Chaplain James Yee was effective at midnight Friday (Jan. 7), Eugene R. Fidell, a Washington, D.C., lawyer, said in a statement.
“As a West Point graduate, he leaves the Army with great sadness,” the statement reads. “The fact that he was imprisoned for a prolonged period for no valid reason remains indefensible.”
Yee was jailed by the Army for 76 days on charges that he mishandled secrets at a prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After a September 2003 arrest, he was charged a month later with violating rules for handling classified materials. The charges were dropped last March 19.
The Muslim convert resigned in August despite the dropping of the charges.
In his statement, Fidel said Yee and his family appreciated the public support he received and “he looks forward in due course to expressing his views about his experience.”
Fidell said Yee is living in Olympia, Wash., and working on graduate school studies.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Cardinal Asks Senate Not to Automatically Reject Court Nominees
WASHINGTON (RNS) A prominent Roman Catholic cardinal has asked the U.S. Senate not to use the “impoverished standard” of support for abortion rights as a litmus test for judicial nominees.
Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore, chairman of the Catholic bishops’ Pro-Life Activities Committee, said the Senate should not automatically reject nominees if they do not support the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.
“Insisting that judicial nominees support abortion throughout pregnancy is wrong,” Keeler wrote in a Jan. 6 letter. “By any measure, support for … Roe v. Wade is an impoverished standard for assessing judicial ability.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has promised full hearings for President Bush’s nominees even though he supports abortion rights. Some Democrats have threatened to filibuster nominees who do not support abortion rights.
The bishops do not routinely take positions on individual nominees, but Keeler said the process must not allow anti-abortion nominees to be derailed specifically because of their position on abortion.
“Our civil society will be all the poorer if Senators, as a matter of practice, prevent a Senate vote on well-qualified judicial nominees whose consciences have been formed in this ethic,” Keeler said.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Accused Priest Files Suit Against New Orleans Archbishop
(RNS) A Catholic priest has taken the extraordinary step of suing his archbishop, charging Friday (Jan. 7) that Archbishop Alfred Hughes defamed him by ordering him out of his Marrero pulpit on a charge that he molested a child.
The Rev. Michael Fraser also charged that Hughes violated the church’s own procedures when he relieved Fraser from ministry as pastor of Visitation of Our Lady Parish.
He said Hughes acted before the completion of a preliminary investigation, as church policy requires.
Hughes relieved Fraser of all priestly duties and ordered him to leave Visitation last January. That was a day after the Archdiocese of New Orleans received a complaint from a man who said Fraser had sexually molested him as a child at Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in Pearl River in the mid-1980s.
A letter from Hughes dated Jan. 14 told the pastor of Hughes’ decision. Hughes told Fraser the church would pursue an investigation to “acquire a clear and specific understanding” of the facts underlying the allegation, according to the lawsuit.
Ten days later, the archdiocese called a news conference to announce its action _ a novel, aggressive move compared with its earlier handling of such cases.
The news conference included Fraser’s denial of any wrongdoing, repeated again in Friday’s lawsuit.
Fraser charged in his lawsuit that Hughes acted too soon, humiliating Fraser with a public announcement before Hughes had completed the preliminary investigation archdiocesan policy requires before a priest is removed.
But the Rev. William Maestri, church spokesman, defended the archdiocese’s handling of the accusation.
“The archdiocese believes it acted responsibly, respecting the rights of all concerned. We stand by our actions and believe they were the proper thing to do,” he said.
_ Bruce Nolan
Pa. Biology Teachers May Present Alternative to Evolution
(RNS) Biology teachers in the Dover (Pa.) Area School District may begin reading a four-paragraph statement offering an alternative to the theory of evolution because opponents allowed a Wednesday (Jan. 5) legal deadline to pass.
Witold J. Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing parents opposed to the policy, said that the group decided not to ask U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III for a restraining order.
Walczak said the group did not want to ask the judge to make a decision without a complete record, especially in light of denials by school board members that they initially sought to teach creationism.
A full trial will probably not be held until spring, he said.
Walczak said three board members denied in depositions Monday (Jan. 3) that they made statements at board meetings regarding Christ, religion and creationism that were reported in local papers.
“This whole history of them indicating a desire to teach creationism is legally damaging to their argument,” Walczak said. “They seem to be trying to whitewash that history.”
The district’s attorney, Ronald Turo, said he wasn’t present at the meetings or the depositions, but added it wouldn’t make any difference to the case.
He said individual board member’s opinions are not the policy of the district, which boils down to a four-paragraph statement being read before evolution is taught to ninth-grade biology students.
The statement says evolution isn’t a fact and intelligent design is an alternative theory students could consider. It directs them to a book called “Of Pandas and People” that describes the theory of intelligent design, which says the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a supernatural intelligence.
“Is this teaching? Everybody’s losing perspective,” Turo said. “The school district hasn’t ordered them to teach anything. They are requiring teachers to read a statement.
“When a school district is precluded from making a statement of fact to its students, what do we have left?” Turo said. “That’s pretty scary.”
The ACLU claims that Dover’s policy is an introduction of religion into the classroom that infringes on the constitutional provision of separation of church and state.
The school board voted 6-3 on Oct. 18 to include intelligent design in the ninth-grade science curriculum, in what is believed to be the first such requirement in the country.
_ Pete Shellem
Quote of the Day: Southern Baptist Executive James T. Draper Jr.
(RNS) “How are we helping to alleviate crime and reduce poverty? How are we helping to improve literacy? These things become the outgrowth of witnessing, not something we do instead of witness.”
_ James T. Draper Jr., president of LifeWay Christian Resources, the Southern Baptist entity that provides Christian products such as Sunday school curriculum materials, speaking about his concern that the Southern Baptist Convention needs to refocus on evangelism. He was quoted by Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
MO/RB RNS END
