c. 2005 Religion News Service

Sexual Abuse Victims Call Super Bowl Truck Ad `Sickening’

(RNS) The nation’s largest support group for victims of clergy sexual abuse is asking Ford to pull a Super Bowl television ad, calling it “sickening” and “insulting.”

The 30-second ad shows a priest finding keys to a new Lincoln Mark LT truck in the offering plate. Finding the truck in the parking lot, he longingly moves his hands over the truck before he is interrupted by a little girl and a man, presumably her father and the truck’s owner.

The next scene has the priest placing the letters L and T on a church parking lot sign to spell out next week’s sermon topic, LUST. A singer croons Billie Holiday’s “Guilty.”

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said the ad trivializes the pain caused by clergy sexual abuse.

“We are appalled by how insensitive this ad is,” said SNAP President Barbara Blaine. “It just rubs salt into an already very deep and still hurting wound for many of us.”

Others are also upset.

“This isn’t just about pushing the envelope on bad taste, it is about a company making profits on the backs of the thousands of children who’ve been raped and sodomized by trusted priests,” said Wendy Murphy, a former sex crimes prosecutor and professor at the New England School of Law, who joined in protesting the ad.

An article in the trade journal Adweek said the commercial _ which will also be available at http://www.lincoln.com on Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 6) _ is Lincoln’s first Super Bowl ad in more than 10 years. Lincoln is a subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Report of Anti-American Papers in U.S. Mosques Prompts Call for Probe

(RNS) A national American Jewish organization is calling for a federal probe in the wake of revelations that anti-American, anti-Jewish and anti-Christian documents with links to the Saudi government have been discovered in more than a dozen U.S. mosques.

On Tuesday (Feb. 1), the American Jewish Committee (AJC) called on Congress to investigate whether Saudi Arabia is cooperating with the United States on the global war on terror.

Further, “We call on the Bush administration to confront Saudi officials at the highest levels on the publication of such hateful materials and their dissemination in the United States,” AJC executive director David Harris said.

The call followed the Friday (Jan. 28) release of a report by the Center for Religious Freedom at the human rights organization Freedom House. The report, “Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques,” examined more than 200 documents collected from U.S. mosques over the course of a year.

Each of the documents was connected to the Saudi government by at least two of several measures Freedom House identified, including official publications of a government ministry, bearing a government seal, a document disseminated by the Saudi embassy or a document that was written by a Saudi-appointed religious authority. Ninety percent of the documents were written in Arabic.

The documents contained pronouncements and teachings that are consistent with the Wahhabi branch of Islam. Wahhabism is a fundamentalist sect of Islam that is suspicious of modern reinterpretations of the tradition and considers itself to be the one true faith. It is dominant on the Arabian Peninsula, with Wahhabi imams responsible for the educational system in Saudi Arabia.

The documents contain stark recommendations for the treatment of non-Muslims as well as the treatment of Muslims who stray from the tradition. For example, if a Muslim engages in homosexual sex or heterosexual sex outside marriage, “it would be lawful for Muslims to spill his blood and to take his money,” advises one of the documents found in a U.S. mosque.

Further, the report’s authors conclude, the documents “cultivate enmity” between Muslims and non-believers.

For example, a document reportedly found in the Islamic Center of Washington reads, “To be disassociated from the infidels is to hate them for their religion, to leave them, never to rely on them for support, not to admire them, to be on one’s guard against them, never to imitate them, and to always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law.”

_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi

Israel to Allow Immigration of Group With Ancestors Who Left Judaism

JERUSALEM (RNS) Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has decided to permit the remainder of the Falash Mura, Ethiopians whose ancestors converted from Judaism to Christianity, to immigrate to Israel by the end of 2007.

The Monday (Jan. 31) decision is expected to put an end to the demands by some Ethiopian Jews to permit their non-Jewish relatives to immigrate on humanitarian grounds. They had accused the government of dragging its feet for several years.

Israel is home to tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews, most of whom were airlifted in two dramatic rescue operations. The country has also welcomed a smaller number of Falash Mura, who arrive in the country every month.

The fate of the Falash Mura is a highly sensitive one, in part because Israel’s immigration laws were drafted to facilitate the immigration of Diaspora Jews. While they allow for family reunification of first-degree relatives, they explicitly exclude Jewish converts to other religions.

Additionally, the Ethiopian Jewish community is torn on the subject, with some Ethiopian Jews charging that the Falash Mura abandoned their Judaism to improve their economic status or to escape anti-Semitism.

During the years they have awaited permission to come to Israel, many Falash Mura have studied Judaism in seminars in Ethiopia run by Jewish organizations; some are said to have undergone conversions to Judaism.

In a meeting with top government officials, Sharon said, “We must make every effort to increase immigration and therefore the Treasury will have to set aside additional resources in order to achieve this aim.”

“This is the correct decision from a humanitarian, Jewish and Zionist standpoint,” Sallai Meridor, the head of the Jewish Agency, said in a statement.

Sharon instructed the Interior Minister in cooperation with the Ministry for Immigrant Absorption, Finance Ministry, Foreign Ministry and Jewish Agency to present a comprehensive, detailed plan within three months.

_ Michele Chabin

Swedish Court to Rule in Case of Pastor Denouncing Homosexuality

(RNS) A Swedish appeals court is expected to hand down a ruling Feb. 11 in a case involving a Pentecostal preacher found guilty of fomenting hatred against homosexuals.

The case of Ake Green has drawn international attention because it pits protection of a minority group against a preacher’s right to free speech.

Some religious leaders have also described Green’s 2003 conviction as an attack on religious freedom. Protesters outside the court during an appeals hearing Jan. 19 waved banners reading “In Sweden pastors are imprisoned for preaching from the Bible in churches.”

Taking the stand during the hearing in the city of Jonkoping, the pastor told a packed court that his sermon was intended to present the biblical position on homosexuality and not to encourage hatred against homosexuals.

“I don’t downgrade any human being,” said Green, adding that he stood by every word in his sermon. “What I did was to enlighten people on what the Bible says about homosexuality and to offer hope.”

Green delivered a sermon two years ago in which he termed homosexuality an abnormality which has become a societal problem, adding that any marriage outside the traditional union between a man and a woman is a sin. He was tried for encouraging hatred against homosexuals and sentenced to one month in jail.

State prosecutor Kjell Yngvesson, who wants the punishment increased, argued in court that the preacher took his sermon too far by mixing excerpts from the Bible with his personal interpretations.

“He surely has the right to preach and to quote the Bible, but not to fill it with his own prejudices. It is not permissible to preach whatever one wants to preach,” he added.

Yngvesson said Green’s linking of HIV/AIDS, uncleanness and abnormality with homosexuals had the potential to put them in harm’s way.

_ Simon Reeves

Quote of the Day: White House Speechwriter Michael Gerson

(RNS) “Scrubbing public discourse of religious ideas would remove one of the main sources of social justice in our history.”

_ White House speechwriter Michael Gerson, speaking to Time magazine about President Bush’s frequent use of religious language.

MO/PH RNS END