c. 2005 Religion News Service
Rome Judge Convicts Vatican Radio Officials in Pollution Case
ROME (RNS) A Rome judge on Monday (May 9) found two Vatican Radio officials guilty of allowing transmitters to emit dangerously high levels of electromagnetic pollution, and gave them suspended prison sentences.
Judge Luisa Martoni gave Cardinal Roberto Tucci, president of Vatican Radio, and the Rev. Pasquale Borgomeo, general director, suspended 10-day sentences. A third defendant, assistant technical director Costantino Pacifici, was cleared for lack of proof.
The Jesuit-run Vatican Radio said in a statement that it considered the conviction “unjustified” and would appeal.
The verdict was the latest development in a case that has strained relations between the Vatican and Italian officials for more than four years.
Residents in the suburban towns of Cesano and Santa Maria di Galeria north of Rome contended that the “electrosmog” emitted by the transmitters was seven times the level permitted by Italian law. The regional health authority said it found that children in the area were six times more likely than others to develop leukemia.
Vatican Radio first argued that Italian authorities had no jurisdiction because the transmitter site was extraterritorial, but it later agreed to cut back the emissions to levels permitted by Italian law, which is the toughest in the world.
In April 2001 then-Prime Minister Giuliano Amato intervened personally to block an order by the Ministry of the Environment that would have closed down Vatican Radio’s worldwide Easter season broadcasts.
Following Monday’s verdict, Vatican Radio expressed “regret that its position was not recognized as valid and accepted by the tribunal.” It called the verdict “unjustified both for legal considerations and for reasons of fact.”
“There is no justified reason for concern by the population,” it said.
In addition to heading Vatican Radio, Tucci, 84, served for some 20 years as the chief organizer of trips that Pope John Paul II took outside Italy.
_ Peggy Polk
Gay and Lesbian Festival Still on in Israel in August
JERUSALEM (RNS) Contrary to some media reports, an international 10-day gay and lesbian festival is still scheduled to open in Jerusalem on Aug. 18, organizers say.
The Jerusalem Post and other media outlets reported last week that the WorldPride 2005 festival had been postponed so as not to overburden police needed to oversee the mid-August withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank.
“Reports that we have made a decision are outrageously premature,” Hagai El-Ad, director of the Jerusalem Open House, the center for gays and lesbians that is spearheading the festival, told RNS on Tuesday (May 10).
El-Ad said Israel’s gay and lesbian community “is absolutely committed to holding WorldPride in Jerusalem. However, if the government moves the date of the disengagement, we feel it would be inappropriate to hold the festival at the same time.”
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced Monday that he intends to postpone the “disengagement” from Gaza and parts of the West Bank from June 20 until mid-August.
Sharon said the withdrawal should not take place during the three-week mourning period leading up to Tisha B’av, the day Jews around the world mourn the destruction of the biblical Temples. This three-week period is considered so inauspicious and solemn that religious Jews refrain from purchasing new clothes or furniture, and from relocating to a new home.
El-Ad said his organization would make its decision only if the government officially decides to delay the disengagement. It is expected to vote on the matter next week.
If the delay is approved, El-Ad said, “we will reschedule the festival. It is a matter of public sensitivity. Regardless of individual people’s support or opposition to the disengagement, this will likely be a very traumatic period for Israeli society.
“The gay community in this country is not disengaged” from larger issues in Israel, El-Ad said.
El-Ad stressed that any delay of the festival will have “nothing to do with any external pressure from religious leaders.”
Top Jewish, Muslim and Christian clerics, including Israel’s chief rabbis and the patriarchs of the various churches, have forcefully voiced their opposition to gay and lesbian events taking place in Jerusalem, which all three faiths consider holy.
Three locally produced gay pride parades have taken place in Jerusalem in recent years.
“We are steadfast in our commitment to hold WorldPride in Jerusalem,” El-Ad told RNS.
_ Michele Chabin
Visitors to Berlin Holocaust Memorial to Be Wired Into Israeli Database
JERUSALEM (RNS) Visitors to Berlin’s Memorial for the Murdered Jews in Europe, which opened Tuesday (May 10), will have direct access to the Central Database of Holocaust Victims’ Names housed at Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust center.
The Central Database contains some 3 million names of Holocaust victims derived from pages of testimony filled out by friends and family of the victims, and from archival sources.
Yad Vashem has developed a special German interface for the database, which will allow visitors to explore its Web site from a special foyer in the memorial’s underground information center.
The decision to share the database with the Berlin memorial stems from Yad Vashem’s mission to educate young people around the world about the dangers of anti-Semitism.
Yad Vashem recently launched what it is calling an “11th hour” appeal to both Jews and non-Jews to register the additional 3 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust without a trace. In many cases entire families or villages were destroyed, leaving no one to bear witness or register the dead.
Avner Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, attended the opening ceremonies of the new memorial in Berlin.
“The integration of the Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names in the memorial has great importance, as it gives a personal-human perspective to remembrance,” Shalev said in a statement.
_ Michele Chabin
Catholic Bishops Unveil Campaign to Reform Immigration System
WASHINGTON (RNS) The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops announced plans Tuesday (May 10) to help reform an immigration system they described as broken.
Church leaders encouraged Catholics to promote justice for immigrants by challenging President Bush and Congress to adopt reform measures built on principles issued by U.S. and Mexican bishops in 2003.
The reform campaign is called “Justice for Immigrants: A Journey of Hope: The Catholic Campaign for Immigration Reform.” Among other things, it calls for:
_ Legalization for undocumented immigrants.
_ Expanded opportunities for legal entry for work and family reunification.
_ Establishment of an appropriate and effective temporary worker program.
_ Re-establishment of due process rights and other legal safeguards for undocumented immigrants.
The church must “begin to move” on behalf of the 8 million to 10 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, said Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the archbishop of Washington, a spokesman for the reform.
“Our immigrant system is broken and needs repair,” he added.
The reform is supported by 20 Catholic organizations with national networks.
“The strength of our nation lies within its diversity. Except for Native Americans, we are all immigrants,” said McCarrick.
Regarding immigrants who may have violated the law in coming to the United States, McCarrick quoted the biblical words of Christ: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone.”
_ Heather Horiuchi
Abortion Issue Prompts Archbishop to Boycott Catholic Commencement
NEW ORLEANS _ The archbishop of New Orleans will not attend commencement ceremonies at Loyola University this weekend because the Catholic university is honoring the family of a U.S. senator and lieutenant governor who support some abortion rights.
Two of Moon and Verna Landrieu’s children, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu and Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, support abortion rights in their public lives, with reservations.
While the Landrieus are “a remarkable family” with a “commendable record of public service and service to the church … not all members of the family have been faithful to the church’s teaching regarding public policy,” Archbishop Alfred Hughes said in a statement released Thursday (May 5).
Mitch Landrieu has said he believes abortion is immoral but should not be criminalized in all circumstances. Mary Landrieu opposes a controversial type of late-term abortion.
Hughes said he decided he could not attend commencement ceremonies Friday (May 13) and Saturday (May 14) “lest my presence confuse the faithful and give the impression that it is appropriate to include in an honor anyone who dissents publicly from church teaching.”
“I have expressed my disappointment” about the university’s choice to the Rev. Kevin Wildes, Loyola’s president, Hughes said in the statement.
The Landrieus are to receive their honor Friday at the law school commencement; Moon Landrieu will deliver that commencement address. Other university commencement ceremonies are Saturday.
Loyola declined to comment on Hughes’ decision. Instead, the university said it would stand by a statement issued last week emphasizing that the university sought to honor the Landrieus collectively “as a family,” for lives of public service.
_ Bruce Nolan
Scholar: Southern Baptist Evangelism Has `Discernible Deterioration’
(RNS) A scholar of the Southern Baptist Convention says the nation’s largest Protestant denomination is “on the path of slow but discernible deterioration” in its efforts to evangelize, a Florida Baptist paper reports.
The Florida Baptist Witness reported Thursday (May 5) about a study to be released later this month by The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. Its author is Thom S. Rainer, dean of the seminary’s Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth in Louisville, Ky., who says the denomination is in an “evangelistic crisis” despite the conservative resurgence that began in the denomination in 1979.
“An honest evaluation of the data leads us to but one conclusion,” Rainer writes in “A Resurgence Not Yet Realized: Evangelistic Effectiveness in the Southern Baptist Convention since 1979.”
“The conservative resurgence has not resulted in a more evangelistic denomination. Indeed, the Southern Baptist Convention is less evangelistic today than it was in the years preceding the conservative resurgence.”
By his count, one person was baptized for every 19 members of SBC churches in 1950. In 1978, that ratio increased to 36 to 1 and by 2003 _ the number reached 43 to 1, despite the desire for a lower ratio.
Rainer says the denomination is “evangelistically anemic” because most baptisms take place in relatively few of its congregations. He recommended that pastors repent “for their lack of evangelistic zeal” and suggested increased research and training to improve evangelism efforts.
The scholar believes the baptism statistics would have dropped even further if there had not been a reformation in the 16.2 million-member denomination.
Citing statistics of some churches affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship _ which disagreed with the conservative resurgence of the Southern Baptist Convention _ Rainer said that organization’s baptismal ratio in 2003 was 92 to 1.
In response to a Florida Baptist Witness request for comment, fellowship spokesman Ben McDade noted that many of the churches affiliated with the fellowship are dually aligned with denominations other than the Southern Baptists, so it is “not statistically possible” to link baptisms to a particular Baptist organization.
“The fellowship has no interest in commenting on comparative statistical analyses or other academic exercises related to evangelistic efforts of other, autonomous religious groups,” said McDade.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: Lawyer A.P. Pishevar
(RNS) “Christ is not speaking to the press at this time.”
_ Attorney A.P. Pishevar, speaking to the Associated Press about his client, a man born as Peter Robert Phillips Jr., who has had trouble getting a driver’s license in West Virginia with his new name, Jesus Christ.
MO/PH END RNS
