c. 2005 Religion News Service
Observant Jews Say Daylight Savings Extension Hurts Morning Prayer
(RNS) Observant Jews are expressing concerns over legislation extending daylight savings time by two months, saying that the late sunrises would impact their ability to pray in the morning and still reach work by 9 a.m.
The provision, which set daylight savings time between March and November instead of April and October, was approved Tuesday (July 19) by a joint House-Senate conference committee. The committee met to finalize the energy legislation package Congress will present to the president by Aug. 1.
The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) had written a letter to the members of the committee, explaining that an extension of daylight savings time would place a hardship on observant Jews.
According to Jewish law, certain prayers, including the prayer recited each day by people in mourning, cannot be recited without a minyan, or a quorum of 10 members, present. Further, those prayers, which last between 30 and 40 minutes, cannot be recited before sunrise.
Under the daylight savings extension, sunrise in the month of November would come between 8:30 and 8:45 in most locations, said Mark Waldman, director of public policy for the USCJ.
Waldman said that he did not believe the legislation intentionally levied this hardship, but that nonetheless it was something he wished they had considered.
“These unintended consequences in terms of the religious hardship on religious Jews saying their morning prayers do not make this provision worth it,” he said.
Supporters of the provision say that extending daylight savings time would save 100,000 barrels of oil each day by extending daylight hours into the afternoon and requiring businesses to use less energy to stay open.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Pope to Visit German Synagogue as Part of World Youth Day
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Vatican officials have announced Pope Benedict XVI’s plans for World Youth Day, in Germany, and it includes a boat trip down the Rhine River, a visit to a synagogue and a Sunday Mass expected to draw a massive crowd.
The Vatican released the pope’s schedule on Wednesday (July 20), announcing that Benedict will leave Rome on the morning of Aug. 18, and will return late on Aug. 21.
The trip will be the German pontiff’s first to his native country since being elected as the spiritual leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics, following the death of John Paul II in April.
The most noteworthy entry on the agenda is the Aug. 19 visit to the synagogue, in Cologne. It will be only the second time in the church’s history that a pope visits a Jewish place of worship. The first took place in 1986, when John Paul visited a synagogue in Rome.
On Benedict’s first day in Germany, he will travel along the Rhine river from Cologne to an audience with young people at the Rheinwiesen wharf outside the city and then back again for a tour of the famous Cologne Cathedral, the largest Catholic Church in Germany. On the day following the synagogue visit, Benedict will receive several Germany political leaders, including Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
The pope also will meet informally with local Muslim leaders.
On Aug. 21, a Sunday, the pontiff will celebrate an outdoor Mass and pray the Angelus. He then will meet with leaders of the 27-million-member German Church before heading back to Rome on an afternoon flight.
The World Youth Day event was created and embraced by John Paul, who continually emphasized the importance of young people to the church. Experts said Benedict’s choice to attend the event for an extended period and to use the visit to reach out to other faiths is reminiscent of John Paul’s vision of the church.
“Many of the things Benedict is scheduled to do (in Germany) are the exact things one can imagine John Paul doing,” the Rev. Alistair Sear, a church historian, said in an interview.
_ Eric J. Lyman
Human Rights Group Calls Pakistan Blasphemy Laws `State-Sponsored Terror’
WASHINGTON (RNS) Freedom House’s Washington-based Center for Religious Freedom is calling on the U.S. government to pressure Pakistan into repealing its blasphemy laws, which the groups calls “state-sponsored terror.”
The center pointed to the case of Yousaf Masih, 60, a Pakistani Christian who was arrested on June 28 for allegedly desecrating the Quran, a charge that carries a mandatory life sentence because it’s considered blasphemy.
Masih’s Muslim neighbors originally filed the complaint against him. Under Pakistani law, Masih’s testimony would be given half the weight of that of his neighbors because he is not a Muslim.
Masih’s life could be in jeopardy, according to the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, a human rights group based in Pakistan. The APMA has reported that local Islamic organizations have held protests demanding that Masih be executed.
“The U.S. government considers Pakistan an ally in the war on terror, but these blasphemy laws are a form of state-sponsored terror against its own people,” said Center for Religious Freedom Director Nina Shea in a July 13 statement. “The U.S. should immediately reconsider its plans to sell F-16s to Pakistan until these laws are repealed.”
Approximately 80 Christians are imprisoned under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, and 650 people have been arrested under the laws since 1988, according to the Vatican’s Zenit news service.
“Pakistan’s blasphemy laws violate due process and have been persistently used to persecute religious minorities … and to press personal grievances,” Shea said. “These discriminatory laws should be abolished.”
_ Hugh S. Moore
Cromartie to Head Commission on Religious Freedom
WASHINGTON (RNS) Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy, has been elected as the new chair of the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom.
Cromartie will serve through the end of 2006.
At the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Cromartie has directed the Evangelicals in Civic Life program and the Media and Religion program. The center was established in 1976 to reinforce the bond between Judeo-Christian moral values and domestic and foreign policy issues.
Cromartie’s election was announced July 1.
“Where governments protect religious freedom, and citizens value it, religious persecution and religion-based violence often find little appeal,” Cromartie said in a statement. “Promoting the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief is in the national interest and central to maintaining universal principles of human dignity.”
The U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom was created by the Religious Freedom Act of 1998. Its mission is “to monitor the status of freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief abroad, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related international instruments, and to give independent policy recommendations to the president, the secretary of state and the Congress.”
_ Hugh S. Moore
Poll: Nearly Half of Hispanics Say They Attend Church Weekly
(RNS) Close to half of American Hispanics say they attend worship services nearly every week, a percentage slightly higher than that of the general population, the Gallup Organization reports.
A look at the worship practices of the nation’s Hispanics finds that 49 percent say they attend “once a week or almost every week,” while 17 percent attend at least once a month and 32 percent say they seldom or never attend church.
Gallup said those figures compare to 2004 surveys that show that a smaller percentage of Americans in general _ 44 percent _ say they attend services once a week or almost every week, while 10 percent attend at least once a month and 41 percent say they never or seldom attend.
Pollsters found that 63 percent of Hispanics _ or almost two-thirds _ identified themselves as Catholics, while 16 percent said they are Protestant. An additional 10 percent said they are affiliated with other Christian faiths and 6 percent claimed no religious affiliation.
The nearly 90 percent of Hispanics who connected themselves with a Christian religion is a slightly higher percentage than the 84 percent of Americans in general.
Researchers learned that religious and non-religious Hispanics hold similar political views.
Of Hispanics who attend church once a week or almost every week, 48 percent are independents, 31 percent are Democrats and 21 percent are Republicans. In comparison, among Hispanics who never or seldom attend church, 49 percent are independents, 37 percent are Democrats and 14 percent are Republicans.
The survey results are based on an aggregated sample of 1,007 Hispanic adults from telephone interviews conducted in June. They have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: Christianity Today editorial
(RNS) “Now that we’re prime-time, we don’t want to start acting like American idols.”
_ Christianity Today, on the responsibility of evangelicals in the news media.
MO/JL END RNS
