c. 2005 Religion News Service
Statue of Opus Dei Founder Added to St. Peter’s Basilica
VATICAN CITY (RNS) A marble statue of St. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of the conservative Opus Dei movement, was added to the exterior of St. Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday (Sept. 14), receiving a blessing from Pope Benedict XVI.
The 20-foot statue stands in a niche located on the basilica’s rear wall, an area the late pope John Paul II dedicated to honoring the saints he canonized. Escriva stands to the left of a statue depicting Marcellin Champagnat, a French priest and founder of the Marist Brothers, canonized by John Paul in 1999.
“Let everyone who contemplates (the statue) be encouraged to faithfully complete daily work in the spirit of Christ,” said Benedict, who attended the sculpture’s unveiling.
Escriva, a Spanish priest, founded Opus Dei, or “God’s Work,” in 1928 as a lay movement that aimed to sanctify professional labor and other daily routines.
In subsequent decades, Opus Dei developed close ties to the Vatican, and in 1982 Pope John Paul designated Opus Dei a personal prelature, which guarantees the organization autonomy from diocesan authorities.
Opus Dei’s ties to the Vatican were sensationalized in Dan Brown’s best-selling novel “The Da Vinci Code,” which depicts the group as a conspiratorial force operating in the shadows of church government.
Speaking at the unveiling, the prelate of Opus Dei, Bishop Javier Echevarria, said the statue expressed “the tight union with the Church and the pope, to which the Prelature of Opus Dei feels specifically called.”
The sculpture depicts a bespectacled Escriva, flanked by angels and gesturing with open hands. The papal coat of arms of John Paul and Benedict are carved in relief at the statue’s base.
Escriva, who died in 1975, was canonized by John Paul in October 2002, making his cause for sainthood the shortest in church history. Escriva joins the ranks of more than 150 saints depicted on the Basilica, including those atop the marble colonnade that hugs St. Peter’s Square.
_ Stacy Meichtry
Flight 93 Families Say Memorial Design Does Not Mimic Islamic Crescent
(RNS) The president of the Families of Flight 93 on Wednesday (Sept. 14) labeled as “absurd” a Republican congressman’s claim that a proposed memorial in Pennsylvania is a “tribute to hijackers” because it incorporates a crescent shape that he said is associated with Islam _ and therefore terrorism.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., told the National Park Service that the memorial to the hijacked flight that crashed on Sept. 11, 2001, should be redesigned. Families of the victims called his comments “an unfortunate distraction.”
“A very small, violent militant contingent does not own a copyright on the words `crescent’ or `red crescent,”’ said D. Hamilton Peterson, whose father and stepmother were passengers on the flight that crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pa. “New Orleans is known as the `Crescent City.’ That doesn’t suggest it is demonically oriented.”
In his letter to Fran Mainella, director of the National Park Service, Tancredo wrote that the prominent use of the crescent shape in the memorial design “has raised questions in some circles about whether the design, if constructed, will in fact make the memorial a tribute to the hijackers rather than the victims.”
Tancredo drew fire from Muslim groups last July when he told a radio talk show that if Muslim extremists launched a nuclear attack on the United States, the best response would be to “take out” Islamic holy sites such as Mecca.
Conservative bloggers and other Internet users were quick to criticize the proposed design after it was unveiled Sept. 7, with some arguing that al-Qaida would use the memorial to say their cause was victorious.
The proposed memorial, designed by Paul Murdoch Architects, includes a mile-long arc of red maples _ termed a “crescent of embrace” _ that enclose the “sacred ground” of the crash site, where 92 percent of the remains of the crew and passengers rest.
The ends of the crescent _ meant to symbolize a circle broken by the flight path of Flight 93 _ do not taper as those of a traditional Islamic crescent do. The Islamic crescent is a familiar symbol for Islam but has no religious meaning.
Family members of those who died managed the process of selecting the memorial design, according to Joanne Hanley, superintendent of the Flight 93 National Memorial.
Hanley said that the name “crescent of embrace” will be changed, as recommended by a jury in the design process, and that further changes could be made if necessary.
“Paul Murdoch does not want this design to mar or blemish the memorial, nor dishonor the families or loved ones, even in an unintentional way,” Hanley said. “He is looking at what architectural refinements might dispel any perception of iconography.”
Edward Linenthal, a member of the Flight 93 Advisory Commission and a historian of American battlefields and memorials, called Tancredo’s comments “disgraceful.”
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American Islamic Relations, was similarly dismissive. “We believe this is a made-up controversy, something that’s been trumped up by extremist and anti-Muslim Internet bloggers. The design has nothing to do with Islam,” he said.
_ Andrea Useem
Oswald Hoffmann, Longtime Speaker of `The Lutheran Hour,’ Dead at 91
(RNS) The Rev. Oswald C.J. Hoffmann, the voice of “The Lutheran Hour” radio program for more than three decades, died Sept. 8 after a brief illness.
The religious broadcasting pioneer and minister of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod was 91, Lutheran Hour Ministries said in an announcement.
Ordained in 1939, Hoffmann was the speaker for the program from 1955 to 1988.
“Dr. Hoffmann was an incredible blessing to Lutheran Hour Ministries and to the millions of listeners who tuned in to `The Lutheran Hour’ during his tenure as speaker of the program,” said Greg Lewis, executive director of St. Louis-based Lutheran Hour Ministries, which is an auxiliary of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
During his career of almost 70 years, Hoffmann was a pastor, film production adviser, consultant to foreign dignitaries and U.S. presidents, and author of eight books. He recently retired from his duties as honorary speaker of the program, his denomination said in its announcement of his death.
David Strand, a spokesman for the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, said the program that carried Hoffmann’s voice has been popular far beyond his St. Louis-based denomination.
“That program didn’t just cross lines of Lutheranism,” Strand said in an interview. “It entered into all realms of Christianity.”
In his last public appearance, Hoffmann spoke in July to the international convention of the International Lutheran Laymen’s League in Topeka, Kan., at an event marking the 75th anniversary of “The Lutheran Hour.”
“I didn’t do anything special,” he said. “I just told the good news. I’m still willing to do that. I look back with great thanksgiving _ for myself and for all of the other people who benefited from the good news of the gospel.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Jewish, Mainline Leaders Attempt to Mend Fences in Holy Land Trip
(RNS) Leaders from Jewish groups and mainline Protestant churches plan to leave Sunday (Sept. 18) for a joint trip to the Middle East in an effort to improve strained relations stemming from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The six-day trip comes as the culmination of discussions between eight mainline churches and six national Jewish organizations. A longstanding alliance between Protestants and Jews has been threatened by Protestant efforts to divest from companies doing business in Israel.
Delegates plan to meet with Israeli and Palestinian officials, as well as religious leaders and scholars, in an effort to understand both sides of the conflict. Leadership from each side will have the opportunity to plan two days of the event.
The visit was announced in May to help Christians and Jews see the region “through each other’s eyes.”
“The trip seeks to demonstrate that Christians and Jews can work together and dialogue on peace even when there is disagreement on specific policies and solutions, and to enable the participants to become even more effective advocates of peace,” said a joint statement by Protestants and Jews planning the trip.
Jewish groups were angered when the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted in 2004 to pursue “phased, selective (economic) divestment” from companies operating in Israel. The Presbyterian action was taken to protest Israeli treatment of Palestinians.
The divestment campaign has picked up support from Anglicans and at least two local United Methodist conferences. The United Church of Christ voted this summer to use “economic leverage” in the region, while the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America said they would not pursue divestment.
Jews and Protestants on the Middle East trip “hope to more effectively support those Palestinians and Israelies who are courageously working to establish a secure, viable and independent Palestinian state alongside an equally secure Israel,” the joint statement said.
Other Christian groups on the trip include the Episcopal Church, the National Council of Churches and the Alliance of Baptists. Jewish groups on the trip include the American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the American Jewish Congress, the Union for Reform Judaism and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
_ Jason Kane
Muslim Leaders Denounce Governor’s Suggestion to Wiretap Mosques
(RNS) Muslim leaders are protesting Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s suggestion that mosques should be wiretapped in the interest of national security.
Romney, who is considering a Republican presidential bid, raised questions Wednesday (Sept. 14) about whether intelligence operatives are doing enough to detect domestic terrorist threats. He made his remarks at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.
“How about people who are in settings _ mosques, for instance _ that may be teaching doctrines of hate and terror?” Romney asked, according to a Boston Globe report. “Are we monitoring that? Are we wiretapping? Are we following what’s going on?”
Muslim leaders quickly denounced Romney’s remarks.
“Everybody knows that the governor has presidential aspirations and he is playing to the extreme base of the Republican Party,” says Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Freedom Foundation, a civil liberties watchdog wing of the Virginia-based Muslim American Society. “But if he thinks he can raise his political fortunes on the backs of the American Muslim community, he is very wrong.”
Bray called on Republican activists and religious leaders in various faiths to denounce Romney. He also promised to organize protests at all of the governor’s upcoming public events.
Meanwhile, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations called Romney’s comments “irresponsible for a public official” to make.
“Effective law enforcement deals with actual indications of wrongdoing” or reasonable cause for suspicion, said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesperson for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“Just to target an entire religious minority based on nothing more than prejudice and bigotry I think is un-American and unconstitutional,” said Hooper in an interview.
_ G. Jeffrey MacDonald
Daughter Says Graham is `Depressed’ About Inability to Aid Storm Victims
(RNS) Anne Graham Lotz, the daughter of famed evangelist Billy Graham, said her father is “a little depressed” that he can’t do more to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
In a phone interview with The Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press, Lotz said her 86-year-old father wishes he could do more. He and his wife, Ruth, took in an evacuated family at their guest house, Lotz said.
“Right now he is a little depressed,” Lotz said. “Because of his age, he can’t do anything about it. He said, `If I was younger and strong, I’d be down there building houses.”’
Lotz, 57, speaks across the country at her “Just Give Me Jesus” seminars. She said the hurricane and its aftermath are “a wake-up call to the church.”
“That’s God himself just working through the local church to embrace these people and give them hope and a new life. If he were here in a visible presence, he’d be right there in the muck with them, wiping away their tears.”
Samaritan’s Purse, the relief organization run by her brother, the Rev. Franklin Graham, is pouring resources into the hurricane area. But her father only can watch the devastation from afar.
She described the legendary evangelist as”doing really well,”despite ailments that forced him to end his crusades. Lotz said Billy Graham’s New York City revival in June was his last, although he cautioned at the time,”Never say never.” “He may preach again, at one of my brother’s crusades or some special event. But as far as putting on a Billy Graham crusade with a year and a half preparation, he won’t be doing that anymore.”
Lotz said she is learning powerful messages about growing older from both her ailing parents, as well as the “Christ-like character” she sees in both of them.
“My daddy’s come to the point where he’s passing the baton. I want to be one of the thousands that’s picking up the baton, then passing it off to the next generation,” she said. “But I don’t believe there will ever be another Billy Graham.”
_ Charles Honey
Catholic Church in Italy Gears Up for Fight Over Gay Unions
ROME (RNS) As Italian lawmakers renew debate over the rights of gay couples, a top Cardinal on Monday (Sept. 19) warned against granting legal status to unmarried couples, saying neither homosexual nor heterosexual couples favor of the idea.
Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the pope’s vicar for Rome and president of the Italian Bishop’s Conference, described legal recognition for unmarried couples as “something for which there is no real desire and that … would obscure the nature and the value of the family and gravely damage the Italian people.”
Ruini’s comments come in the wake of growing controversy over the decision of Italian opposition leader Roman Prodi to support civil unions for both gay and heterosexual couples.
Prodi, a devout Catholic who will challenge Prime Minister Berlusconi in Italy’s national election next year, sent a letter to the Italian gay rights group Arcigay last week, promising to back contentious legislation that aims to introduce civil unions into Italian law.
That pledge earned Prodi a rebuke from the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, which in a headline accused him of “Lacerating the Family in Search of Votes.”
Ruini dismissed the idea that support for the legal recognition of gay couples was growing in Italy, echoing Pope Benedict XVI’s condemnation of “pseudo marriages between people of the same sex.”
“Homosexual couples aren’t always looking for legal recognition. In fact, many of them refuse it on principle and desire to remain exclusively private,” Ruini said.
As Italy’s most powerful cardinal, Ruini does not shy away from political fights, at times testing the lines that separate church and state in this overwhelmingly Catholic country. Last spring, Ruini spearheaded a successful campaign to defeat a referendum that sought to relax Italy’s ban on artificial insemination and stem cell research.
Luigi Valeri, a spokesman for Arcigay, said he would like to see Italy follow the Netherlands and Spain in allowing gay marriage, but is aware of political limitations. “For now we are only asking for civil unions because that is what seems politically possible,” he said.
_ Stacy Meichtry
Anglicans in Nigeria Delete References to Archbishop of Canterbury
LONDON (RNS) The Anglican Church of Nigeria no longer defines itself as a Church in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury _ something that historically has been the fundamental definition of being a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
The Anglican Church in Nigeria is the largest province in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion. Its archbishop, Peter Akinola, has been among the most outspoken critics of pro-gay policies in Anglican provinces of the West, especially the Episcopal Church in the United States.
At its general synod in Onitsha this month, the Nigerian church deleted from its constitution the requirement that it should be “in full communion with the see of Canterbury and with all dioceses, provinces and regional churches which are in full communion with the see of Canterbury.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury, currently Rowan Williams, leads the Church of England and is considered the first among equals and spiritual head of the Anglican Communion.
Instead the synod laid down that the Church of Nigeria “shall be in full communion with all Anglican churches, dioceses and provinces that hold and maintain the historic faith, doctrine, sacrament (sic) and discipline of the one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church as the Lord has commanded in His holy word and as the same are received as taught in the Book of Common Prayer and the ordinal of 1662 and in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.”
The synod went on to delete a further subsection stating that the Church of Nigeria “may accept any alterations” to these classic formulations of Anglican belief “as may hereafter be adopted by the Church of England.”
In a separate action, the Nigerian church adopted a new provision that empowers the church to create convocations and chaplaincies and appoint clergy to “like-minded faithful outside Nigeria.” That action would recognize the Convocation of Anglican Nigerians in America, allowing Akinola to directly minister to Anglicans in North America who are at odds with the policies of their own church with regard to homosexuality.
The Nigerian move was downplayed by John Rees, the registrar of the province of Canterbury, who pointed out that several other Anglican provinces make no direct reference to Canterbury in their constitutions.
“I do not see a difficulty,” he told The Times of London. “It does not seem to me to change the legal position at all. There is nothing in what they have done that suggests to me that a clergyman from Nigeria would no longer be able to come and function in the Church of England in the same way that they might have done the day before yesterday.”
_ Robert Nowell
Quote of the Week: Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
(RNS) “We cannot be the church of Jesus Christ unless we reach out in persistent and powerful ways to service the least of these. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, bringing drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger are not simply acts of generosity, but acts of faith. These traditional works of mercy are not options, but obligations for each of us and the entire Catholic community.”
_ The administrative committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a Wednesday (Sept. 14) statement responding to Hurricane Katrina.
END RNS
