c. 2006 Religion News Service

Faith-Based Relief Agencies Mobilize After Landslide in Philippines

(RNS) U.S. religious relief agencies scrambled to respond to a Friday (Feb. 17) landslide in the Philippines that engulfed hundreds of homes and left an estimated 1,500 people missing and feared dead.

Mudslides after heavy rains enveloped houses and an elementary school in the village of Guinsaugon in the country’s Southern Leyte province, news services reported.

“One of the really sad things is that the poor of the world tend to live on the side of mountains, where landslides are likely to come down,” said Paul Montacute, director of Baptist World Aid, the relief and development arm of the Falls Church, Va.-based Baptist World Alliance.

“It’s impossible to stop Mother Nature when a landslide begins.”

Montacute said he has contacted five Baptist denominations in the Philippines to determine how his organization may help them.

Joe Lamigo, the team leader for the Philippines for the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee was visiting its Grand Rapids, Mich., office on Friday, but reached officials in his home country to determine that food and blankets are the most immediate needs in the affected area. He said Christian Reformed Church congregations in the Philippines will be involved in the food collection.

Officials of the Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services have contacted local Catholic church representatives who are responding to the emergency.

“We have spoken to them and we have offered them any assistance that they need,” said John Rivera, spokesman for the Catholic relief organization.

The United Methodist Committee on Relief will appeal to Methodists in this country to make donations to help those who have survived the landslide.

“We’ll be responding through partners and through the Methodist Church in the Philippines to provide emergency shelter and relief supplies and then we will look at other opportunities depending on funding,” said Linda Beher, spokeswoman for the New York-based Methodist relief agency.

(DIGEST MAY END HERE)

Representatives of relief agencies, already continuing long-term response to domestic and international disasters, differ on whether donors may feel symptoms of compassion fatigue.

“We didn’t find that with Pakistan,” said Rivera of Catholic Relief Services’ appeal for donations after an earthquake struck that country last fall. “Our donors came through with … great generosity.”

He said he expects a similar response now.

But Montacute of Baptist World Aid said it’s a challenge to keep some donors engaged, especially for the long-term development projects that follow more immediate emergency needs.

“It’s always a concern that people will think, `Well, there was a disaster last month and we gave for that’ and not realize that, sadly, disasters are something which happen frequently around the world.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Protestant-Catholic Unity Addressed at WCC Assembly in Brazil

(RNS) Protestant-Catholic unity has been a major theme at the World Council of Churches assembly in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Catholicos Aram I of the Armenian Apostolic Church told those in attendance that the WCC risks becoming too “self-contained” and “self-centered” if it does not do more on behalf of unity, particularly closer relations with the Roman Catholic Church.

“I consider the ecumenical collaboration between the Roman Ratholic Church and the World Council of Churches as being of decisive importance for the future of the ecumenical movement,” Aram said Wednesday (Feb. 15).

The question of ways the 348-member world body of predominantly Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican denominations can work more closely with nonmembers, such as the Roman Catholic Church and Pentecostal and charismatic churches, is a key theme of the assembly.

At a press conference Thursday (Feb. 16), a Vatican official said the issue of homosexuality had become one barrier to church unity, as there is no longer a single Christian position on homosexuality.

“In the past all Christian churches had the same position on this question,” said Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, according to Ecumenical News International (ENI). “But now there are not only divisions between our church and other churches, there are also divisions within churches.”

Aram, meanwhile, said the traditional ecumenical movement _ with the Geneva-based WCC as something of its symbol _ was approaching a critical moment and needed to shed what he called a “frozen, ossified, petrified form of ecumenism” that had become “to a large degree, outdated and incompatible with present needs and concerns.”

“I see a growing gap between ecumenical institutions and new forms of ecumenism that are appearing,” Aram, who is the WCC’s moderator, said in a keynote address.

The assembly began Tuesday (Feb. 14) and concludes Feb. 23.

_ Chris Herlinger

Prominent Islamic Scholar to Back Woman-Led Prayer Sunday

(RNS) A prominent Muslim scholar from France plans to pray behind a female imam this Sunday (Feb. 19) in Toronto, giving the nascent woman-led prayer movement its most ringing endorsement since a female Quran scholar led a mixed-gender congregation in prayer last March in New York.

Organizers of the prayer say Soheib Bencheikh, former mufti of Marseille and a vocal moderate Muslim, asked them to arrange a woman-led prayer while he visits Canada this month, so he can show support for it.

“It will give the movement more legitimacy,” said Alia Hogben,“ executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, an Ontario-based advocacy group that will be represented at Sunday’s prayer, even though it has no official position on the issue.

The subject of a woman leading mixed-gender congregational prayers has been hotly debated among Muslims. The most critical opponents condemn the practice as heresy while the Islamic Society of North America has declared it theologically unsound. Even some moderate Muslims have decried the prayers as publicity stunts that distract from more pressing issues for Muslim women, such as illiteracy and domestic violence.

Supporters say there is theological evidence in support of woman-led prayers and argue the act itself draws attention to Muslim women’s issues.

“I believe by having a woman leading prayers you cut at a lot of the basic assumptions that underlay these problems, assumptions about women’s vulnerability, that they’re frail, not spiritually capable of being able to lead prayers,” said Pamela Taylor, co-chair of the Progressive Muslim Union, who will lead Sunday’s prayers.

Taylor, who also writes commentary for Religion News Service, said having a woman lead prayers “will also do away with the notion that men are such uncontrollable beasts that they can’t concentrate on anything if there’s a woman in the room.”

Taylor, who led a mixed-gender prayer in July in Toronto that drew about 200 worshippers, said she expects at least 50 people on Sunday. The prayer is being held in a Toronto restaurant after the Noor Center, a liberal Muslim community center in Toronto, declined to host the prayers, Taylor said.

_ Omar Sacirbey

Senior Jewish Leader Rips Church of England’s Divestment Strategy

LONDON (RNS) Britain’s most senior Jewish leader has blasted the Church of England’s general synod for its “ill-judged” vote this month to withdraw its investments in companies profiting from what the church considers Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.

Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said the synod’s action, which appeared to target the church’s $3.9 million holdings in the U.S. machine giant Caterpillar Inc., could strike a major blow to relations between Jews and Christians in Britain.

In the Friday (Feb. 17) issue of the London-based Jewish Chronicle, the rabbi wrote that “the timing could not have been more inappropriate,” coming as it did at a moment when Israel particularly “needs support, not vilification.”

On Feb. 6, the general synod overwhelmingly approved a motion calling on the Church of England “to disinvest from companies profiting from the illegal occupation, such as Caterpillar, until they change their policies.” Caterpillar was singled out because bulldozers it manufactures have been used to demolish Palestinian homes.

The vote was seen as largely symbolic, since it cannot actually force church commissioners or other bodies to withdraw their funds. But Jewish anger was fueled by the fact that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, a leading advocate of strong ties between the faiths, backed the synod’s action.

Sacks said the vote “was ill-judged, even on its own terms” and “would hurt Israel without helping the Palestinians.”

_ Al Webb

After Jewish Protest, Bank Switches Location for Report on Nazi Ties

(RNS) A German bank’s plan to make a Jewish museum the venue to release a report on its 75-year-old ties to the Nazis fell apart under Jewish protest, forcing the bank to publicize the report at its own headquarters Friday (Feb. 17).

When the Dresdner Bank announced its plans to hold a colloquium at Berlin’s Jewish Museum, German Jewish leaders lashed out, arguing that the bank ought to have the courage to report on its Nazi ties at its own headquarters.

“It’s like a descendant organization of the SS trying to interpret history at the Jewish Museum,” said Peter Fischer, head of the Jewish relief organization AMCHA, a Yiddish word derived from Hebrew, meaning “Your People.”

Despite the criticisms and threats of boycotts from the bulk of Germany’s Jewish community, including the museum’s director, the bank maintained its plans until last week to host the program at the Jewish Museum. The bank’s historical society late last week announced the venue shift to its own headquarters, as Jewish organizations had recommended.

“We regret that members of the Jewish community have other opinions, but we respect them,” said Michael Jurk, head of the historical society. By switching sites, the bank hopes to avoid “pulling the Jewish Museum into a fight about the appropriateness of the event site.”

Salomon Korn, vice president of the Central Committee for Jews in Germany, said he was happy that the bank had come around. “The bank does not seem to be able to understand that it would be much more tasteful to present its history in another venue,” he had argued before the bank’s reversal.

The report, which was first ordered in 1997 _ albeit under public pressure _ details how the bank, which suffered massive financial losses in 1931, allied itself with the up-and-coming Nazi party to gain a business foothold in German-occupied areas and to help it compete with the Deutsche Bank. During the course of the war, a subsidiary of the bank constructed some of the gas chambers and crematoriums at Auschwitz. Additionally, the bank was heavily involved in the Nazi slave labor programs.

_ Niels Sorrells

Quote of the Day: Focus on the Family Founder James Dobson

(RNS) “I want our listeners to understand, because my integrity means more to me than my life. And that’s what’s being assaulted here.”

_ James Dobson, host of the “Focus on the Family” program, responding to criticism within conservative Christian ranks to his support of a Colorado state Senate bill that would give unmarried people, including gays, certain benefits. Dobson, who was quoted in Citizen Link, his ministry’s e-newsletter, denied that his support of the legislation runs counter to his opposition to gay marriage.

MO/JL END RNS