c. 2006 Religion News Service
Pope Eulogizes Priest Gunned Down in Turkey During Cartoon Controversy
VATICAN CITY (RNS) In his first Holy Thursday Mass as pope, Benedict XVI recalled the murder of a Catholic priest in Turkey as an example of priestly sacrifice.
In a homily dedicated to priests, Benedict read a letter Thursday (April 13) written by the Rev. Andrea Santoro, who was gunned down inside his parish in the Turkish city of Trabzon in February amid turmoil over the publications of cartoons depicting the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.
Quoting the letter, Benedict said Santoro went to Turkey “to live among its people” and “lend them my flesh.”
“You become capable of salvation only by offering up your actual flesh,” Benedict quoted Santoro as writing.
Since his death, several top prelates have described Santoro as a Christian martyr, defined as someone who is killed out of hatred for the Catholic faith. Martyrdom is regarded as evidence of sainthood.
Santoro’s 16-year-old killer reportedly shouted “Allah Akbar,” or “God is great,” before shooting Santoro. He subsequently confessed to Turkish authorities that he shot the priest in reaction to the cartoon controversy.
On Thursday Benedict said that Santoro was praying at the moment of his death, adding further support to arguments that Santoro was a martyr.
Benedict will celebrate his first Easter as pope this weekend, presiding over a Via Crucis, or Way of the Cross, procession at the Colosseum on Friday and an Easter Eve Mass on Saturday night. On Sunday he will deliver an Urbi et Orbi blessing, which is the pope’s Easter message to the “city and the world.”
Holy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper _ an event during which Jesus Christ is believed to have instituted the Christian priesthood by breaking bread and drinking wine with the apostles in remembrance of him.
The pope later traveled to the basilica of St. John in Lateran, in Rome, where he washed and kissed the feet of 12 men in remembrance of Christ’s humility.
_ Stacy Meichtry
Baptist School Expels Student After His Web Site Reveals Homosexuality
(RNS) A Baptist university in Kentucky has expelled a student after it learned from his Web site that he is gay.
The move has prompted a civil rights battle pitting the student and a gay rights group against University of the Cumberlands officials defending their traditional religious beliefs.
Sophomore Jason A. Johnson, 21, a dean’s list student who was majoring in theater arts, was forced to leave the school in Williamsburg, Ky., on Thursday (April 13). Johnson said university officials expelled him last week after they read his MySpace.com Web page.
Johnson declares himself gay on the site, which also features writings about his boyfriend and photos of young men kissing.
Minutes after Johnson was expelled, his boyfriend, Eastern Kentucky University student Zac Dreyer, reported the incident on his MySpace.com page, sparking anger among the students as well as gay rights groups. Most of the replies to his updates have supported Johnson, although a few have condemned homosexuality or said Cumberlands was within its rights to expel him.
A gay-rights group, Kentucky Fairness Alliance, has demanded that Gov. Ernie Fletcher either veto $11 million in state funds the school is set to receive this year or require all institutions receiving state funding to uphold equal opportunity practices.
Johnson’s friend Renee Kuder has distributed shirts reading “Jesus Loves My Gay Friend.”
In a statement issued April 6, Cumberlands President Jim Taylor said, “Students know the rules before they come to this institution.”
The school’s handbook states, “Any student who engages in or promotes sexual behavior not consistent with Christian principles (including sex outside marriage and homosexuality) may be suspended or asked to withdraw.”
Homosexuality was not mentioned in the version of the handbook used when Johnson first chose to attend Cumberlands.
“Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but there’s a difference between believing that something is wrong and discriminating against it,” Johnson said in a Thursday telephone interview. “Christianity says that God includes everybody. … And it’s something that I hope every Christian strives to do.”
_ Piet Levy
Bosnian Grand Mufti Calls for Dialogue Among Muslims, Christians, Jews
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) A grand mufti visiting the United States from Bosnia has called for more interfaith dialogue to help promote peace and understanding for the situation of Muslims in the world.
“These three Abrahamic faiths _ Jews, Christians and Muslims _ must come together,” said Mustafa Ceric, the grand mufti of Bosnia, at an interfaith meeting with clergy at Southside Baptist Church in Birmingham.
“Please help us,” Ceric said. “We are learning to live in the West. We need encouragement. We have to see that we are wanted.”
He said that 70 percent of the world’s refugees are Muslims, which often leads to a desperate theology of persecution and mistrust.
Preachers of extreme Islamic views that promote violence against non-Muslims need to be engaged by moderate Muslim scholars, Ceric said.
“These are more a problem for Muslims than non-Muslims,” Ceric said. “They proclaim any system to be infidel.”
Ceric came to Alabama at the invitation of a group of Birmingham clergy that traveled to the Balkans last year. Ceric, who wrote a Declaration of European Muslims calling for tolerance and peace, spoke Monday night (April 10) at Temple Emanu-El.
He said part of the reason he came to Alabama was to learn more about the civil rights movement and the non-violent philosophy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. “I am very impressed with Dr. King,” he said. “I’ve quoted him several times in my speeches.”
Civil war and “ethnic cleansing” in the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 2001 killed more than 250,000 people, including 10,000 children in Sarajevo, Ceric said. Muslims suffered heavily, he said.
He often held the dying children in his arms and helped bury them, he said. “I hated the Serbs,” Ceric said. “I was angry.”
But he said he has since taken the approach that dialogue between the former warring factions is necessary to heal the past. “We are all together there,” Ceric said. “We cannot know each other without relationship to each other. Bosnia-Herzegovina is still fragile and needs international support.”
_ Greg Garrison
Poll: Most in New Jersey Believe in Literal Account of Resurrection
(RNS) New Jersey may be far removed from the Bible Belt, but a new survey shows the state’s residents have a strong acceptance of the Bible as the literal word of God.
With Christianity’s celebration of its holiest event _ the Resurrection of Jesus Christ _ coming, the poll showed that more than half of New Jersey adults believe the biblical account of the risen Christ as a word-for-word retelling of what happened.
The Rutgers-Eagleton poll released Wednesday (April 12), as Passover was about to begin, also showed that nearly four in 10 adults said the Old Testament account of Moses parting the Red Sea to lead Jews from their captivity in Egypt also occurred just as it was written.
More than half of the 800 adult poll respondents said religion is extremely or very important in their lives, while another quarter said it was somewhat important.
The poll also found that belief in the word-for-word accuracy of the two Bible stories increases as attendance at worship services increases, and is stronger among evangelical or born-again Christians, women, nonwhites, the elderly and those with a high school education or less.
“I’m a little surprised it’s this high,” Rutgers-Eagleton Director Murray Edelman said of the depth of New Jersey residents’ faith in a literal Bible.
“In the media and the public forum where issues are discussed, there’s rarely mention of the Bible being literal,” he said.
_ Rudy Larini
Quote of the Day: Former President George H.W. Bush
(RNS) “When my soul was troubled, it was Billy I reached out to for advice, for comfort and for prayer. You could say Bill has been the conscience of our nation and sometimes of the world.”
_ Former President George H.W. Bush, speaking in College Station, Texas, as he awarded the George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service to evangelist Billy Graham. He was quoted by the Houston Chronicle.
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