c. 2006 Religion News Service

Vatican Renews Attack on `The Da Vinci Code’

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican renewed its attack on “The Da Vinci Code” novel Monday (May 15), denouncing the book and its forthcoming film adaptation as products of ignorance and hatred.

The condemnation came from two top aides to Pope Benedict XVI days before the film version of the novel is released worldwide on Friday (May 19), capping weeks of steady criticism from Christian leaders across the globe.

The runaway best seller by Dan Brown has attracted criticism for its heretical claim that Jesus Christ sired a bloodline with Mary Magdalene that the Catholic Church has murderously suppressed over the centuries.

In an interview with the French radio station Europe 1, Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, predicted many movie-goers would find the film convincing despite its inaccuracies.

“This is a shocking and worrying cultural phenomenon that reflects, on the one hand, the ignorance of millions of people and, on the other, the voluptuous pleasure the media take in promoting products that have nothing to do with the truth,” he said.

Poupard’s criticisms were echoed by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, president of the Italian Bishop’s Conference and the pope’s vicar to Rome. Ruini stressed the novel’s mixing of fact and fiction amounted to “falsifications” with “no relation to history.”

“It is difficult to escape the sensation that the great success of works like `The Da Vinci Code’ have more to do with hatred, or a failure of love for oneself,” Ruini told a national assembly of bishops.

_ Stacy Meichtry

Court Allows Licenses for Hutterites Without Photos

CALGARY, Alberta (RNS) The Canadian province of Alberta will appeal a recent court ruling that granted members of a religious community the right to be issued driver’s licenses without photographs.

On May 8, the Court of Queen’s Bench ruled that the provincial law requiring photographs on driver’s licenses violated the religious freedoms of a small Hutterite community in Wilson, about 150 miles southeast of Calgary.

Members of the colony believe the Bible prohibits them from being willingly photographed. They cite the second commandment, which forbids graven images of God.

The Hutterites, spiritual cousins of Mennonites and the Amish, believe that since humans were created in God’s image, photographs of people constitute a graven image.

The Hutterites are an Anabaptist Christian sect that fled from Russia to the United States in the late 1800s and finally to Canada in 1918. Today, they number about 26,000 in Canada.

In 2003, Alberta amended its regulations to require that all driver’s licenses require a digital picture.

As a result, the number of Wilson colony residents with valid driver’s licenses dropped from 37 to 15 as old licenses _ which didn’t require a photo _ expired.

Colony members are farmers who use modern, motorized equipment. The government says photos are necessary to prevent fraud or identity theft.

“The Alberta driver’s license that we have in place is known throughout the nation as being the most secure license,” said Government Services Minister George VanderBurg. “The photo is a part of that license.”

Greg Senda, lawyer for the colony, told the Calgary Sun his clients were pleased with the court ruling because had they been forced to comply, the number of drivers would have been reduced to zero, which would have destroyed their way of life.

_ Ron Csillag

Survey Finds Interfaith Cooperation Up Since 9/11

(RNS) Differing faith communities are coming together with more frequency to pray together and serve together than before the Sept. 11 2001 terrorist attacks, a new survey reports.

The survey, sponsored by the Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership, shows that approximately 22 percent of polled congregations reported participating in an interfaith religious service within the last year. About 37 percent of congregations polled said they had conducted community service with congregations of different faiths.

It’s a sharp rise from the organization’s last survey, conducted in 2000, when 7 percent of congregations reported interfaith worship and 8 percent reported interfaith community service.

David A. Roozen, director of the 20-plus member coalition for interfaith cooperation, credits a post-9/11 world for the change.

“The increased attention being given by communities of faith to interfaith engagements continues to be dramatic,” Roozen said in a statement. “The Sept. 11 upturn in interfaith awareness has been accompanied by a fundamental change in the United States’ perception of the American religious mosaic.”

The partnership represents primarily Christian congregations, but also includes representatives of the Muslim, Jewish and Baha’i faiths. Interfaith participation has been particularly public in the last few months, as leaders of diverse religious bodies have rallied together on issues such as gay marriage, immigration and the genocide in Sudan.

The survey showed that interfaith participation was greatest among “other-than-Christian” bodies. Forty percent of non-Christian congregations had engaged in interfaith worship, and 64 percent had participated in community service, the survey showed.

Among Christian congregations, mainline Protestant churches lead the pack in interfaith worship with 30 percent, followed by Catholic and Orthodox with 28 percent and other Protestant congregations (including evangelical and historically black bodies) with 17 percent.

Fifty-six percent of Catholic and Orthodox congregations polled participated in interfaith community service, followed by 46 percent of mainline Protestant churches and 30 percent of other Protestant churches.

The survey, titled Faith Communities Today 2005, randomly polled 884 congregations in 2005 representing all faith traditions in the United States, the partnership said. A complete report of the group’s survey is slated to be released this August.

_ Piet Levy

Jan Love Appointed Dean of Candler Seminary

(RNS) Jan Love has been named dean of Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, the first woman to head the United Methodist seminary in Atlanta. Love will begin serving as dean on Jan. 1, 2007.

Love, 53, has headed the Women’s Division of the United Methodist Church for nearly two years, representing the 1 million-member United Methodist Women organization.

Love spent 23 years serving on the World Council of Churches central committee, and she has been a faculty member teaching religion and international studies at the University of South Carolina. She has also spent time teaching in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Marshall L. “Jack” Meadors Jr., a bishop-in-residence at Candler, called Love’s appointment “providential and exciting,” and said she “has strength of mind, heart and character to deal with tough issues, and to do it with gentleness, kindness, patience and a sense of humor.”

Love has written a number of articles on the role of the Methodist church, as well as two books on international relations: “Southern Africa in World Politics: Local Aspirations and Global Entanglements” and “The U.S. Anti-Apartheid Movement: Local Activism in Global Politics.”

_ Nate Herpich

Quote of the Day: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

(RNS) “By all means, let us argue. But let us remember we are not enemies. … I have not always heeded this injunction myself, and I regret it very much.”

_ Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., addressing graduates of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., on Saturday (May 13). McCain has patched up his relationship with the Rev. Jerry Falwell, chancellor of the university, whom he labeled among “agents of intolerance” during the 2000 presidential campaign season. He was quoted by The Washington Times.

KRE/LF END RNS