c. 2006 Religion News Service

Navarro-Valls Retires as Vatican Spokesman

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday (July 11) named the current head of Vatican radio and television to succeed his veteran spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls.

The appointment of the Rev. Federico Lombardi to head the Holy See Press Office partially consolidates the Vatican’s media operations, because Lombardi will retain his position at the helm of the Holy See’s radio and television outlets.

The move ends the 22-year tenure of Navarro-Valls, 69, a Spanish journalist who is credited with overhauling the Vatican’s press operations to meet the demands of modern media during the reign of John Paul II.

In a brief statement, Navarro-Valls said he was “grateful” to Benedict for accepting his request to retire.

In a separate statement, Lombardi, 63, said he would not seek to “imitate” his predecessor and said he aimed to see the Vatican’s positions expressed “objectively and adequately.”

_ Stacy Meichtry

German Churches Plan Overhaul to Combat Shrinking Numbers, Funds

BERLIN (RNS) Germany’s Protestant churches plan to engage in a top-to-bottom overhaul in hopes of returning the church to a more central role in German society.

Part of the proposed changes _ outlined in a 100-page paper _ stem from financial realities, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt General Newspaper).

The churches estimate that their rolls will decline from today’s 26 million to 17 million by 2030. The accompanying loss in church taxes means there will not be enough money to operate all of Germany’s Protestant churches or provide salaries for the current 20,400 ministers.

Closing churches and reducing the ranks of ministers means spreading congregations thin and relying more on lay people. However, Bishop Wolfgang Huber of Berlin, the head of the Council of Evangelical Churches of Germany, says there are opportunities in this change to reach out to a German society that has grown increasingly secular in recent decades.

“We want to grow against the trend,” he said.

The change means rethinking the way churches are organized, according to the Berliner Zeitung (Berlin Newspaper). Since there would be fewer churches and ministers, more money would be available to hire highly trained lay people, who still draw smaller salaries than ministers.

By hiring highly competent lay persons, the church would have a larger group of people engaged in outreach missions. Churches could be restructured to reach out to those who have distanced themselves from religious organizations. More funds would be available for church-run schools.

The report argues that Germany has a unique “window of opportunity” to recapture some church members; church attendance has enjoyed a slight boost recently. Also, more people have opted to have church weddings and funerals, as opposed to civil ceremonies, in recent years.

_ Niels Sorrells

Church Groups Criticize Bush Plan to Block Aid to Cuban Church Council

(RNS) Two leading ecumenical agencies have sharply criticized the Bush administration’s tightening of sanctions against Cuba, including blocking humanitarian aid from reaching the Cuban Council of Churches.

The recommendations, contained in a 93-page report approved by President Bush on Monday (July 10), are meant to aid the opposition to Cuban leader Fidel Castro and promote democracy in the post-Castro era. The recommendations include $80 million to aid opponents of the 80-year-old Castro.

The report was drafted by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, which is jointly chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.

The U.S. has had economic sanctions on the Cuban regime since 1961, two years after Castro seized power. Under Bush, the U.S. has steadily tightened those controls.

But church groups say that one element of the new plan, which would no longer allow the Commerce Department to grant licenses for humanitarian aid that go through the Cuban Council of Churches, violates religious freedom.

The Geneva-based World Council of Churches, in a Monday (July 10) letter to Bush, said the proposal is “a gross violation of religious freedom and a remarkably aggressive interference in religious matters.”

“We strongly feel that it is completely inappropriate for the U.S. government, or any government, to determine who is and who is not a legitimate national council of churches and to restrict or deny Christian fellowship and humanitarian assistance to any particular national church council, including the Cuban Council of Churches,” the Rev. Samuel Kobia, the WCC’s general secretary, said in his letter to Bush.

Separately, the New York-based National Council of Churches and Church World Service, its sister humanitarian aid organization, also expressed its opposition to the proposal.

Church World Service has a long history of providing humanitarian aid to the Cuban people through the Cuban Council of Churches, which represents many of Cuba’s Protestant churches; the Bush administration maintains that the Cuban church agency is “controlled” by the Castro government.

“Ecumenical bodies have a right to determine their partners and to relate internationally,” said the Rev. John McCullough, CWS executive director. “This (proposal) raises grave concerns apart from the politics of U.S.-Cuban relations.”

In Cuba, the report was denounced by government officials and some dissidents said it would do them more harm than good.

“I don’t doubt the report’s good intentions, but it just adds kindling to the fire,” Elizardo Sanchez of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and Reconciliation told the Associated Press.

_ David E. Anderson

Quote of the Day: Suzanne Scholte of the North Korea Freedom Coalition

(RNS) “If Rick Warren goes in there and preaches, Kim Jong Il can say, `What about our lack of religious freedom? We had Rick Warren.’ But if Rick Warren says, `Kim Jong Il is not your god,’ what will be the ramifications?”

_ Suzanne Scholte, chairwoman of the North Korea Freedom Coalition of 65 human rights, religious and nongovernmental organizations, speaking to The Washington Times about evangelist Rick Warren’s scheduled preaching trip to North Korea.

KRE/PH END RNS