c. 2006 Religion News Service
Three Ex-College Students Admit Burning Alabama Churches
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) Three former college students face seven to eight years in federal prison after admitting Wednesday (Dec. 20) they participated in burning nine churches in Alabama.
Wearing orange jail jumpsuits and leg irons, Matthew Cloyd, Russell Lee Debusk and Benjamin Nathan Moseley stood before a federal judge to enter guilty pleas to conspiracy and arson charges in the fires set Feb. 2 and Feb. 7. They are scheduled to be sentenced March 28. All three face a minimum of seven years in prison because two firefighters were injured battling a blaze at Ashby Baptist Church.
The first series of fires damaged two churches and destroyed three in Bibb County. A second batch, set to distract investigators, destroyed four churches across Greene, Pickens and Sumter counties.
Cloyd, 21, and Moseley, 20, pleaded guilty through written plea agreements with federal prosecutors. Prosecutors will recommend the two receive credit for accepting responsibility and sentences of no more than eight years one month, based on sentencing guidelines. The plea agreement also calls for restitution.
Debusk, 20, who participated in five of the nine fires, did not have a plea agreement, though he also faces the mandatory minimum of seven years. The federal system does not provide for parole.
The trio’s lawyers said their clients remain remorseful for the string of fires that one federal agent characterized Wednesday as committed by “drunken college students who were basically rampaging the countryside.”
“It’s not a prank,” said Jim Cavanaugh, regional director for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who led an arson task force. “It’s a lot worse than that. It was very mean-spirited. It was almost a wilding thing.”
At the time of the arsons, DeBusk and Moseley were theater students at Birmingham-Southern College. Cloyd was a junior pre-med student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“These senseless crimes have resulted in incalculable losses,” U.S. Attorney Alice Martin said in a statement. “The devastation of nine church homes as well as the devastation of these young men’s families.”
_ Val Walton
Donors and Contractors Will Help Restore Burned Alabama Church
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) When Morning Star Baptist Church burned to the ground in a string of church arsons in February, its future looked bleak. The tiny congregation near Boligee had no insurance, no money and didn’t even own the rural property the church had stood on for 94 years. About three weeks later, its pastor had a stroke and was forced to retire.
Now, three anonymous Birmingham donors have stepped forward to spearhead efforts to rebuild the church and persuaded an architect, contractor and others to donate their time and materials. They’ve backed the project so construction can begin next month and are pushing to raise a final $200,000 to get the church finished and on solid footing.
The 60-member black congregation, now worshipping in a double-wide trailer on the old church lot, plans to break ground Jan. 7 and move in the summer. An interim pastor is in place, and the former pastor, the Rev. James Posey, is up walking and talking.
“It’s such a blessing,” said Morning Star Deacon Frank Wallace. “It might have been meant for evil, but it’s all good so far, because we got a better facility, and the members are pulling together, and it brought black and white together. It brought us more together in this community.”
Morning Star was one of nine Baptist churches set on fire in February in rural Greene, Pickens, Bibb and Sumter counties. On Wednesday (Dec. 20), three former college students pled guilty to setting the fires. They now face a seven-year prison sentence.
“That’s the only church I’ve belonged to,” said Wallace, 52. “I’ve been there all of my childhood; I’ve walked down that aisle. I’ve got a lot of memories in that building.”
_ Hannah Wolfson
Muslims Counter Holocaust Denial With Visit to Washington Museum
WASHINGTON (RNS) In the wake of an Iranian conference held by Holocaust deniers, Washington-area Muslim leaders paid a visit Wednesday (Dec. 20) to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to state their opposition to hatred.
Imam Mohamed Magid, vice president of the Islamic Society of North America, joined other leaders in the museum’s Hall of Remembrance, saying he was moved by stories of Holocaust survivors.
“Many people have lost their lives because of hate, bigotry,” said Magid. “We have to stand together, committed to compassion, love and mercy.”
The visit was prompted by a recent conference in Iran attended by many who deny the Holocaust occurred. It was initiated by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and held in Tehran Dec. 11-12.
“What is going on there is not about history,” said Sara Bloomfield, the Holocaust museum director, flanked by about two dozen Muslims and Holocaust survivors. “It is about hate.”
As the group spoke, they stood before an eternal flame flickering over a monument containing earth from death camps and concentration camps. They lit candles of remembrance after their brief remarks.
Akbar Ahmed, the chairman of Islamic studies at American University, said people of all faiths need to keep hatred in check.
“Hate is not only about hating Jews, which is anti-Semitism, but it extends to … Islamophobia,” he said. “It’s like a poison and it spreads.”
Ahmed and Magid were joined by leaders of organizations that included the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Arab-American Institute.
Bloomfield said Muslim groups have visited the museum in the past but the visit Wednesday was an unprecedented “act of solidarity” from Muslims on the issue of Holocaust denial.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: Episcopal priest the Rev. Sally Bingham
(RNS) “I don’t hear theological arguments against environmentalism anymore. I think mainstream religion now believes we are the stewards of creation.”
_ Episcopal priest the Rev. Sally Bingham. She was quoted by The Washington Post (Dec. 21).
DSB/PH END RNS
