c. 1996 Religion News Service

Russian Orthodox accused of profiteering tobacco, booze

(RNS) The image of the Russian Orthodox Church has been tarnished by charges in the Moscow press that the church imported alcohol and tobacco as tax-free humanitarian aid and then re-sold the products in Russia’s newly emerging free market.

Since the fall of communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Orthodox Church has grown rapidly and has become involved in a number of business efforts to meet the cost of the denomination’s reconstruction and development, including a Moscow hotel and a factory that produces candles, icons, vestments and jewelry.

But Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency, has reported that other business interests of the church have become the subject of media criticism. It cites the weekly newspaper Moskovskiye Novosti as reporting that the church’s Department of External Relations, led by one of Orthodoxy’s most prominent officials, Metropolitan Kirill, has been importing tobacco on a massive scale.

According to the newspaper, the church has imported, duty free, some 10,000 tons of tobacco as humanitarian aid _ about 8 billion cigarettes or 10 percent of Russia’s total tobacco imports.

Because the tobacco was imported as humanitarian aid, the Russian government lost an estimated $40 million in taxes, according to the paper.

Another newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, has claimed that the church’s religious-goods factory has been importing millions of bottles of wine, also duty-free. The bottles have been officially listed as church wine imported as humanitarian aid.

The tax breaks were a means for the new post-Soviet government to indirectly subsidize the restoration of churches destroyed by the Soviet state without digging directly into the Russian budget.”The state considers itself responsible to compensate for damages that the church suffered under the former government,”one official told the Moscow Times.”And although there is no law on this subject, theoretically, such a directive (allowing the imports) does exist.” The church’s Department of External Relations has issued a statement denying it had ever been involved in”commercial activities involving alcohol or tobacco products or any excise goods.”But it acknowledged some humanitarian aid was not intended for direct use by church organizations but to be sold for profit.”Part of the revenues received have gone into the general church budget, and part into special programs for restoring churches and monasteries, restoration of church life as a whole and for charitable activities,”the statement said.

Alexander Boulekov, a spokesman for the external relations department, told ENI the scandal has raised questions as to whether”all means are good for raising funds. I think that in the immediate future, the patriarch (Alexei II) or the Holy Synod (the church’s top decision-making body) will present an authoritative evaluation of the situation which has emerged.”

Groups divided over landmark Internet decency case

(RNS) Conservative religious groups are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a new law restricting pornography on the Internet, but civil libertarians say the law is a clear-cut violation of constitutional free speech guarantees.

On Friday (Dec. 6), the high court announced it would hear oral arguments in March in a landmark case examining the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which makes it a crime to disseminate”indecent”or”patently offensive”words and images to children over the Internet.

President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law in February, but a three-judge panel in Philadelphia immediately blocked enforcement, ruling that the law violated the rights of adults.

In a statement, the Northern Virginia-based anti-pornography group Enough is Enough said the Supreme Court must stop”pornographers and pedophiles”from”exploiting”new computer technologies. “It is critical now, before the Internet further expands into more homes, schools and libraries, that the pornographers and their distributors understand that the same laws that have protected children from the likes of Penthouse and Hustler magazines will also protect these same kids surfing in cyberspace,”said Enough is Enough spokeswoman Donna Rice Hughes.

Family Research Council Director of Legal Studies Cathy Cleaver also urged the Supreme Court to”reverse the radical ruling which gave Bob Guccione the right to give his Penthouse magazine to our children on the Internet.” However, opponents of the law called this a simple case of impermissible government censorship. “We would not be here today were it not for Congress’ misguided attempt to regulate what one lower court judge described as `the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed,'”said American Civil Liberties Union Legal Director Steven Shapiro.”Individual users and parents _ not the government _ should decide what material is appropriate,”Jerry Berman of the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition told USA Today.

Both sides agree the case will set important precedents for the future of communications and technology.

However, such responsibilities make at least one Supreme Court justice uncomfortable. Ruling last spring in a case about decency and cable television, Justice David Souter, who does not have a computer in his chambers, expressed concerns about the law and technology.”In my ignorance,”he wrote,”I have to accept the real possibility that if we had to decide today just what the First Amendment should mean in cyberspace, we would get it fundamentally wrong.”

Australian lawmakers vote against Northern Territory euthanasia law

(RNS) Australia’s lower house of parliament approved a bill Tuesday (Dec. 10) that would overturn the controversial provincial law that legalized voluntary euthanasia in the remote Northern Territory.

The bill must now be approved by the Senate, which is not expected to take up the measure until next year.

In July, Australia’s Northern Territory became the first jurisdiction in the world to legalize voluntary euthanasia. Under the law, doctors may assist the terminally ill to end their lives via lethal injection or drugs.

Although the law was approved by Northern Territory’s provincial government, Australia’s federal parliament retains ultimate constitutional power over legislation in the territories. The measure has provoked controversy across Australia.

The federal House of Representatives voted to overturn the euthanasia law 88 votes to 35, Reuters news agency reported.

A diverse coalition of religious groups, led by the Roman Catholic Church, is also challenging the Northern Territory law in Australia’s High Court.

American Zionists to Israel: Don’t tamper with `law of return’

(RNS) The leaders of the American Zionist Movement have urged the Israeli government to reject any legislation that would change current policies regarding religious conversions and automatic Israeli citizenship.

In particular, the U.S. Jewish leaders urged Israel’s Knesset, or parliament, to reject a proposal currently before it that would restrict legal recognition of all Jewish conversions to those approved by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate.

The measure is backed by Israel’s ultra-Orthodox religious parties, a key part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government. The ultra-Orthodox generally refuse to recognize conversions performed by Reform and Conservative rabbis.

Currently, the Law of Return provides that anyone who is Jewish by birth or conversion has legal rights of settlement and citizenship in Israel without being subject to a religious test by the Orthodox rabbinate.

The resolution passed by the American Zionist Movement’s national board urges the Israeli government”to refrain from coercion in matters of personal conscience and belief.” It said passage of the legislation empowering Orthodox rabbis to impose a religious test would be”repudiating a major portion of American Jewry”and would”create deep rifts”between the various branches of Diaspora Jewry (those living outside Israel) and between Israel and Diaspora Jewry.

The American Zionist Movement is a New York-based umbrella group representing 20 national Zionist groups whose memberships total about 1 million U.S. Jews.

Catholic bishops urge foreign aid increase

(RNS) Bishop Anthony Pilla of Cleveland, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, has called on President Clinton to seek an increase in foreign aid in the 1998 federal budget.”As one of the wealthiest of industrial nations, our country should be in the forefront of international development assistance,”Pilla said in a letter to Clinton dated Nov. 15 but made public Dec. 6.”Unhappily, we stand at the bottom of the industrial nations in the proportion of GNP devoted to aid for the poorest countries,”the bishop said.

Clinton is currently working on the federal budget for the fiscal year 1998, which begins on Oct. 1, 1997. The budget is expected to be submitted to Congress in January or early February.

Pilla did not spell out a specific increase, urging instead”the highest feasible level”for both bilateral programs that promote grassroots development and emergency relief, and for multilateral programs that ensure basic human needs.

Pilla said that”recent and continuing persistent cuts”in U.S. foreign assistance are of”grave concern”to U.S. bishops and have dramatically impacted the ability of Catholic Relief Services and other aid agencies to serve the poor. Much foreign aid is channeled through private and religious aid agencies such as Catholic Relief Service.”Generous assistance for development and relief is not an extravagance, but a moral responsibility,”Pilla said.

Aid groups bracing for new influx of refugees

(RNS) Religious and secular international aid groups are preparing for what they believe will be a new, massive influx of refugees returning to Rwanda _ this time from the refugee camps in Tanzania.

Tanzania is currently host to some 530,000 Rwandan refugees.

On Friday (Dec. 6), in a joint announcement with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the government announced it wanted all Rwandans out of Tanzania by the end of the year.

The refugees are part of nearly 2 million people, primarily Hutus, who fled Rwanda in 1994 in the wake of a bloody genocide directed against the Tutsi minority by Hutu militants as Tutsi-led rebels were gaining control of the country.”The message … states that the (government) has decided that all Rwandan refugees can now return to their country in safety,”said a statement by the World Food Program, a United Nations agency providing food to the refugee camps.”The Tanzanian Ministry of Home Affairs will coordinate the repatriation operations, assisted by the Tanzanian police force and, where necessary, the army,”the statement said.”The government of Tanzania has given its assurance that the repatriation process will be carried out in an orderly and humane manner.” ACT-LWF, the relief arm of the World Council of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation, said it has begun pre-positioning food, plastic sheeting and other relief items along with transport vehicles in Kibungo, Rwanda, in preparation for the new refugees.”ACT-LWF is aiming at being able to assist up to 100,000 returnees in way stations and transit camps in Rwanda from major refugee camps in Tanzania,”the Geneva-based group said in a weekend statement.

CARE, the Atlanta-based relief agency, said it is gearing up in Kibungo and Mutara in Rwanda for new refugees and will continue to work in the Tanzanian camps for those refugees permitted to remain to harvest crops in January.

The group said that as a result of the first influx into Rwanda of returning refugees from camps in Zaire,”communities in Rwanda have grown from 10 to 15 percent, producing a critical need for housing, food, water and fuel.” It has launched a $1 million fund-raising campaign to help Rwandans re-build their communities and country.”This holiday season, CARE will help refugees along the road home and then along the road to peace, stability and health,”said Peter Bell, the group’s president.”Our goal is for the generation born and raised in the camps to know a better life.” Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group, however, expressed concern that the joint Tanzanian government and UNHCR announcement”is tantamount to a decision to forcibly return the refugees to Rwanda.”The organization fears that on their return, some of the refugees may be at risk of serious human rights violations, including arbitrary arrest, ill-treatment, detention in life-threatening conditions, `disappearances’ or extrajudicial execution,”it said in a statement.

Amnesty said that the deadline of less than a month for the return of the refugees”who have shown little sign of wanting to return to Rwanda in the last two years _ puts unacceptable pressure on the refugees.”It noted the joint statement”makes no mention of options for those refugees who continue to fear human rights violations in Rwanda.” In a separate but related development, Pope John Paul II on Sunday (Dec. 8) again asked the world to come to the aid of the suffering in the African Great Lakes region of Rwanda, Zaire, Burundi and Tanzania.”I ask you again not to forget the drama that is playing out in Africa,”John Paul said in his weekly appearance to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square.”Besides the many Rwandan and Burundian refugees scattered so far in the Kivu (region), some news reports speak of the total desolation toward which the population of eastern Zaire is heading,”the pontiff said, referring to those Rwandan refugees in Zaire who are returning to Rwanda.

The refugees who have fled the camps in Zaire, he said, are”caught in the grip of fratricidal fighting, which is extending like an oil slick, with the distressing consequences of hunger, insecurity, looting, flight from cities and villages, atrocities and horrors.”

Quote of the day: Theologian Aaron Tolen

(RNS) At the recent World Conference of Churches-sponsored Conference on World Mission and Evangelism, which ended Dec. 3 in Salvador, Brazil, participants held a service of remembrance, repentance and reconciliation at Solar do Unhao, the slave dock where in 1550, the first African slaves disembarked in Salvador, the main slave port of Brazil.

During the service, the Rev. Aaron Tolen, a theologian from Cameroon and one of seven presidents of the World Council of Churches, said Africans, too, needed to repent regarding the slave trade:”We have words of repentance. But those who brought us here were not alone in the making of this tragedy. We Africans share in the responsibility. We have degraded ourselves by selling our brothers and sisters as goods.”It is because we have never had the courage to recognize it and to repent that we continue to do the same today, hence the disgraceful situation of Africa. We want to repent and ask for forgiveness and God’s mercy.”

MJP END RNS