c. 1996 Religion News Service

Muslim leaders protest upcoming film depicting Islamic terrorists

(RNS)-U.S. Muslim leaders said this week that”Executive Decision,”an upcoming film from Warner Bros., is likely to inflame anti-Muslim sentiments by depicting terrorists who use the Koran, Islam’s holy book, to justify their violent acts.

The film depicts terrorists of Islamic heritage from the breakaway Chechnya area of the former Soviet Union hijacking an airliner bound for Washington, D.C. The movie is scheduled to open Friday (March 15).”There is no positive Muslim character who speaks against the whole concept of violence being linked with Islam,”said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.”The norm in the movie is for a Muslim to be a terrorist,”he added.

Awad made his comments at a news conference with other Muslim leaders after previewing the film on Monday (March 11).

The Muslim leaders were especially critical of the movie’s use of the Koran. In the film, they said, terrorists defend their violence by referring to the Koran, hold the holy book while committing an act of terrorism, chant Islamic slogans, and refer to themselves as blessed by Allah.

In a statement, Warner Bros. defended the film, saying it portrayed”a make-believe situation involving a renegade terrorist who has betrayed his own organization (and) his faith.” Audiences, the film company statement said, would realize that”the criminal mastermind intensified his own wrongdoing by wrapping it in a distorted version of his faith, contrary to the admonitions of even his own cohorts.” The Muslim leaders, in a statement issued at the news conference in Burbank, Calif., said the religious elements in the film, especially the use of the Koran,”did not advance the plot line in any way and seemed to be used solely to push anti-Muslim `hot buttons.'” Shakeel Syed, director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, said Warner Bros.”should be concerned about the economic impact of Muslims objecting to the film.” Awad said no organized boycott is planned, but added,”We will ask people of good conscience not to see this movie.”

Vaclav Havel urged to back efforts to heal lingering Czech-German wounds

(RNS)-Pavel Smetana, president of one of the Czech Republic’s major Protestant denominations, has met with Czech President Vaclav Havel to urge Havel’s support for church efforts to resolve one of the thorniest issues in Czech relations with Germany.

At issue is the 50-year-old mass expulsion of 3.5 million ethnic Germans from the Sudetenland, which was a predominantly German region of Czechoslovakia, after Germany was defeated in World War II. As many as 40,000 Sudeten Germans are believed to have died during the expulsions.

Germany has asked the Czechs to distance themselves”morally”from the expulsion decrees.

The Czech government is reluctant to do so, in part because Adolf Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938 marked the beginning of German occupation of Czechoslovakia, and because it fears any admission of guilt in the expulsions could open the door to demands for compensation.

Ecumenical News International, the church-sponsored news agency based at the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland, reported this week that Smetana met with Havel on March 6 to urge his support for reconciliation efforts.

The Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, which Smetana heads, has taken the lead in urging reconciliation. Last year it issued a statement asking”forgiveness for our own guilt”in the expulsions and expressing readiness to forgive the Germans for acts committed during the occupation of Czechoslovakia.

Smetana said Havel”very warmly received”the church leader’s report on the church’s reconciliation effort. But Havel did not commit the government to any specific action.”Until now,”Smetana said after the meeting,”Czechs have considered only the period 1938-45, when Germany’s anti-Czech actions were being taken, whereas Germans have only thought about the period after the war.”Instead, we need to begin looking back at the whole history of our relationship, during which we lived very contentedly together from the 12th century onwards,”he said.

Vatican promises neutrality in Italian elections

(RNS)-The Vatican, which has a long history of involvement in Italian politics, will not take sides in Italy’s national elections next month, Vatican Secretary of State Angelo Sodano said Tuesday (March 12).”The (Roman Catholic) Church … should not involve itself in any sort of choice for this or that political alliance or party and does not intend to,”Sodano told reporters.

Italy’s elections are set for April 21.

Reuters reported that Sodano reminded reporters that Pope John Paul II, accused of meddling in Italy’s 1994 election, had told Italian bishops last November that while the church wanted Italians to espouse Christian values in political life, it would not tell them whom to vote for.

For much of the last 50 years the Vatican has been closely aligned with Italy’s governing Christian Democrat party, which collapsed and splintered into numerous competing parties in the wake of corruption scandals in the early 1990s.

There is no single party that currently reflects the church’s political views.”Every era has its own needs and Italy is changing as well,”Sodano said.”The people who until recently fought for political unity among Catholics have preferred to put an end to a unitary experience that lasted 45 years.” Shortly before the 1994 election, John Paul issued a statement saying Italy still needed a big dose of Christian values in politics. He also said that while some Catholic leaders in the Christian Democrat party had been corrupt, they had saved Italy from communism.

Catholic Cathechism to be published for computer use

(RNS)-The best-selling”Catechism of the Catholic Church”will be available in a computer edition in April.

The”Catechism of the Catholic Church for Personal Computers”will include the full text and indexes of the 800-page print edition, the U.S. Catholic Conference announced.

The computerized version will be available on CD-ROM for $69.95 and on 3.5-inch diskettes for $39.95, in English, Spanish and French.

The volume of Catholic doctrine was published in 1994.

Rex Lee, former solicitor general, Brigham Young president, dies

(RNS)-Rex Lee, a former solicitor general and former president of Brigham Young University, died Monday (March 11) at 61 of cancer.

Lee was solicitor general during Ronald Reagan’s first presidential term, representing the government before the U.S. Supreme Court. Described as a”staunchly independent conservative legal scholar”by The New York Times, Lee differed with the Reagan administration on some Supreme Court cases involving religion. For instance, in a case in which the city of Pawtucket, R.I., sponsored an outdoor Nativity scene, the administration’s support of the city clashed with Lee’s view of what the First Amendment allowed.

Lee, a devout Mormon, also was the founding dean of Brigham Young University’s law school. He became the university’s president in 1989 and stepped down in December because of illness.

Quote of the day: Evangelical theologian Carl F.H. Henry

(RNS)-Carl F.H. Henry, 81, the former editor of Christianity Today and a writer on religion and public life for more than 50 years, in a new book,”Has Democracy Had It’s Day?”published by the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, reflects on Christianity and the prospects for democracy:”No nation and no culture can long survive in the absence of shared values-indeed of transcendent values and absolutes. … A democratically chosen and constitutionally limited government seems to be the political structure most compatible with the Christian insistence on human worth and liberty, and most likely to accommodate the promotion and protection of human freedoms, justice, and peace.”

MJP END RNS