c. 1996 Religion News Service

Southern Baptist leader Charles Stanley’s wife drops divorce suit

(RNS)-Television preacher and prominent Southern Baptist pastor Charles Stanley appears to no longer be in danger of losing his pulpit now that his wife has dropped a divorce suit against him.

Anna Stanley filed for divorce nearly three years ago, but now says there is hope for their marriage after all.

Charles Stanley gained national prominence in the mid-1980s as president of the Southern Baptist Convention. His sermons at First Baptist Church of Atlanta are broadcast via his In Touch Ministries, a nationwide television outreach. It appears he will retain that stature, which was threatened by the divorce.

Stanley had told his 13,000-member congregation that he would resign if the divorce became final. First Baptist Church has not allowed divorced men to serve as deacons or pastors.”I am pleased to announce that Charles and I are making progress toward reconciling our marriage differences,”Anna Stanley said in a statement.”Although we are not living together at this time, we are working toward that end.” She thanked the supporters of First Baptist Church and In Touch Ministries for praying for them, according to Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.”Thank you for standing by our family during this difficult time,”said Anna Stanley.”We all feel that the progress made in the past several weeks is due in great part to your prayers.””Naturally, I am pleased and grateful to God for answered prayer. … Especially, I am grateful to my church for their patience and support and unwavering love for me through this difficult time,”Charles Stanley told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Stanley read the statement from his wife to his congregation on Sunday (March 17) and the congregation rose for two standing ovations, the Atlanta newspaper reported.

Franklin Graham, standing in for his father, draws 114,000 in Australia

(RNS)-Evangelist Franklin Graham, standing in for his famous father, Billy Graham, preached to more than 114,000 during a 12-day crusade in Australia.

Franklin Graham, best known in the United States as the president of Samaritan’s Purse, a relief agency, agreed to take his father’s place last November after doctors told the elder Graham, who has been beset with health problems, that he should not travel to Australia.

During the crusade, Franklin Graham was quick to acknowledge that he”cannot be Billy Graham.”But he said he preached”the same message.” Despite heavy rains, including torrential rain from Cyclone Ethel, that marred much of the 12-day, four-city tour, the crowd total of more than 114,000 was Graham’s largest since he began conducting crusades seven years ago.

During the crusade, which ended Sunday (March 17), Graham’s mother, Ruth Bell Graham, faxed her son a letter telling him not to be discouraged by the weather.

Ruth Graham, who has been hospitalized and diagnosed with spinal meningitis, wrote that”being flat on my back gives me plenty of time to pray for you.”

Pope addresses Catholic Church’s role in Rwanda

(RNS)-Pope John Paul II has responded for the first time to charges that Catholic priests and nuns took part in Rwanda’s ethnic genocide, saying the church itself could not be held responsible for the actions of some of its members.

In a message released by the Vatican Wednesday (March 20), the pope also called for a spirit of reconciliation in Rwanda and said the Catholic Church-the central African nation’s largest religious group-must be part of that process.

More than 1 million minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in the ethnic violence that swept Rwanda two years ago. Some of the ugliest massacres occurred in Catholic churches, missions and shelters. Some 5,000 Tutsis were killed in a church in southern Rwanda.

Priests and nuns have also been accused of having engaged in or cooperated with the killings.

Rwandan Foreign Minister Anastaza Gasana last August accused the church of having sided with the former government of President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu whose assassination in August 1994 set off the massacres by Hutus bent on ethnic revenge.

In his message, John Paul said”all members of the church who sinned during the genocide must have the courage to bear the consequences of the acts they committed against God and their fellow man,”the Reuter news agency reported.

Shevardnadze says new Orthodox cathedral will promote national unity

(RNS)-President Eduard Shevardnadze of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, says a new Orthodox cathedral being built in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi will help promote national unity.

Shevardnadze, the former foreign minister of the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev, made his remarks at a foundation-laying ceremony for the new cathedral.

The new cathedral, he said, would”worthily bring the Second Millennium to a close”and enable the former Soviet republic to”cross into the 21st century as a united, undivided, strong and contented country,”Ecumenical News International, the World Council of Churches-based news agency reported Monday (March 18).

Shevardnadze is a newcomer to the Orthodox Christian faith. The 67-year-old former communist official was baptized in November 1992.

Update: Cuban Catholic bishops condemn downing of American planes

(RNS)-Cuba’s Roman Catholic bishops have condemned the shooting down of two unarmed American civilian planes and called on both the United States and Cuba to refrain from further violence.

In a statement read in Cuban Catholic churches on Saturday (March 16), the bishops also urged Cuban exile groups in the United States to exercise moderation.

On Feb. 24, Cuban planes shot down two planes owned by the Miami-based Brothers to the Rescue, an exile group that opposes the Cuban regime of Fidel Castro. Over the past several months, the planes had, on a number of occasions, violated Cuban air space to drop anti-Castro leaflets on Havana.”Although the repeated incursions of airspace were imprudent … the (Cuban government) response was excessive and violent,”the Cuban Catholic bishops said in their statement.

The bishops also criticized new U.S. sanctions against Cuba signed into law by President Clinton following the downing of the two planes.

The bishops urged both the U.S. and Cuban governments to seek”alternatives to rigidity and violence.” Roe Messner, second husband of Jim Bakker’s Tammy Faye, sentenced

(RNS)-Roe Messner, the contractor who built a Christian theme park for televangelist Jim Bakker and later married Bakker’s ex-wife, was sentenced to more than two years in prison for bankruptcy fraud Wednesday (March 20).

Messner, 60, who built the former Heritage USA in Fort Mill, S.C., was convicted of five counts of bankruptcy fraud Nov. 22. Jurors convicted him of hiding several assets, including a $250,000 promissory note from a church in West Virginia.

Messner declined to make a statement and showed no emotion at his sentencing in Wichita, Kan., the Associated Press reported.

His wife, Tammy Faye, was not at the hearing.

During the trial, testimony revealed that Messner ran into financial trouble in the late 1980s when Bakker’s religious empire began to fall apart.

Messner’s attorney plans to appeal the sentence.

James Ralph Scales, retired president of Wake Forest University, dies

(RNS)-James Ralph Scales, retired president of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., died March 12 at age 76.

Scales was president of the school from 1967 to 1983, a time when Wake Forest developed from a small Baptist school into a university with a national academic reputation. The independent university was previously affiliated with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, a Southern Baptist group.

Quote of the day: Cardinal Cahal Daly, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland

(RNS)-Roman Catholic Cardinal Cahal Daly, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, in a March 16 address at Coventry Cathedral, Coventry, England, asked for forgiveness from the British people for the violence inflicted on the British by terrorists from Ireland. He also called on Sinn Fein, the political arm of the outlawed Irish Republican Army, to redouble its efforts for peace:”Republicans have already accepted that they cannot achieve any settlement by themselves alone, and cannot, on their own, even terminate their armed campaign on what republicans would call honorable terms. Some Sinn Fein leaders have made great efforts over recent years to bring the whole republican movement around to acceptance of peaceful politics as the only way forward for republicanism. They must redouble their efforts now, for all that they have striven for over all these years will be destroyed by a return to bombs and guns.”

MJP END