c. 1996 Religion News Service

Newspaper says Hickey blocked Jesuit from school post

(RNS)-Vatican officials have barred a provincial superior of the Society of Jesus in Maryland from becoming president of the Jesuit Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass., according to the National Catholic Reporter.

The Reporter, an independent liberal Catholic weekly, said in its current issue (dated March 29) that the Rev. Edward Glynn, who leads the Jesuit order in Maryland, was rejected for the Weston post by the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education-despite having been unanimously endorsed for the post by Weston’s board of trustees and faculty.

The newspaper said the Vatican office gave no reason for its decision, nor is it required to do so. However, the Reporter also said that”it is widely speculated”that Cardinal James A. Hickey, archbishop of Washington, who serves on the Vatican congregation, was the”obstacle”preventing Glynn’s appointment.

Glynn, 60, is quoted by the newspaper as saying he has no direct knowledge of Hickey’s opposition to his appointment.

But the Reporter also said Glynn”acknowledged”that Hickey had”pressed him to intercede at Georgetown University, a Jesuit school, in 1991, when officials there granted an abortion rights student group the same privileges as other student organizations.” Glynn told the Reporter he did not intercede because it would have been”inappropriate”for him to become involved since Georgetown is an autonomous institution.

Dawn Weyrich Ceol, a spokeswoman for Hickey, told Religion News Service Monday (March 25) that the cardinal would not comment on the allegation.”It’s a matter that is solely within the bounds of the Congregation for Catholic Education,”she said.

The Reporter said that in addition to Glynn, at least three other American Jesuit officials had been barred in recent years from administrative or teaching posts at Weston and the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif.

The newspaper said the cases of Glynn and the others”show that the strictest standards of loyalty to Rome are being applied, even when it comes to highly respected Jesuits selected to serve in their own theological schools.”

Charges filed in Denver mosque prank

(RNS)-Four Denver radio station employees have been charged with misdemeanor offenses for taking part in a stunt in which they played the”Star-Spangled Banner”in a local mosque where National Basketball Association star Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf sometimes prays.

The March 19 stunt was in apparent retaliation for Abdul-Rauf’s recent refusal to stand during the pre-game playing of the national anthem. He called the anthem a symbol of tyranny and oppression and said his Islamic faith dictated that he not stand.

Abdul-Rauf plays for the Denver Nuggets and converted to Islam at the mosque where the incident occurred. After a one-game suspension, Abdul-Rauf said he would stand when the anthem is played.

Joey Teehan, a producer for KBPI radio, and William Jones, a sound engineer, were charged Friday (March 22) with unlawful conduct on public property and disorderly conduct with unreasonable noise in a public place.

The pair entered the Colorado Islamic Center and played the national anthem on a bugle and trumpet. Their stunt was broadcast live.

Dean Myers and Roger Beaty, disk jockeys who were in the station’s studio during the prank, were charged as complicitors in the same misdemeanor crimes. If convicted, all four face sentences of up to one year in jail and fines of up to $1,200.

All four have been suspended without pay by the radio station, which apologized and said it had not authorized the prank.

Vatican refutes report that Pope John Paul II has cancer

(RNS)-Pope John Paul II was said to have laughed when told that a Spanish newspaper had reported he is suffering from cancer.

On Sunday (March 24), the newspaper Diario 16 said”it’s an open secret among the curia in Rome”that the 75-year-old pontiff”has cancer, possibly of the colon.”The article, written by the Rev. Pedro Miguel Lamet, a Jesuit priest, also said the pope was believed to have Parkinson’s disease.

No source was cited for the allegations.

Monday (March 25), Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told the Reuter news agency that the report was”without any basis.” When informed of the newspaper story, Navarro-Valls said”the Holy Father’s reaction was he just laughed.” Navarro-Valls, who is a physician, said the pope would keep a heavy schedule during the upcoming Holy Week before Easter, and that the schedule was proof that John Paul is healthy and fully recovered from a fever that forced him to cancel engagements earlier this month.

Church body asks for prayers, fasting in support of lawmakers

(RNS)-The National Council of Churches has urged Christians to pray and fast during Holy Week”for those in our government who must make life-giving or life-diminishing decisions.” The NCC, the nation’s largest ecumenical body, said”all people of faith”who participate in the Holy Week effort should also wear purple ribbons, which is the liturgical color used by Christians during Lent.

The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, NCC general secretary, said Christians should also pray and fast for those affected by lawmakers’ decisions during”what may be a defining moment in American history.”In a statement, Campbell said fasting and prayer combine”faithful concern with faithful witness”to the demands of citizenship.

Holy Week begins Palm Sunday (March 31) and culminates on Easter Sunday. Easter this year falls on April 7 for Western Christians and on April 14 for most Orthodox churches. Thirty-three Protestant and Orthodox denominations are affiliated with the NCC.

Baptists give $1.75 million for medical supplies

(RNS)-Baptist World Aid, the relief and development arm of the Baptist World Alliance, is sending $1.75 million of medical supplies to the war-ravaged republics of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia.

Half the supplies will go to a medical clinic in mostly Muslim Bosnia, where the civil war in the former Yugoslavia has been deadliest. The rest will be divided between Croatia and Serbia, according to a statement from Baptist World Aid.

The groups Croatian Baptist Aid and Bread for Life, a Baptist agency in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, will coordinate distribution of the medical aid.

Quote of the day: The Rev. Samuel DeWitt Proctor, pastor emeritus of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church:

Proctor, who is also professor emeritus at Rutgers University, recently published”The Substance of Things Hoped For: A Memoir of African-American Faith”(Putnam). In it, he addressed racial discrimination by Christians. He wrote:”It’s difficult to describe our feelings about the `respectable’ white Christians who sang in church choirs, served as deacons, trustees, and elders in downtown churches, who joined the Boy Scouts, and sat on city councils, court benches, and in the Congress, yet felt no shame in endorsing this wholesale discrimination.”

MJP END RNS