c. 1997 Religion News Service

Helmsley gives $1 million to burned churches fund

(RNS) Leona Helmsley, a prominent _ and sometimes controversial _ New York real estate tycoon and philanthropist, has given $1 million to the National Council of Churches’-initiated Burned Churches Fund.

In addition, Helmsley promised an additional $500,000 matching grant to the initiative, which provides money to rebuild churches burned for reasons of hate and funds programs to combat racism.”As someone who has dedicated so much of my life to the business of building, this destruction strikes me as the heartless kind of outrage,”Helmsley said at a May 28 check-presenting ceremony at the (Episcopal) Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.”For many people, these churches were buildings cherished even more dearly than their own homes,”she said,”We must work together to build up a community around these churches which allows us all to worship with the freedom and security that is at the foundation of the American dream.” Helmsley and her late husband, Harry B. Helmsley, were convicted in 1989 of evading $1.2 million in federal taxes by billing personal expenses to company accounts. He was determined too feeble to stand trial but she was convicted and served 21 months of a four-year prison term. She was also ordered to pay $1.7 million in back taxes and fines and perform 750 hours of community service.

The burned churches fund is supported by a broad ecumenical and interfaith community that includes Christian, Jewish and Muslim bodies.

Helmsley’s donation is the single largest cash gift to the fund. To date, the fund has raised about $8.5 million in cash and has made about $4.7 million in grants to some 82 burned churches.

According to the NCC, another 60 churches have been identified as arson victims of racial hatred and are awaiting help.

Protests scuttle Moscow showing of”The Last Temptation of Christ” (RNS) A scheduled Moscow television showing of director Martin Scorcese’s controversial”The Last Temptation of Christ”was canceled following Russian Orthodox Church complaints that the 1988 film is blasphemous and protests that had anti-Semitic overtones.

The showing of the film _ based on the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis _ was canceled one day before its scheduled broadcast Saturday (May 31) on station NTV, which is owned by media magnate Vladimir Goussinsky.

Goussinsky is Jewish and is president of the Russian Jewish Congress.

At a protest rally last week outside NTV studios, some of the 200 demonstrators held anti-Semitic posters, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, an independent news service. One speaker at the protest was quoted as saying”the dream of NTV and all the Jewish clique that rules it”was to destroy the Russian Orthodox Church and Russia itself.”The Last Temptation of Christ”portrays Jesus as a man wracked by self-doubt about his mission in life and who marries Mary Magdalene before realizing on his deathbed that he has forsaken God by doing so.

The movie also faced a good deal of criticism when it opened in the United States. American Christians also denounced the film as blasphemous. The film also stirred anti-Semitic concerns in the United States because of the presence of Jews in the management ranks of Universal, which released the film, and its parent company MCA.

Milwaukee Presbyterians to defy `fidelity and chastity’ rule

(RNS) The Milwaukee Presbytery has become the first such jurisdiction in the Presbyterian Church (USA) to vote not to abide by a new church rule critics say is designed to keep homosexuals from holding ordained positions in the church.

The Milwaukee Presbytery, a regional jurisdiction that includes 51 congregations in southeast Wisconsin, joins several dozen individual congregations in other parts of the nation that have also adopted a”covenant of dissent”_ meaning they intend to defy”Amendment B,”a new addition to the denomination’s Book of Order, or constitution.

There are 172 presbyteries and more than 11,000 congregations in the Presbyterian Church (USA). At least 50 congregations have decided to defy Amendment B.

Jerry Van Marten, a spokesman for the Presbyterian Church (USA), said Monday (June 2) that”several congregations a week that I’m aware of”are voting to adopt covenant’s of dissent, several versions of which are circulating through the denomination.

The amendment _ which will go into effect following the church’s annual General Assembly that begins June 14 in Syracuse, N.Y. _ requires ordained ministers, elders and deacons of the 2.7 million-member denomination to repent of any”self-acknowledged practices which the (church’s) confessions call sin.”They must also pledge to adhere to”fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and woman or chastity in singleness.” While a single heterosexual person who admits to a sexual relationship would also run afoul of the amendment, opponents of the measure say it is primarily aimed at homosexuals.

The Milwaukee Presbytery voted last Tuesday (May 27) to defy the amendment. Milwaukee was also one of 72 presbyteries that voted against Amendment B during the denomination-wide vote of the presbyteries that resulted in its approval.

Denomination rules require congregations to adhere to the Book of Order or face possible expulsion from the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Milwaukee Presbytery officials were unavailable for comment.

Israeli official says conversion bill votes coming in June

(RNS) A showdown will come this month over Israeli legislation that would set in law Orthodox Jewish control of conversions to the faith in Israel, according to a leading government official.

The controversial”who is a Jew?”legislation _ which has pitted Orthodox Jews against Reform and Conservative Jews _ received the first of three required approval votes April 1 in the Israeli Knesset, or parliament. The proposed law would codify Israel’s de facto practice of only recognizing Orthodox conversions as valid. The bill does not affect Reform or Conservative conversions done outside of Israel.

After receiving preliminary approval, the bill was sent to committee, where attempts to reach a compromise have bogged down. Israeli Justice Minister Tzachi Hanegbi now says that the final two votes on the bill will be held by the end of June, regardless of whether a compromise has been reached, according to Jewish Telegraphic Agency, an independent news service.

Reform and Conservative Jews account for more than 90 percent of synagogue-affiliated Jews in the United States, and leaders of the two liberal movements say passage of the bill will do lasting harm to the historically strong bond between Israeli and American Jews.

However, Israeli Orthodox political parties _ a key element of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition _ have threatened to bring down the government if the bill is not approved.

On Friday (May 30), the American Jewish Committee ran an ad in Israel’s largest daily newspaper, Yediot Achronot, urging Israelis to oppose the bill. The ad said the bill’s”attempts to imprison religious expression in Israel within the confines of a state-imposed Orthodoxy will not only engender conflict among Israelis, but will alienate the (Jewish) Diaspora, making Israel _ however large its population and sacred its soil _ progressively less relevant to Jews everywhere else.”

Poll: Jews say anti-Semitism a `very serious problem’

(RNS) An overwhelming majority of American Jews see anti-Semitism as a continuing problem and a greater threat than intermarriage to sustaining the faith in the United States, according to a new survey.

The survey _ released Monday (June 2) by the American Jewish Committee _ also found that American Jews believe the”religious right”and Muslims are the most anti-Semitic groups in the nation.

Forty percent of those surveyed said they think anti-Semitism is a”very serious problem,”and 55 percent said it was”somewhat of a problem.”At the same time, 51 percent agreed that”virtually all positions of influence in the United States are open to Jews.” Thirty-nine percent also said they believe anti-Semitism will increase in the next several years. Forty-eight percent said they expected it to remain at the same level and 10 percent said it would decrease.

The survey listed 10 groups and asked those questioned to rate the degree of perceived anti-Semitism within each of the groups. Twenty-two percent picked the”religious right”as the most anti-Semitic, and 21 percent picked Muslims.”Fundamentalist Protestants”(10 percent) and blacks (7 percent) were seen as the third and fourth most anti-Semitic groups.

American Jews marry non-Jews at a rate greater than 50 percent, prompting community leaders to label intermarriage and other manifestations of Jewish assimilation as the greatest threat to continued Jewish existence in the United States.

However, when asked which is the greater threat, respondents picked anti-Semitism (61 percent) over intermarriage (32 percent).

The poll of 1,160 adult American Jews was part of the American Jewish Committee’s 1997 survey of American Jewish Opinion and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.

Relief workers: Iraq’s medical system `devastated’ by sanctions

(RNS) A team of church-related health specialists who visited Iraq in May are reporting that the country’s medical system has been devastated by the economic sanctions imposed on the country at the time of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Representatives of the group said their criticism of the embargo should not be interpreted as taking a political position on the government or policies of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader whose invasion of Kuwait prompted the war.”We go in with our eyes open,”said the Rev. Charles R. Ausherman of the Reformed Church in America and president of the Institute for Development Training.”But as a person of faith, it is hard for me to comprehend punishing the most vulnerable, the children, this way.” Ausherman was one of nine professionals from the United States, Switzerland, and India to visit Iraq under the auspices of Venture Middle East, an evangelical agency that has been sending medical supplies to Iraq.

Ausherman, in an interview with Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency, said that before the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq had a”superior health system”that approached those of the developed world but now was”worse than many developing countries I’ve been too.” The group said an unpublished World Health Organization report indicates that infant mortality in Iraq has shot up to 92.7 per 1,000 live births. In the United States, by way of contrast, the figure is about 8.4 per 1,000 live births.

Orthodox leader won’t meet with pope, Russian patriarch

(RNS) Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual head of the world’s 300 million Orthodox Christians, has declined an invitation to the European Ecumenical Assembly and a possible meeting with Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Alexii II, head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Associated Press said it had received a statement in Athens on Monday (June 2) from Bartholomew’s office that denounced efforts to undermine his leadership and said his appearance at the assembly _ scheduled for Graz, Austria, from June 23-29 _ would not aid his efforts to reunite Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.

Although the cryptic statement reported by the AP did not name Alexii, the Russian Patriarch has been the only Orthodox leader to openly question Bartholomew’s leadership in the unity talks between the Orthodox and the Vatican.

Unlike Roman Catholicism, where power is centered on the pope, the bishop of Rome, Orthodoxy has no single, centralized leader. Bartholomew is, rather, considered”first among equals”of the world’s 15 Orthodox patriarchs.

Quote of the day: Pope John Paul II

(RNS) On Saturday (May 31), Pope John Paul began an 11-day visit to his native Poland. In the first days of his visit, John Paul, who is credited with helping topple the communist regime there, warned his countrymen about the dangers they face in embracing a capitalism that has already cost thousands of workers their jobs and where entrepreneurs exploit workers as commodities:”Every day we become aware of how many families are suffering from poverty. On the streets and in the squares, the number of homeless people is increasing. … Here, I speak to all those brothers in Christ who give work to others. Do not let yourselves be deceived by visions of immediate profit at the expense of others.”

MJP END RNS