c. 1997 Religion News Service
Protesters arrested at Army’s School of the Americas
(RNS) Some 600 protesters, led by the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a Roman Catholic priest and longtime political activist, were arrested Sunday (Nov. 16) when they trespassed on the grounds of the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga., demanding the controversial installation be shut down.
The protest, involving more than 2,000 demonstrators carrying crosses and coffins, marked the anniversary of the 1989 slayings in El Salvador of six Jesuit priests and two women housekeepers by right-wing death squads.
Some 19 of the 26 Salvadoran officers implicated in the killings had attended the school. Human rights organizations have argued the school is a training ground for Central and South American assassins who return to their countries and foment coups, organize death squads and single out leftists for assassination.”We are never going to stop until we close the School of the Americas,”said Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch.
A number of religious denominations, including the Presbyterian Church (USA), have called for closing the school.”We have met with the Pentagon, we have written our elected officials and now we are risking arrest to follow Jesus by telling the truth about the SOA as a breeding ground for terrorism,”said the Rev. Steve Brown of Greeley, Colo., a Presbyterian minister who was one of the 600 arrested.
The school, started in Panama in 1946 and moved to Fort Benning in 1984, aims to train Latin American officers in U.S. military tactics. Supporters argue it teaches its students democratic values, especially in the relationship of the military to a civilian government.
Lyons resigns from NAACP board
(RNS) The NAACP has accepted the resignation of the Rev. Henry Lyons, the embattled president of the National Baptist Convention, USA.
Lyons is one of a number of NAACP board members whose resignation or ouster is being sought by Myrlie Evers-Williams, NAACP chairwoman, because their activities have brought discredit to the nation’s oldest civil rights organization.
Lyons’ resignation was accepted on Friday (Nov. 14), the Associated Press reported. He is under investigation for allegedly mishandling church funds as well as for alleged marital infidelity.
John Paul urges Bosnia to give Catholics `due recognition’
(RNS) Pope John Paul II has called on predominantly Muslim Bosnia to give”due recognition”to Roman Catholics in that country.”The Catholic desire to see their civil, cultural and religious aspirations duly recognized and considered is a legitimate one,”John Paul said in a speech at the Vatican on Saturday (Nov. 15).”They (Catholics) should be guaranteed the rights that every other person and community in your country enjoys so that, with their specific contribution, they may actively render life in the places where they live and operate more humane and peaceful,”Reuters quoted the pope as saying.
Catholics have complained of discrimination in both Muslim-controlled and Serb-controlled areas of Bosnia.
John Paul visited Bosnia in April and urged its presidential leadership _ Muslim, Serb and Croat _ to begin a dialogue among the Bosnian Muslims, Croat Catholics and Serb Orthodox that could leader to greater interfaith tolerance and peaceful coexistence.”Even in the face of intimidation, the believer knows he or she brings a new culture which fights with the arms of love … knowing a duty to promote with all legitimate means those positive values that can create ties of understanding and collaboration among all,”the pontiff said Saturday.
Report: New evidence in Argentine Jewish bombing
(RNS) Investigators, Jewish leaders, congressmen and security chiefs said Friday (Nov. 14) they have evidence connecting a policeman to the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aries, Argentina, Jewish center that killed 86.
Argentine authorities said the new evidence _ a suspect’s family received a $2.5 million windfall the week before the bombing _ points to former Inspector Juan Jose Ribelli.
The car-bomb attack, in which 86 people died, destroyed the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in July 1994. It was the second major bomb attack on Argentina’s Jewish community. Israel and the United States blame Iranian-backed Muslim extremists, Reuters reported.”We have made progress,”Interior Minister Carlos Corach said Friday.
Carlos Soria, a member of an Argentinian congressional committee monitoring the case, said the new evidence linking the former police officer to the attack”puts an end to the stories about a `local connection.’ It’s a typical `complete package’ bomb attack.” The new evidence against Ribelli was released Thursday (Nov. 13) by the congressional commission.
Ribelli’s lawyer, Gonzalo Oliver Tezanos, said he”had no idea”where the cash came from. Ribelli is being detained for the AMIA attack, Reuters reported.
New head for Conference of European Churches
(RNS) Metropolitan Jeremie Caligiorgis, head of the Greek Orthodox Church in France, has been elected president of the Conference of European Churches, the continent’s most important ecumenical organization.
Caligiorgis, born in Kos, Greece, was ordained a priest in 1964 and most of his ministry has been spent in France. In addition to serving as Metropolitan of France, the prelate also oversees Orthodoxy in Spain and Portugal.
The Conference of European Churches has more than 120 Anglican, Orthodox, Protestant and Old Catholic denominations as members.
Caligiorgis succeeds the Rev. John Arnold, Anglican Dean of Durham, England.
Quote of the day: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
(RNS)”No power on Earth can rob any Jew of his or her identity. There can be no such thing as a second-class Jew.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a speech to the Council of Jewish Federations seeking to defuse anger in American Reform and Conservative Jewish communities over the limited religious role of the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel.
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