c. 1997 Religion News Service
Assisted-suicide bill passes Senate
(RNS) A bill prohibiting the use of federal funds for doctor-assisted suicide Wednesday (April 16) breezed through the Senate _ 99-0 _ and is expected to be signed into law by President Clinton.
The bill passed last week in the House on a 398-16 vote. Democrats opposing the bill called it an effort to grab headlines, since the use of federal funds for doctor-assisted suicide is already illegal under state laws throughout the country, the Associated Press reported.
President Clinton”has long opposed assisted suicide,”said White House spokeswoman Mary Ellen Glynn.”We will sign it,”she said referring to the ban.
The bill, while banning federal funding, does not address the broader ethical issues of assisted suicide, such as whether or not there is a constitutional”right to die.” Wednesday’s unanimous Senate vote drew praise from conservative advocacy groups such as the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) and the Family Research Council (FRC).
Burke Balch, medical ethics director for the NRLC, said the bill would”help to protect the most vulnerable of our citizens.””Our elected officials need to show similar leadership on a host of medical ethics questions ranging from cloning to partial-birth abortion,”said Cathy Cleaver, FRC director of legal policy.
Catholic bishops appeal for more aid to Albania
(RNS) Roman Catholic bishops in Albania have asked Europe to increase aid to the Balkan nation as it struggles to emerge from chaos and poverty.
The appeal, issued Thursday (April 17) through the Vatican after Albania’s six bishops met in the town of Lezhe, said it is up to Albanians to resolve the country’s problems. However, they asked Europe for a”greater and more effective commitment”of resources to provide relief for the country.”With its large investments, Europe should contribute more to the economic development of Albania,”the bishops said.”It is not just a matter of humanitarian aid, but above all of spiritual values which can only be instilled through education in true democracy.” Since the collapse in January of fraudulent get-rich-quick schemes that have affected nearly every family, Albania has been rocked by violence and anarchy. Since February, rebels have controlled most of the south, and nearly 300 people have died in the armed insurrection.
Albania, the poorest European nation, has a mixed religious community of Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Muslims.
Catholic bishops endorse chemical weapons ban
(RNS) The moral credibility of the United States will be diminished if it does not ratify a chemical weapons ban before it goes into effect April 29,said Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of Newark, N.J.
McCarrick, chairman of the International Policy Committee of the U.S. Catholic Conference, sent a letter to all 100 senators urging them to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention before it takes effect so the United States can participate in the critical initial phase of implementing the treaty.”If the United States does not ratify the convention it will not be able to participate in implementing it; U.S. citizens will not be permitted to serve as international inspectors; and U.S. companies will face costly trade restrictions,”McCarrick said in the letter.
Supporters of the ban include Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former presidents George Bush and Gerald Ford, the Associated Press reported.”If we are ever to rid the world of these horrible weapons, we must begin by making not only their use, but also their development, production, acquisition and stockpiling illegal,”said Albright.
President Clinton also backs the initiative, and called for bipartisan support at a dinner Wednesday (April 16) for congressional leaders.
The treaty goes into effect with or without U.S. participation, which needs ratification by the Senate. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Thursday (April 17) he has”absolute assurance”from Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., that the Senate will vote on the ratification April 24.”Failure to ratify the convention will undermine the development of a strong international norm against these weapons of mass destruction, and will diminish the moral credibility of the United States around the world,”McCarrick said.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., has stalled ratification of the treaty, claiming it cannot be enforced and will not prevent non-signatories, such as Libya and Iraq, from continuing to develop chemical weapons. So far, it has been ratified by 70 countries.
Christian program televises freeing of slaves in Sudan
(RNS) The freeing of more than 300 women and children said to have been sold into slavery by a government-backed Sudanese militia has been televised in Canada on a Christian program.
Crossroad Christian Communications Inc., which filmed the event and broadcast it last month on its”100 Huntley Street”program, said it paid slave traders $21,600 donated from across Canada to redeem 200 slaves.
The other slaves were bought back by Christian Solidarity International, the human rights group based in Great Britain and Switzerland, and Sudanese villagers who raised funds to free relatives, said Carl Bombay, vice president of Crossroads.
The TV crew entered Sudan with the help of the rebel Sudanese People’s Liberation Army, Bombay said.
St. Paul’s accepts Lockheed Martin sponsorship
(RNS) St. Paul’s Cathedral, one of London’s most well-known landmarks, has been criticized for taking a $24,000 sponsorship from Lockheed Martin, one of the world’s largest arms suppliers.
Lockheed Martin, which makes stealth bombers and nuclear missiles for Trident submarines, offered the money to sponsor a concert at St. Paul’s in exchange for use of the cathedral for corporate hospitality functions involving other defense firms.
Some Church of England clergy and arms opponents have declared the arrangement immoral and said it has sullied the cathedral’s reputation, Reuters reported.
The 18th-century domed cathedral survived World War II and was the setting of the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
Canon John Halliburton, chairman of the committee that approved the sponsorship, defended the decision.”Lockheed Martin (is) not selling arms to revolutionary governments … but to countries which need to defend themselves,”he said.”There is corruption in all arms trading but so far as I can tell from my investigations … that is not the case with them.” Arms opponents said by accepting the deal, the church has rewritten the sixth commandment,”Thou shalt not kill.””For a church of the profile of St. Paul’s to accept money that is tainted, at least in the eyes of substantial members of the church, gives a completely wrong message,”said Canon Paul Oestreicher of Coventry Cathedral.
Last year, St. Paul’s made another controversial decision when it permitted its famed cupola to bear a large purple and gold ad for a new candy bar.
Australian Jews find religion costly
(RNS) Some Jews in Australia are finding that practicing their religion is too expensive, according to a report by a New South Wales task force.
Synagogue fees, the high price of kosher foods, and the expense of educating children at private religious schools are adding to the financial burden of Australian Jews.”For some the cost of being and remaining Jewish is a turn-off and the inability to keep up at even a relatively modest level has driven them away,”said the report by the state’s Jewish Board of Deputies.
The report estimated that half of Sydney’s 40,000 Jews are”apathetic or indifferent”to being Jewish, and the task force expressed concern over whether the Jewish community could survive with only 20,000″committed members,”Reuters reported.
In other findings, 30 percent of Sydney’s Jews have married non-Jews and some have turned away from Judaism because of”guilt”that they are not living up to community expectations.
Brigitte Bardot blasts Muslim sheep-slaughtering
(RNS) Animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot has again offended French Muslims by criticizing their practice of slaughtering sheep, a central part of the four-day observance of Eid ul-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, which began Thursday (April 17).
Bardot, who last year described the ceremony as”torture, signs of the most atrocious pagan sacrifices,”faces trial Sept. 11 before the Paris Court of Appeals for allegedly”provoking hatred and racial discrimination”by her comments.
The former actress has accused Algerian Muslim fundamentalists of all sorts of barbarity, the Associated Press reported.”They’ve slit the throats of women and children, of our monks, our officials, our tourists, and our sheep. They’ll slit our throats one day and we’ll deserve it,”she said in a statement released Tuesday (April 15).
Bardot has asked that the ritual slaughtering be conducted in state-supervised slaughterhouses, where animals would be stunned before they are killed.
Human rights groups have threatened to press charges against Bardot because of her inflammatory statements, the daily France Soir reported.”Freedom of expression, yes, but racism is a crime,”said Mouloud Aounit, president of the Movement Against Racism and Anti-Semitism.
Quote of the day: The Rev. Konrad Raiser of the World Council on Churches
(RNS) In a statement expressing condolences to the families and friends of the victims of a blaze that killed and wounded scores of Muslims making the annual pilgrimage, or Hajj, to Mecca, the Rev. Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, commended Muslims for their religious commitment:”The commitment to God of our Muslim brothers and sisters, so vividly expressed in the pilgrimage of the Hajj, is in many ways a challenge for all Christians.”
MJP END RNS