c. 1997 Religion News Service

Broad religious support for RFRA in brief to Supreme Court

(RNS) A broad coalition of more than 70 religious groups has filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the constitutionality of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which is scheduled to be argued before the High Court next month.

RFRA, signed into law in 1993, requires government to show a compelling interest before it can restrict religious practice. Congress passed the law with the intent of overturning a 1990 Supreme Court decision that allowed the government to overlook the compelling interest criteria.

The Supreme Court is due to hear oral arguments on RFRA’s constitutionality Feb. 19 in connection with a Texas case in which a U.S. District Court judge ruled that a Catholic church in Boerne, a suburb of San Antonio, could not invoke RFRA in challenging its designation as a historic landmark. The designation prevented the church from demolishing part of its existing structure to build a larger sanctuary.

The brief, made public Monday (Jan. 13), was filed on behalf of the Coalition for the Free Exercise of Religion, which includes Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Unitarian, Buddhist, Native American and other groups. Theological liberals and conservatives, mainstream and non-traditional groups also are represented.

Among those signing the brief are the National Council of Churches, the National Association of Evangelicals, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Christian Life Commission, the American Muslim Council, the Anti-Defamation League, the Church of Scientology International, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.”This is one issue that the entire religious community agrees on,”said Marc D. Stern, co-director of the American Jewish Congress’ law and social action commission.”There aren’t many issues that can unite this varied a group.” The American Jewish Congress drafted the brief in conjunction with lawyers representing many of the coalition’s members. Several other groups, including the U.S. Catholic Conference, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Orthodox Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) filed separate briefs in support of RFRA.

In its brief, the coalition defends the constitutionality of RFRA by emphasizing the right of Congress to pass legislation that enforces the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion.

It also maintains that RFRA does not unconstitutionally favor religious over non-religious positions or one religion over another. Because RFRA requires religious accommodation on a wide scale, the brief says,”it allows any faith, no matter how small, unpopular or politically ineffectual, to press its claim before a neutral arbiter under an objective and … neutral standard.”

Genetic research links modern-day Jewish priests with biblical Aaron

(RNS) Israeli researchers have found genetic links among contemporary members of Judaism’s priestly class living on three continents, providing the first scientific evidence supporting the traditional belief that all such men are descended from the biblical high priest Aaron.

The findings are based on the analysis of genetic markers in the DNA of Y chromosomes found in Jewish men who belong to the priestly class and who live in Israel, the United States and Great Britain. The study was conducted by scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. The findings were reported earlier this month in the British science journal Nature.

Within Judaism, the priesthood is hereditary and is passed from father to son, as is the Y chromosome. Jewish tradition holds that all members of the priestly class _ known in Hebrew as kohanim _ are descended from Aaron, the brother of Moses.

The findings support the belief”that modern-day Jewish priests appear to be descendants of a single common male ancestor _ presumably the biblical high priest, Aaron,”a Technion-IIT statement said.

The study found that even though kohanim were dispersed across the world beginning nearly 2,000 years ago and have developed other genetic attributes that differ according to geographical origin, they still tend to share some common genetic markers that non-kohanim do not have.

Kohanim of Ashkenazi (Eastern European), Sephardic (Middle Eastern), and Yemenite (from Yemen on the Arabian peninsula) Jewish origins were included in the study. The researchers found that the level of religious observance was not a factor in the sharing of genetic factors among men who identified themselves as kohanim.

In biblical times, priests performed the sacrifices and presided over other rituals that took place at the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. Today, the Jewish priesthood is largely ceremonial, although kohanim continue to perform some religious functions and are supposed to adhere to specific injunctions _ such as not marrying a divorced woman _ not required of other Jewish men.

About 5 percent of the 7 million Jewish men around the globe belong to the priestly class, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Update: Church worker gets probation for theft

(RNS) A Catholic church worker in Brooklyn, N.Y., was given five years’ probation Monday (Jan. 13) after admitting she stole more than $1 million from a diocesan pension fund.

Vincenza Bologna, the Brooklyn diocese’s former pension office manager, pleaded guilty Dec. 2 to stealing $1.2 million in a plea bargain that avoided her serving prison time.

Prosecutors said Bologna, 53, used the money _ stolen from 1990 to 1996 _ for boats, cars, college for her sons and vacations to Las Vegas and other places, the Associated Press reported.

In December, Brooklyn Bishop Thomas V. Daily asked the court to be lenient with Bologna and requested that she not serve time in prison. Bologna, who worked for the diocese for 32 years and earned $65,000 a year when her thefts were discovered, has no previous criminal record.

Bologna, who could have been sentenced to five to 15 years for second-degree larceny, was ordered to repay $239,724 and perform 1,000 hours of community service. Insurance will cover the balance of the loss.

COGIC plans to train foreign converts in U.S.

(RNS) The presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) plans to encourage training Christian converts from other nations at institutions in the United States to foster indigenous missionary activities in their home countries.

Presiding Bishop Chandler David Owens said Monday (Jan. 13) that he hopes the plans will lead to improved relations with COGIC congregations outside the United States.”People somehow gradually began to resent Americans in particular lording over them,”he said.”It’s better to bring them over and train them and send them back.” Church leaders, meeting at the annual Presiding Bishops Leadership Conference in Houston last week, decided that bringing some converts to COGIC institutions in the United States to teach them denominational doctrine might enhance the work of the church in foreign countries.

COGIC, the world’s largest predominantly African-American Pentecostal denomination, has churches in 56 countries.

Owens said some African churches, founded through the work of white missionaries, are now identifying with his denomination.”The colonial yoke is not only being shaken from the neck of those countries … but the religious yoke is also being shaken and many of them are identifying with blacks now more than they are with the ones that originally (converted) them,”Owens said.

At the meeting, church leaders also decided to change the name of the church’s Home and Foreign Mission department to Home and World Mission.

College frosh volunteer more, less supportive of abortion, sex

(RNS) College students are becoming more involved in community service and are showing a decreased support for legal abortion and casual sex, according to a survey of more than 250,000 freshmen who entered U.S. colleges and universities this past fall.

The survey, released Monday (Jan. 13), was conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information.

According to the survey, 72 percent of college freshmen performed volunteer work in the past year, compared to 70 percent in 1995 and a low of 62 percent in 1989.

In addition, 38 percent of freshmen spend one or more hours per week volunteering, a record high. That compares to 37 percent in 1995 and a low of 27 percent in 1987, the first time the question was asked.”Local and national efforts to encourage community service involvement appear to have had an effect as young people today are voluntarily taking action to help others in their communities,”said Linda J. Sax, associate director of the survey and an assistant professor of education at UCLA.”These trends are especially encouraging given recent studies showing that volunteer work has positive effects on students’ personal and academic development.” For the fourth year in a row, support declined among college freshman for keeping abortion legal. Just 56 percent said they support legal abortion, compared to 65 percent in 1990 and a low of 53 percent in 1979.

Meanwhile, support for casual sex by college freshmen is at an all-time low.

In the current survey, 42 percent agreed with the statement,”If two people like each other, it’s all right for them to have sex even if they’ve known each other for a very short time.”In 1995, 43 percent agreed with the statement and in 1987, a high of 52 percent agreed with it.”This latter finding reflects college students’ changing attitudes towards sex in an era of increasing consciousness about AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases,”Sax said.

The survey, which included students at almost 500 institutions, has a margin of error of less than plus or minus .1 percent.

Quote of the day: Hindu monk Sri La Sri Swami Bua Maharaj

(RNS) Writing in the February issue of the international magazine Hinduism Today, Sri La Sri Swami Bua Maharaj, the 107-year-old founder and head of the Indo-American Yoga-Vedanta Society in New York, took issue with the human inclination to identify with a particular religious tradition:”There is no such thing as a Jewish soul, a Muslim soul, a Christian soul or a Hindu soul. There is no such thing as a white-skinned soul or a black-skinned soul. Soul is not qualified with the qualities of the body and mind. … People imagine that they belong to a particular religious sect or they become fundamentalist Hindus, Muslims, Jews or Christians. They neglect the fundamental practices of being a good human being; forgiveness, compassion, mercy, high moral character, vegetarianism, wisdom, service, devotion.”

MJP END RNS