c. 1997 Religion News Service

Pope faces delicate task in May Lebanon visit

(RNS) Pope John Paul II will make his first pastoral visit to the Middle East when he travels to Lebanon May 10-11, the Vatican said Monday (Feb. 24). A previously scheduled trip had been called off three years ago, following a terrorist attack on a Roman Catholic church.

The announcement came after the pope met at the Vatican earlier in the day with Lebanon’s Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, who assured the 76-year-old pontiff that the country would guarantee his safety.

Like his forthcoming trip to Sarajevo, April 12-13, the Lebanon visit, restricted to Beirut, will be rich in symbolism. The pope will be active on three fronts _ seeking unity among Lebanese Christians, attempting to bolster Lebanon’s sovereignty, and prodding the Palestinians, Israelis and Syrians to expedite the peace process.

But the pope is also likely to be restrained, to prevent angering Muslims or Jews.

Both Syria and Israel have invited the pope to their countries. And in an apparent sign of reassurance, the Vatican stressed that the pope was going to Lebanon not only on a pastoral visit, but to deliver a post-apostolic exhortation, the common document following a Catholic synod. The Lebanese bishops completed their synod one year ago.

The pope was forced to cancel a trip to Lebanon in May 1994, after terrorists attacked a Roman Catholic church outside Beirut, leaving 10 people dead.

In addition to the post-synod gathering, the pope is expected to celebrate Mass and visit with young people and political and religious leaders. No trips beyond Beirut or to the border regions were announced.

Details of the trip were finalized after Vatican Foreign Minister Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran visited Syrian officials last weekend.

The Syrians are the principal power in Lebanon, with some 40,000 troops stationed there. Meanwhile, Israel has control of about 15 percent of the country’s southern flank, which it asserts is a buffer zone against attacks.

In their synod, the Lebanese bishops reiterated their call for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the country, which was torn apart by 15 years of civil war that ended in 1990.

Elie Wiesel 1997 winner of Gettysburg’s Eisenhower award

(RNS) Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has been picked by the Eisenhower World Affairs Institute of Gettysburg College, an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America-related school, as this year’s winner of the Eisenhower Leadership Prize.

Wiesel will be honored for his lifelong efforts to raise awareness of human rights.

Wiesel will be the sixth person to be honored with the award from the institute, which recognizes individuals who personify former President Dwight Eisenhower’s legacy of public service, leadership and integrity. Last year’s winner was former President George Bush and past winners have included former presidential candidate Bob Dole and Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”The prize is to recognize integrity and public service and Elie Wiesel has done so much for the human rights issues,”said Jane Kratovil, executive director of the Eisenhower World Affairs Institute.”He’s been in the forefront in leading and educating people to the horrors of the Holocaust and trying to improve understanding of atrocities and how we cannot condone human rights violations.” In a letter accepting the award, Wiesel noted that it was Eisenhower’s troops that liberated the Nazi concentration camps, including Buchenwald, where Wiesel was imprisoned.”I was there. I saw him there. I will never forget him,”Wiesel said.

Wiesel called Eisenhower’s 1945 visit to Buchenwald”a milestone in the field of memory.”The visit, he said, was”a stroke of great human wisdom and strategic planning.”Everything must be used and invoked to keep the memory alive,”Wiesel said.

Kratovil said the Eisenhower Institute plans to bring several of Eisenhower’s former troops who liberated the death camps to the May 20 ceremony in Washington, D.C., to honor them as well.

AIDS ad campaign dropped after offending religious sensibilities

(RNS) An eye-catching advertising campaign meant to dramatize the need for more spending on research to cure AIDS has been dropped because of complaints about the way it handled the issue of religion.

The campaign, a series of billboard and poster slogans, had three parts. One slogan read”Red Ribbons Won’t Cure AIDS”and another said”Sexual Abstinence Won’t Cure AIDS.”Each slogan was followed by the line,”Research Will.” It was the third slogan, however, that drew the complaints. It read:”Prayer Won’t Cure Aids.””If you believe in the power of prayer, you don’t want to see it discredited in a public way,”Mary Herring, marketing director of the Fort Worth (Texas) Transportation Authority told The New York Times in explaining why the advertisements were taken from city buses.”We responded to our community.” According to transportation officials in both Fort Worth and Dallas, complaints about the ads began as soon as the campaign started.

The ads, sponsored by the American Foundation for AIDS Research, have been appearing on buses in 19 cities. A spokesman for the company distributing the ads said it had received only scattered complaints nationally. Nevertheless, the foundation has decided to abandon the campaign.

Kenneth Cole, the footwear designer and marketer who approved the ads for the foundation, said he did not think the controversy would hurt the foundation, which has raised more than $85 million over the last 12 years for research on AIDS.”If this gets us attention without hurting anyone, then fine,”he said.”The reality is that a cure will come from biomedical research. It’s what needs funding.”

Update: Mother Teresa’s order nearing vote on her successor

(RNS) Members of Mother Teresa’s Roman Catholic order are expected to take action within the next 10 days to elect a successor to the ailing, 86-year-old nun, a spokeswoman for the Missionaries of Charity said Monday (Feb. 24).

But the order may go through some reorganization to assist the woman who fills the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s shoes.”There is a possibility of various delegations of power around the world to make it easier for whoever manages the order to function,”a senior church official said, according to the Reuter news agency.

The 103-member General Chapter, the order’s electoral body, has met twice since September to vote on a new head for the order but the votes were called off due to concerns about Mother Teresa’s health and ongoing deliberations by the nuns.

Mother Teresa, who founded the order and has led it since its inception, is not expected to be re-elected to the position.”I don’t think the sisters will re-elect her and impose on her great responsibilities when she is week, feeble and sick,”the official said.

The nun, revered by many as a living saint for her work among the poor in Calcutta, has said recently that she wants to retire because of her failing health, which includes heart, kidney and lung problems.

Christian Reformed Church being abandoned by theological conservatives

(RNS) Membership in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) dropped some 6,000 members _ more than 2 percent _ this year as individual church members and several entire congregations seceded from the denomination.

Much of the decline in membership can be attributed to denominational infighting, according to CRC General Secretary David Engelhard. The CRC has”got itself in a very serious discussion about women in office and some of this membership loss is a result of that,”Engelhard said.

The CRC has lost more than 30,000 members in the last five years, making its current membership of 285,864 its lowest in 26 years, according to a report from United Reformed News Service, an independent news service.

Most of the congregations quitting the denomination are opponents of women holding office in the church.

Engelhard said the denomination has lost an average of six members per congregation. But he said the church has seen some”bright items”in the statistics: a 1 percent increase in church members who have come in through evangelistic efforts, and, separately, profession of faith by 4,350 young people.”Even though we lose some people through indifference and rejection of the faith, the Lord is still working,”he said.

Accidental fire kills 177 Hindu worshipers in India

(RNS) An estimated 177 Hindu worshipers were killed as fire consumed a make-shift worship hall on Sunday (Feb. 23) in the east Indian state of Orissa where more than 12,000 devotees were gathered to honor the dead Hindu guru, Swami Nigamananda.

Worshipers had erected straw huts with thatched roofs to serve as meeting halls and temporary shelters for the annual festival.”It all burned really fast,”Orissa state’s Home Secretary Sanjeeb Hota said.

The Associated Press reported 154 bodies were recovered at the site, while 27 more people died in the hospital. Press Trust of India said many fire victims may have died after panicked worshipers trampled each other in a stampede to evacuate the building.

The cause of the fire is unclear, according to reports. But some witnesses told Press Trust an electrical short-circuit was to blame. Other reports attribute the fire to the explosion of a gas cylinder used for cooking.

Quote of the day: Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:

(RNS) In his Easter message, Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson of the 5.2 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, said the resurrection of Jesus opens the door to a wider world:”We see friends die and they are gone, but God has shown us that it is possible for them to live in a new way. We see evil go unpunished and good go unrecognized, but God has shown us that this life is not the end of the story. We see a few people with great power and many others with none, but Jesus has said that, in God’s time, the last shall be first and the first last. At Easter time we get a peek through the door into that larger and more lasting world. It changes the way we live in this one.”

END RNS