c. 1997 Religion News Service
Subcommittee considers proposed Religious Freedom Amendment
(RNS) A congressional subcommittee continued the debate over a proposed Religious Freedom Amendment Tuesday (July 22) when it held its first hearing on the latest version of the bill.
Rep. Ernest J. Istook, R-Okla., who introduced the proposed amendment, said at the hearing that the legislation is necessary to respond to court decisions that have placed”barriers to religious expression which do not exist for other forms of free speech.” Opponents to the proposal continued to voice their belief that religious expression is already protected under the First Amendment and that Istook’s proposal could hurt rather than help religious causes.
During the hearing, supporters and opponents questioned the wording and intent of the current language.
While Istook defended the use of the words”to secure the people’s right to acknowledge God”in the proposed amendment, Rep. Sanford D. Bishop, D-Ga., questioned naming a deity.”It is a common term used in Western religious discourse to refer to a deity but other religious faiths use other terms,”said Bishop, who is a co-sponsor of the proposal but testified that he is”not wedded”to Istook’s current language and that”the amendment is not perfect.” Istook suggested his proposal could be expanded to re-establish the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 25.
Istook’s amendment currently deals more with the establishment clause of the First Amendment, while RFRA addressed the free exercise portion.
Prior to the hearing, William Murray, chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition in Washington, D.C., and the estranged son of famed atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair, said he supports codifying RFRA in a second section of Istook’s proposal.”This is the only alternative left,”said Murray.
But Forest Montgomery, general counsel for the National Association of Evangelicals, said he thinks it is”premature”to consider that option because legislative remedies for the overturning of RFRA are still a possibility.”I think we ought to investigate those before we go the constitutional route,”he said.
A dozen members of American Atheists stood outside the U.S. Capitol during the hearing to protest Istook’s proposal and their exclusion from the list of those who gave oral testimony to the subcommittee.”This amendment is about shoving prayer … down the collective throats of the American people and atheists in particular,”said American Atheists president Ellen Johnson.”The Religious Freedom Amendment is wrong. You cannot pray away the problems of America. We solve our problems or they don’t get solved.” Brian Woolfolk, counsel for Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-Va., said the hearing is not an”open public forum.”It’s a limited congressional hearing,”he said.”Everyone who wants to testify is not able to testify.” Vatican denies report tying it to stored gold coins
(RNS) The Vatican on Tuesday (July 22) denied a report to be aired in a U.S. television documentary that it had stored $200 million Swiss francs ($130 million), mostly in gold coins, for Croatian fascists after World War II to keep the money out of Allied hands.”These reports have no basis in reality,”chief Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement, Reuters reported.
Producers for A&E, the arts-and-entertainment cable TV network, said they came across the internal Treasury Department memo kept secret for 50 years while researching the two-hour documentary”Blood Money: Switzerland’s Nazi Gold”to be aired Saturday (July 26).
The memo states that pro-Nazi Croatian fascists removed about $350 million Swiss francs plundered from Serbs and Jews from Yugoslavia at the end of the war. The memo also says the British managed to capture only about $150 million of it.
Treasury Department official Emerson Bigelow wrote in the 1946 memo that a reliable source in Italy had told him the Vatican held the rest, and that rumors were rife that much of the remainder was later taken through a Vatican pipeline to Spain and Argentina. Croatian fascist leader Ante Pavelic took refuge in those two countries after the war.
Bigelow said in the document that he thought the rumors were a smokescreen and that the funds remained at the Vatican.
The Vatican said the allegations were based on the flimsiest of evidence.”The information, which is without any documentation, is only based on `a reliable source in Italy,’ which, even if it existed, remains unidentified and of dubious authority,”Navarro-Valls said.
Several investigations are following the trail of Nazi plunder after World War II.
The Vatican and the Catholic Church hierarchy in Croatia have been censured by historians for cooperating closely with the Ustasha regime, the Nazi-installed government of Croatia during World War II.
The find marks the first time that the Vatican has been mentioned in connection with gold looted by the Nazis or their allies during a year-long investigation of U.S. national archives by researchers.
Re-enactment of Mormon trek ends on 150th anniversary
(RNS) The three-month, 1,100-mile retracing of the route taken by Mormon pioneers between 1847 and 1869 to their new home in Utah ended Tuesday (July 22) when their wagon train reached the mouth of Emigration Canyon, where they first spied the Valley of the Great Salt Lake.
An estimated 10,000 people cheered the wagon train as the company rolled out of the Wasatch Mountains into This Is The Place State Park overlooking Salt Lake City. It’s the spot where Mormon leader Brigham Young was said to have proclaimed,”This is the place”150 years ago to the day.
The wagon train was the focal point of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ celebration of the Mormon migration to what is now Utah. The journey re-enacting the difficult trip began in April in Omaha, Neb.
Concluding the trip were some 62 wagons, about 40 horseback riders, a dozen handcarts and an estimated 800 people. About 10,000 people from 46 states and foreign countries participated during the course of the trek.
More than 70,000 Mormons made the journey in the 1800s to establish their church in Utah before the transcontinental railroad made such travel obsolete.
The re-enactment was marred Monday (July 21) when a pair of mules bolted as they pulled a wagon down a steep hill. The wagon broke apart and three people suffered minor injuries, the Associated Press reported.
At journey’s end, participants were left with mixed feelings.”I’m glad the walking and the camping will be over, but the rest will be a real letdown,”said Harmonie Rice. She and her husband, Robert, and three children pulled a handcart from Casper, Wyo.
Archaeologist proposes an alternate Dead Sea Scrolls theory
(RNS) Another controversy has arisen concerning the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Archaeologist Yizhar Hirschfeld of Hebrew University in Jerusalem believes the site where the scrolls were found was a wealthy nobleman’s villa and not the library of a Jewish sect, as is generally believed.
He unveiled his findings to 300 international scholars Monday (July 21) at a conference in Jerusalem, the Associated Press reported.
But Hirschfeld found little support among other scholars in attendance.
From 1947 to 1956, scrolls were found in 11 caves dotting the hills above Qumran, 800 documents written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.
The widely held view is that Qumran was the library of the secretive Essene sect, known to have lived along the Dead Sea’s shores and believed to have hid the scrolls.
Hirschfeld believes the scrolls were taken from the Jewish temple in Jerusalem to protect them from an impending Roman invasion and given to owners of a villa who were”members of the ruling class of the Herodian kingdom … who enjoyed the fruits of the Roman occupation.” He based his argument that Qumran included a wealthy Roman-style manor on a comparison of its architecture with other nearby Roman villas from the same period. Hirschfeld said the Essenes could have helped Qumran’s rich landowners bury the scrolls.
But other scholars at the conference discounted Hirschfeld’s theory.”This is nonsense,”said Hanan Eschel of Israel’s Bar Ilan University, who supports the library theory.”Hirschfield is not interested in scrolls. He is an archaeologist and not willing to study scriptures.” Jodi Magness from Tufts University in Boston also challenged Hirschfield’s interpretation, saying”the comparison (of architectural styles) is only skin deep.”
Pedophile priest apologizes to Irish victims
(RNS) A Roman Catholic priest in Ireland declared that his child-molesting crimes were sins against God and apologized to the victims Tuesday (July 22).
Brendan Smyth, 71, had pleaded guilty to 74 charges of sexual and indecent assault that occurred over a period of 36 years and affected 20 children in the Republic of Ireland.”While the great majority of these cases occurred 20 to 30 years ago, I recognize them all for what they were _ sins against God, offenses against individual persons and offenses against the laws of the state,”he said in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, according to Reuters.”I take this opportunity to renew sincerely and wholeheartedly my deep sorrow and regret for any psychological hurt or trauma any of these young people may have experienced as a result of their association with me in the Republic of Ireland,”he said.
Smyth also apologized for the hurt that the court cases had caused his religious community, friends and family.
A former member of the Norbertine Order, Smyth was extradited to the Republic of Ireland in March after he was freed from a Northern Ireland jail, where he served a four-year term for sexual offenses against children that he committed while a priest in Northern Ireland.
Smyth is scheduled to be sentenced in the Republic of Ireland on Friday.
Quote of the Day: Mildred Chalifoux
(RNS) Mildred Chalifoux, the mother of a New Caney, Texas, teen who was told the rosary beads he wore to school were banned as gang symbols, was quoted in USA Today:”There are kids with pink and blue hair with dog collars with spikes on them and they aren’t given a problem. And kids can wear a cross or crucifix or star of David. Why should my son have to hide his faith?”
MJP END RNS