c. 1997 Religion News Service
U.S may ease Cuba travel restrictions for pope visit
(RNS) The Clinton administration is weighing the possibility of easing U.S.-imposed restrictions on travel to Cuba during Pope John Paul II’s scheduled visit there in January.
The temporary easing of the restrictions would allow hundreds _ and perhaps thousands _ of Cubans and others in the United States to go to Cuba for the pope’s visit, The New York Times reported Tuesday (Aug. 19).
In addition, the Times said the Clinton administration also wants to allow Roman Catholic churches and social service agencies to ship supplies and equipment to Cuba that would help the church there organize the visit.
Many of those items currently are subject to the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba that seeks to put pressure on Fidel Castro’s government.
State Department spokesman James P. Rubin told reporters Monday (Aug. 18) that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright”views the pope’s visit as an important development in bringing to the Cuban people a message of hope and faith and the importance of respecting human rights.”And therefore out of respect for His Holiness, we are facilitating travel and the delivery of certain goods for the purpose of that trip.” The Times said Clinton administration officials could not estimate how many people would want to travel to Cuba for the pope’s visit or whether Cuba would grant them visas for the trip.
Currently, the U.S. embargo does not bar actual travel to Cuba or the shipment of some humanitarian goods, but does severely restrict U.S. citizens and residents from spending money in Cuba and requires anyone flying to Cuba to do so from a third country.
South African church set to rejoin WARC
(RNS) The World Alliance of Reformed Churches, meeting in Debrecen, Hungary, voted Monday (Aug. 18) to readmit to its fold a predominately white, South African denomination if the church passes a resolution renouncing its previous support of apartheid.
WARC, which has 211 member churches in 104 countries, voted during its 1983 meeting in Ottawa to suspend from membership South Africa’s 1.3 million-member Dutch Reformed Church because of its”heretical”support of the racist government.
To qualify for readmission to the Reformed body, WARC said the DRC needed to meet three conditions: open its doors to non-whites, give aid to victims of apartheid, and pass”unequivocal”resolutions that”assures the churches of (WARC) that it rejects apartheid as wrong and sinful, not simply in its effects and operations, but also in its fundamental nature.” Since then, the DRC has met the first two conditions and is expected to pass the anti-apartheid resolution during its October 1998 general synod.
Frederik Swanepoel, moderator of the DRC attending the Aug. 8-20 Debrecen meeting as an observer, expressed cautious optimism about passage of the resolution.”I trust that the DRC will indeed react in 1998 with the required response,”Swanepoel told the general council, according to Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.
Later, however, Swanepoel told journalists he couldn’t”assure you today that the DRC will say `yes,’ but I can assure you that the matter will get the necessary attention.” Also on Monday, Taiwanese ecumenist Choan Seng Song was unanimously elected president of WARC. Song, the only candidate for the post, is a member of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and a professor of theology at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif.
Song succeeds Princeton Theological Seminary professor Jane Dempsey Douglass, who has led the Reformed body since 1990.
Publisher recalls children’s book on Muslim holidays
(RNS) A children’s book about Muslim holidays is being recalled by its publisher after complaints that it contains inaccurate and offensive information about Muslims and Islamic culture.
The publisher, Capstone Press Inc., based in Mankato, Minn., said it decided to recall the book after complaints from the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Associated Press reported Tuesday (Aug. 19).”They brought to our attention that some of the information in our book was perceived as inaccurate, so we have taken steps to remedy the situation,”said Lois Wallentine, the company’s senior managing editor for product development.”We’re working with the council to publish a new edition.” According to the council, the book,”Muslim Holidays,”contained two folk tales that were not Muslim and that did not reflect Islamic beliefs. In addition, the book also included illustrations of the prophet Mohammed and other religious figures _ a practice Muslims find offensive.
In May, Simon & Schuster announced a recall of a children’s book it published after the council complained the book unfairly portrayed Mohammed as a bloodthirsty hatemonger.
AG council opposes persecution, re-elects superintendent
(RNS) Delegates to the Assemblies of God biennial General Council, who met Aug. 5-10 in Indianapolis, expressed their opposition to religious persecution, re-elected the Rev. Thomas Trask as general superintendent and retained the denomination’s rule that divorced and remarried individuals cannot be given ministerial credentials.
In a resolution on”The Persecuted Church Worldwide,”delegates confessed that their denomination had not done enough to address the needs of people who are persecuted for their faith. They resolved to”express to our government our uncompromising opposition to religious persecution”and”to inform our constituency on an ongoing basis on the plight of such persecuted Christians.” Trask, who was first elected general superintendent in 1993, won a second four-year-term.”We must remain a church of prayer and move in the power of the Holy Spirit,”he said after his election.”We must be relentless in evangelism, for the Assemblies of God was raised up to be an evangelistic movement.” Trask also called on pastors to use the talents of lay persons in the denomination as resources for their congregations.
After a long deliberation, the council voted 1,707 to 999 to defeat a resolution on credentialing divorced and remarried people. Supporters had hoped people who had ended their marriage prior to their Christian conversion could be considered for ministry credentials. But opponents did not want to erode the high standards the denomination has traditionally held for its clergy.”The stand that the church has always had on that issue for its clergy remains the same, that divorced and remarried clergy cannot be given credentials,”said Juleen Turnage, the denomination’s spokeswoman.
Delegates also adopted a resolution calling for efforts to increase participation of ethnic minorities in the work of the Assemblies of God.
The denomination, formed in 1914, is one of the largest Pentecostal groups in the country. It has about 2.5 million members in the United States and more than 25 million members worldwide.
Late NCC official to receive posthumous award
(RNS) The Institute for Policy Studies, an independent research institute in Washington, D.C., plans to honor the late Rev. Mac Charles Jones with a human rights award.
Jones, the deputy general secretary for national ministries at the National Council of Churches, died in March. He was instrumental in starting the council’s Burned Churches Project.
The posthumous recognition _ the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award _ will be presented Sept. 27 in honor of Jones’ work to bring a spate of fires at African-American churches to national attention.”He is most noted for bringing diverse people around a table where all have voice and participation, respect and dignity,”the institute said.
Butler elected to top lay post in ELCA
(RNS) Addie J. Butler, an assistant dean at the Community College of Philadelphia, has been elected vice president of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America _ the top lay post in the 5.2 million-member denomination.
Butler’s election Monday (Aug. 18) came on the fifth ballot taken during the denomination’s Churchwide Assembly, its top decision-making body.
Butler, an African-American, told the assembly she was baptized in a Baptist church when she 8 years old and joined a predominantly African-American Lutheran congregation in Washington, D.C. in 1969, drawing laughter from throughout the hall when she said she thought that congregation was”typical”of the denomination.
The Rev. H. George Anderson, the ELCA’s presiding bishop and top clergy official, said Butler’s election marks the beginning of a new era for the predominantly white denomination.”God raises up new leaders with new gifts”for such times, he said.
In addition to her being dean at the Community College, Butler serves as a member of the board of trustees of Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and president of the Philadelphia chapter of the African American Lutheran Association.
Pope names new bishop for diocese of Sioux City, Iowa
(RNS) Pope John Paul II has named Monsignor Daniel N. DiNardo, 48, a pastor in the diocese of Pittsburgh, to be coadjutor bishop of the diocese of Sioux Falls, Iowa, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops announced Tuesday (Aug. 19).
A coadjutor bishop is an auxiliary bishop with right of succession. Currently, Bishop Lawrence Soens, 70, heads the diocese.
DiNardo was born in Steubenville, Ohio, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1977. He was an official at the Vatican Congregation for Bishops from 1984-1990.
The Sioux City diocese includes 24 counties in northwest Iowa with a population of some 470,000. About 20 percent of the population is Catholic.
Quote of the day: Marion Best of the United Church of Canada
(RNS) Marion Best, the outgoing moderator of the United Church of Canada, in a speech to the church’s General Council, bewailed the lack of civil dialogue among the church’s various factions:”There is a need for dialogue, but we still don’t seem to know the difference between monologue and dialogue.”
MJP END RNS
