c. 1997 Religion News Service

Rosalynn Carter urges greater attention to care of dying

(RNS) Former first lady Rosalynn Carter has been named honorary chair of a new coalition aimed at improving the care of Americans who are dying.

The coalition, called Last Acts, is made up of organizations representing religious groups, the medical community, consumer groups, hospice caretakers and volunteers.

In announcing the formation of the new group, Carter said it would help insure that”fewer people die alone, in pain, and attached to machines, with the result that more people and their loved ones can experience dying for what it ought to be _ the last act in the journey of life.” The group was launched following the Supreme Court’s decision to rule on two cases involving doctor-assisted suicide and to address problems outlined in a recent medical journal article reporting that most Americans experience pain, breathlessness or confusion in their last days.

The coalition is being funded by a $1.7 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

According to Carter, the money will be used to push for reforms that would change the way care providers, hospitals, nursing homes and ordinary Americans view death.

The group said it will lobby for measures to provide comprehensive health insurance plans to cover end-of-life care and to require medical residents and nursing students to have some hospice training. It also plans to provide counseling for the dying and their families and to educate clergy to better minister to them.

Among the 72 organizations in the coalition are the National Council of Catholic Women and two religion-based think tanks, the Hastings Center and the Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith and Ethics.

Netanyahu reaffirms backing for bill on Jewish conversions

(RNS) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meeting with American Jewish religious leaders over the weekend in New York, has reaffirmed his support for controversial legislation that will outlaw non-Orthodox conversions to Judaism in Israel.

The Israeli leader met with separate delegations of Orthodox and Reform and Conservative rabbis and other officials at a New York hotel Saturday night (Feb. 15). It was the latest in a series of meetings he has held, both in Israel and the United States, with American Jewish leaders over proposed legislation that would affirm in law the monopoly that Israeli Orthodox rabbis have had over conversions to Judaism ever since the founding of Israel.

The law does not affect non-Orthodox conversions performed outside Israel. In addition, such conversions would still be recognized for purposes of immigration to Israel.

Netanyahu, who needs the support of Israel’s Orthodox religious parties to maintain his ruling coalition, has steadfastly maintained that he would not risk the demise of his government over the issue _ despite threats from non-Orthodox American Jewish leaders that he was risking the ire of American Reform and Conservative Jews who are being relegated to”second-class status.” While Israel has very few Reform and Conservative Jews, more than 90 percent of American Jews who are affiliated with a synagogue belong to one of the two non-Orthodox denominations.

Reform and Conservative leaders came away from their meeting with Netanyahu unhappy.”The prime minister indicated there is little he can do about the legislation,”said Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Reform movement’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

Orthodox leaders were delighted, however. Passage of the bill, they said in a joint statement, will prevent”divergent standards that could lead, God forbid, to a multiplicity of `Jewish peoples.'”

Appeal issued for Kenyan famine victims

(RNS) Church World Service, the relief and aid arm of the National Council of Churches, has issued a $515,000 appeal to aid 16,000 families facing famine in Kenya.”Kenya faces impending mass hunger due to a severe drought in the country’s semi-arid northern and eastern regions,”the aid agency said.”Some 2.5 million people are affected and face starvation with drought conditions worsening.” The Kenyan government has called a famine disaster and is seeking assistance from international donors and relief agencies.”It’s very, very bad,”said Shirley Grange of the CWA Emergency Response Office after a visit to Kenya earlier this month.”There is literally nothing to eat. As far as the eye can see, the corn has dried out.” Church World Service officials said the aid agency’s relief effort would be focused on several communities in remote, rural areas populated primarily by farmers and nomadic people. The relief effort is in response to requests from local, non-governmental agencies with which it has worked in the past.

The funds being sought by CWS will provide enough beans _ and their transportation _ to feed the affected families for about three months.

Witnesses detail religious leaders killings

(RNS) Witnesses at the trial of Ethiopia’s former Marxist leaders told the court on Tuesday (Feb. 18) how two religious leaders were tortured and finally killed by the government.

Although under court rules the witnesses cannot be named, Reuters said they include a former vice minister who spent seven years in prison for being an opponent of the Mengistu Haile Mariam regime, and the widow of one of the slain religious leaders.

The two leaders were His Holiness Abuna Tewoflos, second patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and Kess Gudina Tumsa, secretary general of the Ethiopian Mekane Yesus Evangelical Church.

Both were seized in 1979.”We learned that His Holiness … was taken out of jail by armed guards, was executed by the Dergue after being subjected to torture,”the first witness told the court. Dergue was the name commonly given to the military junta.”His Holiness was put to death in cell number three,”the witness said.”His hands and legs were tied to a makeshift bed inside cell number three and his official robe was taken off him,”the witness said.”In front of all of us … the late patriarch accused the Dergue of being enemies of the Ethiopian people, bent on destroying its history and culture,”he added.

Kess’ widow, who was also jailed for 10 years by the regime, said her husband was taken away by armed guards in 1979 and never returned.”We later learned that the Dergue executed him along with other officials and their bodies were buried in a compound on the outskirts of Addis Ababa,”she said. She learned of her husband’s death in 1991, she said.

The current government of Ethiopia has charged more that 1,200 people suspected of involvement in the so-called”Red Terror”campaign during the 17 years of Marxist rule. Currently 71 former officials are on trial, although 25 of them, including Mengistu, are being tried in absentia.

Mengistu, ousted in 1991, currently lives in exile in Zimbabwe.

Quote of the Day: The late Randy K. Kilby, president Fruitland Baptist Bible Institute

(RNS) Randy K. Kilby, president of Fruitland Baptist Bible Institute in Hendersonville, N.C., died suddenly of an apparent heart attack on Feb. 11. In reporting his death, Baptist Press, the official news agency of the Southern Baptist Convention, noted that Kilby, 42, had just a few days earlier preached at a Feb. 6 chapel service at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., and said as he began:”Pray that I will come into this pulpit as if it were my first time, pray for me that I’ll preach as if it were my best time, and pray for me as it could be my last time.”

MJP END RNS