c. 1997 Religion News Service
Gifts to Salvation Army topped $1 billion in 1996
(RNS) The Salvation Army raised a whopping $1 billion in 1996 up more than $250 million from 1995 putting it at the top of the list for the fifth straight year in The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s top 400 charities.
Overall, Americans donated $25.9 billion in 1996 to the 400 largest charities in the nation, the Washington-based Chronicle reported.
The American Red Cross placed second, raising $479.9 million, followed by The American Cancer Society, which took in $426.7 million, and Emory University in Atlanta, which jumped 50 places in the list to fourth place by raising $415.4 million.
Rounding out the top 10 were Catholic Charities, Second Harvest, the YMCA of the USA, Habitat for Humanity International, Boys and Girls Clubs of America and Stanford University.
To be included on the list of 400, charities had to raise from individuals, foundations and corporations at least $17.2 million.
According to the report, the nation’s thriving economy helped a number of big charities, especially cultural groups, colleges and universities.
But social service organizations such as Catholic Charities and the Christian Appalachian Project said they had failed to raise enough to outpace the 2.7 percent rise in inflation last year. Some social services officials said they feared the good economic times had made donors at all income levels lose sight of the persistent needs of the poor.
Church of Scientology marches in Berlin, argues in German court
(RNS) The Church of Scientology rallied thousands of supporters for a Berlin street march Monday (Oct. 27) and then on Tuesday sent its lawyers into the German courts to argue that it should be recognized as a religion and not a business, as the government insists.
But federal judges considering Scientology’s fight with the government signaled they would not decide the central question of whether the Los Angeles-based church is a religion or a business, the Associated Press reported.
Scientology officials say its members suffer religious persecution and discrimination by the German government, which has taken steps to outlaw the group.
“It’s like they rolled the clock back 50 years,” said Jack Staunsnyder of White Plains, N.Y. Staunsnyder traveled to Berlin for the Monday march.
“No, it goes back even farther, to the Middle Ages, back to the times when they crucified people on the cross,” said his wife, Heidi.
Scientologist went to court after the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg revoked the Stuttgart branch’s non-profit status in 1986. The state said the group was primarily concerned with making money by selling books and self-improvement courses.
A regional court overturned the ruling, saying it must first be determined if Scientology is a religion.
Pope names new archbishops for Seattle, Portland, Ore.
(RNS) Pope John Paul II named new archbishops Tuesday (Oct. 28) for the important cities of Seattle and Portland, Ore.
John Paul named Bishop Alexander Brunett, currently bishop of Helena, Mont., to head the Seattle archdiocese, and Bishop John Vlazny, head of the diocese of Winona, Minn., for the Portland post.
The Seattle spot has been vacant since the June death of Archbishop Thomas Murphy. The appointment of Archbishop Francis George to head the Chicago archdiocese left Portland empty.
Ex-priest Berrigan gets two years for anti-war protest
(RNS) Phil Berrigan, an antiwar activist and former Roman Catholic priest, was sentenced in Portland, Maine, to two years in prison Monday (Oct. 27) for vandalizing a Navy guided-missile destroyer.
Berrigan, 74, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Gene Carter for his participation in an Ash Wednesday protest Feb. 12 at Bath Iron Works. Berrigan has two years of probation after his release and was ordered to pay $4,703.89 for damage to the warship.
Berrigan, who has been arrested for civil disobedience more than 100 times since he and his brother, the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, emerged as leaders of the Catholic resistance to the Vietnam war, has spent a total of seven years in prison.
He said he believes the warship is a nuclear weapons threat.
Dutch parliament committee OKs same-sex marriages
(RNS) A report by a committee of the Dutch parliament has voiced its support for same-sex marriages and adoption by gay couples.
“The majority of the committee believes that same-sex couples can only be afforded equal treatment if they are allowed to enter into civil marriage,” the committee said in a report issued Tuesday (Oct. 28).
“These members do not view the new type of marriage as a break with tradition: after all, marriage has always been a flexible institution which has kept pace with social change,” the report said.
The recommendations could become law as early as next year, Reuters reported.
The Netherlands is governed by a three-party, center-left coalition and a number of governing deputies voiced support for the report.
Doctors find woeful medical conditions in North Korea
(RNS) American doctors returning from North Korea describe hospital operating rooms lit by car headlights, equipment that rarely works and medicine cabinets that are bare.
Three doctors and one interpreter for Northwest Medical Teams recently went to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, where they traveled through gritty industrial neighborhoods and scorched cornfields to bring 800 pounds of medicine and supplies to seven hospitals and clinics in the famine-stricken nation.
“Shortage isn’t the word to use,” said Dr. Edward Whang, a family practice physician from Clackamas, Ore. “Shortage is when you have less than what you have sometimes. But they have nothing, no medical supplies, nothing.”
North Korea is experiencing severe food shortages. Recent years have seen floods, severe drought and general economic hardship.
With no antibiotics or medicine, Whang said, North Korea’s well-trained doctors often don’t see the point of even diagnosing patients with life-threatening illnesses.
At one clinic, Whang cradled an 18-pound 3-year-old, and could tell that she had a fever and pneumonia. But the doctors there said they were treating her by feeding her dry milk.
Whang also found a 62-year-old woman lying on a mat on the floor. Doctors said she was malnourished.
“She said she had stomach pain for four years,” he said. “She had blood in her diarrhea. But the hospital administrator said she was malnourished. Everything was called just malnutrition. It’s totally disorganized.”
Since 1979, Northwest Medical Teams, based in Tigard, Ore., has sent groups of volunteer doctors, nurses and other medical staff to people who can’t afford medical or dental care, both in the United States and abroad.
In the coming months, the group will try to send another large container of medical supplies to North Korea and will continue working to give support to hospitals in that country, said a spokesman for the group.
Hotline to help with clergy problems set up in Scotland
(RNS) A 24-hour helpline to provide independent counseling and referrals for ministers and their families has been set up by the Church of Scotland.
The hotline aims to help pastors and their families deal with a variety of problems that affect clergy, including burn-out, the occasional instances of domestic violence in ministers’ families, and the breakdown of relationships and conflict that can arise between a minister and his or her congregation when disagreements flare up into a dispute dividing the whole parish.
Church officials said the hotline will also attempt to deal with family issues such as the expectations laid on a minister’s children, especially in isolated rural areas, where they may feel that because they are the minister’s children, they cannot be “normally naughty” like their contemporaries.
Quote of the day: Evangelist Tim Lee
(RNS) “America is not going to hell because of the abortion crowd, and the pornography crowd, and the drug crowd. America is going to hell because God’s people just don’t care.”
Evangelist Tim Lee, quoted by Baptist Press at the “Sandy Creek Week” revival meeting at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.
MJP END RNS
AP-NY-10-28-97 1729EST
