c. 1998 Religion News Service

Adventists adopt statements on cloning, sexually transmitted disease

(RNS) Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders from around the world, meeting in Foz do Iguaca, Brazil, have adopted major policy statements on the ethical issues of human cloning and the challenge of sexually transmitted degrees.

In addition, the leaders heard world church president Robert Folkenberg issue a ringing call for a return to family values, especially in”the family of God.” He cited letters from church members to their leaders as an example of where family values break down.”I’m amazed sometimes at the acid that drips from some of these letters from people who claim to love their church,”he said.”Obviously, there is a place for constructive dialogue between brothers and sisters, but we must do so in love, in the spirit of Jesus. … I’m bewildered at how some who claim to love the Lord … can manifest such an unloving, hostile, fault-finding attitude toward other family members.” Dr. A. R. Handysides, director of the church’s Health Ministries office, said the statement on cloning serves as”more of a red flag”for church members rather than as a definitive statement on the complex issue.

It said while”there may be future situations in which human cloning could be considered beneficial and morally acceptable,”it raises concerns over risks and possible misuse of human cloning.

It listed seven ethical principles to cloning technology if it is ever applied to human beings, including the protection of vulnerable human life, the protection of human dignity, the alleviation of human suffering, the concept of the family, the notion of Christian stewardship, truthfulness and the understanding of God’s creation.

In the statement on sexually transmitted diseases, the church leaders argued that”abstinence from extramarital sex promotes sexual and emotional health”and concluded with an appeal that the church develop”without delay, a comprehensive strategy of education and prevention.””The contemporary world is confronted by grave ethical, medical and social problems resulting from increasing sexual permissiveness and associated promiscuity,”the statement said.”Because Christians are a part of the larger social community, these attitudes and behaviors have infiltrated the Seventh-day Adventist Church as well, demanding that we address them.

Roman Catholic anti-poverty effort gives $8.5 million in grants

(RNS) The Roman Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the church’s domestic anti-poverty program, has awarded a record $8.5 million in national grants for 1998.

The grants are going to self-help groups that help low-income people create jobs, reform schools, improve conditions in the workplace, fight crime and find affordable homes.”From Long Island to the Hawaiian Islands, people living in poverty are proving that they have the skills and talents to help themselves and their communities find real solutions to pressing social problems,”said the Rev. Robert J. Vitill, executive director of the 28-year-old anti-poverty effort.

The campaign, founded by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1970, is the nation’s largest private funder of organizations aimed at empowering the poor and that work to eliminate poverty and injustice. It has been a frequent target of right-wing Catholics who say it endorses leftist political causes.

Programs funded by the campaign fall into two categories _ organizing and economic development. A total of $7.3 million in grants were announced this year for organizing efforts, ranging from a $50,000 grant to support efforts to organize Latino immigrant workers on Long Island to a $25,000 grant for a program in St. Martin, Ohio to organize rural Appalachian communities in southwestern Ohio.

In Hawaii, Faith in Action for Community Equity of Honolulu received a $50,000 grant to unite more than 35,000 Protestant, Catholic and Buddhist church members to save public housing and create jobs for poor and low-income island residents.

Under the program’s economic development component, $1.3 million in grants were awarded, ranging from a $28,500 grant to the Crescent City Farmers Market of New Orleans to a $25,000 grant to Pueblo Nuevo Enterprise of Los Angeles to bolster its working capital and purchase equipment for its cooperative janitorial service.

Funds for the Campaign for Human Development are raised during the CHD’s annual collection in Catholic parishes across the nation.

Aid agencies urge Clinton to broker peace in Ethiopia/Eritrea conflict (RNS) In letters to President Clinton and other top U.S. foreign policy officials, 11 religious and secular humanitarian aid agencies called on the administration to take steps to prevent a resumption of armed conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.”We are convinced the outbreak of fighting is imminent,”the 11 groups said.”We also believe that timely diplomatic intervention might help prevent it.” Fighting between the two nations ended last spring with a joint U.S.-Rwandan initiative, but peace talks have proved inconclusive and both sides have been preparing for renewed fighting, the 11 groups said.”Yet the information we have from the field suggests that there may be an opportunity for the U.S. to play a useful role in heading this off,”the groups said.

They said while they were aware that”quiet diplomacy”continues to be used in an effort to bring peace to the long-troubled region, they believe”only a high profile mediation effort will curb the war preparations now underway and persuade the two sides to step back from the brink.” Among those signing the letter were the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, the International Rescue Committee, Oxfam America, Relief International and the Salvation Army World Service Office.

Prelate gives Scottish nationalism a boost

(RNS) Roman Catholic Cardinal Thomas Winning, archbishop of Glasgow, has given the cause of Scottish nationalism a boost with a speech in Brussels outlining Scotland’s place in the European Union.

The speech, British political observers said, could signal a shift in the allegiance of Roman Catholic voters from the Labor Party to the Scottish National Party.”The Europhobia which characterizes much of the British press finds little echo in Scotland,”Winning said.”In Scotland in recent years there has been a growing realization that our future as a nation is European.”Our culture, our laws, our language and literature, our trading links and our choice of holiday destination, all of these betray the very real, profound and unbreakable links which bind Scotland to the Old Continent,”he said.

Winning said both a sense of Scottish nationhood and European identity were growing in Scotland.”Nationhood within Europe seems to be the combination which is proving attractive for growing numbers of our fellow citizens,”he said.

Last year Scots voted three to one in favor of restoring the Scottish Parliament, which disappeared in 1707 with the Act of Union.

In the first elections next year for the newly established Scottish Parliament, the SNP is expected to be running neck-and-neck with Labor and could emerge as the largest party in the new parliament.

Roman Catholics form about 18 percent of the Scottish population and are concentrated mainly in and around Glasgow.

Winning also took pains to tell his European audience that Scottish nationalism was of a different sort from the more virulent and violent forms that have engulfed the Balkan states in war and fueled the rise of right-wing parties in Italy and France.”… I should make it clear right from the outset,”he said,”that the nationalism in question has nothing in common with the aggressive and violent nationalism which has scarred the Balkans, nor does it mirror the loud-mouthed rhetoric of the Lega del Nord in Italy or the xenophobic propaganda of the Front National in France.”Democrats can be reassured that the emerging sense of nationhood and political nationalism in Scotland is unique in European terms,”he said.”It is mature, respectful of democracy, and international in outlook.”

Quote of the day: Southern Baptist pastor Julie Pennington-Russell

(RNS)”Children just model what they see. In the nursery in San Francisco they were playing church one Sunday, and it was funny because the little girls were always being the pastors. We had to remind them that little boys can be pastors, too.” Pastor Julie Pennington-Russell of Calvary Baptist Church, in Waco, Texas, as quoted by Associated Baptist Press recalling her pastorate at Nineteenth Avenue Baptist Church in San Francisco and the struggle within the Southern Baptist Convention over women pastors.

DEA END RNS