c. 1998 Religion News Service

Calif. Baptist preacher holds groundbreaking for church homeless shelter

(RNS) The Rev. Wiley Drake, a Southern Baptist preacher convicted of breaking zoning rules by aiding the homeless at his Buena Vista, Calif., church, Sunday (March 29) lifted the first shovel of dirt in a groundbreaking ceremony for a long-awaited shelter next to his church.

“We are very relieved that we can officially start building,” Drake said at the ceremony, the Associated Press reported. “It’s taken us two years and many hours of court … and a lot of fighting and a lot of lawsuits.”

Drake and his congregation, First Southern Baptist Church, were convicted and placed on three years of probation last year for violating building and zoning codes for allowing homeless people to sleep in an enclosed patio behind the church and to sleep in cars in the church parking lot.

While he was being sued for the zoning code violations, he was also fighting the city for a permit to build the shelter. In January, the Planning Commission approved a permit for a 52-bed shelter and meeting hall.

Vatican Holy Week collection to aid Cuba

(RNS) The Vatican, in another symbolic shot across the bow of U.S. efforts to isolate Cuba, said Monday (March 30) Pope John Paul II’s Holy Week services will include a special collection to buy medicine for the economically beleaguered island nation.

The collection will be taken on April 9 at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, where the pope traditionally goes to wash the feet of 12 priests in a Holy Thursday service re-enacting Jesus’ last supper with The Apostles.

Those attending will be asked to “perform an act of charity to furnish medicine for the sick in Cuba,” the Vatican said, according to the Associated Press.

Since John Paul’s historic visit to Cuba in January, the Vatican has sought to increase its charity work on the island.

The pope’s busy Holy Week schedule begins with a Palm Sunday Mass.

In the only concession to his infirmities, the 77-year-old pope is expected to participate only briefly by carrying a cross during a Good Friday procession at the Colosseum. Since the pope underwent hip surgery in 1994, others have carried the cross for most of the route.

John Paul will celebrate the Easter vigil on Saturday night and an open-air Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday.

Hispanic group suspends boycott against Disney

(RNS) A Hispanic media watchdog group said Sunday (March 29) it has suspended its yearlong boycott of Walt Disney Co., saying the entertainment giant has taken strides in minority hiring.

Since the boycott against Disney and its ABC network began last April, the company has hired or promoted eight Hispanics into directorships or vice presidencies and has contracted more extensively with Hispanic-owned businesses, said the National Hispanic Media Coalition.

“Our purpose was to force this gigantic entertainment conglomerate to recognize and to begin to deal equitably with the Hispanic-American community across the nation,” said Alex Nogales, the coalition’s national chair. “We feel we have made significant inroads into accomplishing these goals.”

Disney also has pledged millions of dollars to Hispanic-American organizations, said Nogales, who added that the group will continue to monitor the company.

Calls to Disney representatives were not immediately returned Sunday, said the Associated Press, which reported the Hispanic group’s action.

The Southern Baptist Convention and several other conservative religious groups also are boycotting Disney products and theme parks. They oppose Disney’s decision to grant benefits to partners of gay employees and contend some of its movies and TV shows promote non-traditional values.

Disney has also been the target of protests from a number of groups on the left, who charge the company with using sweatshop labor to produce the T-shirts and other items its markets.

The boycotts appear to have had little financial impact on Disney. The company earned $755 million in the last three months of 1997 _ a jump of 18 percent over the same period in 1996. Revenues rose 6 percent to $6.34 billion.

Russia’s Baptists seek parity with Orthodox Church

(RNS) Russia’s largest Protestant denomination _ the Union of Evangelical Christian-Baptists _ has called on its members to promote further growth of the denomination and demanded that Russian authorities give it the same respect as the nation’s dominant Russian Orthodox Church.

The twin calls were made at the union’s 30th congress, held in Moscow March 17-20.

While stressing the call for parity with the Orthodox, the delegates to the union’s congress also called for peace between Russia’s churches. They stressed the Russian history of their faith, rejecting the charge that Russian Baptists belong to a”foreign”religion.

The congress brought together 374 delegates and more than 200 guests, most of them Baptist pastors, reported Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.

Dominating the congress was the issue of Russia’s new Law on Freedom of conscience and Religious Associations, which many people believe discriminates against the country’s minority churches.

But Pastor Pyotr Konovalchik, who was re-elected as the union’s president during the congress, said the law was not aimed at Russian Baptist churches and does not infringe upon their freedom.”We do not see how we can be persecuted on the basis of this law,”Konovalchik said. However, he said much would depend on how the reregistration of religious communities, required by the new law, is carried out.

Baptists are often viewed _ by Russian nationalists both within and outside the Russian Orthodox Church _ as a”sect.”Although the church’s Moscow Patriarchate maintains official contacts with the union, many Orthodox priests and lay activists are highly critical of Baptists.

In a message to President Boris Yeltsin, the union’s pastors declared their loyalty to him and to Russia, but complained of discrimination.

They said they were”profoundly saddened”by violations by local officials of the rights of freedom of conscience and of church equality before the law. They referred to refusals by officials to give them time on television and radio, as well as places for worship.

Russian authorities have also refused to return churches in several cities seized during the communist era.

Foreigners kept a low profile at the congress and were present only as guests. It reflects a general trend among Russia’s evangelical churches to put Russian nationals in charge of all church operations. While foreigners continue to work for these churches, they do so _ at least officially _ in subordinate positions only.

The new law on religion allows foreigners to carry out religious activities in Russia only within the framework of recognized Russian religious organizations.

Since the break-up of the Soviet Union and the end of communist rule, Russia has seen an influx of foreign Baptist missionaries. But Russian Baptists also claim a rich local tradition dating back to 1867, when a Russian merchant in Tiflis was baptized by a German preacher.

Methodist bishops urge U.S. follow-up to Clinton Africa visit

(RNS) President Clinton’s trip to Africa is a good start, but must be followed by a substantial U.S. commitment to the continent, said United Methodist Church Bishop Felton E. May of Washington, D.C.

May is one of the denomination’s top experts on African affairs.

Clinton began his five-nation, 12-day visit to Africa on March 23 in Ghana. The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, was part of a high-level delegation accompanying the president in South Africa and planned to attend Sunday church services with the Clintons in Soweto.

On Sunday (March 29), Clinton attended Mass at Soweto’s Regina Mundi Catholic Church, where he received Holy Communion. Regina Mundi served as a refuge for black activists during South Africa’s turbulent apartheid era.

May called Clinton’s Africa trip”a wonderful way for him to end his presidency and also end the millennium,”said the United Methodist News Service, the denomination’s official news agency.

May said, however, that Clinton needs to follow up by using his office to promote a”Marshall Plan”for Africa by calculating the 1998 equivalent of the 1945 dollar and providing”a comparable amount of money for Africa as we provided for Europe.” United Methodist Bishop David Lawson, now retired and living in Franklin, Ind., called Clinton’s trip”critically important”since previous U.S. administrations have long ignored Africa.”We’ve turned our heads when things have gone bad,”said Lawson, who has traveled extensively in Africa.

The United Methodist Council of Bishops expressed its own support of Africa last November by launching a $12 million churchwide appeal called”Hope for the Children of Africa.” African bishops on the council had made impassioned pleas for U.S. action on Africa.”Unless you speak for us and call attention to your government, we are doomed,”Bishop Arthur Kulah of Liberia declared at the November Council of Bishops meeting.

During the November meeting, the bishops also called upon Clinton to help resolve the conflict in Sierra Leone and sent a resolution to the U.S. State Department expressing concern over ethnic conflicts and suffering in Burundi, Rwanda, the Republic of Congo, Uganda and Tanzania.

Quote of the day: Roman Catholic Cardinal Bernard Law

(RNS)”Any suicide is an enormous tragedy, a personal loss as well as a loss to us all. Government approved suicide of the elderly and vulnerable is a sign of moral collapse. … Federal policymakers must address this issue now, by declaring that federally regulated drugs cannot and must not be used by physicians to assist their patients’ suicides.” _ Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, chairman of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee for Pro-Life Activities, in a March 27 statement reacting to the news that an elderly woman suffering from cancer had become the first known person to take advantage of Oregon’s assisted suicide law.

DEA END RNS