c. 1998 Religion News Service

Disciples seminary trustees divest tobacco stock

(RNS) The trustee board of Lexington Theological Seminary in Kentucky has voted to divest its stock in major tobacco manufacturing companies.

The action fits into a larger effort to consider social responsibility when determining investment choices, said officials of the school affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

After an animated debate on March 9, the board decided the seminary should not support tobacco manufacturers.

The vote was based on a determination that tobacco has no redeeming value and that research shows that tobacco is a contributing factor in the early deaths of about 400,000 Americans each year. Board members also were concerned about reports that companies had been involved in targeting young people in their advertisements and in placing additives in tobacco products.”Lexington Theological Seminary is deeply concerned about what is happening, and what is likely to happen, to tobacco farmers and their families over the next few years,”said the Rev. Richard L. Harrison Jr., seminary president.”It seems to me that those who profit from the work of tobacco farmers should help them out of their economic and moral dilemma. Governments have received billions of dollars in taxes from the labor of these farmers, and the manufacturing companies have made hundreds of billions in profits.” Harrison voiced support for strengthening compensation for farmers through a settlement that is being developed between government and tobacco company officials.

The seminary has long been involved with the tobacco issue. Many of its students have served as student ministers at rural churches whose members are tobacco farmers.”We will continue to explore the issues facing Christians living in tobacco country,”Harrison said.”We will work to support justice for farmers while also supporting efforts to limit the spread of tobacco use among the young.” Religious Freedom Amendment vote to coincide with graduations

(RNS) A vote by the House of Representatives on the Religious Freedom Amendment is expected to coincide with public school graduation ceremonies this spring.

Horace Cooper, press secretary for House Majority Leader Richard Armey, R-Texas, said the vote was originally planned for early July but was rescheduled to”help remind people about how people of faith are stymied when they enter the public arena _ in this case, with commencement exercises.” The scheduling decision was made by the House Republican leadership, Cooper said, according to Associated Baptist Press, an independent Baptist news service.

The vote would be the first by the full House on a constitutional amendment dealing with religious freedom in 27 years.

Proposed by Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., the measure would amend the Constitution to protect”the people’s right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage, or traditions on public property.” It also would put the word”God”in the Constitution for the first time.

Pope urges respect for human rights, religious tolerance in Nigeria

(RNS) Pope John Paul II ended his three-day trip to Nigeria on Monday (March 23) urging Nigerians to build”a new reality”in Africa’s most populous country.

During his visit, John Paul repeatedly called on the government of military dictator Gen. Sani Abacha to relax its grip on the country and permit democratic reforms.”The dignity of every human being, his inalienable fundamental rights, the inviolability of life, freedom and justice, the sense of solidarity and the rejection of discrimination: These must be the building blocks of a new and better Nigeria,”John Paul said during a Mass celebrated on the outskirts of Abuja, the Nigerian capital.

And, as the Vatican did during John Paul’s trip to Cuba in January, the church presented Nigerian authorities with a list of some 60 political detainees it wants freed.

On Sunday, John Paul met with leaders of Nigeria’s Muslim community to urge that Christians and Muslims find a way to make peace with each other. Each faith group includes about 45 percent of Nigeria’s population.”Whenever violence is done in the name of religion, we must make it clear to everyone that in such instances we are not dealing with true religion,”John Paul said.”I pray that the commitment of Christians and Muslims to establish bonds of mutual knowledged and respect will increase and bear fruit,”he said.

John Paul also called on the nation’s 53 Catholic bishops to engage in a constructive dialogue with all sectors of society.”Such a dialogue … does not prevent you from presenting openly and respectfully the church’s convictions, especially regarding such important matters as justice and impartiality for all citizens, respect for human rights, religious freedom and the objective moral truth which ought to be reflected in civil legislation,”he said.

John Paul made the trip to Nigeria _ his 82nd trip outside Italy _ to beatify Michael Iwene Tansi, a priest who died 24 years ago and is Nigeria’s first candidate for sainthood.

Supreme Court acts on abortion, prayer issues

(RNS) The U.S. Supreme Court let stand Monday (March 23) lower court rulings that invalidated an Ohio law banning some forms of late-term abortions.

The justices, by a 6-3 vote, refused to consider an appeal of the Ohio law. While not a ruling on the controversial abortion procedure and setting no national precedent, the justices’ action is likely to be hailed by supporters of legal abortion who are fighting restrictions at both the state and national level on what abortion opponents call”partial-birth abortions.” How the court would actually rule on a late-term restriction such as the one that has been passed twice by Congress but has been vetoed by President Clinton remains uncertain.

The Ohio law banned”the termination of a human pregnancy by purposely inserting a suction device into the skull of a fetus to remove the brain.” The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a split 2-1 decision last fall, said the law would unduly interfere with a woman’s right to an abortion and have the effect of banning a more common procedure used earlier in pregnancies.

The proposed federal legislation would ban abortions”in which the person performing the abortion partially vaginally delivers a living fetus before killing the fetus and completing the delivery.

Justice Clarence Thomas, in a dissent joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia, said the court should have granted full review to the Ohio case because not to do so”may cast unnecessary doubt on the validity of other state statutes.” In a separate action Monday, the justices, without comment, turned away an appeal by a professor challenging Tennessee State University’s use of prayers or moments of silence at graduation ceremonies.

In 1992, the High Court banned clergy-led prayers at elementary and secondary school graduations on the grounds such prayers violated the First Amendment to the Constitution by requiring”religious conformity from a student as the price of attending her own high school graduation.” But in that ruling the court also said university officials would be less susceptible to religious indoctrination than elementary and secondary school students.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in ruling against the Tennessee professor, said the nonsectarian prayers at the university graduation ceremonies were intended to”solemnize the events”and not to indoctrinate the audience, the Associated Press reported.

Rwandan rebels kidnap seven nuns

(RNS) Hutu rebels, in two separate attacks, have killed 20 civilians and kidnapped seven nuns, news services reported Monday (March 23).

The reports from Kigali said a band of 30 to 40 rebels attacked a Roman Catholic Church-run health center, killing three civilians and taking seven nuns from the St. Anne of Charity religious order hostage. Five of the nuns were Rwandan and two were Spanish.

According to the Associated Press, two hours after the first attack, 100 rebels attack a town 10 miles to the east of the first incident, burning the local government building and killing 17 civilians.

A spokesman for the Rwandan military said three other Spanish nuns managed to escape. The spokesman said the Tutsi-dominated military had no information on the condition of the abducted nuns, Reuters reported.

The area of the attack is near the border with Congo, where Hutu rebels, many of who are considered responsible for the 1994 slaughter of more than 500,000 minority Tutsis, are concentrated.

The attack, which comes two days before President Clinton is scheduled to visit the country, is the fourth in the area this year. In January, nine nuns _ three from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and six Rwandans were killed by the rebels.

Catholic Bishop John R. Keating of Virginia dies

(RNS) Catholic Bishop John R. Keating of Arlington, Va., a vocal supporter of conservative Catholic stands, has died in Rome.

Keating died Sunday (March 22) of a heart attack. He was 63.

At the time of his death, Keating was taking part in a traditional visit to Rome with other bishops to report to the pope on the state of his parish’s affairs. He had a private audience with Pope John Paul II two days before he died, The Washington Post reported.

Keating was the second bishop of the Arlington diocese, which broke off from the Richmond, Va., diocese in 1974.

He was known for attracting young men to the priesthood at a time when the Catholic Church as a whole has been suffering from a priest shortage.

He also was at the center of controversy in 1994 when he became one of two bishops in the United States to disallow girls from serving on the altar, a practice that had received papal approval.

Two spiritual care organizations merge

(RNS) The College of Chaplains and the Association of Mental Health Clergy have merged to become the Association of Professional Chaplains.

The two organizations had similar goals for promoting spiritual care in specialized ministry settings. The new association, which will be based in Schaumburg, Ill., has an interfaith membership of more then 3,300 members, including chaplains serving in such areas as general health care, correctional institutions, hospices, Veterans Affairs and long-term care facilities.

Members of the association recently elected Larry Burton to a two-year term as president. He is the chairman of the department of religion, health and human values at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago.

Quote of the Day: Scott Wallace of National Legal Aid and Defender Association

(RNS)”The Tucker execution challenges us to examine our biases toward looks and race. If you had a young born-again black Christian woman, would there have been an outcry? If you had a muscle-bound black man clutching the Koran, would Pat Robertson have cared?” _ Scott Wallace of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, contrasting the great attention paid to the Feb. 3 execution of pickax murderer Karla Faye Tucker in Texas with the lack of media attention surrounding the scheduled execution of convicted killer Judy Buenoano on March 30 in Florida, in a March 23 interview in USA Today.

DEA END RNS