c. 1998 Religion News Service

One in three homeless men at rescue missions are veterans

(RNS) One in three homeless men seeking shelter from U.S. rescue missions are veterans, a survey has found.

The International Union of Gospel Missions survey found that 32 percent of men surveyed at 146 rescue missions identified themselves as veterans.

The results of the survey of more than 20,000 men and women were released Tuesday (Nov. 10).

The survey found that 42 percent of the veterans said they served in Vietnam; 8 percent identified themselves as Korean War veterans and another 8 percent said they were Gulf War veterans.”The evidence is clear that the scars of conflict, especially for those who served in Vietnam, are not fully healed,”said Rev. Stephen E. Burger, executive director of IUGM.”Unfortunately, many veterans continue to have difficulty making the transition to a normal life and often end up living at our rescue missions.” Seventy-eight percent of the people surveyed were men.

The IUGM, which is based in N. Kansas City, Mo., is an association of almost 250 faith-based rescue missions across the country. The members provide shelter and emergency food, family services, rehabilitation programs for addicts and assistance to at-risk youth, the poor and the elderly.

Report: China arrests more than 140 members of underground church

(RNS) Chinese police have arrested more than 140 members of underground Protestant churches in what one dissident says is a new crackdown on unregistered worship.

The worshippers were arrested at unregistered church services on Oct. 26 and Nov. 5 in two separate places in central Henan province, according to dissident church sources, the Associated Press reported Tuesday (Nov. 10).

According to the New York-based Human Rights in China group, after jailing the worshippers, police beat at least 13 _ identified as leaders. Their fate, according to a letter from a member of one of the churches, remains unknown.

China forbids worship outside of churches approved by the state.

According to a police official in Wugan, where 40 of the arrests took place on Oct. 26, police moved to shut down what they called an illegal meeting and began hauling people away only when they resisted. The police official said some of the worshippers shot at police with homemade rifles.

Officials in the city of Nanyang, where the other arrests took place, refused to comment, as did the central government’s Religious Affairs Bureau, which oversees religion policies, the AP said.

Update: Pope willing to visit Vietnam

(RNS) Pope John Paul II is willing to make a historic visit to Vietnam if invited by the communist government, a Vatican news agency said Tuesday (Nov. 10).

Fides, the agency of the Vatican’s missionary arm, said John Paul had been”moved”by an invitation last week to visit the country made to him by Vietnam’s Catholic bishops.

The bishops had also asked the government to extend the invitation.”He (John Paul) said that without a doubt he was willing to go if it is possible,”Fides said, quoting Bishop Etienne Nguyen Nhu The, who had relayed the Vietnamese bishops’ invitation to the pope.

British church leaders urge family-friendly economic measures

(RNS) Bishop James Jones of Liverpool, considered by many to be a rising star within the Church of England, is calling on the government to enact a family-friendly”tax and benefit system that truly strengthens the bond between parent and child.” Jones’ appeal came two days after the publication by the British government of a paper suggesting a number of measures to strengthen the family and which explicitly noted that while many single parents and unmarried couples raise their children as successfully as married parents,”marriage is still the surest foundation for raising children.” The Labor government’s paper has been welcomed by religious leaders.

Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey called publication of the document”a most welcome step,”while Roman Catholic Cardinal Basil Hume, Archbishop of Westminster, warmly welcomed the government’s decision to take on the question of the mounting social and economic costs of family breakdown.”No society can afford to neglect the health of the family,”Hume said.

Jones, speaking in his enthronement sermon Saturday (Nov. 7), also welcomed the apparent priority the government is giving family issues.”The seeds of alienation and exclusion are sown very early in a person’s life,”he said, urging the government to take the proposed policy to its logical conclusion by reforming the tax and benefit system.”For far too long over the last 30 years under previous governments this system has discriminated against the family by more than doubling the tax burden on married couples with children,”Jones said.

Calling for new fiscal policies, he said:”Alongside provision of child-care for the parents who elect to work outside the home, there should also be encouragement and support for a parent who chooses to work within the home to care for their (sic) own children.” Jones acknowledged there is”no magic wand”to solve social problems, but he warned against ignoring all of the studies which have made clear that children brought up in secure and stable relationships were more likely to flourish and less likely to offend against society.

To ignore this evidence while pouring billions of dollars into remedial programs, he said,”seems like deliberately ignoring a vaccine in favor of wanting to treat an epidemic.”

Quote of the day: Lord Jakobovitz, former chief rabbi of Britain.

(RNS)”For the first time in over 2,000 years of the Jewish experience, there is not a single Jewish community anywhere in the world where Jews are officially persecuted because they are Jews.” _ Lord Jakobovitz, former chief rabbi of Britain, in remarks Monday (Nov. 9) marking the 60th anniversary of Kristallnacht, when Nazis rampaged through Germany destroying synagogues and killing Jews.

DEA END RNS