c. 1998 Religion News Service

Poll: Majority of Americans favor school vouchers

(RNS) For the first time since polling began on the issue in 1993, a majority of Americans _ 51 percent _ say they favor full or partial government subsidies to pay tuition costs at any public, private, or church-related school.

Americans have been slowly warming to the concept of school vouchers.

Last year, Americans were evenly divided on the issue, with 49 percent favoring vouchers, and 48 percent opposing them. This year, just 45 percent said they oppose school vouchers _ the converse of 1994, when 45 percent said they favor vouchers and 54 percent opposed them.

The poll was conducted in June by the Gallup Organization and Phi Delta Kappa, a professional education association.

School vouchers in general are supported by Republicans and opposed by Democrats. Civil libertarians and teacher unions especially are hostile to the concept, saying it violates church-state separation laws and undermines the public school system.

But the poll found rank-and-file Democrats are even more emphatic in their support of vouchers than are Republicans _ 51 percent to 47 percent, the Washington Times reported.

In general, Americans of both parties favor any concept that promises to improve education. Among the polls other findings:

_ 86 percent say they favor funding efforts to help repair and replace older school buildings.

_ 80 percent favor providing funds to help reduce class size in grades one through three.

_ 68 percent want parents to be able to build tax-free accounts to pay tuition and other expenses at private and church-related schools.

Lutheran leaders pledge to start theological talks

(RNS) The leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the nation’s two largest Lutheran bodies, have agreed to start making plans for formal joint discussions.

The two churches have not talked since the ELCA was formed a decade ago and relations between the two denominations have been frosty.”President (A.L.) Barry and I had a very promising discussion about initiating a series of theological conversations between representatives of our respective church bodies,”ELCA Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson said in an Aug. 26 statement.”We are in the process of developing a specific format and list of topics.” Anderson and Barry held a summit meeting on Aug. 17 prompted in part by a stinging rebuke Barry leveled at the ELCA for a number of the 5.2 million-member mainline denomination’s ecumenical initiatives over the past several years, including its declaration of”full communion”with three Reformed church bodies and its acceptance of a joint Lutheran-Roman Catholic declaration on the doctrine of justification.

In July, at its national convention, the 2.6 million-member Missouri Synod church adopted a resolution expressing its”deep regret and profound disagreement with these actions taken by the ELCA.” The Missouri Synod is theologically more conservative than the mainline ELCA _ formed in a 1988 merger of the Lutheran Church in America, the American Lutheran Church and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, a breakaway group of Missouri congregations _ and generally shuns ecumenical endeavors with church bodies with which it does not theologically agree.

Anderson said the two leaders began developing a specific format and possible topics for the proposed talks and that he will make a recommendation on how to proceed to the ELCA’s Church Council in November.

Barry told the ELCA News Service, the denomination’s official news agency, that he hoped the discussions could start in the near future.

Vatican orders Jesuit’s books on spirituality withdrawn

(RNS) The Vatican, saying some passages in books by the late Jesuit theologian Anthony de Mello may depart from”the essential contents of the Christian faith,”has told bishops around the world to see to it his books are withdrawn from sale and not reprinted.

The notice came in a July 23 letter from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith _ the Vatican’s theological watchdog agency _ to the presidents of the world’s bishops conferences, the independent National Catholic Reporter said in its Aug. 28 edition.

De Mello, an Indian Jesuit who died in 1987, was a well-known writer and speaker on spiritual topics and his writing blended insights from Eastern religions with Christian traditions.

In the United States, he is best known for his 1984 book,”Sadhana: A Way to God,”and”One Minute Wisdom,”published in 1988. He also led a series of summer workshops on spirituality over a 15-year period during the 1970s and ’80s.

Ratzinger’s confidential letter said his Vatican agency had”for some time”received reports about de Mello’s work and that an examination of the Jesuit’s writing found aspects of it”lead to a relativizing of every affirmation of faith and thus to religious indifferentism.” The letter laid out six specific charges against de Mello, including an accusation his work denies Jesus is the son of God, that it declares the question of life after death is”irrelevant,”and that it criticizes the church for”making the word of God in holy scripture into an idol.”

Pope’s personal surgeon dies

(RNS) Dr. Francesco Crucitti, the surgeon who performed emergency surgery on Pope John Paul II after a 1981 assassination attempt, died Wednesday (Aug. 26). He was 67.

Crucitti, who later became the pope’s personal surgeon, was being treated for prostate cancer and had recently undergone surgery at Johns Hopkins University medical center.

The pope visited Crucitti’s widow and his three children at the doctor’s home in central Rome after the pontiff’s regular weekly general audience.

He told the family he had come”to show you in some way my appreciation for this man who saved my life,”The New York Times reported.

Crucitti operated on John Paul three times.

In 1981, he was called in to perform an emergency six-hour operation after the pope was hit in the abdomen by a bullet fired by Mehmet Ali Agca in St. Peter’s Square. In 1992, Crucitti spent four hours removing the pope’s gall bladder and a large tumor from his colon. Crucitti’s last operation on John Paul occurred in 1996, when he removed the pope’s appendix.

Crucitti, a likable and witty man, was known to have admonished John Paul to lighten his workload and to find more time for rest, according to the Times.

Hong Kong Christians pray for Indonesian `cousins’

(RNS) Hong Kong Christians, concerned about violent attacks on ethnic Chinese in Indonesia during riots and civil unrest that swept the country in May, held two public prayer meetings Wednesday (Aug. 26) to pray for the victims and protest the attacks.

More than 50 people took part in one prayer meeting held outside the Indonesian consulate in Hong Kong, which was organized by Protestant and Roman Catholic activist groups. At the same time, more than 200 attended another prayer meeting organized by the Free Evangelical Church of China, Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency reported.

During the May violence, according to one human rights agency, 168 women and girls were raped or sexually abused, and 20 of them died. Most of the victims were ethnic Chinese.

According to some news reports in Indonesia, the Chinese community in Indonesia was a target of the rioting because of its relative prosperity and more than half of the 200 richest people in the country are Chinese.

Quote of the day: John Eibner of Christian Solidarity International

(RNS)”It is very disappointing that the international community has yet again failed hundreds of thousands of people in Sudan who face starvation from man-made famine.” _ John Eibner of Swiss-based Christian Solidarity International on after the U.N’s Subcommittee on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities failed Wednesday (Aug. 26) to include Sudan in a resolution on humanitarian crises.

DEA END RNS