c. 1998 Religion News Service
Rwanda sentences two priest to death for genocide crimes
(RNS) A Rwandan court has sentenced two Roman Catholic priests to death after finding them guilty of organizing the execution of some 2,000 people _ mostly members of Rwanda’s Tutsi minority _ in a church during the 1994 genocide in the African country.
The pair _ the Revs. Jean Francois Kayiranga and Edouard Nkurikiye _ are the first priests to be convicted under Rwanda’s genocide trials, which are running separately from the United Nations tribunal investigating crimes against humanity as a result of the more than 500,000 Rwandans believed to have been killed in the slaughter.
According to testimony at the trial, the victims had come to the Nyange Church in Kivumu, some 45 miles outside of the capital of Kigali, and the two priests ordered the demolition of the church by a bulldozer, wire services reported.
The driver of the bulldozer was sentenced to life in prison.
In addition, the court was told the two priests ordered the massacre of more than 60 ethnic Tutsis, most of whom were priests, nuns and seminarians at Nyundo in northwest Rwanda.
Reuters, citing the Catholic Church’s bishops’ conference, said 10 other priests, four nuns and an unspecified number of religious order brothers are being held in Rwanda prisons on genocide charges. A total of 126,000 Rwandans _ mostly members of the Hutu ethnic group _ are detained in Rwandan prisons, according to the United Nations.
Pope John Paul II has said that those within the church who played a role in the genocide should face the consequences of their actions.
Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter
(RNS) The world’s 300 million Orthodox Christians marked Easter Sunday (April 19) by feasting on roasted lamb, dyed eggs and praying for an end to hardship.
In Jerusalem, hundreds of Orthodox worshippers made a pilgrimage to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which tradition says is the burial place of Jesus.
Pilgrims, many from Greece and Eastern Europe, packed the church and adjoining courtyard as Muslim guards cleared the way for a procession of Orthodox clerics bearing candles and incense.
Prayers in the church, often a scene of rowdy disorders and fist fights between rival branches of Christianity, passed off quietly although on Saturday there were scuffles between Syrian Orthodox and Armenian Orthodox worshippers, Reuters reported.
Christian artists unite to help Kentucky shooting victims
(RNS) Fifteen contemporary Christian artists and groups have united in a recording project called”B. Strong”to honor the leader of the student prayer group in Paducah, Ky., gunned down last December and to raise money to help the victims of the shooting.”Like `We Are the World,’ it’s going to be released as a single and it’s going to benefit Ben Strong and the kids,”said Brian Mayes, executive producer of”B. Strong.””We Are the World”was a collaborative project of top recording artists who gathered in 1985 to raise money for famine victims in Africa.”B. Strong”_ a play on words simultaneously honoring the prayer group leader while offering an inspirational message _ is a project that includes artists who perform a range of Christian music, from reggae to inspirational.
The song, conceived by Ohio singer-songwriter Everett Darren, is a”straight-ahead pop”selection that will be marketed to radio stations that play contemporary Christian music.”It’s something that’s really going to unite people,”Mayes told RNS on Monday (April 20).”Hopefully, it’s going to bring healing to people in Paducah.” The song also could get airplay on secular stations, said Mayes, president of BMP Artist and Management Nashville and vice president of Audience Records, a Christian record label in Tennessee capital.”It’s not so Christian-specific that other people can’t appreciate it,”he said.
Mayes said proceeds from sales of the recording will initially go to a college fund for Strong and to a second fund to help pay for medical expenses of the victims and their families.
Artists involved in the project include Selena Bloom, Scott Wesley Brown, Christafari, Morgan Cryer, Rick Cua, Al Denson, Jordan Dickerson of Christian pop trio Squirt, Mancy A’lan Kane, Greg Long, Michael O’Brien, Peter Penrose, Pam Thum and Marcia Ware.
In addition, an as-yet unnamed artist, who Mayes described as”one of the bigger names in Christian music”is expected to add vocals to the recording at the end of the week.
Pope urges international community to aid North Korea
(RNS) Pope John Paul II, while promising the church would do all it could, Sunday (April 19) urged the international community to take a more vigorous role in helping North Korea overcome the famine plaguing the country.”While I urge the charitable organizations of the church to take on the challenge of that difficult situation with generosity, I hope the international community also will see to it that necessary aid is not lacking,”the pope told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square, Reuters reported.
The pope made his appeal for Korea shortly after opening a monthlong Vatican meeting of Asian bishops on the future of the church in that region.
On Saturday, North and South Korea talked over how they might cooperate in dealing with the crisis in the North, which is struggling to feed its 23 million people after three years of floods and drought have have devastated its food supplies.
High Court: public school doesn’t have to rent to church
(RNS) The Supreme Court refused Monday (April 20) to force a New York City public school to rent its building to a church for its Sunday morning worship service.
Without comment, the court rejected an appeal in which the church’s lawyers argued the public school cannot refuse to allow worship services on its property while allowing other community groups to rent rooms after school hours, the Associated Press reported.
The church’s appeal said the school district’s policy violates the constitutional freedoms of speech and religion of the Bronx Household of Faith, an evangelical group seeking the space for worship until its church building is constructed.
The school district, in refusing to rent the space, cited its policy and a state law barring religious worship services in schools. School lawyers noted church groups can rent rooms for non-religious events or to discuss religious material.
In a separate but related development, the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal advocacy group, said Monday it has filed suit in U.S. District Court in New Orleans against the St. Tammany Parish School Board and its superintendent for refusing to permit a church to use school facilities made available to other community groups and organizations.
The church, the Northpoint Community Church, wants to use school facilities for prayer, religious instruction, praise and worship, as well as for discussion of topical issues.
School officials rejected the requests, saying policy does not allow religious organizations to use public school facilities for religious purposes.
Chicago jury finds abortion opponents guilty in racketeering case
(RNS) A federal jury Monday (April 20) found three national leaders of anti-abortion groups guilty of committing acts of extortion against abortion clinics and award $85,000 in damages.
The jury of two men and four women, which has been deliberating since Thursday, found the defendants damaged the clinics’ ability to do business during a 15-year period, the Associated Press reported.
The closely watched lawsuit was one of the first filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, popularly known as RICO, and used primarily against organized crime’s infiltration of businesses or unions.
It named two militant anti-abortion groups _ Operation Rescue and the Pro-Life Action League _ as defendants, as well as three of the league’s top leaders _ Joseph Scheidler, Timothy Murphy and Andrew Scholberg.
Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry was an original defendant but settled with the plaintiffs _ the National Organization for Women and abortion clinics in Wisconsin and Delaware _ by promising not to participate in any criminal activities against the clinics.
The civil lawsuit accused the defendants and their groups of trying to intimidate and shut down the clinics through a campaign of fear and violence.
In pressing their case, NOW attorneys quoted Scheidler _ who maintained he always advocated legal means of opposition _ as saying of shutting clinics:”You can try for 50 years to do it the nice way or you can do it next week the nasty way.”
Scottish Anglican sees treatment of gays similar to support for slavery
(RNS) Bishop Richard Holloway, primus (head) of the Scottish Episcopal Church, says Christianity’s treatment of homosexuals can be compared to its treatment of women and its support for slavery.
Holloway made his comments Saturday (April 18).
In his speech, Holloway criticized the way in which religions try to make God responsible for past culturally determined attitudes.”This is the real difficulty religions face in every area of human development,”he said.”If they weld particular phases of human life and cultural development to the will and commandment of God, how can they ever make changes to their life?”In fact, many passionately honest people believe that traditional religions are incapable of making these liberating changes, so they abandon them completely as primitive superstitions incapable of development. This is why many feminists have abandoned Christianity. They see it as incurably patriarchal and oppressive towards women in both its theology and its structures.” Holloway said that if the church denied what he called the very best of modern aspirations _ the longing for justice, freedom, and tolerance _ and bound God inextricably to attitudes running counter to the energy of liberation _”then we are simply identifying God with a previous social dispensation, and God becomes a fetish.” Noting what he called the”interminable dispute”over the precise interpretation of the few biblical texts mentioning same-sex relationships, Holloway said:”We have recently abandoned the text’s tyranny over women, as we abandoned its justification of slavery, and soon we’ll abandon its ignorant misunderstanding of homosexuality. The real moral issue here ought to be not the meaning of the texts themselves, but the appalling way they have been used as a justification for the persecution and punishment of God’s children.”
Cardinal Alberto Bovone, Vatican `saintmaker,’ dead at 75
(RNS) Cardinal Alberto Bovone, the Italian prelate who headed the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints, died Saturday (April 18) after a long illness. He was 75.
As head of the department that oversees the lengthy process of canonization, Bovone wielded enormous power in guiding the complicated process, including the verification of miracles, over who became a saint.
Bovone has headed the congregation since 1995. In February, John Paul made him a cardinal.
Before moving to the congregation for saints, Bovone was the top assistant to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican department that monitors the work of theologians.
Quote of the day: writer Jeremy Rifkin
(RNS)”The problem is that biotechnology has a distinct beginning but no clear end. In the decades to come, we might well barter ourselves away, a gene at a time, in exchange for some measure of temporary well-being. In the long run, the personal and collective security we have fought so hard to preserve may well be irreversibly compromised in our pursuit of engineered perfection.” _ Writer Jeremy Rifkin, author most recently of”The Biotech Centuring: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World”(Tarcher/Putnam), writing in The Washington Post on April 19.
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