c. 1999 Religion News Service

U.S. Catholic head says Israel bowing to extremists on Nazareth mosque

(RNS) The president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops says Israel has bowed to”extremist demands”by agreeing to construction of a mosque near the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.

Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza, head of the diocese of Galveston-Houston in Texas, leveled his charge in a Oct. 29 letter to President Clinton that was made public Monday (Nov. 1).

Fiorenza urged Clinton to convey his”great concern”over the mosque to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The two men met in Oslo, Norway, Monday during the Middle East peace summit. It was not immediately known whether Clinton raised the issue.

Nazareth Muslims in 1997 erected a makeshift mosque on a half-acre of open land near the basilica, built over the site where Christians believe the Angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary she would give birth to Jesus. Catholic Church officials want to construct a plaza on the land to help accommodate the many pilgrims expected to visit Nazareth for the millennium.

Pope John Paul II is expected to be among the pilgrims, but the Vatican has warned that the dispute could scuttle his visit.

Israel tried to defuse the conflict by proposing a smaller mosque than originally sought by the city’s Muslims. Instead, Catholic and other Holy Land Christians have bitterly criticized Israel for its decision.

In his letter, Fiorenza noted that an Israeli court had rejected Muslim claims to the land in question. He also noted that Palestinian Authority head Yasser Arafat is reportedly against the mosque.

Reports about Arafat’s opposition have said he is concerned about angering the Vatican as Palestinians get closer to obtaining an independent state.

Fiorenza said Israel’s action”raised real concerns about the Israeli government’s capacity to provide adequate protection and access to holy places and to safeguard the rights of religious minorities in the Holy Land.” Meanwhile, Religion News Service learned Tuesday (Nov. 2) of a possible resolution of the dispute, which is being handled in quiet negotiations that have apparently defused some of the tensions.

Both the mosque and the plaza will be constructed as part of the compromise, sources said.”I think the issue is almost solved,”said Lutfi Mash’ur, editor of Nazareth’s A-Sinaara newspaper, an independent weekly.”But Nazareth will never go back to the same Nazareth that it used to be. Something is broken here,”he said, referring to the bad feelings between the community’s Christians and Muslims resulting from the prolonged dispute.

Israeli hotels, rabbis agree on Christmas and New Year’s compromise

(RNS) Israel’s hotels and its Orthodox rabbinical leaders have reached a precedent-setting agreement to permit Christians to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s Eve with all of the traditional trimmings in the country’s major hotels.”Christian guests will be able to practice their customs at these two special events, which in this year also signify to many the beginning of the new millennium,”Avi Rosenthal, director general of the Israel Hotel Association, said Tuesday (Nov. 2).”Music can be played and Christmas trees can be erected for Christian guests in designated areas.” In previous years, hotels in Jewish areas of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and other major cities that erected Christmas trees or staged New Year’s Eve parties risked losing their kosher licenses. The state-controlled rabbis who certify hotels as kosher viewed such activities as violating the spirit of Jewish law, even if they did not directly impact food preparation.

Both Christmas and New Year’s fall on the Jewish Sabbath this year, further complicating the situation. Observant Jews mark the Sabbath by not playing or listening to music. They also do not cook or use electricity from sundown Friday until darkness Saturday evening.

With Israel expecting large numbers of Christian tourists for millennial celebrations, the conflict threatened to cause economic problems for the hotels.

Under the compromise, hotel Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations will be confined to locales that are out of sight of Jewish guests, who presumably will be celebrating the Jewish Sabbath, Rosenthal said.”Christians will be able to get their traditional turkey meal with all of the trimmings _ even though it will also be kosher and cooked before the start of the Sabbath,”said Rosenthal.”The same goes for New Year’s Eve.” He said that no Christmas trees will be erected in public hotel areas, which according to Israel’s chief rabbis must preserve a”Jewish character.” Rosenthal said the hotels are happy with the solution, which he called a”live and let live”compromise. But some tourism operators said the rules will still crimp the style of tourists and pilgrims, who will feel they have to curtail their holiday celebrations.

Most of the major hotels in Jerusalem have kosher licenses, but they are expected to be 95 percent full with Christian tourists in December. Hotels in Arab east Jerusalem and Nazareth, however, which are generally Christian or Muslim-owned and operated, are not bound by rabbinical restrictions and typically erect Christmas trees in their lobbies and celebrate Christmas and New Year’s.

Israel will open emergency exit in Church of the Holy Sepulchre

(RNS) Israel’s Ministry of Public Security is planning to seize the initiative from rival Christian church denominations and open an emergency exit in Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, officials in the ministry said Tuesday (Nov. 2).

Leaders of the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Armenian denominations, which all control different sections of the ancient church structure, have been at odds for months over the question of a second exit in the church where tradition holds that Jesus was buried.

Israeli police fear that the church could pose a fire hazard to some of the million or more millennial pilgrims expected to visit the site, particularly when the church is packed with holiday visitors. There is currently just one entrance and exit to the church.”Vis-a-vis the exit that should be opened in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Minister of Public Security Shlomo Ben Ami believes that it should be the government’s responsibility to guarantee public safety,”Ben Ami spokeswoman Linda Menuhin said.

She said that a government commission had been established this week to decide exactly where the door should be sited and how the necessary construction should proceed.

Privately, leaders of some church denominations have said they would prefer that Israel take charge of the affair in order to break a long-standing impasse over the siting of the exit. Other church leaders, however, resent what they view as government intervention into the status of private church property and tradition.

Disagreements between megachurch, AME Zion Church lead to suits

(RNS) Disagreements between a prominent African-American megachurch and the denomination from which it seeks separation have led to suits and countersuits over property in Prince George’s County, Md.

The debate pits the Rev. John A. Cherry, pastor of From the Heart Church Ministries, against the 200-year-old African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

Cherry’s 24,000-member church in Temple Hills, Md., sued the denomination Aug. 23 and the AME Zion officials countersued Oct. 25, The Washington Times reported.

The litigation could resolve who has ownership of the assets of the church once known as Full Gospel AME Zion Church. Cherry began that church in a storefront in 1981 and it has grown to have two sanctuaries, one in Temple Hills and the other in Clinton, Md.

According to court documents, the church now has 24,000 members meeting in the two sanctuaries for services on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.

Litigation will determine who owns the assets of the church, which include millions of dollars, two buildings, and at least 120 acres in Prince George’s County as well as land in the District of Columbia and a Learjet the pastor uses for worldwide travel.

Full Gospel AME Zion Church changed its name in May 1998 and voted in July to leave the AME Zion Church.”The (AME Zion) denomination has turned a simple difference of religious approaches into a battle over money, property and public reputation,”Cherry’s church said in its lawsuit.

The AME Zion Church counters in its suit that Cherry and his trustees”orchestrated a prolonged, devious scheme to swindle assets and property from the AME Zion denomination.” AME Zion regulations call for the denomination to assume title of local church properties.

Denominational officials charged in their suit that Cherry and his church”continued to reap benefits of AME Zion membership,”which numbers 1.5 million in 10,000 churches on five continents.

From the Heart officials allege in their suit that legal records show there was never a transfer of property titles to the AME Zion Church because of disagreements in 1982.

Japan approves bill aimed at restricting Aum Shinri Kyo activity

(RNS) Japan’s cabinet approved a bill Tuesday (Nov. 2) that aims to restrict the activities of the sect accused of a 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway.

The bill did not directly name Aum Shinri Kyo (Supreme Truth Sect), but said its purpose was to monitor activities of groups engaged in”indiscriminate mass murder,”NHK television of Japan said.

The legislation was approved at a cabinet meeting and was expected to pass during the current session of parliament.

It calls for any group implicated in serious crimes to be under surveillance of the Public Security Investigation Agency for a maximum of three years, Reuters reported. Such groups also could be forced to report on their activities every three months.

Police and public security authorities also could inspect the facilities of such groups at any time they believed it was necessary, the bill says. If a group is found to have committed a crime, it can be prohibited from buying land or facilities for a maximum of six months.

Members of the Aum sect, including leader Shoko Asahara, are on trial and have been convicted in connection with the gas attack, which killed 12 and sickened more than 5,000. In September, one member was sentenced to death for his role in the subway attack.

Police crackdowns and public pressure on the cult have intensified recently in response to fears it could be planning a comeback.

Abandoned Los Angeles cathedral bought by developer

(RNS) St. Vibiana’s Cathedral, the 123-year-old downtown Los Angeles Catholic landmark abandoned because of earthquake damage, has been purchased for $4.6 million by a developer who hopes to make the site the centerpiece of an educational, housing and cultural complex.

The developer, Tom Gilmore, said he expects to spend another $4 million to repair damage caused by the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday (Nov. 2).

Gilmore also purchased adjacent rectory and school buildings.

He said he hopes to use the cathedral and school buildings as performance and teaching facilities. A small hotel and a restaurant are slated for the rectory. The site is just north of land on which he will construct an apartment building.

The Los Angeles archdiocese is constructing a new Our Lady of the Angeles Cathedral at another downtown location. The $163 million structure is expected to open in 2002.

Quote of the day: Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong of Newark, N.J.

(RNS) I’ve been a bishop so long that I’ve seen churches where rigor mortis is too lively a word.” _ Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong of Newark, N.J., speaking recently in Santa Rosa, Calif., at a conference sponsored by the Jesus Seminar.

DEA END RNS