c. 1999 Religion News Service

Catholics criticize judge for halting Cleveland school voucher program

(RNS) A federal judge’s decision to stop a Cleveland school voucher program on the eve of the new semester has been criticized by Catholic groups as”cold-hearted”and”anti-religious.” The decision Tuesday (Aug. 24) by U.S. District Court Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. halted the program one day before school reopened in Cleveland. Oliver’s action came in connection with a lawsuit filed by People for the American Way, a Washington-based civil liberties group that maintains the program violates constitutional church-state safeguards by allowing public funds to pay for parochial school educations.

The 4-year-old program pays up to $2,500 in tuition for children from poor families to attend private schools, either secular or religious. About 4,000 Cleveland children in kindergarten through fifth grade have signed up for the program this year.

Because most of the 56 schools participating in the program are religious institutions, Oliver said the plan appears to have the”primary effect of advancing religion.” The Ohio attorney general’s office immediately appealed the ruling. However, Oliver’s decision halts the program until a trial resolves the issue.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, which operates many of the schools that accept the vouchers, said it will maintain the status quo for now, the Associated Press reported. Nonetheless, the decision prompted confusion among parents, students and educators.”I can think of no more cold-hearted decision for children, especially inner-city children who often have more than enough hurdles in life,”said Leonard DeFiore, president of the National Catholic Educational Association.”The timing of the injunction has special irony. This is summer’s grand finale when parents are scrambling to buy supplies and help youngsters complete reading lists. The last thing they should worry about is legal interference on their rights to choose schools for their children.” William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, a religious rights organization, said the judge’s ruling”smacks of an anti-religious bias that clearly compromises his ability to rule objectively on this issue.” He said”the Cleveland program has the primary effect of advancing, not religion, but parental choice. Judge Oliver does not like the choices parents are making, so in a shocking display of judicial arrogance, he is simply overruling their decisions about the education of their children.” Coalition affirming gays criticizes James Dobson

(RNS) A coalition of religious leaders that supports gays and lesbians is accusing James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family, of spreading”false and inflammatory rhetoric”about homosexuals through his worldwide broadcast and print ministry.

The National Religious Leadership Roundtable leveled the charges in a letter delivered Wednesday (Aug. 25) to the influential Colorado Springs, Colo.-based evangelical Christian ministry.

The roundtable, an interfaith group of about 40 people that formed in 1998, drafted the letter Tuesday at the close of a two-day semiannual conference held in Colorado Springs. The group chose the city, headquarters to several conservative ministries and groups, because it wanted to present an alternative view on spirituality and homosexuality.

The letter charges that Focus on the Family’s”anti-homosexual campaign leads directly and indirectly to broken families, to divided churches, and to suffering and death to God’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people.” The group asked for a meeting with Dobson”to hear our case, and together to begin a process of seeking truth about homosexuality and homosexuals.” The goal is not to sway Dobson or Focus on the Family from its moral stand on the issue, said the Rev. Nori Rost, a roundtable participant and pastor of the Pikes Peak Metropolitan Community Church in Colorado Springs. The church is affiliated with the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, a denomination that ministers primarily to gays and lesbians.”What we really want is to have a dialogue about this,”Rost said.”It’s OK if they disagree. No one’s asking them to embrace gays and lesbians or advocate for same-sex marriages. What we want to see stopped is the dangerous rhetoric that portrays gays and lesbians as monsters.” Dobson was on vacation and unavailable to respond to the letter, said Amy Tracy, a Focus on the Family spokeswoman. However, she said it’s unlikely he would meet with the group because the letter’s authors”have bashed him all over”in the past.”To say homosexuality is a sin … that’s not Dr. Dobson _ that’s God,”Tracy said.”They should take it up with God because the Bible is very clear that homosexuality is a sin.” John Paulk, one of three former homosexuals working full time on gay issues at Focus on the Family, said the ministry’s message is neither false nor inflammatory. It is simply a response to an”aggressive homosexual agenda”advanced nationwide, he said.”We are not assaulting the gay community,”Paulk said.”We don’t have a campaign against anybody.” Chinese underground church leader reportedly arrested

(RNS) A leader of the Protestant”house church”movement in China has been arrested, according to a report.

Zhang Rongliang, described as”a highly visible and outspoken leader”of Henan’s Fangcheng Fellowship, was arrested Sunday (Aug. 22), according to a report by Newsroom, an evangelical Christian-oriented news service based in Oxford, England.

Newsroom said it could not reveal the source for its report”for security reasons.” Zhang, in his 40s, is one of China’s better-known leaders of the house church movement, as congregations not officially registered with the Beijing government are called. Because China requires the registration of all religious groups, the house church movement, is considered illegal by authorities and is largely underground.

Zhang’s arrest follows the seizure Aug. 18 of eight other leaders of the house church movement, Newsroom said.

The news service noted that the arrest of Zhang and the others coincides with China’s crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual sect, which has been banned following its staging of large demonstrations against the government.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Falun Gong leaders may face life in prison because of the government’s desire to demonstrate that it will allow no activities it considers subversive. State Department spokesman James B. Foley said the U.S. government has urged China not to prosecute the Falun Gong leaders.

The house church movement is also looked upon by officials as subversive because it operates outside the direct control of the Chinese government.

Georgetown University names first Muslim chaplain

(RNS) In a further sign of Islam’s growth in the United States, Georgetown University, the nation’s oldest Roman Catholic university, has appointed its first Muslim chaplain.

School officials said they believe Yahya Hendi is also the first Muslim chaplain at any major university in the nation.

Georgetown, located in Washington, D.C., has a growing”self-identified”Muslim student population. About 2.8 percent of its 6,000 undergraduate students say they are Muslims. About 60 percent of the students call themselves Catholic.

Hendi, who has a bachelor’s degree in Islamic law and theology from the University of Jordan in Amman, and a master’s in comparative religions from Hartford Seminary, began work at Georgetown earlier this month (August). He joined more than 30 staff and resident university chaplains at Georgetown.”I hope that my presence will enhance the flow of ideas between the university’s Muslim community and the broader campus culture.”Hendi said in a statement.”My position, which is, we believe, the first of its kind at a major American university, is a milestone in the history of U.S. institutions of higher education in terms of a growing responsiveness to Muslim communities on campus.” Hendi, who is studying for a doctorate in philosophy and comparative religions at Temple University, has served as a chaplain at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., and as imam and religious affairs director at the Islamic Center of Charlotte, N.C.

Quote of the Day: the Rev. Donna E. Schaper

(RNS)”If I offer you what I know of God as a gift, I have the good manners of evangelism. If I offer you what I know of God as a club, I have the bad manners of evangelism. The difference is control.” _ The Rev. Donna E. Schaper, a United Church of Christ minister in Ludlow, Mass., from her new book,”Raising Interfaith Children: Spiritual Orphans or Spiritual Heirs?”(Crossroad Publishing Co.)

IR END RNS