c. 1999 Religion News Service
Lawsuit seeks to void Florida voucher plan
(RNS) Florida has become the nation’s first state to allow students statewide to attend private secular or religious schools with the aid of tax dollars. The voucher plan, which begins with the upcoming school year, is open to students whose public schools are deemed to be “failing.”
One day after Republican Gov. Jeb Bush signed the plan into law, opponents Tuesday (June 22) filed lawsuit in an attempt to have it declared unconstitutional. Bush countered by saying he was assembling a legal team to defend the plan, part of a far-reaching educational reform program that was a cornerstone of his run for governor last year.
“We’re going to give parents other options when their schools _ the most important public service that we provide _ don’t work for their needs,” Bush said.
The Florida plan allows students in schools that receive an “F” rating by the state to get up to $4,000 a year to help defray the cost of attending a private school, including a religious one.
Two elementary schools in Pensacola are the first to qualify for the voucher plan, although others are expected to be added.
Opponents say the vouchers violate federal and Florida constitutional guarantees of church-state separation by allowing tax dollars to go to religious schools. “Taxpayers should never be forced to pay for religious instruction,” said Sidney Goetz, president of the Tampa Bay chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Opponents also say the program will harm Florida’s public schools, which already rank near the bottom in standardized test scores, by siphoning off much-needed funds. “This (program) sends out the message, `the public schools have failed and nothing can fix them,”’ said Jack Lieberman, southeast region president of the American Jewish Congress.
Courts in other states with more limited voucher plans have sent mixed messages on the constitutionality of such programs. Earlier this month, the American Center for Law and Justice, established by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, said it would appeal a Maine appeals court decision barring the use of vouchers to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Baptist-Anglican talks to begin in 2000
(RNS) After an eight-year delay, interfaith discussions between Baptists and Anglicans are being scheduled to foster understanding between the two religious groups.
The Baptist World Alliance agreed to start the talks with the Anglican Consultative Council in 2000 to demonstrate “our oneness in the gospel, our common faith in Jesus Christ and our desire for active fellowship as God’s people,” the alliance announced.
Plans were developed during a May meeting in London with alliance officials and leaders of the Anglican council and the Church of England.
The meetings were proposed eight years ago but financial constraints prevented the ACC from starting the talks at the time. But the 1998 Lambeth Conference of Bishops declared that such conversations were a priority.
“We look forward to these significant conversations which will enable both communions to share what they have in common, and to learn from one another about those issues where we can both be mutually encouraging,” said BWA General Secretary Denton Lotz.
In addition to gaining understanding of similarities and differences between the two faith groups, officials hope to determine potential areas of cooperation in mission and community activities.
The meetings, scheduled for a four-year-period, will be held in North America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa and Asia.
Presbyterian Church in America studying the length of creation days
(RNS) The Presbyterian Church in America, in a theologically conservative Reformed denomination, has agreed to take another year to study one of the most contentious issues in the 300,000-member church _ the length of the days of creation.
Delegates to the PCA’s General Assembly that met June 15-18 in Louisville, Ky., gave the committee studying the issue another year before reporting back.
Pastors of the denomination are required to affirm the doctrines contained in the 17th century Westminster Confession of Faith.
Some consider that to mean endorsement of a literal 24-hour length for each of the six days in which the biblical book of Genesis says God created all things. Others in the denomination consider that those days could have been longer periods of time.
Commissioners, as delegates are known, also received a report on another issue that has divided the church _ women in military and women in combat.
The commissioners also agreed to extend for another year a study looking at the issue, especially at the biblical propriety of women serving in combat and how the Bible would view the more general issue of women in the military.
Some in the denomination believe the Bible counsels against women serving at all in the military, especially in combat. Others doubt the Bible takes such a position.
In the report received by the commissioners, the study committee recommended against drafting women and against inclusion of women in combat. It also said chaplains should not be required to support a philosophy that would include women in such roles.
In other action, commissioners elected Tom Leopard, a lay leader in Briarwood Presbyterian Church, Birmingham, Ala., to be the denomination’s moderator for the coming year.
Leopard, part-time administrator at Briarwood Christian School in Birmingham, has been a delegate to every General Assembly since 1974, the year after the PCA’s founding, and currently serves on the denomination’s Standing Judicial Committee.
Hungarian churches give OK to antennae in steeples
(RNS) Hungary’s Roman Catholic Church has given its blessing to a plan to install mobile phone antennae in church towers.
A spokesman for the church said it did not want to pass up the chance to collect the 1 million forints _ $4,150 _ a year in rent for each antenna.
“A million forints is a big help to churches in poor parishes,” Andras Szabo, a spokesman for the church’s property management agency, told Reuters.
At the same time, Szabo said churches could opt not have an antenna installed if the priest believed it would interfere with the spiritual convictions of the parish.
But he said the antennae would be placed out of sight.
Over 1,000 Catholic churches would qualify as potential sites.
Chinese choice for Panchen Lama returns to Tibet
(RNS) A 9-year-old boy chosen by China to be the Panchen Lama has returned to Tibet, escalating the dispute between Beijing and the exiled Dalai Lama over who is Tibet’s second ranking Buddhist spiritual leader.
In 1995, the Dalai Lama angered Beijing, which occupies once-independent Tibet and considers it a historical part of China, by announcing his own choice for the reincarnated Panchen Lama.
After the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama is revered by Tibetan Buddhists as their second leading religious leader. The previous Panchen Lama died in 1989.
China retaliated by placing the Dalai Lama’s choice, also 9, under arrest and naming their own choice. China’s Panchen Lama, Gyaincain Norbu, has reportedly been receiving an education from Tibetan monks in China since his appointment. After returning to Tibet for the first time, he went to the monastery where his predecessor was abbot, Reuters news service reported Monday (June 21).
Tibetan Buddhists believe that the essence of dead high-ranking spiritual leaders reincarnate to continue their work in the world helping others.
The vast majority of Tibetans, most of whom are Buddhists, remain loyal to the Dalai Lama, who fled his homeland in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
Update: Pope tells German bishops to clarify anti-abortion stand
(RNS) Pope John Paul II has encouraged German bishops to continue counseling pregnant women but told them to specify that the certificates they issue the women do not qualify them for a legal abortion, the Vatican said Tuesday (June 22).
The Vatican released the text of a letter, dated June 3, in which the Roman Catholic pontiff directed the bishops to state in the certificate that the document “cannot be used for the execution of a legal abortion.”
The general contents of the letter were first reported last week in Germany but without any specifics.
Reports from Germany said the bishops met at Wuerzburg Monastery in Bavaria today to discuss the pope’s letter and that Bishop Karl Lehmann of Mainz, president of the bishops conference, would announce the results of the meeting at a news conference Wednesday.
“We have taken a step forward, perhaps a decisive one,” Archbishop Johannes Dyba of Fulda said.
German law requires a woman seeking an abortion to present a certificate from a counseling service with which she has discussed her decision. The Catholic church runs a number of counseling centers.
Some abortion opponents contend that by issuing the certificates the church appears to be giving its stamp of approval to abortion. Others argue that by being able to issue the certificates, the church attracts more women to counseling that could change their minds about having an abortion.
Reviewing an exchange of letters with the bishops on the issue that began last December, the pope said, “Not only have I invited you to continue without hesitation but rather to further re-enforce as much as possible counseling and aid to pregnant women in difficulty.
“At the same time, in order to clarify our witness to the inviolability of every human life, I have invited you to make sure that in the counseling, ecclesiastics or employees of the church no longer issue the certificate that under the law constitutes the presupposition necessary for a legal abortion,”he said.
The bishops responded in March by proposing that in addition to counseling the women, they offer them support and aid.
The pope responded by saying the offer of aid should encourage more women in difficulty to turn to the church for help and ensure “the church remains present in an effective manner in the counseling of pregnant women.”
But, he said, to remove any “legal or moral” ambiguity about the certificate they issue the women, it must contain the phrase: “This certificate cannot be used for the execution of a legal abortion.”
Quote of the day: Freda Gardner, new moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
(RNS) “It’s Christ’s church not ours. And we get in trouble whenever we think otherwise.”
_ Elder Freda Gardner, newly elected moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) at a news conference June 19 after her election in which she said Presbyterians need to pray together to overcome the divisions that threaten the denomination.
RL DEA END RNS
