c. 1999 Religion News Service
National Catholic Reporter seeks image of Jesus for new millennium
(RNS)”Who do people say I am?”Jesus once asked his disciples.
He might have asked, what do you think I look like, say the editors of National Catholic Reporter, the Kansas City, Mo.-based independent Catholic newspaper.
To say, for example, he is the image of the Good Shepherd, just doesn’t do it these days.
So the NCR editors, noting that in the 2000 years that have elapsed since Jesus walked the earth he has probably been the most popular subject of the visual arts, are looking for a face, a persona, an image of”Christ for a new millennium.” And so they have launched a contest, inviting artwork in any and all visual media, including painting, drawing, watercolor, mixed media, sculpture, photography, stained glass, computer art, silk-screen and ceramic.
And they’re offering a first prize of $2,000, with three additional prizes of $200 each.”More important than the prizes, perhaps, will be the distinction of creating a significant work of art at a privileged and vital moment in our history,”the editors said in announcing the contest.”Even in this weary culture there remains a hunger for the divine and an urge to search for transcendent life,”they said.
Deadline for entries _ in slides only _ is Oct. 18, with the winners announced in the Christmas (Dec. 24) issue of NCR. There is a nonrefundable entry fee of $20.
The newspaper plans to create a special issue of 30-50 of the top entries.
Eds: For more information on the contest, contact Michael Farrell at 816-968-2251, or see the NCR Web site at http://www.nathcath.org).
McFarland joins religious freedom commission as executive director
(RNS) Steven T. McFarland, director of the Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom, has been named executive director of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
As its chief full-time staffer, McFarland will coordinate the daily operation of the commission, which was created by congressional passage of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act. The act made religious freedom abroad an official U.S. foreign policy concern.
The commission, which plays an advisory role only, will monitor religious freedom abroad and recommend appropriate U.S. responses to cases of religious persecution.
McFarland has long been active on the religious freedom issue. In addition to his work for the past eight and one-half years as the Christian Legal Society’s top official for litigation and lobbying, he has worked in Washington for passage of various domestic religious liberty bills.
McFarland will assume his new post Sept. 7. Michael K. Young, the commission’s vice chairman, said the panel hopes eventually to have a staff of between six and 12 full-time employees. The commission, the last of whose nine members were appointed by the White House earlier this year, has yet to secure office space, Young said Monday (Aug. 16).
Meanwhile, the Christian Legal Society announced that McFarland will be replaced by Carl H. Esbeck, a University of Missouri law professor.
The society, founded in 1961 and based in Annandale, Va., is a national membership organization of Christian attorneys, judges, law professors, law students and others.
Pope urged to delay trip to ex-Soviet state of Georgia
(RNS) Georgia’s Orthodox Church has suggested Pope John Paul II delay a trip to the ex-Soviet state until 2001 due to fighting in the North Caucasus region, a church spokeswoman said Monday (Aug. 16).”We think it might be more appropriate to postpone the pope’s visit … due to the current unstable situation in the Caucasus,”Shorena Tetruashvili, a spokeswoman for the Georgian Orthodox Church told Reuters.
The North Caucasus Russian republic of Dagestan, which Georgia borders, has been the scene of intense fighting for the last 10 days between Russian forces and Muslim guerrillas seeking independence for the largely Islamic republic.
The Orthodox spokeswoman told Reuters that Patriarch Iliya II had offered two possible dates for a John Paul visit _ this November or 2001. The Roman Catholic pontiff is expected to limit his travels next year to the Holy Land.
According to the church official, the agreement that the pope would visit Georgia was made on Sunday during a visit to to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi by Vatican Deputy Secretary of State Archbishop Giovanni Battista Re.
Illinois court rules against Scouts on gay policy
(RNS) An Illinois court on Saturday (Aug. 14) upheld a fine and sanctions against the Boy Scouts of America in Chicago for discouraging a job application from a gay man.
Cook County Circuit Judge Stephen Schiller approved a token $100 fine levied against the Scouts by the Chicago Commission on Human Relations and enjoined the BSA’s Chicago Area Council from enforcing or publishing rules agains hiring homosexuals.”Heterosexual orientation is not a bona fide job qualification,”Schiller said in his ruling, the Washington Times reported.
It is the second time in two weeks that the Boy Scout policy banning gays from the movement has been rejected in the courts. On Aug. 4, the New Jersey Supreme Court said the Scouts violated the state’s anti-bias laws by expelling a gay Eagle Scout in 1990.
The New Jersey court, in a ruling relied on by Schiller in his Chicago decision, rejected the Boy Scouts’ claim that it is a”distinctly private organization”whose constitutional right of association would be impinged upon if it accepted members or leaders who are gay.”Of course we disagree, but it’s a pretty limited ruling, applying only in one city and untested on appeal,”said Gregg Shields, the national spokesman for the Dallas-based BSA. “We’re confident higher courts will rule that as a private voluntary association we do have these rights,”he said.
In a separate but related matter, The Providence Journal reported over the weekend that officials of the BSA are launching a study into what makes a person gay, USA Today said Monday.
Some 100,000 Vietnamese Catholics mark Mary apparition
(RNS) In one of the largest outpourings of Christians in communist Vietnam, more than 100,000 Roman Catholics ended a yearlong celebration Sunday (Aug. 15) of the 200th anniversary of an apparition of the Virgin Mary, the only such sighting in Southeast Asia.
Over the three-day celebration, more than 200,000 people streamed into the village of La Vang in central Vietnam in what was described as the Catholic church’s largest public gathering ever in the country.”Step by step, the government has eased restrictions on religion and given people more freedom to pursue their beliefs,”the Associated Press reported one pilgrim as saying.
The Vietnamese government has at times had a strained relationship with organized religion, but has also sought churches as allies in its effort to combat drug abuse, prostitution and corruption.
Both the U.S. State Department and the United Nations’ special rapporteur on religious intolerance have been critical of Vietnam’s record on religious freedom.
Although police monitored and videotaped the gathering in La Vang, they also maintained a hands-off policy to the event. Security was provided by the church.
The La Vang festival marked the Virgin Mary’s appearance in the village in 1798, a time when Catholics were being persecuted by the then Vietnamese emperor, Reuters reported. Taking refuge in the forest, the Catholics were visited by an apparition of Mary holding a child in her arms.
About 8 million of Vietnam’s 76 million people are Catholic.
Quote of the day: the Dalai Lama
(RNS)”My life, when I look back, has not been easy. One thing I learned was that compassion, a sense of caring, thinking about others’ welfare, that sort of mental attitude brings me inner peace.” _ Tibetan Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama speaking Sunday (Aug. 15) to some 40,000 people in New York’s Central Park as quoted by The New York Times.
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