c. 1999 Religion News Service
NCC urges peacekeeping force for East Timor amid new killings
(RNS) Amid allegations by the Roman Catholic Church that anti-independence militia in East Timor have massacred nuns, priests and civilians, the National Council of Churches called on the Clinton administration Thursday (Sept. 9) to support a United Nations peacekeeping force in the violence-wracked territory.
News reports from the Vatican and from the East Timor capital of Dili have said three priests were killed in a grenade attack in Suai, East Timor, on Monday.
FIDES, the Vatican-based missionary news service, also said witnesses reported that 15 priests were killed in Dili and Baucau, and some nuns were murdered in Baucau.
East Timor is a largely Roman Catholic territory that has been occupied by Muslim Indonesia since 1975. On Aug. 30, nearly 99 percent of the East Timorese voted in a referendum on the future of the territory. The results, announced Sept. 4, showed more than 78.5 percent of those voting favored independence from Indonesia, sparking an outbreak of violence by anti-independence militias that has left hundreds dead.
In addition to the FIDES reports, the Roman Catholic aid agency Caritas said the director of its East Timor operations, the Rev. Francisco Barretto, had been killed.
The apparent killings have led the Vatican to escalate its concern over the situation and give support for a peacekeeping force.”The Holy See backs the efforts of the international community, in particular that of the Security Council, so that a resolution is adopted in favor of creating an international peace force,”the Vatican’s foreign minister said Wednesday.”The solution to the problem is to be found in respect for the history and the traditions of the Timorese people and respect for international law and certainly not through violence,”Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran told Vatican Radio.
The executive board of the NCC, in adopting the statement calling for an international peacekeeping force, said it”has been made aware of various urgent reports from ecumenical partners and Church World Service staff on the ground”in East Timor. CWS is the council’s relief arm.
The call for an international force in Indonesia represents an escalation of the NCC’s stance. On Sept. 2, the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, the NCC’s general secretary, called on Clinton to”make a clear statement to the Indonesian government that the violence must stop and that there will be material consequences if they do not fulfill their responsibility,”but stopped short of calling for intervention.
The executive board issued the new statement because”the situation has changed dramatically for the worse”since Campbell’s appeal.
Religious leaders back clemency for Puerto Rican activists
(RNS) Mainline Protestant religious leaders are voicing their support for President Clinton’s decision to grant conditional clemency to 12 Puerto Rican independence activists who have agreed to forswear violence.”We are pleased that you agreed with so many of us _ and with international human rights leaders such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Coretta Scott King _ that the sentences received by these prisoners were excessive and disproportionate, given that they were not convicted, or even accused, of any bombing, injury or death,”said the Rev. Paul Sherry, president of the United Church of Christ in a Sept. 8 letter to Clinton.”With you, we affirm the constitutional presumption of innocence and insist that these prisoners should not be held guilty by association for violent acts for which they were neither accused nor convicted,”Sherry said.
The Puerto Ricans _ a total of 16 in all _ were members and leaders of the Puerto Rican independence group FALN, or Armed Forces of National Liberation, which has been linked to a series of bombings in the 1970s and 1980s.
In the early and mid-1980s, the 16 were sentenced to prison terms of between 35 and 90 years for crimes ranging from conspiracy to possessing unregistered firearms but were not linked to any of the violent acts allegedly carried out by FALN members.
On Aug. 12, Clinton offered to free the prisoners if they agreed to renounce violence. The clemency offer has caused a firestorm of reaction from law enforcement officials and pitted the president against his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is considering a run for the U.S. Senate from New York.
Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, auxiliary bishop of New York, noted that the prisoners had renounced violence as long ago as 1997.”In 1997, in a public statement to the House of Representatives, they committed themselves to peaceful means, and they reaffirmed this a few days ago because so many people seemed unaware that this was already their position,” he said.
Sherry noted that one of the prisoners, already released, is the wife of a United Church of Christ pastor and another is the son of the same pastor.”For us, this is not only a justice issue; it is also a pastoral one,”Sherry said.
The church has been on record favoring the release of the prisoners since 1991.
English priests urge church remarriage for divorced Catholics
(RNS) The National Conference of Priests of England and Wales has urged Roman Catholic Church officials to consider adopting the Orthodox Church’s manner of dealing with divorce and remarriage and allow divorced persons to be remarried in the church.
By a 65-1 vote, with two abstentions, the NCP at its annual meeting, which ends Friday (Sept. 10), urged further examination of the Orthodox tradition with regard to recognizing the second marriages of divorced persons and the consequent admission of such people to communion.
A panel of 20 priests who brought the proposal to the conference said they believed ordinary Catholics are able to distinguish those who may and those who may not in good conscience receive communion.
The group also said it was concerned with cases where for various reasons _ including a desire not to reopen old wounds _ the evidence was not available for a Church tribunal to declare a first marriage null.
One priest told the conference of the case of a young Catholic man who wanted to marry a non-Catholic divorcee whose first marriage ended in divorce because her husband was in the habit of beating her up.
Because she was not a Catholic, her secular marriage was regarded as valid. If she had been a Catholic, it would have been deemed invalid and there would have been no problem over a church wedding. The young man married her in a civil ceremony and has broken completely with the church.
In another proposition _ adopted by a majority of 91 percent _ the priests asked the Roman authorities to trust parish priests to make appropriate use of the third rite of penance _ i.e., services of penance with general absolution.
The rite was introduced in the 1970s and was found, somewhat paradoxically, to lead to an increase in the number of people going to individual confession.
The NCP also asked its standing committee to set up a working group to look into the declining number of priests and to develop principles and strategies to deal with the issue. It recommended setting up a joint working committee with the bishops’ conference to examine the benefit of a national pension scheme for the Roman Catholic clergy to replace the present patchwork of individual diocesan schemes.
Four Greek Orthodox professors reinstated
(RNS) Four professors whose dismissals precipitated the uprising in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America that culminated in the removal of former Archbishop Spyridon have been reinstated at the church’s college and seminary in Brookline, Mass.”It is with deep joy and relief that the faithful of the Archdiocese of America receive the news that this unhappy situation has come to a rather satisfactory conclusion,”Bishop George, the archdiocese’s temporary administrator, said in a statement released Wednesday (Sept. 8).
The four professors _ Alkiviadis Calivas, George Papademetriou, Theodore Stylianopoulos and Economos Emmanuel Clapsis, all priests _ were dismissed by Spyridon after they complained about an alleged coverup of a sexual encounter involving a visiting priest and a seminarian.
The incident led to widespread disenchantment within the archdiocese, and Spyridon was forced to resign under pressure in August, some three years after he was named head of the 1.5 million-member archdiocese. His successor, Archbishop Demitrios, is scheduled to be formally installed in New York Sept. 18.
The Rev. Damaskinos V. Ganas, whom Spyridon installed in 1998 as president of Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, resigned within days of Spyridon stepping down. A new president has yet to be named.
Evidence missing in French Scientology case
(RNS) French officials are investigating the disappearance of an estimated three tons of evidence related to an upcoming trial involving the Church of Scientology, a controversial group in France where officials consider it a cult.
Although a lawyer for the plaintiff in the case alleged that Scientology may be involved in the disappearance, French officials say”negligence”by a court clerk appears to be the cause.
The missing documents relate to a 1990 probe of Church of Scientology officials in Marseille and Nice for alleged fraud, illegally practicing medicine and premeditated violence, the Associated Press reported. A former church member raised the charges.
Seven church leaders are scheduled to go on trial Sept. 20, and court officials said Wednesday (Sept. 8) the trial, postponed in 1995, will proceed.
Elisabeth Guigou, France’s justice minister, said”at first glance”the court clerk’s action in disposing of the sealed files was”an error.” However, Jean-Michel Pesenti, the lawyer for the plaintiff, said”we can imagine anything. Why not an infiltration by Scientology?” Officials with the Los Angeles-based church charged Pesenti with”trying to corrupt the integrity of the French judicial system.”
British freeze bank accounts of `Kosher Sex’ rabbi’s group
(RNS) British authorities have frozen the bank accounts of an Oxford University student group formed by a rabbi who has authored popular books about sex and Judaism.
Orthodox Rabbi Shmuley Boteach _ author of”Kosher Sex”and”The Jewish Guide to Adultery”_ organized the L’Chaim Society for Oxford University’s Jewish students. But the society’s six-figure annual cash flow has raised eyebrows _ and drawn the attention of British officials who monitor the nation’s charitable trusts, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency news service reported Wednesday (Sept. 8).
The officials have temporarily frozen the society’s bank accounts as they investigate whether the group improperly contributed to mortgage payments for Boteach’s $600,000 home.
Society trustees said the payments were made only after consulting with attorneys and that”jealous opponents”upset with the rabbi’s unorthodox ways gave the charity commission”stolen documents”in an effort to launch the probe.
Quote of the day: Nancy Kirkpatrick, Warner Bros. spokeswoman
(RNS)”We didn’t know. Mr. Kubrick didn’t know.” _ Nancy Kirkpatrick, a spokeswoman for Warner Bros., explaining that neither the film company nor director Stanley Kubrick realized that sacred Hindu chants were used in an orgy scene in the movie”Eyes Wide Shut.”Following complaints from Hindus, the chants were to be edited out of versions of the film sent to Europe and South Africa.
DEA END RNS
