c. 1999 Religion News Service
Report: China seeks Vatican ties but will crack down on Roman Catholics
(RNS) China wants to re-establish diplomatic relations with the Vatican as a means of improving its international image, but at the same time hopes to crush the underground Chinese Roman Catholic Church, a missionary news agency has reported.
Fides, the news agency of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, said Tuesday (Nov. 9) it learned of the strategy from a secret document of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of China’s Communist Party and other confidential information supplied by party functionaries in Beijing.
China’s communist government began persecuting Catholics following its defeat of Nationalist forces in 1949. It established a state-controlled Patriotic Association of Chinese Catholics in 1957, forcing Catholics loyal to the pope underground.
Although Vatican officials have expressed interest in reestablishing relations with China, it is highly unlikely the church would sacrifice its underground members to do so.”The government considers diplomatic relations, which could give China a new image in international politics, very important,”Fides quoted its sources in Beijing as saying.”Diplomatic relations with the Vatican would demonstrate that the development of democracy is real, that the reforms of the Chinese society are a fact, and China needs concrete gestures to demonstrate its progress (and) development (of) democracy.” Fides said the 16-page party document, dated Aug. 16, analyzed the situation”before and after the resumption of diplomatic relations.””The normalization of relations with the Vatican is an occasion favorable for gaining the majority of the members of the underground church and making sure that the hard nuts among them coming out of clandestinity do not take power in the patriotic church,”the document said.”They should be transferred to other places of residence, the old pensioned off and their seminaries and convents dismantled,”the document said. It said those who refuse”education will be denied every right of carrying out the activity of a priest.””Large meetings and demonstrations”will be avoided, the document continued, and Catholics”will not be permitted to rebuild all the destroyed edifices of the underground church.” The Vatican has no statistics on the membership of the underground church, but in 1949 there were 3.5 million to 4 million Catholics in China, making up less than 1 percent of the total population.
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state, has indicated that the Vatican was willing to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan in order to normalize relations with China. But Chinese President Jiang Zemin had no contact with the Vatican during his official visit to Italy in March, and a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said that to improve relations, the Vatican must”not interfere in internal Chinese affairs with the excuse of religious activities.”
Texas Baptist convention rejects Southern Baptist submission statement
(RNS) The Baptist General Convention of Texas has rejected the revised statement of faith adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1998 because of its call for wives to”submit … graciously”to their husbands.
A delegate to the convention from Memorial Drive Baptist Church in Houston made the motion to continue to embrace the previous statement of faith, which contains no such language concerning wives.
Bob Newell, pastor of the Houston church, asked the delegates to”affirm, in its entirety, the Baptist Faith and Message Statement, as adopted in 1963, as an unifying statement of our common faith and practice.” A proposed amendment that would have affirmed the 1998 version was rejected overwhelmingly, just as Newell’s motion passed Tuesday (Nov. 10) by a large margin.
The 1998 version of the”Baptist Faith and Message”says:”A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.”
The action by the BGCT, the largest state convention of Southern Baptists with 2.7 million members, marks the first time a regional Southern Baptist body has rejected the new denominational statement.
Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, reacted with statements pointing out the different stances on the family.”I am grateful that the BGCT leadership has made crystal clear for the sake of Texas Baptist churches where they stand on family and church issues,”said Southern Baptist Convention President Paige Patterson, a Texas native.”Now it is up to the churches to decide with whom they agree _ with a liberal, culturally acceptable view of family and church, or with a Christ-honoring, Bible-believing perspective.” Before the vote, the Rev. Clyde Glazener of Fort Worth, Texas, the new president of the state convention, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that the statement about submission was a”Neanderthal”amendment and demeaning to women.”We need to endorse the 1963 statement because it does not include barbs about women being subservient,”said Glazener.
Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said the amendment is”little more than a paraphrase of the Apostle Paul’s teaching”concerning the relationship between husbands and wives.”Let it be clearly understood that Dr. Glazener and those who support him in the intent of the BGCT’s motion have a disagreement with the Apostle Paul, not merely with the Southern Baptist Convention,”said Land, who served on the drafting committee for the statement’s new article on the family.”As for me and my house, we are going to stick with the Apostle Paul.”
Tired pope asks prayers for”seeds planted”during India, Georgia trip (RNS) Twelve hours after his return from a visit to India and the Republic of Georgia, a tired looking Pope John Paul II appeared at his study window Wednesday (Nov. 10) to ask pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square below to pray for the”seeds planted”during the trip.
The Vatican canceled the pope’s weekly Wednesday general audience to give him time to recover from the trip, but several thousand pilgrims gathered to hear a brief message, which he delivered in a slow and halting voice, at times stumbling over his words.
The trip raised new fears for the health of the 79-year-old pontiff, who is believed to suffer from Parkinson’s disease. He appeared near collapse Monday when he arrived in cold and windy Georgia after leaving the heat and humidity of India.”I hope that the pope will decide to rest a little after this trip,”Dr. Corrado Manni, the anesthesiologist at the five operations the pope has undergone since 1981, told an Italian news agency.
Manni said that in spite of his age, the pope”enjoys a strong constitution and his physique has always overcome all these trials very well. But these long journeys, which subject him to different time zones and drastic changes of temperature are certainly not useful for him. Even popes suffer jet lag.” Addressing the pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square, John Paul asked them to pray with him that”the seeds planted during this apostolic trip be made fertile.” The pope traveled to New Delhi to present an”apostolic exhortation”growing out of an assembly of Asian bishops at the Vatican last year. It was one of a series of continentwide synods of bishops he called to set the church’s course at the start of Christianity’s third millennium.
Despite the hostility of Hindu fundamentalists, who demanded an end to”forced conversions,”the pope called on the bishops to spread the”new evangelism”throughout the continent of Asia, where Christians are now a small minority.
In Georgia, John Paul hoped to advance the cause of reconciliation between the Catholic and Orthodox churches, estranged since the schism of 1054. The Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Ilia II has been one of the friendliest of Orthodox leaders. He met with the pope at the Vatican in 1982 and 1991 and sent observers to the first synod of European bishops in 1991.
But at their meeting in Tbilisi, the patriarch ignored the pope’s invitation to ecumenical dialogue, and the Georgian Holy Synod instructed Orthodox not to attend the mass John Paul celebrated in a sports stadium.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said that, nevertheless, a joint document by the pope and patriarch appealing for peace in the Caucasus was a significant”first step”toward dialogue.
House panel backs sex trafficking bill
(RNS) A House of Representatives committee has backed proposed legislation that would stiffen prison terms for international sex trafffickers in women and children.
The House International Relations Committee Tuesday (Nov. 9) approved the measure, which has support from many of the same religious groups that previously banded together to help pass the Internal Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
The proposed Freedom From Sexual Trafficking Act of 1999 would increase penalties to up to life in prison for those convicted in the United States of engaging in sexual trafficking. Sponsors say some 50,000 individuals, mostly women and girls, are brought into the United States annually by sexual traffickers.
The bill, co-authored by Reps. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, would also authorize $75 million over two years for victim assistance. The measure would also require the White House to establish a commission to monitor the situation abroad and would prohibit non-humanitarian U.S. aid to nations identified as not trying hard enough to stop the international sex trade.
Woman charges job threatened for saying”have a blessed day” (RNS) A woman who traditionally says”have a blessed day”at her office has filed a federal complaint against her employer who ordered her to stop using the phrase.
Liz Anderson, an office coordinator at USF Logistics in Indianapolis, filed the charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Tuesday (Nov. 9) in an effort, she said, to protect her religious freedom.”You never know when the Lord is going to call on you to be his servant, to be a tool, to be a vessel,”she said.”I’m just trying to stay focused on the original situation, and that is that I want to be able to say `Have a blessed day,’ without the threat of being fired.” For three years, Anderson has worked for the Chicago-based warehouse and shipping company. Last year, she was named employee of the year of the Indianapolis office.
She had told people to have blessed days since she began her work, but was ordered to halt the practice in June, the Associated Press reported.”This was a religious practice of hers based on her Christianity,”said Kevin Betz, Anderson’s lawyer.”That makes it a religious practice for which the employer cannot discriminate against and for which the employer must accommodate so long as to do so is not an undue hardship to the business.” Doug Christensen, the company’s president and chief executive officer, could not be reached for comment.
Anderson hopes her case will set a precedent.”I love my job,”she said.”But I love my God more.”
Former girlfriend of man accused of arson pleads guilty to arson
(RNS) The former girlfriend of an Indiana man charged with burning more than 30 churches across the country has pleaded guilty to involvement in some of the arsons.
Angela Wood, 24, of Athens, Ga., reached a plea agreement with investigators involved in the National Church Arson Task Force Tuesday (Nov. 9).
She pleaded guilty to arson and conspiracy to burn seven churches in southern Indiana. She will not be charged in her role in burning churches in other states in exchange for her testimony against Jay Scott Ballinger, 37, of Yorktown, Ind., according to the agreement entered in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis.
Ballinger is scheduled to stand trial in February. In addition to Indiana fires, he has been indicted in connection to fires in California, South Carolina, Georgia and Kentucky, The Washington Post reported.
Wood faces a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 105 years in prison and $1.75 million in fines.”Church fires have victimized congregations and assaulted communities,”said James E. Johnson, undersecretary for enforcement of the Treasury Department.”We are pleased with today’s guilty plea, which stems from our ongoing efforts against church arsons. We will remain vigilant and will continue to pursue these cases with vigor.” Prosecutors said in court filings that Wood and Ballinger were satanists whose actions were motivated by their beliefs about”a new world order.” The task force, which is led by the Justice and Treasury departments, has investigated 834 arsons, bombings and attempted bombings of houses of worship since 1995. A total of 372 suspects have been arrested in connection with 300 of the incidents.
In a separate, but related matter, a minister and three others have been charged with burning down his church in 1996 to collect an insurance policy worth $270,000. The task force also investigated this blaze.
The Rev. Theophilus Thompson, pastor of the Full Gospel Power House Church of God in Christ in Wichita Falls, Texas, and three other people were arrested less than two weeks before the three-year statute of limitations ran out.
Thompson, who established the church in 1960, was released Monday (Nov. 8) after posting a $150,000 bond.
Appeals court allows rejection of Ten Commandments by school
(RNS) A federal appeals court has ruled that a California school district’s refusal to display the Ten Commandments on a baseball field can be justified.”We find that the district’s decision to exclude ads on certain subjects, including religion, was reasonable, given the district’s concerns regarding disruption and controversy,”the three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday (Nov. 8).
The panel’s unanimous decision allows the Downey Unified School District to refuse to sell billboard space to a private party seeking to post the Ten Commandments.
Downey High School, located in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, rejected the Ten Commandments for inclusion in September 1995 among 40 commercial ads. The school previously ruled out ads for alcohol, Planned Parenthood and taverns because students would be a”captive audience,”The Washington Times reported.
In September 1997, then-California Attorney General Dan Lungren issued an opinion saying the school district’s discrimination against the ad was unconstitutional. The board left the ad business a month later, clearing all ads from the fence in center field.
But Edward DiLoreto, chief executive of a local engineering firm, sued, claiming that his rights to freedom of religion and free speech were violated.”The fact that the district chose to close the forum rather than post Mr. DiLoreto’s advertisement and risk further disruption or litigation does not constitute viewpoint discrimination,”the appellate judges ruled.
Christian groups hail House call for hearings into fetal tissue sales
(RNS) Religious groups have hailed the House of Representatives vote that urges hearings into allegations concerning the trafficking of fetal tissue and organs.
On an unanimous vote, the House Tuesday (Nov. 9) urged the convening of hearings to investigate reports that private firms are selling fetal body parts for medical research.
In hailing the vote, Christian Coalition founder and president Pat Robertson said”the sale of human-baby body parts for profit is immoral, reprehensible and barbaric, and Congress should put a stop to it at once.” Robertson said”vulnerable babies are referred to as `donors’ and medical organizations created to heal instead turn to the sale of body parts for profit.” Gail Quinn, executive director of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, said hearings are necessary”in light of recent disturbing reports presenting credible evidence that private companies are working directly with the abortion industry in the trafficking and sale of fetal body parts, often harvested moments after an abortion to obtain `fresh’ tissue for researchers.” Selling fetal tissue or organs was made illegal in 1993.
Catholics in Scotland get guidelines for working with young people
(RNS) Guidelines intended to eliminate child abuse by clergy and church workers have been published by the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland.
The guidelines say that two adults should always be present with a group of young people and that if it is a single-sex group at least one of the adults should be of that gender.
As far as possible, activities with children should always be in locations where they may be observed by others, the guidelines added. Meetings with children outside of normal programs should always include a parent or another adult.
The guidelines emphasize that before someone is engaged to work with children or young people, the church organization or parish concerned should obtain at least one reference from someone with experience of the applicant’s work history with children.
If a child or young person alleges abuse, the allegations should be taken seriously and reported to the relevant authorities, including when necessary, the police.”Abuse is always wrong,”the guidelines stress.”Abuse is never the child’s fault.” The bishops also set up a telephone hotline to provide information and help for people who think they may be faced with child abuse issues.
The guidelines were five years in the works and are in line with similar ones published earlier by English and Welsh bishops.
Quote of the day: Christian singer Amy Grant
(RNS)”I stood up at the front of a packed-out church and made a vow before God about _ as best I could _ how I would lead my life. And I failed in that. Failure’s incredibly humbling.” _ Christian singer Amy Grant, speaking about her divorce from fellow Christian artist Gary Chapman, in an interview in the November issue of CCM Magazine, a publication that covers the contemporary Christian music industry.
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