c. 1999 Religion News Service

Serbian Orthodox Church calls for Milosevic’s ouster

(RNS) The influential Serbian Orthodox Church _ a moral force in Yugoslavia even though most Serbs are at best nominally religious _ has called for the resignation of President Slobodan Milosevic.

While the church has long been among Milosevic’s harshest domestic critics, its action Tuesday (June 15) represented its most forceful stand yet against the Yugoslav president, whose term of office ends in 2001.

NATO governments have warned they will not help in the reconstruction of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s dominant republic, as long as Milosevic retains power. Milosevic has been indicted by an international war criminal tribunal for allegedly ordering the atrocities carried out by Serb-led Yugoslav forces in Kosovo.

In a statement, the church’s highest body, the Holy Synod, said,”We demand that the federal president and the government resign in the interest and the salvation of the people, so that new officials, acceptable at home and abroad, can take responsibility for the people and their future as a National Salvation Government.” The synod, or council of bishops, also said,”Every sensible person has to realize that numerous internal problems and … the isolation of our country on the international scene cannot be solved or overcome”as long as the Milosevic government remains in office.

During the NATO bombing offensive, the 6.5 million-member Serbian church repeatedly called for an end to the attacks. Since the end of the attacks, the church has expressed great concern for Serbs fleeing Kosovo and the approximately 1,300 Orthodox churches, monasteries and chapels in Kosovo, the historic heartland of Serb culture.

Earlier, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Belgrade, Metropolitan Franc Perko, who also heads the Yugoslav Roman Catholic Bishops Conference, called for Milosevic to resign. However, Catholics are a small minority in predominantly Orthodox Serbia and lack the stature of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

In New York, meanwhile, the National Council of Churches, a coalition of 35 Christian denominations, including the Serbian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A. and Canada, praised the Serbian church’s call for Milosevic’s ouster.

The NCC called the Serbian church action a”brave and risky step”that warrants”our strongest support in these difficult times.”The NCC also called upon U.S. peacekeeping forces in Kosovo to”give special attention”to protecting Serbian church clerics and property there.

Methodist panel begins probe of Sacramento same-sex ceremony ministers

(RNS) A United Methodist Church committee has begun the arduous process of deciding whether 68 ministers violated denomination law by participating in a lesbian”holy union”ceremony last January in Sacramento, Calif.

Bishop Melvin Talbert, head of the church’s California-Nevada Conference, said the closed-door deliberations, which began Tuesday (June 15), are expected to take weeks, if not months. Talbert has been quoted as saying he expects the committee will decide to try only those ministers most involved in the ceremony.

If tried and convicted by a church tribunal, the ministers could lose their ministerial credentials and job benefits, such as health benefits and pensions.

The January ceremony”united”two women in their 60s who were deeply involved in church life and who had been a couple for some 15 years. The mass involvement of ministers, all from the California-Nevada Conference, was organized as a protest of a 1996 church rule that says,”Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.” The protest was the latest of many incidents involving homosexual unions that have wracked the United Methodist Church, the nation’s second largest Protestant denomination with some 8.5 million members.

The last church trial involving a United Methodist minister who officiated at a same-sex union ceremony ended in March with the Rev. Gregory Dell of Chicago found guilty of violating church law. Dell has since become director of In All Things Charity, a Methodist group working for the lifting of the ban against homosexual union ceremonies.

Pope visits city of his birth for perhaps the last time

(RNS) – Undeterred by illness and bad weather, Pope John Paul II resumed his tour of Poland on Wednesday (June 16), canonizing a 13th century princess and visiting, perhaps for the last time, the small city where he was born.

The Roman Catholic pontiff also renewed his appeal to all sides in the Kosovo conflict”to end actions which cause destruction and human suffering.” The pope’s two-hour stop in Wadowice was an emotional high point of his 13-day trip to his native Poland, the longest visit he has made to any country since he was elected pope 20 years ago.

It was the seventh time he has returned to Poland, and papal aides said that at the age of 79, John Paul realizes it may be his last.”With great emotion I gaze upon this city of my childhood years,”the pope told the large crowd that greeted him in the square outside the Basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

John Paul said he prayed for”Wadowice, town of my childhood,”both for his family house and for the parish church where he was baptized, received his first communion, served as an altar boy and later, as archbishop of Krakow, celebrated the 25th anniversary of his ordination as a priest.

It was only at the last minute _ and at the pope’s personal insistence _ that his aides decided to go ahead with the visit to Wadowice and the canonization earlier in the day at Stary Sacz.

A slight fever forced the pope to cancel plans to celebrate Mass for 1 million worshippers Tuesday in Krakow, the city where he was ordained and where he served as cardinal archbishop before he became pope.

His spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, said the fever lifted Tuesday night, but heavy fog presented another problem, grounding the helicopter in which the pope has been making daily flights and forcing him to travel by car.

Navarro-Valls said whether the pope can end his trip Thursday with a pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Madonna of Czestochowa, Poland’s holiest shrine to the Virgin Mary, will depend on whether his helicopter can fly.

The spokesman said that following Tuesday’s fever, the pope has abandoned plans made only two days ago to extend his trip through Friday in order to fly to Armenia in the Caucasus for a brief visit with Armenian Orthodox Patriarch Garegin I, who is seriously ill with throat cancer. He said John Paul will fly directly back to Rome Thursday as previously scheduled.”The pope hopes to be able to made this visit to the Catholicos of all the Armenians soon,”Navarro-Valls said.

At the end of the Mass in the small mountain town of Stary Sacz, 12 miles from Poland’s border with Slovakia, John Paul spoke extemporaneously to a crowd of 650,000 people, recalling his hiking and skiing holidays there.

Praising townspeople in the area for taking in refugees from the conflict in Kosovo, he said he hoped the Kosovars would soon be able to return to their homes.”I also trust that the tragedy of war will end soon. I urge all those who are responsible for the fate of the people of the Balkans to end actions which cause destruction and human suffering,”he said.

Although he looked tired and spoke with a weak voice, John Paul celebrated the Mass himself, stepping aside only to let Cardinal Franciszek Macharski, archbishop of Krakow, read his prepared homily.

In the homily, he urged his fellow Poles to follow the example of the newly canonized St. Kinga.”Brothers and sisters,”he said,”do not be afraid to aspire to holiness. Do not be afraid to be saints. Make of this century now drawing to a close and of the new millennium an era of saintly men and women.” Conservatives: Christians should boycott Army over Wiccan approval

(RNS) A dozen conservative organizations, both religious and political, have urged Christians not to join the U.S. Army until it withdraws its approval of Wiccan groups that meet at a handful of military bases.

Wiccans are followers of a pre-Christian religious movement that equates the divine with the natural world. There are an estimated 50,000 Wiccans in the United States, and the military has sanctioned Wiccan groups that meet at Fort Hood, Texas; Pensacola Naval Air Station, Fla., Fort Wainright, Alaska; Fort Polk, La.; and Kadena Air Force Base on the Japanese island of Okinawa.

The military defends its practice by saying it is just trying to meet the religious needs of all its members without passing judgment on individual creeds. But critics equate Wicca with witchcraft and satanism and say it has no place in the U.S. military.”Until the Army withdraws all official support and approval from witchcraft, no Christian should enlist or re-enlist in the Army, and Christian parents should not allow their children to join the Army,”Paul M. Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation said in a June 11 statement.”An Army that sponsors satanic rituals is unworthy of representing the United States of America. … If the Army wants witches and satanists in its ranks, then it can do it without Christians in those ranks,”said Weyrich, a leading conservative Christian activist.

Among the groups that signed on to the Free Congress Foundation statement were the Christian Coalition, Traditional Values Coalition, Christian Action Network, the American Association of Christian Schools, Religious Freedom Coalition, I Love Jesus Worldwide Ministries and Home School Legal Defense Fund.

Republican Senate aide assailed for comments about Islam

(RNS) Muslim, Arab-American and Jewish groups have assailed a Senate Republican aide for what they say are his bigoted comments about Islam.

In a 1998 talk later published by The Christian Activist, an Orthodox Christian journal, James George Jatras, a foreign policy analyst for the Senate Republican Policy Committee, said Islam was born of”the darkness of heathen Araby.” He called Islam’s founder, the Prophet Muhammad, a”pseudo-prophet”and said the religion”was born in violence”and is a”gigantic Christian-killing machine.”Western Christians, he added,”will soon find out”that confronting”the Islamic advance has become … a simple mater of physical survival.” In a Monday (June 14) letter, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations asked Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson”to ensure that a person with such views does not have a hand in formulating American foreign policy.” A Nicholson spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

CAIR earlier sent a similar protest letter to Sen. Larry E. Craig, R-Idaho,chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee. In response, Craig said Jatras had expressed his own opinion about”complex questions of history and international events that are legitimate subjects for study and commentary.”If CAIR or other organizations or persons disagree with (Jatras’) opinions, it seems to me that the appropriate remedy is to state the reasons and the evidence for your disagreement in the forum of public debate or directly to him.” Craig also said U.S. foreign policy”is based not on religion, culture or creed, but on the national security and economic interests of all Americans, including the American Muslim community.” The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the American Jewish Congress also condemned Jatras’ comments.

Bank of Scotland apologizes for Robertson involvement

(RNS) The board of the Bank of Scotland apologized Tuesday (June 15) to shareholders for attempting to launch a joint direct banking venture with the religious television broadcaster Pat Robertson.

The bank pulled out of the venture earlier this month, at an estimated cost of between $3.2 million and $4.8 million, because Robertson called Scotland a”dark land”for its tolerant views on homosexuality.

But not all shareholders were satisfied.”It seems the bank does not actually regret what it did,”said John Cruickshank.”It said it regretted that people did not like what it had done.” Sir John Shaw, the bank’s deputy governor, who was elected governor at the meeting, said the board was”surprised and disappointed”that Robertson’s views, including his comments about homosexuals in Scotland, might bring the bank’s reputation into question.

A number of religious and union organizations had threatened to pull their funds or boycott the bank if it proceeded with the Robertson deal.

The bank had abandoned the Robertson project because of a”serious risk of damage to our core business,”Shaw said. But he said the bank had lost fewer than 500 accounts, while, since the project was announced in March, 20,000 more accounts were opened than had been closed.

Shaw said the board had understood how controversial Robertson was in America.”But we did not expect the controversy to be transferred here, where he has no political constituency and no business.” A lone demonstrator outside the Edinburgh hotel where the meeting took place thought the bank was wrong to cave in to pressure.”The Bank of Scotland _ a set of moral cowards succumbed to economic blackmail by sodomites and left-wing atheists,”read the demonstrators’ placard.

Quote of the day: writer Rosemary Dinnage

(RNS)”A time of spirituality is a time when the structure of things can be seen, when trivia fall away, when purposes are lucid and feelings freed.” _ Rosemary Dinnage, reviewing Leon Wieseltier’s book”Kaddish,”in The New York Review of Books, Feb. 4, 1999.

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