c. 1999 Religion News Service
Would-be assassin asks pope to help him win Holy Year clemency
(RNS) Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman sentenced to life in prison for trying to kill Pope John Paul II almost 18 years ago, has asked the pope to help him win clemency for”Holy Year.””On the eve of the Jubilee of 2000, dedicated to reconciliation and the remission of sins, I believe that this my prayer could be answered,”Agca wrote in late February in a letter to the Roman Catholic pontiff from his prison cell.
Neither the Vatican nor the Italian government had any immediate comment on Agca’s request for the commutation of his sentence or extradition to Turkey where he faces a 10-year prison sentence for the murder of a journalist.
The Vatican has responded to past appeals from Agca and his mother by recalling that the pope forgave his would-be assassin when he visited him in prison in 1983 and has left the case in the hands of Italian justice.
Agca, then 23 and a member of the right-wing Turkish terrorist organization, the Gray Wolves, opened fire on John Paul on May 13, 1981, during an outdoor general audience in St. Peter’s Square. The pope underwent two operations to repair severe abdominal wounds.
During his trial in an Italian court, Agca claimed that he had acted as part of a Bulgarian conspiracy engineered by Soviet secret agents. But when three Bulgarians accused of orchestrating the plot went on trial in 1985, he withdrew his charges and linked his actions to”the third mystery of Fatima”and the impending”end of the world.” Agca made a formal appeal to Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro for clemency in 1996. Officials of the top-security prison in the Adriatic seacoast city of Ancona where he is held backed the appeal last year and certified his good behavior.
The Justice Ministry has not yet referred the appeal to Scalfaro with its recommendation.
In his two-page letter written in blue ink, Agca asked the pope to intervene with Italian authorities to act on his appeal.”Holy Father,”he wrote,”permit me to turn to you because I know that your mercy will greet my letter with benevolence. For more than two years I have been waiting for a decision from the Italian state on the petitions I presented in August 1996, one for the concession of pardon and the other for a transfer to Turkey for the expiation of my punishment according to the international convention of Strasbourg on the transfer of condemned persons.” Agca said he had given his consent to a request from Turkey for his extradition but heard nothing more on this or a request he had made for semi-liberty allowing him to work outside prison during the daytime.”This long silence of the Italian authorities makes waiting painful and difficult to bear under my conditions,”he said.
Calling on the pope,”humbly and always conscious of my grave responsibility, for another act of mercy,”Agca described himself as a supplicant”who does not want to escape justice, who has paid and continues to pay for long years but who asks to be able to have some hope.” House approves bill exempting Amish children from federal labor laws
(RNS) The House on Tuesday (March 2) passed legislation exempting Amish teenagers from federal labor laws barring youngsters from hazardous occupations including sawmills.
Designed to circumvent government restrictions which conflict with the Amish tradition of apprenticeship, the move was hailed as a”common sense”solution by supporters. “The Amish view this work as part of their schooling,”said Rep. Joseph Pitts, R-Pa., the bill’s chief sponsor.”The regulations have severely threatened the lifestyle and religion of this humble community.” Under the legislation, it would be legal for Amish teenagers to work in limited woodworking settings if they did not directly operate mechanical equipment. The bill must still pass the Senate and be signed by President Clinton.
Known for shunning modern technology and conveniences, the Amish number about 150,000 in 22 states and Canada.
In the Senate, where similar legislation died last year, opponents have expressed concern that it unconstitutionally singles out a particular religion and that it compromises the safety of children.
In House arguments against the measure, Rep. William Clay, D-Mo., said”inexperience, small size and the lack of maturity,”combine to make an exemption potentially dangerous.”It poses undue jeopardy in the health and safety of children too young to legally smoke, too young to consume alcohol products and too young to defend this country in the military,”Clay said, the Associated Press reported.
Democrats announce appointees to international religious freedom panel
(RNS) Congressional Democrats have named the Roman Catholic archbishop of Newark, N.J., and a Washington-based Reform rabbi to the new 10-member U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick, the international policy spokesman for the United States Catholic Conference, was named to the commission by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota. Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, was selected by House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt.
Both McCarrick and Saperstein have long been involved with religious freedom issues.
The commission was established by the International Religious Freedom Act passed by the Congress last year. The act, widely supported by American religious leaders, makes the treatment of religious believers by foreign governments an official U.S. foreign policy concern.
As the majority party, congressional Republicans got to name four members to the commission. In December, the Republican leadership named former Colorado Sen. Bill Armstrong, former Assistant Secretary of State John Bolton, Freedom House director Nina Shea and former Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams to the commission.
The act allocated three appointees to the White House, which has yet to name its selections. The commission’s tenth _ and only non-voting member_ will be the White House’s ambassador-at-large on religious freedom issues. President Clinton has named ex-World Vision executive Robert Seiple to that post.
Vatican attacks birth of a `baby with two mothers’
(RNS) The Vatican condemned Wednesday (March 3) a technique of assisted fertility that has produced what Italian newspapers describe as Europe’s first”baby with two mothers.””It is an absolutely unlawful technique,”theologian Gino Concetti said in an editorial in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano attacking the procedure of strengthening the egg of an infertile woman with cell material from the egg of a fertile donor.
Concetti was backed by politicians from Italy’s center-left opposition,
which recently defeated a bill in parliament that would have assured third-party sperm and egg donations for infertile couples.
The baby, born by Cesarian section Tuesday (March 2) in the northern city of Turin, was identified only as Alessandro. He weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces, and both mother and son were reported in good condition.
Doctors in the United States and Israel pioneered the technique of producing a”super egg”from donated cytoplasm three years ago. To date, it has produced four babies in the United States and two in Israel, Italian newspapers said.
Newspapers dubbed Alessandro the”baby with two mothers,”but Dr. Alessandro Di Gregorio, the gynecologist who performed the technique on the infant’s 35-year-old mother, disagreed.”You absolutely cannot speak of two mothers but rather of one single, true mother of the baby, who carried him in the womb and gave birth to him,”Di Gregorio said. “The technique of transferring cytoplasm actually consists of reinforcing the weak egg of the mother with an injection of a share of the cytoplasm of the donor,”he said.”Thus there is no transfer of genetic material but only of nutriment to facilitate the fertilization and development of the embryo.” Cytoplasm is the protoplasm of a cell surrounding the nuclear membrane.
Concetti said the church considers donations of eggs or sperm unacceptable because”they disassociate the generative moment from the simultaneous spousal relation”and injure”the dignity and the rights of the embryo itself.” The theologian urged scientists to instead seek to perfect techniques and medicines against sterility that”meet the needs of the moral order”and”protect the human person and the family.”
Court strikes down prayer at football games
(RNS) A federal appeals court has upheld limited public school prayer for”solemn”events like graduation but declared the practice unconstitutional for football games.
In the decision Monday (March 1), the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction covers Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, distinguished between such events, saying football games do not share the”singularly serious nature of graduation.” Judge Jacques Wiener wrote the majority opinion in the 2-1 ruling, calling a football game,”Hardly the sober type of annual event that can be appropriately solemnized with prayer.” In his dissent, Judge Grady Jolly said the ruling violated the First Amendment. Lawyers for the Liberty Legal Institute, defending the football game prayers, said”the decision is wrong, flat wrong and extremely dangerous.” The ruling was prompted by the Santa Fe Independent School District, which wanted to permit prayers before football games. The district also tried, unsuccessfully, to remove restrictions that prohibit the mention of”Jesus,”and other deities, in graduation ceremony prayers.
Muslim women file complaint over wearing head scarves at work
(RNS) Five Muslim women airport security workers have filed a religious discrimination complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for allegedly being fired after they refused to stop wearing Islamic head scarves while on the job at Dulles International Airport outside Washington.
The women contended that their religion requires them to cover their hair.”I’m angry. This is my religion,”29-year-old Iklas Musa of Alexandria, Vir., told the Washington Post Tuesday (March 2).
The EEOC complaint alleges a violation of federal civil rights law requiring employers to accommodate religious practices as much as is possible. The complaint named Atlanta-based Argenbright Security Inc., and United Airlines.
The women worked for the security firm, and two of them said they were told by their supervisor that United had asked Argenbright to see to it the scarves were removed.
A United spokesman denied his company’s involvement. Argenbright did not provide immediate comment. Both Argenbright and United were involved in a similar case in Denver that was reportedly settled out of court.
Islamic law and tradition requires Muslim women to dress modestly. That is generally interpreted to include some head covering.
Pope names new auxiliary bishop for St. Paul and Minneapolis
(RNS) Pope John Paul II has named the Rev. Frederick F. Campbell auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, where he has served as a priest since his ordination in 1980, the Vatican said Tuesday (March 2).
Campbell, 55, currently is priest of St. Joseph’s Parish in West St. Paul.
Born in Elmira, N.Y., he received a degree in history from Ohio State University before entering the Seminary of St. Paul in 1976 for his ecclesiastical studies. Following his ordination, he served in parishes in both Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Quote of the day: The Rev. Lou Sheldon, head of the Traditional Values Coalition
(RNS)”It’s, like, ho-hum. He’s failed twice and will a third time.” _ The Rev. Lou Sheldon, conservative political activist and head of the Traditional Values Coalition, dismissing the entrance of fellow conservative Pat Buchanan into the Republican presidential nomination race.
DEA END RNS