c. 1999 Religion News Service

Doctors Without Borders wins Nobel Peace Prize

(RNS) Doctors Without Borders, which revolutionized the international humanitarian aid community by insisting on the”right to intervene”in all natural and man-made disasters while criticizing governments and others it held responsible, has won the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize.

Founded in 1971 by 10 French doctors who cared for the victims of the Biafran civil war, Doctors Without Borders from its very start refused to remain quiet about genocide and other human rights violations it witnessed, earning its members the label of”medical hippies.”Before Doctors Without Borders, the humanitarian aid norm was to remain strictly neutral and never place blame for the suffering encountered.

The organization established itself by providing care to refugees from Afghanistan to Zaire, from Algeria to Vietnam, even as it rattled governments by continually championing human rights.

More recently, it has worked in East Timor and Kosovo. It has also worked in Russia and other industrialized nations with inadequate medical systems.

Today, the organization _ officially known by its French name, Medecins Sans Frontieres _ has 23 offices around the world and more than 2,000 medical professionals working in some 80 countries. Its annual budget has ballooned to more than $250 million, raised almost equally from private donors and institutional givers.

In announcing the $960,000 award Friday (Oct. 15), the Norwegian Nobel Prize committee said Doctors Without Borders”has adhered to the fundamental principle that all disaster victims, whether the disaster is natural or human in origin, have a right to professional assistance given as quickly and as efficiently as possible.””National boundaries and political circumstances or sympathies must have no influence on who is to receive humanitarian help,”the committee added.”By maintaining a high degree of independence, the organization has succeeded in living up to these ideals.” The last time the Nobel Peace Prize went to a humanitarian organization was in 1981, when the U.N. commissioner for refugees’ office won the award.

Ecumenical delegation meets Castro during Cuba trip

(RNS) A visit to Cuba by a delegation of the World Council of Churches included a four-hour, early-morning meeting with Cuban President Fidel Castro.

The delegation, led by the Rev. Konrad Raiser, the council’s general secretary, had a wide-ranging discussion with the 73-year-old Communist ruler in a session that ended in the early hours Wednesday (Oct. 13).

Castro, who was educated as a child in Catholic schools, questioned the group about the Protestant Reformation.

The Cuban leader described Jesus as”a great social revolutionary”and voiced his admiration of Protestant prayer.”I like how Protestants pray,”he said, according to a World Council of Churches news release.”It’s a very direct way of communicating with God.” Raiser told Castro that churches involved in the ecumenical movement”share a concern for justice that has a lot in common with the life and struggle of the Cuban people.” Earlier in the four-day Cuban visit, the delegation met with Roman Catholic Archbishop Jaime Ortega of Havana, a frequent critic of government policies.

Ortega said communist leaders in Cuba have ordered an end to harassment of the Catholic Church but”at times those orders have to be carried out by local officials who still suffer from very narrow mental frameworks.” Raiser also told a gathering of Protestants in Havana earlier in the trip they should be cautious about the growth of religious life in their country.

He urged them”to trust in the gospel and not their rising numbers”if they want the church to be”a center of hope during uncertain times.” The 1991 decision of Castro’s Communist Party to drop the requirement that all party members be atheists has influenced a dramatic growth in Cuba’s churches.

For example, the Methodist Church in Cuba has increased from 4,000 members five years ago to about 10,000 today. Another 4,000 people are enrolled in membership classes.

A Cuban professor of Latin American church history also cautioned against a sense of triumph concerning the growth during an exchange with the ecumenical delegation.”While it’s true that people are coming to church, it’s also true that people are leaving the church,”said Francisco Rodes, a Baptist pastor and professor at the Evangelical Theological Seminary at Matanzas.”Many people who joined the churches in this decade have quit after two or three years inside the church.”

Pope to mark the 21st anniversary of his election

(RNS) Pope John Paul II will mark the 21st anniversary of his election Saturday (Oct. 16) to what has become the 10th longest lasting papacy in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.

The College of Cardinals chose the former Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, archbishop of Krakow, as the 263rd successor to St. Peter _ and the first Polish pontiff _ on Oct. 16, 1978, after a four-day conclave.

John Paul, now 79, has reigned longer than any pope of this century.

Throughout the first two millenniums of Christianity, St. Peter is believed to have had the longest reign, from 30 to 64. According to Vatican records, he is followed by Pius IX, who was elected in 1846 and served 31 years and eight months; Leo XII, 1878, 25 years and four months; Pius VI, 1775, 24 years and six months; Adrian I, 772, 24 years; Pius VII, 1800, 23 years and five months; Alexander III, 1159, 22 years; Sylvester I, 314, 21 years and 11 months; and Leo the Great, 440, 21 years and two months.

During his 21 years as pope, John Paul has made 88 trips outside Italy and 137 in Italy, covering the equivalent of going around the world three times.

He has received a total of 16 million pilgrims at the general audiences he holds each Wednesday in the Vatican. An estimated 200 million people have attended the pope’s Masses and other public appearances on his travels, including 9 million Poles in June when he visited his homeland for what many believed could be the last time.

Religious groups disappointed at test ban treaty defeat

(RNS) Two key religious groups _ the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism _ have expressed disappointment that the Senate has rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Bishop Joseph Fiorenza of the Galveston-Houston Diocese, president of the NCCB, called Wednesday’s 51-48 vote in the Republican-controlled Senate”a major defeat for arms control”and a”blow to the moral credibility of the United States on this issue.””This vote makes it more difficult for our nation to fulfill its moral responsibility as a world leader to work with other nations to promote international peace and security,”Fiorenza said.

The bishops, along with major Jewish groups and mainline Protestant denominations and agencies, had all urged ratification of the treaty that has been at the center of efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons.”With recent popes, the U.S. Catholic bishops have long called for a test ban treaty, and we and many in the Catholic community worked hard for ratification of this treaty,”Fiorenza said. “The test ban treaty is not just a political or legal instrument, but a moral commitment,”he said.

Mark Pelavin, associate director of the Jewish action center, said the vote reflected”the parlor games of partisan politics and Washington power plays.””While the nations of the former Soviet Union are beginning to show more stability, Pakistan, the newest member of the nuclear community, had a military coup this week; less than 48 hours later, the United States Senate sent a clear message against disarmament, against international cooperation, and against the moral leadership expected of the only remaining superpower,”he said.”We can only hope that, as with the aftermath of the Senate’s rejection of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 … the international community and continued strong presidential leadership will prevail upon the Senate to move from jingoism and isolationism to statesmanship and responsibility.” Opponents, led by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., have argued the treaty is dangerous because they believe compliance cannot be verified.

The treaty would extend an earlier ban on atmospheric testing to all tests conducted underground. The United States abandoned new testing in 1992. Supporters of the treaty said it would not only deter the spread of nuclear weapons but also lock in U.S. nuclear superiority.

Protestant leader in East Timor, thought dead, reported alive

(RNS) A Protestant leader who was reported killed in recent violence in East Timor is still alive, according to a report from the World Council of Churches.

Joseph Pattiasina, general secretary of the Communion of Churches in Indonesia, said he spoke by telephone with the Rev. Francisco de Vasconcelos on Oct. 8.

The council’s international relations team said de Vasconcelos, general secretary of the Christian Church of East Timor, is still in a dangerous situation.”Rev. de Vasconcelos and others who escaped killings continue, nonetheless, to work in the midst of a situation in parts of East Timor which continues to remain tense with fear and apprehension of possible outbreaks of violence,”the team stated in an update on Indonesia.”Their personal circumstances remain precarious.” Violence in the tiny territory of East Timor escalated following an Aug. 30 referendum for independence from Indonesia.

Leon Sullivan to receive award for humanitarian work

(RNS) The Rev. Leon Sullivan, a prominent civil rights leader, will be honored with the 1999 Notre Dame Award for international humanitarian service.

Sullivan, the pastor emeritus of Zion Baptist Church in Philadelphia, will receive the award at a Nov. 3 ceremony at the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Ind.”Leon Sullivan’s struggle against racial prejudice and economic injustice has been lifelong, exemplary and inspiring,”said the Rev. Edward A. Malloy, president of Notre Dame.

Sullivan, 77, is the founder of Opportunities Industrialization Centers, an international employment training program, and the author of the Sullivan Principles, a code of conduct for U.S. businesses operating in South Africa prior to the dismantling of the racist apartheid system.

Past recipients of the award include Mother Teresa, former President Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, and Brother Roger, founder and prior of the ecumenical Taize Community in France.

Pope names two Americans to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences

(RNS) Pope John Paul II has named two eminent American scientists, geophysicist Frank Press and chemist and physicist Ahmed H. Zewail, to lifelong memberships in the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

The academy, which traces its origins to the early 17th century, is made up of 80 mathematicians and experimental scientists of many nationalities, including both Catholics and non-Catholics. A number of members are Nobel Prize winners.

Press, 75, known for his studies of marine depths, the Earth’s crust and the internal structure of the planet, was president of the National Academy of Sciences from 1981 to 1993. He is a leading contributor to the United Nations International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction.

Press has served as professor of geophysics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), director of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, science adviser to President Jimmy Carter and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology.

Zewail, 53, a native of Egypt, is Linus Pauling Professor of Chemistry and Physics at Caltech and director of the National Science Foundation Molecular Science Laboratory. He won the Nobel Prize in chemistry this week.

Quote of the day: Religious groups to Congress

(RNS)”As people of faith, we cherish the biblical injunction found in Leviticus 19:17: `You shall not hate your kinsman in your heart,’ and we seek to give life to that teaching by fighting against hate crimes directed against people because of who they are. Hate crimes diminish all of us. We cannot remain silent in the face of such brutal violators of personhood. We cannot wait for another tragedy before we decide to take action.” _ From a letter initiated by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the United Church of Christ’s Office of Church and Society, to members of Congress on pending hate crime legislation. The Oct. 13 letter was signed by 20 Protestant, Jewish and Roman Catholic denominations and groups.

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