c. 1999 Religion News Service

Falwell’s newspaper drops Cal Thomas as columnist

(RNS) Jerry Falwell’s National Liberty Journal will no longer carry a syndicated column by Cal Thomas due to what its editors believe is his”repudiation of Christian activism.” The decision is an example of the dispute over political activism within conservative circles fanned in part by the publication earlier this year of”Blinded by Might,”a book co-authored by Thomas and Ed Dobson, who were top lieutenants for Falwell when he ran the now-defunct Moral Majority.

The book questions the political strategies used by the conservative Christian movement while still supporting its moral agenda.”The National Liberty Journal editorial staff has, due to Cal Thomas’ repudiation of Christian activism, decided to end its five-year association with Mr. Thomas as a syndicated columnist,”said a brief editor’s note in the July edition of the newspaper.

The note accompanied an article by James Dobson sharply criticizing the book.”It seemed to us that he was repudiating all that we were trying to do,”J.M. Smith, the journal’s senior editor, told Religion News Service.

Thomas, for his part, jokingly said he was”devastated”by the decision.”First Tinky Winky,”he added.”Now me.” Thomas was referring to a well-publicized article in the journal’s February edition maintaining the”Teletubbies”character with a purple triangle on his head _ Tinky Winky _ is supposed to be a”gay role model.” More seriously, Thomas said he believes the arguments in the book have been mischaracterized. He called the idea that he’s repudiating Christian activism”blatantly false.” Thomas said he and his co-author have repeatedly denied claims by critics that the book is a”cry for retreat.””The reason Ed Dobson and I wrote this book was to generate a discussion and not to be censored,”he said.”Those with vested interests in maintaining the church-state status quo won’t talk to us. I find that unfortunate.” From 1980 to 1985, Thomas served as the vice president for communications of the Moral Majority. His columns are distributed to more than 500 newspapers by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

Italian antiwar group honors Jackson for mission to Belgrade

(RNS) The Rev. Jesse Jackson came to Rome to collect an international peace prize for his mission to Belgrade during the Kosovo conflict but warned it is”too soon to celebrate”the end of the war in Yugoslavia.

Jackson, who is in Europe on a private trip, arrived Tuesday (June 22) from Paris and left Thursday for Geneva. While in Rome, he also met with Pope John Paul II and Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and attended a prayer service with members of the Community of Sant’ Egidio, a group of Catholic social activists who sent their own peace mission to Belgrade during the war.”The war in Kosovo is not over, and it’s too soon to celebrate,”Jackson told a news conference before receiving the Golden Dove for Peace from the Italian antiwar organization Archivio Disarmo (Disarmament Archives). He predicted”a long, cold winter”in the Balkans.

Archivio Disarmo, which supports efforts to resolve conflicts peacefully, cited Jackson for his parallel diplomacy that won the release May 2 of three U.S. servicemen held hostage by Serbian forces.

Jackson’s meeting with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic,”in what was probably the most difficult phase of the war, constituted an important contribution to opening the way to a negotiated political solution,”the citation said.

Previous winners of the award, established in 1984, include former South African President Nelson Mandela; former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev; Sadako Ogata, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees; and Prime Minister John Hume of Northern Ireland.”I feel a sense of relief because the bombing has ended, but the war, no,”Jackson said.

The Balkans face too many”unknowns,”he said, listing”too many land mines and too many refugees,”Russia’s”political repositioning,”the presence of ground forces in the war zone and uncertainty about whether the Kosovo Liberation Army will respect its agreement to disarm.

Jackson said President Clinton lost an important opportunity to negotiate an end to the war following his successful mission to Belgrade.”They told me that it would be impossible to return the soldiers Milosevic was holding hostage,”he said.”Instead, Milosevic did the right thing, giving a signal of his willingness to negotiate.”I was convinced that if Clinton had talked to Milosevic face to face, with all his persuasive capacity and his power, the question would have been resolved much sooner. But at that moment, NATO forces did not seize the opportunity to affirm the diplomatic initiative, and instead they intensified the bombing without scratching Milosevic’s power.” Jackson also voiced support for Italy’s ban on the death penalty, which he called a”machine for recycling violence.”He said the United States, too, should”break the cycle of violence.””We have to convince people that the policy of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth will leave us blind, disfigured and dead,”he said.

Pope rules out turning to a”surrogate”where priests are scarce

(RNS) Asserting that no”surrogate”can take the place of a priest, Pope John Paul II said Thursday (June 24) that where priests are scarce the only solution is to pray for new vocations.

The pope, in a message to the fourth international meeting of priests in Jerusalem to prepare for the Holy Year 2000, ruled out any consideration of women religious or laity taking on the role of a priest in regions, like mission countries, where priests are in short supply.”Commit yourselves to make every man understand that, if the place of the Eucharist is absolutely central in the community, the person of the priest is equally central in relation to it,”the Roman Catholic pontiff said.”Wherever the priestly presence is scarce, a surrogate cannot come in, but rather the entire community must implore (vocations) with greater insistence, with personal and community prayer, with penitence and with the specific holiness of priests,”he said.

John Paul called preserving the identity of the priest the church’s key concern for the new millennium.”The one question, therefore, that must concern us is about faith, of renewing our identity in ourselves every day because the identity is truth: truth of being from which derives the truth of acting, the truth of our pastoral ministry,”he said.”Today much confusion reigns in this regard,”the pope said.”The answers often wind up by identifying Christ, at least in practice, with an illumination, with a wise master of morals, with a charming philanthropist.” But, he warned,”the identity of Jesus is not one problem among many; it is the fundamental question because from the reply to it depends the entire panorama of man, of society, of history, of life, of death and of all that is beyond.” The pope told the priests that by their very being they are”the real witnesses of Christ, the only priest.””At the moment of ordination you receive a new way of being,”he said.”You are marked by the priestly character, which is a real spiritual sign and cannot be erased.”

Indian Christians want report on missionary’s murder made public

(RNS) An Indian Christian group is demanding the New Delhi government make public a report on the January killing of an Australian missionary and his two young sons.

The report by a government commission should be made public”so that the conspiracy behind the murders is unearthed,”said the United Christian Forum for Human Rights.

In January, Graham Staines, 58, and his sons, 10-year-old Philip and 8-year-old Timothy, were burned to death in their jeep after leaving a Bible study class in the Indian state of Orissa.

The commission submitted its report on the incident Monday (June 21) but did not make it public, the Associated Press reported. Tuesday, 18 men were charged with murder, arson and criminal conspiracy in the case.

However, the man considered the prime suspect, Dara Singh, is still at large. Police said he is being protected by Hindu villagers. Singh is reportedly a member of a radical Hindu group that opposes Christian mission work among India’s Hindu majority.

Christians make up just 2.4 percent of India’s 1 billion people, most of whom are Hindu.

House committee passes bill on teen abortions

(RNS) The House Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that would make it a crime to take a pregnant minor to another state for an abortion without the knowledge of a parent.

By a vote of 16-13, along party lines, the bill was passed Wednesday (June 23).

The bill would make it illegal for a person other than a parent, guardian or legal custodian to take a pregnant girl younger than 18 to another state for an abortion if such an act would violate parental involvement laws in the home state of the child.

Such laws exist in more than 30 states, the Associated Press reported.”Today’s passage of the Child Custody Protection Act ensures that meaningful, constitutional parental consent laws are upheld to help and protect minors,”said Rep. Charles Canady, R-Fla.

Democrats criticized the bill, arguing that girls would be more likely to undergo an abortion alone or seek an unsafe abortion if they fear telling their parents of a pregnancy.

Amendments to exempt religious leaders, grandparents, adult siblings and other relatives from prosecution were defeated.

Violators would face maximum penalties of a year in jail and $100,000 in fines, and parents whose daughters had abortions could pursue civil action.

Suspect indicted in murder of Buffalo-area abortion provider

(RNS) A county grand jury has indicted James Kopp for the slaying of the abortion provider who was shot through his kitchen window in a Buffalo, N.Y., suburb.

The three-count indictment, handed down Thursday (June 24), charges Kopp with the second-degree murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian, first-degree reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon, the Associated Press reported.

A federal grand jury continues to hear evidence in the shooting, which occurred Oct. 23.

Kopp was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List earlier in June. FBI agent Bernard Tolbert said none of the leads received since Kopp was added to the most-wanted list have panned out.”I’m confident one day we will get the right tip,”he said.

The second-degree murder charge against Kopp carries a potential prison term of 15 years to life.

Judge: Civil court cannot consider Jewish religious divorce case

(RNS) A U.S. District Court has ruled that a New York rabbinic group cannot be sued in civil court for speaking out on a religious judgment.

The case involved a couple, Seymour Klagsbrun and Judith Oshry, who said the rabbinical council of Monsey, N.Y., a town of mostly Orthodox Jews, had defamed them.

In a flier, the council had urged Monsey residents to shun Klagsbrun because he had refused to give his first wife a get, or Jewish religious divorce, without which she cannot remarry under Jewish law. The flier also said that although Klagsbrun claimed to have rabbinic permission for him to remarry, he failed to produce it when asked to do so.

Klagsbrun and Oshry contended the flier defamed them.

Under traditional Jewish law, the power to divorce rests exclusively with the husband. Orthodox rabbis often resort to publicly shaming recalcitrant husbands to give wives a divorce when a marriage has collapsed.

Sitting in Newark, N.J., Judge Harold Ackerman ruled June 14 that the constitutionally mandated separation between church and state precluded him from considering the case, which he dismissed.”Inquiry into the methodology of how religious organizations arrive at their conclusions concerning questions of religious doctrine are, like the conclusions themselves, beyond the ken of civil courts,”Ackerman wrote in his decision.

Despite the legal setback, Klagsbrun continues to deny his wife a get, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency news service reported Thursday (June 24). And because he and his second wife have moved from Monsey, he is now beyond the reach of the town’s rabbinic council.

Quote of the day: church historian Martin Marty

(RNS)”All God’s people are involved in finding and discovering the church of the 21st century. Suffering will produce character and that will produce realistic hope. And that liberates us.” _ Church historian Martin Marty addressing a breakfast of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in Fort Worth, Texas on June 21.

DEA END RNS