c. 1999 Religion News Service

Study recommends U.S. consider European models of teen sex education

(RNS) A study by the Advocates for Youth reports that U.S. teens experience sex sooner than teens in European countries that use”matter of fact”approaches to teen sexuality.”Open, honest dialogue about sexuality and sexual development can help U.S. teens, like their European counterparts, better prepare to create committed relationships and to protect themselves and their partners from unintended pregnancy and (sexually transmitted diseases),”states the report,”European Approaches to Adolescent Sexual Behavior and Responsibility.” Citing a worldwide survey, the Advocates for Youth report said U.S. teens experience sexual intercourse for the first time at an average age of 15.8, compared to 17.7 in the Netherlands, 16.8 in France and 16.2 in Germany.

The report, released Tuesday (Jan. 26), states that attitudes about sexual health in those foreign countries are influenced by public media campaigns, sex education in schools, access to contraceptives and condoms and nonjudgmental attitudes from adults.

The report criticizes U.S. abstinence-until-marriage programs because they do not advise young people who become sexually active on the use of condoms and contraception.”Despite recent declines in teen births, the U.S. still has the highest STD, teen birth and abortion rates in the industrialized world,”said James Wagoner, President of Advocates for Youth, a Washington-based organization that focuses on adolescent reproductive and sexual health issues.”We need to learn from nations that have found effective solutions to these problems and make appropriate adjustments.” Focus on the Family, a Colorado Springs, Colo.-based ministry that works to strengthen families, issued a report countering that study and supporting abstinence-based sex education.”Our analysis of the flawed report shows that abstinence-centered education is better for teen health and U.S. taxpayers than the costly European model,”said Amy Stephens, manager of youth policy for Focus on the Family.

The Focus report agrees that the teen pregnancy and STD rates are”alarmingly high”but states that the European model will cause increased illegitimacy.”The pregnancy, abortion and birth rates among U.S.teens have declined during the 1990s due to the trend toward increased sexual abstinence,”the Focus report concludes.”Why would we want to replace an approach that is working with one that will take us in the wrong direction?”

Arizona Supreme Court upholds tax break for scholarship donations

(RNS) The Arizona Supreme Court has upheld a tax credit for people who donate money for scholarships at private schools, including religious institutions.

In a 3-2 ruling Tuesday (Jan. 26), the court said opponents failed to show that the tax break violated either the state constitutional ban on public money being used for churches or private schools or the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on government involvement in religion.

There is no indication that the writers of the Arizona Constitution”intended to divorce completely any hint of religion from all conceivably state-related functions, nor would such a goal be realistically attainable in today’s world,”wrote Chief Justice Thomas Zlaket for the majority, the Associated Press reported.

Zlaket called the credit”a neutral adjustment mechanism for equalizing tax burdens and encouraging educational expenditures.” Dissenting, Justice Stanley G. Feldman said the tax break destroyed”any pretense of separation of church and state.” The law had been promoted by legislators and others who had previously been unable to win approval for vouchers, which are cash grants to parents for tuition at public or private schools.

The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the court decision jeopardizes church-state separation and public education.”This decision continues the gradual destruction of the wall of separation between church and state that has been under way in the courts,”Lynn said in a statement.”It should be a wake-up call to Americans that their fundamental right to support only the religion of their choice is under relentless attack.” The Arizona Supreme Court decision is the second action by a court in recent months that affirms public support for private education. The U.S. Supreme Court decided Nov. 9 not to hear a legal challenge to Wisconsin’s eight-year-old school voucher program.

First CD combining pope’s voice and music to be released before Easter

(RNS) The first compact disc to combine live recordings of the voice of Pope John Paul II with musical selections will be released just before Easter.”Abba Pater”is a joint production of Radio Vaticana, the Vatican’s official radio broadcasting arm, and Audiovisivi San Paolo, one of the largest publishers of religious books and periodicals in the world, Sony Classical announced.

Abba is Aramaic for father and pater is father in Latin.

It will be released March 23.

The CD will feature live recordings of the pontiff delivering homilies, prayers and chants in five languages _ Latin, Italian, French, English and Spanish _ from broadcasts during his 20-year papacy. It will contain 11 tracks, one of which will feature the pope chanting the”Pater Noster”(Our Father). That track also will be produced as a music video.

Royalties from the sale of the CD, which includes music ranging from contemporary instrumental to classical, will go to the two organizations that produced it.

Archbishop of Wales questioned in sex abuse investigation

(RNS) Archbishop John Ward, head of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Cardiff, Wales, has been arrested _ but not charged _ over allegations he assaulted a six-year-old girl in 1960.

Ward, who went voluntarily to a London police station with his lawyer Tuesday (Jan. 26), has denied the charges, saying he was”really baffled and bewildered”by the accusations. He was released on bail and is to return for further questioning on March 9.

The allegations were made by a 45-year-old woman believed to be living in Ireland and refer to the time when Ward was parish priest at a Capuchin friary in London. They were published in the News of the World ten days ago.

In addition to vigorously denying the charges, Ward has spoken out about the damage done by false accusations to priests and others in similar positions of trust, such as doctors, teachers, and social workers.”I can say before God that there was no action by me against her,”said the archbishop, who turned 70 on Sunday (Jan. 24).”This woman only contacted me once, when she sent a letter outlining her claims. I answered the letter, denying everything … I have never touched a woman sexually, and that is why I am at peace with myself.” In a statement Tuesday night, Ward said he was contacted by the tabloid the day before it published the story. “Who released this information is not yet known, but it is part of the kind of abuse which is turned on the accused, innocent or guilty. No one is above the law. Accusations must be answered in an atmosphere of trust that upholds the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty. This is not possible when police connections with the media precede arrest and the interview which follows,”Ward said in his statement.

Ward noted that”tragically, there have been cases where priests have been guilty of heinous crimes which must be condemned.”Indeed, Ward’s former spokesman, the Rev. John Lloyd, was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment in December for sexual offenses against young people.

Archbishop Ward expressed his”deepest sorrow and shame”over what Fr. Lloyd had done and said he was investigating the possibility of forcibly laicizing him.”But many priests have been falsely accused, as well as teachers, doctors, social workers, etc., and because of police connections with the media their lives have been made a misery and their ministry damaged,”Ward said.

Hindu group blamed for missionary murder denies charges

(RNS) A powerful Hindu organization Wednesday (Jan. 27) denied police charges that an affiliated group was responsible for the brutal murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons in India.”We want to clarify that neither the Bajrang Dal nor the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) … are involved in this incident,”VHP vice president Acharya Giriraj Kishore told a news conference, the Associated Press reported.”VHP condemns the incident, it is against Hindu ethos,”Kishore said.

Meanwhile, the Baptist World Alliance released a statement lamenting the murder of Staines, a Baptist working in India as secretary for the Evangelical World Society, an independent missionary organization. “This is the latest tragic death caused by religious intolerance and fanaticism, not only in India, but worldwide,”said Denton Lotz, head of the BWA.

Despite denials, authorities blame members of the radical Hindu group, Bajrang Dal, for dousing with gasoline and setting ablaze the Jeep in which the 58-year-old Staines and his two young sons slept, burning to death all three.

Police began a massive manhunt for members of the group and declared a cash award for information leading to Dara Singh, who authorities say masterminded Saturday’s killing. So far, 53 people have been arrested in connection to the incident where witnesses say a group surrounded the burning automobile and attacked anyone who tried to rescue the victims.

The recent killing is the latest in a series of increasingly violent attacks on Christians in India, who make up less than 3 percent of India’s population of 960 million people.

Although the Bajrang Dal is considered an extremist group, it is affiliated with India’s ruling party. Along with the VHP and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Bajrang Dal is an offshoot of a common ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), a volunteer Hindu organization.

To assuage fears and international criticism, the prime minister and the president have condemned the killing. On Monday, Vajpayee pledged that the murderers would be shown”no mercy.”The federal government named three government ministers to investigate the incident which took place in the eastern state of Orissa.

Kishore demanded that the federal Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigate the crime and warned of legal action against unsubstantiated police action. He blamed the state police for not maintaining adequate security.

Hindu groups have long charged Christian missionaries with converting the poor by force. Christian activists deny the accusations, insisting that they are only providing charity.

Politician: end ban on Roman Catholics to British throne

(RNS) A prominent Conservative Party politician has called for overhauling the 1701 Act of Settlement which bars Roman Catholics from the British throne and prevents the monarch or any heirs to the monarchy from marrying a Roman Catholic.

In a speech Tuesday at the Institute of Economic Affairs in London, Sir Michael Forsyth, who was Secretary of State for Scotland in the last Conservative government but lost his seat in the 1997 general election, was sharply critical of the present Labor government’s program of”breakneck”constitutional change, which he termed”vandalism.” Nevertheless, Forsyth condemned the 1701 Act of Settlement as”deeply discriminatory,”saying it was”the only serious flaw to disfigure the monarchy”at present. It is the British Constitution’s”grubby little secret”which nobody wants to tackle, he added.

Forsyth said he found it”astonishing”that a Labor government which has concerned itself with the number of heralds in the procession for the state opening of parliament and endlessly preaches the doctrine of an”inclusive”society had not moved to amend a law couched in offensive 18th-century language enshrining”the formal doctrine that some 10 percent of the Queen’s subjects are to be treated as second-class citizens.” The act’s wording excludes from the British throne”all and every person and persons who … is, are, or shall be reconciled to or shall hold communion with the See or church of Rome or shall profess the popish religion or shall marry a papist.” It is still operative: Two very remote heirs to the throne were excluded from the succession when they married Roman Catholics _ Prince Michael of Kent in 1978 and the Earl of St Andrews in 1988.

Forsyth also noted the law did not prescribe that the sovereign’s consort must belong to the Church of England.”It is perfectly legal for the monarch to marry a Buddhist, a Hindu, or even a Moonie _ but not a Roman Catholic,”he said.

However, amending the 1701 Act could be difficult. A Church of England working party looked at the question in 1982 after a general synod member called for the law to be amended. It pointed out that the Queen was Queen not only of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but also of the countries in the British Commonwealth.”If any change in the rules is contemplated, a change _ and precisely the same change _ would have to be made in the law of each of the countries concerned,”it stated.

Quote of the day: the Rev. Don Harp, Buckhead, Ga.

(RNS)”Our focus since September here at Peachtree Road has been on miracles. Our (Atlanta) Falcons in the Super Bowl qualifies as a miraculous event. … I know that God is impartial, but we’re not. Go Dirty Birds! Wipe out the Broncos.” _ The Rev. Don Harp, senior minister at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, Buckhead, Ga., in a Jan. 23 sermon as quoted by the Wall Street Journal. Falcons coach Dan Reeves attends the church.

DEA END RNS