c. 1999 Religion News Service

Episcopal leader invites critics to America to talk with gays

(RNS) Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold of the Episcopal Church has invited eight overseas Anglican leaders who have criticized his church’s stance on homosexuals as too liberal to visit the United States and talk with gays and bishops who support them.

The pointed invitation, in a March 19 letter, came in response to a late February letter from the Anglican leaders expressing”sorrow and disappointment”that the Episcopal Church in the United States remains”at variance”with the stance of an anti-gay resolution adopted last summer at the Lambeth Conference, the worldwide gathering of Anglican bishops.

The resolution, which was urged on the conference principally by bishops from Africa, said abstinence was the only possibility”for those not called to marriage”and that the church cannot ordain gays or bless same-sex marriages.

Opponents came largely from North America and Europe.”Some (U.S. bishops) even appear to repudiate resolutions before they are fully published,”the overseas church leaders said.

The prelates said they felt obliged”to say that the continuance of action at variance with the Lambeth resolutions, within your own or any province, would be a grievous wrong and a matter over which we could not be indifferent.” In response, Griswold said that in the United States,”as in other provinces of our communion, there exist divergent opinions on the question of homosexuality.”He said the Episcopal Church finds itself”in a process of discernment”on the matter.

He then invited the eight leaders”to visit those parts of our church which cause you concern so that you may inquire and learn directly what has animated certain responses”to the Lambeth stance.”Such visits will afford you the opportunity not only to query some of our bishops and representatives of their dioceses but also to listen to the experience of homosexual persons, which is mandated by the Lambeth resolution on human sexuality,”Griswold said.

Cardinal Law: support of death penalty is a sin

(RNS) Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, joined by the state’s three other Roman Catholic bishops, has told the state’s Catholic population that”well-informed”church members who support the death penalty are committing a sin.”The teachings of the church are very clear,”Law told a Friday news conference.”For a well-informed Catholic to support capital punishment, it would be morally wrong. And if one knowingly rejects the teachings of the church it is wrong, morally evil, and a sin.” Law’s comments came as the Massachusetts legislature is preparing to debate proposed legislation that would restore the death penalty to the state. Gov. Paul Cellucci, a strong supporter of capital punishment, is a Catholic.

While the church has long opposed the death penalty in general, it has in recent years toughened that stance and Pope John Paul II has said that there are virtually no circumstances in contemporary society in which the use of the death penalty would be justified.

Nevertheless, Law’s comments were among the sharpest directed at individual Catholic believers, similar to the kind of the statements the church has made in the past about politicians’ support for laws legalizing abortion.

Cellucci told the Boston Globe that Law’s view was”his opinion.””There’s an awful lot of Catholics in Massachusetts and an awful lot of them support the death penalty.” Nationally, most opinion polls show about 70 percent of the American people support capital punishment. The figure is about the same for Roman Catholics.

Methodist aid worker shot and killed near Kenya-Somalia border

(RNS) An American aid worker with the United Methodist Committee on Relief was shot and killed Saturday (March 20) near the border between Kenya and southern Somalia, U.S. government and church officials have confirmed.

Deena M. Umbarger, 35, a consultant with UMCOR, died just a week short of her 36th birthday, the United Methodist News Service reported.

According to church officials Umbarger had flown to the border with a Somalian staff member of another nongovernmental organization. They were to meet with leaders from towns on each side of the border. Before the meeting, shooting broke out and Umbarger was fatally wounded. No other deaths were reported.

Deena’s death is a tragedy,”said the Rev. Randolph Nugent, chief executive of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.”Not only was she brilliant, but she possessed a deep passion for justice and a love for those who so desperately need the kind of support provided”by UMCOR and other agencies.

Umbarger was a graduate of the University of Washington and the Yale University Law School. She joined UMCOR in 1997 and had worked in the Republic of Georgia before becoming a consultant for UMCOR’s nongovernmental agency in Kenya.

Update: Vatican says papal trip to the Holy Land”is not definite” (RNS) The Vatican threw a spot of cold water Tuesday (March 23) on reports out of Israel that Pope John Paul II will visit the Holy Land next March to celebrate the start of the third millennium of Christianity.

Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, head of the Vatican committee planning celebrations of the Holy Year 2000, said in Jerusalem late Monday that it is”very probable that the pope will come to visit the land where Jesus was born.” And local church officials in Jerusalem said the date would be around March 25, the Feast of Annunciation _ when Mary was told by an angel that she would give birth to Jesus.

Vatican officials acknowledged the pope has said repeatedly he would like to travel to the Holy Land, but they denied that the reason for Etchegaray’s visit to Jerusalem was to plan a papal visit.”In regard to the pope’s visit, he himself has said many times that he would like to go, but certainly the trip is not yet definite,”Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said.”We hope so, but it would be a little premature,”another Vatican source said.

Etchegaray began a five-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority on Monday.”The reason for Cardinal Etchegaray’s trip to the Holy Land is to examine with patriarch Michel Sabbah questions regarding the course of the Jubilee which, as is known, will have two poles _ Rome and the Holy Land,”Navarro-Valls said.

A recent agreement between the Vatican and Israel on the juridical status of the Catholic church and its institutions in Israel would help to smooth the way for a papal trip, but relations between Israel and the Palestinians remain an obstacle. Another complication is the rival Israeli and Palestinian claims to Nazareth and Jerusalem.

Vatican Radio praises Oscar-winning films

(RNS) Vatican Radio has praised the three major Oscar-winning films _ and especially the Italian entry,”Life is Beautiful”_ for instructing as well as entertaining the public.”A hymn to life, to the life that will give joy, to that which we love the more,”Vatican Radio said of Roberto Begnini’s tragi-comedy about a father who tries to protect his young son from the horrors of a Nazi death camp during World War II.”Saving Private Ryan”and”Shakespeare in Love”also won high praise.”The pedagogical cinema, the cinema that has the ambition of being able to teach something to the public, has won,”Vatican Radio said in a Monday (March 22) broadcast about the Oscars.”Saving Private Ryan,”it said, makes information”an instrument of civilization”by reminding young people, who have forgotten, what happened 50 years ago during World War II and especially on D Day.

It described”Shakespeare In Love”as a”beautiful spot, a promo for Shakespeare, for the highest literature and theater.”Very many young people, seeing this film, have certainly discovered an unexpected love for literature, for the very beautiful poetry that Shakespeare has left us,”it said.

But, it said,”‘Life Is Beautiful’ is the most important. It pleases us the most because it is a hymn more than a spot.”

Survey: Anti-Semitic incidents up slightly in 1998

(RNS) Anti-Jewish acts increased slightly in the United States during 1998, according to a new survey of anti-Semitic incidents compiled by the Anti-Defamation League.

The survey, released Tuesday (March 23), reported 1,611 anti-Semitic incidents last year, an increase of more than 2 percent over 1997.

While the number of incidents of harassment, threat or assault directed against Jews remained virtually unchanged from 1997, the 1998 survey showed a 6 percent jump in reported instances of vandalism against synagogues, schools, community centers and other Jewish institutions.

At the same time, the ADL survey reported a”marked decline”in anti-Semitic violence and harassment on college campuses. Such instances decreased by 17 percent to 86,”representing the lowest number of campus incidents since 1989,”according to an ADL news release.”We are concerned that vandalism was so prevalent, because an attack on a synagogue is an attack on an entire community,”said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL national director.”At the same time, we’re gratified that anti-Semitic incidents were down on college campuses. All too often students have been targeted with acts and rhetoric of anti-Jewish hatred.” As in the past, the most anti-Semitic acts occurred in states with the largest Jewish populations. Those states were New York, California, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Quote of the day: Hillary Rodham Clinton

(RNS)”In every religion, there are those who would drape themselves in the mantle of belief and faith only to distort its most sacred teachings _ preaching intolerance and resorting to violence against believers of other faiths.” _ First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a speech at the American University of Cairo on Tuesday, March 23.

DEA END RNS