c. 1999 Religion News Service
Church groups express concern over East Timor violence
(RNS) As violence increased in East Timor, Christian groups expressed their concern Friday (Sept. 3) and urged the international community to take steps to end the bloodshed.
The violence _ blamed largely on anti-independence militias said to be supported by elements of the Indonesian military _ came in the wake of a vote in East Timor to determine whether the predominantly Roman Catholic enclave will break free from or remain a part of largely Muslim Indonesia.
The outcome of the vote was expected to be announced Saturday morning East Timor time. Indications are that pro-independence voters have prevailed _ prompting the militias to resort to violence in an apparent effort to nullify the vote.
The World Council of Churches said in a statement it feared the Indonesian military would not stop the bloodshed, which has led to the deaths of several United Nations employees in East Timor. The world body organized the independence balloting.
A WCC member, the Protestant Christian Church in East Timor, favors independence.
In the United States, the National Council of Churches _ which like the WCC includes Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican groups _ urged the U.S. government to”make a clear statement to the Indonesian government that the violence must stop and that there will be material consequences if they do not fulfill their responsibilities.” The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, NCC general secretary, said in a letter to President Clinton that”it is up to the United States and the international community to exert the utmost pressure on Indonesia to fulfill its responsibility under the U.N. agreement.” Despite increasing calls for international peacekeepers to go to East Timor, a former Portuguese colony forcibly overrun by Indonesia in 1975, the United States on Friday held firm to its stated opposition to such a move. At the United Nations, Deputy U.S. Ambassador Peter Burleigh said a peacekeeping mission is”not a practical suggestion at this point in time.”
Gov. Bush proposes removing federal funds from failing public schools
(RNS) Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, a Republican presidential candidate, has proposed removing federal funds from schools with poor performance records and giving the money to parents to send their children to schools of their choice.”In my administration, federal money will no longer follow failure,”Bush said in a speech in Los Angeles on Thursday (Sept. 2).
Bush detailed his plan before the Latin Business Association, a Hispanic organization.
He would like every school receiving Title I money to test its poor students on basic academics each year. Schools would be warned if they fail to make progress in reaching state standards. If no progress is made in three years, the Title I money would be matched with other federal education funds and distributed to the state, which would set up an education account for each affected student. The accounts would hold about $1,500 a year, the Associated Press reported.
Bush said parents could decide how to spend the money, keeping the funds and their child in the original school, or picking an alternative, including tutoring or a private school or”whatever offers hope.” The government currently spends $7.7 billion on Title I to help educate impoverished children.
Education Secretary Richard Riley said Bush’s proposal was similar to programs of his brother Jeb, the governor of Florida, who has begun the nation’s first statewide voucher plan.”No matter how you dress it up, how long you delay it, or what you call it, a voucher is a voucher,”said Riley.”Gov. George W. Bush would have us start down the road of accountability, then take a dangerous detour into vouchers.” People for the American Way, a liberal Washington-based advocacy group, also criticized the plan.”Underneath all the sweet talk, Bush’s proposal is a hard-hearted outrage to every American who cares about educating our neediest children,”said Carole Shields, president of the group.”If this is Bush’s idea of compassion, I can’t imagine how he defines cruelty.”
Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly picks top religion stories of millennium
(RNS) Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly will kick off its third television season by citing the top 10 religion stories of the millennium.
The list, in chronological order, highlights these top stories of the past 1,000 years:
1. The Great Schism of 1054 dividing Christianity into the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox branches.
2. The Crusades, 1095-1291.
3. Muslim expansion and conquest of India (1190-1200) and the reign of Islamic empires in the Middle East and parts of Europe.
4. Printing on movable type of the Gutenberg Bible in 1455.
5. Church patronage of the arts, and of universities and learning.
6. The posting by Martin Luther of the 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg in 1517, beginning the Reformation.
7. Colonialism and the Christian missionary period, responsible for the spread of Christian faith to North and South America, Africa and Asia.
8. In 1620, English Puritans settle in Plymouth, Mass., the first of many immigrants seeking religious freedom. Religious freedom becomes the cornerstone of American democracy.
9. The ideas of 19th-century thinkers including Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud that challenge traditional belief.
10. The ongoing anti-Semitism and persecution of Jews culminating in the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel (1948).”You will notice a heavy emphasis on Christianity in Europe _ it was that kind of millennium,”says anchor Bob Abernethy as he opens the segment.
The selections of the top stories were made in consultation with scholars and advisers.
The show, which airs on more than 200 Public Broadcasting Service stations nationwide, begins its third season Friday (Sept. 3).
Eds: Check local listings for airing time.)
Murdoch donates $10 million toward Los Angeles cathedral
(RNS) Media and sports tycoon Rupert Murdoch has donated $10 million to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles to help fund the construction of a new 3,000-seat, $163.2-million cathedral.
In announcing his gift Thursday (Sept. 2), Murdoch, labeled a”nominal Presbyterian”by the Los Angeles Times, said”the cathedral will serve the people of Southern California as a whole. Although it is being built to assist the Catholic Church, it will clearly serve as a center for ecumenical, interfaith and cultural endeavors.” Murdoch is chairman of News Corp, a worldwide conglomerate that counts the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, Fox television and 20th Century film studio among its vast holding. He was one of several prominent Southern Californians who were awarded a papal knighthood in 1998 by Pope John Paul II upon the recommendation of Cardinal Roger Mahony, the Los Angeles archbishop.
Including Murdoch’s gift, the archdiocese has raised about $140 million toward construction of the cathedral, which will replace the earthquake-damaged Cathedral of St. Vibiana.
The Catholic Worker group, a lay organization that works among the poor, has criticized Mahony for spending tens of millions of dollars on a new downtown cathedral. Native Americans have also criticized the project, saying the site selected for construction contains the remains of their ancestors.
Some Christian groups have repeatedly criticized Murdoch’s TV and feature film companies for producing what they consider to be immoral and corrupting shows and films.
Update: Official says Hindu-Christian tensions led to killing
(RNS) The murder of a Roman Catholic priest in remote eastern India by assailants using poisoned arrows appears connected to widespread Hindu-Christian tensions in that nation.
A police spokesman in the Orissa state capital of Bhubaneshwar told Reuters on Friday (Sept. 3) that two people had been arrested and that more arrests were expected. However, a second police official told the news agency no one had as yet been arrested but the killing appeared to stem from separate Christian and Hindu celebrations of Nuakhai, a Hindu festival.
Reports from the remote region have been sketchy and contradictory with various identities given for the victim. However, The New York Times on Friday said the victim was a Roman Catholic priest named”Aruldoss.” He was apparently killed while visiting the jungle village of Jamabani, some 106 miles northwest of Bhubaneshwar. Reuters said just 12 families live in the village, which can only be reached by a 20-mile motor scooter ride followed by a 12-mile walk.
The incident occurred in the same general region in which a Christian missionary and his two young sons were burned to death in their jeep in January. Hindu extremists and Christians have clashed repeatedly across India in recent years.
The Hindus say the Christians use bribes and pressure to get poor Indians to convert to Christianity. Christians deny the charge.
The Rev. Jose Thundiyl, a Catholic priest who worked with Aruldoss, told the Times the dead man”was a very good missionary. He led a simple life. All the time he wanted to be with the poor. His interest was not in conversions. It was in organizing poor people so they knew their rights, so they knew how to live their lives better.”
Update: Papal spokesman confirms Iraq trip plans proceeding
(RNS) Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls Friday (Sept. 3) confirmed that arrangements for Pope John Paul II to visit Iraq are proceeding, but gave no details.
John Paul is planning to visit several sites in the Middle East as part of a millennium pilgrimage to areas associated with the birth of the Judeo-Christian tradition and the life of Jesus Christ.
Vatican sources said the pope may break the pilgrimage into two or more separate segments, starting before the opening of Holy Year 2000 on Christmas Eve and continuing during the millennium celebrations.
John Paul is expected to travel in early December to the birthplace of Abraham at Ur of the Chaldees in southern Iraq, Mount Sinai in Egypt and possibly Damascus, Syria. Israeli officials have been saying for months the pope will tour the Holy Land in March.
The U.S. State Department, Iraqi opposition groups in exile and the World Jewish Congress have expressed strong opposition to a papal visit to Iraq, which would almost certainly include a meeting with President Saddam Hussein.
Virtue, Christian women’s magazine, to cease publication
(RNS) Christianity Today, Inc. will discontinue publishing Virtue magazine following its December/January 2000 issue.
CTI president Harold Myra said the decision will allow the Carol Stream, Ill.-based company to focus on its other evangelical Christian publications, including Christianity Today, Books & Culture, Campus Life and Today’s Christian Woman.
In April 1998, CTI acquired Virtue and Christian Parenting Today from Cook Communications Ministries of Colorado Springs, Colo.”Virtue had a magnificent ministry for many years,”Myra said in a statement.”However, we discovered that Virtue’s readership was simply not large enough to sustain the economics needed to remain viable.” The women’s magazine included inspirational stories, Bible studies and profiles of”women of faith.”
Bishop Philip Francis Murphy, supporter of women’s ordination, dies
(RNS) Bishop Philip Francis”Frank”Murphy, known for his advocacy for the poor and his support for women’s ordination in the Roman Catholic Church, died Thursday (Sept. 2).
Murphy, the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Md., had cancer. He was 66.
He served on a committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops that dealt with women in the church from 1978 to 1990. In 1992, he created a stir when he wrote in an article for Commonweal, a Catholic publication, that he supported the ordination of women.
Cardinal William H. Keeler, archbishop of the Baltimore archdiocese, called Murphy”a friend of so many years, a priest whose heart brimmed with compassion, a bishop who gave so much of himself in service to God’s people throughout the archdiocese,”The Baltimore Sun reported.
Quote of the day: Cardinal John J. O’Connor of New York
(RNS)”Life is such a gift and after almost 80 years of living it, I have no sentiment so strong as gratitude. But faith is an equal gift, most particularly the faith to believe that one’s life, everyone’s life, is ultimately in the hands of a loving God.” _ Roman Catholic Cardinal John J. O’Connor, hospitalized since Aug. 25 at a cancer center for diagnosis of an unknown ailment, writing in the archdiocesan newspaper Catholic New York on Sept. 3.
DEA END RNS
