c. 2000 Religion News Service
Bishops’ President Asks Clinton to Halt Federal Executions
(RNS) The leader of the nation’s Catholic bishops Tuesday (Dec. 5) asked President Clinton to commute the death sentences of all 31 federal prisoners on death row as a final act of mercy during the Jubilee Year.
“We do not believe that we can teach society that killing is wrong by killing those who kill others,” Galveston-Houston Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote to Clinton.
Fiorenza’s appeal came a week before Juan Raul Garza is scheduled to be executed in Terre Haute, Ind. _ the first federal execution since 1963. Last month Fiorenza joined a host of religious and civic leaders asking Clinton for a moratorium on executions, but this time Fiorenza said a moratorium does not go far enough.
“Executing Mr. Garza not only ends a life, but it diminishes all of us and contributes to the cycle of violence,” Fiorenza wrote. “In addition, we do not believe that executions offer anything but temporary and false comfort to those who have lost a loved one to murder.”
Fiorenza praised the president for his commitment to debt relief for poor countries _ a signature issue of the Jubilee Year _ and said overturning a death sentence in favor of a sentence of life in prison would be in keeping with the Jubilee theme.
“Just as debt relief will save hundreds of thousands of poor people from death by hunger and disease, so too will commutations save the lives of those condemned,” Fiorenza wrote. “The Jubilee Year is not the time to begin again the execution of those who commit federal crimes.”
Clinton has been asked several times over the past year to institute a national moratorium on executions until alleged flaws in the system can be addressed. Clinton has said the death penalty is a policy best left to the states, and so far has not welcomed the idea of a federal moratorium.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Eighth “Left Behind” Novel Tops Best-seller Lists
(RNS) The eighth book in the popular “Left Behind” Christian novel series has debuted in the top spot of many major best-seller lists after one week of recorded sales.
“The Mark,” which was released on November 14, was named No. 1 in the Nov. 25 edition of USA Today’s Top 150 List. The Wall Street Journal named it No. 1 in its hardcover fiction list on Nov. 25. It also topped the Nov. 27 hardcover fiction list in Publishers Weekly and the similar list published Dec. 3 in The New York Times.
The seventh book in the series by authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins also debuted in the top position of many best-seller lists last June. At the time, it was the first evangelical Christian novel to have such success.
“This never gets old,” Jenkins, a professional writer, said in a statement. “We never take it for granted. I’m just as thrilled now as the first time it happened.”
The end-times novels were launched in 1995 by Tyndale House Publishers and are based on the biblical book of Revelation. They follow the lives of those left on earth after the Rapture, an event some Christians believe will cause the sudden disappearance of millions of believers.
“It is an incredible miracle that the dynamic story found in the Bible could be so gripping when put in the 21st century,” said LaHaye, a retired evangelical minister, in a statement. “It is the most gratifying experience I’ve enjoyed in my 50 years of ministry.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Chinese: No Comment on Dalai Lama Overture
(RNS) One day after reports that Beijing had resumed talks with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader, Chinese officials have declined to comment on the matter.
Any talks with the spiritual and political Tibetan leader _ who fled to India with thousands of supporters in 1959 after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Chinese rule _ hinge on his acceptance of China’s authority over Tibet and Taiwan, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told Reuters news agency.
In the past, China has accused the Dalai Lama of supporting Taiwanese autonomy from Beijing, and criticized his efforts to free Tibet from the mainland. In 1989 the Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent efforts to win Tibet’s freedom, though recently he has expressed a willingness to lessen his demands if Tibetan culture can be preserved.
“The Dalai Lama must truly give up advocating Tibetan independence, stop activities aimed at splitting China and openly declare that Tibet is an inalienable part of Chinese territory,” Zhang Qiyue told a news conference, noting that “channels for contact and dialogue” did exist between China and the Dalai Lama.
During a press conference Monday (Dec. 4) in India, the Dalai Lama announced his brother had toured Beijing in October at the invitation of Chinese officials, according to the U.S.-funded Voice of America broadcasting service.
The Dalai Lama declined to reveal the contents of a message he said Chinese authorities had given his brother, but did say he responded by asking officials for permission to dispatch a fact-finding mission to Tibet.
His brother had not been allowed to tour Tibet while in China, the Dalai Lama said.
The Dalai Lama also declined to speculate whether his brother’s visit to China symbolized a shift in his relationship with Beijing.
Controversial Nun Evicted From Jesuit Residence Over Baptism Role
BOSTON (RNS) The consequence of baptizing without authority became concrete Sunday for a 73-year-old nun who was evicted from her home of 11 years at the Jesuit Urban Center.
A throng of supportive parishioners helped move Sister Jeanette Normandin from the Center in Boston’s South End to an apartment in the nearby Fenway section of the city after morning Mass.
“I’m just trying to get beyond it,” Normandin told the Boston Globe. “I’m moving out when I’m ready.”
Normandin lost her position at the center on Oct. 24. Two weeks earlier, she had allegedly worn vestments reserved for priests as she helped performed a baptism on Oct. 8. Only ordained priests have authority to baptize in the Roman Catholic Church, except in cases of emergency.
The Rev. Thomas Carroll, director of the center, declined to comment Monday on Normandin’s departure. Both the Society of Jesus of New England and the Archdiocese of Boston affirmed their support for Carroll’s decision to fire Normandin and the Rev. George Winchester, who cooperated with her in the Oct. 8 service.
The archdiocese has no plans to pursue additional discipline in the case, spokesman John Walsh said Monday.
Over her 11-year tenure, Normandin helped build the Church of the Immaculate Conception into a lively, largely gay congregation in a Boston neighborhood that has a large percentage of gay residents. Parishioners helped her find an apartment in the steeply priced Boston housing market and held a shower to outfit her with basic household items.
Normandin told the Globe that she expects to find new work easily and that her order, the Sisters of St. Anne, will support her in the meantime. She also intends to keep attending Immaculate Conception.
“It’s a wonderful worshipping community and I hope to be able to come and pray,” she said.
_ G. Jeffrey MacDonald
Time Magazine Names Six Innovators in Religion
(RNS) Time Magazine has named a black Pentecostal megachurch leader in Dallas and the founder of the Internet’s hottest religion-based Web site among its six “innovators” in the world of religion and spirituality.
They joined a Catholic priest, a Zen Buddhist self-help guru, a European Muslim scholar and an African American theologian who finds comfort for racism in Buddhist meditation among the people to watch in religion. Cable network CNN is preparing a televised companion to the 18-month series, which Time launched in June.
Spiritual leaders cited by the magazine as people to watch:
_ Bishop T.D. Jakes, pastor of the 26,000-member Potter’s House in Dallas, who wrote “Woman, Thou Art Loosed,” a spiritual self-help guide for women which sold at least 2 million copies. Jakes built a $32 million technology-wired megachurch in Dallas and is a prophet of the prosperity gospel. “My definition of success is to be able to birth out every creative thought God has breathed into me before I die,” the 43-year-old Jakes said.
_ The Rev. Virgilio Elizondo, the son of Mexican immigrants who is now rector of the San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio, Texas. Elizondo has pioneered the belief that Jesus was of mixed racial heritage and, like Mexican Americans, lived his life on society’s outer fringe.
_ Steve Waldman, a 38-year-old Internet entrepreneur who founded Beliefnet.com, which quickly became the Web’s hottest religion site. Users can swap prayers and thoughts on God, and a wealth of columnists and theologians offer a broad spectrum of insights on any number of spiritual paths.
_ Byron Kate, a 58-year-old divorced grandmother who developed “The Work,” a New Age-Zen Buddhist program to help people take responsibility for life’s problems. “It’s a way to cut through everything,” she says. “It puts responsibility back on the person looking for their answers, not the world’s answers.
_ Tariq Ramadan, a Geneva-based lecturer who says European Muslims need to develop an “independent Islam.” Ramadan, 38, is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the founder in 1928 of the Muslim Brotherhood, which decried Western materialism and called for a return to Islamic values. “I don’t deny my Muslim roots,” Ramadan said, “but I don’t vilify Europe, either.”
_ Jan Willis, a professor of Buddhism at Wesleyan University, who was able to find peace in a racist society through Buddhist meditation. A child of the turbulent civil rights era, Willis graduated from Cornell University and fled to Nepal to study Tibetan Buddhism. She is the author of the upcoming “Dreaming Me: An African American Woman’s Spiritual Journey.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Successor to Lyons’ Florida Pastorate Also Controversial
(RNS) The Florida church that was led by the Rev. Henry J. Lyons, the now-imprisoned former president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, has chosen a new pastor to take Lyons’ place.
Members of Bethel Metropolitan Baptist Church in St. Petersburg voted 200-49 Friday (Dec. 1) to oust Lyons and replace him with the Rev. Joaquin Marvin, 35, associate minister at Greater Union Baptist Church in Pensacola, Fla.
But their choice does not come without its own controversy.
The St. Petersburg Times reports Marvin was arrested several times between 1986 and 1991 on charges including assault, shoplifting and possession of crack and marijuana. In 1991, he was sentenced to two years of community control for forgery. The newspaper reported Tuesday there are two outstanding warrants for his arrest for probation violation which date to 1991, but sheriff’s officials in the county where the warrants were issued do not intend to actively search for him.
One member who voted against Marvin said she hoped the deacon board would consider rescinding the vote.
“This is the lowest blow Bethel has had,” said Maggie Davis, a longtime member. “We needed somebody with an unblemished record. If this was going to happen, we could have waited for Dr. Lyons.”
On Monday, the Rev. Joseph Harvey, an assistant minister at Bethel Metropolitan who has supported Marvin, continued to voice confidence in his selection.
“Everybody at church yesterday was still in favor of him coming,” Harvey said. “It has been over 10 years. His criminal past has no effect on his preaching. I don’t know one preacher that hasn’t done something wrong.”
In an interview published in Sunday’s edition of the newspaper, Marvin would not discuss his past legal troubles.
“All of the things have been exonerated,” he said.
Lyons remains imprisoned in Florida on charges of racketeering and grand theft related to his leadership role in one of the country’s largest African-American denominations. Since he went to prison in 1999, members of his congregation have debated whether to keep the pulpit open for Lyons or fill it with his successor.
Quote of the day: Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis.
(RNS) “The issue is not whether everyone is guilty or not. The issue is why some people who commit horrible crimes are executed, and why other people who commit horrible crimes are not.”
_ Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., urging President Clinton to place a moratorium on the federal death penalty. He was quoted by the Washington Post.
DEA END RNS
