c. 2000 Religion News Service
Israel Delivers Matzo to Ethiopian Famine Victims
(RNS) Bread that was part of an Israeli aid shipment to Ethiopia had to be replaced with matzo after the chief rabbi of the Israeli army said the country could not deliver bread during Passover.
Israeli troops delivered three tons of matzo, an unleavened cracker used during Passover, to Ethiopia on Tuesday (April 25) as part of a relief package. The two helicopters also delivered food, kosher cookies for Passover, medicine, baby food and blankets, the Associated Press reported.
Passover, which ends on Wednesday (April 26) for Reform Jews and Thursday (April 27) for Orthodox and Conservative Jews, celebrates the liberation of the Jews from the hands of Pharaoh. Jews do not eat leavened bread during Passover to commemorate the rapid exodus from Egypt.
Bread products were scheduled to be part of the Israeli aid shipment, but Gad Navon, the army’s chief rabbi, said they could not be included during Passover.
Ethiopia has been wracked by three years of drought, leaving more than 8 million people without food. Government officials said they need 935,000 tons of food to last through the end of the year.
Diocese Settles With Priest Who Accused Bishop of Forced Affair
(RNS) The Roman Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa, Calif., has reached a $535,000 settlement with a priest who sued the diocese and accused a bishop of forcing him into a sexual relationship.
The diocese, in a settlement announced Monday (April 24), agreed to pay the sum to the Rev. Jorge Hume Salas, who alleged that Bishop G. Patrick Ziemann demanded sex in return for covering up Salas’ theft from his church in Ukiah, Calif.
Ziemann resigned suddenly after Salas filed suit last July. The bishop acknowledged the affair but claimed it was consensual.
In a joint statement, lawyers for both sides said they disagreed about the merits of the case but “each side recognizes the legal complexities involved, the pain already imposed on the Catholic community by the issues in this case, and the need to bring the matter to a close and move on,” the Associated Press reported.
As part of the settlement, Salas will resign from the diocese. However, he will continue to be a priest. His attorney said Salas, who is from Costa Rica, does not plan to stay in the United States.
Maurice Healy, spokesman for the Diocese of San Francisco, which released the settlement, said, “When he goes to a new diocese anywhere else, his record will follow him.”
On the weekend before the settlement was announced, a letter of apology from Ziemann was read at Masses throughout the six-county diocese.
“I acknowledge with deep regret my responsibility for the current state of affairs about which you are justly angry,” said Ziemann, who retains the title of bishop despite being stripped of his administrative authority.
“I cannot express to you enough the deep remorse and repentance I feel for letting you down.”
Ziemann also asked for forgiveness.
“I urge you not to lose faith in God or in your church because of me,” he wrote.
The remarks by Ziemann marked his first public comment since his resignation. Revelations in subsequent months showed a diocese deeply in debt due to overspending during Ziemann’s leadership and payments for counseling and settlements related to priestly misconduct.
Interim church administrators led by Archbishop William Levada of San Francisco learned that Ziemann had misappropriated $16 million entrusted to the diocese by local churches and schools.
Falun Gong Supporters Detained on Demonstration Anniversary
(RNS) More than 100 members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement were detained Tuesday (April 25) in Tiananmen Square as they marked the anniversary of a mass demonstration that prompted a ban by Chinese officials.
Police officers patrolled the area as small-scale protests erupted across the vast square. When groups sat down to meditate or unfurled a banner they were tackled by police or placed in a van on the edge of the square.
The charged atmosphere and the sometimes violent, firmly executed arrests marked a contrast with the event of a year ago that supporters were commemorating, the Associated Press reported.
Last April 25, in protest of official harassment, 10,000 practitioners surrounded the communist leadership’s compound near Tiananmen and meditated in silence for a day. Police kept their distance on that occasion.
The group’s ability to mobilize followers alarmed Chinese leaders and President Jiang Zemin ordered a crackdown. When the movement was officially banned last July, its leading members were arrested and its grass-roots members were told to recant or face jail.
The government, which believes the movement is an evil cult and a threat to Communist Party rule, reiterated its declaration of victory against the group Tuesday but said unidentified foreign supporters were keeping the movement going.
“Our struggle to combat the Falun Gong cult has registered a success,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi, who added that 98 percent of the group’s followers have left the movement.
The protesters Tuesday included a range of Chinese, including elderly women, young men, and women carrying children.
The movement drew millions of practitioners with its blend of traditional beliefs, slow-motion exercises and the ideas of founder Li Hongzhi, who moved to New York after leaving China in 1996.
In the last year, 35,000 practitioners have been detained and another 5,000 sent to labor camps without trial, a New York-based spokeswoman for Falun Gong said in a statement.
Since the July ban, at least 16 followers have died in custody, either from abuse or from hunger strikes, said the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.
Canadian Supreme Court to Rule if Evangelical School Can Train Teachers
(RNS) The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to make the final ruling on a long-brewing battle over whether a small, evangelical university in Langley, British Columbia, has the right to train teachers for the province’s public schools.
At issue is Trinity Western University’s list of un-Christian activities, which includes homosexual sex.
In 1996, the British Columbia College of Teachers denied the university’s application to operate a fully accredited teaching program. The self-regulatory body _ controlled by the province’s certified schoolteachers _ determined that the university’s restrictions against “homosexual behavior” discriminate against gays and lesbians and create an “inappropriate environment” for training public schoolteachers who face student bodies that are growing more diverse.
Since the 1996 denial, two courts have ruled in favor of the programs at Trinity Western, The Washington Post reported.
If the Supreme Court agrees with the College of Teachers, its ruling could have the result of barring religion-based Canadian universities from training all students who seek to become licensed professionals. Civil liberty advocates also worry that such a ruling could lead to teacher certification boards asking about the religious beliefs of individual teachers and applicants.
If the court sides with Trinity Western, its ruling would be an unusual setback for Canada’s human rights codes, which ban discrimination on race, gender, religion, nationality, sexual orientation and any speech considered unduly critical of such groups.
Trinity Western students are required to sign a pledge not to engage in a variety of activities including drinking, cheating, smoking, gambling, dancing, and premarital or homosexual sex.
“We like to say we major in grace and minor in guilt,” said Guy Safford, the university’s vice president.
University officials suspect that the province wants to marginalize the school. But Registrar Douglas Smart, the top official of the College of Teachers, denies that charge.
He and his colleagues believe any school that condemns homosexuality as a sin is discriminatory and should not get a “stamp of approval” from a quasi-public agency.
The school is run by the Evangelical Free Church, founded by renegade Lutherans from Scandinavia who didn’t _ and still don’t _ approve of governments regulating their beliefs.
Episcopalians Try to Bridge Gaps Over Homosexuality
(RNS) A group of lay Episcopalians have formed a task force that they hope will help bridge the gaps within the denomination over the issue of homosexuality.
The New Commandment Task Force will hold regional meetings this year to sponsor dialogue and discussion between liberal and conservative members within the church. The group will hold no legislative authority, but it has received the support of Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold.
The issue of homosexuality _ particularly in the areas of the ordination of gay clergy and the blessing of same-sex union ceremonies _ has split the denomination into separate camps. The issue is expected to dominate this July’s General Convention in Denver.
The task force will be headed by a layman, Louie Crew of Newark, N.J., and the Rev. Brian Cox, a priest in Santa Barbara, Calif. The first regional meeting will be at Christ Church in Short Hills, N.J., May 15-19. A second meeting is planned in June.
The group is modeled after a similar discussion held in Seattle last fall that brought together liberal, moderate and conservative elements of the church. While the process failed to find any solutions, the New Commandment group says discussion will show Episcopalians they agree on issues more often than they disagree.
Griswold has offered to assist with financial help in getting the group started, according to a church press release.
The group takes its name from the New Testament passage of John 13:34, where Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.”
Quote of the Day: The Rev. Ronald P. Pytel, Baltimore Catholic priest
(RNS) “I still ask, `Why me?’ when so many people are praying for health reasons. Why the Lord chose me I wouldn’t know.”
The Rev. Ronald P. Pytel, pastor of Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Baltimore, whose miraculous recovery from heart trouble has been credited to Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun who died in 1938 and is to be canonized Sunday (April 30) by Pope John Paul II. He was quoted in the Tuesday (April 25) edition of The Washington Post.
