c. 2000 Religion News Service
Religious Broadcasters Seek Bill Protecting Free Speech
(RNS) The National Religious Broadcasters and 25 other groups have written to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., asking him to move along legislation that would protect Christian broadcasters from future Federal Communications Commission decisions that would restrict religious speech.
“We … believe that today religious broadcasters remain vulnerable to the whims of the Federal Communications Commission, an agency that has revealed its willingness to ignore our fundamental liberties of religious expression and free speech by attempting to place onerous restrictions specifically targeting religious programming on noncommercial TV channels,” the letter said.
The letter was referring to a December 1999 FCC guideline declaring some religious programs aired on noncommercial television could not be considered “educational.” In January 2000, the federal agency reversed its decision and dropped the controversial language.
“However, in Washington, bad ideas never seem to go away,” the letter continued. “There is still work to be done to bring this matter to a close.”
The House passed a bill in June barring the FCC from regulating the content of speech aired by noncommercial educational television and radio stations.
National Religious Broadcasters President Brandt Gustavson and other signatories urged Lott to act quickly to pass a Senate version of the bill.
“Failing to take a strong stand against the FCC’s actions leaves the door open for future commissioners to resurrect the additional guidance language again,” they wrote.
Other signatories included Don Wildmon, president of the American Family Association; James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family; Richard Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals; Chuck Colson, chairman of Prison Fellowship Ministries; and the Rev. Lou Sheldon, chairman of Traditional Values Coalition.
Arsons at U.S. Houses of Worship Continue to Decline
(RNS) The number of arsons at U.S. houses of worship continues to decline, a federal task force reports.
The total of arsons, bombings and attempted bombings declined 53 percent between 1996 and 1999, dropping from 297 to 140, the National Church Arson Task Force reported.
The decline in incidents continued in 2000, with 82 incidents reported as of Aug. 15, the Associated Press reported.
The task force began in 1996 and has an arrest rate of 36.2 percent, compared with a 16 percent rate for all cases of arson. It reported that 305 defendants have been convicted in 224 arsons or bombings.
“For the federal government, combating attacks on America’s houses of worship will remain a permanent priority,” said Bill Lann Lee, co-chairman of the task force and the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights.
Nations Agree to Rescue Child Soldiers
(RNS) Government officials from Canada, Egypt, Sudan and Uganda agreed Sunday (Sept. 17) to attempt to rescue thousands of child soldiers in southern Sudan.
Sudan has agreed to “work for the immediate release” of the estimated 6,000 kidnapped children forced to fight for the Lord’s Resistance Army, Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy announced at a conference on children and war in Winnipeg, Canada, Reuters news service reported. The southern Sudan-based resistance group has fought to overthrow the Ugandan government since 1988.
In turn, Uganda will “ensure their return and rehabilitation,” and Canada would cover the cost of transporting the children home, Axworthy said.
Egypt and Canada both agreed to help monitor implementation of the rescue operation during the next three months, he added.
Government officials will review the plan in early January, Axworthy said, noting it could not succeed unless politically supported by the governments involved.
The Lord’s Resistance Army is not the only group that has kidnapped children and forced them to become soldiers, the foreign minister of Sudan said.
Mustafa Osman Ismail claimed the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, which has been fighting for independence from the Sudanese government for nearly two decades, was also guilty of kidnapping children.
He said kidnappings would continue as long as there was no peace in Sudan.
Evangelist Billy Graham Released from Mayo Clinic
(RNS) Evangelist Billy Graham has returned home to North Carolina after being released Monday (Sept. 18) from outpatient therapy at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
Graham was hospitalized in June and underwent procedures to treat a condition known as normal pressure hydrocephalus in which too much fluid collects on the brain.
Doctors said they were pleased with the progress of Graham, who also has Parkinson’s disease.
Graham, 81, said he looks forward to “several more years of ministry” and to continuing his preparations for his crusade Nov. 2-5 in Jacksonville, Fla.
“I’ve discovered I have just as much zeal for preaching the gospel as ever, but I have had to realize that I am limited physically and must drastically reduce my schedule,” he said in a statement.
Pope Tells His Fellow Elderly the Church and World “Need Us”
(RNS) Pope John Paul II said Sunday (Sept. 17) the Roman Catholic Church and the world need the elderly to show that “an authentic culture of life” is more important than the myths of strength and power.
The 80-year-old pontiff told some 40,000 elderly people attending a Mass in St. Peter’s Square to mark the “Jubilee of the Third Age” that they are as important to the church as young people are. He twice made ad lib references to his own age.
“Dear elderly friends,” the pope said, “in a world like the present in which strength and power are held up as myths, you have the mission of bearing witness to the values that really count beyond appearances.”
“As people of the third age you have _ we have, because I too belong to your age _ a specific contribution to offer for the development of an authentic culture of life, testifying that every moment of existence is a gift of God, and every season of human life has its own specific riches to place at the disposal of all,” he said.
Clearly moved by the chants and applause of the elderly pilgrims, John Paul told them that they were “competing” in their enthusiasm with the 2 million young people who gathered in Rome for World Youth Day a month ago.
“Dearest brothers and sisters,” the pope said, “the church views you with great esteem and faith. The church needs you.”
Departing from his prepared text, John Paul added, “I said this a month ago to the young people and I say this again today to you elderly _ to us elderly. The church needs you. But civil society also has need of you.”
The pope noted the growth in the world’s elderly populations and called on society to do more to understand their problems and meet their needs. It is important, he said, that their “dignity as persons always be upheld and respected.”
Pope Renews Commitment to Mideast Peace Process, Interfaith Dialogue
(RNS) Pope John Paul II on Monday (Sept. 18) renewed the church’s commitment to the Middle East Peace process and to interfaith and ecumenical dialogue.
While expressing “sadness” at the “elusive character of a definitive peace in the Middle East,” the pontiff said the progress already made must “convince all concerned that a solution is possible. It must encourage everyone to press forward with hope and perseverance.”
The pope also reiterated the Vatican’s call for a “special internationally guaranteed statute” for Jerusalem and stressed the importance he placed on Jewish-Catholic dialogue at a ceremony in which he received the credentials of Israel’s new ambassador to the Holy See, Yosef Lamdan.
Later, John Paul told members of the Mixed International Commission on Dialogue Between Catholics and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches that “the commitment of the Catholic church to ecumenical dialogue is irrevocable.”
At both audiences, the pope appeared intent on countering doubts about the Catholic position on interfaith and ecumenical dialogue caused by the Sept. 5 “Declaration Dominus Iesus,” which attacked religious relativism and upheld the supremacy of the Catholic church as the only complete and certain source of salvation. The document defined the Anglican and Protestant faiths as “ecclesial communities” rather than “churches in the proper sense.”
The Catholic-Reformed dialogue, which began in the late 1960s shortly after the Second Vatican Council, is now in its third phase. The commission is meeting in Rome to discuss “Church and the Kingdom of God.”
“Within the ecumenical movement, theological dialogue is the proper setting for us to face together the issues over which Christians have been divided and to build together the unity to which Christ calls his disciples,” John Paul said.
Receiving the Glasgow-born Israeli envoy, who was a British diplomat before joining the Israeli foreign service, the pope spoke with “gratitude” about his pilgrimage to the Holy Land last March and called for the expansion of Jewish-Christian dialogue, “especially on biblical, theological and ethical matters.”
“And a fresh mutual and sincere attempt must be made at every level to help Christians and Jews to know, respect and esteem more fully each other’s beliefs and traditions,” he said. “This is the surest way to overcome the prejudices of the past and to raise a barrier against the forms of anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia which are reappearing in some places today.”
The pontiff said the “delicate question of Jerusalem” can only be met through “dialogue and agreement, not force and imposition.”
“The history and present reality of interreligious relations in the Holy Land is such that no just and lasting peace is foreseeable without some form of support from the international community,” he said. “The purpose of this international support would be the conservation of the cultural and religious patrimony of the Holy City, a patrimony which belongs to Jews, Christians and Muslims all over the world and to the entire international community.”
The Rev. Ellwood `Bud’ Kieser, producer of “Romero,’ Dead at 71.
(RNS) The Rev. Ellwood “Bud” Kieser, the producer and Roman Catholic priest renowned for his “Insight” television series and the 1989 film “Romero,” died Sept. 16 of blood clot complications following surgery for colon cancer. He was 71.
The 6’7″Kieser appeared in good health in July when he oversaw the annual “Humanitas Prize” luncheon honoring quality film and television scripts. In late August, doctors discovered he had colon cancer which had spread fatally to his liver and stomach.
Last week, the Paulist priest fell into a coma he did not recover from, said the Rev. Frank Desiderio, Kieser’s successor at the Malibu-based Paulist Productions.
Like all Paulist priests, Kieser embraced ecumenism, evangelization and reconciliation.
“He was the Hollywood priest,” Desiderio said. “He was pastor for both Christians and Jews in Hollywood.”
Kieser’s lasting legacy was “Insight,” the half-hour weekly, commercial-free drama focusing on God and humanity. Catholic actors Martin Sheen and Bob Newhart both played God on the show, which became a favorite for many TV performers who worked for Kaiser for free, including Carol Burnett, Jack Klugman, Ed Asner, Dick Van Patten, Patty Duke and Flip Wilson.
After a 23-year run on stations nationwide, a Reagan administration decision declared that TV stations did not have to set aside public service time slots, often used for religiously themed shows, and in 1983 “Insight” stopped production.
Kieser broke financially even with the well-received “Romero,” about the life of slain El Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero. But the priest renowned in Hollywood for his fund-raising skills found filmmaking harder than episodic TV. After several years spent raising $4 million to produce a 1996 film on renowned Catholic social worker Dorothy Day, “Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story,” the film met with mixed reviews and little box office success.
However, after “Insight,” Kieser successfully produced socially conscious TV movies such as “We Are the Children” and “The Fourth Wiseman,” and saw his Humanitas Prize become a Hollywood staple. The Odyssey Network cable channel currently is airing the old “Insight” episodes.
Along with his producing work, Kieser could be found most Sunday mornings saying Mass at a poor, African-American congregation in central Los Angeles. During the public prayers, or intentions, of each Mass, Kieser would walk down the church’s main aisle and give people the microphone so they could ask others to pray with them.
Before the terminally ill actor Brian Keith committed an apparent suicide in 1997, he reached out to Kieser, an old friend, as the Irish-American actor sought to reconcile with the faith from which he had strayed.
Those who visited Kieser last week at his hospital bed included Sheen, TV writer-producer David E. Kelley, “NYPD Blue” writer David Milch and Odyssey Network president and CEO Margaret Loesch. Kaiser will be buried Sept. 23 in the Los Angeles suburb of Culver City at Holy Cross Cemetery.
Quote of the Day: Southern Baptist Convention President James Merritt
(RNS) “I don’t mind telling you, I’ve been in some churches where you’d think amens were a hundred dollars apiece. Why let the charismatics have all the fun? We ought to praise God.”
Southern Baptist President James Merritt, speaking Sept. 12 at a chapel service at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He was quoted by Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
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