c. 2000 Religion News Service
House Minority Leader Gephardt Criticizes Chaplain Process
(RNS) House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt has written a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert saying the process of selecting the House chaplain “has gone seriously off-track.”
Gephardt, D-Mo., weighed in on the ongoing controversy to respond to Hastert’s concerns about whether the speaker’s nominee for chaplain, the Rev. Charles Wright, will be invited to meet with the House’s Democratic Caucus. Questions have arisen about why Wright, a Presbyterian (USA) minister, was chosen as the nominee over Catholic priest Timothy O’Brien.
“This process has gone seriously off-track, and that fact has little to do with whether or not Reverend Wright appears before the Democratic Caucus,” Gephardt wrote in the March 8 letter. “The real issue is the way in which a process ostensibly designed to result in a chaplain selected by a bipartisan cross-section of the House appears to have gone awry, and how it can be corrected.”
Although the formal letter from the bipartisan selection committee did not rank the three finalists for the post, Gephardt wrote “the clear choice of a bipartisan majority of the selection panel, including its chairman and ranking Democratic member, was Father O’Brien.”
Gephardt wrote that when he and Hastert, R-Ill., met with Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, the two Republicans opted for Wright over O’Brien and the other finalist, the Rev. Robert Dvorak, a Connecticut-based leader of the Evangelical Covenant Church.
“I then agreed to notify the Democratic members of the search committee of your choice and I reported back to you their perplexed reaction and I stated that Father O’Brien or Reverend Dvorak would achieve a consensus of the Democratic members,” Gephardt wrote. “Nevertheless, within a few days Reverend Wright’s selection was announced.”
John Feehery, the speaker’s press secretary, said Gephardt’s statement that O’Brien was the choice of the panel is “wrong” and “not true.”
Sue Harvey, deputy communications directory in the minority leader’s office, said information about the panel’s top choice “was readily available from any number of sources.”
She said Gephardt’s “first choice” was O’Brien.
Feehery said Tuesday (March 14) that the speaker is considering “different options” but has not scheduled a vote on Wright.
“He doesn’t necessarily want to have a chaplain who’s going to serve in a divided House,” Feehery said. “He still wants a chaplain that will serve all members.”
Mozambique Bishop: Forgive Us Our Debts
(RNS) The head of Mozambique’s primary ecumenical organization has called on the rich nations of the world to cancel the debts the flood-ravaged country owes other countries.
“The economic situation of Mozambique was precarious before the flooding,” said Methodist Bishop Bernadino Mandlate, president of the Christian Council of Mozambique.
“Now the economic situation has gone from precarious to catastrophic.”
The month of flooding has claimed a minimum of 500 lives, according to government officials, and another 500,000 people have been displaced from their homes. Aid agencies said they expect the death toll to rise as more bodies are found and as a result of disease because of the flooding.
Christian Aid, a London-based relief organization, said Mozambique pays $1.46 million a week to service its foreign debt. It is already one of the countries targeted by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for debt relief that would cancel 90 percent of its external debt, Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency reported Tuesday (March 14).
A number of countries, including Germany and Finland, have announced they will cancel the bilateral debt owed by Mozambique.
Mandlate said while there has been economic growth in recent years in Mozambique, most of the people have not benefited from it.
“Nearly 70 percent of the Mozambicans live in the countryside, and it is the life of these people which has been worst affected by the flooding,” the bishop said. “With the harvest gone, these people have lost their livelihood.”
He said that while the flood was indeed a disaster, the “disaster” of the debt has been occurring for years.
“I make no apology for discussing debt at this time,” he said. “It is a disaster that children under 5 are dying because of the lack of health care, sacrificed because of the need to pay back old loans.”
Iranian Official Hopes for Acquittal of Jews Charged as Spies
(RNS) Iran’s judiciary spokesman said Tuesday (March 14) he hoped 13 Iranian Jews awaiting trial on charges they were spies for Israel will be acquitted.
“We all hope and desire that none of them is convicted, and hope that they are all innocent and will be acquitted,” Hossein Sadequi told Reuters.
“The scale of justice should weigh heaviest toward leniency and compassion,” he added. “The interpretation of the law should be in favor of the accused.”
The 13 are scheduled to go on trial April 13.
Their arrest has sparked a firestorm of criticism from other countries, including the United States. Israel has denied any links to the 13, and the international outcry at the arrests has hampered reformist President Mohammad Khatami’s drive for better ties with the West.
Reuters said Sadequi’s remarks appeared to reflect a shift toward more moderate judicial policies since the appointment last year of Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Sharhroudi as head of the judiciary.
Iran’s Jewish community has shrunk to an estimated 35,000 members from more than 80,000 before the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Seventh-day Adventists Sue Over Use of Name
(RNS) Leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church have asked a federal judge to block a Florida “breakaway church” from using the church’s name after the West Palm Beach, Fla., congregation launched radio and newspaper ads denouncing Protestants and Catholics.
According to the Associated Press, leaders of the Maryland-headquartered denomination say the Florida congregation, the Eternal Gospel Church of Seventh-day Adventists, has violated a 1980 trademark agreement on the name “Seventh-day Adventist.”
Seventh-day Adventists, with 10 million members around the world and 839,000 in the United States, worship on Saturdays. The Florida church has disparaged Catholics and Protestants for worshipping on Sunday, likening them to Satanists and pagans.
Jeffrey Tew, an attorney for the national church, said the case is a “classic case of a breakaway church trying to use the mother church’s name.” Lawyers for the Florida church, however, say “Seventh-day Adventist” is a generic term and no group should have a “monopoly” on it.
“What we have here is the trademark law being used in a religious context when it was intended to be used commercially,” said Robert Pershes, an attorney for the Florida church.
The national church considers the Florida church a “hate group” and does not want its name associated with the congregation. The term “Seventh-day Adventist” refers to the religion’s Saturday worship and anticipation of the second coming of Jesus.
Church Sues Over City’s Denial of Storefront Location
(RNS) A church that was denied the use of a storefront location has sued the city of Grand Haven, Mich.
The zoning dispute arose when the Rev. David Bailey and his Haven Shores Community Church, a congregation of the Reformed Church of America, requested a building permit last June to remodel space it rented in a local shopping center.
City officials determined that a church was not permitted in that particular business district. The church unsuccessfully sought an amendment to the zoning ordinance that would allow it to hold services at the shopping center.
“This is a clear and unambiguous case of unconstitutional religious discrimination,” said Kevin J. Hasson, president and general counsel of the Washington-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which filed the suit Monday (March 13) on the church’s behalf.
“Rev. Bailey and his congregation are being barred from occupying space in this shopping center merely because of the religious nature of their activity.”
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, Mich.
In response, the city council, by a 4-1 vote at a meeting on Monday, issued a resolution confirming their reasons for defeating the church’s request to amend the ordinance.
The resolution states that Grand Haven has “welcomed churches by providing for them in nine other zoning districts.” Unlike assembly halls, theaters and fraternal lodges, churches are permitted in residential zoning districts, the city officials said.
“The city needs a vibrant retail base and there is a feeling the existence of a church in smaller retail zones such as the B-1 zoning districts may discourage retail activity in those districts,” the resolution reads. “Locations of churches in B-1 zoning districts could adversely affect the ability to locate in those zoned areas restaurants, taverns and similar uses licensed to sell alcoholic beverages.”
The resolution also cites a concern that churches might impede operations of nearby businesses.
“A sensitivity to the religious beliefs of those attending church services may make retail customers uncomfortable patronizing nearby retail businesses on the Sabbath,” the resolution reads.
The church, which argues that its constitutional freedoms of religion, speech and assembly are being violated, seeks an injunction that would allow it to occupy the space it leased last May.
Death Row Inmate Sues for Sweat Lodge Last Rites
(RNS) Lawyers for a man on California’s death row are appealing a federal judge’s decision Monday (March 13) to deny his request to perform a religious last rite at a Native American sweat lodge on prison grounds.
Darrell Rich, who is part Cherokee, wanted to participate in a sweat lodge ceremony because it was “critical for making amends and preparing to meet my Maker, my ancestors, and those person I have harmed during my time on Earth,” he said.
Rich, whose request for clemency from California Gov. Gray Davis was rejected on Friday (March 10), was convicted of killing three women and a girl and attacking five others. He is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday (March 15), the Associated Press reported.
“It’s a simple proposition,” said his lawyer, James Thomason. “It really is a matter of whether or not you can let this man go to church before he is executed.”
But state officials said they are concerned about safety during the sweat lodge ceremony, in which fire-heated rocks are doused with water as participants pray. The ceremony is supposed to purify the spirit.
Becauses Rich might be unrestrained and would have access to a shovel and a rake during the ceremony, granting his request would be “a formula for disaster,” said Dannette Valdez, a deputy attorney general.
U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker agreed the safety concerns of prison officials were valid, and concluded Rich was treated as well as any inmate of another faith.
Quote of the Day: Martin Burnham, seminarian in the Archdiocese of Baltimore
(RNS) “Our main purpose is to let people see that seminarians are more than these holy guys on the altar every Sunday. They are guys who can smack you around on the court.”
_ Martin Burnham, one of the founders of the Men in Black basketball team, which is composed of seminarians from the Archdiocese of Baltimore. He was quoted in The Baltimore Sun.
