c. 2000 Religion News Service
School-Prayer Proponents Rally in Washington
(RNS) Proponents of increased prayer rights in public schools rallied in Washington over the weekend (May 20-21), saying approval of their cause would reduce school violence.
“Legislation and politicians are not where the answers lie _ the answer lies in prayer and our youth,” said Darrell Scott, father of Rachel Scott, one of the students killed in last year’s massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.
The rally on the National Mall was sponsored by Truth Broadcasting, a North Carolina-based organization that said the assembly was designed to “restore prayer back to the public schools of the United States of America.”
State-mandated prayer was removed from public schools in 1962 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional. In 1992, the high court ruled that school-invited clergy could not give prayers at graduation ceremonies. The court heard arguments in a case in March regarding the constitutionality of prayers at public-school football games.
Linda Furr, director of Truth Broadcasting, told The Washington Times that she thinks the lack of prayer has led to recent violence in public schools.
“Prayer takes the chaos out,” she said. “Our children have not been taught that life is precious.”
Arthur Spitzer, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said of the rally: “The demonstrators want to impose their prayers … and we do not support that.”
UCC Joins Religious Bodies in Opposing Cleveland Voucher Program
(RNS) The United Church of Christ has joined a chorus of religious groups opposing the school voucher program in Cleveland, which a judge ruled in December violates the First Amendment’s separation of church and state.
The Cleveland-based church filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which is hearing an appeal of the case from a lower court. The UCC joined the American Jewish Committee, the Baptist Joint Committee and the National Council of Churches in opposing the program.
According to the church’s court brief, the church hopes to “affirm the use of public funds to support and improve the Cleveland municipal schools … to oppose vouchers which benefit a tiny minority of children and direct public funds away from already under-funded schools, and to speak emphatically to protect the separation of church and state guaranteed by the First Amendment.”
The Cleveland voucher program was one of the first pilot programs in the nation to use tax dollars to allow underprivileged children to attend private schools. According to the UCC, 82 percent of the schools in the voucher program are religious-based schools.
Last year, a Cleveland judge found the program unconstitutional with the “impermissible effect of advancing religion by resulting in government indoctrination of religious beliefs (and) creating an incentive to attend religious schools.”
Voucher programs have become the darling of many conservative groups and the Roman Catholic educational system, but mainline and progressive religious groups say vouchers threaten to blur the line between church and state while failing to address the core problems of public education.
“In the tradition of its Pilgrim forbears who brought community schooling and higher education to the colonies and its American Missionary Association that founded schools … for freed slaves, the United Church of Christ and its Board for Homeland Ministries have historically worked to strengthen public schools and to speak out against anything that weakens our public education system,” said Jan Resseger, the church’s minister for issues in public education.
Shroud of Turin to Go on Public Display for Holy Year
(RNS) Roman Catholic Church officials, announcing Monday (May 22) that the Holy Shroud will go on public display in Turin, Italy, next month, questioned the reliability of tests indicating the much venerated cloth bearing what appears to be the image of a man some take to be Christ crucified is actually a medieval fake.
“The last word has not yet been said on this case,” Archbishop Severino Poletto of Turin, who serves as custodian of the shroud, told a Vatican news conference.
Poletto said that on instructions of Pope John Paul II, the shroud will be displayed to the public from Aug. 13 to Oct. 22 as part of the church’s Jubilee Holy Year celebrations. There will be a special showing Aug. 12 for young people in Italy to attend Youth Day in Rome Aug. 15.
During a visit to Moscow earlier this month by Poletto and city officials, Metropolitan Kyrill, president of the Department of Inter-Christian and Interreligious Relations of the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow, agreed to travel to Turin to view the shroud, it was also announced.
Poletto said the delegation also invited Patriarch Alexii II, but it was doubtful he would make the pilgrimage, which would have major implications for Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. “It would be a true miracle if he came to pay homage to the shroud together with the pope,” Poletto said.
John Paul was among the visitors when the shroud was last displayed two years ago, and Poletto expressed hope that he would return despite his crowded Holy Year schedule. “The pope has surprised us with unscheduled gestures, and I have not lost my last hope,” the prelate said.
Many Catholics _ and others _ continue to believe the linen sheet bearing what appears to be the outline of the body and face of a bearded man was Jesus’ shroud despite a report in 1988 that carbon dating tests carried out in England showed that three fragments cut from the border of the cloth dated only to the 13th century.
Citing doubts about the reliability of the tests, Poletto said that at an international symposium on the shroud held in Turin in March, two experts on carbon dating upheld the 1988 tests while two others discounted the findings on grounds the procedures were flawed.
Other scientists have said blood and grass stains on the cloth also testify to its authenticity.
“We know that science, and not faith, must have the last word on this mysterious image, and for this reason the research remains open,” Poletto said. “We do not exclude new examinations, in particular on some threads of the cloth on which the image is imprinted.”
The shroud is shown to the public only on special occasions. Formerly in the possession of the Dukes of Savoy, who for a time were Italy’s royal family, the shroud has remained in St. John’s Cathedral in Turin, the seat of the Savoys, since Italy’s last Savoy king, Umberto II, left it to the Vatican on his death in 1983.
More than 1 million people waited on line for hours to see the shroud in 1998 when it went on temporary display in a specially built glass case to mark the 100th anniversary of the discovery that the image corresponded to a photographic negative.
To avoid long waits this time, officials invited pilgrimages to make a reservation using a toll-free telephone number, 00390115118900 from the United States, or the Internet addresses http://www.giubileo.piemonte.it and http://www.sindone.org.
Scottish Moderator Attacks Media for Trivializing, Sensationalizing
(RNS) The moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has sharply attacked parts of the media for trivializing some issues and sensationalizing others.
The Rev. John Cairns, speaking Sunday (May 21), said that in the past he had trusted the media “and had every reason to do so.”
But, he added, his experiences during his year as moderator of the Church of Scotland had “totally undermined” his confidence. “It is clear to me that at a national level what is desired is confrontation, sensationalism and simple sound bites.”
The effect is either to lose all sense of proportion or to totally trivialize, he said.
Cairns apparently was alluding to two particular instances. The first was when remarks he made during a visit to the Middle East in March were reported in such a way as to suggest he was taking sides in the political conflict between Israel and Palestinians. The second was when a hourlong interview was reduced to a brief and exaggerated report of the theological differences between the Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Church.
“Unless there is a row or a scandal in the offing, the church and spiritual matters are apparently not a story,” Cairns concluded. “In spite of all we do and all we achieve … the average paper day by day ensures it gives room to astrology and none to the church.”
Church of the Brethren Reports Largest Decline Since 1994
(RNS) The small Church of the Brethren lost 1,707 members in 1999, representing a 1.2 percent membership drop for a church that now has only 138,304 people.
But while the U.S. and Puerto Rican church saw its membership drop, the church’s sister body in Nigeria continues to grow. The Nigerian church now has between 130,000 and 140,000 members, according to the 2000 Yearbook produced by the church.
In the United States, 1999 was the second year of decline for the church. Church officials said it marks the largest drop _ in numbers and percentage _ since 1994, when the church lost 2,431 members. The church’s membership has dropped 5.7 percent since 1993, representing about 8,400 people.
The Church of the Brethren is a small, theologically conservative church with historic ties to the Anabaptist family of churches, which includes the Mennonites and the Amish.
Quote of the Day: Romance Novelist Barbara Cartland
(RNS) “I say a prayer. I really do. I say, `Please God, get me a plot.’ It’s absolutely extraordinary: Then a plot comes.”
The late romance novelist Barbara Cartland, who died May 21 at the age of 98, telling the Associated Press where her novels come from. She was quoted in the Monday (May 22) edition of The Washington Post.
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