c. 2000 Religion News Service
AME Zion Church Moves Back Decision on Merger With CME Church
(RNS) The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church has voted to extend its time line for possible merger with the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church from 2004 to 2008.
“There was a plan that was adopted as a framework or foundation for continuance and they’re going to continue dialogue and they’ve agreed to extend the time frame to 2008,” said the Rev. Kathryn Brown, assistant to the convention manager of the AME Zion Church.
The decision was made at the AME Zion Church’s quadrennial General Conference, which ended Friday (Aug. 4) in Greensboro, N.C.
Originally, it had been hoped that merger could be achieved by 2004, but discussions about the name of a merged body and other issues prompted the delegates to extend the dialogue.
“It’s giving us more time to look at how we could possibly unite as one body,” said Brown.
Bishop Nathaniel Linsey, senior bishop of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, said Monday (Aug. 7) that he had hoped the AME Zion Church would vote for merger at the meeting.
“I feel good that they adopted the plan, the document, as a working document,” he said. “They didn’t reject it. They just said they needed more time.”
He said various commissions called for in “The Plan of Union” will begin meeting to discuss such issues as women in ministry, finances and properties.
He said he hopes that it might be possible to make a decision concerning merger as early as 2006. His denomination could vote for merger at its next General Conference in 2002 in Atlanta. If that occurred, the AME Zion Church could consider the matter again in 2004. He expects it to take about two years for regional bodies of the AME Zion Church to ratify a decision concerning merger.
“We can do many things together better,” he said. “We can do missions better. We can do outreach better. That’s the key, being able to service people.”
If a merger were to occur, the merged body would have more than 2 million members. Linsey said the CME Church has about 870,000 members and the AME Zion Church has 1.2 million members.
But he said maintaining identity has been a sticking point.
“I think the main thing is the name,” said Linsey. “That’s one of the biggest issues.”
A proposal to name a merged body the Christian Methodist Episcopal Zion Church concerned some AME Zion members who wanted the word “African” included.
Both denominations are predominantly black and have similar doctrine, officials say.
The Rev. George McKain, director of public affairs for the AME Zion Church, said a merger “would prove to be a very healthy balance” because the two denominations have prominent membership in different regions of the country.
For instance, the CME Church has many members in California and Florida while the AME Zion Church has more members in Alabama and the Carolinas.
Faith Groups Urge End to Iraq Sanctions
(RNS) As demonstrators around the nation Sunday (Aug. 6) marked the 10-year anniversary of the imposition of sanctions against Iraq, two faith organizations paired up with human rights groups to ask the U.N. Security Council to review the humanitarian impact of the sanctions.
“When comprehensive economic sanctions on Iraq were extended under Resolution 687 (1991), the expectation of the Security Council and other parties was that sanctions would be in place for a relatively short time,” the Mennonite Central Committee, the Quaker United Nations Office, Human Rights Watch and Save the Children, UK, said in a letter to the U.N. Security Council. “Whatever the extent of Iraqi non-compliance with the provisions of that resolution, the Council must recognize that the sanctions have contributed in a major way to persistent life-threatening conditions in this country, and that short-term emergency assistance is no longer appropriate to the scale of this humanitarian crisis.”
Meanwhile, four Americans in Iraq protested the sanctions by gathering outside the U.N. compound in Baghdad to launch a three-day fast, the Associated Press reported. They and two others are visiting the nation for two months to experience firsthand the effects of sanctions.
“What we are doing is nothing compared to the suffering of Iraqis,” said Kathy Kelly, who helped establish the anti-sanctions group Voices in the Wilderness four years ago. “We hope that our government will wake up to the fact that thousands of innocent people are dying because of their political ambitions.”
In Washington, D.C., a protest march and rally across the street from the White House drew more than 300 people, including Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate for U.S. president.
“This policy represents a massive injustice against Iraqi civilians, and it must be ended _ not after Mr. Clinton leaves office, but now,” said Nader.
In Seattle, seven Voices of the Wilderness protesters collected food, medicine and water filters for distribution Tuesday (Aug. 8) in Iraq.
The group said it knows distributing the items without permission is a violation of U.S. policy, said protester Bert Sacks, but they have never faced legal punishment for any of their six previous missions.
“This is a big, big story, and people don’t want to hear it,” said Sacks, 58. “We need to see what we’ve done.”
Rabbi’s Holocaust Remarks Stir Controversy
(RNS) A number of Jewish leaders have condemned a high-ranking Israeli rabbi who said Jewish victims of the Holocaust died because they were reincarnated sinners, even as the rabbi tried Monday (Aug. 7) to distance himself from the controversial remarks.
“The whole argument that the evildoers were doing the right thing is ludicrous and scandalous,” said Tullia Zevi, past president of the Jewish communities in Italy and a prominent member of the European Jewish Congress, according to Reuters news agency. “The idea that the Nazis were divine instruments to punish Jews for being reincarnated sinners is intolerable for me as a woman and as a former lay leader of a Jewish community.”
Zevi’s condemnation was one of several rained on Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, leader of Israel’s Shas party, the nation’s largest ultra-Orthodox political party. During a sermon broadcast by Shas radio stations on Saturday (Aug. 5), Yosef said the Nazis were “evil,” but the estimated 6 million Jews who died during the Holocaust “were reincarnations of the souls of sinners, people who transgressed and did all sorts of things which should not be done. They had been reincarnated in order to atone.”
Yosef also labeled Arabs “snakes” and derided Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak as a man who “lacked sense” for participating in peace talks with Palestinians earlier this year.
In defending his remarks Monday (Aug. 7), Yosef claimed he had been misinterpreted by the media.
“Who doesn’t bemoan the Holocaust?” he said. “Six million Jews, among them 1 million children … were killed by the wicked Nazis. All were holy and pure and complete saints.”
Paul Spiegel, leader of the Central Council of German Jews, said Yosef’s remarks do not “say much for him having a certain wisdom,” but added, “If he has now taken (his statements) back, we should interpret that benevolently.” Alfred Donath, president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities, said Yosef’s words were unacceptable and showed the rabbi had “misinterpreted ancient religious texts.”
The leader of Israel’s secular Shinui party _ a Holocaust survivor himself _ denounced Yosef as “an old fool.”
“In the world it will be said that a distinguished rabbi in Israel is in effect confirming what Hitler said, that the Jews are sinners,” said Yosef Lapid.
Milder criticism came from Barak, whom many believe wants to convince the Shas party to return to his coalition government. Barak’s coalition lost its governing majority in the Israeli parliament when the Shas withdrew to protest Israeli and Palestinian peace talks at Camp David, Md.
Barak said the rabbi’s statements “are liable to harm the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust” and hurt the feelings of their relatives.
Church Disciplines Priest Who Marched in Rome’s Gay Pride Parade
(RNS) Roman Catholic authorities have disciplined a priest who defied the Vatican by marching in a controversial World Pride Parade in Rome last month, church sources said.
The sources said the Rev. Vitaliano Della Sala was ordered to make no more public statements about homosexuality and barred from taking part in any public civil or religious event outside his parish unless given permission by his superiors.
Della Sala, who traveled to Rome from his parish of Sant’Angelo a Scala in the southern city of Avellino east of Naples, was the only priest known to have marched in the parade July 8 of an estimated 70,000 gays, lesbians and transsexuals, their families and supporters.
The entirely peaceful parade capped a week of gay pride events, to which the Vatican had strongly objected because they coincided with Holy Year celebrations in the capital of Roman Catholicism.
Pope John Paul II leveled an unusually harsh attack on the parade. Speaking during Sunday prayers the following day, he said, “In the name of the church of Rome I cannot but express bitterness at the affront to the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 and at the offense to the Christian values of a city that is so dear to the hearts of Catholics throughout the world.”
While ruling out “every sign of unjust discrimination” against homosexuals, the pope called homosexuality an “objective disorder” and said that “homosexual acts go against natural law.”
Della Sala told reporters that he felt bitter over “such a clear lack of tolerance towards the homosexuals.”
“It is sad to think that the homosexuals made no attack on the church or the pope, but it was the pope who produced the invective,” he said.
Church sources said Vatican officials protested immediately to Abbot Tarcisio Giovanni Nazzaro, who holds the authority of bishop over Della Sala’s extra-diocesan parish.
Pope Names Ex-IMF Director General to Vatican Panel on Justice and Peace
(RNS) Pope John Paul II has named Michel Camdessus, former director general of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the Vatican said Monday (Aug. 7).
Vatican sources said the pope made the appointment to increase the panel’s expertise and to bolster the campaign for forgiveness of Third World debt, which he strongly supports.
The council, established by Pope Paul VI in 1967, works to promote justice and peace in the world according to church teaching. It speaks out frequently on such issues as globalization, poverty and debt and is preparing a social catechism for Roman Catholics.
Camdessus, who recently stepped down as head of the IMF, attended a conference of eminent bankers and economists on the potential risks and benefits of globalization, which the Vatican convened April 30 as part of its May Day observances.
Quote of the Day: Former Whitewater Special Counsel Kenneth W. Starr
(RNS) “It’s a natural human instinct to want to be served. We’re asked in the Christian perspective to fight that natural, self-centered tendency and to try very hard to serve others … especially those who might not have had the advantages that others of us have been privileged to have.”
_ Former Whitewater special counsel Kenneth W. Starr, speaking about how his volunteer teaching at Anacostia High School in Washington, D.C., is an extension of his religious convictions. He was quoted Sunday (Aug. 6) in The Washington Post.
DEA END RNS
