c. 2003 Religion News Service
American Clerics in France for Pro-Peace European Tour
PARIS (RNS) American church leaders met with senior French diplomats in Paris on Tuesday (Feb. 11) as part of an effort to consolidate a trans-Atlantic religious lobby for a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi crisis.
Organized by the National Council of Churches, the two-day visit in Paris was part of a European tour by U.S. Christian clerics that includes press conferences, peace services and meetings with politicians and church leaders from Berlin to Moscow.
“We’re here to say there are other voices in the United States besides those they’re hearing from the Bush administration,” said delegation member Stanley DeBoe, a Roman Catholic priest. “And who in our own country are hoping to stop the war effort as well.”
The delegation’s visit to Paris coincides with that of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Monday signed on to a French-German effort to find a diplomatic alternative to war on Baghdad.
Across Europe, popular opposition runs strongly against a military solution to the arms inspections standoff. Recent polls in France, for example, show between 70 percent and 80 percent of the French opposing a war on Baghdad.
But the matter has split European governments. While Germany and France have expressed strong reservations against military action, Italy, Spain and Britain _ along with a number of Eastern European countries _ have thrown their support behind the Bush administration.
On Monday, the visiting group held a peace service at La Madeleine church on the city’s Right Bank, which gathered roughly 750 people. A similar U.S. delegation is scheduled to meet next week with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has strongly backed Washington’s bellicose stance against Baghdad. Other stops include Rome, perhaps Moscow and possibly Spain.
“The objective is to show that people in the United States are not of one mind about the war effort. Just in raising the awareness of peaceful alternatives, we’re trying to provide options _ even in England,” DeBoe said.
Many European churches have spoken out strongly against a possible war on Iraq. A delegation of European and American religious leaders met last week with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who has ruled out any German participation in an Iraqi war.
In France, an interdenominational Christian council has also called for a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi weapons standoff. And on Monday, Pope John Paul dispatched a special envoy to Baghdad to help avert a U.S.-led strike.
“It’s true that in France we have this image of Bush close to Christian fundamentalists,” said Myriam Delarbre, spokeswoman of the Protestant Federation of France. “This delegation wants the Europeans to realize there were 200,000 people protesting in Washington last October, and many were Christian. That not everyone is behind Bush.”
_ Elizabeth Bryant
Gandhi’s Grandson to Lead Interfaith Alliance
WASHINGTON (RNS) The grandson of Indian peace activist Mohandas K. “Mahatma” Gandhi has been named chairman of the board of directors at the Interfaith Alliance.
Arun Gandhi will lead the Washington-based group, which lobbies for religious freedom and interfaith understanding. Gandhi is the co-founder of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence in Memphis, Tenn., and a prolific author.
“At this particular moment in history, when religion is often cited as the cause, rather than the solution, to conflict, Arun Gandhi’s insightful and prophetic leadership is invaluable,” said the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance.
Gandhi is also a leader in Soulforce, an ecumenical gay rights group that wants to make churches more accepting of gays and lesbians. Gandhi succeeds retired Episcopal Bishop Jane Holmes Dixon of Washington, who will remain on the board.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
World Council Urges Crackdown on Georgia’s Militant Orthodox
MOSCOW (RNS) The World Council of Churches is urging the president of the former Soviet republic of Georgia to crack down on militant Orthodox Christians who recently attacked an ecumenical worship service that was to have been led by the country’s Baptist, Catholic and Lutheran leaders.
“The World Council of Churches vigorously denounces this unacceptable and criminal action of intolerance which misuses the name of religion,” wrote Peter Weiderud, head of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs in a letter to Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze.
About 100 demonstrators led by a renegade Orthodox priest, Father Basili Mkalavishvili, swarmed the Baptist cathedral in the Georgian capital Tbilisi on the afternoon of Jan. 24 shortly before Christian leaders were due to arrive for the annual Christian Unity prayer service, according to an eyewitness.
“They blocked the entrance to the church and insulted everyone. Later they came inside, smashed windows and beat up clergy and women. Then they stole whatever they could steal from the church _ including eucharistic wine,” said Malkhaz Songulashvili, presiding bishop of the 15,000-member Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia, in a Tuesday (Feb. 11) telephone interview from Tbilisi.
Mkalavishvili, who heads a schismatic Orthodox congregation in Tbilisi, often leads attacks on minority faiths in Georgia, a predominantly Orthodox country. Jehovah’s Witnesses are his most frequent target, but the priests’ followers in recent years have also burned Baptist literature, beaten and robbed American Pentecostals and terrorized a charismatic Protestant congregation.
Mkalavishvili was unavailable for comment Tuesday. So, too, were the leaders of Jvari, a nationalist organization based in Rustavi, Georgia, where telephone service was out Tuesday because of an electrical blackout. Members of Jvari, a group supported by the No. 2 hierarch in the Georgian Orthodox Church, took part in the Jan. 24 attack, Songulashvili said.
The Baptist leader was not optimistic that the WCC letter would prompt the Georgian government to take action against Mkalavishvili, especially since past protests by the U.S. government and European human rights organizations have gone unheeded.
Noting that Mkalavishvili’s “message is very appealing” to those who blame Georgia’s economic woes and lawlessness on the country’s corruption by Western values, Songulashvili said Shevardnadze “is extremely cautious” in moving against Mkalavishvili.
_ Frank Brown
Vatican Reports Total of 1.061 Billion Catholics Worldwide
VATICAN CITY (RNS) The total number of baptized Catholics worldwide has risen to 1.061 billion with the greatest increase on the continent of Africa, according to Vatican records.
The statistics were contained in the Pontifical Yearbook for 2003, which the Vatican issued Saturday (Feb. 8).
The number of baptized Catholics in the world rose from 757 million in 1978 to 1.061 billion by the end of 2001, the yearbook said. This included a 148 percent increase in Africa as well as growth in Asia, America and Oceania. Church membership in Europe remained stable.
The yearbook reported that in 2001 there were 4,649 bishops, 405,067 priests, 29,204 permanent deacons, 54,970 nonordained religious, 792,317 nuns in active life and 51,973 in contemplative life, 31,512 members of secular institutions, 139,078 lay missionaries and 2,813,252 teachers of the catechism.
Pope John Paul II appointed another 158 bishops during 2002, the yearbook said.
The total number of priests dropped by 111 due to a decline in members of religious orders, which was partially offset by a marked rise in the number of diocesan priests. The yearbook said the number of religious fell from 139,397 in 2000 to 138,619 in 2001 while the number of diocesan priests rose by 667.
There was a 1.5 percent rise in the number of candidates for the priesthood between 2000 and 2001 to a total of 112,244, the yearbook said. It said additional candidates came from Asia, Africa and the Americas, but there were fewer from Europe and Oceania.
In addition, the yearbook reported that the number of countries with which the Vatican has diplomatic relations rose to 175 in 2002 when ties were established with East Timor and Qatar.
_ Peggy Polk
Canterbury, York Archbishops Issue `Wake-up Call’ on Church Attendance
LONDON (RNS) Copies of a 40-minute video featuring the archbishops of Canterbury and York are to be distributed to some 10,500 Anglican parishes at Easter as a “wake-up call” to try to reverse declining church attendance and ease its financial woes.
The video, which is being funded by the Church of England’s leading missionary organizations, is described as part of a $165,000 campaign aimed at persuading clergy to meet people “where they are” rather than waiting, often in vain, for them to show up in church.
“Where they are,” in this context, ranges from shopping centers and youth clubs to housing estates and homeless shelters. “We need to be more of a band of pilgrims on the way than we do a bleak church building with a message, `Stay out,”’ said Archbishop of York David Hope.
In a letter to all 43 diocesan bishops seeking support for the video project, Hope said, “The church needs to become less of an institution and more of an exhibition.”
The video campaign is the brainchild of Jayne Ozanne, a member of the Archbishops’ Council, who promised the project “will be honest about the challenges facing the church” and that “it will be about helping parishes to lift their eyes over and above the depressing news we keep getting.”
The dire faces for the Anglican church and other Christian denominations includes statistics showing that in Britain, a nation with a population pushing 60 million, only 1.2 million regularly go to church each week and that on Sundays, attendance regularly dips to below 1 million.
A recent report compiled by the Rev. Bob Jackson, a researcher for Springboard, one of the sponsors of the video project, shows that at present rates, adult weekly church attendance will slide to 500,000 by 2030 and that attendance by children will be “virtually nil.”
The video campaign “is not so much about restoring hope in our church as restoring hope in our communities,” said Hope, “and that really demands that we get out.”
Booklets that will accompany the videos when they are distributed will advise parishes as to how they can link with Christian agencies with a record of work with addicts, children and the poor.
_ Al Webb
Quote of the Day: United Methodist Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher
(RNS) “This is not a moment for haste but rather for deep thoughtfulness and prayer. It is a moment to reflect upon the well-spoken concerns of our allies around the world. The welfare of our human family depends on it.”
_ United Methodist Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher of Illinois, president of the church’s Council of Bishops, in a letter to President Bush opposing a war with Iraq. Bush is a United Methodist.
DEA END RNS
