c. 2003 Religion News Service
Iraq Clouds Paris Conference Between Jews and Catholics
PARIS (RNS) Jews and Catholics gathered for an interfaith meeting in Paris this week amid fears of an impending war on Iraq and reports of mounting attacks against Jews in France.
Indeed, differences between Europe and the United States regarding military action against Baghdad fueled verbal sparring between American and European clerics and politicians during the two-day meeting sponsored by the Paris-based European Jewish Congress.
The European Jewish-Catholic encounter first began last year, drawing religious leaders from Bruges to Warsaw, in an effort to erase deep and lingering interfaith divisions marked by the Holocaust and other events.
But the presence this year of some 50 American rabbis added a new dimension to the meeting _ and fresh disagreements.
During a Monday (March 10) address at Paris city hall, Marc Schneier, president of the North American Board of Rabbis, expressed his “concern” about transatlantic divisions over the Iraqi crisis and an alleged climate of “moral indifference” by French authorities over attacks on Jewish institutions.
The French government has tightened police security around schools and other Jewish institutions following a rise in attacks over the past two years. But some Jewish leaders complain the efforts have been inadequate. The stunning second-place finish of far right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in last year’s French presidential elections also raised concerns.
Schneier’s remarks came on the same evening French President Jacques Chirac announced Paris would veto any new U.N. resolution authorizing war on Baghdad.
“We are not for war,” said Michel Friedman, the German president of the European Jewish Congress, responding to Chirac’s comments. “But our enemy is not George Bush, but Saddam Hussein.”
A leading Jewish representative in France later sought to paper over the differences.
“It’s true, all interest today is focused on Iraq, but Iraq was not the main theme of this conference,” Richard Prasquier, board member of the Jewish council in France, said in an interview. “The arrival of the Americans made us aware of the concerns in the U.S. and of other differences between Europe and America, such as the place of religion in society.”
Besides comparing interfaith matters on the two continents, religious leaders and theologians in Paris also examined the legacy of the Holocaust, and whether a future European constitution should include reference to God or to the continent’s religious heritage.
Many Jewish and Catholic leaders are lobbying for some sort of religious reference in the future document, which France and some other European countries appear to oppose.
_ Elizabeth Bryant
Archbishop Rigali to Undergo Prostate Cancer Surgery
ST. LOUIS (RNS) St. Louis Archbishop Justin Rigali is asking for prayers for his health from the clergy and faithful that make up the 220 parishes of the St. Louis Archdiocese. Rigali, 67, informed the area’s Roman Catholic priests via letter that he will undergo surgery next week for prostate cancer.
The archdiocese announced that four weeks ago, during his routine physical, his primary physician ordered additional tests when Rigali’s prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test came back higher than normal.
Monsignor Richard Stika, one of the three vicars general in the archdiocese, said it appears the cancer has not spread.
“He’s done a number of tests including a bone scan and such and it doesn’t seem the cancer has metastasized. They won’t be 100 percent certain until they do the surgery, but as of right now it looks like the cancer was caught in time,” Stika said.
After consulting with his doctors, Rigali decided to have his prostate removed. That surgery is scheduled in St. Louis on March 19, the Feast of St. Joseph. Stika said Rigali chose the date because St. Joseph is one of the archbishop’s favorite saints. Stika added that Rigali’s brother had this type of prostate surgery and completely recovered.
Rigali, who was in Rome when the priests received their letters, was unavailable for comment, but in the letter he asked for their prayers. “So often people ask me for my prayers,” he wrote. “At this time I count so much on theirs. I ask also for a renewed remembrance in prayer for all those who suffer from cancer and various illnesses. Saint Paul reminds us that by bearing one another’s burdens we fulfill the law of Christ.”
While Rigali recuperates from the surgery, Stika and the other two vicars general will fulfill the archbishop’s duties. Rigali wishes to resume his full schedule by Easter.
Stika explained that Rigali hopes the public announcement of his surgery will remind the St. Louis laity and clergy of the importance of regular physicals and prostate testing. Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in men.
Stika also explained that Rigali is “offering up” his suffering to God as a petition for some greater good. “It’s an old Catholic tradition that the sisters and the lay teachers taught us, to offer it up when we’re facing challenges” Stika said. “The archbishop is offering up this challenge in his life for peace in the world, especially since we’re facing the possibility of war.”
_ Hillary Wicai
Moran in Hot Water With Jewish Groups for Comments on War
WASHINGTON (RNS) Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., is in the spotlight for remarks that suggest Jewish groups are the driving force behind a possible war in Iraq.
In comments that the White House called “shocking” and for which Moran later apologized, the lawmaker said the Jewish community has led America to war and has the power to stop it.
“If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this,” Moran said at a March 3 anti-war forum in Reston, Va.
“The leaders of the Jewish community are influential enough that they could change the direction of where this is going, and I think they should,” he continued in remarks that were first published in the Reston Connection newspaper.
Amid calls for his resignation following the incident, Moran apologized, saying he “made some insensitive remarks that I deeply regret,” though he will not step down, the Washington Post reported.
Some Jewish groups, including the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Community Council of Washington, have not accepted Moran’s apology for what he claims were remarks meant to highlight religious groups’ general role in an anti-war movement.
Jewish groups have criticized Moran for several years, alleging that his voting record and public comments are anti-Israel and sometimes anti-Semitic.
“Clearly when you have a congressman who is so insensitive to Jewish issues and blatantly hostile to Israel, it makes it difficult to take his words of clarification seriously,” David Bernstein, the Washington director of the American Jewish Committee, told the Post. “The nature of his comment was too clear-cut and obvious to dismiss as a slip of the tongue.”
House and Senate leaders from both parties, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., admonished Moran for his comments. Six Jewish House members, all Democrats, said they will not support Moran’s re-election bid next year because of his remarks.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Update: Former Keston Religious Freedom Monitors Begin News Service
MOSCOW (RNS) A free Web-based news service began Thursday (March 13) to cover freedom of conscience issues in eastern Europe, a region where the editor says conditions are steadily deteriorating.
“I’d say the situation in the former Soviet republics is getting worse in terms of religious freedom,” said Felix Corley, the London-based editor of the Forum 18 News Service. “Especially since the late 1990s, we’ve seen a severe crackdown in almost all the Central Asian countries, along with Belarus.”
The news service takes its name _ and funding _ from a Christian organization in Oslo that is devoted to monitoring compliance with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It reads in part that every person “has the freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”
The Forum 18 News Service fills a void left in December by the Keston News Service, which folded with the departure of its director and correspondents. Those correspondents, including Corley and journalists in Moscow, Tashkent and Belgrade, are now the backbone of Forum 18.
In Moscow, at least one religious freedom activist was pleased to hear that monitoring of abuses would continue.
“It is extraordinarily important to independently collect information and report on the situation in Russia and throughout the former Soviet Union,” said Galina Krylova, a lawyer currently defending Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow against a government attempt to shut them down.
Publicizing abuses in the West is especially important because “external opinion is often more important” than domestic opinion in pressuring rulers to ease up on religious minorities, noted Krylova, who also has also represented Jesuits and the Unification Church in Russian courts.
Corley said Forum 18 has funding to operate for about two years. After that, plans call for the news service to sustain itself through subscriber donations.
“It is a lean operation in the sense that we don’t have a grand headquarters. All the correspondents work from their homes,” he said, estimating operational costs at about $150,000 a year.
The new service’s first report Thursday came from the mostly Muslim nation of Uzbekistan, where the authoritarian government is refusing to grant legal status to a Presbyterian congregation.
_ Frank Brown
Quote of the Day: Jim Houston, Southern Baptist Host of ESPN2 Show
(RNS) “You can’t say at this price tag I’ll maintain what I believe, but at this price tag I won’t. It boils down to a lack of faith.”
_ Jimmy Houston, host of the ESPN2 television series “Jimmy Houston Outdoors” and the deacon of a Southern Baptist church in Oklahoma, explaining his decision to forfeit participation in a key fishing tournament because he refused to attach a Busch beer logo to his clothing or his boat. He was quoted by Baptist Press.
DEA END RNS
