c. 2003 Religion News Service
Mahony Asks Bush for Immediate Citizenship for Military
(RNS) Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles has asked President Bush to legalize all noncitizens who are currently serving in the U.S. armed forces.
Mahony, leader of the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, faxed a letter to Bush on Monday (April 7) just hours after presiding at the funeral for Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez, a Guatemalan immigrant who was killed in Iraq and granted posthumous citizenship.
“While we are all grateful for that gesture after (Gutierrez’s) death, there is something terribly wrong with our immigration policies if it takes death on a battlefield to earn citizenship,” Mahony wrote.
“Our present armed forces are made up of many fine men and women who are not yet fully naturalized citizens of our country, yet they heroically step forward to fight our nation’s battles around the world, placing their lives and futures in jeopardy and at risk day after day.”
More than 36,000 service members are non-U.S. citizens, according to The New York Times. Last July, Bush signed an executive order making it easier for noncitizen soldiers to apply for citizenship. The directive does not make citizenship automatic.
“The president issued an executive order because he believes it is a way to show our gratitude to the men and women who are bravely serving their adopted country,” White House spokeswoman Ashley Snee told The Times.
Mahony told the president that “the very least” we can do is allow service members to seek immediate citizenship “without bureaucratic obstacles and delay.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Education Secretary’s Remarks Draw Criticism
WASHINGTON (RNS) Remarks by U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige about religion and schools have drawn harsh criticism from civil liberties and education groups.
Paige was quoted by Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention, as saying, “All things equal, I would prefer to have a child in a school that has a strong appreciation for the values of the Christian community, where a child is taught to have a strong faith.”
The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, wrote to Paige on Tuesday (April 8) asking him to apologize or step down.
Dan Lengan, Paige’s press secretary, told The Washington Post that the quotations in the Baptist Press article, published Monday, were accurate and the education secretary had no plans to resign.
“Secretary Paige’s deep faith has helped him overcome adversity, to find clarity and has sustained him throughout his life,” Lengan said. “He has dedicated his entire career to promoting diversity and making sure children from all races, ethnic groups and faiths share access to the best possible education.”
Lengan declined to clarify whether Paige was suggesting in the published interview that parents should send their children to religious schools or that public schools should teach Christian values.
Paige went on to say in the interview that he found animosity toward God in public schools to be puzzling.
“The reason that Christian schools and Christian universities are growing is a result of a strong value system,” he said. “In a religious environment the value system is set. That’s not the case in a public school where there are so many different kids with different kinds of values.”
Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said Paige should clarify or recant his remarks.
“Secretary Paige is right about one thing: Our public schools are filled with, as he said, many different kinds of kids with different values,” she said. “But it is insulting for the secretary _ who should be the advocate for the over 50 million children in our public schools _ to say their diversity somehow compromises those schools.”
U.S. Official Makes Fence-Mending Visit to the Vatican
VATICAN CITY (RNS) U.S. State Department official John Bolton made a fence-mending visit to the Vatican on Wednesday (April 9) to assure a top aide of Pope John Paul II that the United States will respect international rules of war in Iraq.
Bolton, undersecretary for arms control and international security, met with Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the pope’s foreign minister, as John Paul made a new appeal for an end to bloodshed in Africa as well as in war-torn Iraq.
The missionary news agency Fides reported that more than 10,000 Christians have fled Baghdad to escape the U.S. assault on the Iraqi capital and sought refuge in Ninawa in northern Iraq, site of the ruins of the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement that Bolton “repeated the commitment of his government to respect the ius in bello,” the rules of war concerning humanitarian issues.
The statement gave no indication of whether the postwar role of the United Nations was discussed. John Paul, who sent personal envoys to both Baghdad and Washington in a concerted effort to convince world leaders to avoid war, is now urging a quick end to hostilities and a major role for the United Nations in aid and reconstruction.
Navarro-Valls said that Bolton expressed Washington’s appreciation at the willingness of the Catholic Church “to collaborate in the humanitarian field to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi population.”
Bolton also “explained the danger represented by the proliferation of arms of mass destruction in various parts of the world” and noted President Bush’s call at his Belfast talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair for a “rapid solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to give the entire Middle East a chance for peace,” the spokesman said.
A major Vatican concern is the fate of the dwindling Christian population in the Middle East. The flight of Christians from Baghdad fed fears of a new exodus from the land that was the cradle of Christianity.
“The city (Ninawa) has about 25,000 inhabitants and with the addition of another 10,000 plus those who continue to arrive, the humanitarian situation worsens hour by hour,” Fides said.
Fides, the news agency of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, said Ninawa has limited reserves of food and medicine, but its mainly Christian inhabitants are collecting donations for the refugees.
Although Ninawa, located on the Tigris opposite the strategic city of Mosul, has no military installations, Kurdish forces are less than 20 miles away, and there are fears that it could become a war zone, Fides said.
“It is a difficult moment, but solidarity is very strong,” it said.
The pope ended his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square with a peace appeal.
“While clashes continue with destruction and death in Baghdad and other Iraqi centers, no less worrying news arrives from the African continent,” he said, citing reports of “massacres and summary executions” in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“I address a sorrowful appeal to political leaders as well as to all men of goodwill to commit themselves to make violence and injustice cease with the effective collaboration of the international community, laying aside personal egotism and group interests,” the pope said.
_ Peggy Polk
Carter Praises Shevardnadze’s Religious Freedom Commitment
MOSCOW (RNS) Jimmy Carter has written a personal letter to the president of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze, praising him for his commitment to religious freedom.
The former U.S. president’s letter, published April 2 on the front page of a Georgian government newspaper, Sakartvelos Respublika, came in response to Shevardnadze’s strongest show yet of support for the lawless country’s embattled Christian minorities.
“I read the statement you made at the Cathedral Baptist Church, and was delighted with your courageous declaration of religious tolerance in the multiethnic and multifaith nation of Georgia,” read the letter from Carter, a Baptist. It continued, “My hope and expectation is that this notable event will be a milestone in establishing full religious freedom for the people of your country.”
Shevardnadze, a strong supporter of the country’s dominant Georgian Orthodox Church, attended a March 14 ecumenical Christian prayer service held in the Baptist church in the capital, Tbilisi, and spoke of the importance of tolerance and religious freedom, according to Baptist Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili in a April 8 telephone interview.
The Georgian president’s statement was especially significant because it came two months after a mob of militant Orthodox Christians attacked the Baptist church during a previous attempt to hold an ecumenical service.
The mob was led by Father Basili Mkalavishvili, who heads a schismatic Orthodox congregation in Tbilisi. The priest often leads attacks on minority faiths in Georgia and appears to enjoy the support of some government officials.
Mkalavishvili is currently in court for past attacks but the judge has shown little interest in a speedy trial. The court proceedings have been delayed 18 times in the last year, most recently on March 31 when the priest’s lawyers told the judge that Mkalavishvili could not attend because he was fasting and praying during Lent.
_ Frank Brown
Quote of the Day: Presbyterian official John Detterick
(RNS) “We’re not losing members to other churches, we’re losing them out the back door. They leave and don’t go anywhere else.”
_ John Detterick, executive director of the General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (USA), bemoaning a loss of nearly 2 million church members since 1965. He was quoted by Presbyterian News Service.
DEA END RNS
