c. 2003 Religion News Service

Pope Decries Terrorism, Urges Bridges _ not Walls _ in Holy Land

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II has condemned terrorism in Iraq, Turkey and the Holy Land and urged the Israeli government to build bridges instead of walls.

The Roman Catholic pontiff spoke Sunday (Nov. 16) following suicide bombings that killed 19 Italians in an attack on a police headquarters at Nasiriyah in Iraq on Wednesday (Nov. 12) and 23 Turks in explosions outside two synagogues in Istanbul on Saturday (Nov. 15).

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon arrived in Rome under tight security Monday (Nov. 17) for two days of talks with the Italian government, which currently holds the revolving European Union presidency. Vatican sources said he had not asked to meet with the pope, and no audience was scheduled.

Sharon will discuss increasing anti-Semitism in Europe, the Middle East peace process, terrorism and Israel’s relations with the EU in talks with President Silvio Berlusconi and other officials.

“Once again in recent days, terrorism has carried out its doom-laden work, particularly devastating in Iraq and Turkey,” John Paul told some 15,000 pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the Sunday Angelus prayer.

Stating his “firm condemnation” of recent terrorist attacks in the Holy Land as well, the pope said, “Unfortunately, the dynamism of peace seems to be halted” there. In his first public reference to the controversial wall the Israeli government is building to keep out terrorists, John Paul called it another impediment to peace.

“The construction of a wall between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples is seen by many as a new obstacle on the road toward peaceful coexistence,” the pope said. “In reality, the Holy Land does not need walls but bridges.”

Writer Elie Wiesel, a concentration-camp survivor and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, sharply criticized the pope’s comment.

“To politicize terrorism this way is a mistake,” he said in an interview with the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera. “The authors of the slaughter in Istanbul did not kill because of the wall but because they hate Jews. The pope should understand and condemn this.”

John Paul sent a condolence telegram to Istanbul on Saturday. He called on “men and women of the entire world to mobilize in favor of peace and against terrorism in respect for freedom of belief and personal convictions so that belonging to a religion will never again be a source of conflicts, which bloody and disfigure humanity.”

_ Peggy Polk

Florida Episcopal Bishop Resigns Posts in Protest of Gay N.H. Bishop

(RNS) The Episcopal bishop of Orlando, Fla., has said he will no longer play an active role in the church’s House of Bishops after a majority of prelates voted to endorse an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire.

Bishop John Howe of Central Florida resigned his seats on the bishops’ theology and pastoral letter committees, but will remain a member of the bishops conference.

“I have no interest in trying to speak for a House that has abandoned any recognizable commitment to the authority of Holy Scripture,” he wrote in a Nov. 3 letter to the church’s top leader, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold.

Griswold voted with 61 other bishops to confirm the election of Coadjutor Bishop V. Gene Robinson, who is openly gay, at the church’s General Convention meeting in August. Griswold also presided at Robinson’s consecration service earlier this month.

Howe voted against Robinson and said the bishops who supported Robinson must resign, including Griswold. “It grieves me to think this, let alone say it, for I have honored and trusted you,” Howe wrote. “But I believe you have betrayed that trust.”

Howe said the church’s approval of an openly gay bishop has “betrayed tens of thousands of loyal Episcopalians, bewildered the Christian world and grieved the Holy Spirit.”

Howe, a leader of the church’s evangelical wing, said he would remain a member of the House of Bishops, but “I even question the value of attending any more meetings” because “I believe they have become manipulative and duplicitous.”

Last month, Bishop Stephen Jecko of the neighboring Diocese of Florida in Jacksonville told Griswold he was unwelcome at the consecration service of Jecko’s successor. Jecko accused Griswold of “abusing” his office and said, “Your attempts to posture a reconciling public image in the church are absurd.”

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Missouri Baptists Defund William Jewell College of More Than $1 Million

(RNS) The Missouri Baptist Convention has voted to defund William Jewell College of more than $1 million after leaders of the two groups failed to reach an agreement over issues such as homosexuality and scriptural interpretation.

Among the issues dividing them was what Missouri Baptists thought was the college’s tolerance of homosexuality as well as its hosting of sex-themed theatrical productions such as “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and “The Vagina Monologues,” reported Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.

About 1,600 messengers, or delegates, voted overwhelmingly on Nov. 4 to remove the Liberty, Mo., college from the 2004 budget and redirect the money to such Southern Baptist-related entities in the state as Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Hannibal-LaGrange College, Southwest Baptist University and the Missouri Baptist Children’s Home.

William Jewell President David Sallee had been scheduled to deliver an annual report to the convention in St. Louis, but the college said in a news release that he was not permitted to do so after delegates approved a scheduling change.

“As the financial relationship between William Jewell College and the Missouri Baptist Convention ends, I will continue to be grateful for how our institution has been blessed by faithful Missouri Baptists who pray daily for us,” he said in a statement.

“Jewell has a long and proud tradition of providing a strong academic environment that emphasizes a vigorous liberal arts education and encourages the exploration of Christian values and spiritual growth. That tradition will endure.”

The convention’s past contributions amounted to about 3 percent of the school’s annual operating budget.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Israel’s Hebrew-Speaking Catholics Get Bishop

JERUSALEM (RNS) Israel’s Hebrew-speaking Catholic community finally has its own bishop.

On Nov. 9, the Rev. Jean-Baptiste Gourion was named the auxiliary bishop to the tiny community, which claims 400 to 500 members. Thousands of Catholic foreign workers also live in Israel, as do a few thousand Catholic immigrants from the former Soviet Union and elsewhere.

The ordination of Gourion, 68, who has lived in Israel for many years and is fluent in Hebrew, Arabic and French, is a triumph for Hebrew Catholics, who have waged a long campaign to be recognized as a community with distinct cultural and pastoral needs.

Until now, the community has fallen under the auspices of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which is headed by Patriarch Michel Sabbah, a Palestinian who is openly critical of Israel. Gourion will report to Sabbah but also maintain a close relationship with the Holy See.

While they share many of the experiences of their Arabic-speaking counterparts _ who comprise the vast majority of Catholics in the Holy Land _ Hebrew Catholics maintain that only a Hebrew speaker who lives among Israelis can truly understand their concerns.

For the most part, Hebrew Catholics identify with the Jewish people rather than with Arabs. Many are Israeli citizens, having immigrated to the Jewish State under the Law of Return, which permits the children and grandchildren of a Jew to settle in Israel, even if they themselves are not Jewish. Others were allowed to immigrate because they are married to Jews.

In an interview with RNS, Gourion said the Holy See’s recognition of the Hebrew Catholics as a community will enhance members’ spirituality and sense of belonging to the church.

“Our community has had its identity restored and that is very important in order to begin the process of return to God which every Christian must do. He will be able to do this because his identity has been acknowledged, and he has the means to live according to the gospel in harmony.”

Gourion downplayed his appointment, insisting “the big change is a mental change. Now that the community has been recognized by the supreme shepherd, the pope, our hope has returned.”

_ Michele Chabin

Kentucky Baptists Call on Congress to Bar Gay Marriage

(RNS) Kentucky Baptists have called on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

The Kentucky Baptist Convention, which met Nov. 12 in Lexington, is the state’s affiliate with the Southern Baptist Convention and is made up of nearly 2,500 churches.

Other states have recognized gay partnerships. A measure now under consideration in Massachusetts would allow gay marriage. The Kentucky resolution affirms the Covenant Marriage Movement and calls on Congress to pass a proposed constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

The 200 messengers, as delegates are known, also approved a resolution opposing additional gambling and alcohol sales in the Bluegrass State, which has seen an influx of riverboat gambling boats run by the state of Indiana on the Ohio River from Evansville to Lawrenceburg, Ind.

The provision regarding alcohol centered on the recent voter approval of by-the-drink alcohol sales in counties that previously had been “dry,” according to convention officials. Members of the Kentucky convention were urged to continue their fight against further changes allowing alcohol sales in the state’s 60 or so dry counties.

_ Dennis P. O’Connor

English Anglican Evangelicals Reject Robinson Consecration

LONDON (RNS) English evangelicals in the Church of England say they “cannot accept Canon Gene Robinson as bishop.”

A resolution passed by the Church of England Evangelical Council expressed the belief the election and consecration as bishop of a man in a noncelibate homosexual relationship is “wrong, according to the witness of holy Scripture and the consistent practice of the universal church as affirmed in Lambeth 1.10,” the resolution on human sexuality adopted by the 1998 Lambeth Conference.

The council said the bishops who consecrated Canon Robinson “put themselves by this defiant action out of fellowship with the majority of the Anglican Communion,” and noted with concern the consecration took place “in contradiction to the statement that the presiding bishop of Episcopal Church USA signed with his fellow primates.”

It asked Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to fulfill the pledge given at the recent primates’ meeting to provide “orthodox” bishops “who remain loyal to biblical teaching on marriage, sexual ethics and holiness of life” to the church in the United States.

It offered moral and practical support to Anglicans elsewhere who would suffer the consequences of breaking communion with the leaders of ECUSA.

And it asked the Church of England’s house of bishops “to indicate whether Canon Robinson and the consecrating bishops will or will not be acceptable if they seek to undertake episcopal ministry in the Church of England in word or sacrament.”

_ Robert Nowell

Quote of the Day: Fuller Theological Seminary President Richard Mouw

(RNS) “When we evangelical types don’t have more liberal people to argue with, we tend to start arguing with each other, and I can testify to the fact that intra-evangelical theological arguments are not always pleasant affairs.”

_ Richard Mouw, president of the evangelical Fuller Theological Seminary, on why liberals and conservatives must not leave churches over theological differences. He was quoted by Presbyterian News Service.

DEA END RNS