c. 2003 Religion News Service
Pope Fears Hopes for World Have Collapsed With the Twin Towers
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II, recalling the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on New York’s World Trade Center two years ago, said he fears that many hopes for world peace collapsed along with the twin towers.
The Roman Catholic pontiff made the statement in a message, issued by the Vatican on Monday (Sept. 8), to Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, who is representing the Holy See at the 17th International Meeting of Prayer for Peace in Aachen, Germany.
“In a few days we will remember the tragic attack on the twin towers of New York,” the pope said. “Unfortunately, it seems that together with the towers many hopes for peace also collapsed.”
The pope praised the annual inter-religious meetings, organized by the Rome-based Community of Sant’Egidio, for giving believers a concrete opportunity to “affirm peace in this time full of war.”
“War and conflict continue to proper and to poison the lives of so many peoples, above all of the poorest countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. I think of the dozens of wars still under way and of the scattered `war’ that is represented by terrorism,” he said.
John Paul said the poor countries often become “places of desperation and forges of violence.”
“When can all conflict cease? When can people finally see a peaceful world?” John Paul asked. “The process of peace certainly is not easy if injustice and disparities on our planet are left to prosper with guilty recklessness.”
“We don’t want to accept that war dominates the life of the world and of peoples. We don’t want to accept that poverty is the constant companion of the existence of entire nations,” he said.
The Community of Sant’Egidio began holding annual inter-religious meetings in 1987 to keep alive the spirit of the historic religious summit the pope convened in 1986 at the Italian town of Assisi, birthplace of St. Francis. This year’s theme is “War and Peace: Faiths and Cultures in Dialogue.”
John Paul responded to the Sept. 11 attacks by leading representatives of the world’s religious on a pilgrimage back to Assisi, where they pledged never to let religion become an excuse for war and violence.
_ Peggy Polk
Bush Signs Bill to Limit Prison Rape
WASHINGTON (RNS) President Bush has signed a bill to combat rape in the nation’s prisons, a measure that gained support from an unusual array of religious groups.
Bush signed the Prison Rape Elimination Act last Thursday (Sept. 4) in the Oval Office. The bill directs the Justice Department to collect data on prison rape, as well as establish a national commission to study the issue.
States could lose as much as 5 percent of federal prison funds if they do not follow rape prevention standards set by the Justice Department. Prisons would also need to establish prevention programs in order to maintain their accreditation.
“No crime, no matter how terrible, carries a sentence of rape,” said Pat Nolan, a vice president of Prison Fellowship, which supported the bill.
The bill had unusual bedfellows as supporters, including the NAACP, the Christian Coalition of America, the Southern Baptist Convention, Human Rights Watch, the National Association of Evangelicals and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
Rep. Frank Wolf, the bill’s chief sponsor in the House, estimated that 13 percent of the nation’s 2 million inmates have been victims of prison rape.
“My colleague, Sen. Ted Kennedy, was chief co-sponsor of this bill,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. “He’s a liberal and I’m a conservative, but we both agree that punishment for a criminal defendant should be set by a judge and should not include sexual assault.”
Rabbi David Saperstein, director of Reform Judaism’s Washington office, said, “The moral voice of our tradition imposes upon us the obligation to uphold the dignity of all people, to recognize the potential in all for redemption, and to protect the most vulnerable, including, specifically, those serving prison sentences.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Hispanics More Likely to Remain Catholic Than Whites, Research Shows
WASHINGTON (RNS) New research shows that Hispanics who are born Catholic are more likely to remain in the church than white Catholics, and Hispanics who leave the church tend to adopt other faiths, while white Catholics do not.
The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University found that in a survey of 982 adults who were born Catholic, 81 percent of Hispanics remained Catholics, compared to 72 percent of whites.
But among “cradle Catholics” who have left the church, researchers found that Hispanics were more likely to convert to another faith, while white dropouts are more likely to claim no faith at all.
Most former Catholics _ 56 percent _ said they left the church after age 20, CARA found in the Catholic Poll 2003. Ten percent said they left by the age of 10, and 34 percent left during their teenage years.
The research echoes earlier findings by the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, which found the portion of Hispanics who labeled themselves Catholics had dropped from 66 percent to 57 percent since 1990.
The ARIS data cast doubts on the popular notion that Hispanic converts are flocking to Pentecostal churches. While the percentage of Pentecostals in the Hispanic population grew from only 3 percent to 4 percent between 1990 and 2001, those claiming “no religion” more than doubled from 6 percent to 13 percent.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
WCC Picks U.S. for Focus During `Decade to Overcome Violence’
(RNS) The World Council of Churches Central Committee has decided to focus on the United States in 2004 as its “Decade to Overcome Violence” continues.
“If ever there was a part of the world where work for peace is important, it is the U.S.A.,” said the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA), commenting on the designation in a WCC announcement.
A program committee cited the opposition of some U.S. churches to war in Iraq and their work in alleviating suffering across the globe.
But the committee added critical comments about the power of American leaders.
“The U.S. administration seems to see itself in a position where it can afford to disregard the international order, refuse to be accountable to the (United Nations), and ignore the concerns of the world’s populations,” their report stated.
It also cited problems of “poverty, violence, racism in all its diverse forms, interfaith relations, migration and inequality in education and employment.”
The U.S. focus within the Decade to Overcome Violence will include attempts to strengthen U.S. churches and movements addressing peace and enhance the churches’ understanding of community-building.
The decade focusing on violence lasts from 2001 to 2010. The council intends to focus on Asia in 2005 and Latin America in 2006.
_ Adelle M. Banks
South African Anglican Leader Backs U.S. Gay Bishop
LONDON (RNS) A top African Anglican leader has come out in support of the U.S. Episcopal Church and its ratification of the election of Canon Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire.
Interviewed by the London daily newspaper The Guardian on Monday (Sept. 8), Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town, primate of Southern Africa, insisted that the U.S. church’s decision should be respected.
“It is very arrogant to assume that the people in America do not know what they are doing,” Ndungane said.
He was critical of fellow bishops in Africa and the Third World who concentrated on the issue of homosexuality _ on which the Anglican Church in South Africa has taken a more liberal line than those elsewhere on the continent _ rather than issues facing their own continents.
“There is an attempt to divert us from the major life and death issues in the world,” he said. “There is a woman waiting to be stoned to death for adultery in Nigeria, and yet we are not hearing any fuss from the leadership of the (Anglican) church there about that.
“People are going hungry across the world, the Israelis are building a fence around the Palestinians, HIV/AIDS is a global emergency: These are major, urgent issues which should be a priority for the church, and we must not lose our focus on that.”
Attacking the view that homosexuality was a purely European and American phenomenon, he said: “I know people who are gay and lesbian who are African. The issue of orientation knows no culture, and my fellow bishops are in denial.
“Our church must learn to live together as a diverse community. That’s what should be on the agenda, not seeking to cast stones or talking about schisms.”
_ Robert Nowell
Quote of the Day: Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way
(RNS) “Marriages face many stresses and challenges, but the supposed `threat’ that gay people … receive the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage is not one of them.”
_ Ralph Neas, president of the liberal People for the American Way organization, speaking against a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage.
DEA END RNS
