c. 2003 Religion News Service
Activists Concerned About Funding of Bush AIDS, Development Goals
WASHINGTON (RNS) As President Bush headed to Africa for his first official visit to the continent, organizations supporting his plan to fight AIDS and foster economic development there hoped they would become a financial reality.
DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa), an African advocacy organization founded by U2 lead singer Bono, and Bread for the World said they were concerned that Congress might not spend enough money to meet the president’s goals.
“I believe the president is sincere in his convictions to put America out front in a way that hasn’t been done before on these issues but we have to make sure that his intentions are not undone,” Bono said in a conference call with reporters on Monday (July 7).
Activists say the president’s request for $18.9 billion for foreign aid that includes AIDS funding and development assistance through the Millennium Challenge Account, may receive a lower House allocation of $17.1 billion.
Neena Moorjani, a spokeswoman for Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, said of the lower figure: “Congress will appropriate more money than ever before in development assistance and HIV/AIDS programs.”
The Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, is concerned that other causes might be hurt even as the president attempts to increase AIDS and other funding for African causes.
“He’s got to deliver the money and he shouldn’t take the money for these initiatives … from programs of education for girls and assistance to farmers in Africa,” said Beckmann, whose anti-hunger group is based in Washington.
In a briefing prior to the president’s trip, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said of the administration: “… We are actively, all of us, actively engaging with the Congress to try and get full funding.”
DATA launched a “Keep the President’s Promise To Africa” campaign on Sunday (July 6), asking churches, community organizations and local volunteers to sign cards pledging to contact Bush and members of Congress and build awareness about Africa with family and friends.
Sister Sheila Kinsey, co-chair of the DuPage Glocal AIDS Action Network in the Wheaton, Ill., area has worked with local Catholics and Protestants since a DATA event at Wheaton College last December.
“We’ve got the bill authorized, but there’s got to be money to implement the bill,” she said. “We’ve built people up for that.”
Bono congratulated church leaders for getting more involved.
“Particularly evangelicals, whom had seemed very judgmental to me over the years, turned out to be incredibly generous in their time and their support of this effort,” he said. “I really had my view of the church turned upside down.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
American Bible Society Redirects Focus After Layoffs
(RNS) The American Bible Society, long known for its distribution of Scripture resources, is redirecting its focus specifically to the nation’s youth and cutting back on its publishing efforts.
Denise London, the society’s associate vice president for communications, told Religion News Service that the changes have resulted in the elimination of about 80 staffers, leaving the society with a staff of about 200 people in May.
“What we did was we tried to ramp down so that we had positions that could actually be applied to our new direction,” London said in an interview. “I guess you could say that the biggest hit came in publishing.”
She said the changes were due in part to the economic factors that “every nonprofit has experienced.”
While maintaining some of its history of Bible distribution, London said the New York-based society will deliver Scriptures in new ways especially to young people.
“We felt there are a lot of underserved youth in the United States,” she said. “They’re underserved and unchurched.”
The 188-year-old society recently sponsored a Christian hip-hop concert in Indianapolis and is considering such products as Scripture-based CDs and virtual-reality games.
London said the society will continue to use its Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version of the Bible in its new efforts.
While reducing its funding of the United Bible Societies by $1.4 million, the society hopes to enhance partnerships with U.S. churches, she said.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Italian Priest Offers Adoptive Homes for Frozen Embryos
ROME (RNS) An Italian priest has offered adoptive homes for embryos that have been frozen for scientific research.
The Rev. Oreste Benzi of Bologna, well known in Italy for campaigning against abortion and prostitution, said in a statement Monday (July 7) that a number of Catholic families are “ready to immediately adopt abandoned human embryos.”
“Unfortunately, in every country of the European Union, thousands of human embryos are stocked in freezers like freshly slaughtered beasts,” Benzi said. Calling this an “unjust and inhuman state,” he said, “Every single one has the right to survive, and we are willing to take responsibility for them.”
Although he did not spell out the adoption plan, he indicated that the embryos would be gestated and born.
The priest said that the biological parents of the embryos would be contacted first, and if they did not take responsibility, volunteers would adopt the abandoned embryos in the full knowledge that “many of them won’t survive and that others will bear the physical signs of the injustice to which they have been subjected.”
The freezing of embryos for stem-cell experiments and cloning would be forbidden in Italy under draft legislation now before the Italian Parliament. Pope John Paul II has praised the bill for defending the rights of unborn children.
Benzi said that he supports stem-cell research “that gives hope to seriously ill people” but believes that “the sacrifice of other weak and innocent human life” is unacceptable.
_ Peggy Polk
Man Tries to Evict Abusive Monks Using Landlord-Tenant Law
(RNS) A Minnesota man is using a landlord-tenant law to try to evict 11 monks and priests from a Benedictine monastery, which he accuses of “harboring pedophiles.”
John Kerwin has filed an “unlawful detainer” against St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., in which he accuses the monks of violating their “lease agreement” by their sexual misconduct, the Associated Press reported.
Unlawful detainers are usually used by landlords to evict tenants who have not paid their rent.
“The kind of thing that occurred _ and in my opinion is being sheltered at St. John’s Abbey _ is unprecedented, except maybe the Spanish Inquisition,” said Kerwin, whose family lives nearby.
Last year, the monastery acknowledged that about a dozen monks or priests were living at the facility under restricted conditions. Abbot John Klassen said at the time that he had no intention of removing the abusive clerics.
The abbey’s spokesman, the Rev. William Skudlarek, told the Associated Press: “They are our family members who have done wrong and we are first of all concerned for healing the wrong they have done, primarily for the victims, but also helping them repent and be converted. We think that can be done better here.”
Quote of the Day: President Bush
(RNS) “Enslaved Africans discovered a suffering Savior and found he was more like themselves than their masters. Enslaved Africans heard the ringing promises of the Declaration of Independence and asked the self-evident question, then why not me?”
_ President Bush speaking Tuesday (July 8) at Goree Island, Senegal, the spot from which many slaves were taken to America, on the first day of his five-nation trip to Africa.
KRE END RNS