c. 2004 Religion News Service
Tomato Pickers’ Group Returns Taco Bell Check as a Ploy
(RNS) Calling the offer a public relations ploy, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has returned a $110,000 check from Yum! Brands, the parent company of Taco Bell.
The check was “the equivalent of a penny a pound for every pound of Florida tomatoes Taco Bell purchased in 2003,” stated a letter from the corporation.
But $110,000 is just a drop in the bucket and does not satisfy the workers’ underlying demands, said a spokeswoman for the tomato pickers, whose cause has been championed by a number of mainline Protestant churches.
“The workers are not asking for a payout,” said Julia Perkins, a spokeswoman for the workers’ coalition. “What the workers are asking for is the Yum Corporation to use its power as a major consumer to make changes in its supply chain to ensure socially responsible business practices.”
According to Perkins, the fast-food chain’s suppliers haven’t raised the tomato pickers’ wages since 1978. In addition, they fail to provide benefits like medical insurance and sick leave, Perkins said.
In a letter to the CIW that accompanied the $110,000 check, Yum! Brands said that “we purchase our tomatoes on the open market” and therefore “have no direct or indirect relationship with the farms or growers.”
Moreover, the corporation said, “Taco Bell purchases less than 1 percent of Florida’s annual tomato crop” and “doesn’t have the clout to cause change absent the support from others who buy more than we do.”
The three-year dispute between Taco Bell and the tomato pickers has drawn the attention of many high-profile leaders, including former President Jimmy Carter, who have rallied to the side of the farmworkers.
As the clash continues, support for the workers from religious organizations continues to grow, said the Rev. Noelle Damico, National Coordinator for the Taco Bell Boycott for the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Among the bodies that have voted to boycott Taco Bell in their general assemblies are the Disciples of Christ, the United Church of Christ, the National Council of Churches, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and most recently the United Methodist Church, Damico said.
The churches have stuffed fliers about the workers into church bulletins, urged youth groups not to order Taco Bell food at their meetings, and initiated letter-writing campaigns to the company.
The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA), said that the money from Yum! Brands was “not nearly enough. Our brothers and sisters who pick tomatoes continue to suffer.”
“We are so thankful for our religious allies for helping to bring the workers’ situation from the shadows into the light,” Perkins said.
_ Daniel Burke
Pope Accuses EU Constitution of Cutting off Europe’s Roots
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Defeated in his campaign for an acknowledgment of Europe’s Christian heritage in the new European Union constitution, an angry Pope John Paul II has accused EU politicians of cutting off the continent’s roots.
The Roman Catholic pontiff spoke on Sunday (June 20) to fellow Poles among the thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the noon Angelus prayer. Poland was a leading supporter of John Paul’s cause.
“I thank Poland for its efforts in European forums to faithfully defend the Christian roots of our continent from which grew the culture and the progress of the civilization of our times,” the pope said in Polish.
“You don’t cut off the roots from which you have grown,” he declared in an unusually angry and exclamatory tone. The Vatican issued the text of the pope’s statement Monday.
Leaders of the enlarged, 25-member EU formally approved their first constitution Friday (June 18) at a meeting in Brussels. All 25 countries must ratify the constitution for it to take effect.
The charter upholds religious freedom but does not contain the explicit reference to Europe’s “Christian roots” sought by the pope in a tireless 21/2-year campaign.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls on Saturday expressed “satisfaction” over the constitution as another step toward European integration and over Article 51, which, he said, “safeguards the status of religious confessions in member states and commits the union to maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with them, recognizing their identity and specific contribution.”
But, he said, “The Holy See cannot fail to express regret over the opposition of some governments to the explicit recognition of Europe’s Christian roots. This is a denial of historical evidence and of the Christian identity of the European peoples.”
John Paul raised the issue repeatedly at Vatican audiences, on trips and in messages to bishops, ambassadors and Catholic groups. He spoke of the constitution at the Angelus prayer on seven consecutive Sundays last summer.
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state, wrote to all EU governments on May 1 explaining the pope’s position. On May 7, Poland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Slovakia sent a letter of support to the current Irish presidency of the EU.
Opponents, including France, Belgium and Finland, said that a reference to Christianity would violate the principle of church-state separation.
_ Peggy Polk
Presbyterian Church in America Supports Traditional Marriage
(RNS) The Presbyterian Church in America has adopted a statement urging North American governments to ensure that marriage is defined as “exclusively between one man and one woman.”
The conservative denomination’s General Assembly approved the statement on Thursday (June 17) during its annual meeting in Pittsburgh.
“Among the truths that God has declared to human beings is the truth that the institution of marriage has been created by him, … and that it is ordained and defined by him to be the lifelong union of one man and one woman,” reads the statement.
The statement asks civil governments in the United States and Canada and “all nations of the Earth” to use legislative and judicial means to maintain that definition of marriage.
“God’s ordinance concerning marriage is binding upon all human beings in all places and at all times; it cannot be altered by legislative, judicial or cultural action,” the statement reads. “It is possible to deviate from God’s ordinance, but it is not possible to change it.”
Recently, the Washington office of the larger _ and more liberal _ Presbyterian Church (USA) voiced opposition to a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, although its General Assembly has not taken a formal position on the issue.
The PCA assembly also adopted an 18-page pastoral letter on “The Gospel and Race” that calls racism sinful because “it involves a failure to love as Christ has loved.”
The statement encourages church members to work toward racial reconciliation. “Both as individuals and together as a church, we are compelled by the Gospel to repent of racism in our own hearts and in our actions, and we are compelled to commit ourselves to wrestle against it personally and publicly,” the statement reads.
“We confess that we do not have the strength to overcome the power of racism and that we need Christ to be our Rock in this struggle.”
In other business, the assembly elected as moderator J. Ligon Duncan III, senior minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss., and a council member of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Muslim Groups React With Sorrow to Beheading of U.S. Hostage
(RNS) Muslim organizations have reacted with sorrow to the beheading of U.S. hostage Paul Johnson Jr. in Saudi Arabia. His death, announced Friday (June 18), was linked to the Muslim extremist group al-Qaida.
Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation in Washington, sent condolences to Johnson’s family in New Jersey.
“I know that there are great injustices being perpetrated against Muslims throughout the world, and this is wrong,” Bray said in a statement. “However, killing Paul Johnson is just as wrong. Two wrongs will never make things right.”
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations voiced similar sentiments about the death of Johnson, an American engineer who worked in Saudi Arabia.
“We condemn this act of senseless violence and repudiate all those who believe such murderous behavior benefits the faith of Islam or the Muslim people,” the organization said in a statement. “We call for the swift apprehension and prosecution of the perpetrators.”
The Friends of Charities Association, a group of Muslim relief agencies, released an open letter to Johnson’s family.
“We extend our deepest sorrow regarding the killing of Mr. Paul Johnson,” wrote members of the organization, which is based in Washington. “No words can describe our sorrow and disgust. … We, FOCA, as Saudis, Muslims _ indeed human beings _ denounce and condemn his murder.”
Adel Al-Jubeir, foreign affairs adviser to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah, condemned the murder at a news conference Friday shortly after confirming Johnson’s death.
“It is a terrible lie that the cowards who committed this inhuman act claim to be Muslim,” he said in a statement posted on the Web site of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington. “There is no justification in our faith for harming the innocent.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: The Rev. Jesse Jackson, President of Rainbow/PUSH Coalition
(RNS) “Heaven wanted some music, and sent for Ray Charles. Now heaven has a maestro.”
_ The Rev. Jesse Jackson, president of Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago, in remarks at the funeral Friday (June 18) for music legend Ray Charles at First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles. He was quoted by The Washington Post.
KRE/PH END RNS
