c. 2004 Religion News Service
Vatican Offers to Mediate Conflict in Iraqi Holy City
VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican offered Tuesday (Aug. 17) to mediate a cease-fire in the Iraqi city of Najaf if both the U.S. military and rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr are willing to “embark on peaceful ways” to end their conflict.
The Vatican made the offer in a brief written statement following a declaration by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, that “if requested, the pope will allow this mediation.” Pope John Paul II opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and has urged United Nations collaboration to restore Iraqi sovereignty.
U.S. forces and Iraqi police are battling al-Sadr and some 800 supporters who have taken a stand inside the venerated mosque of Imam Ali Ben Taleb at Najaf, a city holy to Shiite Muslims, 125 miles south of Baghdad.
Iraqi leaders meeting in Baghdad to choose an interim national assembly sent a delegation to Najaf on Tuesday to try to persuade al-Sadr to end the fighting.
“From many sides the Holy See has been asked if it might be possible to take an interest in suspending the combat at Najaf, the city holy to Shiites in Iraq,” said the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, assistant Vatican spokesman.
“The Holy See obviously is always prepared to help sides to talk and to dialogue on condition that the will to embark on peaceful ways to a solution of conflicts really exists,” he said.
The spokesman said that the papal envoy in Baghdad, Archbishop Filoni Fernando, “is directly following the developments of the situation” in Najaf, and the Vatican secretariat of state is “in close contact” with Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly of Babylon of the Chaldeans and Catholic bishops in Iraq. Chaldeans are Eastern Rite Catholics.
Speaking Monday in an interview with Italian RAI radio, Sodano said that the objective of a Vatican intervention would be “that all parties sit around a table and talk.”
The Vatican is not new to mediation. It successfully mediated the territorial conflict over the Beagle Channel that brought Argentina and Chile close to war in 1978. It also negotiated the surrender to U.S. authorities of Gen. Manuel Noriega, the ousted Panamanian leader who took refuge in the Vatican Embassy in Panama City in 1989.
_ Peggy Polk
Hurricane Destroys Churches, Prompts Religious Relief Efforts
(RNS) As Florida begins its recovery from the wrath of Hurricane Charley, some churches are coping with destroyed or seriously damaged property and other religious groups have begun relief efforts to help the state’s residents.
The Church of the Nazarene reported that a church in Punta Gorda was a total loss and the steeple of another in nearby Port Charlotte was broken off by strong winds in the storm that hit the state Friday (Aug. 13).
“It was scary and we are thankful to still be alive and well,” said Pastor John Denby of the Punta Gorda Church of the Nazarene, who stayed at the church building during the storm.
A Southern Baptist church and a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation in Punta Gorda also were destroyed, as well as a Presbyterian church on Sanibel Island, denominational news services reported.
Numerous faith-based relief organizations have begun to deliver supplies to the multitudes of Floridians who have suffered property damage and loss of power.
“You give them some water and it’s like you gave them a bar of gold,” said Steve Ewing, an on-site representative of Convoy of Hope, a relief organization working with the Assemblies of God. That denomination’s news service reported that a church in Punta Gorda was a total loss while others sustained hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage.
Other religious organizations, such as Catholic Charities USA, the Florida District of the Unitarian Universalist Association and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, have begun soliciting donations to help victims of the hurricane. Groups like the United Methodist Committee on Relief, the Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Church Welfare Services have shipped flood buckets, assigned food units and provided emergency supplies.
Catholic Relief Services is working with its partner Caritas Cubana to help those affected by the hurricane that crossed western Cuba before heading to the United States.
The Associated Press reported that Charley resulted in 19 deaths in Florida, four in Cuba and one in Jamaica.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Study Says Independent Voters May be Turned Off by Religion
(RNS) If the Bush and Kerry campaigns want to woo independent voters who may still be undecided, they would do best to avoid overtly religious appeals, according to researchers at City University of New York.
Ariela Keysar and Barry Kosmin, authors of the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, said independent voters are “unlikely to be won over in large numbers by messages with strong religious elements” because they are the nation’s most secular voters.
Keysar and Kosmin mined their data from 2001 to find that 24 percent of independent voters consider themselves some form of secular, compared to 19 percent of Democrats and 11 percent of Republicans.
“Given their socioeconomic profile, independents are likely to be found in the middle ground on most economic and political issues, but not on faith issues,” they said in a new report released Monday (Aug. 16).
They found that people with a “religious” outlook tend to be Republican across denominations, and those who are “somewhat religious” tend to be Democrats.
Keysar and Kosmin said religious-based appeals can rally the conservative, religious base of Republicans and possibly attract some “Reagan Democrats.” They also noted a GOP advantage because “religious” voters tend to be the most likely to register and show up on Election Day.
Democrats, meanwhile, may find religious appeals less successful among their core supporters, who are less religious and swing secular. “Indeed, Democrats are better off when the battleground moves away from religion,” they said.
Among the hotly contested Catholic vote, which comprises about a quarter of all voters, Keysar and Kosmin found that “practicing Catholics” lean Republican, 41 percent to 28 percent, while “cultural Catholics” who are not members of a parish and attend services less frequently lean Democratic, 36 percent to 28 percent.
They said the figures confirm that a “commonality of cultural outlook” that drew most Catholics to the domestic policies of the Democratic Party for decades has ended. Catholics are now split between the two parties depending on their levels of religious observance _ which also holds true for the fast-growing Catholic Hispanic population.
The 2001 American Religious Identification Survey polled more than 34,000 American adults in the lower 48 states and is widely regarded as one of the most accurate surveys of American religious life.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Drinan Receives Highest Honor From American Bar Association
(RNS) The Rev. Robert Drinan, a Jesuit priest and lawyer who served as a Massachusetts congressman before he was ordered to leave the post by the Vatican, has been awarded the 2004 ABA Medal by the American Bar Association.
Drinan, who teaches at Georgetown University Law Center, was presented the ABA’s highest award Aug. 9 during the group’s convention in Atlanta. Eight Supreme Court justices have received the award since it was inaugurated in 1929.
“He has demonstrated to lawyers what it means to be committed to public service, and to countless law students what is embodied in the highest dedication to ethical, moral legal practice,” said ABA President Dennis Archer.
Drinan, a former dean at Boston College Law School, has taught at Georgetown since 1981. From 1971 to 1981 he served as a Democratic member of Congress from Massachusetts.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Explorers Unearth Cave That May Have Been Used by John the Baptist
(RNS) Archaeologists have uncovered a cave they believe was used by John the Baptist for ritual immersions, one of the first discoveries linked to the distant relative of Jesus.
The cave is located on a kibbutz about two miles outside Ein Kerem, the traditional birthplace of John the Baptist that is now part of Jerusalem. The cave contains what researchers believe is an immersion pool and crude drawings of the evangelist’s life.
“John the Baptist, who was just a figure from the Gospels, now comes to life,” Shimon Gibson, a British archaeologist who first explored the site in 1999, told the Associated Press.
Researchers found shards of small jugs used in ritual purifications and uncovered steps leading to the bottom of the cave, where they found niches for holding clothes and what appear to be dispensers for ritual oil.
Byzantine-era images of John the Baptist’s life came later and could have been carved by monks who associated the site with John the Baptist’s life through local legend.
Critics, however, say it is only speculation that the cave was actually used by John the Baptist, and point out that no direct references to him were found on the site. “Unfortunately, we didn’t find any inscriptions” that were conclusive, James Tabor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte told the Associated Press after he worked on the site.
Reformed Churches Criticize World Economic Order
(RNS) The World Alliance of Reformed Churches capped a two-week meeting in Ghana by publicly denouncing the international economic order, saying it hurts the world’s most poor and vulnerable.
“We reject any claim of economic, political and military empire which subverts God’s sovereignty over life and acts contrary to God’s just rule,” delegates to the alliance’s 24th General Council said in a statement prior to ending their conference Aug. 13 in Accra, Ghana’s capital.
The Geneva-based alliance is a coalition of 75 million Christians in 200 different churches with historic roots in the 16th century Protestant Reformation.
“We live in a scandalous world that denies God’s call to life for all,” the alliance said in a statement, noting that the annual income of the world’s richest 1 percent is equal to that of the poorest 57 percent, Ecumenical News International (ENI) reported.
The council attendees said the process of economic globalization has been marked by, among other things, unrestrained competition and economic growth for the rich, which in turn has had a deleterious effect, demanding an endless flow of sacrifices from the poor.
Globalization, the council said, has made the false promise that it can save the world through the creation of wealth and prosperity, claiming sovereignty over life and demanding total allegiance, which amounts to idolatry.
The church itself, delegates said, has benefited from economic globalization, causing the council to formally recognize the church’s contribution to the problem.
“We acknowledge the complicity and guilt of those who consciously or unconsciously benefit from the current neo-liberal economic global system; we recognize that this includes both churches and members of our own Reformed family and therefore we call for confession of sin.”
_ Chris Herlinger
Quote of the Day: Ronald Halber of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington
(RNS) “The Jewish community is not opposed to Christians being able to spread their beliefs. But Jews cannot embrace Jesus and remain Jews. We settled that question 2,000 years ago. … I mean, can you be a vegetarian and eat meat?”
_ Ronald Halber, executive director of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington, commenting on Jews for Jesus’ plans to evangelize Jews in the Washington area as part of a worldwide campaign. He was quoted by The Washington Post.
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