c. 2004 Religion News Service
Chinese Detain L.A.-Based Buddhist Leader, Catholic Priests
(RNS) A Los Angeles-based Buddhist leader and eight underground Catholic priests have been detained by the Chinese government in what human rights groups call an apparent crackdown on religious freedom.
Yu Tianjian, a “living Buddha” who has been the abbot of Dari Rulai Temple in Los Angeles for five years, was detained Aug. 11 before ceremonies to rededicate an 800-year-old temple in Inner Mongolia.
Don Kendall, a Yu aide who traveled with him to China, told The Washington Post that Chinese officials charged Yu with “promoting superstition” and abruptly closed the temple, which Yu’s Buddhist Foundation of America had spent $3 million renovating.
Kendall said 70 monks were taken away on buses and officials removed seven Americans from the Xingyuan temple complex. He said officials, who had approved the Aug. 14 ceremony, also removed priceless artifacts and other goods from the temple.
“They welcomed us up there with open arms, but I guess they changed their minds,” he said. “They took our money and kicked us out.”
Yu is a Chinese citizen who holds a U.S. green card. Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing met with Chinese officials Thursday (Aug. 19) to discuss the “mistreatment of American citizens,” The Associated Press reported.
Separately, the Connecticut-based Cardinal Kung Foundation said Chinese troops arrested eight Catholic priests in Heibei province who belong to an underground church that is loyal to the pope in Rome.
Three of the priests have been identified by the Cardinal Kung Foundation, but their whereabouts are unknown. The foundation estimates that 12 million Chinese belong to the underground church, while 4 million belong to a separate state-approved Catholic church.
Most Venezuelan Church Leaders Accept Recall Vote
(RNS) Some, but not all, of the Venezuelan church leaders who have wrangled with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in the past appear resigned to the results of the Sunday (Aug. 15) referendum in which voters overwhelmingly rejected a recall attempt against the controversial leftist leader.
By an overwhelming 58-to-42 percent margin, voters turned back Chavez’s recall.
Most of Venezuela’s Roman Catholic bishops have called on opposition parties and groups to accept the results of the vote, Catholic World News reported.
However, at least one prominent prelate called the vote a “gigantic fraud.” Cardinal Jose Rosalio Castillo Lara accused Chavez of exploiting poor voters, saying Chavez’s campaign paid many of them off with $50 a vote.
The cardinal also told Vatican Radio that members of Chavez’s ruling party were observers at polling stations in what he described as a last-minute change of election rules, CWN reported.
However, the referendum was certified as fair by former President Jimmy Carter and other international observers, and New York-based Human Rights Watch said the referendum was proof that Venezuela had taken a major step in strengthening its rule of law.
“Venezuela’s democracy has passed a historic test,” Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement Tuesday. “President Chavez has won a decisive victory, and the country has proven that it is able to address its political crises through legal means.”
Chavez _ beloved by many of Venezuela’s poor for popular social programs but condemned as authoritarian by middle-class and wealthy critics _ has been at odds for years with the nation’s Roman Catholic hierarchy, even going so far as calling Catholic clergy “devils in vestments.” For their part, the bishops have said the leftist leader has not been open to dialogue with his political opponents.
Archbishop Baltazar Porras, head of Venezuela’s Roman Catholic bishops conference, told Vatican Radio after the vote that he, too, was concerned about possible fraud but called on all political factions to work together for national reconciliation.
Venezuelan Protestants were divided on the referendum, Ecumenical News International reported. At least one prominent Protestant leader, Epifanio Marquez, a Presbyterian, said prior to the vote he hoped Chavez could be removed much in the way that a 1988 referendum in Chile helped ease out former President Augusto Pinochet, a conservative.
But other Protestants rallied to support Chavez, including attending an event prior to the referendum at a Caracas coliseum that drew members of some 2,000 Protestant churches. The Protestants asked that the president, who attended the rally, be provided “divine protection” against his removal.
_ Chris Herlinger
Alternative Prayer Space Near Western Wall Gets Mixed Reviews
JERUSALEM (RNS) The official opening of a place for alternative Jewish prayer near the Western Wall plaza has gratified some Jewish groups and angered others.
Unveiled to the public Tuesday (Aug. 17), the space south of the plaza enables non-Orthodox Jewish men and women to pray together at an adjacent section of the Western Wall.
According to the Orthodox custom adhered to at the main section of the wall, known as the “kotel,” men and women must pray separately.
The Israeli government created the alternative prayer space after the Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that a group called the Women of the Wall could not pray at the kotel collectively, due to the religious beliefs of Orthodox worshippers. Religious Jews have sometimes physically and verbally attacked the group’s members while they were at prayer.
The 14-year-old group, which is comprised of mostly Orthodox feminists, had petitioned the court to permit them to pray in the kotel’s women’s section at the start of every Jewish month, and to celebrate bat mitzvahs.
In its compromise ruling, the court acknowledged the women’s right to pray collectively and ordered the government to renovate an existing archaeological garden that adjoins another part of the Western Wall to accommodate the women’s group as well as Jews from the non-Orthodox streams.
Rabbi Ehud Bandel, the head of the Conservative/Masorti movement in Israel, said the development of an alternative site “is a significant step forward for the advancement of religious pluralism in Israel.”
In contrast, Anat Hoffman, a co-founder of Women of the Wall, criticized the compromise, calling the prayer space “a very nice looking exile. We want to be with everyone else, out in the open.”
_ Michele Chabin
`Hell House’ Heads to Hollywood
(RNS) “Hell House,” an annual and controversial production that a Denver-area church has presented each Halloween, is being converted to a Hollywood production by a secular humanist group.
The professional production of “Hollywood Hell House” will spoof the original and feature such celebrities as comedians Bill Maher as Satan and Andy Richter as Jesus. It will run Saturdays through Halloween at the Steve Allen Theater on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles.
“It will be a parody of itself,” producer Maggie Rowe told the Rocky Mountain News, a Denver newspaper. “It will be very funny. We’re having a hoot.”
Rowe is a representative of the Center for Inquiry-West, a group whose mission is “to promote and defend reason, science and freedom of inquiry in all areas of human endeavor.”
She admits to stretching the truth when she bought a $200 “Hell House” kit from its creator, the Rev. Keenan Roberts. She told him that she wanted the kit for her youth group. The production company is called “The Youth Group.”
The kit features hundreds of pages of script and stagecraft demonstrating how to create smoke-filled vignettes depicting Satan luring teenagers to hell with sinful temptations. The church in the Denver suburb of Arvada, where Roberts was youth minister, has drawn thousands since 1995 to scenes with anti-abortion and anti-gay messages.
Roberts, who plans to attend the opening night performance, said he sees the new version as an opportunity although he also feels stung.
“People have been trying to damage this message since they crucified the founder of the movement,” he said. “It’s exciting. `Hell House’ is going to another stage of exposure.”
NCC Founding Father J. Irwin Miller Dies at 95
(RNS) J. Irwin Miller, a businessman and philanthropist who was one of the founding fathers of the National Council of Churches, died Monday (Aug. 16) at his home in Columbus, Ind. He was 95.
Miller participated in the NCC’s organizing assembly in 1950 and later served as its first lay president from 1960 to 1963. Under his leadership, the NCC launched its Commission on Religion and Race, which took an active role in the civil rights movement and co-sponsored the 1963 March on Washington.
“He felt the gospel message had to be relevant, and he worried that a number of Christians and Christian leaders were not as courageous as they should be,” said the NCC’s current general secretary, the Rev. Bob Edgar. “He sought to keep the church faithful, relevant and effective.”
Miller led the Cummins Engine Co. for more than 40 years, which grew to a Fortune 500 company under his leadership with 25,000 employees in 131 countries. He shut down the Cummins factory in South Africa to protest the country’s apartheid policies.
Martin Luther King Jr. was so moved by Miller’s corporate ethics that he called him “the most socially responsible businessman in the country,” according to James Joseph, a former U.S. ambassador to South Africa and a Cummins vice president.
Miller, a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), was also active in promoting the arts and innovative architecture in Columbus. His visually striking home church, North Christian Church, was designed by Eero Saarinen and proclaimed one of the 13 most outstanding American buildings in the last 50 years.
“It’s hard to put into words the greatness of this man and what he’s meant to so many people and institutions,” said the Rev. William Chris Hobgood, general minister and president of the denomination.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Quote of the Day: Clergy Abuse Victim “P.J.”
(RNS) “I didn’t know which was worse _ either I was going to be beaten by my ex-father, or I was going to have this other abuse. Either way I was screwed. I chose what I felt was the lesser of the two, and that’s how I ended up at Father’s house.”
_ A victim of clergy sexual abuse known as “P.J.,” who claims he was abused by a Catholic priest in Walla Walla, Wash., after the priest took him in. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer found at least four Washington priests who abused children who were living under their care as legal parents or guardians.
DEA/PH END RNS
