c. 2004 Religion News Service

Eds: Mathew in the 3rd graph below is cq.

Falwell Creates `21st-Century Resurrection’ of Moral Majority

(RNS) The Rev. Jerry Falwell, co-founder of the defunct Moral Majority, has formed The Faith and Values Coalition, which he said will “maintain an evangelical revolution of voters” with Christian values in mind.

“Essentially, TFVC is a 21st-century resurrection of the Moral Majority,” he said in a statement released Tuesday (Nov. 9).

Falwell, 71, intends to serve four years as national chairman. Author and theologian Tim LaHaye, known for the “Left Behind” series, will serve as board chairman, while Falwell’s son, Jonathan Falwell, will be executive director. Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, a legal organization based in Orlando, Fla., that is known for its support of conservative causes, has been named vice chairman.

Falwell, a Lynchburg, Va., minister and chancellor of Liberty University, said the group is committed to helping President Bush have a successful second term but also is looking ahead to the next election.

The 2008 election of a president who is socially, fiscally and politically conservative is one of three primary objectives, along with confirmation of pro-life judges and passage of an amendment to the constitution declaring marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

Falwell said he feels a divine call to pursue goals similar to those he had during the Moral Majority’s existence from 1979 to 1989.

“At that time, God burdened my heart to mobilize religious conservatives around a pro-life, pro-family, strong national defense and pro-Israel platform, designed to return America to her Judeo-Christian heritage,” he said.

“And I distinctively feel that burden again.”

The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and a frequent Falwell critic, dismissed the new effort as a gimmick for fundraising that may be short-lived.

“I welcome Falwell’s new organization to the debate,” said Lynn, whose watchdog organization is based in Washington. “I feel confident it will meet the same fate as the Moral Majority.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Vatican and Italy to Catalog Inquisition Documents

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican will open its archives to Italian state officials and academics for a computer-driven project that will catalogue all available documents on the Inquisition in Italy.

“Such a vast operation, never before undertaken, is of great importance to respond to new directions of international research on the control of religious ideas in Medieval and modern Europe,” Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said.

Under an agreement signed on Tuesday (Nov. 9), archivists will survey documentation held by the Vatican, the Italian government, Italian libraries and private collectors.

The Inquisition, begun by Pope Innocent III at the end of the 12th century in response to the alleged heresies of the Cathars, or Albigensians, and the Waldensians, spread throughout Europe and led to the expulsion of Jews and Moors from Spain.

Torture was permitted to secure proof of heresy, and if accused heretics did not repent, officials of the Inquisition could turn them over to civil authorities for execution by hanging or burning at the stake.

In 1542, Pope Paul II established the Roman Inquisition, a supreme inquisitorial tribunal aimed at combating Lutheranism and Calvanism and later concerned with witchcraft.

The agreement on cataloging was signed by Archbishop Angelo Amato, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Maurizio Fallace, director general of the Archives of the Italian Ministry of Culture, and Andrea Del Col, director of the Center of Research on the Inquisition at the University of Trieste. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is directly descended from the Inquisition.

Navarro-Valls said the computerized project would safeguard a unique cultural heritage and provide historical information in the fields of religious doctrine, science, popular culture, spontaneous holiness and censorship as well as “systems of social control” from the Medieval to the modern age.

_ Peggy Polk

U.S. Supreme Court Asked to Review Oregon Assisted-Suicide Law

(RNS) Oregon’s one-of-a-kind law allowing doctor-assisted suicide moved toward the ultimate legal test Tuesday (Nov. 9) when the U.S. Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to review a lower court decision that upheld the law.

In its filing, which was expected, the department argued that Oregon usurped the Controlled Substances Act by permitting doctors to prescribe lethal doses of pain-killing drugs. Assisted suicide is not a “legitimate medical purpose” of the drugs, it said.

The U.S. Supreme Court typically takes about six weeks to review and decide whether to accept cases. If it rejects the petition, the Oregon law would remain in effect and could be blocked only by an act of Congress.

Supporters of the Oregon law said they liked their chances, whether the Supreme Court chooses to hear the case or not.

“We are prepared to win in the Supreme Court if necessary, but doubt the court will take this case as there is no new law here to determine,” said Eli Stutsman, the Portland attorney representing doctors and pharmacists in the case.

Barbara Coombs Lee, president of the Compassion in Dying Federation in Portland, noted that in a 1997 decision, the Supreme Court did not recognize a constitutional right to assisted dying but called for a national debate and state legislative action on the issue.

“The court said it’s a matter for the states to decide,” said Lee, whose nonprofit group has led the legal defense of Oregon’s law.

The legal dispute between Oregon and the Justice Department began three years ago Tuesday. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who announced his resignation Tuesday, adopted an interpretation of the federal drug law declaring that “prescribing, dispensing or administering” controlled drugs for terminally ill patients was illegal.

Oregon has prevailed at each step as the case, known as Ashcroft v. Oregon, worked its way through federal courts. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals again rejected Ashcroft’s interpretation in May, leaving the Supreme Court as the department’s last resort.

During the six years since the Oregon law took effect, 171 Oregonians have died by doctor-assisted suicide.

_ Jim Barnett

Survey Reveals Trans-Atlantic Divide Over Religion

LONDON (RNS) Great Britain and the United States may be allies, but they appear to be more than a sea apart when it comes to religion and values.

Sharp differences in religious practice and views on hot-button social issues were revealed in a survey commissioned by The Times of London and published Wednesday (Nov. 10). The survey sampled 1,504 British adults and was compared with results of a national exit poll conducted Nov. 2, Election Day, in the United States on behalf of major media outlets.

The surveys showed:

_ While 58 per cent of Bush and 41 per cent of Kerry voters said they went to church weekly, only 10 per cent of British voters did.

_ Among British voters, conservatives were more likely to be weekly churchgoers (13 per cent, with an additional 3 per cent going more often than once a week), while Liberal Democrats were less likely (7 per cent, with an additional 1 per cent going more often than once a week). Labour voters took up a middle position (10 and 2 per cent).

_ Whereas 69 per cent of those voting for Bush thought there should be no legal recognition of same-sex couples, this was an attitude shared by only 29 per cent of British voters, roughly the same proportion as those voting for Kerry (30 per cent).

How do citizens of the two countries derive their values? The survey didn’t address that question. But a separate survey released Wednesday by The Times showed the British find their local pub, not their local church, a far more important focus of the community.

Asked which one place within a community contributed most to social interaction and developed interpersonal skills, 58 per cent nominated the local pub, making it the top answer, while 14 percent said the church, the third most popular answer.

_ Robert Nowell

Quote of the Day: Actor and Director Mel Gibson

(RNS) “I was never in a petri dish, but at one stage I was that little cluster of cells myself, as were you, as was the doctor, as is everybody. Tell me anybody who wasn’t that at some point in their development, and I’ll give you a cigar.”

_Director of “The Passion of the Christ” discussing his opposition to the use of human embryonic stem cells. He was quoted in The Los Angeles Times.

MO/RB RNS END