c. 2005 Religion News Service

Jewish, Muslim Groups React to Report of Rising Anti-Semitism in Europe

(RNS) A U.S. State Department report to Congress detailing a rising number of incidents of anti-Semitism in Europe is being applauded by U.S. Jewish groups as an important example of American leadership.

Muslim groups, however, are disappointed that the report correlated the problem with Europe’s rising Muslim population. The report also identified skinheads and other radical political fringe groups as responsible for anti-Semitic acts.

The report, released Wednesday (Jan. 5), was mandated by the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act and will be published annually. It chronicles anti-Semitic incidents in eastern Europe, France and Germany, as well as places like Pakistan and Syria, where local media inflame anti-Semitic sentiment.

While the report provided little new information, Jewish groups welcomed it as a vehicle to draw attention to the issue of global anti-Semitism, and to praise those countries _ including France, Belgium and Germany _ that have implemented effective efforts to combat the problem.

“The publication of this report is yet another demonstration of America’s resolve to take practical and meaningful action to highlight both problems and progress,” said Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, which works against anti-Semitism worldwide.

A leading U.S. Muslim group took exception to the report’s citing of Muslim anti-Semitism as a rising problem in Europe, distinct from traditional anti-Semitic sentiment.

“I think there’s a real problem overall in Europe with racism and bigotry, and I think it’s unfair to put it at the feet of the Muslim community,” said Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington, D.C.-based civil liberties organization.

Hooper cited French laws that ban Muslim girls from wearing traditional headscarves and attacks on mosques as examples of a broader problem with bigotry.

_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi

Fans of Thomas Merton Want Monk Put Back in New Catechism

(RNS) Fans of the late Thomas Merton have launched a last-ditch effort to have the Trappist monk put back into a new Catholic catechism for adults after he was replaced by a 19th century nun.

Nearly 500 people _ including members of the Thomas Merton Society _ have signed a petition asking that Merton be reinserted in the catechism that was approved by U.S. bishops last November and is now awaiting Vatican approval, the Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal reported.

Merton, who died in 1968, inspired followers with his conversion to Catholicism but sparked controversy when he dabbled in Eastern religions and Buddhism toward the end of his life.

Pittsburgh Bishop Donald Wuerl, who oversaw production of the new catechism, said last year that bishops didn’t “know all the details” about Merton’s ties to Buddhism and said young Catholics don’t know who Merton was.

Merton originally was the opening chapter in the new catechism, which features short profiles on the lives of notable American Catholics. He was replaced in the final edition by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first native-born North American saint.

“It was more a choice for Elizabeth Ann Seton than against Thomas Merton,” Monsignor Daniel Kutys, director of the bishops’ catechism office, told the Louisville newspaper.

Still, Merton fans say he should be included because of his wide following and best-selling books. Merton lived at the Abbey of Gethsemani near Bardstown, Ky.

“For the sake of young adult Catholics in the future, it’s going to make the catechism a better document if somebody as attractive a personality and as positive a role model as Merton is in there,” Patrick O’Connell, the editor of a Merton journal who is spearheading the petition, told the Courier-Journal.

Pope Joins Europe in Silent Mourning for Tsunami Victims

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Seated alone in the center of the broad platform of the Paul VI Audience Hall, Pope John Paul II bowed his head in prayer Wednesday (Jan. 5) for victims of the tsunami in Asia.

The ailing, 84-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff joined many millions of mourners throughout Europe in observing three minutes of silence starting at noon.

The 8,000 pilgrims attending the pope’s first weekly general audience of 2005 also maintained silence as the pope sat facing them, motionless, with his hands raised in a gesture of prayer.

At the start of the audience, John Paul spoke anew of his sadness over the disaster that claimed an estimated 150,000 lives on the day after Christmas. He said he asked the Virgin Mary to protect the new year, “marked as it is by a deep concern for the sufferings which the people of Southeast Asia are presently undergoing.”

“May the Holy Virgin watch over the entire world,” the pope said, speaking first in Italian and then repeating his message in French, English, German, Spanish and his native Polish.

Noting that the day was “dedicated to mourning for the numerous victims of the seaquake that tragically struck Southeast Asia,” the pope said, “Once again, I ask everyone to join in my prayer for the many dead and for the populations in grave difficulty.”

At the start of the three minutes of silence, the pope’s secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, and the uniformed Swiss Guards who normally stand at his side drew back, leaving a wide space around the pope.

After the three minutes, Monsignor Paolo De Nicolo, the regent of the papal household who had announced the minutes of silence, led the pilgrims in reciting the Lord’s Prayer, an Ave Maria and a prayer for eternal rest.

The pope left the audience hall in silence.

_ Peggy Polk

Canadian Buddhists Put Temple Up for Sale to Raise Relief Funds

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (RNS) A Canadian Buddhist organization is selling a temple worth more than $400,000 to give all the proceeds to Asia’s tsunami victims.

Abbot Thick Nguyen’s Buddhist organization showed their second temple, a small one in the Vancouver suburb of Mission, to a prospective buyer in hopes of immediately donating the money to the Red Cross.

The act of generosity was just one of many that Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and aboriginal groups in Canada were coming up with this week to aid the families of those killed, injured or left homeless across south Asia.

The outpouring of compassion from a cross-section of religions marks a rare moment among the world’s often-divided faiths, which are showing a united front in rushing to the aid of the mostly poor people of south Asia’s shattered coast. It is home to hundreds of millions of Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and Hindus.

“When the abbot made his announcement, a lot of people dropped their jaws. But after a day went by, everybody began supporting him wholeheartedly,” said Dr. Vi Liet Nguyen, a family physician in East Vancouver and board member of the Vietnamese Buddhist Congregation of Canada.

Dinh Nguyen, another member of the international Buddhist organization that has two temples in British Columbia, said Monday the abbot wants his followers to show compassion for all people, no matter what their religion or country of origin. Vietnam was not struck by the tsunami.

Speaking through a translator, the abbot said one reason he’s making a large donation to tsunami victims is to say “thank you” to the hard-hit people of the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, who, in the 1970s, took in him and many other members of his congregation after they fled Communist Vietnam as refugees, or “boat people.”

Separate from the land sale, the Buddhist organization has already raised $5,000 for tsunami victims.

_ Douglas Todd

Quote of the Day: T-shirt by Nashville, Tenn.-based Merchplaza

“Jesus loves the little children, except the ones that burn CDs.”

_ Saying on one in a new line of T-shirts by Merchplaza, a Nashville, Tenn.-based merchandising and apparel company that is raising awareness of the theft of music, including Christian music, through unauthorized downloading.

MO/PH RNS END