c. 2005 Religion News Service

Pope Says Holocaust Should Serve as Warning to Religious Terrorists

(RNS) Pope John Paul II, marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, said Thursday (Jan. 27) that the Holocaust should be a warning to terrorists acting in the name of religion.

“May it serve, today and for the future,” said the pope, “as a warning: there must be no yielding to ideologies which justify contempt for human dignity on the basis of race, color, language or religion.

“I make this appeal to everyone, and particularly to those who would resort, in the name of religion, to acts of oppression and terrorism.”

Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, archbishop of Paris, represented the pope at the ceremonies in Poland and delivered John Paul’s message. Lustiger was born into a Polish-Jewish family, and his mother died at Auschwitz in 1943 during World War II.

The pope called the Holocaust “a crime which will ever darken the history of humanity.”

Referring to the Holocaust by its Hebrew name, Shoah, the pope said, “No one is permitted to pass by the tragedy of the Shoah.

“That attempt at the systematic destruction of an entire people falls like a shadow on the history of Europe and the whole world; it is a crime which will forever darken the history of humanity,” he said.

The Polish-born John Paul, former archbishop of Krakow, recalled that he visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in 1979 on his first trip back to his homeland after his election as pope in October 1978.

During Holy Year 2000, the pope asked forgiveness at a special Mass in St. Peter’s Square and in the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and at the Western Wall in Jerusalem for all sins committed by Catholics over the centuries, including failure to help Jews escape Nazi persecution.

But, John Paul said, “in the midst of that unspeakable concentration of evil, there were also heroic examples of commitment to good” in Auschwitz. This love, he said, “must never be forgotten. It must never cease to rouse consciences, to resolve conflicts, to inspire the building of peace.”

The Vatican issued the pope’s message in six languages, including Russian and Hebrew.

_ Peggy Polk

Pope Urges Respect for Age in Personal Message for Lent

VATICAN CITY (RNS) An aged and ailing Pope John Paul II urged respect for the elderly in what appeared to be an unusually personal message delivered Thursday (Jan. 27) in anticipation of the liturgical season of Lent.

He called longevity “a special divine gift” but recommended “thinking confidently about the mystery of death.”

A Vatican news conference on the message emphasized the opposition of the Catholic Church to euthanasia, but the pope referred to euthanasia only indirectly.

John Paul said that human life must be valued “from its beginning to its natural end” and warned against “a certain current mentality that considers these people, our brothers and sisters, as almost useless when they are reduced in their capacities due to the difficulties of age or sickness.”

The pope is 84 and suffers from Parkinson’s disease, which makes it difficult for him to move and to speak. But, in the face of speculation that ill health may force him to retire, he has said repeatedly that he intends to remain at the head of the Catholic Church as long as he lives.

Lent is the 40-day season in which Christians fast, pray and give alms in preparation for Easter. It opens with Ash Wednesday, Feb. 9 this year, when ashes are imposed on the foreheads of worshippers as a sign of penitence and mortality.

John Paul normally devotes his message for Lent to the need for prayer and for charity.

“According to the biblical understanding, reaching old age is a sign of the Most High’s gracious benevolence. Longevity appears, therefore, as a special divine gift,” the pope said.

John Paul made two references to death.

“Knowledge of the nearness of the final goal leads the elderly person to focus on that which is essential, giving importance to those things that the passing of years do not destroy,” he said at one point.

At another point, he said, “One must become accustomed to thinking confidently about the mystery of death so that the definitive encounter with God occurs in a climate of interior peace.”

_ Peggy Polk

Religious Conservatives Praise Opposition to Children’s TV Show

WASHINGTON (RNS) Conservative Christian groups are praising U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings’ efforts to oppose a children’s TV show episode showing lesbian parents.

Spellings expressed in a letter to PBS President Pat Mitchell her “strong and very serious concerns” regarding a scene in “Postcards From Buster,” a TV travel diary in which the animated bunny Buster visits children around the United States. In the Vermont episode, “Sugartime,” Buster eats dinner with a Vermont girl and her two mothers before they run off to see how maple sugar is made.

Spellings wrote in her letter, “Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in this episode.”

The program was funded in part by a federal literacy grant. Spellings asked that references to government funding and sponsorship be removed from the episode.

PBS pulled the episode _ scheduled to air Feb. 2 in schools nationwide _ Tuesday (Jan. 25) after a review by its affiliates.

James Dobson, head of the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, commended Spellings’ actions, reported USA Today. A spokesperson from Focus on the Family was not available for comment.

Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association, a Tupelo, Miss.-based Christian advocacy group, said he also agreed with Spellings’ actions.

“The purpose of a children’s television program is to promote the traditional family,” he said. “I don’t think that two lesbians being parents is a legitimate family.”

Henry Becton, president of WGBH, the PBS Boston station that produced and will air the Vermont episode “Sugartime!,” said in a statement he disagreed with PBS’ decision. The intent of “Postcards From Buster” is to represent families from a wide variety of religious and cultural backgrounds, he said.

Becton said Buster has visited Mormons in Utah, Hmong in Wisconsin and a Pentecostal Christian family.

“We believe, as do the series’ advisers, that the program is appropriate for our audience and fits the series’ mission to introduce children to the rich and varied cultures that make up the United States, including kids living in a wide range of family structures.”

_ Celeste Kennel-Shank

Israeli Program for Religious Studies in Military to End

JERUSALEM (RNS) An innovative program that has long enabled religious Israeli soldiers to combine their mandatory military service with intensive religious studies will soon be disbanded, according to officials in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

The disclosure that the “hesder” yeshiva program could end as soon as March has upset members of the Zionist religious public, who have long viewed it as a means of serving their country while maintaining their religious values and education.

Over the years, the hesder soldiers _ who typically rotate combat duty with Torah study _ have distinguished themselves both academically and militarily. A disproportionately large number become officers of elite units.

The IDF insists that the time has come to integrate hesder soldiers into regular army units, even though the units do not adhere to the same level of religious observance as those in the hesder program. The military has said that Orthodox soldiers will still be able to maintain an Orthodox lifestyle in the general units, something the religious community doubts.

Religious Zionist leaders charge that the decision has been timed to prevent mass refusals by religious soldiers ordered to forcibly remove Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the West Bank.

Many soldiers, particularly from the religious Zionist camp, have said publicly that they will refuse to obey such an order if it conflicts with the edicts of their rabbis. Some rabbis in the community have said that Judaism prohibits the Jewish people from relinquishing any territory considered to be part of the biblical land of Israel.

The IDF is insisting that the decision to disband the program has nothing to do with the planned “disengagement” from Gaza, which is slated for the summer.

“I am against sectarian and ideological cadres. It damages the people’s army and our ability to bring people closer,” Maj. Gen. Elazar Stern, the head of the IDF’s Manpower Unit, told the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

Jonathan Rosenblum, a Jerusalem Post columnist who writes about the Orthodox community, told RNS that disbanding the hesder yeshiva system “will create a major crisis within the national religious movement, which has always emphasized army service as both a civic and religious duty.

“If young religious soldiers find themselves in units where their religious adherence is threatened, this community will have to reconsider its relation to the IDF,” Rosenblum said.

_ Michele Chabin

Christian University in Ohio Abandons Religious Hiring Policy

(RNS) Trustees at Ashland University have decided to abandon a policy that would have limited new faculty hires to Jews and Christians.

Instead, trustees at the Ashland, Ohio, school intend to require only that faculty and administrators support the private university’s mission statement, including a commitment to Judeo-Christian values.

When trustees initially approved the hiring policy in October, it was meant to clarify Ashland’s values to job applicants, said Emanuel Sandberg, chairman of the university’s board.

“It turns out that in the process we created new difficulties,” he said. “We weren’t trying to create any difficulty for anybody.”

After hearing complaints, the board agreed to revisit the issue at its meeting this month. Ashland, founded in 1878, has historical ties to the Brethren Church. The campus is midway between Cleveland and Columbus.

Donald Sloan, a music professor and president of the faculty senate, said that during his 13 years at the university and for years before, faculty have signed contracts indicating that they support Ashland’s mission statement.

That statement says, in part, that “Judeo-Christian values are the foundation of the educational and social environment of the university and shape the character of the institution.”

Sloan said the faculty believed that practice has been successful and asked trustees to reconsider the change.

There are excellent faculty members who are not expressly Jewish or Christian, he said, but who nonetheless embody the kind of values the university wants to encourage.

_ Barb Galbincea

Evangelical Author to Begin Spirituality Column in Women’s Magazine

(RNS) Rick Warren, evangelical author of “The Purpose-Driven Life,” will begin a new, monthly magazine column in Ladies’ Home Journal.

The column, called “Purpose,” debuts in the February issue and will explore the spiritual lives of American women and their families.

“There is a growing spiritual hunger in our culture, and I admire this magazine for its foresight and commitment to address every aspect of a woman’s life, including the spiritual dimension,” said Warren.

Diane Salvatore, editor in chief of Ladies’ Home Journal, said the magazine became interested in having a spirituality column because of the popularity of a section called “Inner Life,” which addresses emotional issues and health.

Warren, in addition to being a best-selling author, is pastor of the California-based Saddleback Church, home to 20,000 members. He has been called America’s most influential spiritual leader.

“Rick Warren has clearly touched a chord in the country today, and is able to address, in a very down-to-earth and universal way, people’s yearning to enhance their experience of spirituality in their daily lives,” Salvatore said.

Another women’s magazine, Seventeen, geared toward a teenage audience, has recently added a section titled “Faith.” Featured in each issue are inspirational quotes, scripture verses and personal stories.

_ Celeste Kennel-Shank

Quote of the Day: Afghan Jew Zablon Simintov

(RNS) “You get used to being alone.”

_ Zablon Simintov, believed to be the only remaining Jew living in Afghanistan, reacting to the death of fellow Jew Ishaq Levin. He was quoted by The Washington Post.

MO/PH RNS END