c. 2005 Religion News Service

Recuperating Pope Resumes Work From His Hospital Room

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II, continuing to improve after surgery, has resumed work from his hospital room, the Vatican said Thursday (March 3).

But the Vatican said there is no decision yet on whether he will play a role in Easter celebrations later this month.

“We don’t know when his hospitalization will end,” Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said. He said it would be up to the pope’s medical team to decide when the 84-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff will leave the hospital.

The pope “wants very much to return to the Vatican,” the spokesman said, but meanwhile he has begun to work in his 10th-floor suite in the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic hospital.

“In recent days the pope has been receiving several of his collaborators with whom he daily follows the activity of the Holy See and the life of the church,” Navarro-Valls said.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, brought work to the pope’s hospital room Tuesday, and Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, deputy secretary of state, spent time with him Wednesday.

The work presumably involved deciding on appointments and resignations of bishops and high Vatican officials, settling doctrinal issues, approving policy and drafting messages.

The medical bulletin, which Navarro-Valls said was written by the pope’s doctors, reported that his health “continues to improve and show progress” and that he is “eating regularly and spends several hours each day in an armchair.”

John Paul also spends “much time both in the morning and the afternoon” in his small private chapel next door to his room, Navarro-Valls said.

The bulletin said that John Paul’s “surgical wound is healing,” and he takes an “active” part in daily exercise sessions to rehabilitate his breathing and speaking.

John Paul was taken to the hospital for the second time in a month on Feb. 24 with breathing problems caused by a relapse of influenza. Doctors performed a tracheotomy, making an incision in his throat to insert a breathing tube that bypassed his swollen larynx.

Whether John Paul will take part in Easter celebrations “will be decided when the pope returns to the Vatican,” Navarro-Valls said.

_ Peggy Polk

Lutheran Theologians Criticize Gay Policy Recommendations

(RNS) Seventeen theologians say a proposal to continue banning same-sex unions and active gay clergy while at the same time allowing dissenters to flout the rules would “destabilize” the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The open letter signed by 17 Lutheran theologians from 12 seminaries and colleges rejected recommendations issued Jan. 13 by a task force that had spent three years studying the ELCA’s gay policies.

The proposal “threatens to destabilize the unity and constitution, as well as the historical, biblical and confessional teachings and practice of the church,” the theologians said.

The proposal to maintain current policy while tolerating dissent faces a final vote by delegates at the Lutherans’ Churchwide Assembly in August. The church’s bishops were scheduled to consider the plan during their meeting in Dallas that began Thursday (March 3).

The task force’s recommendations have been criticized by liberals for not going far enough and by conservatives for going too far. Conservatives say it is pointless to maintain a policy against same-sex unions and active gay clergy while allowing it to be violated.

The theologians said allowing local churches to violate national policy would weaken the structure and authority of the 4.9 million-member church.

“If the report before us were to be implemented, the ELCA … would abdicate its theological and moral constitutional responsibility by relegating the decisions for which it alone is responsible to regional and local components,” the theologians said.

The statement was drafted by the Rev. Karl Donfried, professor of religion at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. Other signers include Jean Bethke Elshtain, an ethicist at the University of Chicago, and the Rev. James Nestigen from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., who was a finalist in the election for ELCA presiding bishop in 2001.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Falwell Off Ventilator, Recuperating From Pneumonia

(RNS) The Rev. Jerry Falwell is continuing to recuperate from pneumonia in a Virginia hospital and an official of his ministry expects he’ll be home by Saturday (March 5).

Ron Godwin, president of Jerry Falwell Ministries, said Falwell was on a ventilator from Feb. 23 to 27, which helped him improve.

“It allowed him to rest much better and breathe more easily and he began to make progress much more rapidly,” Godwin said of the 71-year-old pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va.

Falwell, who also is chancellor of Liberty University in Lynchburg, took ill during the Feb. 20 service at his church and checked himself into Lynchburg General Hospital that day.

Before this illness, he had missed fewer than a dozen Sunday morning services in 40 years, Godwin said. His illness has also kept him from a few speaking engagements.

“The bad news is that Dr. Falwell actually had a very serious case of pneumonia and the good news is that Mrs. Falwell was completely in charge,” Godwin said in an interview, referring to Falwell’s wife, Macel.

“She has kept him in the hospital and he’s recuperating very nicely.”

Godwin said Falwell has been hearing from many colleagues and church members who are wishing him well.

“The phone’s ringing off the hook,” he said. “We’ve received well wishes and prayers from literally thousands of people all across the world.”

In the Feb. 25 edition of the newsletter he sends out to supporters of his Moral Majority Coalition, Falwell called his sickness a short-term situation.

“I am resting comfortably now and anxious to get home,” he said. “My doctors tell me that I will be fine after a time of recovery and rest. I deeply appreciate the prayers of my friends from around the world as I convalesce from this temporary setback.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

French National Assembly Adopts Religious Education Clause

PARIS (RNS) France’s National Assembly has passed an education bill that includes a clause calling for religion and its history to be taught in French public schools.

The bill, which still must be examined by the French Senate before becoming law, also makes learning France’s national anthem, “La Marseillaise,” obligatory in French primary schools.

Two years ago, ethnic Arab youths stirred national furor by whistling in derision as the French national anthem was played during a soccer match between France and Algeria.

The religious education measure passed Wednesday (March 2) appears surprising in a country that last year banned public school students from wearing head scarves, crosses and other conspicuous religious symbols to class.

But like many other countries in Western Europe, France is facing seemingly paradoxical trends of increasing secularity and increasing acts of anti-Semitism and other forms of racism.

Many experts attribute a large part of a five-year rise in attacks against Jewish institutions and Jews in France to disenfranchised French Muslim youths angry over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But neo-Nazi groups have also been blamed for some attacks, including the desecration of some Muslim cemeteries and mosques.

Recent anti-Semitic remarks by far-right politicians and by a prominent French humorist, Dieudonne _ who described this year’s 60th anniversary commemorations of the Holocaust as “pornography” _ have also outraged Jewish associations and human rights groups.

Last fall, France’s center-right government launched a drive for public high schools across the country to air excerpts of a six-hour documentary on the Holocaust.

The education bill was passed by 346-171, with opposition Socialist and other leftist parties voting against it.

But the two amendments on the teaching of religion and the “Marseillaise” in school were passed unanimously, according to French news reports that cited Education Minister Francois Fillon.

_ Elizabeth Bryant

Court Says British Schoolgirl Can Cover Up as Much as She Wants

(RNS) A 16-year-old British schoolgirl has won the right to wear a stricter form of Muslim dress than that allowed by her school.

An English court of appeal on Wednesday (March 2) overturned a previous court decision that Denbigh High School in Luton, England, was right to exclude Shabina Begum for refusing to comply with the school’s uniform code.

The 1,000-pupil state comprehensive school, with 79 percent of its pupils Muslim, required girls to wear a skirt, trousers or shalwar kameez (the traditional Muslim garb in the Indian subcontinent, consisting of tunic and trousers) with a hijab or head scarf if desired.

But Begum decided that shalwar kameez with hijab did not go far enough in meeting the Islamic demand for women to dress modestly, and opted instead for the jilbab _ an all-enveloping gown that leaves only the face and hands exposed.

The appeal court decided that, under the European Convention of Human Rights, Muslim girls who felt that shalwar kameez with hijab is not enough are entitled to wear the jilbab.

After the appeal court verdict Begum said, “Today’s decision is a victory for all Muslims who wish to preserve their identity and values despite prejudice and bigotry.”

Since her exclusion, Begum has found a place at another school that allowed her to wear the jilbab.

Her original school, whose head teacher is a Muslim, said it had lost the case on a technicality and emphasized in a statement that its school uniform policy had been agreed on by its governing body following consultation with the government’s Department for Education, pupils, parents, other schools and leading Muslim organizations.

The appeal court ruling has been welcomed by some Muslim groups but criticized by others. Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said, “Those who choose to wear the jilbab and consider it to be part of the faith requirement for modest attire should be respected.”

But the leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, said, “This may be a victory for human rights, but it is also a victory for fundamentalism.”

_ Robert Nowell

Australian Lawmakers Protest Replacing B.C. in Dating

(RNS) A school exam’s attempt to replace the dating system term B.C. (“Before Christ”) with B.C.E. (“Before Common Era”) has created a stir among government officials in the Australian state of New South Wales.

“This is political correctness gone mad,” said Jillian Skinner, shadow education minister in the New South Wales parliament, according to Australian news sources.

Skinner said Wednesday (March 2) she had received complaints from parents of some of the 150,000 seventh-grade students who took the English Language and Literacy Assessment on Tuesday.

“The government is indoctrinating their children against terminology that has been around for centuries,” Skinner said of why parents’ ire was aroused.

The exam featured a question about Nile River flooding in Ancient Egypt, marking the event as occurring in 590 B.C.E. A footnote to the question explained the term means “Before Common Era,” an alternative to “Before Christ.”

Carmel Tebbutt, education minister of the New South Wales Parliament, ordered the change in the exam reversed, according to the Daily Telegraph in Sydney.

Tebbutt said “Before Common Era” is appropriate for academics and museum curators, but not for schools.

“It should have been left as `B.C.’ with a footnote explaining that `B.C.E.’ is an alternative,” Tebbutt told Parliament, the Daily Telegraph reported Thursday.

While some Australians are opposing the use of “B.C.E.,” the words “Before Christ” have been removed from history education in some United States classrooms without causing a stir.

Michael Pons, spokesman for the Washington-based National Education Association, a professional organization representing 2.7 million educators, said he has not come across guidelines for chronology terms in tests or textbooks.

“There are books in the United States that use the term `Before Common Era,”’ Pons said. “I’m not aware of this being a controversy.”

_ Celeste Kennel-Shank

Quote of the Day: Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean

(RNS) “This is a struggle of good and evil. And we’re the good.”

_ Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, speaking to supporters in Lawrence, Kan., on conservatives’ and liberals’ struggle to win the debate over values. He was quoted by the Lawrence Journal-World.

MO/PH RNS END