c. 2005 Religion News Service
In Posthumous Message, John Paul II Praises Missionary Martyrs
VATICAN CITY (RNS) In a posthumous message issued by the Vatican on Friday (April 15), Pope John Paul II praised missionaries who were martyred for their faith and said he hoped their example would encourage young people to “tread the path of heroic fidelity to Christ.”
The Vatican said that John Paul, who died April 2, signed his message for World Mission Sunday on Feb. 22. The day will not be observed until the fourth Sunday of October, but the Vatican customarily issues such messages well in advance to allow for parish preparations.
“May their example draw numerous young men and women to tread the path of heroic fidelity to Christ,” the pope said, referring to missionary martyrs. “The church has need of men and women willing to consecrate themselves wholly to the great cause of the Gospel.”
John Paul linked the work of missionaries to the celebration of the Year of the Eucharist, which he opened last October. “The Eucharist leads us to be generous evangelizers, actively committed to building a more just and fraternal world,” he said.
The pope urged Catholics to back the Pontifical Mission Societies and Missionary Institutes not only with prayer but with donations of money.
The Vatican issued the message in six languages, including Portuguese and Chinese.
_ Peggy Polk
Conservative Christian Groups Mobilize to Stop Democratic Filibusters
(RNS) Conservative Christian groups are intensifying their effort to end the practice by Senate Democrats of using filibusters to defeat Republican judicial nominations.
The March death of Terri Schiavo, whose legal battle ended with Republican displeasure at the role of judges who refused to order her feeding tube reinserted, brought back into the spotlight an ongoing debate over what President Bush has referred to as “activism” in the judiciary.
A filibuster is when a minority group of senators prevents a vote on a motion or, as in recent years, confirmation of a judicial nominee by prolonging debate past the allotted time. Conservative religious groups are urging senators to pass what is being called “the nuclear option,” new rules that will end the use of the filibuster for judicial nominations.
“The use of the judicial filibuster is an obstructionist tactic designed to prevent full consideration of nominees, a move that violates the Constitution,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative organization that has launched a national campaign to stop the filibusters.
On April 24, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist plans to join prominent Christian conservatives in a nationwide telecast as part of an event dubbed “Justice Sunday.” The New York Times reported Friday (April 15) that fliers for the telecast, organized by the Washington-based Family Research Council, portray Democrats as “against people of faith” for blocking Bush’s nominees.
That claim has irked Democrats.
“No party has a monopoly on faith, and for Sen. Frist to participate in this kind of telecast just throws more oil on the partisan flames,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told The Times.
Meanwhile, the People for the American Way Foundation (PFAWF) has established a Web site to advocate for maintaining the filibuster procedures as they stand.
The group argues that with a Republican majority in the Senate, Democrats need some recourse, such as the filibuster, to ensure that their voices are heard on controversial judicial nominees.
“America works best when no one party has absolute power,” a national television and print ad by the group reads.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Yale to Drop Connection With United Church of Christ
(RNS) As of July, Yale University will no longer maintain ties with the United Church of Christ (UCC), a decision that has earned the university a sharp rebuke by the UCC’s president and will end a historic relationship that dates back to the 1700s.
Yale’s decision “fails to honor our historic relationships in a meaningful or respectful way,” the Rev. John Thomas told the United Church News, the UCC news service.
Thomas was responding to a report in the April 12 New York Times that the university has decided it wants to make Battell Chapel a place of worship for a wider spectrum of religious faiths.
The change is significant because the university’s founding and history are closely tied to the denomination.
The New Haven, Conn., university, founded in 1701 by New England Congregationalists, was established as an institution to train Protestant clergy. The Congregationalists are among the “forebear denominations” of the 1.3 million-member UCC, which was formed in 1957. The Yale chapel formally affiliated with the UCC in 1961.
The congregation at the chapel _ now called the Church of Christ in Yale _ was formed in 1757 and conducts services in a stately, Gothic-style chapel built in the late 1870s. Among its leaders was the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., the anti-war activist and Yale chaplain during the 1960s.
Thomas, himself a 1975 graduate of Yale Divinity School, said he was puzzled by the decision in part because the UCC, one of the most liberal denominations in the United States, has long-standing ecumenical and interfaith commitments.
It is difficult, he said, “to understand how disaffiliation from the church will enhance Yale’s capacity to minister in a more meaningful way to its increasingly pluralistic constituency.”
The Times reported that the university, which has been examining ways to strengthen the campus’s spiritual life, determined it was better that the chapel have a broader mission and not be tied to one denomination. As it is, few students attend services there except to sing in the chapel choir.
“The university is actually returning to the founding purpose of the church, which was to meet the religious and spiritual needs of students in particular,” Martha Highsmith, the university’s deputy secretary, told The Times.
_ Chris Herlinger
Mormons Renew Pledge to Stop Baptizing Deceased Jews
(RNS) Seven years after its original vow to end the practice of baptizing deceased Jews by proxy, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has renewed its promise after the practice was discovered to have continued.
Church officials traveled to New York this week to consult with Jewish leaders on how to resolve the conflict, which arose when the former chairman of the World Gathering of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, Ernest Michel, notified the church that the practice was again a problem.
Baptizing by proxy is a tenet of Mormon theology in which church members research their genealogical histories and submit names of non-Mormon ancestors as candidates for baptism. The deceased relatives are then baptized posthumously by Mormons.
According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Michel discovered that the church’s International Genealogical Index (IGI) includes as many as 20,000 Holocaust victims that have been baptized by proxy.
Many Jews believe it is insulting for a Christian denomination to perform a religious ritual on deceased Jews. The church counters that because the soul can either accept or reject the baptism in the afterlife, it is not a forced conversion, but Jewish leaders are still extremely uncomfortable with the practice.
The church is working with Jewish leaders to develop a rigorous system of identifying and removing Jewish names from the IGI.
In 1995, the church identified 380,000 Holocaust victims in the IGI and removed the names, pledging to help church members refrain from posthumously baptizing Jews who were not related to them.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Wiccan Loses Challenge on Leading Prayer at Supervisors’ Meetings
(RNS) A Wiccan who challenged a Virginia county board’s decision to exclude her from its list of religious leaders who offer prayers at government meetings has lost her case.
Cynthia Simpson, a member of the Reclaiming Tradition of Wicca and a resident of Chesterfield County, Va., argued that the county board of supervisors violated the Constitution when it determined she wasn’t eligible to be added to the list of leaders who might utter the prayers. Simpson was told by a county attorney that the board’s invocations have been “made to a divinity that is consistent with the Judeo-Christian tradition,” which is not consistent with Wiccan prayers.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday (April 14) that “the Chesterfield policy of clergy selection may not encompass as much as Simpson would like,” but it is one that offers a range of religious leaders the opportunity to pray before meetings of the board of supervisors.
“Chesterfield not only sought but achieved diversity,” wrote Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III. “Its first-come, first-serve system led to prayers being given by a wide cross-section of the county’s religious leaders.”
Wiccans, who call themselves witches, pagans or neo-pagans, say their religion is based on respect for nature and the cycle of the seasons.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington-based religious liberty watchdog group, called the ruling a “flawed decision.” It joined the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia in defending Simpson in the case.
“It would be best if government officials stayed out of religious matters entirely, but if some religious leaders are allowed to lead prayers at board meetings, all traditions ought to be included,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United, in a statement.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Pat Robertson, P. Diddy and Others Featured in Anti-Poverty Ad
WASHINGTON (RNS) An unusual combination of stars, ranging from religious broadcaster Pat Robertson to hip-hop music mogul Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, is behind a new public service announcement trying to stop AIDS and poverty.
“God calls us to lift up the poorest people of the world,” said Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network and Christian Coalition. “We’ve come together with one voice through the ONE Campaign to do just that.”
ONE _ The Campaign to Make Poverty History, premiered “The ONE.org Spot” last Sunday (April 10) on MTV as well as during ABC’s hit show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”
The ad will continue to run on MTV Europe, MTV Latin America, MTV Asia and MTV Base in South Africa for a full month beyond its April 10 debut. Black Entertainment Television along with County Music Television and VH1, a music channel, will also run public service announcements for the campaign in the future.
The project’s goal is to recruit more than 1 million Americans to lobby the U.S. government to increase aid funds given to poor countries. Supporters wear white “ONE” wristbands as a show of solidarity.
The announcement features 33 entertainers, politicians, religious leaders and musicians including U2 frontman Bono, whose organization Debt AIDS Trade Africa (DATA) is one of the project’s partners.
He called the video’s participants “not the usual suspects,” noting that Hollywood isn’t the only town with clout. Bishop Frank Griswold of the Episcopal Church, who is also featured in the 60-second message, agreed that the range of those endorsing the project should help capture a wider audience.
“I hope the ONE Campaign, and this bit of video, will succeed in using some well-known voices to rally support for the great many in our world who are essentially voiceless,” Griswold said.
_ Helena Andrews
Quote of the Day: President Bush
“The difference between the case of Terry Schiavo and the case of a convicted killer is the difference between guilt and innocence. And I happen to believe that the death penalty, when properly applied, saves lives of others. And so I’m comfortable with my beliefs that there’s no contradiction between the two.”
_ President Bush, speaking to the American Society of Newspaper Editors Convention on Thursday (April 14) about his support for the death penalty.
MO/PH END RNS
