c. 2005 Religion News Service
FEMA Extends Faith-Based Initiative With Hurricane Reimbursements
(RNS) The Federal Emergency Management Agency intends to reimburse religious groups that have offered relief to victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, marking a new step in the White House’s faith-based initiative.
The move by FEMA is being criticized by a church-state watchdog group, while a scholar of the faith-based initiative says it should not cause constitutional alarm.
Butch Kinerney, a spokesman for FEMA, said the government will reimburse sheltering expenses of private nonprofit organizations if they made an agreement with county or state government officials to house evacuees.
“We want to make sure that every group, religious or nonreligious, which opens its doors and opens its arms to shelter evacuees from this storm are able to get compensated for their generosity,” Kinerney said in an interview.
The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, issued a statement protesting the plans.
“After FEMA’s ineptitude in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it’s distressing to see the Bush administration making even more blunders,” said Lynn.
“Before millions of taxpayer dollars are turned over to churches, there must be strict accountability provisions and safeguards to protect the civil and religious liberty rights of those who need help.”
But Robert Tuttle, a law professor at George Washington University Law School, called the reported plans “entirely an extension of the faith-based initiative” and said they don’t prompt the kinds of constitutional issues that have been raised by other aspects of the initiative.
“There’s nothing that’s particularly constitutionally troubling about it as long as the government is treating religious providers no different from others in that same circumstance,” he said in an interview.
Tuttle, who also serves as an analyst with the Albany, N.Y.-based Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy, noted that it is unusual for individual houses of worship to be reimbursed by the government, but there is precedent for FEMA funding for religious buildings.
In 2002, President Bush ordered FEMA to change its policies so religious nonprofits could qualify for emergency relief after a natural disaster. After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Congress passed legislation that permitted grants to houses of worship that were damaged at that time, he said.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Religious Groups Cite `Moral Duty’ of U.S. to Stop Darfur Genocide
WASHINGTON (RNS) Religious groups on Wednesday (Sept. 21) stepped up pressure on the Bush administration and Congress to help end the genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region, saying the United States has a “moral duty” to intervene.
The Save Darfur Coalition, an alliance of 134 religious and humanitarian groups, said Washington must provide increased aid to African Union troops who are on the ground in Darfur and impose economic sanctions on the Sudanese government in Khartoum.
Leaders met with Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and members of Congress and delivered a letter to President Bush as part of the “National Day of Action for the People of Sudan.”
“The United States has a moral duty to lead the world to stop the slaughter of innocent civilians in Darfur,” said the Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president of government affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals.
“But we didn’t just say, `Do something.’ We proposed specific steps to resolve this horrific humanitarian crisis that is killing one Darfurian civilian every four minutes.”
Government-backed Arab militias have killed some 400,000 black Africans in Sudan’s western Darfur region since 2003, according to the United Nations. There are an estimated 2.5 million refugees in Sudan and neighboring Chad, and 3.5 million are facing starvation.
The Sudan crisis has garnered widespread attention from religious groups. Many praised Bush’s actions in Sudan but said more remains to be done. They also urged Congress to pass the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, which would increase aid to African Union troops and push the U.N. Security Council to support greater involvement in the area.
In a separate statement, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops joined calls for action in Sudan.
“We cannot stand idly by while human life is threatened,” said Bishop John Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Fla., chairman of the bishops’ international policy committee.
Other groups involved in the Save Darfur coalition include the National Council of Churches, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the Unitarian Universalist Association and American Jewish World Service.
“Sixty years ago, after the Holocaust, the world vowed `never again,”’ read a full-page ad in The New York Times placed by American Jewish World Service. “That pledge was repeated after the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. We cannot wait any longer to make good on our promises.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Evangelical, Jewish Leaders Oppose Changing Endangered Species Act
(RNS) Evangelical and Jewish leaders are joining forces through a newly announced “Noah Alliance” to defend the Endangered Species Act from efforts they say will weaken it.
In a teleconference with reporters Wednesday (Sept. 21), members of the new alliance, which includes scientists and clergy, declared that their concern for creation is both scientifically and biblically based.
“The protection of endangered species has been a long-standing concern for scientists, conservation groups and wildlife agencies,” said Calvin DeWitt, president of the Academy of Evangelical Scientists and Ethicists and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“And we are here to state today emphatically that protection of God’s creatures, especially at-risk species, also is a profoundly religious issue.”
DeWitt’s academy includes almost 70 members who recently signed a statement on the “Critical Importance of Conserving Endangered Species” and who represent a range of denominations and teach at colleges across the country.
Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz, president of the Wyncote, Pa.-based Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, said the nation’s policy-makers should protect the act, signed into law in 1973, and consider religious wisdom along with scientific research.
“It is, quite simply put, that we should not destroy what we cannot create,” said Ehrenkrantz, a signatory on a September statement from almost 70 rabbis and scientists. That statement, drafted by the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, was titled “The Entirety of Creation: A Jewish Call to Protect the Endangered Species Act.”
The new Noah Alliance has developed newspaper, radio and television ads. Some members have planned meetings with congressional representatives to discuss the issue.
On Tuesday (Sept. 20), several House members introduced the Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act, which they said will fix long-standing problems with the Endangered Species Act, such as “rampant litigation” and bureaucracy.
“Without meaningful improvements, the ESA will remain a failed managed-care program that checks species in but never checks them out,” said Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Resources Committee, in a statement.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Report Provides New Details of Secret Election of New Pope
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina received enough votes during the conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI to have blocked the pontiff’s election, according to a detailed report published Friday (Sept. 23) in Italy.
The report, published in the quarterly review Limes, draws from the diary of an anonymous cardinal who voted in the April conclave. In leaking his diary, the author appears to have compromised the oath of secrecy that all cardinals took upon entering the conclave.
According to the account, support for the Argentine peaked at the third ballot with 40 votes _ the exact number of votes required to block the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s candidacy. On the same ballot, Ratzinger received 72 votes _ five votes shy of the quorum. A total of 115 Cardinals voted in the conclave.
Bergoglio, who emerged as a dark horse candidate weeks before the conclave, built momentum throughout the conclave, receiving 10 votes to Ratzinger’s 47 on the opening ballot, which was held on the evening of April 18. The following day, he received 35 votes on the second ballot while Ratzinger garnered 65, the report said.
The diary is unclear as to why Bergoglio’s candidacy faltered in the fourth and final vote that elected Ratzinger. But the report suggests that Bergoglio appeared reticent to ultimately challenge Ratzinger for the papacy.
Describing Bergoglio casting his vote beneath Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” fresco, the anonymous cardinal wrote: “He had his face fixed on the image of Christ judging the souls at the end of time. A suffering face that implored: God, don’t do this to me.”
In the run-up to the conclave, hopes were high that the first Latin American pope would be elected due to the high proportion of Catholics living on the continent.
Following the conclave, Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels told reporters that “this conclave tells us that the church is not ready for a Latin American pope.”
Some reports following Benedict’s election said that Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the former archbishop of Milan, was Ratzinger’s main rival. According to the diary, however, Martini received nine votes in the opening ballot and then dropped out of contention.
_ Stacy Meichtry
Religious Investors Focus on China
NEW YORK (RNS) A group of religious investors is exploring how American corporations in China can positively impact the booming nation’s human rights and environmental practices.
“You can’t talk about human rights and not talk about China,” said Sister Patricia Wolf, director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, which hosted a panel discussion and fundraiser on the subject Thursday (Sept. 22). The Manhattan-based organization seeks to leverage the power of its faith-based institutional investors to improve corporate social policies.
With China’s enormous economic growth comes vulnerabilities, panelists said, that socially conscious investors should view as opportunities.
“China’s growing pains are wide-ranging: energy constraints, environmental degradation, public health issues, rising labor costs and protests,” said keynote speaker Christine Loh, chief executive of a think tank for economic and social issues in Hong Kong and China.
Loh said American corporations must help China to “leapfrog” over these hurdles if they are to have any impact.
“At the back of their minds,” she said of the Chinese, “they think the West wants to hold them back.”
She and other speakers said American investors must engage the Chinese in a culturally sensitive way, without compromising demands for workers’ rights and environmentally sound practices.
“Before they’re criticized publicly for contributing to environmental degradation or labor abuses, companies should explore how they can do business in China’s dynamic manufacturing base without adding to the problems there,” said the Rev. David Schilling of the Interfaith Center, which estimates that its members hold $110 billion in portfolio assets.
Speakers said activists must focus their efforts on high-impact industries and dense manufacturing zones, like Guangdong province, where the minimum wage for 26 million workers is $62 a month, according to the center’s research staff. Wal-Mart alone has 4,400 factories in the province.
Panelists included business executives from Ford and Walt Disney. Both employ labor codes in their China factories that the Interfaith Center helped them develop.
_ Nicole LaRosa
Pope Meets with Dissident Theologian Hans Kung
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI has met with dissident theologian Hans Kung in a push to improve relations with an outspoken Vatican critic that many regard as the pope’s main theological adversary.
In a statement released Monday (Sept. 26), Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls described the Saturday meeting as a “friendly” exchange that avoided doctrinal issues, which have divided the two theologians in the past.
“Both parties agreed that during the meeting there was no sense getting into a dispute over the persistent doctrinal questions between Hans Kung and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church,” Navarro-Valls said.
Kung, a professor at the University of Tubingen, Germany, was barred from teaching theology under the late Pope John Paul II in 1979 after challenging the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility. As archbishop of Munich, Joseph Ratzinger _ the future pope _ was believed to have played an instrumental role in the censure.
Benedict, himself a former professor at Tubingen, has written affectionately about Kung, describing his onetime colleague as a friend and mentor. The pair split when student unrest spread through the campus in the 1960s with Kung embracing progressive movements and Benedict favoring a conservative path.
As John Paul’s top theologian at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger frequently crossed swords with Kung and his allies, provoking a decadeslong standoff between the two.
In one article, Kung referred to Ratzinger’s doctrinal watch as the “Roman Inquisition” that “must be destroyed.” Kung greeted Ratzinger’s election to the papacy in April as “an enormous disappointment” but added that the papacy could have a softening effect on his former colleague.
_ Stacy Meichtry
At Anti-War Rally, Diverse Faith Group Prays for end to Conflict
WASHINGTON (RNS) At the end of a weekend of anti-war rallies that drew thousands of protesters, a multi-faith crowd of more than 500 people gathered under a large white tent Sunday (Sept. 25) to pray for an end to the conflict in Iraq.
The five-hour service near the Washington Monument featured speeches and prayers from ministers, rabbis and an imam who walked into the tent in a processional as the audience sang “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.”
Featured prominently as a guest was Cindy Sheehan, who gained national attention by staging a vigil outside President Bush’s Texas home while he was vacationing there this summer. She protested the Iraq war, in which her son was killed.
The Rev. Lennox Yearwood, president of the Hip Hop Caucus, standing next to Sheehan, called up all parents affected by the Iraqi war.
“They lost a child to an unjust war or they’ve been displaced because (the government) wouldn’t pay for the levee …,” Yearwood said. “We pray for these families.”
Mairead Maguire, a 1976 Nobel Peace Laureate from Ireland who staged a 30-day fast outside the White House in March 2003, said Bush’s Iraq policy is wrong and people no longer will put up with it without protest.
“We believe (that Bush and his administration) have committed crimes against humanity,” said Maguire. “And they must be … made accountable.”
Mary Lord, a Quaker from Philadelphia, warned the crowd not to follow President Bush’s path of “righteous anger,” even if their anger is aimed at Bush and the war, because it goes against Christian values.
Bishop Michael Banks of the New York City Council of Mennonite Churches said the government should follow the example of Christ as “the prince of peace.”
Two Buddhist monks from a Seattle monastery, dressed in white and golden yellow robes, sang the spiritual “Let my people go.”
The gathering, called the “Interfaith Tent Revival for Peace and Justice,” was organized by Clergy & Laity Concerned about Iraq, United for Peace and Justice, and Faith Voices for the Common Good.
_ Kabuika Kamunga
After Israel Trip, Jewish and Mainline Leaders Promise More Engagement
(RNS) Jewish and mainline Protestant leaders have returned from a joint visit to the Middle East with promises to “deepen our engagement with each other” after more than a year of tense relations.
A delegation of 16 Jewish and Christian leaders traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories to see the region “through each other’s eyes” and try to overcome bitter disagreements over the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.
Relations between the two groups have frayed over some churches’ actions to pursue economic pressure against Israel to protest the plight of the Palestinians. Jewish groups have called the actions ineffective and unfair.
“We have demonstrated that Christians and Jews can work together to seek peace even when there is disagreement on specific policies and solutions,” the group said in a joint statement on Friday (Sept. 23).
Jewish leaders said Christian churches needed a better understanding of Israel’s need to protect its citizens from terrorism. Protestant church leaders said they hoped to see more sensitivity to the Palestinian population _ especially the Christian minority _ which has been cut off from work and schools because of Israeli security measures.
The two sides agreed to work for “a secure, viable and independent Palestinian state alongside an equally secure State of Israel.” The communique, however, did not mention if the churches would seek to scale back economic pressure on Israel.
The joint statement said there were “many difficult moments” but the trip ended with “our trust in each other deepened.”
The Jewish participants on the trip included officials from the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the Union of Reform Judaism.
Christian leaders represented the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Church of Christ, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the United Methodist Church, the National Council of Churches, the Alliance of Baptists and the Episcopal Church.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Irish Church Leaders Praise IRA for Laying Down Arms
(RNS) The Irish Republican Army’s final decommissioning of its weapons has been warmly welcomed by church leaders in Northern Ireland.
“For Irish Republicanism, today’s announcement represents a massive step,” said the Anglican primate, Archbishop Robin Eames of Armagh, of the announcement made Monday (Sept. 26) by Gen. John de Chastelain, head of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning.
“For all of us it can become a major step towards a peaceful and just society if it heralds the end of all criminality and violence in future,” said Eames.
He warned that many who had been disappointed in the past would take “a great deal of convincing” but urged all politicians to reflect carefully and “measure their response most carefully.”
Welcoming the announcement, the Catholic bishops of Northern Ireland said: “This represents an immensely significant confidence-building measure in favor of a more peaceful and stable society in Northern Ireland. Today’s announcement is a vindication of the efforts undertaken by all those who have, over the years, courageously worked to replace violence with dialogue.”
They called on “all other paramilitary groups” to affirm their commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means.
The president of the Methodist Church in Ireland, the Rev. Desmond Bain, said decommissioning had “opened wide the door for progress towards better understanding.” He said everyone now needed to work for “the trust that will bring us all closer to the future of justice and peace that God intends.”
The decommissioning process was observed by two religious eyewitnesses, the Rev. Harold Good, former president of the Methodist Church, and Catholic priest Alec Reid.
They said they spent “many days watching the meticulous and painstaking way” in which de Chastelain and his colleagues went about the task of decommissioning the “huge amounts” of explosives, arms and ammunition.
In a statement, they said they were convinced “beyond any shadow of doubt the arms of the IRA have now been decommissioned.”
_ Robert Nowell
Quote of the Week: Sarah Ansari, seller of modest clothing in San Diego
(RNS) “I don’t think there’s anything in Islam that precludes women from looking attractive or professional. No one says you have to look like a bag lady. Actually, the Prophet (Muhammad) was known for wearing perfume, being clean and very well-dressed.”
_ Sarah Ansari, co-owner of Artizara.com, a San Diego-based company that specializes in modest clothing. She was quoted by The Washington Post.
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