c. 2005 Religion News Service

Catholics to Mark 25th Anniversary of Churchwomen’s Murders in El Salvador

(UNDATED) Roman Catholics from across the Americas are preparing to mark the 25th anniversary of the murder of four U.S. churchwomen in El Salvador, an event that activists say still resonates across Central America.

Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel and lay missionary Jean Donovan were tortured, raped and murdered by Salvadoran National Guardsmen after leaving the San Salvador airport on Dec. 2, 1980.

The women’s murders _ part of a mosaic of brutality by Salvadoran death squads that also included the killing of Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador on March 24, 1980 _ prompted an outcry in the United States. The killings came at the beginning of a 12-year civil war in El Salvador that ultimately claimed more than 75,000 lives.

“After 25 years in El Salvador, the struggle for the people continues,” said Jose Artiga, executive director of the SHARE Foundation, a nonprofit group with offices in San Francisco, San Salvador and Washington, D.C. The SHARE Foundation is one of several groups bringing delegations from North America into El Salvador for the commemoration, including members of Pax Christi and women’s religious orders from Houston and Philadelphia.

“If we look back a quarter-century, we can see conditions were rough _ people were dying in the streets. But today, conditions in many ways are worse off than during the civil war. There are more poor and displaced people, there really is no middle class … and gang violence has escalated to the point that there are 10 people killed every day.”

Special homage is being paid this year at a time when the women’s contemporaries with Maryknoll and the Cleveland Mission Project are aging, and when new concerns for the dispossessed in Central America are emerging.

SHARE and the Ossining, N.Y.-based Maryknoll Sisters plan to visit the villages where the churchwomen worked, including the Pacific coastal town of La Libertad where Kazel and Donovan were based, and the remote village of Chalatenango, where Ford and Clarke ministered to poor people caught in the crossfire of government death squads and a leftist insurgency.

“Some will ask, `Who were these women and what were they doing in El Salvador in the first place?’ Others of us will remember them for their great courage and spirituality of solidarity,” said Franciscan Sister Marie Des Jarlais, who will be leading a delegation to the Salvadoran commemoration with Wisconsin-based Global Awareness Through Experience. “They could have left El Salvador, but they chose to accompany a persecuted people, the poor, who had no choices.”

In a country torn by violence, Des Jarlais said, the women were “living examples of the power of nonviolence. For all that they saw and went through, they chose the way of Jesus: Do not harm another; be compassionate; and share with the poor. As we have seen, this has its price.”

_ Dennis O’Connor

New Policy: Southern Baptist Missionary Candidates Can’t Speak in Tongues

(RNS) The Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board has adopted a new policy that forbids missionary candidates from speaking in tongues.

The policy, adopted Nov. 15 during the board’s trustee meeting in Huntsville, Ala., reflects ongoing Southern Baptist opposition to charismatic or Pentecostal practices.

“In terms of general practice, the majority of Southern Baptists do not accept what is referred to as `private prayer language,”’ states the policy, according to a denomination announcement. “Therefore, if `private prayer language’ is an ongoing part of his or her conviction and practice, the candidate has eliminated himself or herself from being a representative of the IMB (International Mission Board) of the SBC (Southern Baptist Convention).”

The policy took effect on the day it was adopted and is not retroactive. It is designed to guide staff in the Office of Mission Personnel as they consider new candidates.

The denomination’s North American Mission Board has a policy that prevents the endorsement of chaplains who participate in speaking in tongues or “any other charismatic manifestations.”

The International Mission Board trustees voted that any exception to the policies must be reviewed by the board’s Process Review Committee and staff of the mission board.

_ Adelle M. Banks

N.J. Sports Complex to Add Space for Prayers

NEWARK, N.J. (RNS) In what may be the first such designation in the nation, the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority will set aside areas at Giants Stadium and Continental Airlines Arena for fans who want to pray, officials said.

The decision, which follows the detention of five Muslim men who were seen kneeling in prayer at a Sept. 19 Giants game, was hailed by stadium officials and Islamic leaders.

“I think that we handled this situation with sensitivity, and it’s the right thing,” said George Zoffinger, the sports authority’s president and chief executive. “We reached out to the people in the community who felt offended and we put in an expert on both Muslim culture and religion to address all our staff in terms of the sensitivities involved.”

Zoffinger said stadium and arena staff are still trying to determine which areas would be set aside and when they would open. Once the areas are designated, fans of any faith who want to pray would be directed by stadium staff to the appropriate areas.

Sami Shaban, one of the Muslims who had been questioned and detained, called the decision an “amazing step.”

“I think it’s a very good start. I really appreciate it,” he said. “I love the fact that we have a place to pray. … It was not our main aim, though. Our main aim was to bring to light and educate people about what it is we’re supposed to do, that (our praying) is not suspicious behavior and we shouldn’t have been treated like this.”

Shaban and four other men were questioned by the FBI and stadium security after they were observed praying as a group during the Giants-New Orleans Saints game. Former President George H.W. Bush was attending the football game as part of a fundraising campaign for Hurricane Katrina victims.

The men called the incident an example of religious profiling, an allegation the FBI and sports authority denied. Officials said the men were praying in a spot that, while public, was in an area near a major ventilation duct to the stadium.

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said it was the first time he had heard of such an arrangement in a sports stadium.

“We’ve had prayer spaces allocated in hospitals, in airports and universities, places like that, and sometimes they’re for Muslims but, more often, they’re interfaith prayer areas,” Hooper said.

Sohail Mohammed, an attorney who represented one of the detained men, said the agreement would also include a special area at the Meadowlands Racetrack, though it probably wouldn’t be needed.

“I told them you won’t get many Muslims using that area because gambling is forbidden in Islam, but I understand there is quite a bit of praying going on among the track patrons while the horses are running,” he joked.

_ Jeff Diamant and Russell Ben-Ali

Post-Katrina, New Orleans Officials Frequently Invoke Almighty

NEW ORLEANS (RNS) Mayor Ray Nagin took his lumps from speakers at a recent town hall meeting, but when he invoked God the crowd of hundreds was solidly behind him.

Indeed, it was only when Nagin made reference to the Almighty that his comments received warm applause. The mayor made the religious reference during remarks in which he criticized those who objected to having emergency trailers hooked up in their neighborhood.

“I’m seeing some of that `not in my neighborhood’ thinking,” Nagin said. “And I just want to plead with everyone. These are extraordinary circumstances. If there was ever a time for us to come together as neighbors, as friends, this is that time.”

Nagin reminded residents of neighborhoods that stayed dry during the horrific flooding in the wake of Hurricane Katrina that they escaped unscathed through no planning of their own, and that the city had expended considerable time and effort in the dry areas.

“You had an advantage, and you didn’t earn that advantage,” Nagin said, the packed house clearly warming to his theme. “It was an advantage of luck and of grace. And now that we’re looking for places to put a trailer for a homeless family you say, `not in my neighborhood.’ I’m saying that’s not very New Orleanian and it’s not very Christian.”

Whenever large groups of New Orleanians gather since Katrina left their city wounded, there appears to be a consensus that faith in one form or another will be a critical component of recovery. As it has in so many other areas of life, Katrina seems to have suspended the earlier rules of engagement that called for the omission of religious terms at public gatherings.

In an e-mail message, Nagin called his faith “an inner strength that cannot be taken away.” He said his comments should be seen not as an attempt to inject his faith into governance, but as an acknowledgment that New Orleans will include a spiritual component in its 21st century reconstruction.

“I have always been a spiritual person,” he wrote. “The churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious institutions are the foundation for many people’s lives here. I do not make decisions for my city based on my faith. Rather, my faith gives me the capacity to continue hoping, striving and working to rebuild New Orleans.”

_ James Varney

Quote of the Day: Delma Lupepe, Adventist Soccer Team Owner in Zimbabwe

(RNS) “We will not play on the Sabbath because it is contrary to the will of God. We can’t change our position or compromise because we believe in the Ten Commandments. We are prepared to leave the league permanently if necessary.”

_ Delma Lupepe, owner of the Amazulu football (soccer) team in Zimbabwe. A Seventh-day Adventist, who observes Saturday as the Sabbath, Lupepe leads a team that was ousted from Zimbabwe’s Premier Soccer League because it would not play on Saturdays. Lupepe, who appealed the expulsion, was quoted by Adventist News Network.

KRE/RB END RNS