c. 2005 Religion News Service

Pope: French Riots a `Message’ From Muslim Youth

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Monday (Dec. 19) called the chain of riots that recently roiled France a “message” from French youth that underscores the need to integrate Muslim minorities more effectively.

Addressing France’s new ambassador to the Holy See, Benedict said the November violence reflected discontent among French youth over the government’s perceived failure to bring the country’s Muslim population into the social and economic fold.

“Your country is going through a difficult period on a social level, making the deep dissatisfaction of some of its youth apparent,” the pope said.

Rioting in France’s poverty-stricken suburbs, known as banlieues, began last month when French Muslims took to the streets to protest the accidental deaths of two youths of North African descent who where accidentally electrocuted while fleeing police. Thousands of cars were torched in the violence, which shocked public opinion and ended in more than 1,500 arrests.

“The internal violence … can only be condemned,” the pope said. “However, it was a message, notably from the youth” that calls for “answers that match these dramatic tensions in our society.”

France, which is predominantly Catholic and 10 percent Muslim, needs to take an “extra step toward integration” Benedict said. Young immigrants need “more confidence in a better future, allowing them to build their existence, to find a job to meet their needs and those of their families.” He also said they need “the well-being which is their natural right.”

France’s political class has been largely divided over how to respond to the riots and the growing racial inequality that apparently triggered them.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has proposed instituting a French version of affirmative action, giving legal recognition to minorities, which currently does not exist in France.

President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, Sarkozy’s expected rival for the presidency in 2007, have played down racial identity in favor of a national identity, based on the French ideals of fraternity and equality.

“The challenge today is to live the values of equality and fraternity,” the pope said, “while making sure that all citizens can realize, with respect for legitimate differences, a true common culture carrying fundamental and spiritual values.”

The Vatican has been critical of recent French law that bars students from wearing head scarves and other symbols of religious identity in the classroom.

_ Stacy Meichtry

Pope Names New Ambassador to the United States

WASHINGTON (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday (Dec. 17) named a veteran diplomat and the church’s chief ambassador to Israel as his new liaison with Washington and the U.S. church.

Archbishop Pietro Sambi, a 67-year-old Italian, will succeed Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo as the papal nuncio, or ambassador of the Holy See. Montalvo has held the post since 1998 and retired when he reached age 75.

Since 1998, Sambi has been the Vatican’s chief representative to Israel, and recently has had to defuse tensions between the two countries over the pope’s omission of Israel in a list of countries that were victims of terrorism.

He has also negotiated the church’s call for peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and has worked with the Israeli government to overcome Vatican objections to tax policies on church-owned sites in Israel.

As nuncio, Sambi will have a key role in the appointment of U.S. bishops as he vets candidates to fill open seats in the church hierarchy. A list compiled by the nuncio is forwarded to the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, which then makes recommendations to the pope for final approval.

Sambi is Benedict’s third high-profile appointment for the U.S. church. On Dec. 15, Benedict named Bishop George Niederauer of Salt Lake City to be archbishop of San Francisco, filling the seat left vacant when Archbishop William Levada was named to take the pope’s old job as chief guardian of Catholic doctrine.

Sambi was ordained in 1964 and entered the Vatican diplomatic corps in 1969. He has held posts in Jerusalem, Cuba, Algeria, Nicaragua, Belgium, India, Burundi, Indonesia, Cyprus and Jerusalem.

The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., said the U.S. church was honored by the appointment of a nuncio with “an extraordinary life of service to the church.”

“Archbishop Sambi is very well known to the presidents and to many members of our (bishops) conference because of our strong engagement with and support of the church in the Holy Land over the years,” Skylstad said.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

U.S. Muslim Groups Endorse New Guidelines Preventing Aid to Terrorists

(RNS) Muslim-American organizations are welcoming the U.S. Treasury Department’s revised guidelines on how to ensure that funds raised by nonprofit groups do not inadvertently go to terrorist organizations.

“We’ve been involved with the Treasury Department since the beginning,” said Dr. Sayyid Sayeed, secretary-general of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the largest umbrella group for Muslim organizations in North America. “We want to make sure not a single cent of Muslim and American charity should go to anyone involved in terrorist activity or anyone with a terrorist philosophy.”

After 9/11, some Muslim-American charities were shut down by the federal government on allegations of funds being diverted to terrorist organizations abroad. The shutdowns prompted concern from the 9/11 Commission, worried about restricting civil liberties. More recently, the Senate Finance Committee recently ended a probe into 25 Muslim-American organizations after failing to find any links to terrorism.

The Treasury Department released its revised guidelines Wednesday (Dec. 14).

“We welcome any federal standards for nonprofit organizations,” said Arif Shaikh, public relations manager for Islamic Relief, a Muslim relief organization that has projects both domestically and abroad. “We have self-imposed guidelines to make sure all of our activities are transparent, but we feel that guidelines from the federal government will protect us all.”

The guidelines from the Treasury Department are voluntary, however, and do not supersede any laws of the federal government.

“Even if you follow all of the guidelines, it does not guarantee you are in a safe harbor against investigation,” said Sayeed.

Originally released in November 2002, the guidelines were revised after extensive review and comment by various nonprofit groups. The department will accept comments and feedback from groups before the finalized version of the guidelines are released in February.

“The guidelines are a work in progress,” said Mohamed El-sanousi, director of communications at ISNA and a member of the Council for American Muslim Nonprofits. “They provide us with transparency, accountability and credibility, but if we see impediments to the work of our organizations, we have to come forward with our concerns.”

_ Mariam Jukaku

Presbyterians Pool Resources to Assist Hurricane Victims

NEW ORLEANS (RNS) There’s strength in numbers.

That’s the simple idea behind a new partnership of Presbyterian churches designed to pool ongoing recovery efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

With volunteers from across the country offering free manpower and supplies after the hurricane, the Rev. Steven Arndt, pastor of Gretna Presbyterian Church, in Gretna, got on the phone and started making connections.

Within weeks of the storm, his church became host to volunteers, many coming from Presbyterian churches out of state, who would spend their days in the back-breaking work of gutting flooded houses.

While setting up accommodations for the work crews and coordinating donations of supplies coming in, Arndt said he learned that other local Presbyterian churches, as well as churches of other denominations throughout the New Orleans area, were working independently with the same goals.

Realizing they could be more effective and efficient working together, some of the churches have created a partnership, called Faith Works, to focus their efforts.

“The name is supposed to show that faith does work, and faith and work do go together,” he said. “We set this up locally to continue our ministry to the community in practical and meaningful ways.”

Most of the volunteers become connected with Faith Works through the “long-standing friendships between clergy and different churches across the country,” Arndt said.

The Rev. Jim Kirk with the national Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Office said efforts like Faith Works show how churches react at a grass-roots level, putting local expertise to work.

“When an organization comes in from the outside, they may bring a ton of good intention but they don’t have the local knowledge,” Kirk said. “Where Faith Works may not have the work force, they have the local knowledge of where the work needs to be done, and who needs it.

“Why bring in the cost of a new office when you have a pastor like Steve here who is already connected?” Kirk said.

_ Susan Langenhennig

Quote of the Day: “Charlie Brown Christmas” Producer Lee Mendelson

(RNS) “We told Schulz, `Look, you can’t read from the Bible on network television.”’

_ Lee Mendelson, executive producer of “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” about initial fretting over “Peanuts” creator Charles Schulz’s insistence that the program include the reading of the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke. The program remains a hit 40 years later, with the gospel reading intact. He was quoted by USA Today.

MO/RB END RNS