Religious leaders are participating in immigration protests across the country, reports Piet Levy in Tuesday’s RNS report: As hundreds of thousands of people flooded the nation’s cities Monday (April 10) protesting for immigrants’ rights, religious leaders rallied by their side. On the Mall in Washington, with the Capitol behind him, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick prayed in Spanish and English for the tens of thousands of predominantly Hispanic immigrants standing before him waving American flags. He was followed by religious leaders of varied backgrounds-Lutheran, Jewish, Methodist, Muslim and Baptist-many speaking a bit of Spanish, all of them defending immigrants’ rights to stay in the United States. Rabbi Scott Sperling compared the protests to Passover. Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, Muslim chaplain for Howard University, likened undocumented workers to slaves. And Bishop Theodore Schneider from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America urged, “We want a door, not a fence.”
In advance of Holocaust Memorial Day on April 24, Marilyn Henry reports on gentiles who rescued Jews being honored as `Righteous’: From 1941 to 1944, Josef Balyk sheltered and fed three Jews in a small shed on his farm in Nazi-controlled Romanivka, Ukraine, now part of Poland. Expressing daily reassurance with some humor, “He would sing he was coming with potatoes,” said Betty Kagen, now living in Nassau County, N.Y. Then Balyk would deliver the potatoes as promised, always with a smile on his face. Kagen was only 2 when-fleeing Velyki Birky, a Jewish ghetto-she first met the Christian man and his extended family who rescued her and her parents. In 1995, the Balyks were officially designated as “Righteous Among the Nations,” a title given to gentiles who risked their lives to protect Jews during the Nazi era, when it was a capital offense to help a Jew. On April 24, Holocaust Memorial Day, Kagen will remember the singing farmer who prevented her family from being among the estimated 6 million Jews and 5 million non-Jews killed in the Holocaust. Since the project was initiated in 1963, 21,310 people from dozens of countries have been recognized as the Righteous.
Ohio religious conservatives are coming under scrutiny for promoting conservative officeholders, reports Mark Naymik: The Ohio Restoration Project has attracted plenty of attention-and not just for the zeal of its leader, the Rev. Russell Johnson of Lancaster’s Fairfield Christian Church. National media outlets have sent reporters to Ohio to cover the influence that evangelical church leaders like Johnson are trying to exert on Ohio politics. Religious leaders-all liberals, Johnson says-have also criticized the group for activities they contend cross the line separating church and state. In January, 31 ministers from Ohio filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service asking that the agency investigate Johnson’s church, the Ohio Restoration Project and two other religious organizations for promoting conservative officeholders. The IRS has not moved on the complaint and the Restoration Project does not appear to be slowing down. Later this month, it says it will distribute 500,000 copies of its voter guide, noting where politicians stand on abortion and other issues.
