c. 2006 Religion News Service

Top British Catholic Urges `Warm Welcome’ for Immigrants

LONDON (RNS) The leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales insisted that immigrants, as fellow Christians, should get a “warm welcome” from parishes across the country.

Britain is facing pressures similar to those in the United States _ although on a lesser scale _ where the legal status of up to 12 million immigrants, many of them illegal aliens, is being fiercely debated.

Acknowledging the strain of the 300,000 immigrants who have arrived in London alone in the past two years, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor said elderly and working-class Catholics have endured “a sense of being overwhelmed.”

These Catholics have felt “a sense of the cultural ground being pulled out from under them,” Murphy-O’Connor wrote in the April 29 issue of the British Catholic journal The Tablet.

Murphy-O’Connor said the newcomers to Britain should be embraced because “our Church is Catholic _ it is not British or Irish or black. As migrants settle and find work, it is to be hoped that they move into local parishes and there find a warm welcome.”

At the same time, the cardinal conceded that “we cannot be naive about the social tensions that the massive immigration of the past years has produced,” and said Catholic priests and worshippers alike “need to be aware of these feelings.”

He described the current wave of migration in Britain, the United States and elsewhere around the world as “the greatest movement of people in history.”

In Britain’s case, Murphy-O’Connor said, “a very high proportion” are practicing Catholics from Central and Eastern Europe. “We want migrants to know we stand in solidarity with them, and we want to invite our parishioners to become aware and conscious of the strangers in our midst.”

_ Al Webb

Expert Says Ritual Took Place in Nun’s Slaying

TOLEDO, Ohio (RNS) A priest schooled in the occult testified Monday (May 1) that the 1980 slaying of a nun was filled with dark symbolism and signs that a ritual transpired.

And only “a nun, a priest or possibly a seminarian” would have the full knowledge of what all the signs meant, the Rev. Jeffrey Grob said.

A priest, the Rev. Gerald Robinson, is accused of stabbing Sister Margaret Ann Pahl 31 times _ including nine times in the form of an inverted cross.

Grob was the prosecution’s first witness Monday and the 23rd since the trial began. He has studied and written about exorcism, the occult and religious rituals.

Prosecutors have claimed that some sort of ritual occurred when Pahl was slain 26 years ago. On the witness stand, Grob said, “Some sort of ritual activity has taken place.”

He listed numerous symbols and Roman Catholic rites that appeared to be deliberately perverted during the nun’s slaying. “These are not random acts,” he said.

Grob was called because of his knowledge of religious ritual and the occult. He said he is consulted when the diocese receives reports of possession, and that he assists the diocesan exorcist.

At no time during his testimony did Grob point an accusing finger at Robinson. Grob said that taken together, the various images and misused symbols used in the slaying constituted a ritual.

He did not say a member of the clergy committed the desecrations or the slaying. But he said the average Catholic would not have an understanding of all the symbols present at the murder scene, that only someone with sophisticated knowledge of ritual would understand them _ namely a nun, priest or seminarian for the priesthood.

_ James Ewinger

Panels Lists Afghanistan on Religious Freedom Watch List

WASHINGTON (RNS) Afghanistan, already sharply criticized for considering a death sentence for a Christian man who converted from Islam, is under renewed attack by an influential group that accused the country of religious intolerance.

In its annual report released Wednesday (May 3), the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said the new Afghan constitution “does not contain clear protections for the right to freedom of religion or belief for individual Afghan citizens.”

The commission, an independent, bipartisan watchdog group created by Congress in 1998, said other cases of religious persecution have occurred time and again, due in large part to Chief Justice Fazl Hadi Shinwari’s intolerance toward freedom of religion, speech and gender equality.

“The attitude in Afghanistan affects Muslims and non-Muslims alike,” said Preeta D. Bansal, a constitutional lawyer who serves on the commission. “These developments indicate that religious extremism is a threat.”

The Afghan government this spring abandoned plans to execute Abdul Rahman for converting to Christianity after an international uproar. But Rahman, fearing for his safety, left Afghanistan for Italy.

The commission placed Afghanistan on its new “watch list,” along with repeat appearances from Bangladesh, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia and Nigeria. The commission suggests the U.S. government closely monitor conditions in those countries.

The commission’s more serious list of “countries of particular concern” is unchanged. The report said China, Iran, Sudan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Burma, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam continue policies like torture and unfair detainment.

The commission left off Iraq, India, Russia and Sri Lanka, but said it is concerned enough to continue to closely monitor their human rights policies.

While the commission is highly regarded in Washington and internationally, it has no independent power. Its annual report goes to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who then can decide whether the U.S. should take action.

Commission members expressed disappointment that little has been done to punish the countries cited in previous reports. Vice Chairwoman Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House, said the United States has been particularly weak in disciplining Middle East ally Saudi Arabia.

Commissioner Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention said the commission cannot impose specific First Amendment policies on other countries, adding that a government’s religious standard is its own business.

“But it’s the business of humankind that human beings have certain basic human rights, and among them is the right of freedom of conscience, freedom of belief, freedom of practice and freedom to change one’s faith,” Land said.

_ Piet Levy

Churches Urge Restraint as Sri Lanka Slides Toward Renewed Civil War

(RNS) Religious leaders and human rights groups are urging restraint on the part of the Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebels and a renewed commitment to maintaining the country’s fragile cease-fire as the nation attempts to step back from the brink of renewed civil war.

Meanwhile, United Nations agencies announced they have started delivering food, safe water and other basic needs to the estimated 10,000 Sri Lankans displaced by the clashes between the government and the separatist Tamil rebels.

On Monday, Archbishop Mario Zenari, the Vatican’s ambassador to Sri Lanka, urged the international community to step up its efforts to promote dialogue.

“As the unbounded solidarity after the tsunami helped us to reconstruct houses and schools, so today the international community must help to build bridges of dialogue, to again bring the sides closer,” Zenari told Fides, the missionary news agency of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

The Sinhala-speaking majority in Sri Lanka is mainly Buddhist and make up about 74 percent of the nation’s 20 million people. Ethnic Tamils make up about 10 percent of the population, while Christians and Muslims are believed to be about 13 percent.

The latest round of violence began in mid-April when a bomb allegedly set off by Tamil Tiger rebels killed five people at a market. In response, according to human rights monitors, a Sinhalese mob attacked Tamil businesses and homes, killing at least 20 civilians.

“The failure of the security forces to protect the Tamil population should raise alarm bells at the highest levels of government,” said Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch. “The government has a responsibility to all Sri Lankans, no matter whether they are Tamil, Muslim or Sinhalese.”

On April 25, a suicide bombing on an army barracks in Colombo prompted a series of airstrikes by the government in Tamil areas.

“We unequivocally condemn these attacks in no uncertain terms as they are crimes against fellow human beings and place the peace process in jeopardy,” Sri Lanka’s National Christian Council and Catholic Bishops’ Conference said in a joint April 27 statement.

Peace talks that had been set for April 19-21 in Geneva have been canceled indefinitely.

_ David E. Anderson

Quote of the Day: New York Board of Rabbis President Robert Levine

(RNS) “Our Torah explicitly commands us, `Thou shall not stand idle while thy neighbor bleeds.’ This country must take the lead. Stopping genocide is not a Democratic or Republican issue. It is a moral issue.”

_ Rabbi Robert Levine, president of the New York Board of Rabbis, joining more than 150 rabbis from the Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and Reconstructionist movements in a recent rally at the United Nations to urge stronger action to end genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

KRE/PH END RNS