c. 2007 Religion News Service

Religious Groups Seek Reforms As Congress Considers Farm Bill

(RNS) More than a dozen religious groups are calling on Congress to reduce hunger and help rural farmers as the House holds hearings on the reauthorization of the U.S. farm bill.

“Passing a new farm bill is an important opportunity to reshape our agricultural policies to build a more just framework that better serves rural communities and vulnerable farmers in the U.S., overcomes hunger here and abroad, and helps poor farmers and their families in developing countries,” said Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, chairman of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ Domestic Policy Committee.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has joined 15 other groups to form the Religious Working Group on the Farm Bill, which has developed a list of legislative principles for members of Congress. The campaign includes visits to Capitol Hill and speaking tours and lobbying on the state level.

“As people of faith who are also constituents, we must let our members of Congress know that we support broad reforms in the farm bill,” said the Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, an anti-hunger advocacy organization.

Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said the U.S. government has made “unprecedented” commitments to reduce world poverty in the past decade.

“Reforming U.S. agricultural policy to help farmers in poor countries sell their crops is a way to follow through on that moral commitment while also improving the financial livelihoods of farmers in our own country,” she said.

The group hopes the bill will protect the safety of farmworkers, promote land conservation and improve nutrition in this country.

Other members of the Religious Working Group on the Farm Bill include the United Church of Christ, Church World Service, Catholic Charities USA, Lutheran World Relief, the National Council of Churches, Progressive National Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Church and Society.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Best Medical Practices, Not Religion, Should Guide Hospitals, Group Says

WASHINGTON (RNS) Many health care institutions are guided by religious beliefs rather than best medical practices, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice charges in a new report issued Tuesday (April 24).

The Washington-based group, made up of a broad coalition of dozens of denominations and faith traditions, said that clash between religion and health care is putting vulnerable women at risk, especially when it comes to abortion,birth control and end-of-life situations.

“When the religious directive of a sectarian hospital is imposed it ties our hands,” said Dr. Debra Stulberg, a fellow at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine who spoke at the unveiling of the coalition’s report in Washington.

During her residency in a low-income area of Chicago, Stulberg worked at a Catholic hospital. She said she often had to turn away patients who wanted birth control or to undergo surgical sterilization after giving birth.

The recent Supreme Court decision upholding a ban on the procedure critics call “partial-birth” abortion is a sign that religion could begin to play an increased role in medical care, said Barbara Kavadias, director of field services for the reproductive rights coalition.

Under the report’s guidelines, a Catholic-run hospital that refuses to perform a service would have to refer patients to a person or facility that could treat them. The same would be true for pharmacists and nurses who had an ethical objection.

The reproductive rights group said it would lobby members of Congress to have the ethical guidelines laid out in its report adopted by all U.S. hospitals.

The report, which draws on information from doctors, nurses and religious leaders, says patients have a right to know about treatments and that doctors have an ethical duty to inform them.

“There’s an obligation to tell the patient up front, to disclose it ahead of time,” said Rev. the Larry Greenfield, executive minister of American Baptist Churches of Metro Chicago.

“If a doctor can’t do something because of their moral beliefs, they still have a responsibility to refer that person and to make sure that patient gets the service they want or need,” said Greenfield.

_ Philip Turner

Eleven German Churches to Recognize Each Other’s Baptisms

(RNS) After several years of negotiations, 11 of Germany’s Christian churches have agreed to recognize baptisms performed by each other.

The change, to be celebrated Sunday (April 29) in a ceremony in east German Magdeburg, will mean that if an adult Christian decides to switch from one member church to another no new baptism will be required.

The change may have little practical effect on Germans lives, says the Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Southern German Newspaper). The German Catholic church has forgone conversion baptisms since the end of the World War II. Other churches have struck bilateral agreements, although sometimes only at a community level.

But it will codify the practice at a federal level. Additionally, it will allow German churches to claim an ecumenical step forward. Sunday’s statement will declare that, despite each church’s different approach to faith, they all recognize and celebrate baptism performed by the other churches.

The ceremony will be conducted at the Magdeburg Cathedral, home to a baptismal font that has been linked to Emperor Otto the Great. The font has been in use since well before the schism of the Catholic and Orthodox churches in 1054.

The agreement will be signed by churches ranging in size from the Roman Catholic and Evangelical (predominantly Lutheran) Church to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church.

Some smaller churches, however, have chosen to remain outside the agreement since they hold that the decision to have a baptism can only be made by an adult.

_ Niels Sorrells

Quote of the Day: Ruth Chandler of Cambridge Community Church in England

(RNS) “I don’t need an old church with stained glass windows where a few people show up out of obligation, not inspiration.”

_ Ruth Chandler, a former member of the Church of England, speaking about being part of the congregation at Cambridge Community Church, an evangelical congregation in Cambridge, England. She was quoted April 20 by The Associated Press.

DSB/LF END