c. 2007 Religion News Service
Interfaith Leaders Commend North Korean Nuclear Pact
(RNS) An interfaith coalition of religious leaders is congratulating the Bush administration for reaching an agreement with North Korea to shutdown its nuclear weapons facilities.
“The agreement with North Korea demonstrates the value of diplomacy in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons,” the leaders said in a statement released Tuesday. The statement was signed by Catholic and Episcopal bishops as well as Presbyterian, evangelical and Muslim leaders.
“It validates the preferential use of words, rather than war, as a response to conflict. Our religious traditions teach that efforts should be made to explore every alternative in resolving a conflict before going to war,” the faith leaders said.
The State Department announced Saturday that it had been informed that North Korea had shut down its Yongbyon nuclear complex. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed Wednesday that five facilities, four at Yongbyon and one at Taechon, have been shut down.
The interfaith statement, developed by Faithful Security: The National Religious Partnership on the Nuclear Weapons Danger, was signed by a dozen leaders of Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths.
The signatories included Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori; Sayyid M. Syeed, national director of the Islamic Society of North America; the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA); Rabbi Gerald Serotta of Temple Shalom in Chevy Chase, Md.; Bishop Thomas G. Wenski, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Policy; and Ronald J. Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action.
They asked the administration to consider a similar strategy with Iran.
“The United States should engage Iran in direct negotiations without preconditions to achieve the goal of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and enhancing regional security,” they wrote.
Faithful Security, based in Goshen, Ind., developed after the late Rev. William Sloane Coffin, a Protestant social activist, convened a meeting of religious leaders in 2005 to discuss how faith leaders could address the elimination of nuclear weapons.
_ Adelle M. Banks
President of Evangelical Covenant Church to Retire
(RNS) The president of the Evangelical Covenant Church has announced that he will retire next year.
The Rev. Glenn R. Palmberg, 62, told the church’s executive board of his plans to retire effective Aug. 31, 2008, during its June meeting. A search process for his successor will begin in October.
Palmberg had planned two four-year terms but continued into a third.
“One of the goals, when I was elected president, was to establish a new Department of Compassion, Mercy and Justice, and I was able to see that dream fulfilled,” Palmberg said.
During the denomination’s annual meeting in Portland, Ore., in June, he installed the first executive minister as the leader of that department.
Palmberg, who will have served 10 years by his scheduled retirement date, said he is looking forward to fewer days on the road.
“I would like to spend the years of service I have left doing less travel and focus my attention on issues about which I have a lot of passion, especially hunger and poverty,” he said.
The Evangelical Covenant Church is based in Chicago and was founded in 1885. About 166,000 people attend the denomination’s approximately 800 local churches on an average Sunday.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Bangladesh Gives Lock of Buddha’s Hair to Sri Lanka
CHENNAI, India (RNS) The small Buddhist community in Bangladesh is donating a few strands of a lock of hair said to have come from the Buddha as a goodwill gesture to Sri Lanka.
The hair relic has been preserved since the 1930s in a wooden box at an ancient Buddhist monastery in Chittagong, Bangladesh. It was donated by a Tibetan monk, Shakya Bhikku, and is on public view each May on the occasion of the Buddha’s birthday.
A ministerial delegation from Sri Lanka, led by Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama and including several Buddhist religious leaders, is in Bangladesh this week to receive the gift and carry it back to their country.
The presentation ceremony at the Chittagong monastery, organized by the Bangladesh Buddhist Federation, took place Wednesday (July 18).
Approximately one million Bangladeshis follow Buddhism; the majority of Bengladesh’s 140 million population is Muslim.
In Sri Lanka, the sacred hair relic is to be kept at the Senanayake Aramaya temple at Madampe, on the country’s southwestern coast.
Before being taken to Madampe, the hair relic will be displayed for a few days at a temple in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital. The Buddha, also known as Shakyamuni Buddha or Gautama Buddha, lived during the 6th century B.C. in what is now Nepal.
_ Achal Narayanan
U.S. Bishops Agree to Meet With Catholic Lawmakers on Iraq War
WASHINGTON (RNS) U.S. Catholic bishops have agreed to meet with Catholic House Democrats to discuss a “responsible transition” to end the war in Iraq,the bishops announced Wednesday (July 18).
“The current situation in Iraq is unacceptable and unsustainable, as is the policy and political stalemate among decision makers in Washington,” Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando wrote in a letter to Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio. Wenski is chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on international policy.
In June, 14 Catholic U.S. Representatives, including Ryan and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., asked U.S. bishops for help in “mobilizing public support for Congress’s efforts to end the war.”
The U.S. bishops have frequently expressed moral reservations about the Iraq war, Wenski wrote in his letter to Ryan, which the bishops’ conference made public.
In 2006, the bishops said that “our nation should look for effective ways to end (military) deployment at the earliest opportunity” that would be consistent with a “responsible transition.”
Wenksi said the bishops will bring realistic perspectives to the discussion with legislators.
“Our conference is under no illusions regarding Iraq,” he said. “There is no path ahead that leads to an unambiguously good outcome for Iraq, our nation and the world.”
A date has not been set for the meeting, which the bishops hope will be bi-partisan, said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the bishops.
_ Michelle Rindels
Controversial Prayer Could Be Removed From Latin Mass, Vatican Says
VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican’s second highest official said on Wednesday (July 18) that the text of the “old Latin Mass” could be amended to remove a controversial reference to Jews.
Earlier this month, Pope Benedict XVI issued a papal decree making it easier for priests to celebrate the so-called Tridentine Mass, which had been the traditional form of the liturgy until the Second Vatican Council made Mass in local languages the norm four decades ago.
The Tridentine Missal _ the text that guides the Mass _ contains a prayer for the conversion of the Jews that refers to their “blindness” and the “veil (on) their hearts.”
Jewish leaders in the U.S. and elsewhere have objected that a wider use of that prayer by Catholics could set back recent progress in relations between the two faiths.
Bertone suggested that the prayer in question could be replaced with the more conciliatory version in the post-Vatican II Missal, which refers to the Jews as “the first to hear the word of God.”
“This could be decided and would resolve all the problems,” Bertone said.
Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, welcomed Bertone’s remark.
“I am delighted that the Vatican is listening to our concerns,” Foxman told the Reuters news agency. “I hope that Cardinal Bertone’s public conjectures will shortly result in putting Catholic-Jewish relations back on the road they were on before all this.”
_ Francis X. Rocca
Lay Catholic Reform Group Has New Leader
(RNS) The lay Catholic reform group Voice of the Faithful (VOTF), announced on Wednesday (July 18) that Donna Doucette, a former VOTF volunteer, will be its executive director.
Doucette, who has been director of technical communications at a software firm in Needham, Mass., for 16 years, said she looks forward to leading VOTF.
“I welcome this opportunity to merge my daily work with VOTF’s goals and mission, which have inspired my passion these last few years,” she said.
Launched in 2002 with the hopes of reforming the church after the priest sex abuse scandals, the group has experienced ups and downs during its five-year life. Donations to the group, which claims 35,000 members, have dropped while leaders struggle over the group’s mission.
VOTF President Mary Pat Fox said Doucette has “proven to be a dynamic collaborative leader in both her professional and civic endeavors.”
“We help give voice to those who for so long could only silently pray for our Church’s reform,” Doucette said. “I am honored to be entrusted with the task of enabling those voices to be heard.”
_ Michelle Rindels
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Sees Membership Decline
(RNS) The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America saw a slight drop in membership in 2006, continuing a trend of decline of more than a decade.
The total of baptized members at the end of 2006 was 4,774,203, a 1.6 percent decrease from the 2005 total of 4,850,776, denomination officials said.
The denomination has lost about 466,000 baptized members in the last 16 years, said the Rev. Lowell G. Almen, ELCA secretary. In 1990, there were 5,240,739 members.
Recent declines are due to a decrease in the number of new members, the disbanding of 40 congregations and “roll cleaning,” in which long-inactive members have been removed from the membership lists of churches.
In a separate matter, Almen spoke Thursday (July 19) to the triennial convention of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in Houston and urged leaders of the two denominations to continue their regular dialogues. The two groups have theological differences but cooperate on efforts such as relief work, immigration services and recruitment of chaplains.
“The task has not been easy, and at times the prospects have seemed discouraging,” said Almen, who will retire later this year after 20 years as ELCA secretary. “These two church bodies need to work together in as many ways as possible, now and in the years to come. We need to do so not just for ourselves, but … for the sake of our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Church of England To Use Harry Potter to Reach Youths
(RNS) As excitement builds for the seventh _ and reportedly last _ Harry Potter novel, the Church of England is publishing a guidebook showing church leaders how to draw biblical lessons from the publishing megahit.
According to the church’s bookshop Web page, the 48-page book, entitled “Mixing it Up With Harry Potter” will “help young people … see that a relationship with God is even more enchanting than a visit to Hogwarts.”
Written by Owen Smith, a 24-year old British church youth worker, the booklet marks an attempt by Anglican leaders to make their messages appeal to youths.
“Harry Potter is full of good lessons,” Smith told the London Times. “It’s a hugely moral series of stories about good evil, love, friends and everything else.”
The latest installment in the hugely popular Harry Potter series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows,” is due to go on sale Saturday (July 21).
Smith’s booklet marks a departure from the Church of England of seven years ago, when it declined filmmakers’ requests to shoot the first Harry Potter movie in Canterbury Cathedral.
But the boy sorcerer is still a target of criticism in some Christian circles, who say the books and movies glorify witchcraft, which is biblically forbidden.
Pope Benedict XVI has said the books contain “subtle seductions” that “deeply distort Christianity in the soul before it can grow properly.”
And James Dobson of Focus on the Family has consistently opposed the books, saying the witchcraft and wizardry contribute to a New Age ideology.
_ Michelle Rindels
Government of El Salvador Supports Beatification of Murdered Archbishop
(RNS) The government of El Salvador said it will ask the Vatican to beatify Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero, but that it’s not responsible for his assassination.
David Morales, a Salvadoran church representative, said the government’s support is a “smoke screen” intended to obscure its decision not to overturn a 1993 amnesty that released the man convicted of Romero’s murder, according to The Associated Press.
Beatification is an official recognition by the church that a person has ascended into heaven and is capable of interceding on behalf of the faithful who pray in his or her name. It is also often a first step toward sainthood.
The government’s failure to take responsibility showed it was neglecting “to fulfill international obligations” under a hemispheric convention on human rights, the Salvadoran archdiocese said Saturday (July 21).
At a meeting of the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights in Washington last week, Astor Escalante, El Salvador’s security and justice vice minister, met with Romero supporters and said the Salvadoran government could not “accept responsibility because there was a clear person responsible for the killing, and that person was tried,” the AP reported.
The man convicted in the case, Alvaro Saravia, was a member of one of the Salvadoran death squads that terrorized the Central American nation during the 1970s and 1980s during a civil war that cause some 70,000 casualties.
Romero was assassinated in 1980, while celebrating Mass at a hospital chapel in the capital of San Salvador, after he publicly decried the death squads. In 1993, a United Nations truth commission concluded that Maj. Roberto D’Aubuisson, a death squad leader who had died the year before ordered the killing.
_ Chris Herlinger
Church of England Guilty of Discrimination, Employment Tribunal Rules LONDON (RNS) A gay Christian has won his case for unlawful discrimination against the Church of England and a bishop who he claimed refused his job application because of his sexuality.
An employment tribunal ruled (Thursday, July 19) that John Reaney, 42, was discriminated against “on grounds of sexual orientation” when Bishop of Hereford Anthony Priddis stepped in to block his appointment after questioning him about his gay relationship.
Reaney told the tribunal that he was “very embarrassed and extremely upset” after his job interview by the Hereford diocesan board of finance, which he claimed had given him top marks as a candidate only to be overruled by the bishop.
Priddis told the tribunal he had made it clear to Reaney, who is single, that anyone committed to a sexual relationship outside marriage would be turned down for the job regardless of sexual orientation.
“Such sexuality in itself was not an issue,” the bishop said, “but Mr. Reaney’s lifestyle had the potential to impact on the spiritual, moral and ethical leadership within the diocese.”
Priddis said he was “naturally disappointed” by the employment tribunal’s decision, adding that “I still think the decision I made was the right one.”
In an official statement, the Diocese of Hereford said that “in the light of the tribunal decision, the board of finance will be taking further legal advice with a view to appeal.”
Reaney said he was “delighted” at the tribunal’s judgment that the Church, the board and the bishop had “discriminated against the claimant on the grounds of sexual orientation,” in violation of British law.
His case “demonstrated to many lesbian and gay Christians working for God within the Church of England that they are entitled to fair and respectful treatment,” Reaney said.
_ Al Webb
Leader of Humanistic Judaism Dead at 79
(RNS) Rabbi Sherwin Wine, the founder of the humanistic stream of Judaism, died Saturday (July 21) in an automobile accident.
Wine, 79, was vacationing in Morocco at the time.
Described by the Humanist chaplain of Harvard University as “the greatest American religious leader you never heard of,” Wine founded the movement of Humanistic Judaism in 1963 and the Society for Humanistic Judaism in 1969. The society has more than 30 congregations and communities led by rabbis or lay leaders in the U.S. and Israel.
Wine gained national attention when Time magazine featured his fledgling congregation in 1965. More traditional Jewish leaders thought he was leading a 1960s craze but the movement went on to have an international federation and an institute that trains Humanist rabbis.
“He had a creative, new vision for what role religion and humanism could play in American life,” said Greg Epstein, the Harvard chaplain, who was trained by Wine.
A Detroit native, Wine was the founding rabbi of the Birmingham Temple in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, Mich. Like the movement Wine led, the congregation celebrates Jewish culture but does not link it to a belief in God.
“He created the idea of a congregation of proud atheists and agnostics,” Epstein said. “He did that without acknowledging the moral authority of any god. He did that with a nervy assertion that only human beings can determine what the moral basis for an ethical community ought to be.”
Epstein said Wine was an atheist who did not dwell on that description.
“His focus was on being positive and talking about what he did believe in,” Epstein said.
Wine was the author of several books, including “Humanistic Judaism,” “Judaism Beyond God,” and “Staying Sane in a Crazy World.”
“Rabbi Wine was a visionary who created a Jewish home for so many of us who would have been lost to Judaism,” said Rabbi Miriam S. Jerris, president of the Association of Humanistic Rabbis.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Week: Former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating
(RNS) “I see now why Christ would have chosen Judas as an apostle. … Jesus was making a statement that the leaders of his church would be frail men, sometimes foolish and sometimes evil. It was a very helpful revelation.”
_ Former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, who was a member of the U.S. Catholic church’s National Review Board, which was created to help the church recover from the sexual abuse scandal. He was quoted by cbsnews.com (July 20).
DSB END RNS
