c. 2007 Religion News Service
AME Church Leaders Join Protest of `Jena Six’ Case
(RNS) Top leaders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church have joined protests of the prosecution of six black teenagers in Jena, La., who have been charged with the alleged beating of a white schoolmate.
“We in no way condone fighting … and would expect local school officials to equitably handle this per their administrative guidelines with suspension, etc.,” reads a letter signed by more than 150 bishops, general officers, pastors and members of the historically black denomination in a letter to Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco.
“The handling of this incident is not only an injustice to the six young men but deja vu of days we thought have gone by _ days when the lives of black persons were considered as chattel.”
The AME Church’s Council of Bishops voted in August to take action on the issue involving the “Jena Six,” said Jackie Dupont-Walker, social action officer for the 2.5-million member denomination. The various leaders signed petitions during a convocation Sept. 6-8 in Orlando, Fla. Some also intend to join a protest in Jena on Sept. 20, the date one of the teenagers is scheduled to be sentenced.
The leaders also sent a letter to District Attorney J. Reed Walters of Jena.
“We are writing to ask you to remember your oath of office and pledge as an official sworn to insure justice in this land for all people,” they wrote.
Relatives of the six black teenagers charged in the alleged incident _ and facing possible sentences of more than 22 years _ spent the weekend of Sept. 8 in New Orleans, speaking at fundraisers, forums and local churches. The students and their families said the alleged attack on the white student was really a lunchtime fight that came after three months of race-related incidents. They said the tensions began last September after white students hung nooses on a tree in the yard of Jena High School and were given short suspensions.
_ Adelle M. Banks and Katy Reckdahl
Private School Funding a Hot Topic in Ontario Elections
TORONTO (RNS) The funding of private religious schools is shaping up as a wedge issue in upcoming provincial elections in Ontario as voters head to the polls Oct. 10 to elect a premier, akin to U.S. governor.
Emerging as a hot-button issue is whether to fund Ontario’s roughly 100 private, faith-based schools, which enroll about 53,000 students. Ontario is the only jurisdiction in Canada not to extend any public funds or vouchers to private schools.
The current Ontario premier, Liberal Dalton McGuinty, is refusing to fund faith-based schools, saying the public systems need strengthening. After he was elected in 2003, his government cancelled a private school tax credit that had been enacted by the previous Conservative government.
If elected, McGuinty’s opponent, John Tory, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, has vowed to fund faith-based schools as long they conform to teaching, curriculum and other standards. The party has earmarked $400 million in additional funding for these schools in the first year of the program.
The province has two taxpayer-funded education streams: a public system and a Catholic one, which enrolls more than 600,000 students. Until 1984, public funding of the Catholic system was only from kindergarten to Grade 10; that year, the government extended funding to all Catholic grades.
Since then, other faith groups _ notably evangelicals, Jews, Muslims and Sikhs _ have persisted in a battle to get public money for their schools, arguing that funding one religious system but not others is discriminatory. In a 1999 ruling, a United Nations human rights committee agreed.
Polls suggest that a slight majority of Ontarians oppose the public funding of religious schools.
_ Ron Csillag
No Public Memorials Scheduled for Amish School Shootings
(RNS) The Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pa., will conduct no public memorials next month to mark the one-year anniversary of a massacre in an Amish schoolhouse that left five young girls dead and five more seriously injured.
But the new school set up for the survivors, including the same teacher and additional students, is expected to close on Oct. 2, the anniversary, according to a statement Wednesday (Sept. 12) from the Nickel Mines Accountability Committee.
“The children are reported to be enjoying their classes but they keenly miss the girls who died,” the four-page statement reads.
On Oct. 2, 2006, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a non-Amish Lancaster County milk-truck driver, burst into a one-room schoolhouse, ordered the male students to leave and shot 10 young girls at close-range.
The Nickel Mines committee, founded to help allocate the more than $4.3 million in donations that poured into the tiny Lancaster County town from around the world, includes seven Amish and two non-Amish members.
About a third of the funds have been used for medical expenses, counseling services and other expenses related to the shooting, according to the committee.
The remainder of the funds will be placed in a trust to pay for long-term healthcare costs, which the committee expects to be substantial. A contribution has also been made to Roberts’ widow, Marie Roberts, according to the committee.
Four of the five survivors of the massacre have been attending school since last December, though some still suffer from serious injuries and trauma.
The fifth survivor is confined to a reclining wheelchair, unable to talk or feed herself and totally dependent on her family for personal care.
“To the casual observer `life goes on’ in Nickel Mines, with its daily and seasonal demands of work, school, births, family and church, but for the families each day brings with it the pain, grief and questions that remind them of their loss,” the Amish committee said.
_ Daniel Burke
Vatican Investigating Georgetown Professor
VATICAN CITY (RNS) A Catholic theologian at Georgetown University is under investigation by the Vatican and U.S. bishops, for writings that allegedly conflict with church doctrine on the uniqueness of Christianity and Catholicism.
According to an article published Wednesday (Sept. 12) in the National Catholic Reporter, the subject of the investigations is the Rev. Peter Phan, a Vietnamese native who teaches at Georgetown and is a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America.
In July 2005, Phan reportedly received a letter from an official of the church’s highest doctrinal body, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, regarding his 2004 book, “Being Religious Interreligiously.”
The letter said Phan’s book was “notably confused on a number of points of Catholic doctrine and also contains serious ambiguities,” particularly with respect to the Congregation’s 2000 document, “Dominus Iesus,” which describes non-Christians as being in a “gravely deficient situation.”
At the time of the publication of “Dominus Iesus,” and up until April 2005, the Congregation was led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.
Phan was subsequently notified that the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine was conducting its own investigation of his book. Among the bishops’ stated concerns were reportedly Phan’s views on the “role and function of the Catholic church in salvation.”
_ Francis X. Rocca
Jewish Groups Weigh In on Circumcision Case
PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) The Anti-Defamation League and several national Jewish organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of a Washington state father who wants to circumcise his son against the wishes of the boy’s Oregon mother.
The dispute is pending before the Oregon Supreme Court, which has scheduled oral arguments for Nov. 6.
The groups agree with James Boldt, a Jewish convert who says he should be able to make the decision for his 12-year-old son because he is the custodial parent.
The mother, Lia Boldt, says the boy is afraid to tell her ex-husband that he does not want to be circumcised. She also says circumcision is dangerous.
The Anti-Defamation League says that “routine male circumcision is the type of religious and medical decision that is squarely within the rights of the custodial parent,” according to a news release. “Enabling the circumcision of a child, whether as part of a religious conversion or for medical reasons, cannot as a matter of law indicate any infirmity in a parent’s ability to function as a parent. Moreover, any decision to single out circumcision as a basis for questioning the fitness of the custodial parent would violate the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion.”
The American Jewish Congress, American Jewish Committee and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America also signed the brief.
_ Ashbel S. Green
Vatican Says Food `Obligatory’ for Vegetative Patients
VATICAN CITY (RNS) In an apparent response to the controversial death of a brain-damaged Florida woman more than two years ago, the Vatican on Friday (Sept. 14) declared it “morally obligatory” to feed patients in a “vegetative state,” even when their recovery appears impossible.
A document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the highest doctrinal body in the Roman Catholic Church, stated that the “administration of food and water … to a patient in a `vegetative state’ (is) morally obligatory” even if “competent physicians judge with moral certainty that the patient will never recover consciousness.”
The statement is apparently an indirect response to the case of Terri Schiavo, who died in March 2005 after her husband won a long legal fight to remove her feeding tube. In the weeks leading up to Schiavo’s death, several U.S. bishops and cardinals voiced support for her parents’ efforts to keep her alive.
Less than four months after Schiavo’s death, Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote to the Congregation asking the questions answered in Friday’s document.
The document makes an exception for cases in which food and water “cannot be assimilated by the patient’s body or cannot be administered to the patient without causing significant physical discomfort.”
An official commentary released with the document also allows for the possibility that “in very remote places or in situations of extreme poverty, the artificial provision of food and water may be physically impossible.”
The commentary cites a number of past church pronouncements on the subject, including a 2004 speech in which Pope John Paul II affirmed that persons in a “vegetative state” retain the “right to basic health care,” including food and water.
In a statement, The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation thanked the Vatican for its ruling, and said it hoped those “who persistently ignored the basic right to life of our daughter and sister, Terri, … will begin to open their eyes and hearts to the immutable and incontrovertible truth reaffirmed by the Holy See today.”
_ Francis X. Rocca
State Department: Iraq Insurgency Harming Religious Freedom
WASHINGTON (RNS) The continuing insurgency in Iraq is “significantly” harming the freedom of worship in that country, the State Department said in its 2007 International Religious Freedom Report.
The report, released Friday (Sept. 14), lists Iraq among 22 countries it notes for either particular abuses or positive steps related to religious freedom.
“The ongoing insurgency significantly harmed the ability of all religious believers to practice their faith,” the report’s executive summary reads.
It notes that lawlessness by insurgents, terrorists and criminal gangs affected a range of citizens, but impacted religious groups in particular.
“Many individuals from various religious groups were targeted because of their religious identity or their secular leanings,” the summary said. “Such individuals were victims of harassment, intimidation, kidnapping, and killings. In addition, frequent sectarian violence included attacks on places of worship.”
The report said the deteriorating conditions were “not due to government abuse.”
“For the most part, people are getting caught in the crossfire,” John V. Hanford III, the ambassador at large for international religious freedom, told reporters. “In the case of these minorities, though, there have been cases where it’s clear that certain groups have been targeted.”
Last November, the State Department designated Uzbekistan on its list of “countries of particular concern” regarding religious freedom violations and removed Vietnam from that list.
Asked about the most significant development in the new report, Hanford said the Vietnamese government has made progress by granting more religious freedom and permitting places of worship that had been forced to closed to reopen.
“They’ve registered whole new religions that weren’t even legal before,” he said. “`Nevertheless, there are still groups which are banned or where there are leaders which are under house arrest.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Insurer Rejects UCC Church Because of Gay Stance
(RNS) A United Church of Christ congregation’s pro-gay stance puts it “at a higher risk” of litigation and property damage, a leading U.S. church insurer said in refusing to offer coverage to a Michigan congregation.
Brotherhood Mutual, a Fort Wayne, Ind.-based insurance company, turned down the business of the West Adrian United Church of Christ after learning the church “publicly endorses” same-sex marriage and gay clergy.
“Based on national media reports, controversial stances such as those … have resulted in property damage and potential for increased litigation among churches that have chosen publicly to endorse these positions,” wrote Marci J. Fretz, a regional underwriter for Brotherhood Mutual, in a July 30 letter to the West Adrian Church.
The letter was made public by the United Church of Christ.
Brotherhood Mutual declined to offer a quote to the church located in Adrian, Mich. The church is covered by another insurer.
The Rev. John Kottke, the church’s pastor, said the refusal is “disturbing, though not surprising.”
“I think Brotherhood Mutual’s action is one worth noting, if only for the sake of forewarning other churches in our conference that such prejudice exists within certain sectors of the business community,” Kottke wrote in a letter to the UCC’s Michigan Conference Minister, the Rev. Kent Ulery.
Mitzi Daniels, assistant vice president for corporate communications at Mutual Brotherhood, said the insurer underwrites other UCC congregations.
The insurer would not underwrite the West Adrian church, however, because of “answers given on the application” regarding the church’s stance on gay rights.
“It simply looked like a risk we didn’t want to assume,” Daniels said. “We turn down churches all the time.”
The Indiana company was founded 90 years ago by members of the Defenseless Mennonite Church, which is now the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches. It represents more than 30,000 churches and related ministries in 29 states, according to the company’s Web site.
_ Daniel Burke
Orthodox Jews Ask for Kosher Snacks on Planes
(RNS) With airlines cutting back on in-flight food options, the Orthodox Union has asked eight major airlines to provide kosher snacks on flights.
In early September, the agency contacted carriers in response to consumer requests, said Rabbi Eliyahu Safran, vice president for communications and marketing of OU Kosher.
Back when a meal was included in the price of a ticket, customers who observed Jewish dietary laws were usually able to order a kosher meal. Now that many airlines only sell meals or offer snacks, there may not be a kosher alternative, he said.
“The kosher consumer only has one option and that option is to eat kosher food,” Safran said. “Kosher food means two things primarily _ that all of the ingredients are kosher-approved and that the processing is done according to kosher specs.”
Safran said the agency sent a letter to American, Continental, Delta, JetBlue, Northwest, Southwest, United and US Airways. When contacted about the letter, the airlines had mixed responses.
In an e-mailed statement, JetBlue said all but one of its in-flight snacks are kosher. It’s also working with concession companies at New York’s JFK airport to provide kosher meals for sale that can be brought on board.
A US Airways spokesperson said she wasn’t aware of the letter, but that customers may order kosher meals in advance on transatlantic flights, as well as 14 other special meals including a Hindu meal, and a halal meal, which meets Muslim dietary requirements. The airline doesn’t offer meal service in coach on domestic flights.
“We do offer buy-on-board snacks. We do not offer a kosher option at this time and are not planning a kosher option,” said Michelle Mohr, a US Airways spokesperson. “Certainly there’s no problem with our customers bringing on food that meets their religious and dietary needs.”
Representatives of Delta and American airlines said they were not aware of the letter, but both said customers may order kosher and other special meals in advance on some flights. American also offers two kosher snacks. Delta did not address the question of kosher snacks.
Continental, Northwest, Southwest and United did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
_ Ansley Roan
Muslim Congressman Joins Jews in `Food Stamp Challenge’
WASHINGTON (RNS) Several members of Congress, including its first and only Muslim member, are joining Jewish groups in taking the “food stamp challenge” to live on just $21 a week in food.
Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., is participating during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting, while some leaders are taking the challenge between the Jewish High Holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
“Ramadan is designed to focus a person’s attention on poverty,” Ellison said Tuesday (Sept. 18) at a Capitol press conference with the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA). “It’s to help bring you in solidarity with the poor, the people who … don’t have adequate food.”
The challenge requires participants to spend only $21 on food for one week, the average amount spent by a food stamp recipient. Ellison said there are “numerous, numerous verses in the Quran which enjoin Muslims to support the poor.”
Rabbi Steve Gutow, executive director of the JCPA, said the participation of members of Congress and Jewish leaders comes as his organization seeks increased funding for nutritional aspects of the Farm Bill Extension Act of 2007.
“We insist that America start by making sure that those who live on food stamps are able to maintain a sufficiently healthy and nutritional diet and not go hungry,” he said.
Ellison said that eating on $3 a day has been a challenge. He bought “a big sack of rice and some navy beans,” but couldn’t purchase the fruit he had planned on buying.
“I don’t care what faith tradition you come from. You cannot justify living in a country with 36 million poor people,” Ellison said. “It is our duty, it is our responsibility to eliminate that.”
_ Heather Donckels
Quote of the Week: Sister Angela Escalera of Los Angeles
(RNS) “We are just so hurt by this. And what hurts the most is what the money will be used for, to help pay for the pedophile priests. We have to sacrifice our home for that?”
_ Sister Angela Escalera, speaking about plans by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to sell the convent where she lives, and which has housed the Sisters of Bethany for more than four decades, to help pay for a $660 million sex abuse settlement. She was quoted by The Associated Press.
KRE END RNS
