c. 2007 Religion News Service

Labor group alleges crucifixes made in sweatshops

(RNS) Some crucifixes sold in the United States are made under “horrific” conditions in a Chinese factory, a labor rights leader said Tuesday (Nov. 20) in front of New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee, told reporters the products come from a factory in Dongguan, China, where employees _ mostly women _ work 15-hour days and are paid 26 cents an hour.

“It’s a throwback to the worst of the garment sweatshops 10, 20 years ago,” Kernaghan said, according to The Associated Press. Factory workers eat “slop” and live in dirty dormitories, he said.

Kernaghan charged that said St. Patrick’s and Trinity Episcopal Church at Wall Street sell crucifixes in their gift shops with the factory’s serial number.

Joe Zwilling, a spokesman for St. Patrick’s, said the church was unaware of the claims against the factory before Tuesday, while Trinity spokeswoman Diane Reed said her church had been “under the impression that these were mass-produced in Italy.”

St. Patrick’s and Trinity purchased their crucifixes from Singer Co. in Mount Vernon, N.Y. The company’s co-owner, Gerald Singer, told The Associated Press that his company bought the crucifixes from Full Start, a Chinese company.

“Whether they came out of a sweatshop, we do not know,” Singer said. “We asked Full Start to sign off that there are no sweatshop conditions involved, and no children and that they abide by Chinese law. This is a black eye for us.”

A man at the factory in question, who did not give his name, told The Associated Press that the claims were “totally incorrect,” and said the factory’s employees work eight hour days and have a 90-minute lunch break.

St. Patrick’s and Trinity have removed the crucifixes from their gift shops while looking further into the allegations. Zwilling was not available for follow-up questions on Wednesday.

_ Heather Donckels

Fourth Episcopal bishop leaves for Catholic Church

(RNS) Recently retired Episcopal Bishop John Lipscomb of Southwest Florida has said he intends to convert to Roman Catholicism, becoming the fourth Episcopal bishop to seek to join the Catholic Church this year.

Lipscomb said in a Nov. 20 letter to Diocese of Southwest Florida that he has requested release from his ordination vows and his responsibilities in the Episcopal House of Bishops. His wife, Marcie, will convert with him.

“Though a long season of prayer and reflection, Marcie and I have come to believe this is the leading of the Holy Spirit and God’s call to us for the next chapter of our lives,” Lipscomb wrote.

Lipscomb retired as bishop of Southwest Florida Sept. 15 after a decade leading the diocese. In August, Lipscomb was among a handful of bishops brought together by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to end the row over homosexuality and Scripture in the Episcopal Church.

Unlike other bishops who’ve converted this year, however, Lipscomb did not publicly point to that controversy as his reason for converting.

In September, Bishop Jeffrey Steenson of Albuquerque, N.M., became the first active bishop to announce his conversion. Earlier this year, retired bishops Daniel Herzog of Albany, N.Y., and Clarence C. Pope of Fort Worth, Texas said they were converting.

_ Daniel Burke

Indian Catholics dismiss new film on Jesus’ `lost years’

CHENNAI, India (RNS) Roman Catholic leaders in India have dismissed a proposed Hollywood film on Jesus Christ’s “lost years” in India as just “Hollywood makers in search of a new audience rather than the truth.”

The film, `The Aquarian Gospel,” will be directed by Drew Heriot and is scheduled for release in 2009. The movie seeks to fill in Jesus’ “lost years” between 13 and 30 with a story about him as a wandering mystic who traveled across India, living in Buddhist monasteries and speaking out against the country’s caste system.

The Guardian newspaper in London and The Hindu newspaper in India quoted a church spokesman dismissing the film as “fantasy and fiction,” especially in the wake of “The Da Vinci Code,” which upset many Indian Catholics.

The movie takes its name from a century-old book that examined Christianity’s Eastern roots. The film’s producers say it will follow the travels of Yeshua _ believed to be the name for Jesus in Aramaic _ from the Middle East to India. Casting for Hollywood and Indian actors has begun.

John Dayal, president of the All India Catholic Union, told the Guardian that he has “personally investigated many of these claims (about the legend of Jesus in India), and they remain what they first seem _ fiction.”

News report say the new film sets out to be a “fantasy action adventure account of Jesus’ life, with the three wise men as his mentors.

“We think that Indian religions and Buddhism, especially with the idea of meditation, played a big part in Christ’s thinking. In the film we are looking beyond the canonized Gospels to the `lost’ Gospels,” said producer William Sees Keenan.

_ Achal Narayanan

Quote of the Day: Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia

(RNS) “This advance reminds us once again that medical progress and respect for human life are not in conflict; they can and should support each other and enrich one another for the good of all.”

_ Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, discussing Tuesday’s (Nov. 20) announcement that scientists have turned human skin cells into a type of embryonic stem cells. The procedure does not involve the destruction of human embryos, which the Catholic Church opposes.

KRE DS END RNS