c. 2008 Religion News Service
Pope ends World Youth Day with victims’ meeting
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI met victims of clergy sexual abuse at the end of his visit to Australia on Monday (July 21), celebrating an early morning Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney with two male and two female victims.
“He listened to their stories and offered them consolation. Assuring them of his spiritual closeness, he promised to continue to pray for them, their families and all victims,” said a Vatican statement.
“Through this paternal gesture, the Holy Father wished to demonstrate again his deep concern for all those who have suffered sexual abuse.”
The unscheduled meeting followed an apology issued earlier during his nine-day visit, similar to statements made during the pope’s visit to the United States last April.
However the main victims group in Australia, Broken Rites, criticized the encounter as “stage managed,” saying the victims were handpicked and the more outspoken ones ignored.
Some victims have accused the Catholic Church in Australia of covering up abuse cases and stalling on compensation payments. Cardinal George Pell of Sydney said the four victims, all in their 30s, had asked to remain anonymous.
During his public appearances, the 81-year-old pontiff urged youngsters to care for the environment, warning that natural resources were being squandered because of consumer greed, and railed against what he called a spreading “spiritual desert.”
Just before boarding his plane for the return trip to Rome, Benedict thanked organizers of the World Youth Day festival, which was attended by some 110,000 pilgrims from 170 nations. The festival’s closing Mass on Sunday at a Sydney racetrack drew 400,000 people, less than the half-million target.
At the airport, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd thanked the pope for his words to abuse victims and to indigenous Australians, adding that people had been touched by his “simple humanity.”
The Vatican announced that the next World Youth Day, in 2011, will be held in Madrid, Spain.
_ Frances Kennedy
AME Zion Church elects first woman bishop
(RNS) The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church elected a Los Angeles pastor as its first female bishop during the denomination’s 48th quadrennial General Conference in Atlanta on Saturday (July 19).
The Rev. Mildred “Bonnie” Hines, pastor of First AME Zion Church of Los Angeles, was the third bishop elected from a pool of 25 candidates, three of whom were women.
It was standing room only for the crowd of more than 3,000 people who waited late into the night for election results, and “suspense was high,” according to a church news release.
After votes for the third bishop failed to meet a required two-thirds majority, a second ballot was cast, declaring Hines the winner and “with a loud clamor, it was history in the making.”
Hines serves as a board member for the Los Angeles Council of Churches, and also on the Traditionally Black Methodist Church Council. She received her Doctor of Divinity degree from Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta.
The Rev. Darryl B. Starnes, who heads the church’s Board of Evangelism in Charlotte, N.C., and the Rev. Dennis V. Proctor of Baltimore were elected bishops alongside Hines.
The AME Zion Church was formed in 1796 in New York City when black members faced discrimination from white Methodists. The AME Zion Church today boasts 1.2 million parishioners in the United States, and overseas missions on every continent except Australia.
Questions posted on the denomination’s Web site prior to the Atlanta meeting asked if the church would “reach out in this `change year’ and elevate one of the female candidates to the highest elective office in the church?”
Hines’ election “stamped an assurance that said YES! … YES! … YES! … YES! … YES WE CAN!” the announcement said.
_ Ashly McGlone
Religious groups work with U.N. to limit small arms trade
NEW YORK (RNS) Religious groups worked at the United Nations last week to call attention to the proliferation of small arms, a growing problem that experts say is fueling violence and crime around the world.
“Good politicians want to end the problem but don’t know how to,” the Rt. Rev. William Kenney, the auxiliary bishop of Birmingham, England, said in an interview during a week-long U.N. conference on small arms and weaponry.
The conference, which focused on reducing illicit arms sales and trading, ended Friday (July 18) with a non-binding agreement approved by 134 nations that called for small arms to be marked at the point of manufacture to help tracing efforts, and security improvements at state-run arsenals. The United States was absent for the vote and was not an active participant at the conference, advocates said.
Peace and disarmament groups such as the International Action Network on Small Arms said the conference did not address a number of issues, including the problem of ammunition, a major source of explosions that accidentally kill civilians. Still, IANSA’s director, Rebecca Peters, called the agreement “a significant step forward” in fighting the “illicit gun trade.”
The trade of small and light weapons is worth an estimated $4 billion annually, according to the Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based research project.
The group’s annual report concluded that the unauthorized transfer of small arms and light weapons into the underground market contributes to crime, insurgency and violence throughout the world.
The study said about 650,000 civilian firearms “leak out” into illicit circuits each year. For example, the report said nearly half of illicit ammunition belonging to armed groups in northern Kenya comes from state-run stockpiles.
Religious groups concerned about the issue _ including the New York-based group Religions for Peace _ are focusing their efforts on dialogue with arms suppliers, manufacturers and U.N. member nations, and trying to strengthen grass-roots anti-weapon campaigns in countries that have high levels of gun crime.
Kenney said talks about developing a set of ethical principles for the use and manufacture of small arms, along the lines of “Just War” theory, are at a very early stage. Arms producers, he said, “are not used to ethical thinking.”
_ Chris Herlinger
Survey: Most U.S. Jews don’t support Hagee, Christian Zionists
NEW YORK (RNS) As Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee convenes his annual Christians United for Israel summit in Washington this week (July 21-24), a new poll shows most U.S. Jews are leery of his support.
An online survey of 800 Jews found that 78 percent of American Jews say Jewish groups should not form alliances with Hagee or other Christian Zionists whose support for Israel stems from end-times beliefs that Jews must control the Holy Land before Jesus can return.
The survey of 800 Jews was commissioned by J Street, a nonprofit organization that promotes a diplomatic resolution to the Middle East conflict.
Hagee’s critics complain the pastor’s controversial views _ including that the Holocaust was God’s way of forcing Jews to settle in Israel and that Christians must oppose Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories _ have been downplayed or ignored by Jewish leaders seeking funding and political support from the estimated 20 million to 40 million Christian Zionists in the United States.
Hagee’s annual convention will feature speeches by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., an Orthodox Jew, and Brad Gordon of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street’s executive director, said he hopes the poll will send a message to Lieberman, AIPAC and other Jewish organizations that their constituents are more dovish than hawkish when it comes to Israel and Middle Eastern policy.
“This is a strong message to the leadership of the American Jewish community that the members of the American Jewish community are not marching in lockstep behind them as they lead us off this cliff,” Ben-Ami said. “The alliance that they have struck with (Hagee) over the past few years is one we would like to see brought to an end.”
More than 50,000 people have signed the “Don’t go, Joe!” petition on J Street’s Web site, asking Lieberman to pull out of the CUFI summit, Ben-Ami said.
The J Street survey also found that 75 percent of respondents saw a two-state solution as necessary to strengthen Israeli security, and when asked about the most important issues for them in the upcoming presidential election, respondents ranked the economy, the war in Iraq, health care, national security, energy and the environment above Israel.
Hagee’s activism has also drawn concern from several prominent Jewish leaders, including Rabbi Joel Myers of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, and Rabbi Eric Yoffie, who leads the Union for Reform Judaism.
Earlier this year, Hagee told Religion News Service that he can understand why some Jews “shy away from Christian support,” but blamed that reluctance on 2,000 years of anti-Semitism, not political or social differences.
The J Street survey has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
_ Nicole Neroulias
Quote of the Day: The Rev. Patricia Bryant Harris of Wilmington, Del.
“I would put it in the words of the young people today: Awesome. I’m from the First State, I’m the first African-American female to present the prayer. It was an awesome experience.”
_ The Rev. Patricia Bryant Harris of Wilmington, Del., describing how it felt becoming the first African-American woman to serve as guest chaplain in the U.S. Senate. She was quoted by The Washington Post.
KRE/RB END RNS
