Monthly Archives: May 1996
TOP STORY: RELIGION AND CULTURE: Ceremonial voodoo flags now are sought-after art
By RNS Blog Editor — May 11, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (RNS)-As barefoot toddlers, skinny dogs and squawking chickens dodged honking cars a few feet away, Edgar Jean-Louis stood solemnly in the doorway of his house and business in this Caribbean capital’s impoverished Bel Air neighborhood. “There hasn’t been much work lately,”Jean-Louis, 75, said in Creole as he led […]
NEWS STORY: Experts say militia members part of dangerous worldwide movement
By RNS Blog Editor — May 10, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS)-Some people dismiss the Freemen of Montana, still locked in a standoff with federal agents, as simply a bunch of wackos in the wilderness who love their guns and hate to pay their taxes. Others make sense of the Oklahoma City bombing by casting suspect Timothy McVeigh as a […]
COMMENTARY: Biblical Ruth is a model of power and determination
By James Rudin — May 10, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (RNS)-The women’s movement in religion is providing us with exciting new ways to understand the Bible. One result is the transformation of Ruth from a character who seems too good to be true to an independent woman […]
OP STORY: SOUTH AFRICA: Lembas of South Africa stake claim to Jewish heritage
By RNS Blog Editor — May 10, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (RNS)-In a wasteland in the northeast corner of South Africa called Venda and in the teeming township of Soweto outside Johannesburg is a scattering of people who claim they are a lost tribe of Israel. They are a hard-working, politically active group who place a high emphasis […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — May 10, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Catholic leaders demand destruction of tape of inmate’s confession (RNS)-Roman Catholic leaders are demanding that a recording of a confession made by an Oregon inmate to a priest be destroyed, saying it is a sacred exchange that should remain private. The Rev. Timothy Mockaitis heard the Catholic confession from Conan […]
Report: No safe haven for world’s refugees
By RNS Blog Editor — May 9, 1996
c. 20036 (202-347-3507). LJB END RNS
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — May 9, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Gay marriage measure introduced in Congress WASHINGTON (RNS)-Four Republican members of Congress took a preemptive strike at same-sex marriage Wednesday (May 8), backing legislation that would define marriage under federal law as a”legal union between one man and one woman.” Anticipating a pending Hawaii court decision that could legalize gay […]
TOP STORY: MORALITY AND RELIGION: East European sex trade poses vexing moral problem
By RNS Blog Editor — May 9, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service KRAKOW, Poland (RNS)-Krakow’s red-light district is divided into two parts: one for Polish prostitutes, another for women from countries of the former Soviet Union-Russia, Ukraine, the Baltics and Belarus. On one corner in the”Russian side”stand Tatjana, 24, and Nadja, 21, both from villages in eastern Ukraine. Tatjana, a handsome woman […]
COMMENTARY: Whistling while we worship
By Dale Hanson Bourke — May 9, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Dale Hanson Bourke is the publisher of Religion News Service and author of”Turn Toward the Wind.”) (RNS)-When my husband went to pick up our youngest son after church last week, he found him interrogating his Sunday school teacher. The second graders are learning the church creeds, and Tyler is a […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — May 8, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Child victims of Nazi experiments laid to rest (RNS)-Fifty-one years after the end of World War II, the brains of mentally handicapped children whom the Nazis considered”unworthy of life”will be buried Wednesday in a memorial grave at Vienna’s central cemetery. They are the remains of hundreds of German and Austrian […]
TOP STORY: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN AFRICA: Church’s role in Rwanda war comes under renewed scru
By RNS Blog Editor — May 8, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY (RNS)-The Rev. Modeste Mungwarareba says that when confronted with issues of justice in Rwanda, the Roman Catholic Church prefers darkness to light. Notwithstanding Pope John Paul II’s recent admonition that priests and nuns who collaborated in the 1994 genocide should admit their sins and face legal accountability, Mungwarareba, […]
TOP STORY: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN AFRICA: Church’s role in Rwanda war comes under renewed scru
By RNS Blog Editor — May 8, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY (RNS)-The Rev. Modeste Mungwarareba says that when confronted with issues of justice in Rwanda, the Roman Catholic Church prefers darkness to light. Notwithstanding Pope John Paul II’s recent admonition that priests and nuns who collaborated in the 1994 genocide should admit their sins and face legal accountability, Mungwarareba, […]
NEWS FEATURE: Death penalty divides those in pulpit and pews
By Cathleen Falsani — May 7, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service CHICAGO (RNS)-In the 30 years since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, a bitterly emotional debate has preceded each of the 328 executions that have occurred in prisons around the country. The issue: Is killing a morally defensible punishment for murder? It is a question no less contentious […]
COMMENTARY: Father of the bride
By Brendan Kirby — May 7, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Eds: Robert Kirby is a Mormon humorist and columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune. Check RNS Online for his photo.) (RNS)-My Mormon ancestors were polygamists, but lately I’ve been wondering how they could afford to get married more than once. I just finished marrying off my daughter, and it cost […]
NEWS STORY: Conservative Jewish leaders condemn intermarriage
By Ira Rifkin — May 7, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (RNS)-The united leadership of Judaism’s Conservative movement has issued its strongest condemnation ever of interfaith marriage, urging Jewish parents and young people to recognize the threat that the growing number of Jews marrying non-Jews poses to the faith’s continued survival.”We want Jews to marry other Jews,”the 2,000-word policy statement bluntly […]
