c. 1996 Religion News Service

Christmas marked by prayer, protest and calls for peace

(RNS) Christmas celebrations around the world drew tens of millions of worshipers marking the birth of Jesus with a mix of prayer, protest and calls for peace.

From a Vatican balcony, Pope John Paul II spoke of”peace and serenity”in Guatemala and Bosnia, where new peace agreements have thus far remained intact. He wished for similar results in the Middle East, where, he said,”provocations and profound differences”threaten a tension-filled peace, the Associated Press reported. He also lamented the globe’s general indifference to turmoil in Africa.

Meanwhile, President Clinton’s Christmas Eve worship at the Washington National Cathedral (Episcopal) was interrupted by an anti-abortion activist who briefly admonished the president for his veto of a ban on a controversial late-term abortion procedure.”God will hold you to account, Mr. President,”the Rev. Rob Schenck, general secretary of the National Clergy Council, told Clinton. Schenck, whose 5,000-member group includes Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox church leaders, was detained by Secret Service agents for about 15 minutes after the service.

In Lima, Peru, a dozen members of a church choir sang Christmas carols a block from the residence of the Japanese ambassador, hoping the more than 100 hostages holed up inside might hear them. The boys and girls, wearing red and white smocks, hoped to cheer the hostages, who have been held since Dec. 17 by leftist rebels.

And in Bosnia, Catholic Croats, Muslims and some Serbs worshiped together at Sarajevo’s cathedral at a Midnight Mass at which Cardinal Vinko Puljic pleaded for reconciliation and forgiveness.

Anti-abortion group sues over rejected inaugural parade route protest

(RNS) The Christian Defense Coalition, an anti-abortion group, has filed suit claiming its free speech rights are being violated because it has been denied permission to demonstrate along the route of President Clinton’s inaugural parade.

Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice, a public interest law firm based in Virginia Beach, Va. and founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, said a hearing in the case is expected after Jan. 1. The inaugural is scheduled for Jan. 20.

The Christian Defense Coalition had asked the National Park Service for permission to assemble with signs on the sidewalk along a one-block stretch of the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route. The park service rejected the application, saying the stretch of sidewalk in question will be crowded with bleachers.”There simply is not room there,”Park Service spokeswoman Sandra Alley told the Washington Times.

The coalition has received permission to stage protests in Lafayette Park across from the White House and on a site near the Washington Monument. However, the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, the coalition’s director, complained that both locations are away from the parade route and out of view of both TV cameras and most tourists.

Sekulow called the Park Service’s action”a political ploy to silence those who are critical of the president”because of his veto of a ban on a controversial late-term abortion procedure.”If the First Amendment’s free speech clause means anything, it has to mean that on public sidewalks citizens have the right to show through lawful means their disagreement with the official policies of elected officials,”Sekulow said.

Bomb explosion kills five at Buddhist shrine in Burma

(RNS) A bomb exploded near a Buddhist shrine outside Rangoon, Burma, on Thursday (Dec. 26) while investigators were examining damage from a similar explosion two hours earlier. Five people were killed in the second blast.

The explosions occurred at the Maha Pasana cave, a man-made shrine next to the Kaba Aye pagoda, which has attracted thousands of pilgrims to view the Sacred Tooth Relic, believed to be one of the Buddha’s teeth.

The Associated Press said the dead included a Red Cross worker, two police officers and two civilians connected to groups associated with the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). A Buddhist monk, six police officers and five pilgrims were among the injured.

No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing.

The government, however, has pointed its finger at the All-Burma Student Democratic Front and the Karen National Union, two dissident groups based in eastern Burma.

New Light of Myanmar (Burma), the government newspaper, said the tooth, which is on loan from China, was not damaged in the explosions.

The tooth is believed to be one of the two teeth remaining since the Buddha’s death 2,500 years ago. China, one of the few governments that maintains close relations with the SLORC regime, lent the relic to Burma on Dec. 6 for 90 days.

The Chinese embassy in Rangoon said the bomb attacks”blaspheme the Buddha and go against the will of the people.”

Federal appeals court strikes down provisions of Utah’s abortion law

(RNS) Utah’s law banning abortions after the 20th week of gestation has been struck down as unconstitutional by a federal appeals court.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Denver, acting Dec. 23, said the provision was unconstitutional because it infringed on a woman’s right to choose.

The provision was part of a 1991 Utah law that banned all abortions after 20 weeks, with narrow exceptions. The law’s provision banning abortions during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy had already been struck down as unconstitutional.

A spokesman for State Attorney General Jan Graham said lawyers were reviewing the decision and it was unclear if the state now had any restrictions on abortion, the Associated Press reported.

In its ruling on the post-20-weeks provision of the law, the appellate court noted that the U.S. Supreme court has said that a doctor, not legislation, should determine the viability of a fetus and”until viability is actually present the state may not prevent a woman from choosing to abort.”

Quote of the day: Jewish theologian and philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel

(RNS) A new collection of essays,”Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity”(Farrar, Straus & Giroux), by Jewish theologian and philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel, who died in 1972, is reviewed in the current issue of the Harvard Divinity Bulletin. In a passage from the title essay, Heschel discusses prayer:”Prayer is not a stratagem for occasional use, a refuge to resort to now and then. It is rather like an established residence for the innermost self. All things have a home; the bird has a nest, the fox has a hole, the bee has a hive. A soul without prayer is a soul without a home. Weary, sobbing, the soul, after roaming through a world festered with aimlessness, falsehoods, and absurdities, seeks a moment in which to gather up its scattered life … in which to call for help without being a coward. Such a home is prayer.”

END RNS