c. 1997 Religion News Service

Criticism mounts over pope’s forthcoming trip to France

(RNS) Pope John Paul II’s scheduled trip to France to cap the week-long celebration of World Youth Days is coming under fire from European Protestants and French critics, including the popular, rebellious Catholic Bishop Jacques Gaillot.

More than 300,000 French and other Europeans have signed a petition protesting the decision to have the pontiff end the youth event by celebrating Mass for some 600,000 worshipers Aug. 24 _ the anniversary of the 1572 St. Bartholomew Massacre in which Protestants were the victims of the one of the bloodiest episodes in France’s 16th-century religious wars.

The petition protest, called the Charter for Living Together, was launched two months ago by the French Protestant Federation, an umbrella group for France’s main Protestant churches. It received immediate support from France’s Orthodox Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders.

Visitors to World Youth Days, including nearly 13,000 from the United States, will be asked to sign the charter, which will be presented to the pope.

The charter calls on”young people of different faiths to affirm their desire to live together in unity as we enter the next millennium,”reported Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.

The charter also includes a”pact of tolerance,”which states there are”several ways to experience one spiritual life”and calls on signatories to fight exclusion, fundamentalism and fanaticism.

In addition, Bishop Jacques Gaillot, a liberal bishop ousted from his diocese by the Vatican, and the Radical Socialist Party, a member of the ruling left-wing government, Friday (Aug. 8) accused the pope of encouraging militant anti-abortion groups with his plan to honor one of their heroes.

In what the RSP called a”provocation,”the Vatican has said John Paul will visit the grave of Jerome Lejeune, a friend of the pontiff who was a genetics professor and an outspoken opponent of abortion. He died in 1994 and is buried just south of Paris.

The RSP statement said the pope’s visit to Lejeune’s grave could be seen as an attempt by a foreign head of state to support the activists’ challenge to French law.”This is a blessing for the anti-abortion commandos,”Reuters quoted Gaillot as saying.”It will in a way legitimate their action.” Reuters said that French anti-abortion groups have become increasingly militant.

The French daily Le Monde also cast a critical eye on John Paul’s planned visit to the grave, saying it”risks looking like a legitimization of the commandos whose violence the church has always disapproved of.”

Methodist youth organization defends its homosexuality stance

(RNS) The National Youth Ministry Organization of the United Methodist Church has taken issue with the denomination’s conservative wing for suggesting the youth were manipulated by adults when they urged the denomination to drop its proscriptions against homosexuality.

Delegates to the organization’s biennial meeting, held in Nashville July 29-Aug. 2, passed a resolution that declared,”Youth can and do think for themselves. Youth are not easily influenced by adults.” The group had been criticized in an article of Good News magazine for requesting at its 1995 assembly that the denomination change its stand on homosexuality. Good News is an independent caucus of evangelicals within the United Methodist Church.

The resolution was proposed in response to the magazine article, which appeared in early 1996, and was passed overwhelmingly, reported the United Methodist News Service.

The approved statement concluded that”the youth, as full members of the United Methodist Church, are a vital part of the church today and their word should be trusted and regarded as should the words of any other members or groups of the United Methodist Church.”

Hollywood investors’ group hopes to build biblical theme park

(RNS) A group of Hollywood investors hopes to build a $1.6 billion theme park with biblical themes in Nevada.

The proposal for Holy Land aims to give vacationers a spiritual alternative to Walt Disney’s theme parks, said Daxx Edder, head of Nevada-based Quorum International. He hopes to sign a deal on 3,000-acres for the site by the week of Aug. 11.

Edder pictures the theme park featuring virtual-reality attractions that would put spectators into scenes from each of the 66 books of the Bible. Visitors would enter the New Testament portion of the holy book by way of a 33-story statue of Jesus, USA Today reported.”We’re going to be parting the Red Sea,”he said.

Without being specific, Edder said he has discussed with several religious groups the possibility of hosting pavilions at the park.

Herb Hollinger, a spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention, doesn’t expect his denomination _ whose members recently decided to boycott Disney over the company’s policies on gay rights _ to jump on board.”It doesn’t sound like something that we would want to be involved in,”Hollinger said.

Such a park is not a new idea. In the 1970s, there were plans for parks with biblical themes in California, Ohio, Tennessee and Florida, but none became a reality, said Tim O’Brien of Amusement Business magazine. Former televangelist Jim Bakker’s ill-fated Heritage USA resort in Fort Mill, S.C., now features a Radisson hotel.

Nun featured on baseball card

(RNS) She’s not a baseball player, just a fan.

But Sister Mary Assumpta, a 40-year-fan of the Cleveland Indians has earned the unusual designation of being featured on a baseball card.

The mother superior for the Sisters of the Holy Spirit in Cleveland is shown smiling in her habit, holding a chocolate chip cookie with her right hand and gripping a baseball bat with her left.

Upper Deck, a card company, has printed 10,000 of the cards featuring the nun. The card is being showcased at the 18th National Sports Collectors Convention, which ends Sunday (Aug. 10) in Cleveland.

The company plans to donate $2,000 to Sister Assumpta’s community and $1,000 worth of memorabilia to the nursing home for which she is the primary fund-raiser, reported the Associated Press.

Since 1986, Sister Assumpta has baked cookies for the Cleveland Indians. She also was featured in a cameo appearance in”Major League,”a 1989 movie.

Other nuns in her order have reacted positively to her baseball-card fame.”They’ve really gotten a charge out of this because they’re all baseball fans,”she said.

Quote of the Day: Actor-turned-minister Demond Wilson

(RNS) Demond Wilson, the actor who co-starred with the late Redd Foxx in the NBC sitcom”Sanford and Son,”was quoted in USA Today about his decision to open Restoration House, a group of facilities across the country that helps former inmates adjust to life beyond prison walls. He said he was inspired by a visit to the Indiana institution where boxer Mike Tyson was serving time for a rape conviction.”When I was leaving, a voice spoke to me and said, `Mike Tyson’s going back to a lucrative boxing career. What about these other men?’ A mandate came into my spirit, and that started my love affair with helping these men.”

MJP END RNS