c. 1998 Religion News Service

Christendom marks Good Friday

(RNS) In what has become an annual Good Friday tradition, Pope John Paul II heard confessions from citizens from around the globe Friday (April 10) in Rome’s St. Peter’s Basilica just hours before he was scheduled to participate in a cross-bearing procession to the Colosseum.

Due to health limitations, the pope was expected to carry the large wooden cross for only a short time during the candlelit march, which symbolizes Jesus’ carrying the cross to his Crucifixion.

The meditation during the procession was to focus on the suffering of women and lament that Jews were made to suffer by Christians because they have long held Jews responsible for the death of Jesus, a notion the Vatican repudiated in a 1965 document.

In Good Friday remembrances elsewhere around the world, pilgrims in Jerusalem, led by a group of Franciscan monks, retraced the steps of Jesus along the Via Dolorosa, the path tradition says Jesus took from his trial to his Crucifixion.

But the solemn event this year also included the presence of hundreds of armed Israeli troops lining the route because of recent threats of suicide attacks by the Islamic militant group Hamas.

In addition, the narrow streets of Jerusalem’s Old City were made even more crowded this year because Good Friday coincided with the start of the weeklong observance of Passover by Jews and the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, which marks the end of the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

Some pilgrims were disturbed by the crowds.”The crowd made what should have been a very moving experience not moving at all,”Janet Johnson, a pilgrim from Sommers, Conn., told the Associated Press.

In the Philippines, Asia’s only predominantly Christian nation, some devout believers were flagellated and briefly crucified in a symbolic expiation of sins that has become an annual ritual, Reuters reported.

In Cuba, the Roman Catholic Church is viewing its request of the communist government to hold”moderate”Easter celebrations as another test of the legacy left from the pope’s January visit. In anticipation of the visit, the Castro government made Christmas a holiday for the first time since 1959.”It’s like a thermometer. We will see if all those words were just for the moment, or if they were really intentions that stay for the future,”Fernando de la Vega, a spokesman for the archbishop of Havana, told Reuters.

Commission seeking hostages release to hold U.S. meeting

(RNS) Two ex-hostages and a Nobel Prize-winning author are attempting to help gain the freedom of three American missionaries seized in Panama five years ago.

Terry Waite, a former Anglican Church envoy who was held hostage for almost five years in Lebanon; American journalist Terry Anderson, held hostage in Lebanon for nearly seven years; and Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez recently made public their efforts to help the missionaries.

The three formed a special commission at the request of the wives of the missionaries affiliated with New Tribes Mission, based in Sanford, Fla.

Waite is scheduled to leave Great Britain Monday (April 13) for New York to meet with the other commission members, the Associated Press reported.”It is something we’ve been working on for a long time now, and it is just coming to the point where we can say something publicly,”Waite said.

Missionaries David Mankins, Mark Rich and Richard Tenenoff were captured by men armed with machine guns from a village near the Panama border in January 1993. The missionaries’ wives and an executive of New Tribes Mission testified on Capitol Hill in Washington March 31 that they believe the missionaries’ fate lies with a Colombian guerrilla organization, the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia, generally known by its Spanish acronym FARC.

Waite said he has been working for more than a year on ways to gain the release of the missionaries.”I’m not saying anything about it now, but we have developed a strategy which we hope to be able to follow,”he said.”We are confident that they are alive, as confident as one can be, and are in fact being held in reasonable conditions.”

National science academy issues guidebook for teaching evolution

(RNS) The National Academy of Science, saying lessons on creationism do not belong in public school classrooms, has issued a guidebook for the teaching of evolution.

The unusual action comes at a time when many Christian conservatives want schools to give the same credibility to creationism, the belief that God created the Earth in six days, as they do to evolution.

The guidebook, unveiled Thursday (April 9), offers advice on how to discuss evolution and answer questions _ including those from parents _ about the controversial topic.”We are finding that more teachers are reluctant to teach about this central idea,”said academy president Bruce M. Alberts.”Our hope is that this will help them.” American scientists have long contended that public schools should bar talk of creationism because they consider it a religious concept not supported by scientific evidence.

School districts are not required to accept the academy’s advice, but the academy’s guidebook could prove to be an influential mechanism for educators who want to keep teaching evolution, The Washington Post reported.

Wayne Carley, president of the National Association of Biology Teachers, welcomed the academy’s role.”This is a very real problem for teachers,”Carley said.”And it’s definitely on the increase.” Arne Owens, spokesman for the Christian Coalition, said some religious conservatives want the decision about teaching creationism, evolution or both to remain a local choice.”We believe communities have the right to have their values reflected in the curriculum,”Owens said.”Public schools are harmed when they exclude important, legitimate points of view.” Academy officials said they are not attempting to discredit religious beliefs.

The 140-page guidebook states that people can believe in God and also accept evolution. It notes that many scientists who affirm the theory of evolution are devoutly religious.

The guide concentrates on how life forms evolved over time, rather than the questions of how the process first began.”That one is still up for grabs,”said Alberts, the academy president.

Orthodox Church head in Greece dies

(RNS) Archbishop Seraphim, the longtime and strong-willed head of the Orthodox Church in Greece, died Friday (April 10). He was 84.

Seraphim, who had been ill for some time, died in Athens, where he had been hospitalized since Feb. 25 for a viral infection, the Associated Press reported. He also suffered from kidney problems, however the exact cause of death was not immediately released.

Seraphim _ born Seraphim Tikas in 1913 in the central Greek town of Artesiano _ became archbishop in 1974 when his predecessor, Archbishop Jerome, was deposed after the collapse of Greece’s military junta and the restoration of democracy. Jerome was identified with the military government, which Seraphim had opposed.

However, Seraphim soon had disagreements with the conservative and socialist governments that followed. His most publicized clash was in the 1980s when he successfully fought attempts by then-Premier Andres Papandreou to expropriate the church’s vast landholdings. In retaliation, Seraphim excommunicated seven government officials.

Earlier this decade he made headlines by demanding that Greece expel the Vatican envoy in Athens because of Roman Catholic missionary activities in Eastern Europe. Seraphim claimed the Catholic activities threatened Orthodoxy, but his demands were ignored by the Greek government.

Seraphim joined Greek resistance fighters who fought the Nazi occupation during World War II and received numerous medals for bravery and valor.

The Rev. Mark Avery, spokesman for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, based in New York, called Seraphim’s death”a significant loss”for American Greeks.”U.S. Greeks or their parents came here from Greece, and when the primate of the church in Greece passes that’s a tremendous loss because it speaks of the homeland,”Avery said.

Quote of the Day: Ron Czajkowski”She’s like a spiritual tap on the shoulder, telling me that whatever I’m doing maybe isn’t enough.” _ Ron Czajkowski, a member of the Roman Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception in Somerville, N.J., speaking about fellow parishioner Eleanor Boyer, 73, who said she is giving the $8.5 million she won in the New Jersey lottery to charity.

MJP END RNS