c. 1998 Religion News Service
Bishop, religious, peace activists call for end to Iraq sanctions
(RNS) Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, joined by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and some 80 other religious and peace activists, have delivered some $4 million in humanitarian aid to Iraq.”We have come in defiance of our own government,”Clark told a news conference in Baghdad.”We do not feel any people can be forced to ask permission of a genocidal power.” Although such visits to Iraq technically violate United Nations sanctions imposed on Baghdad after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the U.S. government has tended to ignore visits by U.S. aid groups.
A host of religious and peace groups, including the National Council of Churches, have called for easing or ending the economic sanctions against Iraq and to allow more food, medicine and other humanitarian aid be shipped to the country.
The trip to Iraq was sponsored by Sanctions Challenge, a network of activists and organizations opposing the U.N. economic embargo because of its effect on the Iraqi people.
Gumbleton, long an opponent of the sanctions, said he would continue working to build the movement in the United States to”force our government to end the sanction policies.” The Associated Press said the $4 million in aid delivered May 9 included medicine, vitamins and medical supplies.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland, in a statement released by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the religion-based pacifist group that also sent a delegation to Iraq, accused the Clinton administration of a double-standard in dealing with Iraq and Northern Ireland.”On the same day in which he announced U.S. intentions to bomb Iraq,”Maguire said recalling the February showdown over U.N. inspections of suspected Iraqi weapons sites,”President Clinton remarked in regard to dealing with the situation in Northern Ireland that `Nothing worth having can be accomplished through violence.'” Clayton Ramey, peace and disarmament director of the Nyack, N.Y.-based FOR, said the sanctions”are instruments of violence, and only nonviolence can address the need for peace and justice for Iraqis and all the peoples of the Middle East.”
Brazil’s bishops defend the poor stealing food
(RNS) The top leaders of Brazil’s Roman Catholic Church have defended the poor and starving who have”invaded”supermarkets and warehouses belonging to the National Food Company in order to steal food to survive.
The”invasions,”as they are called, have occurred principally in the northeast section of the country where a severe drought has brought many poor people to the brink of starvation.”The church does not condemn anybody who takes food, wherever they find it, to avoid starvation,”said Cardinal Serafim Fernandes de Araujo of Belo Horizonete.”What I have seen on television these last few days indicates that many people find themselves in an extreme situation.” Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns, archbishop of Sao Paulo and one of the most influential prelates in Latin America, echoed de Araujo.”The people of the northeast would not do it if they were not desperate,”Arns said.”And the (country’s) president has to listen to the bishops of Brazil.” But Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso expressed annoyance with the prelates, Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency, reported May 7.”It is very easy to incite people to break into supermarkets and warehouses, Cardoso said.”But it is irresponsible behavior that works against the interests of the drought victims. It disrupts the organization of all assistance we would like to get to those people.” The drought has been described as the worst experienced by Brazil in this century.
Jewish, Catholic leaders issue statement on millennium
(RNS) Leaders of the National Council of Synagogues and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops have issued a joint statement on the forthcoming millennium pledging to work for deepened mutual respect between the two faith traditions.
In the 12-paragraph statement, dated May 5 but released on Monday (May 11), leaders of the two groups said they were united in their concern to overcome the spread of religious indifference and that they would work together to bring a positive collective image of religious affiliation to the American public.”In this country … we have the opportunity to apply our institutional and academic resources to … look anew at the long history our peoples share, and to seek by joint studies a healing of memory in order to frame a common understanding upon which to base educational programming for future generations,”the statement said.
The Rev. Eugene Fisher, director of Catholic-Jewish relations for the bishops’ Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, said it is hoped the statement”will help spark responsible creativity in local communities … as they seek ways in which the passing of the 20th century may be commemorated in ways that will ensure a brighter future for the next thousand years of Catholic-Jewish relations.”
Ultra-Orthodox politicians threaten to topple Netanyahu over draft
(RNS) Ultra-Orthodox politicians threatened Monday (May 11) to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government if he considers a bill that would draft Jewish seminary students into the military.
Labor Party leader Ehud Barak introduced the bill on Monday. The bill reflects secular Israelis’ growing displeasure about ultra-Orthodox Jews traditionally choosing not to serve in the army.”The aim is equal sharing of the burden,”said Barak, a former armed forces chief of staff and Israel’s most highly decorated soldier, the Associated Press reported.
Starting at age 18, Israeli Jewish men must serve three years of mandatory military service in the draft.
Most ultra-Orthodox men receive a deferment. In the past year, 3,500 new deferments were granted. The bill proposes that new deferments should be reduced to 700.
Netanyahu said he would appoint a public committee to examine the issue. Ultra-Orthodox members in the prime minister’s coalition said they would bring down the government if such a panel is convened.
Holy Grail probably not fancy, but humble clay cup
(RNS) The Holy Grail, the legendary communal wine cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, was probably a humble clay cup.
That’s the conclusion of research by Stephen Pfann, director of the Center for the Study of Early Christianity in Jerusalem.
Pfann, an American Bible scholar, studied pottery items used in ritual dinners by the Jewish sect at Qumran that created the Dead Sea Scrolls.”They (the pottery items) are contemporary with those used probably by Jesus and his disciples, the closest thing that we have to it,”he told Ecumenical News International, a Geneva-based religious news agency.
Pfann said the pottery found in two pantries in Qumran was”thin-sided.”It often was called”metallic ware … It isn’t metal but when you click it with your finger it gives a ring.” His study suggests that when the hero of the movie”Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”was forced to select, risking his life, from rows of goblets, he made a historically accurate choice by choosing a plain one and declaring,”That is the cup of a carpenter.” Pfann said there was scant evidence of wine cups being made of fancy material, despite popular historic images of the Holy Grail as an ornate metal cup, stone chalice or a goblet.
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, a prominent scholar and priest at the Ecole Biblique (Bible School), a Catholic institute in Jerusalem, agreed the famous cup was probably not composed of metal.”The stuff at Qumran is probably the stuff that Jesus would have used,”he said.”I would think that since they were poor people it would be what the poor had used, namely not a metal cup but a clay cup.” But a former curator of the Israeli Antiquities Authority disagreed.
Fancy tableware would have been used during a Passover Seder like the Last Supper, said Joe Zias. A”pedestrian”clay cup would not have been appropriate at such a special meal.
New executive director named for The Interfaith Alliance
(RNS) A moderate Southern Baptist minister has been named the new executive director of The Interfaith Alliance, a national grassroots organization that has worked to counter religious right groups.
The Rev. Welton Gaddy, former pastor of Northminster Baptist Church in Monroe, La., is the alliance’s new leader. A former director of Christian citizenship development for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Christian Life Commission, Gaddy became a vocal dissenter to the denomination’s conservative resurgence that began in 1979. He now is the president of the Alliance of Baptists, a moderate group.
As he begins his new role, Gaddy is helping The Interfaith Alliance launch a”Call to a Faithful Decision”campaign to encourage people of a variety of faith traditions to become involved in public issues.”The time has come for the tolerant majority to be heard and to let the American people know that religious political extremists do not speak for all people of faith,”Gaddy said.
Founded in 1994, The Interfaith Alliance claims a membership of 75,000 from more than 50 denominations and traditions.
Quote of the day: The presidents of the World Council of Churches
(RNS)”The year of Jubilee is not a time of respite from taking action for another 50 years. Rather, Jubilee is a time for immediate action, to bring about drastic and radical changes in situations. Therefore, we urge you to evaluate the existing pattern of relationships this season of Pentecost and to take serious note of the biblical imperatives to transform these relationships into those based on justice and dignity rather than charity and pity.” _ The seven presidents of the World Council of Churches in their Pentecost statement reflecting on the biblical concept of the year of Jubilee and the WCC’s 50th anniversary.
DEA END RNS
