c. 1999 Religion News Service
House: Top court should back prayer at school sporting events
(RNS) The House of Representatives has urged the Supreme Court to uphold the constitutionality of school-sanctioned prayers at public high school sporting events, drawing the rebuke of groups that monitor church-state separation issues.
The House action came in connection with a resolution that was largely symbolic and had no force of law. The House approved the bipartisan measure by a voice vote that followed a brief debate Tuesday (Nov. 2).
The legislators acted in response to a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling earlier this year that said organized game prayers were unconstitutional. It did not preclude prayers by individual students.
The ruling impacted events in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The Supreme Court has been asked to review the case.
Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-Texas, said the”foolish”circuit court decision threatened the long-standing tradition of pre-game prayers at football games and other sports events.
Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., cast the resolution as support for religious freedom.”We must stand up for our students’ rights to freely observe their religious beliefs,”he said.
However, the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called the resolution”shameless political posturing.””The Supreme Court, not Congress, decides constitutional issues such as school prayer. The House ought to find something better to do with its time.” In a letter to members of Congress, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism called the resolution”divisive”and said”it offends millions of Americans.””Notwithstanding the view of the resolution’s sponsors, there is not one Constitution for football players and another for all other students,”the center said.
Woman’s Missionary Union, Baptist auxiliary, to lay off staffers
(RNS) The Woman’s Missionary Union, the auxiliary to the Southern Baptist Convention, has announced that it will eliminate about one-fourth of its staff positions at its headquarters in Birmingham, Ala.
The downsizing will”stabilize expenses,”agency leaders said when they announced the move Tuesday (Nov. 2).
Most of the positions to be eliminated are in the areas of customer service, order entry and information technology, said Teresa Dickens, spokeswoman for the auxiliary.
A total of 39 jobs are expected to be lost out of a current 150 total staffers, reported Associated Baptist Press, an independent news service.
Most of the work performed by the 39 affected staffers will be done by third-party vendors in the future, Dickens said. The changes are expected to take place by March 31, and all current employees will be permitted to keep their posts at least through the end of January.”The challenge of staying current in technology has been consuming more and more of our fiscal budget for several years,”said Wanda Lee, national president of the auxiliary.”In an effort to stabilize these expenses, the WMU executive board previously discussed and affirmed the possibility of contracting with outside vendors to assume these responsibilities.” Lee said the change will allow her organization to focus more on the missions-education resources it provides to churches.”While this is a reasonable decision from a business standpoint, it is a heart-wrenching situation from a personal angle,”she said.”All the employees at national WMU are loyal, dedicated workers. They see their jobs as a ministry and thereby are not just working, but fulfilling a spiritual commitment.” Lee said those who are laid off will receive a”generous”severance package.
Top Methodist judicial body bars unofficial congregational labels
(RNS) The United Methodist Church’s top judicial body has ruled that congregations cannot give themselves labels linking them to such independent movements in the church as those that support or oppose gay rights.”A local church or any of its organizational units may not identify or label itself as an unofficial body or movement,”the Judicial Council ruled during its meeting Oct. 27-30 in Evanston, Ill.”Such identification or labeling is divisive and makes the local church subject to the possibility of being in conflict with the (Book of) Discipline and doctrines of the United Methodist Church.” The council decided in 1998 that churchwide agencies and annual conferences, or regional bodies of the denomination, were two groups that may not take on labels such as”Reconciling”or”Transforming,”the United Methodist News Service reported.
The new decision extends the ban on such labels to the congregational level.”Reconciling Congregations”welcome members regardless of sexual orientation and”Transforming Congregations”support the beliefs that gays can be converted into heterosexuals and that homosexuality is a sin.
There are 160″Reconciling Congregations”and 25″Reconciling Campus Ministries,”according to a recent statement from the Chicago-based Reconciling Congregation Program.”Our decision does not mean that all bodies within the church should not be encouraged to engage in study, educational forums, conversation and prayer around sensitive and controversial issues with the aim of finding healing and reconciliation for the sake of the gospel,”the council said.
It added words of praise for the church’s historic commitment to critical social issues, reconciliation and witness.
In a separate matter, the council ruled that the open meetings rule of the denomination does not apply to the Council of Bishops.
Citing biblical precedent, pope urges debt relief in Holy Year
(RNS) Citing a biblical precedent for debt relief in a Holy Year, Pope John Paul II reiterated his call Wednesday (Nov. 3) for creditor nations to forgive all or part of the crushing debt of the world’s poorest countries in the year 2000.
John Paul, a strong advocate of debt relief for developing countries, discussed the ethical aspects of the issue at his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square, which was attended by some 12,000 pilgrims. He invoked an”ethics of survival.””The problem is complex and not easily solved,”the Roman Catholic pontiff said.”It must, however, be clear that it is not only of an economic character but is invested with fundamental ethical principles, and space must be found in international law to face it and resolve it adequately according to medium- and long-term perspectives.”It is necessary to apply an `ethics of survival’ to regulate relations between creditors and debtors in such a way that the debtor in difficulty might not be pressed under an insupportable weight,”he said.
The pope said this could be done by avoiding”abusive speculation”and by reassuring creditor nations with political, bureaucratic, financial and social reforms in the debtor nations.”Today, in the context of economic globalization, the problem of international debt is all the more thorny, but that very globalization requires that we travel the road of solidarity if we do not want to meet with a general catastrophe,”he warned.
John Paul noted that during the biblical Holy Year, as described in the Old Testament Book of Leviticus, the Israelites did not cultivate the soil but recovered land and buildings they had transferred away to other ownership and freed slaves who had been sold to settle debts to fellow countrymen.”Regarding the possession of real estate, the regulation of the biblical jubilee rested on the principle according to which the `land is God’s’ and therefore given for the advantage of the entire community,”the pope said.”For this reason, if an Israelite transferred away his land, the holy year allowed him to reclaim it.” The pope said that the Christian jubilees, started by Pope Boniface VIII in 1300, recalled the”social values”of the biblical celebration by reflecting”the needs of the common good and the universal destination of the goods of the earth.” Holy Year 2000, he said,”could constitute a propitious occasion for goodwill gestures, the richer countries giving signings of faith with respect to the economic recovery of the poorest nations.”Market operators know that in the dizzying process of economic globalization, it is not possible to save oneself by oneself,”John Paul said.”The goodwill gesture of condoning the debts or at least reducing them would be a sign of a new way of considering riches as being in service for the common good.”
Jewish charity groups ask for civil discourse in return for money
(RNS) A coalition of 11 Jewish philanthropies _ concerned about ongoing hostility between competing Jewish religious and political groups _ has pledged to withhold grants from organizations that engage in”uncivil discourse.” The coalition is taking out advertisements in 35 Jewish newspapers across the United States and Canada to drive home its message.”A diversity of views is a sign of healthy debate,”says the ad.”Sensationalism and slander are not.” Michael Charendorff, vice president of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, a member of the coalition, said”there should be economic consequences when people speak irresponsibly about other members and groups in the Jewish community,”the Jewish Telegraphic Agency news service reported Wednesday (Nov. 3).
Sanford Cardin, executive director of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, said the ad was meant as a statement of intent and not a threat.”Every now and then, we all need to be reminded that we’re all one Jewish family,”he said.
Among the larger coalition members were Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation, the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation, Jewish Life Network: A Judy and Michael Steinhardt Foundation, and the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.
In the view of many Jews, the assassination four years ago of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin resulted from bitter infighting between Jewish groups with differing views on the Middle East peace process.
Mexico’s `bishop of the poor’ retires
(RNS) Bishop Samuel Ruiz, known as the”bishop of the poor”for his staunch defense of southern Mexico’s Indian peasants, retired on his 75th birthday Wednesday (Nov. 3) after four decades as head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas.
Ruiz was accused by his critics of siding with the Zapatista rebels, who called for many of the same economic and political reforms that he had long espoused. Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo accused him of supporting violence against the largely non-Indian landowners, who Ruiz believes routinely exploit the Indian peasants who work for them.
In 1993, the Vatican’s papal nuncio, or envoy, to Mexico asked him to resign. But some 20,000 Indians marched in his support and the envoy backed down.
Ruiz said he would move to the central Mexican state of Queretaro.
Saudi government arrests Filipino Christians at prayer meetings
(RNS) Some 40 Filipino Christians were arrested in Saudi Arabia Oct. 8 after police in Riyadh raided prayer gatherings in two private homes, according to reports.
Muslim Saudi Arabia does not allow the public practice of other faiths. Officially, private non-Muslim worship is allowed, but it often is not tolerated by the Saudi Muttawa, or religious police.
Twenty-seven of those arrested were released the same day, according to Newsroom, an evangelical-oriented news agency that monitors religious freedom issues. The remaining 13 were released Sunday (Oct. 31).
Police required those arrested, who were in Saudi Arabia for jobs, to sign statements promising not to attend religious meetings in the Arab nation.
After their release, those arrested were told they would be deported.
Report: Catholic bishop loyal to Rome disappears in China
(RNS) A bishop of China’s underground Roman Catholic Church has been arrested and his whereabouts are unknown, according to the Cardinal Kung Foundation, a Stamford, Conn.-based group that monitors religious freedom in China.
The foundation said Tuesday (Nov. 2) Bishop Jia Zhoguo, 65, who has already spent 20 years in Chinese prisons, was detained Aug. 15 and has been held at an unknown location ever since.
China’s underground Catholic church is loyal to the Vatican and its members are frequently subject to harassment and arrest. An official Catholic church sanctioned by Beijing also exists in China.
China closely controls all religious activity. In addition to underground Catholic and Protestant Christians, some Buddhists, Muslims and members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement are persecuted by China, according to reports by the U.S. government and human rights agencies.
New bishop for scandal-scarred Scottish diocese
(RNS) Three years after the resignation of its previous bishop, Roddy Wright, who ran off with a divorced mother of three, the Scottish diocese of Argyll and the Isles at last has a new bishop.
He is 66-year-old Msgr. Ian Murray, vicar general of the archdiocese of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, whose appointment was announced Wednesday (Nov. 3) at a news conference.
Murray studied for the priesthood at the Royal Scots College at Valladolid,Spain. He returned there from 1963 to 1970 as vice rector and subsequently from 1987 to 1994 as rector, when he oversaw the college’s move to Salamanca.
After Wright’s disappearance with Mrs. Kathleen Macphee, it was learned that 16 years earlier he had had another affair which had led to the birth of a son.
Argyll and the Isles covers the Western Highlands and Islands, a region largely depopulated by the”clearances”_ forced removal from the land _ that took place from the late 18th century. It includes a number of Catholic enclaves, notably the Gaelic-speaking islands of South Uist and Barra, and on the mainland Morar, the area around Mallaig and Arisaig.
Quote of the day: The Rev. Barry Lynn, church-state separationist
(RNS)”They are truly mistaking magic for morality and faith for a rabbit’s foot.” _ The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, speaking at the organization’s annual meeting in Washington about how some people believe posting the Ten Commandments at Columbine High School might have prevented the shootings at the Littleton, Colo., school in April. He was quoted by Associated Baptist Press, an independent news service.
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