c. 2003 Religion News Service
Episcopal Leaders Condemn USA Patriot Act
(RNS) Leaders of the Episcopal Church say new anti-terrorism legislation threatens to undo civil liberties and discriminates against Muslims.
The church’s 38-member Executive Council, which functions as a board of directors, unanimously approved a resolution condemning the USA Patriot Act and opposing “any further expansion or extension” of the controversial law.
The anti-terrorism bill threatens “our nation’s revered and fundamental respect for civil liberties” and has created a “climate of fear, mistrust, suspicion and alienation” among immigrants and minorities, the board said.
The law was passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and grants greater surveillance powers to federal authorities, automatically detains asylum seekers and limits legal contact for accused terrorists.
Almost 100 cities and counties have passed resolutions condemning the legislation, concerned that the law lays the foundations for a police state. Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh defended the law, telling Time magazine this week that “security is the means by which we achieve our fundamental freedoms.”
The Episcopal resolution “expresses solidarity with members of the Islamic faith whose loyalty to the United States has been amply demonstrated by their participation in our society as law-abiding residents.”
Suffragan Bishop Catherine Roskam of New York decried the bill during the council’s April 28-May 1 meeting in Ellicott City, Md. She said she “cannot tell you how offensive it is to New Yorkers that 9-11, which we experienced and which we suffered through, is consistently used as an excuse for this kind of oppressive legislation,” according to Episcopal News Service.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Priest Who Was Shot by Abuse Victim Indicted on Rape Charges
(RNS) A Baltimore Catholic priest who was shot by his alleged abuse victim a year ago was indicted Wednesday (May 7) on child sex abuse charges.
The Rev. Maurice Blackwell is expected to turn himself in to authorities. Each of the four rape counts carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, according to the Associated Press.
Blackwell, 57, was shot last year by Dontee Stokes, who said he confronted Blackwell on a Baltimore street to demand an apology for raping him. Stokes, 27, was later acquitted of attempted murder after he pleaded temporary insanity, but was convicted on minor gun charges.
Blackwell was removed from his inner-city parish in 1998 after he told church officials about an inappropriate relationship with another minor. Church officials had investigated Stokes’ initial claims in 1993 but found them not credible. Baltimore Cardinal William Keeler later apologized to Stokes.
A church statement said it hopes the trial “will bring some measure of peace to those who have been harmed.” Stokes’ lawyer, Warren Brown, told the Associated Press his client is “overjoyed” by the indictment. “It’s been a long time for Dontee,” he said.
Moscow Bishop Tapped to Lead Methodist Bishops
(RNS) The new president of the United Methodist Church’s Council of Bishops is the bishop of Moscow, the first prelate from the former Soviet bloc to hold the post.
Bishop Ruediger Minor will serve a one-year term as the bishops’ president. He succeeds Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher of central Illinois, and was installed during the bishops’ April 28-May 2 meeting in Addison, Texas.
Minor, a native of Leipzig, Germany, is not the bishops’ first international president, but he is the first from a former Soviet bloc country. His offices in Moscow oversee a jurisdiction that spans eight time zones.
“I hope that some of my experience and history I can bring into this service as a certain ferment, maybe even catalyst … for seeing things in different ways,” Minor told United Methodist News Service.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Vatican Confirms Papal Trip to Bosnia in June
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II will make a one-day trip to Bosnia and Herzogovina in June to beatify a Catholic layman considered the model of a European saint, the Vatican said Thursday (May 8).
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the pope will fly to Banja Luka on June 22 to proclaim Ivan Merz blessed, the rank below sainthood. It will be his 101st trip outside Italy in the almost 25 years of his papacy.
John Paul, who will turn 83 on May 18, returned May 4 from an overnight visit to Madrid. He will visit Croatia June 5-9 on his 100th trip and is expected to travel to Slovakia Sept. 11-14. He may also visit Mongolia in late August.
Merz, born in Banja Luka in 1896, was educated in Vienna and Paris and fought on the Italian front in World War II. He taught French language and literature at the University of Zagreb from which he received a doctorate in philosophy.
Although remaining a layman, he took a vow of celibacy and devoted his free time to teaching and evangelizing Croats, working for liturgical revival and helping to establish Catholic Action in Croatia.
A paper submitted to the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints to support Merz’s claim to eventual sainthood said he combined the ethnic and cultural elements of various European nations in “a harmonic whole perfectly bound together by the Catholic religion.”
“In this sense, Ivan Merz can serve as a model for the citizens of a future Europe united by its common Christian roots,” the paper said.
_ Peggy Polk
Woman Linked to Convicted Baptist Leader Dies in Prison
(RNS) The woman whose wild spending and close relationship with a Baptist minister landed them both in prison died Monday (May 5) in prison.
Bernice Vernell Edwards was 46. She was serving a nine-month prison sentence in Illinois and suffered from a “chronic pulmonary condition,” the St. Petersburg Times reported. An autopsy is scheduled to determine the exact cause of death.
Edwards was a close associate of the Rev. Henry Lyons, former president of the National Baptist Convention USA. When Lyons’ wife suspected the two of having an affair, she set fire to a waterfront mansion co-owned by Lyons and Edwards. Both denied a romantic affair.
That fire led to an investigation that resulted in charges against both Edwards and Lyons for embezzling millions from the church. In 1999, Edwards was acquitted on all charges, while Lyons was convicted of racketeering and grand theft and sentenced to more than five years in prison.
One month later, Edwards pleaded guilty to tax evasion and served 13 months of a 21-month sentence. Last year, while on probation, Edwards was accused again of financial improprieties and sentenced to nine more months in prison, where she died.
“She had a lot of characteristics that we should all aspire to, and others that we should not,” Paul Sisco, one of her lawyers, told the St. Petersburg Times.
Romanian Astronomers Claim to Pinpoint Exact Time of Crucifixion
LONDON (RNS) Two Romanian astronomers claim to have pinpointed the exact time and date of the Crucifixion of Jesus, the Internet news service Ananova has reported.
According to Liviu Mircea and Tiberiu Oproiu of the Astronomic Observatory Institute in Cluj, Romania, Jesus died at 3 p.m. on Friday, April 3, 33 A.D.
According to their reading of the New Testament data, Jesus was crucified on the day after the first night with a full moon after the vernal equinox. If the Crucifixion took place some time between the years 26 and 35, this could mean either Friday, April 7, 30, or Friday, April 3, 33. But it was only in the latter year that records show a solar eclipse as having occurred in Jerusalem (“And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour,” according to Mark 15:33).
The two astronomers have also timed the Resurrection precisely as having occurred at 4 a.m. the following Sunday, April 5.
_ Robert Nowell
Quote of the Day: Former hostage Terry Waite
(RNS) “The world of international affairs is a moral mess. I don’t know who is going to clean it up.”
_ Terry Waite, a former Anglican envoy to the Middle East who was held hostage in Lebanon from 1987 to 1991, speaking at a lecture series in Salt Lake City. He was quoted by Episcopal News Service.
DEA END RNS
