c. 2005 Religion News Service Bush Affirms Faith and Family at Hispanic Prayer Breakfast WASHINGTON (RNS) Speaking to hundreds of Hispanic clergy, most of them evangelical Christians, President Bush testified to the power of faith at the annual National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast on Thursday (June 16). “It really is the strength of America, isn’t it?” said Bush, referring to prayer, in a short speech sprinkled with Spanish phrases. “America is founded on los valores de fe y familia” (the values of faith and family) he said. The crowd interrupted Bush’s speech with bursts of applause and shouts of “amen” and “yes.” In an interview after the speech, the Rev. Danny Cortes, senior vice president of Esperanza, said he identified with the president’s message. “This is our core value,” he said, “to preach and live the values of the Gospel. That’s at the center of what evangelicals do.” Republican and Democratic leaders joined the president at the gathering, which featured Latino musicians, a hot breakfast and prayers for American lawmakers. “. . . Americans are a faith-filled people, and the personally held faith of millions leads to great acts of conscience, charity and community,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat. She listed programs on employment, social security, immigration and education as examples of “policies that reflect our faith.” Tom Ridge, former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, also spoke at the event. “Religion and morality were the cornerstones of this country and this great democracy,” he said. This was Bush’s fourth Hispanic prayer breakfast. Last year he appeared via a recorded video message. The event was founded in 2002 by the Rev. Luis Cortes, president of Esperanza USA, a Philadelphia-based religious charity that has received millions of dollars in federal grants. The Hispanic prayer breakfast gives politicians a chance to stump with a group of “uncommitted” voters, said Ted Jelen, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “Because a lot of Hispanics are fairly recent arrivals to the U.S. and don’t have firm ties to either political party as they haven’t been voting that long … it’s a very important swing constituency,” he said. According to Jelen, the Republican party is becoming increasingly interested at the presidential level in reaching out to Hispanics, a consituency that tends to be religious, socially conservative and has large communities in swing states including Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada. _ Nancy Glass Pope, Leaders of World Council of Churches, Reaffirm Quest for Unity VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI met with leaders of the World Council of Churches Thursday (June 16) and reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s “irreversible” commitment to the search for Christian unity. Both the pope and the Rev. Samuel Kobia, secretary general of the WCC, indicated that they wanted to put behind the strains caused by a controversial Vatican document that asserted that only Catholics were assured of salvation. The document, entitled “Declaration Dominus Iesus (Lord Jesus),” was issued in 2000 by Benedict, who was then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican’s top authority on church doctrine. Since his election as pope on April 19, however, Benedict has repeatedly stressed the need for ecumenical dialogue to “rebuild the full and visible unity of all Christ’s followers.” “The commitment of the Catholic Church to the search for Christian unity is irreversible,” Benedict told the WCC delegation. He urged “concrete gestures” toward this goal. Kobia invited the pope to visit the council’s headquarters in Geneva as his predecessors, Paul VI and John Paul II, had done. This, he said, would be “one more concrete step in our long journey towards visible unity.” The Catholic Church does not belong to the WCC, a union of 330 Orthodox and Protestant churches, but it formed a Joint Working Group with the council in 1965 to maintain contact and cooperation. Kobia told the pope that he saw three areas for further cooperation _ spirituality, teaching ecumenism to young people and dialogue on the “fundamental” question of whether Christian churches can “recognize each other’s baptism as well as their ability or inability to recognize one another as churches.” “Dominus Iesus” stated that with the exception of the Orthodox churches, other Christian faiths “suffer from defects” and therefore are “ecclesial communities” and not “churches in the proper sense.” _ Peggy Polk Update: Protests Pay Off as Massachusetts Catholic Church to Open Again
(RNS) Nearly 10 months after launching a defiant sit-in that sparked a trend among Boston area parishes slated for closure, St. Albert the Great Church in Weymouth, Mass., has received an official ruling: the church doors will re-open.
Roman Catholic Archbishop Sean P. O’Malley this week (June 13) issued a decree reinstating the parish and appointed a priest to serve as pastor. Parishioners, who had been taking turns sleeping in pews, greeted the news with cheers and hugs.
“I think you have seen that David did slay Goliath,” said Mary Akoury, co-chair of the parish council, in remarks quoted by the Boston Globe.
Last year, St. Albert’s was one of 83 parishes planned for closure in a cost-cutting measure launched by a diocese strained by priest shortages, slumping donations and emotional turmoil from the clergy sexual abuse crisis. After St. Albert’s parishioners refused to go, members of seven other area parishes due to close followed suit, staging “vigils” of their own.
Acting on a recommendation from a committee appointed to review the closure process, O’Malley reversed the initial decision earlier this year and completed the canonical process for reinstatement this week. Other parishes have learned a lesson to “find your own voice, be strong and stand up for your rights,” said Peter Borre, co-chair of the Council of Parishes, a Boston area group supportive of congregations holding vigil.
“Given that St. Albert’s was the very first to mobilize a sit-in, given that they have been told that they may re-open as a full parish and not just as a chapel, that tells me it pays to take a tough line,” Borre said in an interview.
“In other words, the meek do not inherit the Earth. The meek inherit night soil,” he said, referring to manure collected by peasants.
_ G. Jeffrey MacDonald
New England Methodists Join Push to Divest From Israel
(RNS) The mainline Protestant movement to divest from companies that do business in Israel has gained more momentum with a vote by the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church to join the effort.
At the group’s annual conference June 11, a resolution passed calling for creation of a committee to determine within six months which of the denomination’s investments “support Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories” and to consider divesting from those companies.
The United Methodist Church, the largest of the mainline denominations, had not previously joined the divestiture movement, though in 2004 the denomination adopted a resolution called “Opposition to Israeli Settlements in Palestinian Land.”
Other denominations, chiefly the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ and the worldwide Anglican Communion, have taken up the divestment issue as a way to protest what they say is unjust Israeli occupation of and expansion into Palestinian-held territory.
The New England Conference of the United Methodist Church said in its resolution that companies “should not profit from the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land or the destruction of Palestinian homes, orchards and lives.”
The goal of divestment, the resolution said, is not to damage Israel’s economy or the U.S.-based companies that do business there. Rather, it said, “the goal is to make all United Methodists and other Americans aware of their relationship to companies that benefit from the Israeli occupation and give them an opportunity to withdraw from such relationships, so they are not participants in human rights violations that violate Christian principles and international law.”
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
American Missionaries Attacked in India, Sent Back to U.S.
(RNS) Christian groups in India are condemning attacks on four American missionaries in the western Indian state of Maharashtra on June 11.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, in a statement to the media, described the violence as an attack on a peaceful religious gathering.
“It is very unfortunate that foreign nationals are not being treated well in our country, which has a rich tradition of (welcoming) guests,” said spokesman Babu Joseph.
John Dayal, president of the All India Christian Council (AICC), said in an interview that his group will make an independent inquiry into the incident and expressed concern about the escalating violence in states like Maharashtra.
The four American missionaries _ Philip Allan, Clover Edward, Craig Allen and Richard Jenal _ are from a Church of Christ congregation in North Carolina. They were attacked with clubs and swords on June 11 in Malsani, a suburb close to the western Indian commercial capital of Bombay, for being involved in a Bible reading session.
The police, instead of nabbing the attackers, bundled up the Americans and sent them back to the United States, saying they were violating visa regulations.
Indian law forbids those entering on a tourist visa to indulge in preaching or religious activity. The missionaries refute the police theory, saying they were only in a Bible study.
_ Steven David, in Bangalore, India
Episcopalians See `Genuine Holiness’ in Gay Relationships
(RNS) Leaders of the Episcopal Church on Tuesday (June 21) stood by their decision to ordain an openly gay bishop and to bless same-sex unions, with a report arguing that there is a “genuine holiness” among gays and lesbians.
A 130-page report was drafted by seven U.S. theologians and presented to the Anglican Consultative Council, a global steering committee of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion that is meeting in Nottingham, England.
In February, senior Anglican bishops asked the U.S. and Canadian churches to “voluntarily withdraw” their delegates to the ACC meeting and instead explain their rationale for blessing gay unions and allowing openly gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson to serve in New Hampshire.
The U.S. report said the Bible does not speak of homosexual “faithful and committed lifelong unions,” and argued that committed gay relationships can be “open to God’s blessing and holy purposes.”
“This growing awareness of holiness in same-sex relationships has caused the Episcopal Church to face some difficult questions that we did not always want to face,” the report said.
The report, which was approved by Episcopal Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, said banning gay unions would reinforce “discrimination, oppression and violence” against gays and lesbians. It also said the church benefits from elevating “marginalized persons” into leadership posts.
The report urged other members of the Anglican Communion to respect more progressive notions of sexuality. “No one culture, no one period of history, has a monopoly of insight into the truth of the Gospel,” the report said.
A similar report by the Anglican Church of Canada, which has come under international criticism for blessing gay unions in a Vancouver-based diocese, said the church is “in the midst of a conversation” on gay issues.
The three U.S. representatives to the ACC meeting _ one bishop, one priest and a laywoman _ are at the meeting but have agreed not to participate. Griswold invited five other people to present the U.S. church’s position.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Editors: Search the RNS photo Web site at https://religionnews.com for current and historic photos of Graham to accompany the following story.
Graham Promises to Avoid Politics During New York Crusade
NEW YORK (RNS) Billy Graham promised in a Tuesday (June 21) news conference to avoid politics during his New York crusade, saying that in the past “many times I went too far” in mixing politics and religion.
“At my age, I have only one message,” said Graham, 86, referring to the gospel message he plans to preach in New York’s Flushing Meadows Park Friday (June 24) through Sunday.
Graham began his career outspoken on many social and political issues, particularly communism, which he vehemently opposed. But Graham has steadily backed away from the political arena. In recent years he has confined himself to comments against racism and poverty.
“If I get up and talk about some political issue, it divides the audience,” Graham said. “What I want is a united audience to hear only the gospel. Many times I went too far talking about such issues.”
He has maintained friendships with presidents of both political parties, and praised both the Clinton and Bush families in his remarks.
He was also careful not to criticize other Christian leaders who are more politically outspoken.
During an interview with Larry King last week, Graham voiced his continued opposition to abortion and gay marriage but said that he was “not getting into it.” He said he also regretted that he talked politics too much with President Nixon.
Graham said he sees his New York crusade as an opportunity to reach across political and ethnic divides in one of the most diverse cities in the world. “I know that the problems of the world are there,” said Graham.
_ Jason Anthony
Zimbabwe’s Bishops Condemn `Gross Injustice’ of Cleanup Campaign
(RNS) Zimbabwe’s Roman Catholic bishops have issued a pastoral letter condemning what they call the “gross injustice done to the poor” in the government’s demolition of shanty homes and flea markets.
Four weeks after the government campaign began, the bishops said in their Monday (June 20) letter, “The Cry of the Poor,” “countless numbers of men, women with babies, children of school age, the old and the sick, continue to sleep in the open air at winter temperatures near to freezing. … We condemn the gross injustice done to the poor.”
Also on Monday, the United Nations said it was sending a special envoy to Zimbabwe to investigate the campaign, dubbed “Operation Restore Order.”
“President Robert Mugabe … has agreed that the special envoy of the secretary-general should visit the country as soon as possible to study the scope of the recent eviction of illegal dwellers, informal traders and squatters, and the humanitarian impact it has had on the affected population,” said Stephane Dujarric, Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s spokesman, in a statement.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli called the campaign a “tragedy, crime, horror that the government of Zimbabwe is perpetrating on its people.”
“It really is obscene what’s going on there _ where the government destroys homes and businesses of Zimbabwe’s poor in some perverse, misguided move to respond to political opposition or to respond to economic factors,” Reuters quoted the State Department spokesman as saying.
An estimated 200,000 people have been left homeless by the cleanup campaign, and thousands of informal businesses and flea market stalls have been flattened and their goods confiscated.
_ David E. Anderson
Pennsylvania Legislative Panel Hears Debate on Creation Theory
(RNS) A Pennsylvania legislative panel is considering legislation to allow schools to include the theory of intelligent design when discussing evolution.
“Let it be taught alongside” evolution, subcommittee Chairman Rep. Samuel E. Rohrer, R-Berks County, said near the end of a Monday (June 20) hearing before the House subcommittee on basic education.
The panel took no action, but is expected to discuss the issue next month.
Intelligent design surfaced as an issue last year when the Dover Area School District in York County required that it be taught in science class.
The Dover school board’s decision, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, prompted lawsuits by opponents and led to the proposal in the House.
The bill “would open the door to the teaching of a controversial theological assertion based in creationism,” said Janice Rael, president of the Delaware Valley Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
She called on lawmakers to reject the measure “in order to preserve the integrity of our public school system and prevent unnecessary politicization of state education” by religious fundamentalists.
Rael called intelligent design the “antithesis of science.” She said proponents were trying to inject science in their cause to get around a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said, “The belief that a supernatural creator was responsible for the creation of human kind is a religious viewpoint, and cannot be taught in public schools along with the scientific theory of evolution.”
However, Michael Behe, professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, said the issue of intelligent design “is not a religious argument,” but one that contends “simply that some parts of nature are best explained as the result of purposeful activity.”
Larry Frankel, legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, called intelligent design “the latest alias for creationism” that “should be recognized for what it really is _ a faith-based explanation of the origin of life.”
Samuel S. Chen, a student at Emmaus High School, said he wants fellow students to have an opportunity to hear views other than those of teachers who discuss evolution.
“If evolution is indeed a scientific fact, why don’t the evolutionists simply produce the evidence to answer the questions and doubts posed by intelligent design?” he said.
_ Bill Sulon
Editors: Search the RNS photo Web site at https://religionnews.com for a photo of the “Bewitched” statue.
`Bewitched’ Statue Unveiled in Salem, Mass.
(RNS) After months of debating whether big business is trying to make light of a dark past, the Massachusetts city infamous for the witch trials of 1692 has erected a statue dedicated to the 1970s sitcom “Bewitched.”
Local dignitaries, network executives and stars from the show gathered Wednesday (June 15) in Salem to unveil the 9-foot bronze statue that features the character of “Samantha Stevens” (actress Elizabeth Montgomery) on a broomstick. The statue, now located in a downtown park, is a gift from TV Land, a Viacom network that broadcasts reruns of the show.
“The series filmed several episodes in Salem, so it is truly fitting that we would celebrate it with a statue here,” said Larry W. Jones, president of TV Land and Nick at Nite. “We are excited to honor the show with a statue in this great city.”
Most of the 1,500 or so in attendance seemed to be fans of the show, but a few brought signs to protest. One sign, described in the Boston Globe, read “Tragedy Is Not a Joking Subject.”
“They’re trampling on my heritage,” John Reilly of Gloucester, Mass., told the Globe, explaining that his ancestors included witch trial victims Mary Estes and Rebecca Nurse.
The Salem statue marks the fifth “TV Land Landmark” erected in remembrance of a popular show from years ago. The network unveiled the first one in 2000, a statue of Ralph Kramden of “The Honeymooners” at New York City’s Port Authority Bus Terminal. Others commemorate the characters of “Mary Tyler Moore,” “Andy Griffith” and “Bob Newhart” in cities affiliated with their shows.
In Salem, selling the witch motif is hardly new for the many shops and museums that reap the proceeds of witch-centered tourism, especially at Halloween. Even the local newspaper’s masthead features a witch on a broomstick.
“This sculpture blends contemporary art and pop culture together in this great historic city,” said Salem Mayor Stanley J. Usovicz Jr. “We are very excited to be the home of TV Land’s next landmark.”
_ G. Jeffrey MacDonald
Quote of the Week: Evangelist Billy Graham
(RNS) “In my mind, it is. I wouldn’t like to say `never.’ Never is a bad word.”
_ Evangelist Billy Graham in an interview with the Associated Press, stating that he thinks his last crusade may be the one he will lead June 24-26 in New York.
END RNS
