c. 1999 Religion News Service
Religious leaders call for an end to sanctions on Iraq
(RNS) A group of 24 key religious leaders, including heads of major Christian denominations, has called on President Clinton to support lifting the 9-year-old, United Nations-imposed economic embargo against Iraq.
The religious leaders said there is”clear evidence”the embargo against Iraq is contributing to falling living standards and life expectancy.”By almost every measure _ such as malnutrition, child mortality and overall morbidity _ the situation of most Iraqi civilians has deteriorated markedly over the years,”they said.
The appeal was contained in a letter to Clinton dated Sept. 27 and released through the offices of the U.S. Catholic Conference on Tuesday (Sept. 28).
The sanctions were imposed by the United Nations, at the urging of the United States and other Western powers, following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent Gulf War.
The U.S. government has resisted easing the sanctions.”Since the end of the Gulf War, the U.S. Catholic bishops have repeatedly called for ending the economic embargo, but we are increasingly concerned and impatient with the morally intolerable suffering that continues in the absence of any change of policy,”said Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza of the Galveston-Houston Diocese, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Bishop Craig Anderson of the Episcopal Church, who also serves as the president of the National Council of Churches, said the appeal to Clinton was”the first time that church leaders from the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox traditions have raised our voices together.”We believe this will strengthen our common witness and impress upon our government the urgency of the situation,”he said.
The religious leaders said they appreciated the fact that there are now discussions within the U.N. Security Council about the embargo’s impact on Iraqi civilians, but they argued the United Nations-sponsored oil-for-food program currently in place”was never intended to meet the overall needs of Iraq’s people.” They called for lifting restrictions on normal trade in ordinary civilian goods”while maintaining appropriate political sanctions and a strict embargo on military-related items.””Taking these steps should not be seen as rewarding irresponsible conduct on the part of the Iraqis, but as necessary to relieve a morally intolerable situation for which the international community bears a share of responsibility.” In addition to Fiorenza and Anderson, others signers represented the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; the American Diocese of the Malanakara Orthodox Church; Armenian Church of America; Unitarian Universalist Association; Catholic Conference of Major Superiors of Men; Reformed Church in America; Episcopal Church, USA; United Methodist Council of Bishops; Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch; Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); Mennonite Central Committee; Friends United Meeting; Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America; United Church of Christ; Orthodox Church in America; Mar Thomas Church; Friends Committee on National Legislation; Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA; and the American Baptist Churches.
Hunger official: Debt reduction plan a first step _ but only that
(RNS) The World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s plan to extend debt relief to some of the world’s poorest nations is a vital step forward, the head of Bread for the World, the grass-roots Christian anti-hunger lobby, said Tuesday (Sept. 28).
But, added David Beckmann, Bread for the World president, it is only that, and the religious-driven global Jubilee 2000 campaign is far from over.
Beckmann noted that during the World Bank-IMF meeting currently going on in Washington, the wealthiest nations have agreed to commit $27 billion to debt relief and last week President Clinton asked Congress to approve funding for the U.S. share of the international plan.”If Congress does not approve the president’s request of $970 million over four years, some of the other industrial countries are likely to renege on their commitments as well,”Beckmann said.
President Clinton, in his annual prayer breakfast with clergy Tuesday, also brought up the issue.
He said he was pleased by the World Bank-IMF plan.”The United States has pushed very hard for it,”he said.”It is an entirely appropriate thing to do.” But, Clinton added, he did not want the debt reduction issue to wind up like the question of the United States’ nonpayment of its dues to the United Nations.”Now we have advocated this and gotten everybody else to agree to it; we have to pay our fair share,”Clinton told the clergy.”So I hope all of you will help us pass the legislation through Congress to do that.”
Pope urges clemency for Florida death row inmate
(RNS) Pope John Paul II has appealed to Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to grant clemency to Joaquin Jose Martinez, a Spanish citizen who is on death row in Florida.
The appeal was passed on to Bush by Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States.”As is known, the Holy Father’s entreaties to end the death penalty have become more and more frequent and pressing, especially as the third Christian millennium draws near, Montalvo wrote Bush.
The archbishop recalled John Paul’s remarks in St. Louis in January, when the pontiff said that a”sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil.” Martinez was convicted in 1997 of two counts of murder and armed robbery. His conviction is on appeal.”The Holy Father prays that the life of Mr. Martinez may be saved through the compassion and magnanimity of yourself, Mr. Governor, and through the Board of Pardons and Paroles,”the archbishop wrote Bush.”His Holiness counts on your authority to have a life spared by commuting this sentence with a gesture of mercy which would certainly contribute to the promotion of a culture of life and of nonviolence in the freedom-loving society of the United States,”he added.
Vatican foreign minister deplores Muslims’ silence on East Timor
(RNS) Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican foreign minister, has deplored the silence of Muslim leaders on the violence by pro-Indonesian militias against the mainly Catholic population of East Timor.
In an interview to appear in the October issue of the Italian monthly magazine The Christian Family, the French cleric also accused the United Nations of failing to react swiftly to the crisis.”It is sad to observe that no Muslim religious personality has raised his voice to condemn the massacres and the destruction,”Tauran said.
By contrast, he said,”Pope John Paul II was a strenuous defender of the rights of man when the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina and of Kosovo found themselves in the same situation.” The militias have killed six priests and seven nuns in their attacks on the Timorese, who voted for independence from Indonesia in a referendum Aug. 30. Another 10 members of religious orders are missing.”One cannot deny the presence of this religious component”to the conflict, Tauran said. Eighty percent of Timorese are Catholic, while Indonesia is a Muslim state.
Tauran said the Catholic Church was the target of”brutal”violence because it has sought”dialogue and reconciliation and is guilty only of remaining close to the people and defending their cultural and religious identity.” Timorese Bishop Carlos Belo shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts on behalf of the former Portuguese colony seized by Indonesia 25 years ago.
The Vatican official said he”lamented a certain slowness and incapacity to find rapid mechanisms to prevent or resolve the dramas of such amplitude”as the slaughter and destruction in East Timor.
The world must face”the problem of how to equip the U.N. to make it capable of responding effectively to this type of situation,”he said.
Noting that the United Nations organized last month’s referendum in East Timor, Tauran said the organization had an obligation to help the country achieve independence, and”thus no one has the right to act as if this choice didn’t exist.”
Supreme Court to review law limiting abortion protesters
(RNS) The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Tuesday (Sept. 28) to consider whether Colorado went too far in limiting”sidewalk counseling”by demonstrators against abortion.
The justices said they will review an appeal in which three sidewalk counselors say the state law _ an effort to protect the privacy rights of abortion clinic patients _ violated their free-speech rights.
A decision is expected sometime in 2000.
The 1993 Colorado law prohibits people from distributing leaflets, displaying signs or counseling within eight feet of others without their consent whenever they are within 100 feet of an entrance to a health clinic.
It was challenged by Audrey Himmelmann, Leila Jeanne Hill and Everitt Simpson Jr., who said they were merely advising women of abortion alternatives before the state law made them fear criminal prosecution, the Associated Press reported.
The state legislature enacted the law in response to what the state’s lawyers said was”a history of obstructive demonstrations outside such clinics.” Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar has argued that the law is necessary.”Protesters constructively blockaded clinics by surrounding, crowding, yelling at, grabbing, pushing, shoving, hitting and spitting on those seeking access, triggering dangerous physiological responses in medical patients,”he said.
The American Center for Law and Justice, a public interest law firm founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, represents the three sidewalk counselors and asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the case.”The Supreme Court has an important opportunity to clarify that there is no abortion speech exception to the First Amendment on sidewalks surrounding abortion clinics,”said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the law firm, in a statement.”Sidewalk counselors who oppose abortion should not have to surrender their constitutionally protected First Amendment rights because some people disagree with their message.”
Quote of the day: Archbishop Alan de Lastic of New Delhi, India
(RNS)”In the name of religion she was stripped, humiliated and disgraced. Today the womanhood of India has been dragged into the mire and insulted.” _ Roman Catholic Archbishop Alan de Lastic of New Delhi, India, during a sit-in demonstration on a New Delhi thoroughfare by nuns and other Christians on Sunday (Sept. 26) to protest the alleged abduction of a nun who was stripped and forced to drink urine.
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