Ethics
COMMENTARY: God’s new story
By Tom Ehrich — March 17, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service (Tom Ehrich is a pastor, writer and software developer living in Winston-Salem, N.C.) UNDATED _ This flight from Newark to Rome is full and the passengers restless. Rome is merely eight hours away. I anticipate a hot meal and a feature film. What I don’t expect is sleep in this […]
NEWS ANALYSIS: Pope’s execution stance may test conservative U.S. Roman Catholics
By Bruce Nolan — February 4, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Long used to standing solidly with Pope John Paul II against birth control, abortion rights and assisted suicide, America’s Roman Catholic conservatives have been suddenly challenged by the pope’s forceful condemnation of a conservative touchstone _ the death penalty.”It’s going to be very difficult for many, sure,”said New […]
NEWS STORY: In booming economy, giving to charity is up
By Shaun Casey — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ The point is pretty obvious: When Americans have more money, they give more money to charity. An impressive $175 billion last year. Giving by individuals, encouraged by the buoyant economy, is up 10 percent, and it’s up for the third consecutive year, according to “Giving USA 1999,” an […]
Relief worker charged with vehicular manslaughter awaits trial
By Christa Brown — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service TBILISI, Georgia _ An American Catholic Relief Services worker facing charges of vehicular manslaughter believes this week’s papal visit to this former Soviet republic may help his case.”I work for a Catholic organization and I would hope that it would be brought to his attention,”said Loren Wille, 54, of Golden, […]
COMMENTARY: Haunted by the Ghost of Christmas Presents
By Kathleen O'Brien — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service (Kathleen O’Brien is a columnist for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.) UNDATED _ I have a friend who is an important part of my life. We talk several times a week, and I can’t count the number of times she’s bailed me out of problems big and small. My heart […]
COMMENTARY: Heeding anti-cult warnings
By James Rudin — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the National Interreligious Affairs Director of the American Jewish Committee.) (UNDATED) On Nov. 18, 1978, nearly 1,000 people were murdered in the People’s Temple commune in Jonestown, Guyana. Among the victims was Rep. Leo J. Ryan, D-Calif., who had come to the cult compound to investigate charges […]
NEWS STORY: Pope: The”river of human pain”is widening despite scientific advances
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY _ Pope John Paul II said Friday (Aug. 6) that despite impressive scientific advances, the”river of human pain”has widened in the 20th century because of war, drug addiction, AIDS, inequality and hedonism. In a strongly worded message for the World Day of the Sick, which will be observed […]
NEWS FEATURE: Americans giving more time, less money
By Shaun Casey — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ Americans are more willing to give their time to good causes than their money these days. A recent survey of household giving and volunteering shows that despite a booming economy, the financial contribution rate stayed at just about the same place it has been for some 30 years, […]
NEWS FEATURE: Assisted suicide debate raises care-of-dying visibility
By Julie Wolfe — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Many ethicists and clergy feel about assisted suicide advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian as the Internal Revenue Service does about tax evaders. They believe his involvement in assisted suicide is illegal, unethical or, at best, misguided. At the same time, however, they grudgingly acknowledge that Kevorkian, sentenced last month […]
NEWS FEATURE: Women’s sermons bend the gender of God
By Karen Long — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ God, said Simone de Beauvoir, tends to look a lot like whoever is in power. But Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig, a professor at Hebrew Union College in New York City, has a different visual. She preached: “God is a woman and she is growing older. “She moves more […]
NEWS ANALYSIS: Pope’s execution stance may test conservative U.S. Roman Catholics
By Bruce Nolan — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Long used to standing solidly with Pope John Paul II against birth control, abortion rights and assisted suicide, America’s Roman Catholic conservatives have been suddenly challenged by the pope’s forceful condemnation of a conservative touchstone _ the death penalty.”It’s going to be very difficult for many, sure,”said New […]
NEWS FEATURE: Abortion confession movement sparks criticism, church support
By RNS Blog Editor — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service PORTLAND, Ore. _ Standing at the altar in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary with child, next to a purple-robed priest solemnly looking on, Liane Wolters confessed to what no woman had publicly admitted in a Portland Roman Catholic church before: She had an abortion. Her highly personal […]
NEWS FEATURE: `Tainted money’: to take or take not, that is the question
By Bruce Nolan — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service NEW ORLEANS _ A former Haitian dictator reaches into his stolen wealth to help Mother Teresa’s work with the homeless in Calcutta. Michael Milken, a Wall Street tycoon who did time for securities fraud, dispenses much of his fortune to medical research centers. And Percy”Master P”Miller, a businessman who built […]
NEWS FEATURE: Lawlessness threatens Russian mission work
By Christa Brown — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service MOSCOW – When it comes to religious freedom in Russia, the world’s attention is usually focused on government restrictions on minority faiths. But in volatile and lawless southern Russia, threats to religious freedom take the much more brutal form of murder and kidnapping. In the Russian Caucasus, for example, Baptist […]
NEWS FEATURE: Fighting takes toll on Chechnya’s religious groups
By Christa Brown — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service MOSCOW _ Mikhail Ivanov, a retired Baptist truck driver, talks proudly about how he lived in the Chechen capital of Grozny for 49 of his 73 years, working as a truck driver,”helping to build the city that they are destroying now.” Ivanov, an ethnic Russian who helped lead Grozny’s beleaguered […]