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November
21, 2005 
VOL.
43, NO. 20Oakland,
CA
|
AIDS in Papua New
Guinea RNS PHOTO/ REUTERS/David Gray
Remembering terror victims RNS PHOTO/REUTERS/Ammar Awad |
|
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New
U.S. ambassador RNS PHOTO/REUTERS/Osservatore Romano |
Chinese police detain elderly
Catholic bishop
BEIJING (AP) - Security forces in China have detained an elderly bishop
in the country's non-government controlled Catholic Church for the eighth
time in two years, a U.S.-based monitoring group reported.
Government agents took Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo, 70, from his home in
Zhengding on Nov. 9. According to the Cardinal Kung Foundation, the agents
said they were taking the bishop to a “study session.”
Religious groups say Bishop Jia has been repeatedly detained over his
refusal to affiliate himself with the government-controlled Catholic Patriotic
Association, which rejects Vatican authority over issues such as the naming
of bishops.
A day earlier, police also detained two other priests from Bishop Jia's
diocese, Father Li Suchuan and Father Yang Ermeng.
President
Bush urged to condemn torture
NEW YORK (RNS) - A broad coalition of religious, legal and human rights
organizations has urged President Bush to condemn acts of torture.
“For more than a century United States policy prohibited torture,”
reads the coalition's letter to the president. “The prohibition
served us well and must be restored in U.S. policy and practice. U.S.
engagement and complicity in torture and inhumane treatment are grave
legal and moral wrongs.”
Religious signatories include organizations representing Muslims, Quakers,
Catholics and Unitarian Universalists. They joined groups ranging from
the American Humanist Association to Amnesty International USA to the
National Immigrant Solidarity Network.
State
Dept. cites 'concern' for religious freedom
WASHINGTON (RNS)- The U.S. State Department has issued its annual international
religious freedom report, citing Saudi Arabia as among the list of nations
designated as “a country of particular concern” regarding
religious freedom.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also redesignated Burma, China, Eritrea,
Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Vietnam as countries where “particularly
severe violations” continue to occur.
Actor given Catholic award for help in Iraq
BEVERLY HILLS (RNS) - Actor Gary Sinise has been honored by Catholics
In Media Associates (CIMA) for his extensive but quiet work visiting U.S.
troops and aiding Iraqi schoolchildren.
Sinise stars in the CBS crime drama “CSI: NY” and is known
for playing Lt. Dan in 1994's Tom Hanks hit movie “Forrest Gump.”
But what prompted CIMA to give Sinise its first humanitarian award was
how, for the past 20 months, he has raised more than $500,000 as co-founder
of Operation Iraqi Children, which buys school supply kits for students
who had been sharing one pencil per Iraqi classroom.
When he accepted his award, Sinise said that when a U.S. military convoy
recently drove by one school, the children appreciated their new pencils
and other items and warned the troops that the road ahead had been mined
by insurgents.
Calif.
church to fight IRS probe of sermon
PASADENA, Calif. (RNS) - An Episcopal Church says it will fight to keep
its tax-exempt status in light of an Internal Revenue Service investigation
into a politically charged sermon.
The Rev. Ed Bacon, rector of All Saints Church, said the church learned
of the investigation in June, and he made it public in early November
because the IRS appears to be close to a decision on the matter.
The investigation was triggered by an Oct. 31, 2004 sermon of Rector Emeritus
George Regas, entitled “If Jesus Debated Senator Kerry and President
Bush.”
While many churches deal with politics in general from the pulpit, they
are enjoined from making endorsements if they wish to stay tax-free. Church
leaders say they have done nothing wrong.
“There's much more at stake than All Saints in this” investigation,
said Bacon. “I think it's a defining moment about religious freedom
in the United States.”
Vatican
encourages religion – science dialog
VATICAN CITY (AP) - Cardinal Paul Poupard, who heads the Pontifical Council
for Culture, said Nov. 3 the faithful should listen to what secular modern
science has to offer, warning that religion risks turning into “fundamentalism”
if it ignores scientific reason. But he said science, too, should listen
to religion.
Cardinal Poupard made the comments at a news conference on a Vatican project
to help end the “mutual prejudice” between religion and science
that has long bedeviled the Catholic Church and is part of the evolution
debate in the United States.
“We know where scientific reason can end up by itself: the atomic
bomb and the possibility of cloning human beings are fruit of a reason
that wants to free itself from every ethical or religious link,”
he said. “But we also know the dangers of a religion that severs
its links with reason and becomes prey to fundamentalism.”
Wal-Mart
apologizes for denying Christmas
BENTONVILLE, AR (RNS) -- Retail giant Wal-Mart altered its website to
acknowledge Christmas less than one day after the New York-based Catholic
League began a national boycott against the company.
The boycott, enacted because of perceived discrimination against Christmas,
but not Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, was abandoned when Wal-Mart revised its website
Nov. 10. Wal-Mart also issued an apology for a customer service e-mail
that claimed Christmas does not have religious roots.
'Mamma
Rosa' could become patron saint
VATICAN CITY (RNS) - As the Vatican pushes for greater public appreciation
of large families, it is promoting the possible sainthood of an Italian
woman who raised 11 children.
Eurosia Fabris, known as “Mamma Rosa,” was beatified Nov.
6 in Vicenza, near her native village in rural northern Italy, completing
the last formal step before sainthood. If she is canonized, many expect
Fabris to become a patron saint for large families - a dwindling demographic
to which Pope Benedict XVI has recently called attention.
Fabris, who lived between 1866 and 1932, took care of two children after
their mother died and she later married their father -- a step defined
as an “act of charity” by local churchmen. The couple subsequently
had nine children, three of whom became Catholic priests and one of whom
became a nun.
Intelligent
design ruling expected in Dec. or Jan.
PITTSBURG, PA (RNS) - A six-week federal trial in Pennsylvania over a
school district's policy on intelligent design has ended with both sides
claiming victory on the issue of how science should be taught in public
schools.
U.S. Middle District Court Judge John E. Jones III plans to issue a ruling
in December or January on whether the Dover Area School District's policy
is constitutional, as the district has argued, or a violation of the First
Amendment's Establishment Clause, as is alleged by 11 parents who filed
the lawsuit to have the policy revoked.
At issue is not just whether the board's policy was adopted with religious
intent, but whether intelligent design - which holds that some aspects
of life are so complex they must be the work of an intelligent designer
- is religious.
Vatican, Israel face issue of taxes
VATICAN CITY—Forty years ago, the Vatican issued Nostra Aetate,
officially ceasing to blame Jews for the death of Christ. Since then,
acts of reconciliation have come to define relations between the Holy
See and Israel.
But one issue remains stalemated: the Vatican’s rights to property
and tax exemption in the Holy Land.
Under current Israeli laws, the Church has no access to judicial courts
when land ownership disputes occur and is not guaranteed the tax exemptions
the Vatican and other religious institutions routinely receive in other
countries.
Out of respect for Catholicism’s deep roots in the Holy Land, Israeli
officials have generally granted tax exemptions to Catholic properties.
But in recent years, local and regional governments have begun pressing
for back taxes on Catholic hospitals and other non-church properties dating
back to Israel’s creation in 1947.
Priests defended aftera negative ‘avalanche’
WASHINGTON (AP) – The president of U.S. Catholic bishops has defended
American priests, saying a ``handful’’ of miscreants who sexually
abused minors have forced the rest of the clergy ``to endure an avalanche
of negative public attention.’’
Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., told a meeting of the U.S.
hierarchy that despite that scandal and job pressures caused by the declining
total of clerics, three recent surveys show a ``high level of morale among
priests.’’
New Orleans Archdiocese reports $40 million deficit
The Archdiocese of New Orleans faces a year-end deficit of up to $40 million
and is seeking private and corporate donations to forestall more layoffs
in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
The archdiocese, which once employed 9,000 people, has already shed 2,000
jobs through layoffs or resignations of employees who did not return after
Katrina struck Aug. 29
Moreover, Katrina’s property damage will certainly outstrip the
church’s insurance coverage, although by how much isn’t clear
yet.
Slightly more than one-third of the archdiocese’s 151 parishes and
missions remain closed.
Nearly a third of the Church’s 1,244 buildings flooded; nearly 70
percent of its buildings suffered wind damage. Many suffered both.
