Christians call for calm after Indian verdict on holy site
ENI-10-0663

By Anto Akkara
Bangalore, India, 30 September (ENI)–Churches in India have joined other faiths and political leaders in calling for calm after a court ruled that a religious site, vigorously and violently disputed by Hindus and Muslims, should be split between the two groups.

On 30 September, the high court of northern Uttar Pradesh state handed down its verdict in the protracted case that concerns the ownership of the site of the former Babri mosque at Ayodhya, 700 kilometres (420 miles) south-east of New Delhi. The case has been pending for more than half a century.

In a majority verdict, two of the three judges declared that Hindus have the right of ownership to the main disputed area, where the main dome of the Muslim Babri mosque once stood. The court granted Muslims and a Hindu group control of other parts of the site.

Hindus consider the location the birthplace of the god Ram, and placed a Ram idol inside the mosque in 1949.

In 1992, Hindu extremists destroyed the mosque, built by the Mughal Empire ruler Babar in 1528. In the Hindu-Muslim violence that followed, more than 2000 people died.

Ahead of the court verdict, which some legal experts say is a victory for Hindu groups, the National Council of Churches in India, which groups Orthodox and Protestant churches, called for calm. “The NCCI calls upon everyone to maintain peace and harmony,” the council said in a 24 September press release.

After the verdict, Christopher Rajkumar, executive secretary of the NCCI’s justice and peace commission, told ENInews from Nagpur, “We do not want to go into the merits of the judgment at this moment. We have to study it carefully. We want peace and harmony in the country.”

Archbishop Albert D’Souza of Agra, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, echoed these sentiments, and, from Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, where Ayodhya lies, appealed for peace.

In addition, Hindu groups and leaders of various political parties have appealed for “peace and calm,” against a background of general concern marked, as a result of the verdict, by traffic disappearing off roads and businesses shutting down in many cities.

“The worst has been averted,” noted D’Souza, referring to the three-way split of the 2.6 acre disputed land that the court ordered. The site is currently under the control of the federal government.

Still, D’Souza said that he would have been happier if those who pulled down the Babri mosque in 1992 had been punished, or at least reprimanded, when the court gave its verdict.

Some Hindu groups that see the verdict as a victory for themselves have urged Muslims to accept the verdict and allow the building of a Ram temple on the disputed site, “in the national interest”.

The Muslim litigants have said they will appeal the verdict in the federal Supreme Court. [485 words]

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Evangelical Christian pilgrims converge on Jerusalem
ENI-10-0664

By Judith Sudilovsky
Jerusalem, 30 September (ENI)–Thousands of evangelical Christians from 100 countries have participated in a 30th “Feast of Tabernacles” event, organized by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, a group strongly supportive of a united Jerusalem under Israel.

The ICEJ says the event, held from 23 to 29 September to coincide with the Jewish holiday of the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot), has become Israel’s largest annual tourist event, and the largest solidarity mission to Israel.

Organizers expect the festival to have injected an estimated US$15 million into the local economy. The event takes place with the assistance of the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, and, in 2010, about 1000 pilgrims from Brazil made up the largest group at the embassy event.

Numerous Israeli leaders attended, including tourism minister Stas Misezhnikov and other members of the Israeli cabinet. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a video greeting.

The Rev. Malcolm Hedding, ICEJ executive director, said, “The Christian Embassy has established a remarkable record of standing in support of Israel and a united Jerusalem over the past three decades, whether through our many humanitarian projects … our advocacy efforts worldwide, or our annual feast gathering in Jerusalem.”

The ICEJ was founded in September 1980 at a time when 13 countries moved their embassies from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv to protest the passage by the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, of the “Jerusalem Law,” which declared Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

At that time, the Christian Embassy in Jerusalem announced it would open, “as an act of comfort and solidarity with the 3000-year-old Jewish claim and connection to this city”.

This year’s ICEJ festival included seminars, performances and prayers. Participants joined the traditional Jerusalem March on 28 September.

Some also toured a West Bank settlement to learn about the impact of the 10-month-long settlement-building freeze the day after it was scheduled to expire. Festival goers were also due to take part in an interfaith dialogue with Orthodox Jewish settlers in the West Bank settlement of Efrat.

The interfaith contact did not extend to Muslim leaders.

The local Palestinian churches have criticised some evangelical Christians, including the ICEJ, for being pro-Israeli to the extent that they ignore the plight of local Christians. Many Palestinian Christians believe Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem should be part of an independent Palestine. [388 words]
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Japan’s Catholic bishops publish English interfaith guidelines
ENI-10-0661

By Hisashi Yukimoto
Tokyo, 29 September (ENI)–Japan’s Roman Catholic bishops have published an English-language version of their guidelines for interreligious dialogue.

“Guidelines on Interreligious Dialogue – The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan,” is aimed at foreign residents in the country.

“In Japan, where the number of Christians is extremely low, Catholics frequently have contact with followers of various religions and attend other religions’ events,” the bishops explain on their Web site. “We are often puzzled or bewildered on those occasions. It must be especially hard for foreign residents, who are not familiar with Japanese unique rituals, customs, and manners.”

“This book offers clear answers to various kinds of problems in the form of questions and answers,” the bishops add.

The guidelines consist of two parts, of which the first deals with the spirit of interreligious dialogue. The second section of the book includes 88 questions and answers relating to interreligious issues, and focus on real-life conversations, theological exchanges, and religious experience.

The questions and answers relate to topics such as, “Offerings to a Buddhist altar,” “Attending non-Catholic ceremonies such as weddings and funerals,” and, “Memorial services for the ancestors.” There is also an appendix on Islam.

The bishops’ conference originally published the guidelines in Japanese in September 2009 as a follow up to its 1985, “Manual for Catholics regarding Ancestors and the Dead”.

There are currently 192 Catholic churches in Japan. Christians in Japan account for only two percent of the 127-million population, and many of the Christians are foreigners, with a big segment coming from the Philippines. [265 words]

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Atheists score high in US religion survey
ENI-10-0660

By Chris Herlinger
New York, 29 September (ENI)–If you want a question on religion answered in the United States, ask an atheist.

U.S. atheists and agnostics are among the groups that scored highest in a recent survey of knowledge of world religions by the Washington-based Pew Research Centre’s Forum on Religion and Public Life. U.S. Jews and Mormons also got top marks.

Still, the study found that white evangelical Protestants, and Mormons scored highest on questions about Christianity. Atheists, agnostics and Jews scored highest on questions about the intersection of religion and public life, such as the U.S. Constitutional guarantees and protection of religious freedom.

The survey of 3412 adults, taken between 19 May and 6 June, suggests that large numbers of Americans do not know, “about the tenets, practices, history and leading figures of major faith traditions – including their own”, Pew said when it announced the survey results on 28 September.

The study also suggests that Americans are generally knowledgeable about the basic facts of the Bible, with 71 percent of those surveyed knowing that biblical accounts say Jesus was born in the city of Bethlehem.

More than six in 10 polled, 63 percent, also correctly identified Genesis as the first book of the Bible.

The study found that, on average, those surveyed answered 16 of 32 questions correctly, with atheists and agnostics correctly answering nearly 21 questions, and Jews and Mormons answering nearly as many correctly. Protestants averaged 16 correct responses, and Catholics got almost 15 questions right.

Among the other findings:

• More than half of Protestants polled, 53 percent, could not correctly identify German reform leader Martin Luther as a key figure in the Protestant Reformation.

• Nearly half of the U.S. Catholics surveyed, 45 percent, were ignorant of a key tenet of Catholic teaching – that the bread and wine in the Mass or Holy Communion become the body and blood of Jesus Christ and do not remain, as various Protestant traditions believe, religious symbols.

• Only about a quarter of those surveyed, 27 percent, correctly said that the majority of Indonesians are Muslims; less than half of those polled, 47 percent, could not identify the Dalai Lama as a Buddhist; and only 38 percent could identify the figures of Vishnu and Shiva with the tradition of Hinduism.

• Survey results and a version of the quiz: http://www.pewforum.org/ [395 words]

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‘Keep train on track’ for Sudan peace pleads world church leader
ENI-10-0662

By Fredrick Nzwili
Nairobi, 29 September (ENI)–The general secretary of the World Council of Churches has pleaded for the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement for Sudan so that Africa’s biggest country can achieve stability.

The Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit said he understands from visits to the country, made before the signing of the pact in 2005, how Sudan desperately needs the peace agreement that ended a decades-long civil war.

“For me, this peace agreement is such a costly gift and such an opportunity that should not be lost,” Tveit told ENInews in an interview on 21 September at the beginning of a seven-day visit to Kenya and Ethiopia.

On 9 January 2011, Sudan is scheduled to hold referenda in southern Sudan and the oil-rich Abyei border region between north and south Sudan. The result could see people from the south, where Christianity and traditional religions predominate, hive off from the north, where most people are Arabs, and Islam is dominant.

The Abyei region will be choosing whether to join the north or south of the existing country.

The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army and the government in Khartoum signed their 2005 peace agreement in Kenya to end a 21-years-long civil war that had killed nearly two million people, mainly in the south.

Tveit, a Norwegian Lutheran, told ENInews, “We [churches] have to realise that in agreements like this, not everything is straight forward but we have to ‘keep the train on the track’ … In the long run, that is what matters.”

Tveit’s predecessor at the WCC, the Rev. Samuel Kobia, who has been appointed special ecumenical envoy to Sudan, has said he is deeply concerned that whatever the outcome of the Sudan referendum process is, it will be contested. Kobia believes that mechanisms to resolve any conflicts stemming from the referendum should be agreed to and put in place quickly.

“The lack of trust between the parties may lead to accusations of rigging. Any doubts in the south about the credibility of the referendum outcome could herald a return to war,” Kobia warned in a statement issued on 27 September. [362 words]

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Macau bishop says no to garbage dump at UN heritage site
ENI-10-0659

By Francis Wong
Hong Kong, 28 September (ENI)–The Roman Catholic bishop in Macau has spoken out against the building by the government of a garbage storage facility next to the city’s Church of St Lawrence, an historic building UNESCO listed as a world cultural heritage site in 2005.

Bishop Jose Lai Hung-Seng told media on 23 September, “This is not at all good.” He explained that the proposed dump would not be in harmony with the world cultural heritage site.

The bishop said his objection is not that the new storage facility would be next to a church, and hat it would be next to the cultural heritage site. He hopes and believes the government will drop its plan.

Government officials met a number of neighbourhood groups on 17 September, and told them that the garbage hut would improve local public health, and would not damage the heritage site.

Still, the St Lawrence parish has said it disagrees with the government proposal and that the garbage store will negatively impact the heritage site. The parish had previously organized a briefing session with government officials on 13 September, at which church delegates submitted their objections.

The Rev. Domingos Un, parish priest of St Lawrence’s, argues that the proposal, if implemented, will damage the cultural site, and says that as the priest who manages the church he has a responsibility to voice his concern.

He believes that the garbage hut would not fit in with the existing environment, and would worsen public health and hygiene in the area. The parish has collected hundreds of signatures of those who oppose the project, and some parishioners say the government has not discussed the issue fully with them.

According to the government’s Web site, the planned garbage hut would be one metre from the church building, and would be one metre high, with the rest of the construction underground. The authorities say they will build a mini-fountain and plant some trees in the area to improve the landscape.

Still, a Chinese expert has asked the Macao government to listen to the opinions of the neighbourhood.

He Yunao, director of the Cultural and Natural Heritage Research Centre of Nanjing University, told media during a visit to Macau from 16 to 18 September that protecting the cultural heritage site is a vital task.

St Lawrence’s Church, built in the 1560s, is located in what is now known as the “Historic Centre of Macau,” where there are more than 20 historic cultural and religious buildings. [428 words]

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West focus on gays not real issue for Africa, says Angolan bishop – Feature
ENI-10-0658

By Trevor Grundy
London, 28 September (ENI)–The 25, not-so-young, white, Christian supporters of Africa met in an almost empty London church, which had been partly destroyed in the Second World War, to hear the Anglican bishop of Angola, Andre Soares, talk about, “the real issues” facing his continent.

Bishop Soares spoke to ENINews before the start of the 2010 annual general meeting of the Mozambique Angola Association, founded 103 years ago to link Protestant churches in Britain with similar churches in the then-Portuguese territories of Africa.

“We know a great deal about the challenge of secularism and materialism. My country became independent from Portugal 35 years ago on 11 November 1975,” Bishop Soares said outside St John’s Church on Waterloo Road in central London.

“Augustino Neto, an open Marxist-Leninist, was Angola’s first president. The churches were closed; children were ordered not to attend Christian services,” Soares explained to ENInews.

“But thanks to determined men, women and children, and the power of Christ and prayer, all that has changed,” the bishop added. “Today, there is complete freedom to worship the way you want to worship in my country.”

Born in 1956 in Kinfinda village in Angola’s north western Uige province, Soares said that throughout Africa, Christians believed in the total authenticity of the Bible, and African attitudes towards gay men and lesbians must be viewed in that light.

Asked about comments made by Pope Benedict XVI during his four-day visit to Britain earlier in September, that Anglicans and Roman Catholics should work together, the bishop replied, “In the past we had problems, yes, but today we are all pulling together – Anglicans, Catholics, Christians of all denominations.”

“There are 1000 denominations in my country. You can find a church anywhere but the government only recognises 83 denominations. Of course, we are one of them,” said Soares, who was born into a Christian family and now, among other things, serves on the ecumenical Angolan Inter-Church Peace Committee.

Angola’s population is about 12.7 million, of whom about 38 percent are Catholics and 15 percent Protestants. Around 250 000 people worship regularly in the country’s Anglican churches.

Bishop Soares said that the main problems facing Angolan Christians are not gay and lesbian rights, abortion or the ordination of women as priests but poverty, disease, malaria, and the re-emergence of tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS, as well as the need for wider democracy.

Soares grew up against the background of a liberation war that led to Angolan independence in 1975, and the civil conflict that followed. He became a pastor in 1983 and was consecrated bishop in 2003, the year in which Angola became a diocese of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

“We ordained the first three women on 25 March this year,” he said. “It was a great celebration, with about 2000 people, in the presence of the vice-president of the National Assembly, Mrs Joana Lina Ramos Baptisa, and the general director for religious affairs.”

Asked about the stance on gays and lesbians in Africa, and of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s past comment that, “They are worse than dogs and pigs,” Soares said, “Well, that’s Robert Mugabe. You know what he is like. I did not hear him say that but I heard what was said in Entebbe recently on this subject.”

The bishop was referring to last month’s meeting of the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa, when bishops discussed gays and lesbians, as well as what to do about the re-emergence of TB and malaria, and the spread of HIV and AIDS.

At that gathering, Nigerian Archbishop Nicholas Okoh underscored the primacy of the family, and condemned homosexual practices, as he declared, “We do not believe two women or two men can make a family.”

Asked if he found the line that most Africans take towards gays and lesbians difficult to deal with, MANNA’S chairperson since 2007, Archdeacon of Derby the Rev. Christopher Cunliffe, said, “I am not embarrassed by that. What I seek to do is understand the context in which they are working.”

The former chairperson of MANNA, the Rev. Ken Hewitt, said of Mugabe’s controversial “dogs and pigs” statement, made at the Harare Book Fair in 1994, “He was talking about himself.”

Hewitt, who before his retirement was vicar of St Augustine’s [Anglican] Church in Queen’s Gate, London, said he was surprised that the archbishop of Uganda, the Rev. Henry Orombi, had in 2009 spoken with “vehemence” about homosexuals. “He obviously does not know his own country’s history,” said Hewitt.

He explained that in the 1880s, among a group of people known as the Christian martyrs of Uganda, there were page boys of the Kabaka (king) of Buganda, who became Christians, and then refused to sleep with the king because of their new-found faith. “He had them martyred, burnt … That was before white people got any power over there, and yet he [Archbishop Orombi] has the temerity to say that homosexuality comes from the West.” [840 words]
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Rabbi warns of ‘new intifada’ as Palestinian-settler tensions rise
ENI-10-0657

By Judith Sudilovsky
Jerusalem, 27 September (ENI)–Hours after a freeze on West Bank Israeli settlement construction expired, bulldozers moved into an area close to Revava, near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, with many residents mindful of an earlier reminder that settler activity can be volatile.

At a joint press conference in Paris with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, on 27 September, expressed his regret that Israel had not extended the moratorium on new settlement building which had expired at the preceding midnight.

A shooting incident in East Jerusalem on 22 September, in which a Palestinian man died, and the death of a young child two days later, had shown the volatility that exists when Israeli settlers move into areas where Palestinians live.

Rioting began after a private Israeli security guard shot and killed 32-year-old Samer Sarhan, a father of five, in the East Jerusalem village of Silwan. A 14-month-old Palestinian baby died two days later from tear gas inhalation in another village, to which the violence had spread.

“We are in an extremely dangerous situation right now. We have been warning for over a year that things are really at boiling point, that we are in serious danger of a third intifada exploding, which nobody wants,” said Rabbi Arik Ascherman, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, on 26 September. His statement came after four days of violence following the death of Sarhan.

Israeli police said the security guard killed Sarhan in the early morning. They said a group of Palestinians had blocked and stoned a car in which a number of guards were travelling. Palestinians say the guards had stopped their car near a group of unarmed men during a morning patrol, and then an argument broke out, which led to the shooting.

Rabbis for Human Rights activists went to the scene during the following weekend in an effort to keep tensions from escalating, said Ascherman. “We attempt to prevent excessive violence by Israeli security forces in a way which does not encourage Palestinian violence,” he explained.

Ascherman added that though Palestinians are concerned about the possible renewal of construction in the settlements, “The greatest frustration area is East Jerusalem.”

Jewish settlers claim a connection to Silwan as being the biblical “City of David” that King David built outside Jerusalem’s city walls, and have been conducting extensive archaeological excavations on the site.

Christian pilgrims also revere the site as the place where Jesus restored the sight of a blind man by the Pool of Siloam. In 2004, the remains of a water pool from the time of the second temple were uncovered. This extended an already known waterway, and matched descriptions of the pool by Byzantine pilgrims.

More recently, Silwan became a flash point in East Jerusalem, when Jewish settlers took over a building, known as Beit Yonatan, which they say was once Jewish property. Despite a subsequent municipal eviction order being issued, no steps have been taken to remove the settlers. At the same time, some 22 Palestinian homes in the area have been threatened with demolition, as the municipality plans to create an archaeological park there.

On its Web site, the BBC describes the contentious area as follows: “Israel has occupied East Jerusalem since 1967. It annexed the area in 1981 and sees it as its exclusive domain. Under international law the area is considered to be occupied territory.” [575 words]

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Ecumenical News International
Daily News Service
27 September 2010

German church loses unfair dismissal case in European court
ENI-10-0655

By Anli Serfontein
Trier, Germany, 27 September (ENI)–The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has dealt the Roman Catholic Church in Germany a blow over its employment practice by saying that the church cannot dismiss an employee because of adultery.

The European court ruled on 23 September in favour of a church musician from the diocese of Essen, in western Germany, who lost his job in 1997 after separating from his wife and forming another relationship.

In the last 13 years, church organist and choirmaster Bernhard Schueth has fought a protracted legal battle in his country. Time and again, Germany’s courts have ruled in favour of the parish of Sankt Lambertus because Schueth, like all employees of Catholic Church institutions, had to sign a pledge to uphold the values of the church.

In separating from his wife and in forming a relationship with another woman, German courts ruled that Schueth was in breach of contract with the church even though he is not divorced. Some commentators say that this legal view means that because the Catholic Church’s ruling does not accept divorce and certain moral behaviour, and employees have to sign up to its views, divorced people cannot be employed in Catholic institutions, including hospitals and educational institutions.

In its judgement, the European Court of Human Rights said, “The court found that the German labour courts had failed to weigh Schueth’s rights against those of the church employer in a compatible manner [with the European Convention on Human Rights].”

The parties now have three months to reach an amicable agreement. Schueth told a German radio station this week that he would like nothing more than to have his job back.

“That church [where Schueth worked] houses the organ that I love, and which I helped to build. I often attend concerts just to listen to it but I really want to play it again,” said Schueth

The Protestant Church umbrella, the EKD, and the Catholic Church in Germany are the country’s biggest employers after the State, and the ruling has led to renewed calls for the existing labour law exemptions that apply to religious institutions to be changed.

In a 24 September editorial, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily newspaper in Germany said, “Whoever does not live his or her life pleasing God is dismissed, and the Catholic Church determines who pleases God. A Catholic nursery school teacher who gets divorced is apparently not pleasing to God. Therefore, employees of the church and church orders – teachers, doctors, nursing staff – have until now enjoyed precarious labour relations but the time of watered-down labour law is ending.”

The newspaper wrote that, to date, the Catholic Church has put its morals above the German State’s labour laws, and added, “If the church sees the Strasbourg judgement as an inadmissible intervention in the freedom of religion, it is deceiving itself.”

The Allgemeine Zeitung in Mainz said that the judgement can be seen as a warning against a double morality. It wrote, “When, in many places in the Catholic Church, the liaisons that priests have are silently tolerated, then it is difficult to endure a situation in which a church employee loses his job because of a divorce.” [544 words]

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Make biodiversity protection a priority, ecumenical coalition urges
ENI-10-0656

By Hisashi Yukimoto
Tokyo, 27 September (ENI)–A coalition of churches and civil society pressure groups has urged governments and the tourist industry worldwide to make biodiversity protection a priority.

“Biodiversity works like a magnet for tourism. Yet, ironically, it is also one of its greatest victims,” said the Ecumenical Coalition for Tourism, in a statement released on 24 September ahead of World Tourism Day on 27 September.

The coalition is made up of regional ecumenical organizations and other groups. It is based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and aims, “to promote socially, ecologically and ethically responsible tourism”.

The group commended the United Nations World Tourism Organization for choosing the theme of “Tourism and Biodiversity” for World Tourism Day in 2010. Still, the coalition questioned whether tourism and biodiversity are the, “natural allies” that a 4 September joint statement of the U.N. tourism body and the secretariat of the U.N. biodiversity convention called them.

“Saturation mass tourism, with its impact on the environment, does not help biodiversity,” the coalition said. Such tourism disrupts ecosystems’ delicate balance as contributing to the loss of forms of life.

“At the cost of countering the growth-without-limits economic philosophy, the tourism industry needs to understand that a tourism built on no limits to tourism numbers and destinations that places undue pressure on the environment cannot be sustained indefinitely,” the coalition added.

• Ecumenical Coalition for Tourism Web site: www.ecotonline.org/
• UNWTO World Tourism Day Web site: www.unwto.org/wtd/index.php
• UNWTO homepage: www.unwto.org/index.php [255 words]

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Methodist churches in Britain using more and more languages
ENI-10-0652

(correcting headline and lead to note that it is not 90 languages spoken, but different languages at 89 churches)
By Trevor Grundy
London, 23 September (ENI)–Almost 90 Methodist churches in Britain conducted services in languages other than English and Welsh, one of the official languages in Wales, in 2009, the church has announced.

“All this reflects the multi-cultural nature of Britain in 2010,” the Rev. John Chambers, a minister at Walworth Methodist Church in London, told ENINews. “We have four fellowships in our church: Sierra Leone, Ghanaian, Zimbabwean and Nigerian.”

Chambers said that during the year, each fellowship holds its own service. “There will be readings in local languages, hymn singing in different languages, and now and again preachers from the countries concerned will address congregations. People come to the Methodist Church knowing that their ethnic traditions will be acknowledged.”

The media officer for Britain’s Methodist Church, Karen Burke, said that languages used at services include Afrikaans, Cantonese, Eritrean, Farsi, French, Hindi, Portuguese, Shona, Swahili, Urdu, and many others.

The church’s research officer, Christopher Stephens, said on 23 September, “We are collecting these statistics each year to get an accurate picture of who and what we are as a church in the 21st century.”

He explained, “The report will enable us to support local churches in their mission needs, and help congregations do the same. This report reveals that we are diverse and modern.”

With almost 241 000 members, the Methodist Church is one of the largest in Britain. It has 5237 churches in the U.K., and maintains worldwide links with other Methodist churches having a total of over 70 million worshippers. [267 words]

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24 September 2010

Muslims back Bulgarian Orthodox call for religion in school
ENI-10-0654

By Ivan Andreev
Sofia, 24 September (ENI)–The head of Bulgaria’s Muslim community has announced his backing for a campaign by the country’s Orthodox Church to make religious education compulsory in schools.

The church held a mass march in Bulgaria’s capital of Sofia on 24 September in support of its aim as protestors shouted against “60 years of atheism”, introduced during the communist era.

In a statement reported in the Bulgarian daily newspaper Klassa, the office of the Chief Mufti, who is the spiritual leader of Bulgaria’s Muslims, the second-largest religious group in the country, said, “The mufti calls on Bulgarian citizens professing the religion of Islam to support this expression of solidarity with the campaign by Christians.”

Most of Bulgaria’s population of seven million are Orthodox Christians but the country’s laws say that school education must remain secular, although in recent years the study of religion has been allowed as a voluntary subject.

The church’s governing body, the Holy Synod, approved a campaign to make the study of religion compulsory in schools, while saying that schools would have a choice of teaching about different Christian denominations, Islam or Judaism. Where schools did not wish to teach religion, ethics would be compulsory.

In an interview with the Bulgarian daily newspaper Trud, Metropolitan Nikolai of Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second city, said that religious education in schools would mean for children, “their moral strengthening, teaching them stable values, bringing them closer to the cultural achievements of European civilisation, which, forgive me, is Christian”.

Nikolai added, “Everyone is concerned about increasing juvenile delinquency, drug addiction, violence in schools … The education system does not point the way to a solution but the church suggests the right path.”

Asked why religion could not remain an elective subject, Nikolai said, “Why not make physics or chemistry, mathematics or literature elective? Sounds absurd, doesn’t it?”

Speaking to Bulgarian National Television on the eve of the 24 September Orthodox march, which was planned to centre on Sophia’s landmark Alexander Nevsky cathedral, and end with the presenting of petitions to the prime minister and speaker of parliament, Metropolitan Neofit of the town of Rousee said, “believers from all over the country” were to take part in the demonstration.

Neofit explained that the Holy Synod wanted to shape public opinion and reverse the attitude of the Ministry of Education, which opposes making religious education compulsory.

The Sofia-based news agency Focus has reported that the head of the Bulgarian Union of Teachers, Yanka Takeva, has also endorsed the church campaign.
In a series of interviews in print media and on television, education minister Sergei Ignatov, of the country’s ruling centre-right party, rejected making religious education compulsory.”I fear that Bulgarian schools could become an arena of religious rivalries,” Ignatov said. [467 words]

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24 September 2010

UN Millennium Development Goals summit gets mixed grades
ENI-10-0653

By Chris Herlinger and Peter Kenny
New York/Geneva, 24 September (ENI)–Leaders of global faith and humanitarian groups have given mixed reactions to a New York summit evaluating the United Nations’ “Millennium Development Goals”, set out a decade ago to reduce global poverty.

Political leaders at the summit acknowledged that progress towards achieving the eight MDGs by 2015 is not where it should be.

In a final “outcome document” for the 20 to 22 September U.N. summit, participants recommitted themselves to achieving the goals, which include the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger.

Church leaders have applauded the progress made so far to reduce global poverty but say more must be done.

The general secretary of the World Council of Churches, the Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, told UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon in a letter that, “Without significant transformations in global economic frameworks, the attainment of the MDGs by 2015 is endangered”.

Referring to the New York-based UN high-level summit on the MDGs, Tveit’s letter expressed concern that governments needed to do more to address the root causes of poverty. The WCC leader said that if this were not done, justice-oriented reforms would not be possible.

“In today’s globalised world, efforts by nations to meet the MDGs are more and more contingent on an enabling international economic environment,” wrote Tveit.

The world leaders meeting in New York failed to decide on what some observers claim must be done to tackle the most pressing problems hindering the elimination of poverty.

“We need action on hunger, poverty, trade and human rights, and we need it now,” said John Nduna, general secretary of the Geneva-based ACT Alliance, one of the world’s largest humanitarian and development networks, after the New York meeting.

The ACT Alliance noted that what was agreed in New York is long on promises and short on detail, and contains few of the practical agreements needed to realise the MDGs by their target date.

The MDGs aim to halve the number of people experiencing hunger, and living on less than US$1 a day by 2015. World Food Programme statistics released a week before the summit show that one in seven of the world’s population goes hungry each day.

“This is not the forgotten few we are talking about, it is the forgotten billion,” said Nduna. He added that the ACT Alliance believes poverty and hunger can be eradicated if politicians are willing to embrace innovative thinking.

This, noted Nduna, includes investing in smallholder agriculture – the main source of livelihood for people in poverty – and changing current global food policy into one based on the right to food. He said there is also the need to eliminate all export subsidies in developed countries, because these allow Western agriculture producers to sell their goods cheaply to the developing world, and poor farmers get squeezed out in the process.
David Beckmann, a Lutheran church minster and president of the Washington-based advocacy group Bread for the World, told a 22 September forum at the Yale University-backed Church Centre for the United Nations that he viewed the future with some optimism.

“I am just profoundly hopeful because hundreds of millions of people have escaped from extreme poverty in the last 20 years,” Beckmann said. He called the progress made on poverty, “the great exodus of our time,” and noted, “This is God moving in our history. This is our loving God answering the prayers of hundreds of millions of people.”

Still, others at the Yale event were pessimistic, and claimed that not enough is being done to promote equality for the poor.

Melinda St Louis, deputy director of Jubilee USA, a faith-based group working for debt forgiveness for poorer nations, said advocates for the poor needed to focus less on, “specific goals and benchmarks, and actually start talking about economic justice”.

Thomas Pogge, who teaches philosophy and international affairs at Yale, noted that while there are, “millions of success stories” and much good work done on behalf of the poor, the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization reported that in 2009 the number of chronically undernourished persons had, for the first time, risen above one billion people. He said that the poor continue to face an, “enormous headwind”.

Peter Singer, who teaches bioethics at Princeton University in the U.S., told his audience of divinity-school professors, staff, graduates and students that he finds a, “huge amount of complacency in the United States” on the issue of poverty, even among Christians.

Singer believed that, “Perhaps the Christian churches in particular have really failed to convey a serious ethical message, which I would take to be, as I read the gospels, (that) if you are not doing something substantial for the poor you are not living an ethical life.”

At another 22 September New York event, co-sponsored by a coalition of non-governmental organizations and faith groups, participants said substantial change in current economic systems is needed to end poverty.

David McNair, senior economic justice advisor for the UK-based development agency Christian Aid, cited a just-released study by his agency, which praises the MDGs for having, “driven significant and very welcome progress, and raised the profile globally of the international commitment to eradicate poverty”.

Still, the Christian Aid study also noted that the eradication of poverty would only come about, “when the systematic and structural causes of poverty are challenged. Those in poverty must be supported to take power over the constraints they face; those in power must be held accountable.”

:: ACT Alliance: www.actalliance.org/

:: Christian Aid report: www.christianaid.org.uk/ [930 words]

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23 September 2010

US scholar says Israelites drank beer as well as wine
ENI-10-0651

By Whitney Jones
Washington DC, 23 September (ENI/RNS)–Ancient Israelites drank not only wine but also beer, according to a biblical scholar at Xavier University, a Roman Catholic school in Louisiana.

“Ancient Israelites, with the possible exception of a few teetotaling Nazirites and their moms, proudly drank beer – and lots of it,” said Michael Homan, in his article for the September/October issue Biblical Archaeology Review, Religion News Service reports.

While English translations of the Bible do not mention beer, the original Hebrew does, he said.

Homan, an archaeologist, said the Hebrew word “shekhar” has been mistranslated as “liquor,” “strong drink” and “fermented drink,” but it translates as “beer” based on linguistic and archaeological research.

Confusion over whether the ancient Israelites drank beer also stems from the difficulty of identifying and finding archaeological remains of beer production in Israelite artefacts.

The tools used for brewing beer, such as mortars and winnowing baskets, were also used to make bread because the two processes were similar. Homan said the ancient Israelites made beer by baking a cake of malted barley or wheat, placing it in water and adding yeast.

Additionally, the Israelites’ taste for beer has been ignored because academic scholars over the past 100 years have inferred that beer drinking is “uncouth” behaviour, he said.

“This has led many Bible scholars actively to distance biblical heroes from a beer-drinking world, much like some Christians prefer to believe that Jesus drank unfermented grape juice despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary,” Homan said.

He said the Bible does call for moderation but beer was a staple in the Israelites’ diet.

Homan called beer a type a “super-food” because it augmented the amount of calories in harvested grains, provided necessary vitamins and killed bacteria found in tainted water.

“Men, women and even children of all social classes drank it,” he said. “Its consumption in ancient Israel was encouraged, sanctioned and intimately linked with their religion.” [327 words]

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23 September 2010

German Catholics to apply new procedures in selecting priests
ENI-10-0650

By Anli Serfontein
Trier, Germany, 23 September (ENI)–Admitting past failures in dealing with cases of sexual abuse by clergy against young people, Germany’s Roman Catholic bishops have announced stricter procedures for selecting new priests.

At its annual autumn meeting in the central German town of Fulda from 20 to 23 September, the German Bishops’ Conference discussed how to prevent sexual abuse of minors in the future. The bishops agreed a new framework that would be introduced into all their institutions.

Earlier, the bishops had apologised for the abuse that had taken place within Catholic Church institutions, and announced that the matter of compensation for victims is to be discussed with government officials.

“We know that we failed,” Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, chairperson of the bishops’ conference, told the meeting of 67 diocesan and auxiliary bishops from the 27 German dioceses during the opening ceremony on 20 September. Then, in a 23 September statement, Zollitsch said that, as part of the new prevention programme, the bishops had decided to put a special emphasis on the training and selection of priests.

“One of the most important criteria for serving as a priest is the development of a stable personal identity. Therefore, as part of a process of prevention before they are accepted, we must pinpoint necessary therapeutic steps for potential candidates, who may have deficits in their personality development or have mental problems. Eventually, we may have to resolutely reject candidates who are not suitable,” Zollitsch told journalists.

When the bishops last met in February, they appointed Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier to head an investigation into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Germany. In April, Ackermann set up a hotline for victims, and in November he will discuss the implementation of the new guidelines with the principals of German seminaries, and with psychologists.

Ackermann said that by implementing the new guidelines the church wanted to achieve a lasting system of prevention.

“Our goal is to sensitise and educate all people working in church institutions to recognise signs of sexual abuse, and to react appropriately. These guidelines should help to prevent sexual abuse. This [abuse] also includes sexual violence by minors among themselves, of which I am again informed of with great concern,” said Ackermann.

The new framework for the prevention of sexual abuse includes a code of behaviour, a stricter selection of employees, quality management, internal and external church channels to report sexual abuse, and specialised training courses to recognise abuse.

On the issue of payouts to victims, which their support groups have demanded, Zollitsch said that Ackermann would put forward a proposal during his discussions with the German government. Still, Zollitsch indicated that a demand for 80 000 euros for each victim would be unrealistic, as it would adversely affect other Catholic institutions that had already suffered severe cut backs. [480 words]

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