2002-259

News Briefs

Terror and death at Moscow theatre leaves Orthodox leaders angry

(ENI) During the Moscow theatre crisis in which Chechen separatists terrorized about 800 hostages, Christians and Muslims prayed together for their release. But the siege that resulted in the death of 119 hostages has left Christianity and Islam in Russia deeply divided and Orthodox church leaders angry.

Thanksgiving services “for the release from captivity” on October 26 were celebrated in Russian Orthodox churches around the world after the siege was ended when a narcotic gas pumped into the theatre subdued the captors and allowed special forces to take control of the building. The number of people who died in the siege was not known immediately afterwards. Only later did it become clear that the death toll was due mainly to the effects of the narcotic gas used to disable the hostage-takers.

At an Orthodox memorial service “for those who perished in the city of Moscow,” the Chechen captors were singled out as “unholy Hagarians,” an archaic Slavonic church term to describe Muslims. Yet the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexei II, had emphasized that all Russian religious institutions, including Muslim ones, were united in their condemnation of terrorists. “Terrorists have neither nationality, nor religious roots,” he said. “Terrorists cannot use religious slogans as a cover.”

Russian Muslim leaders received by President Putin on October 24 had condemned the terrorists. “I think that all reasonable Russians are perfectly aware that terrorists first of all harm their own people,” said Mufti Ravil Gainutdin, the chairman of the Council of Muftis of Russia. “Religion has nothing to do with this. The hostage-takers pursued political, not religious aims.”

Some people read special significance into the timing of the recapture of the theatre by government agents on the day the Russian Orthodox Church celebrated the icon of Our Lady of Iberia–one of the patrons of the city of Moscow and of the Caucasus.

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Christians ‘living in terror’ in India’s desert state, rights groups report

(ENI) Leading human rights groups have urged the Indian National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to take urgent steps to safeguard the rights of Christians in the western state of Rajasthan.

“The rights of the [Christian] community have been violated. They have been forced to live in terror,” said Kavita Srivastava, general secretary of the Rajasthan unit of People’s Union for Civil Liberties, which has petitioned India’s human rights commission on behalf of the Christian community.

The civil liberties union–India’s oldest and largest human rights organization–and a dozen other rights groups released a report on the situation of Christians in the Ajmer district of the state, said Srivastava. The problems started after a Catholic priest was accused of molesting a Christian boy at St. Martin School at Bhawani Kheda, the report said. Some Hindu groups used the alleged incident to run a “hate campaign” against the state’s tiny Christian community, according to the report. The accusation against the priest should have been treated like any other criminal allegations, Srivastava said, but was instead “communalized.”

“The event was used to terrorize the local Christian population, tarnish the image of the institutions run by them for decades and also get the re-conversions carried out,” said Srivastava, referring to pressure applied to Christian families to return to the Hindu fold.

Roman Catholic Bishop Ignatius Menezes of the diocese of Ajmer-Jaipur said: “Our people are under great pressure to reconvert.” Christian families that have refused to sign a declaration of re-conversion “cannot enter some [Hindu] shops or even buy vegetables,” the bishop told ENI. “We are living in fear.”

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Churches fear Indonesian fight against terror will make life difficult

(ENI) Some Christians in Indonesia fear the Indonesian government will use the security clampdowns in effect since the October 12 bombing in Bali as an excuse to curtail the human rights of minority groups in the country, including those of churches.

Problems facing Christians in Indonesia, who make up less than 10 per cent of the 210 million population in the country, were highlighted in Stuttgart recently at a gathering of Asian churches and the Evangelical Mission of Southwest Germany (EMS) members. Participants heard that churches could also face harassment in a “new war against terrorism” following the bomb attack on Bali that killed nearly 200 people, many of them Australian tourists.

Tony Waworuntu of the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA), an ecumenical grouping with 121 member churches in 18 Asian countries, voiced his concern at a press conference in Stuttgart before a meeting focusing on Indonesian “women against violence.” The October 25-27 church meeting near Stuttgart was part of the “decade to overcome violence” launched by the World Council of Churches.

Sunnite Muslims account for 87 per cent of the Indonesian population, Protestants 6.5 per cent and Roman Catholics, 3 per cent. Conflicts between different religions are seen as having their roots in the ethnic and economic problems that remained when Indonesia gained independence from the Netherlands in 1949.

“Many of these conflicts have been used in recent power struggles,” said pastor David Tulaar, a member of the EMS staff responsible for mission work in Indonesia. Tulaar and Waworuntu believed that Indonesian anti-terror laws would mean the reintroduction of the death penalty and would give more power to anti-terror-forces. “This will strengthen the country’s military forces,” said Tulaar, and it could mean that political or social opposition to the government would be taken as terrorist action.

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One year after fall of Taliban, vigilance still needed in Afghanistan

(ENI) While lauding social and political progress made in Afghanistan during the past year, Afghan human rights activists say much vigilance–and international support -is needed to protect human rights in what remains a very insecure, and in some cases hostile, environment.

Even so, in recent interviews after the one-year anniversary of the US-led military campaign which resulted in the fall of the Taliban regime–which wanted to create the world’s purest Islamic state–several activists said changes in Afghanistan should not be minimized.

“There has been a kind of restoration in Afghanistan,” said Sarwar Hussaini, director of the Co-operation Center for Afghanistan (CCA), an Afghan human rights organization that has support from US church groups and relief agencies. He pointed to a sense of hope among Afghans, particularly those who had suffered under Taliban rule, and hailed progress that included a fledgling press, which he believed was freer than the press in neighboring Iran and Pakistan.

“The situation is much, much better than it was a year ago,” said Sima Samar, who heads the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and is the director of Shuhada Organization, an Afghan relief organization that also has ties to US churches and relief groups.

Nonetheless, both Samar and Hussaini said they remained troubled about the problems experienced by women, who despite the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, still face serious inequities in education, employment and health care. “There are still many barriers for women,” Hussaini told ENI.

The economic situation in Afghanistan remains dire, Samar said, with women and children feeling particularly vulnerable. “The country is in a bad situation,” she said of Afghanistan’s still-teetering economy.

The activists said the lack of a national army, police force and judiciary system remained a grave problem; they also echoed concerns by international human rights groups that the United States and its allies need to expand peace-keeping forces in Afghanistan. So far, peace-keeping forces have limited their role to work in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital. As a result, Afghanistan’s national government remains far too dependent on local warlords to maintain security, according to Human Rights Watch, the New York-based human rights organization.

Curiously, one of the remnants of Taliban rule, the much-hated “Vice and Virtue,” a police-like religious force to maintain public morality, has re-emerged recently, though in a much tamer form than before. It still tries to exert public pressure to maintain conservative social decorum, though it is no longer taking men to task for the length of their beards or berating (or physically harming or even killing) women for their choice of dress. Nonetheless, its continued existence is a troubling sign to the activists that the social conservatism that was unthinkable in Afghanistan 20 or 30 years ago retains a strong pull on the country. “Don’t we need police rather than ‘Vice and Virtue’ ?” Samar said.

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Nigerian churches call contest ‘indecent’, beauty queens threaten boycott

(ENI) Various religious leaders in Nigeria have condemned the embattled Miss World beauty pageant, this year scheduled for December in Abuja, Nigeria, as being degrading to women and promoting morally questionable behavior.

“We can’t sanction the exploitation of women because of the search for money, said the Rt. Rev. Josiah Idowu Fearon, Anglican bishop of Kaduna in northern Nigeria. “We all know that the whole idea behind [the pageant] is to make money. It is true this thing would bring money to government and to individuals, as it would encourage tourism. But definitely it is not something we should promote.”

The clergy disapproval comes as contestants from about a dozen countries are threatening to boycott this year’s competition unless the sentencing of a Nigerian woman, Amina Lawal, to stoning for adultery under the Sharia Islamic legal system practiced in 10 Nigerian states, is overturned. In an attempt to avert a boycott, the minister of state for foreign affairs told reporters that Nigeria’s federal courts would overturn the judgment of the Sharia courts, the British daily newspaper The Guardian reported.

Still, religious leaders have objected to the moral aspect of the contest itself. Muslim groups such as the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI), the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (SCIA) and the National Council of Muslim Youth Organizations (NACOMYO) have all condemned the beauty pageant and have threatened to disrupt the event. The Interfaith Forum of the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria, which annually brings together Muslim and Christian leaders, also opposed the pageant.

Stella Obasanjo, wife of the Nigerian president, is the chief coordinator of the beauty pageant. She told journalists in Abuja, the nation’s capital, that because of protests over the original timing of the event, which coincided with the Muslim fasting period of Ramadan, it had been shifted to December 7.

Nigeria is expecting to reap about US$60 million from hosting the pageant, expected to attract participants from more than 100 countries and to be televised live to 140.

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Nigerian Christian leaders call for return of late dictator’s millions

(ENI) Christian leaders in Nigeria are demanding the immediate repatriation of millions of dollars sent abroad by the late military dictator General Sani Abacha. The money, which church leaders say was “looted” from the Nigerian people, should have been returned to Nigeria under an agreement reached earlier this year between the government and General Abacha’s family.

But the church leaders claim the general’s son, Mohammed, has reneged on the deal, said to have been linked to the son’s release in September from prison, where he had been held on charges of embezzlement.

“Nobody is above the law, this looted money is our money, and the Abachas should not be allowed to get away with it,” said Anglican Bishop Michael Ipinmoye of the Akure diocese in south-western Nigeria.” [Mohammed Abacha] should be re-arrested and made to refund the monies now. The government should not spare him at all, he should be made to account for all monies still in his custody.”

General Abacha’s death in 1998 paved the way for the restoration of democracy and, since then, the Nigerian government has been attempting to recover the money put in foreign banks by the general.

“President Olusegun Obasanjo was ill-advised to release Mohammed Abacha. He could have been made to refund all the monies stolen before he was released,” Bishop Ipinmoye said.

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Poverty is a problem of the rich, LWF South African meeting says

(ENI) The living conditions of the poor cannot be solved through charity alone, said participants at a Lutheran World Federation conference in South Africa November 3-7.

The consultation on “Prophetic Diakonia–For the Healing of the World” brought together more than 80 representatives from Lutheran churches, partner organizations and social service agencies worldwide. The participants called on member churches to be more active in tackling poverty, violence and HIV/AIDS, identified as the three major challenges facing the world.

The social service of the church, or “diakonia,” is about more than the strong serving the weak, which could become paternalistic. “Those who benefit at the expense and exploitation of the poor must be named, confronted and brought to justice,” delegates said in a closing statement before the conference ended. “Those of us who are rich materially need to learn how to relinquish power, and realize how radical is God’s grace. Those of us who are poor need to claim our God-given rights to life and livelihood.”

Dr. Tapio Saraneva, director of FinnChurchAid, and a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, said in an interview after the conference that a new development paradigm was needed to tackle poverty. The present theory looked at poverty entirely as a problem of the poor. A new way of thinking would focus on the rich and how their greed helped to make the poor poorer. The richest 20 per cent of the world’s population are 78 times wealthier than the poorest 20 per cent, the relief agency director said. The new way of looking at the problem would focus on the rich and how their greed helped to make the poor poorer.

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Italian Web site launches search to find ‘Saint Internet’

(ENI) A 7th-century saint widely seen as the Vatican’s front runner in the search to find a patron saint for the Internet has been rejected by cybernauts, according to a survey of Internet users launched on an Italian Web site.

St. Isidore, a Spanish bishop and a leading intellectual of the church who died in 636, had been suggested to the Vatican in 1999 as a possible patron saint for the Internet. He had compiled a form of encyclopaedia, Etymologies, with a structure similar to what is now known as a database. In Roman Catholic tradition, saints are often named as patrons of professions, churches, cities and nations, and with the recent explosion of interest in the Internet, many people suggested a patron saint was needed for Web surfers.

Pierfranco Pastore, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, confirmed last year that the Vatican was considering St Isidore for the role. But in a survey carried out by an Italian Web site (http://www.santiebeati.it) devoted to saints and their causes, St. Isidore came second to bottom, gaining only 5.05 per cent of the 10 000 votes registered between June 5 and October 4.

The saints who topped the list were St. Alphonsus Liguori (34.7 per cent), St. John Bosco (26.85 per cent), the Archangel Gabriel (25.44 per cent) and St Thecla of Iconium (6.28 per cent). Only St. Peter de Regalado, with 2.20 per cent of the votes, scored worse than St. Isidore.

“The massive interest in our survey has encouraged us to launch a second round,” with another six potential patrons, said Francesco Diani, the initiator of the site, which offers some of the most extensive information available on the Internet in Italian about Catholic saints.

Visitors to the site are now being asked to choose between St. Clare, Giacomo Alberione, St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Apostle Paul, St. Francis of Sales and St. Dominic. Once the second round is over, cybernauts will be asked to make a final choice from among the top candidates.

Among the candidates in the first round of voting, St. Alphonsus, who died in 1787, was an Italian bishop and wrote numerous books of popular devotion. St. John Bosco, also an Italian, who died in 1888, founded the Salesian Order, specializing in the education of young people. The Bible says the Archangel Gabriel brought the tidings to Mary of the imminent birth of Jesus. St. Thecla of Iconium lived in the 1st century, according to tradition, and was converted to Christianity by St. Paul. St. Peter de Regalado, a Spanish Franciscan from the 15th century, was renowned for having the gift of miracles.

As for those being polled in the second round of voting, St. Clare was a follower of St. Francis of Assisi; Giacomo Alberione, who died in 1971 and has not yet been beatified (the first step towards sainthood), founded numerous works to promote evangelization through the media; St. Maximilian, a Polish Franciscan, was killed by the Nazis in 1941 and canonized in 1982; St. Francis of Sales was the bishop of Geneva in the 17th century; and St. Dominic was the founder of the order of Dominicans, renowned for their preaching.

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Print release for French liturgies coming in January

(ACC) Seven years after getting the green light from the Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod to develop indigenous French-language liturgies, the committee which created the translations has toasted its efforts: the liturgies will be released in printed form in January 2003 by the Anglican Book Center.

Until recently, francophone Anglicans had to make do with a U.S. translation of the Book of Common Prayer, le Livre de la Pri ¨re Commune. The Episcopal Church in the United States has long had a French prayer book for its French-speaking members in Europe and francophone countries like Haiti. The language, however, is continental, European French–not Canadian or Qu ©becois French. An earlier attempt at a Canadian translation did not make the grade.

A diverse group was then drawn from francophone and bilingual clergy and laity to come up with a true, Canadian translation. A liturgical consultant also worked with the committee, dubbed CLEF (Comit © liturgique  ©piscopal francophone). The committee finished the liturgies more than a year ago, but their release in print will make them more widely available to Anglicans in dioceses with francophone representation.

Approved for use by the 2001 General Synod, the liturgies have so far only been available on the Web, at the diocese of Montreal web site, or via http://www.anglican.ca/francais, where they will remain until March 31, 2003.

CLEF translated four liturgies from the Book of Alternative Services: services for the Eucharist, baptism, wedding and funeral. The liturgies chosen are those which might have a mix of francophone and anglophone people worshipping together. The Anglican Book Center will likely publish each of the four liturgies separately, with both the French and English together, on mirror pages.

The language of the new liturgies is not only in the vernacular, it is more inclusive and it intentionally “captures the spirit of the BAS language, its poetry” said Eileen Scully, the national church’s consultant for worship and ministry. She cites the Gloria as an example:

Livre de la Pri ¨re Commune: Gloire    Dieu au plus haut des cieux/ Et paix sur la terre aux hommes qu’il aime [“men whom He loves”]. New translation: Gloire    Dieu au plus haut des cieux,/ Et paix sur la terre aux personnes de bonne volont © [“people of good will”].

Official translations of four liturgies from the Book of Alternative Services (as approved by General Synod) are available at http://montreal.anglican.org/francais/index-01-en.html.

The enslist is published by Episcopal News Service: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/ens