wfn.org | Episcopal News Service Briefs

[Daphne Mack <dmack@episcopalchurch.org>]

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. 

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." 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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
(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. 

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 Prihre 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
Quibecois 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 (Comiti liturgique ipiscopal
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
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 Prihre 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 volonti ["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.