From the Worldwide Faith News archives www.wfn.org
Episcopalians: News Briefs
From
dmack@episcopalchurch.org
Date
Tue, 20 May 2003 16:11:45 -0400
May 20, 2003
2003-111
Episcopalians: News Briefs
Study finds coverage of religion in newspapers grows but is less
accurate
(ENS) A study at the University of Rochester, released April 30,
finds that coverage of religion in newspapers may have broadened
but the accuracy of that coverage and the context often remain
incomplete.
Faculty and students in the department of religion analyzed 12
daily newspapers, in what they claim is the most exhaustive
review of religion in the media in the wake of the September 11,
2001, terrorist attacks. "Since September 11, America's stakes
in understand the visions and hopes of the world's religions are
higher now than ever," said Prof. William Scott Green, dean of
the college and professor of Judaic studies. "For most Americans
the press is a primary source of information about other
peoples' religions. Knowing what Americans see every day helps
explain how--and what--we learn about one another."
"When it comes to religion, the press seems at odds with
itself," the introduction to the study said. "On one hand,
religion pervades America's newspapers as part of the background
on topics from politics and economics to sports and the arts. On
the other hand, stories about religion itself infrequently
address religion's beliefs and values."
The study, "Religion in American Newspapers: A Critique and
Challenge," found that much of the coverage of the Roman
Catholics is associated with the church's sex-abuse scandals,
and coverage of Islam is "more than ever identified with
terrorism." The study asks whether "religion is a topic that is
too difficult to treat in daily newspapers? Does it pose
challenges to reporting that other subjects do not? Should the
press be obligated to cover religion fully?" The answers to
those questions "raise important issues for the conduct and
character of American life."
Among the recommendations emerging from the study are:
1. Remember that the context is the key to the complete
reporting of a story.
2. Make a clear distinction between religion and criminal
activity associated with that religion, clarifying the context
whenever possible.
3. Consider a religion section as one way of providing fair,
comprehensive and interesting coverage.
4. Accentuate religion close to home by using more feature
stories about local religious groups and individuals.
5. Be balanced in coverage to help readers recognize an
"accurate perspective on their communities."
6. Reflect both the newspaper's region and country, especially
in terms of race, gender and religion, to provide balance.
7. Use advisory groups to identify issues that are
newsworthy--and how the paper is covering current stories.
(The study is available on the web
http://mail.rochester.edu/~jr012i/paper/contents..)
Russian Orthodox play down reports of papal visit to return
icon
(ENI) Russian Orthodox Church officials are downplaying reports
that Pope John Paul II is hoping to visit Russian this summer to
return a venerated Russian icon.
Some news agencies are reporting the possibility of a papal
stopover in Kazan, the capital of the semi-autonomous Russian
republic Tatarstan, in August on the way to Mongolia, in order
to return the icon of Our Lady of Kazan. The reports were
bolstered in April when the Russian and Italian prime ministers
said at a joint press conference in Rome that they would support
a papal visit to Russia, a persistent dream of the pope.
A papal visit to Russia would be impossible, according to Vitaly
Litvin, the Russian government's representative to the Holy See,
without the consent of the Orthodox Church and Patriarch Alexy
II. In recent years there has been considerable tension over
what the Russians regard as proselytizing by the Roman
Catholics. The relations hit a crisis point a year ago when the
Vatican created four fully-fledged dioceses in Russia. In
response the Russian government expelled several Catholic clergy
without explanation.
The Russian church would appreciate the return of the icon,
according to Archpriest Vsevolod Cahplin, deputy of the Moscow
Patriarch's Department of External Relations. He noted, however,
that many objects of similar spiritual, historical and artistic
value have been returned to Russia by lesser dignitaries. "It
has never required a personal trip for such high persons as the
head of a church or a state," he said. "The return of the icon
should not be a pretext for the pope's visit to Russia."
Art experts said in interviews that the icon, kept in the pope's
apartment, was a revered 18th century copy of the original icon.
The original, discovered near Moscow in the 16th century after
the city was conquered by Ivan the Terrible, disappeared from a
Moscow cathedral in 1904.
Churches see hope in peace moves between India and Pakistan
(ENI) Church leaders in India and Pakistan have expressed
optimism about recent moves by the South Asian neighbors to ease
decades-long tensions between the two countries, both of which
are nuclear powers.
"This is a very positive sign. We hope and pray that our [Indian
and Pakistan] governments are able to find lasting peace," said
Geevarghese Mar Coorilos, president of the National Council of
Churches in India, which includes 29 Orthodox and Protestant
churches. "If there is more openness on both sides, we can live
in peace."
India announced in early May it was appointing an ambassador to
restore to full strength its mission in Pakistan. Pakistan
reciprocated and announced plans to release 300 Indian fishermen
languishing in Pakistani prisons for straying into Pakistani
waters. The two countries are also preparing to resume road,
rail and air traffic communications that had previously been
cut.
The strained relations between the two nations are rooted in a
long-running dispute over the territory of Kashmir, in the
Himalayan region. Both India and Pakistan lay claim to Kashmir,
which has been divided between the two countries since 1949.
Tensions reached a high point in December 2001 after an attack
on the Indian parliament by Kashmiri Islamic militants fighting
for cessation from India. Delhi said the militants were
supported by Pakistan.
In the aftermath of that attack, India threatened to attack
camps it said were in Pakistan, being used to train militants
for a jihad (holy war) in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Hundreds of
thousands of Indian and Pakistani soldiers had lined up on both
sides of their 630-kilometres-long border last summer. The
standoff raised fears of a war between the two nuclear powers.
"The people are craving for peace here [in Pakistan]. Even the
ordinary people are very excited about the latest developments,"
said Victor Azariah, general secretary of the National Council
of Churches of Pakistan (NCCP), which includes four major
Protestant churches in Pakistan. In a telephone interview from
Lahore, Azariah said that special prayers were being said in the
churches for "peace in our region."
US watchdog says religious freedom must be central to US-Saudi
relations
(ENI) The US government should make human rights and religious
freedom a cornerstone of its relations with Saudi Arabia, an
independent US federal commission has said in a report warning
that human and religious rights are at risk in Afghanistan.
The yearly report was released on May 13 by the United States
Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent
body advising the government on issues related to global
religious persecution.
It came out one day after a terrorist bombing in the Saudi
capital of Riyadh that killed at least 34 people, including
Americans. The bombing has renewed calls within the United
States for a closer examination of US ties with Saudi Arabia,
ties that have been strained since the September 11, 2001
terrorist attacks in the US, and the revelation that many of
those who hijacked the planes were Saudi nationals.
The religious freedom commission noted claims that the US had
not sufficiently pressured Saudi Arabia, an ally of Washington,
on a host of human rights issues. In a statement, Felice Gaer,
who chairs the commission, said that advancing human rights and
religious freedom "has not yet been a public feature of the
US-Saudi bilateral relationship." She added, "The protection of
religious freedom and other human rights must be an integral
part of US relations with Saudi Arabia and other countries."
The commission also urged the US government to investigate
"credible reports" that the Saudi government was funding "the
global propagation of a religious ideology that promotes hate,
intolerance, and in some cases violence" and that the US
government should pressure Saudi Arabia to end any such funding
efforts.
On Afghanistan, the commission said there were "indications that
Afghanistan is being reconstructed as a state in which an
extreme interpretation of Sharia [Islamic law] would be enforced
by a government which the United States supports." The report
cited continuing serious human rights abuses and the
re-emergence of the so-called "religious police" that enforced
strict religious strictures during the Taliban era. It said such
developments were taking place without serious opposition from
the US.
Other countries examined in the report include Vietnam, Russia,
Laos and Belarus.
The commission was established in 1998 by the Congress and
approved by former President Bill Clinton. Its members include
academics and leaders from various religious traditions,
appointed by the president and leaders of the Congress.
(The report is available on-line at: www.uscirf.gov)
Reformed churches warn against 'wealth accumulation for the
few'
(ENI) At a time when the eight leading industrial nations (G-8)
are preparing for a summit where the world economic order will
be the centerpiece, churches in the southern hemisphere are
warning that economic relations between rich and poor countries
have reached a crisis point.
The world economy has provoked "crises of debt, trade,
marginalization, insecurity, economic inequality, unemployment
and the destruction of the environment" in many countries, said
leaders of Reformed churches from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean
and Latin America in a statement. Their declaration came ahead
of a June meeting in Evian, France, of the leaders of the G-8
countries (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,
Russia and the United States), also known as the Group of Eight.
In their statement, the 27 church leaders cautioned that the
world economy had entered a "new stage of capitalism"
characterized by "deregulation and speculative investments"
which had "destructive effects" on their national economies. The
statement was drafted by representatives of members of the World
Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) from the southern
hemisphere who met in Buenos Aires at the end of April.
The church leaders rejected the world's dominant economic model,
saying it had made the economy "a totalitarian faith system of
wealth accumulation for the few, endangering life as a whole on
our planet. This system is a structural sin." Poor countries had
no effective say in the decisions of the world financial bodies
that determined the way of life for those countries, they said.
"We were unanimous in our recognition of the negative effects of
the IMF [the International Monetary Fund], World Bank and WTO
[World Trade Organization] and their domination and exclusion of
the Southern nations," they noted.
Seong-Won Park, executive secretary of WARC's department of
cooperation and witness, said the statement reflected a certain
tradition in the Reformed churches (Congregational,
Presbyterian, Reformed and United) of taking strong stands on
pressing issues of the day. "The Reformed churches historically
speaking have taken very decisive action against explicit
injustices--political, social and economic," he said.
In 1934, representatives of Reformed and other Protestant
churches took a formal stance against Nazism during the Third
Reich in Germany, and in 1982, the WARC general council declared
that theological support for the apartheid system in South
Africa was a heresy.
But taking a stance against an intangible form of injustice,
Park acknowledged, was more difficult than standing up against
"clear, tangible, objective enemies such as Hitler or
apartheid." What's different about today's world economy is that
"now your colleagues are your competition. Human rights, life
are not the centre of concern, but profit," Park said. "The
neo-liberal economic model excludes people and is being promoted
to the level of idolatry."
These shoes not made for selling, say Danish Christians
(ENI) A Danish supermarket chain has withdrawn from sale sandals
featuring images of Jesus and Mary, after an outcry from Danish
Christian groups.
The sandals went on sale on May 12 in the Kvickly chain which
has branches throughout Denmark. But on May 14, in the face of
protests against the pictures on the sandals' upper soles, the
chain's owners, Coop Denmark, stopped selling the footwear. The
supermarket chain received more than 200 complaints from members
of Denmark's Lutheran Church and the Roman Catholic Church.
"We Catholics pray to Jesus and Mary and now they want us to
walk all over them," said Johannes Gram Kulis, a priest at the
Vordingborg parish south of Copenhagen, the Agence France-Presse
news agency reported. "That's blasphemy and a serious and
indecent violation of the religious sentiments of believers."
Feelings about the sandals ran so high that in the university
town of Aarhus members of a Christian group destroyed several
pairs.
"It was never our intention to offend people's beliefs, but
apparently that was the case, and we were surprised by the scale
of these protests," the chain's spokesperson, Jens Nielsen, told
journalists. "Some priests claimed that people would step on
Jesus and the Virgin Mary when wearing the sandals."
The reaction to the sandals going on sale surprised many
commentators because Denmark is said to be one of the most
secularized societies in the world. Still, those who did buy one
of the 4000 pairs of sandals sold before they were withdrawn
appear to have acquired an investment. The sandals are now said
to have doubled in value.
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