wfn.org | [english_weekly_alc] ALC News Service - March 6, 2005

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

ALC NEWS SERVICE
E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org

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CONTENT

BRAZIL: Duplicate Anglican Bishops and Cathedrals in Recife
BRAZIL: Police in Mozambique detain suspects for murder of deaconess
PERU: Evangelicals called for global focus in the battle against poverty
NICARAGUA: Atlantic Coast Ecumenical Council concerned about crisis
COSTA RICA: Questions increase regarding TV Enlance

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BRAZIL
Duplicate Anglican Bishops and Cathedrals in Recife

By Edelberto Behs

RECIFE, March 4, (alc). An Extraordinary Council Session of the Anglican
Diocese of Recife, meeting in this capital in the state of Pernambuco last
February 26, unanimously agreed to recognize Edward Robinson de Barros
Cavalcanti as diocesan bishop in full exercise of his ministry.

As a result, they disregarded a decision made by the Primate of the
Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (IEAB) Orlando Santos de Oliveira, to
preventively suspend Cavalcanti, adopted four days earlier in an
Extraordinary Council and to name Bishop Filadelfo de Oliveira Neto as
Church authority for this diocese in eastern Brazil.

A polemic sparked in the world Anglican Communion for the consecration of a
declared homosexual Gene Robinson as bishop by the Episcopal Church of the
United States (ECUSA) has sparked a schism in the Anglican Church of Brazil.

In 2003 Cavalcanti participated in the confirmation of 110 young people,
held in the Orthodox Church in Ohio by five retired Anglican bishops
opposed to the consecration of Gene Robinson.

The IEAB Chamber of Bishops ordered Cavalcanti to not intervene in acts
that oppose the statutes and rules of other Provinces in the Anglican
Communion, in this case the ECUSA decision. In September 2004, the
Brazilian primate placed the Diocese of Recife under alternative Episcopal
supervision, due to Cavalcanti's "intransigent and disrespectful attitude".

Bishop Oliveira Neto, recognized by the hierarchy as the head of Recife,
told ALC that this is a "disagreeable" moment and admitted that part of the
diocese of Recife supports Cavalcanti, which constitutes a "schism process
with the IEAB".

The day before the Extraordinary Council meeting, Oliveira Neto issued a
resolution declaring any decision made by the assembly to be invalid.

"We have never broken ties with the IEAB. We are being separated from the
Church because we have a different vision and we have collided with the
power apparatus and the liberal fundamentalism of the IEAB," Bishop
Cavalcanti told ALC in a telephone interview. He said that leaders from the
Brazilian Anglican province are trying to divide the Diocese of Recife and
create a parallel authority.

Recife is likely the only city in the world with two Anglican Cathedrals,
two diocesan bishops and a divided clergy. For the IEAB, said Oliveira
Neto, the Anglican Cathedral is the Holy Trinity Church in Espinheiro.
Those who follow Cavalcanti consider the Anglican Cathedral to the Good
Samaritan Church in the Buen Viaje neighborhood.

A total of 38 priests, 58 lay delegates and 15 observers participated in
the Extraordinary Council, representing 35 parishes and missionary points
in the Anglican Diocese of Recife, which includes nine states in
northeastern Brazil, from Bahia to Maranhao. "The great majority, 90
percent of the faithful and 32 clergy are in parishes that remain in
communion with me," according to Cavalcanti.

The IEAB is one of 38 provinces in the Anglican Communion. It was founded
in 1980 and became an autonomous Church in 1965. It has 70,000 members
distributed in seven dioceses, 79 parishes and 124 missions. The Diocese of
Recife was founded by Evangelical charisma tics and fundamentalists, a
trend that continues through today.

According to Bishop Oliveira Neto, "clergy linked to Bishop Cavalcanti do
not inform lay people properly. They sustain, for example, that the IEAB
support marriage among people of the same sex, which is totally against the
Sacred Scriptures."

Cavalcanti lamented the fact that a minority group within the Anglican
Communion promotes the ordination of homosexuals to the ministry.

The diocese of Recife has called on the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan
Williams, leader of the world Anglican Communion, to place the diocese
under the alternative Episcopal supervision of another Province, a request
reaffirmed by the Extraordinary Council last Saturday.

Primate bishops of the Anglican Comunión, meeting February 20 -25 in Newry,
Northern Ireland, accepted the Windsor Report that considers that the ECUSA
attitude to be an offense that requires an apology, but assumed the
commitment of not encouraging or initiating "interventions" in Anglican
provinces beyond their borders.

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BRAZIL
Police in Mozambique detain suspects for murder of deaconess

PORTO ALEGRE, March 3 (alc).  One year after the murder of Brazilian
deaconess Doraci Edinger, the police in Nampula, Mozambique detained five
people, including a Lutheran pastor, as suspects in the crime.

The first four arrests took place last Friday in this city in southeastern
Africa where Edinger, a member of the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran
Confession of Brazil (IECLB) offered services to the poor in collaboration
with the local Church. The crime took place February 21, 2004 in her
apartment in Nampula.

Two of the arrested are accused of being the material authors of the murder
and two are considered the intellectual authors. The Lutheran Pastor was
subsequently arrested and there is no information about what he is accused
of. His identity has not been revealed.

The identity of the other suspects was also not revealed as the
investigation continues and there could be more arrests, according to the
IECLB.

In Geneva, the secretary general of the Lutheran World Federation Ishmael
Noko said the arrests were positive. However, he said that the arrest of a
pastor from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mozambique (IELM) as a
suspect "constitutes reason for additional consternation and suffering."

Since Edinger's murder the IECLB, the LWF and the IELM have repeatedly
demanded that the case be investigated and those responsible punished. The
three entities maintain this position, said the pastor president of the
Brazilian Church Walter Altmann.

In a recent letter sent to the Mozambique Justice Minister, José Ibraimo
Abudo, Noko manifested the LWF's concern about the slowness of the
investigation. Now, the ecumenical body hopes that the government proceeds
swiftly and provides the accused with adequate legal protection.

Recently the IECLB legal advisor Milton Laske and sister Ruthild
Brakemeier, of the Hermandad Sofía Zink, that Edinger belonged to were in
Mozambique. Laske y Ruthild met in Nampula with the provincial attorney,
Alberto Paulo, responsible for the investigation.

Edinger, age 53, went to work in the Lutheran Church of Mozambique in July
1998 and was much loved by local congregations.

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PERU
Evangelicals called for global focus in the battle against poverty

LIMA, Feb 28 (alc).  In the face of Peruvian government plans to implement
a program to help the poor in the country, Evangelicals from the  Micah
Challenge Campaign supported the initiative, but lobbied it for to be part
of a global integral development strategy.

Several days ago President Alejandro Toledo announced a government
initiative to give a cash subsidy of around US$30 to the poorest families
in Peru. This program will gradually be implemented in areas of the country
where the poverty rate is extremely high.  In many cases $30 will double
the average monthly income of extremely poor families.

The aim of the Micah Challenge is to strengthen a Christian commitment to
the poor and remind authorities in all countries of their commitment to
reach development goals adopted in the UN General Assembly in September
2000 geared toward reducing extreme poverty by 50% by 2015 across the globe.

The Micah Challenge Campaign Committee, made up of Erika Izquierdo,
Alfonso Wieland, Rolando Pérez, Ricardo Verástegui López, Juan
Inocencio, Ruth Alvarado, Sarvia Grijalva, renowned Evangelical leaders and
leaders from service organizations, expressed their position in a statement.

They stated that they support every initiative that seeks to alleviate
poverty and extreme poverty affecting millions of people as long as the
initiative is part of a global strategy, from a global integral development
focus, on the part of the State to eradicate poverty and its causes.

They voiced concern because if "Pro Peru (name given the initiative) is not
part of a strategy to eradicate poverty, this program will become one more
assistance-based instrument that does not help solve the in-depth problem
or will become a weapon at the service of corruption or political cronyism."

The Micah Challenge Campaign groups together Evangelical ministries and
Churches whose common objective is to contribute to the integral
transformation of the nations, fulfilling the Biblical mandate to be "salt
and light" for our generation.

It called on the State to design and implement a policy to eradicate
poverty, beginning with extreme poverty in zones affected by violence that
requires reparation.

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NICARAGUA
Atlantic Coast Ecumenical Council concerned about crisis

By Trinidad Vásquez

MANAGUA, Feb 28 (alc).	The recently created Ecumenical Council of the
Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, made up of bishops and the superintendent of
the Moravian, Catholic and Anglican Church expressed its concern about
incidents on the border with Honduras.

Incidents revolve around the Misquito people, who reside on the border zone
and seek to produce and harvest their crops on both sides of the border.

One of the presidents of the Council, the Rev. Norman Bent, said that the
fundamental objective of the Council is to seek Church unity, to evangelize
with practical actions and to lobby the regional and central governments to
respect the traditions of the Misquito people to sow their crops on both
sides of the Coco River, that marks the border with Honduras.

A statement, signed also by the other president of the Council, Bishop
David Zywiec, called on the governments of Nicaragua and Honduras to
respect the rights of the Misquito people who have traditionally sown their
crops on both sides of the river.

Bent said that the Misquitos traditionally harvest on the Coco River banks,
on the Honduras side, but Honduran military have barred them from
harvesting their grain. This serious situation could lead to severe hunger
among Misquito families, he said.

The Ecumenical Council has a presence and impact in Bluefields, capital of
the Nicaraguan department of the Atlantico Sur, in Puerto Cabezas, capital
of the department of Atlantico Norte and in Raspan.

During a visit to the area, Pastor Zywiec was able to confirm that in the
community of Tulimbila, up river on the Honduran side, two farmers had
removed many trees to turn the land and others like Luis Benites and
Eduardo Green had cleaned land traditionally occupied by community people
to raise cattle.

People from Krin Krin on Feburary 5, arrived at a Misquito meeting in
Rusrus, Honduras and said they could not cross Honduras to sow crops or
bring wood.

In Waspuk, on the shores of the river, they said that people from Rusrus
charged for each hectare the Misquitos used and did not let them log trees.

This situation was presented to the Council and the Attorney General and
human rights organizations in both countries, so that they lobby their
respective governments.

Bent also expressed that the Council is extremely worried about drug
trafficking in the zone. Last week a conflict with drug traffickers left
four dead and several wounded police officers. The Council demanded that
the government develop a national plan to combat drug trafficking.

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COSTA RICA
Questions increase regarding TV Enlance

SAN JOSÉ, March (alc).  "Faith does not just move mountains, it also buys
them and feeds our bank accounts, transmits programs to three continents
and is weaving a network of at least 25 associations in 55 countries,"
according to the Costa Rican daily La Nacion, in a report about the Enlace
television station.

These anonymous societies and foundations "have purchased more than 533
hectares of land in Costa Rica in the past 15 years," noted journalist
Mauricio Herrrera in articles published last Sunday and Monday.

All of these organizations, he said, are controlled by González Ortiz, the
main leader of the channel or his relatives. Gonzalez estimates that they
have received some $860,000 in offerings each year.

The article also questions how offerings are requested. For $20 they
promise healing, economic prosperity and salvation.

While TV Enlace, Channel 13 is presented as a Christian station, some Costa
Rican Evangelical leaders criticize their procedures as a remake of
Catholic indulgences.

In 2003, the Costa Rican Evangelical Federation Alliance (FAEC) promoted
dialogue about the way that communication media should gather their
offerings, according to the daily.

TV Enlace has not respected the agreement that emerged from that
consultation and therefore several Churches and Christian ministries have
complained before the FAEC Ethical Tribunal.

The problem has even sparked rumors about the possible exit of FAEC
president Reynaldo Salazar Salazar, who has publicly identified himself
with Guatemalan pastor Cash Luna, questioned in the La Nacion reports and
with close ties to TV Enlace.

La Nacion also underscored TV Enlace's relationship with the polemic US
preacher Paul Crouch, questioned last October by the Los Angeles times for
an ostentatious life and an alleged sexual scandal. Crouch directs the
Trinity Broadcasting Network in the United States and the Association of
Latin American Communication Entities for Christian Television.

For 24 hours over the course of 12 days four times a year, Pastors from TV
Enlace hold tele-marathons to ask for offerings, votes or even "financial
pacts with God," which they say will guarantee viewers in 55 countries,
economic prosperity, health and success in business.

Gonzalez is Costa Rican and an ophthalmology technician. The station, then
channel 23, began to broadcast an hour a day in September 1998 from a store
in the Cuba neighborhood in San Jose, with a transmitter that only reached
2 kilometers.

Its creator was Jonás González Rodríguez, a pastor born in Texas, who lived
in Costa Rica until he passed away last September, in 1999, the Channel
moved to Pavas where it bought property and built a modern building.

González impelled the creation of similar stations in other Latin American
countries that became affiliates and in 1996 he they were linked up through
a Mexican satellite. (101/2005).
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Latin American and Caribbean Communication Agency (ALC)
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