wfn.org | ALC Noticias March 27 2005

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

ALC News Service
E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org

------------------
CONTENT

CUBA: Cuban Stamp Collector Evangelizes With Stamps
BRAZIL: Easter recalls the passion and death of all humanity, said theologian
ARGENTINA: Proposal to turn torture center into museum
EL SALVADOR: Lutheran Bishop deplores dissident attitude
COSTA RICA: Congressman stages spectacular protest about closure of churches

----------
CUBA
Cuban Stamp Collector Evangelizes With Stamps

By José Aurelio Paz

HAVANA, March 22 (alc). Ricardo Ferre Vazquez's love for stamps and his
Christian
experience led him to begin a collection of stamps with a religious motif
that "now has more
than 2,000 stamps that go from the birth of Jesús to the Resurrection:"

The work has not been easy, said Ferre, a member of the Moravian Church of
Cuba.
"Thanks to people from different countries who helped me with the
collection today
I can use it to spread the Gospel."

The fact is that stamps, in Ferre's hands, are no longer just a way to pay
to have a
letter delivered, or a simple collectors' item, but are a tool for Evangelism.

These tiny images that tell about Jesus' life or different liturgical acts,
lending another
use to such an old and routine object.

"Everything has a value to transmit the faith," said Ferre, who is a member
of the
Cuban Stamp Collectors' Federation. "Sometimes, what a sermon or a song or
any visual effect fails to achieve can be achieved by these stamps that can
teach
people that Jesus was born and died for everyone."

He first showed them to the public in 2004 when he inaugurated a mural in his
Church and that show gave rise to others. Stamps from countries like Spain,
Paraguay or the Dominican Republic among others make up his religious
collection "which I hope to take to other countries to encourage other people
who love stamp collecting to continue this novel way of Evangelizing," he said.

His dream is also that a publication writes about this work and the people
around
the world send him stamps that will enrich his collection. He asked that people
send them to his postal box: Avenida 19, número 6622, entre 66 y 68, Playa,
Ciudad de La Habana, CP 11300.

As the World Mission and Evangelism Congress approaches, to be held next
May in Athens, Ricardo is taking the word of God to many people, through
something as small and humble as the life of Jesus: stamps.

-----------
BRAZIL
Easter recalls the passion and death of all humanity, said theologian

SAO LEOPOLDO, Mar 23 (alc). Holy Week reminds Christians of the passion
and death of Jesus but of the passion and death of all humanity, said Érico
Joao
Hammes, a doctor in Systematic Theology and professor from the Pontifical
Catholic University of Porto Alegre.

Hammes spoke about the "Meaning of life and death" in an Ethics Encounter,
promoted by the Humanitas Institute of the Valle del Rio dos Sinos University
(Unisinos) in Sao Leopoldo.

Just as the meaning of life required that the Son of God be crucified, all
people
carry out a daily struggle to find meaning for their existence, he said.

Without this, the only thing that remains is death, said Hammes. He quoted
Algerian philosopher Albert Camus who summarized the meaning of life as
a permanent struggle toward the summit using Sisyphus as an example.
According to Greek mythology Sisyphus  tirelessly carried an enormous rock
up the mountain but never managed to reach the summit as the rock rolled
down the mountain.

To die is spend life on something, said Hammes. Someone who is only concerned
about their own existence can succumb at the first crisis.

He recalled what Jesus said: he who loses his life for my cause will gain it.
According to classic tradition, he said, life was related to a profound
knowledge
of things, giving value to man's relationship with the exterior world. In
modern
tradition the heart has its own reasons for living.

While the Bible does not refer directly to the meaning of Life, Job's narration
in the Old Testament questions human existence. However, the Sacred Scriptures
underline that God is love, love toward the other, capable of permanently
remaking
its own existence.

Hammes, who has worked with the terminally ill said a rude, sick and lonely man
from his hospital bed asked forgiveness for the acts he had committed in
his life.
"This man was able to live his final moments with dignity," he said. On his
death
bed, the deep meaning of life was revealed to him, no matter how absurd his own
life had been, he said.

------------------
ARGENTINA
Proposal to turn torture center into museum

BUENOS AIRES, March 23 (alc).  The land the Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA)
operated should be converted into a museum in memory of the thousands of
people who were tortured and died there, said the Justice and Peace Service
(SERPAJ).

A year ago, on March 24, 2004 the national government and the government of
the city
of Buenos Aires signed an agreement under which the place where the ESMA
clandestine
center operated should become a "Space to remind people and to promote and
defend
Human rights."

The ESMA is emblematic, not just for Argentina but for the rest of Latin
America, of the
policies applied by the military government that governed the country from
1976 to 1983.

Invoking the Doctrine of National Security, the military governments
applied the Condor
Plan and carried out torture, death, disappearances, theft of children and
other atrocities.

The ESMA occupied an extensive tract of land and was one of hundreds of
clandestine
centers where this policy of exterminating any opposition was practiced.

SERPAJ, directed by 1980 Nobel Peace Laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel
sustains that
the agreement between the state and the city implies turning over all the
land and building
a museum that not only seeks to remember the crimes of the dictatorship but
where
work is carried out to promote and defend human rights.

For SERPAJ, the "officers' casino" a place where the detained-disappeared were
concentrated will be the main site to remind people of state terrorism.

The entity proposes convening unions, social organizations, universities
and other
social	organizations to develop ideas and proposals.

-------------------
EL SALVADOR
Lutheran Bishop deplores dissident attitude

SAN SALVADOR, mar 21 (alc) Medardo E. Gomez, bishop of the Lutheran Salvadoran
Church said he felt badly about the attitude of two pastors from his
denomination.

Bishop Gomez recognized that last week he suspended the Rev. Ricardo
Cornejo and
Roberto Pineda for having been disrespectful of the Church but clarified to
a local daily
that "I will not make the internal problems of the Church public."

Later, in a letter to the faithful he said that he was pained by the
problem and that
two people who had collaborated with him "have taken different paths from
our Church.
They have acted with infidelity and a lack of respect and contempt. For
this reason they
have been suspended as pastors of the Lutheran Salvadoran Church."

He emphasized that they are "constructing a parallel Church movement that
they call the
Popular Lutheran Church of El Salvador, but they are no longer our pastors.

He said that Pineda and Cornejo are "trying to damage the Church, focusing
their attacks
on me and in a deceitful and unjust manner they say that the Church has
moved to the right
and that I, as Bishop, have made a 180 degree turn."

Do not believe these lies, said the bishop. "We are not to be from the left
or the right,
we are of God, we are of Christ. I call you to fraternal accompaniment."

"My life has been marked by many difficult tests. I have confronted
threats, persecution,
torture, jail, a great deal of poverty," he said. "However, it has been
possible to overcome
all this and now with the same strength I know I will be able to overcome,
said Bishop Gomez.

According to the Salvadoran press, Pineda and Cornejo form part of the
Social Grassroots
Block, an organization that promotes street demonstrations against the
President Elias
Antonio Saca government and the Free Trade Agreement with the United
States. In December
last year, Cornejo was brutally beaten by the National Civil Police.

On the other hand, the Rev. Eduardo Chinchilla Guevara, regional
Meso-American secretary
of the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI) sent Bishop Gomez a
message that said
"in these times we need a united Church that gives testimony to our Lord
Jesus Christ in a
divided world. I call on you to exhaust all possible dialogue, aware of the
maturity that has
characterized the Salvadoran Lutheran Church.

"CLAI for its part will continue to accompany you in a solidarity manner
always present
in such a difficult time as the one that you, as head of the Lutheran
Church confront," he added.

-------------------
COSTA RICA
Congressman stages spectacular protest about closure of churches

SAN JOSE, march 21 (alc). Independent legislator Carlos Avendaño staged a
protest against
the closure of Evangelical Churches from the highest part of the National
Monument in San Jose,
Costa Rica's capital city.

The legislator, according to La Nacion, held a sign that said "No more
Church closures."
His protest attracted a great deal of attention and brought firemen and
Ombudsman Jose
Manuel Echandi to the scene. They were unable to talk him down.

The National Monument is made from bronze, is more than 10 meters high and
presents
five women who represent the five Central American Republics. It is located
in the
National Park in front of the congressional building.

The Congressman said he was protesting the indiscriminate closure of
Evangelical Churches
by the Health Ministry. "They should close the bars," said Avendaño who was
pastor of
a Pentecostal Church in the province of Cartago up until a few years ago.

He was, however, successful. At 9:15 p.m.Avendaño came down from the monument,
helped by the firemen after reaching an agreement with Vice Minister of
Health Delia Villalobos.

The agreement specified that closed Churches will be reopened and given a
period of time
to carry out the necessary reforms. According to official figures, of 1,349
Evangelical
Churches in Costa Rica, 96% do not meet Health Ministry sanitation
requirements.  So far
this year, Health Ministry officials have closed 37 Evangelical Churches,
for excessive
noise in urban zones.

Moreover, the ministry agreed to put an end to any act that could be
considered persecution.
Avendaño, for his part, said that Churches would not use speakers when it
could be technically
demonstrated that the noise level was higher than the established limits
(65 decibels in the
daytime and 40 in the nighttime).

Vice Minister Villalobos argued that the intervention arose due to
complaints from the neighbors.
There is currently no regulation regarding religious buildings. However,
the ministries of health,
presidency and housing have proposed a law for these buildings regardless
of their denomination.

Representatives of the Costa Rican Evangelical Alliance Federation (FAEC)
argue that this is
an example of religious persecution and demand greater tolerance and
respect for freedom of worship.

Villalobos argued that in the case of Catholic Churches, the majority are
in older buildings and
were built in areas that are next to a plaza or park.

Congressman Avendaño said that it is not possible to close Churches on the
eve Holy Week.
The legislator was elected to Congress on minority party Costa Rican
Renewal Party ticket
but broke off from that group. Last week he founded the National
Restoration Party.
---------------
Latin American and Caribbean
Communication Agency (ALC)
P.O. box 14-225 Lima 14 Peru
E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org
http://www.alcpress.org

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Your e-mail is wfn@igc.org
In order to unsubscribe send a mail to
english_weekly_alc-baja@listas.alcnoticias.org