wfn.org | [ALC] Noticias May 2, 2005 Cuba Nicaragua Uruguay Brazil

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

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

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CONTENT

CUBA: Women with different abilities demand equality from the Churches
NICARAGUA: Lutheran bishop calls for dialogue in the face of crisis in
Nicaragua
URUGUAY: Evangelical Churches concerned about violation of the lay nature
of the State
BRAZIL: Doubts about Benedict XVI?s Ecumenism
CUBA: Maurico Lopez International Department
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CUBA

Women with different abilities demand equality from the Churches

By José Aurelio Paz

GIBARA, April 25 (alc). More than 50 Evangelical women who participated in
a meeting of handicapped women in this city in the province of Holguin, in
eastern Cuba, demanded that the Evangelical Cuban Church take them into
account as part of its active leadership.

A broad debate about this issue took place during the event held April
14-18 in the Quaker Church in Gibara.

?Violence, women and handicaps? was one of the themes that was addressed
and highlighted experiences regarding the double discrimination faced by
handicapped women.

While women in Cuban are recognized as a social force there are still
behavior patterns that submit them and in many cases deprive them of their
most elementary rights.

?This demonstrates that, even in a society like the Cuban society, that
promotes equality among men and women, there is still a long road to
travel, said Nancy Guerra, director of the event.

And this translates into a double load for women if they have a type of
handicap. As a result, the aim of these events is that the Church, through
its leaders, understand their renewing and awareness-raising role on this
issue, she said.

For his part, the Rev. Noel Fernandez, current coordinator of the Pastoral
on People with Different Abilities from the Cuban Council of Churches (CIC)
said that it is valuable to ensure that this aim has continuity.

He recalled that the Gibara event was preceded by a similar event held in
mid-2004, with handicapped women from the central region of the country.

?The love of God moves us to encourage an inclusive society and Church,
according to the example that Jesus Christ gave us when his actions
involved every type of person,? said Fernandez.

?Therefore, we must seek ways for handicapped women to work on a par with
other believers, far from all discrimination that segregates and
fragments,? he concluded.

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NICARAGUA

Lutheran bishop calls for dialogue in the face of crisis in Nicaragua

By Trinidad Vásquez

MANAGUA, April 28 (alc). Lutheran bishop and president of the Lutheran
Faith and Hope Church in this capital, Victoria Cortes, called on President
Enrique Bolaños and other state powers to hold a national dialogue to seek
a solution to the crisis in the country.

She trusted that Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, as a guarantor of the
national dialogue, would call on all government actors, the legislative
power and politicians to mediate before the crisis grows worse.

The Lutheran bishop called on President Bolaños to take the Evangelical
Church into account in the national dialogue.

The conflict of powers and the political confrontations worry the Lutheran
Church because they are leading to more poverty and the hardest hit by the
rising oil prices are the poor. It hurts my heart to see the dramatic cases
of malnutrition among children in the rural communities where our Church
works, she said.

Hopefully the governors will reflect, because the violent protests do not
bring anything good, she said. Yesterday, president Bolaños did not attend
the convocation for dialogue in the Catholic University, but Cardinal
Miguel Obando y Bravo was there, the secretary general of the Sandinista
National Liberation Front Daniel Ortega and leader of the National Students
Union of Nicaragua (UNEN) Yasser Martinez.

Ortega affirmed that the people are not afraid of threats from the leader
and Martinez said that protests would continue in the capital and other
cities in the interior.

Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo said that they must make an effort to
resolve the problems. Violence cannot continue he warned.

The founder and honorary president of the Pro Denominational Alliance of
Evangelical Churches (CEPAD), Gustavo Parajon called on President Bolaños
and the secretary general of the Sandinista front to reach an agreement
about dialogue so that the country can leave behind the profound abysm it
is currently in and so that there is hope for the suffering people of
Nicaragua.

Here there is no justice. We are hostages of the FSLN because of the pact
between Ortega and former liberal president Arnoldo Aleman, denounced
Congressman Guillermo Osorno who is threatened with being removed because
he  said that the only way to re-establish stability in the country is to
dissolve state powers and convoke a constituent.

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URUGUAY

Evangelical Churches concerned about violation of the lay nature of the State

MONTEVIDEO, May 2  (alc). In a letter addressed to Uruguayan President
Tabare Vazquez, the Federation of Evangelical Churches of Uruguay (FIEU)
expressed their concern because the constitutional principle of Church ?
State separation was violated on the occasion of the death of Pope John
Paul II.

We do not seek to create difficulties for the government but we believe
that honest criticism and expressing our thoughts is a way to enrich
dialogue and collaborate in the construct of a more just and full society,
said the FIEU.

It recalled that the separation between the State and the Catholic Church,
at the beginning of the 20th century, continues to be one of the most
renowned insignias of Uruguay society, which has given it international
prestige and recognition.

Therefore we observe ?with immense sadness and concern the way that in the
face of the death of Pope John Paul II the separation between the civil and
religious spheres was displaced, toward a model of a confessional state.

Aside from the media distortion of reality, we want to emphasize two of the
events that took place in this atmosphere, the letter said.

First the mass organized by the Uruguayan Embassy before the Holy See in
the Dei XII Santi Apostoli Church in Rome. An Embassy is an extension of
national territory and represents the State and therefore, we can only view
this event as a lack of respect for Uruguayan citizens, even more so if it
was the Ambassador himself who took the initiative to celebrate a
particular religious activity.

The second event involved moving a statute of Pope John Paul II, property
of the Catholic Church, from a private to a public space. We are in a Lay
state and therefore we can only raise our disagreement with this act, it said.

The religious symbols outside of the respective Churches and institutions
and placed in public places, violate freedom of conscience and the lay
nature of the state, subtly but deeply affecting social life, said the FIEU.

With all respect Mr. President Vazquez, said the letter, you must
understand that we live in a country that also has other Churches, creeds
and the invaluable contribution of free thinking and free expression and
actions such as those mentioned above, confuse the civil and religious sphere.

The letter is signed by the Rev. Oscar Bolioli, president of the FIEU and
the Rev.  Armin Ihle, vice president and the representative of the
Confraternity of Evangelical Mennonite Churches, the German Evangelical
Congregation of Montevideo, the Salvation Army, the United Evangelical
Lutheran Church, the Waldesian Evangelical Church of the River Plate, the
Methodist Church of Uruguay, the Pentecostal Naciente Church and the First
Armenian Evangelical Church.

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BRAZIL

Doubts about Benedict XVI?s Ecumenism

By Edelberto Behs
edelbehs@alcnoticias.org

PORTO ALEGRE, April 29 (alc).  In the homily at the April 24 Mass, which
marked the beginning of Benedict XVI?s pontificate, and in the meeting he
held the next day with representatives from Christian Churches in Rome, the
new Pope emphasized ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue as the most
important objectives of his pontificate.

However, Protestant and Anglican theologians told ALC that they prefer to
submit these affirmations to a Saint Thomas test: see to believe.

?It is time to wait, because the spaces are dominated by discourses and
promises. There is a need for prudence, to see what he will be like in
practice,? recommends Methodist pastor Norberto Garin of Porto Alegre.

Garin recalled Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger?s trajectory in the Doctrine
of the Faith Congregation, a period in which the current Pope defended the
Orthodox Catholic and called on theologians to converse.

?Ratzinger was the in house theologian during John Paul II?s Pontificate,?
said Rudolf Von Sinner, professor of Systematic Theology, Ecumenism and
Inter-religious dialogue from the Theology School (EST) in Sao Leopoldo.

The director of the Rev. Antonio de Godoy Sobrinho Theological Seminary, of
the Independent Presbyterian Church (IPI) of Londrina, Parana, Silas de
Oliveria, said that in his opinion, ecumenism will regress under Benedict
XVI. ?It will be walking backwards, a conservative and even fundamentalist
discourse in many aspects represents a regression,? he affirmed.

The dean of the Egmont Machado Krischke Theological seminary, Bishop Luiz
Osorio Prado, age 62, noted that Benedict XVI ?is aggravating and not
helping the ecumenical panorama.? The dean of the Anglican Episcopal
Seminary also referred to Cardinal Ratzinger,

Benedict XVI?s call for understanding among Christians, is a call to unity
under the authority of the Catholic Church, according to the ecclesiology
of the II Vatican Council, said Von Sinner. The reference is the Church of
Christ, which in the Catholic concept, resides in the Catholic Church.

?The center is Christ himself and that which is closest to Christ is the
Catholic Church,? explained the EST professor. In this concept, not even
Orthodox Churches will be Churches in the full sense and Protestant
denominations are considered Church communities.

Von Sinner does not expect changes in the theological line of Benedict XVI.
However, he does not close the door to hope. ?We cannot prohibit the Holy
Spirit that blows where and when it wants, from doing something surprising,
even with Ratzinger,? he said.

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CUBA

Maurico Lopez International Department

By Manuel Quintero

MATANZAS, Abr 29 (alc). Mauricio Lopez, a Latin American martyr, who sought
to help others and share ?not like a partner, but like a neighbor,? is the
name of a new department in the Evangelical Theology Seminary (SET) in this
Cuban city.

In these terms, the distinguished Uruguayan thinker Julio de Santa Ana
expressed himself, a personal friend of Mauricio, in a conference that took
place in the SET on April 26 to officially inaugurate the International
Mauricio Lopez Department (CIML).

The CIML is an initiative that seeks to disseminate the memory and the work
of the renowned Argentine ecumenical leader, as a Christian who lived his
Evangelical commitment to the final consequences.

?Living was a constant in Mauricio?s life,? said Santa Ana, adding that the
disappeared professor and ecumenical leader ?gave without expecting
anything in return? and did so ?with class and humor.

Lopez, who was born in Mendoza in 1919, graduated from the Philosophy and
Arts Faculty of the National Cuyo University in 1946. At the end of the
1950s he was Latin American secretary for the Universal Federation of
Student Christian ! Movements and later Secretary in the Church and Society
Department in the Ecumenical Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland.

After carrying out specialized studies in the Sorbonne in Paris, he
returned to Argentina and was named the first dean of the San Luis National
University. He worked to restructure the university and implemented the
ideals of a democratic and participatory education and supported the active
role of students.

As a result, he was expelled from the University by the military in March
1976.

On January 1, 1977, a group of the Tactical Operations Commando, following
orders from the Sub-zone 33 Military Commando, entered the apartment where
Mauricio lived with his mother and other elatives. Once the members of the
house were identified Mauricio was told to dress. He was put in the back
seat of an unmarked Peugeot 504 and taken away to an unknown destination.

Despite strong pressure from Churches, ecumenical organizations and
governments from some countries, Argentine judicial and military
authorities never revealed the fate of Mauricio. In 1994 he was declared
?absent by forced disappearance,? according to the terms of law 24.321

Recent investigation and testimony indicate that Mauricio was likely taken
to La Lajas, near Mendoza in the department of Heras, close to the El
Plumerillo Airport. There prisoners were tortured before being moved or
were killed if the War Council had condemned them to death. Mauricio is
thought to have died from torture.

As well as disseminating Mauricio?s thinking, whose works were gathered by
Oscar Bracelis and edited in 1989 under the title ?Christians and Social
Change in Argentina,? by the Ecumenical Cuyo Foundation, the new SET
department will promote studies about Latin American and world reality with
an inter-disciplinary focus.

It will also be responsible for editing the magazine Christianity and
Society, an important legacy from the ISAL and ASEL movement, where
Mauricio was one of its most renowned leaders.

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