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2001-101

News Briefs

Australian archbishop to be nation's next Governor-General

     (ENS) Anglican Archbishop Peter Hollingworth has been appointed the 23rd 
Governor-General of Australia. 

     The appointment has sparked a debate on the separation between church and 
state and renewed controversy on the relevance of the British monarch to modern-
day Australia. Under the constitution, Queen Elizabeth II is Queen of Australia. 
The Governor-General is the representative of the Head of State of Australia, who 
is the British monarch. But unlike the Church of England in Britain, whose head 
is also the monarch, the Anglican church in Australia is an autonomous body with 
its own national constitution. 

     Although he will be the first Australian clergyperson to hold the post, 
Hollingworth would not be the first Anglican archbishop to become Governor-
General of a member nation of the British Commonwealth. Sir Paul Reeves, formerly 
Anglican archbishop of Aotearoa, served as Governor-General of Aotearoa-New 
Zealand and was the first person of Maori descent to hold that post. 

     Hollingworth will take up his appointment on June 29. He has been archbishop 
of Brisbane since 1990, was executive director of the Brotherhood of St. Laurence 
from 1980 to 1990, Australian of the Year in 1992 and Father of the Year in 1987. 

     The primate of the Anglican Church of Australia, Archbishop Peter Carnley, 
said in a statement that Hollingworth is now eligible to retire from active 
ministry, which "frees him to accept an appointment in the service of the 
nation." 

     Hollingworth will continue to serve as archbishop of Brisbane until June 24, 
when he will "lay up his pastoral staff" on the altar of St John's Cathedral in 
Brisbane. "At that time he will cease to be the archbishop and will no longer use 
the title," Carnley said. 

     The bishops of Canberra and Goulburn were quoted by the Australian media as 
saying the appointment could be perceived as giving inappropriate power to the 
church. 

     But Prime Minister John Howard said he had thought about the implications of 
appointing a clergyman to be governor-general. "We are a secular state in 
constitutional terms ... I thought about all of that, but I came to the 
conclusion that it would be patently absurd to disbar an eminent Australian by 
reason alone of the fact that he was an ordained minister.''

     

Peru's churches want inquiry into why missionary plane was shot down

     (ENI) Church leaders are demanding an in-depth investigation into a 
controversial accident in which the Peruvian air force opened fire on a Cessna 
floatplane carrying missionaries April 20.

     The Peruvian officers mistakenly thought that the plane, flying from the 
Colombian border towards the city of Iquitos, was ferrying drug traffickers. Two 
of the passengers, an American missionary from the Association of Baptists for 
World Evangelism (ABWE), Veronica "Roni" Bowers, and her seven-month-old 
daughter, Charity, were killed instantly when bullets tore through the fuselage.

     The pilot of the plane was able to make an emergency landing despite gunshot 
wounds to both legs. Bowers' husband and six-year-old son were unharmed.

     "We were deeply shocked, scandalized," said Anglican bishop William Godfrey 
of Lima. "Who makes one group lord over someone else's life? To shoot down a 
plane is to condemn its occupants to death without giving them the benefit of the 
doubt." The bishop added that it was essential that every effort be made to keep 
anything similar from happening in the future.

     "It was an absurd, excessive use of force," said Godfrey. "If it had 
happened on the ground you would stop the vehicle, ask questions. You would not 
attack with heavy machinery."

     A US surveillance plane, operated by three Central Intelligence Agency 
employees, alerted the Peruvian air force to the presence of the plane, which 
they believed to be flying without a flight plan over an area rife with smuggling 
activity. But US officials say the CIA crew protested the speed of the 
interception.

     

After months of bitter argument, Harare has a new Anglican bishop

     (ENI) The consecration of Norbert Kunonga as the Anglican Bishop of Harare 
on April 29 has ended months of argument between him and a rival clergyman for 
the position of bishop. The argument exposed a wide division in clergy attitudes 
to the troubled government of Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe.

     Bishop Kunonga, a 49-year-old black priest and theology lecturer at the 
Africa University in Mutare, east of Harare, succeeds Bishop Jonathan 
Siyachitema, who retired last October.

     Timothy Neill, former vicar-general of the diocese, had been fighting since 
last December to have Kunonga's nomination overturned. Neill, a 47-year-old white 
priest and prominent critic of the Mugabe government, claimed that the procedure 
contravened church laws and was "tainted" by racism against whites. 

     Neill was among three short-listed candidates submitted to the assembly 
convened in December to elect the new bishop. Kunonga was not on the list. 
According to the Star newspaper, published in South Africa, Neill's supporters 
alleged in December that supporters of the Mugabe government blocked Neill's 
election and engaged in intense lobbying for Kunonga.

     Neill said that the clergyman who nominated Kunonga should have been 
disqualified because he had circulated a letter at the December assembly accusing 
Neill of racism. However, a 12-member church court unanimously confirmed 
Kunonga's election, brushing aside Neill's objections that he had been slandered.

     Neill did not attend the ceremony. He told ENI last week that he was leaving 
for the United States to visit his brother-in-law who was seriously ill. Harare's 
Herald newspaper reported that a number of Anglican priests and parishioners were 
also conspicuous by their absence.

     Dr. Bernard Malango, the Zambia-based Archbishop of the Anglican Province of 
Central Africa, who presided at Kunonga's consecration, told the congregation of 
4000: "People come to church to hear the word of God and not politics. Those who 
want to get into politics should do so during their own spare time, and not use 
the church as a springboard for their ambitions. As members of the church, we are 
supposed to be speakers of the speechless. This means we have to represent 
everyone, regardless of their political affiliation."

     Neill was removed as vicar-general of the diocese in February when the 
diocese's standing committee passed a vote of no confidence in him. However, he 
is still rector of the parish of St Luke's in Greendale, Harare, despite pressure 
on him to leave the church. He has led the parish's mainly black congregation of 
800 since 1985. 

     Neill said recently that he had received death threats from people he 
suspected were government supporters.

     

Five Anglicans in court after 'rescuing' teenagers from arranged marriages

     (ENI) Five Anglicans--two priests and three laymen--will appear in court in 
northern Nigeria May 17, charged with abducting two teenage sisters who were 
going to be forced into arranged Muslim marriages in an area of the country which 
applies strict Islamic law.

     The Anglicans claim that the girls are practicing Christians who sought 
shelter in their church. 

     Four years ago, their father, who had been an animist all his life, 
converted to Islam and insisted that the girls, then aged 12 and 13, do the same 
so that Muslim husbands could be found for them. When they refused, their uncle 
took them to the district headman and imam. They were allegedly kept at the 
headman's house for six days and told they were possessed by spirits.

     They escaped and were taken by one of the laymen now facing charges to a 
parish church in Tudun Wada. Soon afterwards, the two sisters were sent to the 
house of one of their aunts.

     Abduction carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison under Nigerian 
civilian law.

     Bishop Zakka Nyam of Kano told ENI that the court case was proof that Sharia 
(Muslim) law--officially separate from civil law in northern Nigeria--was 
filtering into the legislature as a result of pressure from Muslim extremists. 
"Sharia is spreading everywhere," Nyam said. "Life here is increasingly like 
living under a jihad [a holy war by Muslims against unbelievers]."

     He said that ''Islamic law is becoming a real test to us, and Christians in 
the area are becoming frightened. ''

     Kano is one of nine northern Nigerian states which, since the advent of 
civilian rule in Nigeria in 1999, have invoked their constitutional right to put 
into practice the strict sacred law of Islam embracing all aspects of a Muslim's 
life. Prostitution, gambling and alcohol have been banned, and thieves can be 
taken before an Islamic court and sentenced to amputation. 

     In Sharia states, Muslim vigilante groups known as ''hisba'' operate 
alongside the national police force.

     Northern Nigeria is predominantly Muslim. Kano is the third biggest city in 
the country, with significant Christian communities, including about 20,000 
Anglican residents.

     

Navy pilot says prayer important for crew detained in China

     (ENI) Prayer was an important part of each day when a U.S. Navy 
reconnaissance plane crew was detained in the People's Republic of China, said 
Commander Shane Osborn, a Lutheran who piloted the plane.

     "We all prayed as a group prior to each meal," Osborn said in a telephone 
interview just before his homecoming parade in Norfolk, Nebraska. "I prayed 
several times a day--a long one before going to sleep at night, and before each 
interrogation."

     When asked if offering prayer was part of his responsibilities as a 
commander, he replied, "It's my responsibility as a human being."

     Osborn explained that the crew used the term "God" in prayers, and offered 
to crew members the option not to be part of the group prayers, but all 
participated.

     The 26-year-old lieutenant is not a member of a congregation. "I travel so 
much as a pilot with the Navy," Osborn said. Whether or not one is a part of a 
faith community "doesn't mean you've lost faith," he added. "You have the same 
beliefs you've always had even if you're not an active member of a congregation."

     

Anti-apartheid activist Leon Sullivan dead at age 78

     (ENI) The Rev. Leon Sullivan, one of the leading American activists in the 
struggle against South Africa's apartheid system, died April 25 at the age of 78. 
He was best known for creating in 1977 what came to be known as the Sullivan 
Principles, a set of ethical guidelines for corporations doing business in South 
Africa, based on a pledge to oppose apartheid and practice racial non-
discrimination. His work on the principles grew out of his experience as the 
first black member of the board of General Motors.

     The principles called for racial desegregation in the workplace, equal pay 
for equal work, and the promotion of non-whites, as well as improved housing, 
education, recreation and health facilities for workers.

     Sullivan eventually abandoned the principles because he concluded that they 
did not go far enough, arguing that the South African government at the time was 
not doing enough to end apartheid. In the 1980s he called on corporations to pull 
out of the country and pushed for sanctions. "There is no greater moral issue in 
the world today than apartheid," he said in 1987. "Apartheid is against the will 
of God and humanity."

     UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said that Sullivan "showed us all how much 
one individual can do to change lives and societies for the better." Civil rights 
leader Jesse Jackson described Sullivan as "a tremendous source of hope and 
vitality and moral authority."

     

Germany's newest female bishop wants to be ecumenical

     (ENI) Lutheran Bishop Barbel Wartenberg-Potter, Germany's third female 
bishop, said after her April installation that it was time for churches to 
"empower women and prepare them for leadership."

     Invited to give the Bible study at the European Ecumenical Assembly in 
Strasbourg, a gathering of church leaders from all the main denominations in the 
country, she introduced herself by pointing out that "not all of you will be 
happy that there is another woman bishop." However, she then invited her Roman 
Catholic and Orthodox colleagues "to share with me your wisdom as bishops, for I 
want to be an ecumenical bishop." She added that her installation could be seen 
as "a witness that some churches take the issue very seriously and have given 
women responsibility in leadership."

     The visibility of women in leadership roles, especially in the ecumenical 
movement, had done much "to persuade those who do not ordain or give women 
leadership that it is possible." She stated her commitment to "enabling and 
enhancing dialogue across confessional barriers," helping local churches to 
realize that "common witness can be done only ecumenically if it is to be 
credible."

     

Diocese of Mississippi launches evangelism emphasis

     (ENS) "This old church of ours has lost its focus as a place in which God 
can be engaged and the power of God becomes real to us," Bishop Duncan M. Gray 
III told a conference  on evangelism at is opening session April 24. "Evangelism 
is not a program of the church--it is the essence of the church."

     Gray said that the conference was "the first public celebration" of a church 
growth movement. The diocese is part of a New Start Coalition, associated with 
the Seabury Institute at Seabury-Western Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, started 
by Prof. Arlin Rothauge in 1995.

     "If we are going to start new congregations, to invigorate our congregations, to 
move back into the mainstream of American society, vision is going to have to be 
our starting point," he told the conference. Yet he admitted that new vision is not 
always welcome and can create tensions among different parts of the established 
church.

     "We are going to try a new way, to take some risks," said Gray, who was 
elected bishop coadjutor less than a year ago. That could mean risking some 
financial resources, attempting to establish some new models for being the church, 
as well as choosing leaders based on a different set of criteria. "If this is done right, 
there will be a substantial effect--like a tidal wave hitting this church," he said.