wfn.org | ALC Noticias 30 Oct 2005 Brazil Venezuela Honduras Cuba Mexico

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

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

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CONTENT

BRAZIL: Religious evaluate defeat of Yes in referendum about disarmament
VENEZUELA: Leaders of Evangelical Churches support removal of New Tribes
MEXICO: Evangelicals make dramatic request for international help
HONDURAS: Disqualified Pastors seek to place relatives on electoral slates
CUBA: President of the Council of Churches pays homage to Rosa Parks

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BRAZIL
Religious evaluate defeat of Yes in referendum about disarmament

By Micael Vier B.

Porto Alegre, Oct 27 (ALC). Religious leaders have been evaluating why the
"yes" vote to ban the sale of weapons and munitions in Brazil was soundly
defeated in referendum held October 23.

The "no" won the referendum with 59.1 million votes (63.94%) while the
"yes" obtained 33.3 million votes (36.06%) a resulted announced by the
Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE). Of the 122 million Brazilian voters,
95.3 million participated in the referendum.

The Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Santa Cruz do Sul, Aloysio Silesio
Bohn told ALC that the "no" campaign convinced the population that voting
in favor of banning weapons and munitions sales would lead to the loss of a
right. Churches did not manage to transmit their support for disarmament in
a convincing and systematized fashion, he said.

Sinésio Bohn said that some Bishops voted in favor of the "no" in the
referendum and he himself had some doubts about using his Episcopal
authority for a cause that, in his opinion, was not very clear. "The fact
is that this plebiscite was held at a time that was not very appropriate
and we were not well prepared, not even in the Churches themselves," he
admitted.

According to Methodist Bishop Luiz Vergilo Batista da Rosa of Porto Alegre,
the advantage of nearly 30 percentage points in favor of the sale of
weapons and munitions revealed the dissemination of political partisan
proposals during the campaign. With this, he affirmed, the focus on seeking
a disarmed society was lost and the referendum became a vote for or against
the government.

The bishop of the Second Ecclesiastic Region of the Methodist Church, based
in Porto Alegre, said that the word of the Churches in favor of "yes"
remained restricted to its own context. While there may have been consensus
in the Churches, there was no common platform, he said.

In terms of the notorious and massive adhesion to the "no" vote in the
state of Rio Grande do Sul, which obtained 86.83 percent of the votes,
Batista da Rosa said that State is historically a focal point of resistance
due to cultural factors. Therefore, this result does not discredit the word
of the Churches. "The fact is that the referendum became a discussion about
whether or not to support public security policies," he said.

The president of the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession of
Brazil (IECLB) Walter Altmann said that the Disarmament Statute, in banning
people from carrying weapons, has contributed to a decline in the number of
deaths at the hands of fire arms in the country. Despite this, there is a
great deal more to be done as security continues to be one of the
population's basic concerns, he said.

Regarding the referendum, the population "simply feared being at the mercy
of delinquents if they voted "yes," said Altmann. The "no" campaign was
victorious because the population was convened to vote on banning weapons
before they felt they could trust  public security, he said.

According to Bishop  Redovino Rizzardo, of Mato Grosso do Sul, there were
three reasons why the "no" won the consultation on October 23. First of all
he cited the question of violence in Brazilian society. Secondly, the
emphasized that the "no" vote was a message to political authorities, in
particular President Lula, who have been incapable of imposing efficient
public security policies.

Finally he raised the hypothesis that many Catholics opted to vote "no" to
protest against priests and religious who, in the past 20 years, have
presented the ruling Workers Party was the party that "is most identified
with the Kingdom of God, with a grandiose project of transparency and
social justice for all." The vote, therefore, was a protest against those
who "incarnated a hope that was transformed into a new disappointment."

The coordinator of Religion and Peace for the NGO Viva Rio, Andre Proto,
said that the result was a significant defeat for the culture of peace. "We
believe that it was more a 'no' of criticism against the government and the
lack of public security rather than against disarmament," he affirmed. He
based his argument on the fact that disarmament itself was supported by the
population during the campaign to turn over weapons in 2004 and 2005.
During that campaign 464,000 guns were turned in.

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VENEZUELA
Leaders of Evangelical Churches support removal of New Tribes

Caracas, Oct  27 (ALC).  A group of Evangelical leaders and Venezuelan
service organizations supported President Hugo Chavez's decision to expel
the US New Tribes Mission "for the accusations against this institution"
and what they termed as "evidence" to back up those accusations.

In a statement published Wednesday, the Evangelical leaders said that the
measure should not be considered persecution against the Churches given
that New Tribes, even when it carries out religious proselytism activities
is not a Church and does not belong to any recognized Church in Venezuela.

It recalled that for more than 20 years the New Tribes organization
remained distant from the national religious community and faced serious
charges in the 1970s emerging from the communities themselves who alleged
they practiced compulsive religious proselytism, given their fundamentalist
and integrationist ideological orientation.

The Venezuela Armed Forces also accused the mission of investigating the
existence of strategic minerals in the Amazon zone, an activity that is far
from its evangelizing role and favorable to the interests of multinational
companies, the letter said.

Investigative commissions created in the 1980s did not disclose the results
due to pressure from the United States through its Embassy in Caracas.
However, they did claim that there is evidence that demonstrates
irregularities in the New Tribes, according to the statement.

The statement was signed by Bishop Gamaliel Lugo, president of the
Venezuela Evangelical Protestant Union, leaders of the Martin Luther King
Foundation, the "Maranatha" Pentecostal Church of Zulia, the Presbyterian
Collective, the Union of Christian Churches, the "Reborn" Foundation, the
"Juan Vives" Ecumenical Center, Fundalatin and the Christian Movement CALEB.

Those signing the statement accuse New Tribes of being an organization
dedicated to religious proselytism in indigenous communities in several
countries in the world and said that their action in Venezuela was
extremely harmful for the ancestral culture of indigenous ethnic groups.

We claim the responsibility of all Christians to share the values of the
Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ with all peoples and cultures but within an
attitude of creative dialogue, of recognition and appreciation of the
other, stripped of all dominant, conservative, fundamentalist and
colonizing ideology, they said.

New Tribes began working in the Venezuela Amazon in 1946, extending its
radius of action to the Apure and Bolivar States, with a high number of
missionary personnel coming from the United States, Canada and England.

On October 12, President Hugo Chavez announced that the mission will be
expelled from the country for constituting a "true imperialist penetration."

--------------- MEXICO
Evangelicals make dramatic request for international help

Pachuca, Oct. 27 (ALC).  Lawyer Carlos Ramirez made a dramatic appeal for
international help for some 40 Evangelical families from San Nicolas in
Hidalgo Mexico a few days before they have to abandon their homes according
to a community assembly held by the Catholic majority.

"Please tell everyone on the planet. discrimination cannot continue. We
need help in the San Nicolas community," said Ramirez, a lay leader from
the Shalom Church of Ixmiquilpan.

The threatened residents have found no other way to make their voices heard
Mexican authorities have not called for an investigation into the tense
situation facing a group of Evangelical families in the municipality of
Ixmiquilipan, some 250 kms north of the Mexican capital.

The call warns of violent acts against the Evangelicals once the 30-day
period set by Catholic leaders from the community is up at the beginning of
November. "There is an urgent need to do something before there are
confrontations," said Ramirez.

The Evangelicals filed a complaint with the National Council to Prevent
Discrimination in Mexico, but authorities have been show to react.
According to the Evangelicals, officials have limited themselves to
requesting more information for the file.

The 40 families have until November 1 to abandon the area according to an
extraordinary assembly held at the beginning of the month. The families
were notified that they were required to leave for professing a religion
other than the Catholic religion.

Community delegate Pedro Beltran Ibarra said that the Evangelicals should
abandon the community as their presence "puts the population at risk."
Residents voted so that the Evangelicals should be exiled and stripped of
their lands, he said.

"If the Protestants do not abandon the town then we will have no choice but
to lynch them, even if we don't want to," said some Catholic indigenous
from the area while the deputy municipal delegate Noe Gerardo Nicolas said
that the removal of the Protestants "is law, the Word of the people becomes
law."

Religious intolerance is a long standing problem in the area, however, a
few years ago some achievements were reached between Catholics and
Protestants but three months ago, a conflict broke out when Evangelicals
announced plans to build a Church in San Nicolas.

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HONDURAS
Disqualified Pastors seek to place relatives on electoral slates

Tegucigalpa, Oct. 24 (ALC).  Two Evangelical pastors who were impeded by
the Supreme Justice Court from running for congressional seats in upcoming
elections want their posts to be occupied by their relatives, according to
local press.

Pastor Mario Tomas Barahona, a candidate for the Partido Nacional was
disqualified along with 13 other Evangelical ministers by the Supreme
Court. He insists that his son, who has the same name, should take his
spot. Pastor Heriberto Chica, who sought a seat for Cortes,  wants his wife
to replace him.

As stipulated by electoral law, the positions they held were assigned to
their substitutes, Alba Rivera and Norma Amparo Cardona Oviedo, respectfully.

The pastors, however, are exerting heavy pressure on PN leaders and the two
candidates to give up their aspirations and allow their relatives to run,
to the point where Cardona Oviedo had announced her resignation, according
to the daily La Tribuna.

Article 77 of the Constitution establishes that religious ministers cannot
exercise public positions or carry out political propaganda. Last July, the
Supreme Justice Court removed 14 evangelical pastors from different party
lists as candidates for Congress in upcoming November elections as they are
constitutionally barred from running.

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CUBA
President of the Council of Churches pays homage to Rosa Parks

By José Aurelio Paz

HAVANA,  October 26 (ALC).  Rosa Parks, a black woman who refused to give
up her seat for a white man 50 years ago, triggering an enormous movement
for civil rights in the United States, was lauded by Pastor Rhode Gonzalez
Zorrilla, president of the Cuban Council of Churches (CIC).

The leader of the CIC, a group that brings together 54 Evangelical
denominations on the Island said that the "dream of equality that Rosa
sought with her small action calls us to continue because it still has not
been reached in a world full of inequalities of every type."  Rosa Parks
passed away on October 24 at age 92.

"Sometimes we think that the world is only changed by great actions by
great people and not by small daily actions we can carry out in the face of
a globalized world by injustices and wars," she said.

Rosa Parks changed the history of the United States when, on December 1,
1955 she refused to give up her seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.
She was arrested and fined $14. Her act led to a 381-day boycott of public
transport and detonated the civil rights movement in the United States, led
by the young Black Baptist pastor Martin Luther King.

In an interview years later with the BBC, Parks said that she never thought
that this insignificant act would be known by other people and would serve
to begin a struggle that would eventually lead to the Civil Rights
Agreement in the United States in 1964.

I also like to see her, said Gonzalez Zorrilla, from the perspective of the
Disciples of Christ, of being voices where women and the excluded did not
have voices. We have the responsibility as people of God to carry out small
actions that move mountains, that breathe the energy this woman has left us
as a legacy, to live in concordance with the model of life of Jesus and
have an impact on others, she concluded.

In 1996, Rosa Parks was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996
and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999 in homage of her life and her
defence of human fraternity.
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