News Briefs
Episcopal News Service. October 18, 2002 [2002-241-1]
Anglicans, Catholics warn Nigeria not to consider war with Cameroon
(ENI) Anglican and Roman Catholic church leaders have warned Nigeria not to consider the option of war over the award of the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula to neighboring Cameroon by the world court at The Hague.
Anglican archbishop Peter Akinola, reacting to the October 10 judgment against Nigeria, advised his government to exercise restraint in handling the issue of the disputed land, after the ruling sparked some heated statements. "I don't think Nigeria should go to war," Akinola told ENI. "It's obvious that manufacturers of armaments are looking for markets to sell their products. We should not listen to advice from foreign countries that want to incite us against Cameroon."
The court's ruling in favor of Cameroon followed a bitter dispute between that country and Nigeria, sub-Saharan Africa's richest oil producer, over the peninsula in the Gulf of Guinea which had become a potential military flashpoint.
Akinola said: "Painful as it is that Nigeria is parting with what legitimately belongs to her, there is the need for wider consultations among the various groups at the international level for a peaceful resolution of the dispute." Before the Nigerian government acted, he advised, it should carefully study the court judgment and see if it was based on facts or politics. "If it is [based] on facts, then we have to accept it gallantly, and if it is based on politics then we go for a political option to resolve the issue," said Akinola.
After the ruling, Nigeria's president, Olusegun Obasanjo, said his government would study the judgment and comment afterwards. He called for people to remain calm. However, Governor Donald Duke of the state of Cross Rivers, where Bakassi Peninsula is located, said the people in his state would not give up an inch of the peninsula. "This is an international conspiracy against Nigeria, and the general view of the Nigerian people is that we cannot let go of our territory," said Duke. "Bakassi is our land. It is our heritage and we will not sit by and allow our heritage to be taken away from us."
In the court case, Cameroon argued that Bakassi was included in its territory under a 1913 treaty between the German and British colonial powers in West Africa, and the court accepted this.
Muslim and Christian leaders in Nigeria sharply divided on Sharia law
(ENI) Christian and Muslim leaders who have met to discuss religious tension in Nigeria remain sharply divided on the strict Islamic Sharia law that has been implemented in 12 Nigerian states. At a sometimes-tetchy meeting of Nigeria's Inter-Religious Council (NIREC), Christian leaders told their Muslim counterparts that the Sharia laws, which call for punishments such as stoning, amputation of hands and floggings for certain offenses, were not right for Christians.
"All of us had agreed here that Muslims in this country cannot be prevented from practicing their religion. This, we all agreed, was not to be extended to non-Muslims," said Sunday Mbang, co-chairman of the council, at the meeting that gathered 25 Christian and 25 Muslim leaders. The NIREC was established by the Nigerian government in September 1999.
Since 2000, 12 Muslim-majority states in Nigeria have decided to implement the strict code, but to apply it only to Muslims. Nigeria's population of some 126 million people is roughly divided between Christians and Muslims, with Islam more prominent in the north of the country.
The inter-religious council met in an attempt to find a solution to ongoing religious tensions between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria. Religious conflicts have escalated recently, claiming the lives of thousands of people over the past three years and destroying millions of dollars worth of property.
Muslim leaders, for their part, accused Christians of being intolerant, and threatened to walk out of the council. However, although accusations flew, the religious leaders resolved to continue to work for peaceful co-existence in the country.
Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido, sultan of Sokoto in the north and co-chairman of the council, described Nigeria as "a country with a multitude of ethnic groups and beliefs, diverse in languages and cultures. We don't have any better choice than tolerance and respect of others."
Churches say development needed to aid peace process in Sri Lanka
(ENI) Church leaders and Christian activists in Sri Lanka have said that action to rebuild war-ravaged areas and restore the economy is now needed to assist the government's bid to seek peace after 19 years of armed conflict.
Welcoming peace talks, Duleep de Chickera, Anglican bishop of Colombo, said: "Now there is a gradual shift from suspicion to trust."
"Despite the positive change in the culture of violence," Chickera warned, the "peace rhetoric does not have any meaning for most people, especially the poor in the conflict areas, who measure peace with development."
Though everyone was happy about the recent exchange of 20 prisoners by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), as they are officially known, and the Sri Lankan army, the Anglican bishop said, "People want food to fill their stomachs and roofs over their heads."
G. L. Peiris, the Sri Lankan government's chief peace negotiator, announced a meeting of international aid donors would be held to rebuild the embattled areas. He made the declaration on his return to the island from Thailand after historic peace talks with the Tamil Tigers to resolve the ethnic conflict that has since 1983 claimed nearly 65,000 lives.
The LTTE has aided the peace process by saying it is prepared to give up its demand for an independent Tamil homeland and to settle for regional autonomy and self-government
Church leaders call for calm after southern Philippines bombing kills six
(ENI) Church leaders asked for prayers and calm after condemning two bombings in the southern Philippines which killed six people and wounded about 150 and which authorities blamed on a group fighting for a separate Islamic state.
"We pray for the victims and their families as we ask God for justice. Let not hostility reign in our hearts but justice," Monsignor Hernando Coronel, spokesperson for the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, said in a statement after the two bombs went off in adjacent shopping malls in Zamboanga City. Noting that the Roman Catholic bishops "strongly condemn" the bomb attacks, Coronel hoped that the latest bomb attacks would not widen misunderstandings between Christians and Muslims, who are a minority in the country. Zamboanga is a port city with an 80 per cent Christian population located near predominantly Muslim islands in the southern Philippines.
The Philippines military blamed Abu Sayyaf, a violent group notorious for kidnapping Christians and foreigners, for carrying out the attacks. Defense officials said they feared the violence might "spill over" into the capital, Manila. Some Philippine officials have linked Abu Sayyaf with the al-Qaida terrorist group.
The attacks were the third in a series in the Philippines during the month of October. A bomb attack on October 2 at a bar frequented by American servicemen, also in Zamboanga City, killed a U.S. Special Forces (Green Beret) sergeant and three Filipinos and injured 20 others. Police blamed Abu Sayyaf for that attack. Six other people were killed and more than 20 were wounded in a similar attack on October 10 in Kidapawan City, also south of Manila. The military blamed renegade members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) for the Kidapawan attack. The MILF has been waging a rebellion for a separate Muslim state in the southern Philippines since 1978.
Apprehend killers, says WCC after attack on Christians in Pakistan
(ENI) The general secretary of the World Council of Churches has expressed dismay that none of those involved in past deadly attacks on Christians in Pakistan has faced trial, and he has called on the government to bring to book those responsible for the latest killings.
Dr. Konrad Raiser, the WCC general secretary, wrote to Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, expressing the council's "shock and profound distress" over the September 25 attack on a Christian non-governmental organization in Karachi. Seven members of the Pakistani ecumenical organization's staff were killed in the attack.
In his letter, Raiser noted that there had been a series of attacks targeting churches and Christian institutions over the past year. He asked the president to ensure that Pakistan's law enforcement agencies did all in their power to bring the perpetrators to court so that justice could be done. Raiser also renewed the WCC's call on the government "to provide safety and security to the Christian minority in Pakistan." The same letter was sent to the National Council of Churches in Pakistan and the two WCC member churches in the country.
Raiser noted that Idare-eb Amin-o-Insaf (the Institute for Justice and Peace), where the latest attack took place, "works for the poor and socially marginalized in Pakistan society, irrespective of their religious beliefs."
Law against conversions threaten Christian relief work, say churches
(ENI) Indian Christians have warned that legislation introduced in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, banning religious conversions by "force, allurement or fraudulent means," could put Christian relief work at risk. The Tamil Nadu state government claimed the measure was aimed at preventing attempts by "some religious fundamentalists and subversive forces to create communal disharmony in the name of religious conversion." It follows the conversion of 250 Dalits--members of India's lowest economic and social class--to the Seventh-day Adventist church in August at Madurai, Tamil Nadu's second-biggest city.
Hindu groups welcomed the emergency, which provides for a punishment of up to three years in prison and a fine. But the National Council of Churches in India, which groups 29 Protestant and Orthodox churches, said the law threatened to undermine constitutional rights and would create mistrust between religious communities. "The law will also make it difficult for the churches in Tamil Nadu and religious NGOs [non-governmental organizations] to work for social and economic justice and even for humanitarian relief," the council said, calling on the state government to repeal the measure.
Nearly 70 per cent of India's 24 million Christians are Dalits, and many of them have converted from Hinduism to other religions in protest at the discrimination they faced from upper-caste Hindus.
Christians and Muslims tell each other they need to face differences
(ENI) Muslims and Christians should not play down their religious differences but rather face them and learn to respect them, a leading Orthodox prelate told international political and religious leaders gathered in Geneva October 16.
"Religious identity is stronger than ethnic or cultural identity. It tends to build walls between people. However, we cannot allow these walls to stand," asserted Aram I, Catholicos of Cilicia, who is co-moderator of a three-day international inter-faith conference in Geneva sponsored by the World Council of Churches (WCC).
Called "Christians and Muslims in Dialogue and Beyond," the meeting brought together top religious and political leaders from Muslim-majority countries such as Iran, Libya, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, and Christian-majority countries in Europe and North America with the aim of building mutual trust between the faiths and finding ways to live together.
Dialogue between Muslims and Christians has taken on renewed urgency because more people than ever before are living in communities with members of other religions. Also, fundamentalism is taking root in many places around the world, said Aram I, a member of the Armenian Apostolic Church and moderator of the WCC's main governing body.
"We must not fall into the temptation of understating the existing differences in order to effect an easy compromise," said the Lebanon-based Orthodox clergyman, pointing to what he called "significant differences" in the "moral and social values" of the two religions as well as in their theological teachings.
Christians and Muslims interpret liberty, democracy and human rights differently, he said, with "concrete implications to our communities living together in one place." The two religions, he said, also "perceive the nature and role of religion, civil society and the state quite differently."
Abdelouahed Belkeziz, secretary-general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, said, however, that with the spread of modern education and science, "partial doctrinal differences between Islam and Christianity have started to decline." "Consequently, we should be able to narrow our differences, particularly as we all belong to the people of the Scriptures, and are followers of revealed religions which all stem from a common source," the Saudi-based theologian asserted.
The conference is the latest in a series of inter-faith dialogues that have been held world-wide, in such cities as Assisi, Atlanta, Cairo and Johannesburg, after the 2001 terrorist attacks in the US.
Iranian warns that Bush war with Iraq will play into Bin Laden's hands
(ENI) Iran strongly condemns the terrorism inflicted on the United States by the September 2001 attacks, but by looking to war with Iraq, America will play into the hands of Osama bin Laden, Iranian vice president Sayyid Mohammad Ali Abtahi warned October 16.
Speaking at a high-level international meeting on Christian-Muslim dialogue held in Geneva, Abtahi said the basic measures the US was taking were not working to their advantage due to the country's refusal to right wrongs committed against the Palestinian people and in carrying out attacks on Muslim countries like Afghanistan.
"The type of logic George Bush and Osama Bin Laden are following is the same logic--whoever is not with us is against us," said Abtahi, speaking at the forum organized by the World Council of Churches, a grouping of 342 churches in more than 100 countries. Abtahi, a theologian who is also president of the Institute for Inter-religious Dialogue in Tehran, is known as a strong supporter of reform in the cabinet of President Mohammad Khatami. He said all right thinking Muslims supported peace, but unfortunately the world was getting into a "vicious circle" of "war being used to fight war." Blaming politicians for exploiting religions to fuel their own ambitions, Abtahi said using wars to right wrongs was "exactly the opposite" of the teachings of such religions as Islam and Christianity.
On the US stance on Iraq, the vice president noted that Iran had itself been "victimized by Iraq" in the eight-year war the two countries fought during the 1980s in which hundreds of thousands of people died. He also noted that Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in1990 had triggered the unwelcome arrival of US troops in the Middle East.
In an interview with ENI he pointed out the fine balancing act that reform-minded leaders like the Iranian president had to carry out, due to the resistance to change that comes from hard liners in the country's Islamic hierarchy who still wield enormous power. "The younger generation have been given more importance and significance in our country, but this does not mean that they want to abandon the tradition and the culture to which they belong--they want to reform it. That is why reform is so important in our country," the 45-year-old Abtahi told ENI.
But the Iranian vice president hinted that pressure on Iran to speed up the process could derail it. He said: "The democratic goal of this process is what we are looking for, but to reach it very fast might harm the whole process." He observed it had taken Western countries hundreds of years to reach where they were, "so you must not expect us to reach this point within five or 10 years."
Future belongs to the non-violent, Lutheran tells interfaith gathering
(ENI) Under the shadow of a possible US war over Iraq, laity and clergy from a range of faiths and continents meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, re-committed themselves to the cause of peace as part of a world-wide effort to overcome violence.
"Religion has encouraged violence, and that has been a strain in each [major religious] tradition," said the Rev. Gilbert Friend-Jones of the Central Congregational United Church of Christ in Atlanta, which co-sponsored the event October 4-5 along with the United States Conference for the World Council of Churches (WCC) and Emory University. Friend-Jones told ENI that conference participants, who came from all faiths, made a commitment "to stimulate new co-operation between faith communities around the globe."
The conference was held on the same weekend that thousands of protesters in various US cities--including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco--demonstrated against possible US military action against Iraq. The October 6 peace rallies also marked the anniversary of the first US military strikes in Afghanistan.
The keynote speaker at the Atlanta conference, Bishop Margot Kaessmann of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover, in Germany, said while she agreed with US President George W. Bush that Iraq should disarm, so should the rest of the world, including the US. "The future belongs to the non-violent or we have no future," said Kaessmann, who helped to inspire the WCC's "Decade to Overcome Violence," a campaign promoting initiatives for peace by churches, secular movements and people of other faiths.
As part of the follow-up to the conference, religious leaders in the Atlanta area plan to pressure their city's civic leaders to create specific goals for reducing rates of crime and violence.
Pope canonizes Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei
(ENI) Before a record crowd at St. Peter's Square, Pope John Paul II canonized Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the founder of Opus Dei, an institution that has stirred as much admiration as controversy in the Roman Catholic Church world-wide. The canonization brought 300,000 people to St Peter's Square--"a record crowd for a canonization," wrote the Turin daily newspaper La Stampa. La Repubblica of Rome noted: "The elevation of Escriva will remain one of the most controversial acts of this pontificate."
Born in Spain in 1902 and ordained a priest in 1925, Escriva in 1928 founded Opus Dei, an institution that encourages its adherents to attain sainthood "in ordinary life"--through the world of work and family --with its official objective being "finding God in work and daily life."
Although some Opus Dei members take vows of chastity and obedience and live in community, the majority--called "supernumeraries"--are married women and men living in the world. Opus Dei does not disclose the names of supernumeraries, which has led to accusations, even from heart of the Roman Catholic Church, that the organization is a "secret sect," an accusation always energetically rejected by its members.
Seven years after Escriva's death in 1975, Opus Dei obtained from Pope John Paul II a personal prelature, a juridical form of oversight that had never before existed in the church. Introduced for the first time in a new code of canon law (the general laws of the Catholic church), a personal prelature is similar to a diocese, only not bound by geographic limitations. The members of Opus Dei are under the authority of a prelate, a bishop who resides in Rome and who answers directly to the Pope.
In 1984, John Paul II named a member of Opus Dei, the Spaniard Joaquin Navarro-Valls, director of the Vatican press room. Then in 1992, the Pope beatified Escriva in a gesture praised by many bishops who supported the idea of reinvigorating the mission of lay people in the church. But it was criticized by other prelates, who thought that the beatification of someone who had died only 17 years before was too hasty. Others accused Escriva of supporting the regime of General Francisco Franco, who died in 1975, because members of Opus Dei had been government ministers in Madrid under the Spanish dictator.
Roman Catholics condemn Zambian government for downplaying hunger
(ENI) The Roman Catholic Church has condemned Zambia's President Levy Mwanawasa, saying the president is intimidating the opposition and downplaying the severity of the famine which threatens millions of people in Zambia and other southern African countries.
"We find it disturbing that our government finds it difficult to recognize the fact that the hunger situation in the country is so serious that people are dying," the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace said in a statement released on October 11.
Countries in the southern Africa region are experiencing severe famine due, in part, to poor rains. The worst affected is Zimbabwe, where more than half of the population of 12 million requires food aid; Malawi with 3.5 million people in need of food aid and Zambia with 2.9 million.
Three months ago, Mwanawasa came under a barrage of criticism from the Christian Council of Zambia (CCZ), the Zambia (Catholic) Episcopal Conference (ZEC) and the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia (EFZ) for "feeding the people with words" and failing to address the famine. The UK-based aid organization Oxfam said in an October 3 report: "Some 2.9 million people in Zambia (26 per cent of the population) will require an estimated 224,000 metric tons of emergency cereal food aid in the period up to March 2003. The Zambian government's reluctance to allow genetically modified food into the country has meant that, for this month, no new food will be brought into Zambia."
Russian patriarch and Israel's Sharon meet in Moscow
(ENI) Patriarch Alexei II of the Russian Orthodox Church met with Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon during Sharon's recent two-day visit to Moscow and expressed concern about Christian pilgrims being unable to visit holy sites in the Middle East.
"We are grieving for the victims of terrorist acts and military conflict which is borne by the peoples of Israel and Palestine," Alexei told Sharon in a one-hour meeting at St. Daniel's Monastery, the patriarch's official residence. "We are praying for peace in the Holy Land and ask of you ... to do everything possible for peace to be established in the Holy Land so that pilgrims could come to its holy sites without obstacles," the patriarch said in remarks released to the press.
Alexei was also due to meet with a leading Palestinian politician, Mahmoud Abbas, the Moscow Patriarchate announced. This was apparently intended to underline the church's even-handed approach to the Holy Land. Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, arrived in Moscow just as Sharon was leaving and was expected to meet Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov to discuss the results of Sharon's visit and to present the Palestinians' own demands for ending two years of conflict. Abbas is widely seen as a potential successor to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
In his meeting with Sharon, Alexei also brought up the issue of damage to Russian Orthodox church properties--a hotel in Bethlehem and monastery in Hebron--which resulted from Israeli military operations in the West Bank earlier this year. "We welcome the efforts of representatives of all confessions--Christianity, Judaism and Islam--who speak for the peaceful solution to inter-ethnic problems in the Holy Land," the patriarch said.
Orthodox church to debate future as peace-builder at US meeting
(ENI) The Orthodox church will need to define itself in the future as an arbiter and peace-maker in an increasingly violent world, said several participants at a major international conference looking at the role of the church in society.
The conference, meeting from October 3-5 at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology near Boston, Massachusetts, examined the future of Orthodox churches in the light of the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and a rapidly changing international environment. The World Council of Churches was a joint sponsor of the event, along with Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. Co-operating were the Boston Theological Institute and the Initiatives in Religion and Public Life program at Harvard Divinity School.
Violence and the need to build a more peaceful world were major topics of the conference, under the theme of the "Orthodox Churches in a Pluralistic World," as were questions of globalization, human rights and ethnicity. "We live in a new situation, and we need to discuss the challenges the church faces," Emmanuel Clapsis, a theologian at the school and one of the organizers of the events, told ENI prior to the conference. "We must unite our voices with those of other Christians."
Another participant, Rodney Petersen, the executive director of the Boston Theological Institute, said the Orthodox church's geographic particularity--"the arc from the White Sea to the Black Sea"--with its proximity to many Muslim nations makes it a unique institution in the process of peace.
Beards, cassocks and head-dress to remain compulsory for Greek clergy
(ENI) Leaders of the (Orthodox) Church of Greece have rejected a request by priests to be allowed to dispense with traditional beards, cassocks and head-dress. The church's Holy Synod decided to preserve the traditional dress after considering arguments made by some clergy that these were uncomfortable and lacked "relevance" in current times.
Ignatius Soferiades, a spokesman for the church's governing Holy Synod, explained the decision in terms of showing consideration for the faithful: "When they kiss their [priests'] hands and ask for blessings, people like to see their priests looking different from other citizens…Our way of living and believing isn't the same as in other countries. If the faithful are asking for these [traditional signs of dress], we've no right to change them from one day to the next."
Soferiades was speaking after a synod debate, called when priests complained that the cassocks and kamilavki headgear they wear were too hot and "irrelevant to contemporary times." A brief communiqué said synod members had unanimously decided traditional clerical dress "posed no problems," and that the issue of change "did not arise."
Priests were allowed to don ordinary clothes when driving, shopping or spending time with their families, Soferiades told ENI, but were also expected to act "at all times in the spirit of tradition." "To claim traditional clerical garb is alienating rather than attracting people is an exaggeration--everyone knows this is the official form of dress," said the priest, who sits on the synod's commission for inter-Christian relations.
The synod ruling followed the rejection of other recent calls for change, including a plea for church services in modern Greek as a way of winning back lapsed church members. The church claims the nominal loyalty of 97 per cent of the country's population of 10.6 million.
The Church of Greece synod also recently rejected calls for a change in celibacy rules to allow priests to marry after ordination. Under current rules, Orthodox priests must marry before being ordained, or subsequently remain monks.
The constitution of Greece, a member state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and European Union, declares Orthodoxy the "dominant religion" and prohibits Bible translations without prior Orthodox consent.
Brazilian priest leaves Anglican Church
(ENS) After 33 years of ministry, Anglican priest Paulo Garcia told a Brazilian newspaper that the "exaggerated freedom" granted homosexuals was one of the reasons that he made the decision to leave the Anglican Church of Brazil.
After 27 years as dean of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, in the Aflitos quarter of Recife, Garcia said that alleged "liturgical and ethical divergences" from the positions adopted by Anglican leaders caused him to take action. He said he will continue celebrating the Eucharist there on Sundays, although the bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Recife, Robinson Cavalcanti, has appointed the Rev. Filadelfo Oliveira as acting dean of the cathedral and the Rev. Sergio Andrade as assisting dean.
Garcia said he is still deciding which denomination he will join. He has already been invited to participate in the Charismatic Episcopal Church, established in 1977 in Chicago. "We will continue activities in the cathedral. I am praying to discover which new way that I should go, but I have still not decided," said Garcia.
Garcia said he does not intend to leave the building or property of the congregation. He added that, legally, he has the right to remain there. "I am certain that Brazilian civil laws that regulate property guarantee permanence to the congregation here," observed Garcia.
Cavalcanti disagreed. "The building belongs to the Anglican Church of Brazil--it was donated by the English. The congregation is not owner of the cathedral," said Cavalcanti. "As bishop and representative of the church, I will go to the courts to set justice in motion, in case Paulo Garcia refuses to leave."
The part of the congregation that has decided to continue in the Anglican Church of Brazil will meet in another place, still not determined. "They will be able to meet with Oliveira at diocesan headquarters. The people will continue to have all the spiritual leadership always found in our church," said Cavalcanti.
Garcia said that the decision to disconnect himself from the Anglican Church of Brazil was very difficult and painful. "But the accumulation of situations that I came to observe left me constrained to do so. Attitudes that violate the word of God leave my heart sad," he explained. "As I cannot agree to this, nor can I explain these attitudes to my people, I opted to asking for the disconnection, after 33 years of ministry...The homosexuals deserve our understanding and love and we are to help them. But our doctrinal and ethical reference is the Bible, which is opposed to homosexuality," Garcia said.
"The departure of Paulo Garcia is lamentable and inexplicable. It caught us by surprise. What he is giving us are not arguments but excuses, because he was invited to participate in another church. Paulo never adjusted to Anglicanism and he always had difficulty in obeying his superiors and in coexisting in a plural church," said Cavalcanti.