Front Page

NCC Policy Helps Member Churches Join Biotechnology Debates

December 13, 2006, NEW YORK – Should people of faith join the debate on stem cell research, speak out about questionable methods of human "enhancement" and push for adequate regulation of the biotechnology industry? The National Council of Churches, representing some 45 million church members, adopted a policy in November advocating just that type of action. The policy challenges the idea that the representatives of the scientific community and the government "ought to control the discussion simply by virtue of their expertise. ... To be a responsible church, members must be fully informed, equipped and empowered to serve the common good."

‘Fearfully and Wonderfully Made': Excerpts

December 13, 2006, NEW YORK – Here are some excerpts from "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made: A Policy on Human Biotechnologies," adopted by the National Council of Churches at its 2006 General Assembly.

Conference Looks at How Churches Can Respond to Structural and Institutional Cruelty

December 11, 2006 – "The cross calls us not to glorify, but to attend to the suffering in the world and to struggle for its elimination," said the participants of a theological consultation on cruelty organized by the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The conference took place 5-8 December in Puidoux, Switzerland. Sex trafficking of women and children, walls going up in the name of security, new justifications for the torture of human beings – these and other forms of cruelty were some of the issues tackled by 25 theologians and social scientists who attended the conference.

Bishop Asks for ‘Unity Through Diversity'

December 11, 2006 – Bishop Peter Lee of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia issued a statement December 10, as members of nine congregations began voting on whether to sever ties with the Episcopal Church, saying that his "fervent prayers this day embrace all who will bear the weight and consequences of these decisions." Members of the congregations are being asked to decide whether or not to affiliate with the Anglican District of Virginia, part of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA). Many congregations have left the voting open for a week or more. All Saints, Dale City, one of the nine, announced on its website December 10 that its members voted 402-6 in favor of disaffiliation with the Episcopal Church.

General News

Church Program Helps Ex-Convicts Turn Lives Around

December 12, 2006, DENVER – On a fall Saturday, six ex-convicts are in an industrial warehouse learning how to operate a forklift. The training could be the ticket to a job. The men are clients of Turnabout, a program started by Trinity United Methodist Church to help ex-convicts make their way back into society. Turnabout participant Ed Rollerson was released from prison in August after serving three years on drug-related charges. At 50, he says he's too old to start all over, but that's just what he's doing.

Gold Rush Town Hosts Las Posadas for Christmas

December 14, 2006 – It's 2 in the afternoon, and Faye Fyock, her short dark hair catching a gust of early December wind, clicks off the items still to be completed before the evening's festivities. "At three, about 30 people will start making the luminaries," she explains. "The lights will go up around 5:30. We'll gather the angels. We thought we would have a just few, but it's up to 14 now – everyone wants their child to be in it. We've been getting calls all week." Faye and husband Bob are members of Sutter Creek United Methodist Church, a part of the historic town of Sutter Creek, Calif., since hard rock miners made it famous during California's Gold Rush.

Former Inmates Get Second Chance Through Program

December 12, 2006 – Eight thousand prisoners are released from Oklahoma correctional systems each year with $50 and a bus ticket. Sometimes, even the price of the bus ticket is deducted from the $50. That is not exactly a recipe for success, according to the Rev. Stan Basler. "What do you think is going to happen?" asked Basler, director of the Criminal Justice and Mercy Ministries, United Methodist Oklahoma Annual (regional) Conference. "At the most fundamental level, people don't have what they need to start."

Pastor's Nativity Sets Reflect Universality of Christmas Story

December 15, 2006, ALBANY, NY – The traditional Nativity set usually has a straw-filled manger in a facsimile of a stable, surrounded by a Mary, Joseph, three kings, a couple of shepherds and a hovering angel – often with European features – and an assortment of animals. At least, that's the traditional Nativity in some parts of the world. In other parts of the world, the depiction of Christ's birth might take place on a beach, at the foot of a volcano or in an igloo. The three kings might come wearing fur coats, and the animals might be a water buffalo, a llama or a walrus. What makes up a traditional Nativity set depends on who's making the Nativity scene. That's what makes collecting sets from around the world so fascinating, says the Rev. Jan Rowell, pastor at Scotia United Methodist Church near Albany.

San Diego Parish Empowers Latinas Through Guadalupe Art Program

December 12, 2006 – The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated on December 12 to commemorate the appearance of the Virgin Mary in the Americas. However, for the past four years, St. Paul's Cathedral in the Diocese of San Diego has used that icon to spiritually empower Latinas in their Guadalupe Art Program. The Guadalupe Art Program is a bi-lingual workshop for girls aged 8-17 that uses the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the most ubiquitous icon in Latino culture, to explore, develop, and deepen their spiritual lives through art, music, and dance. The art program addresses many of the negative issues within the participants' culture and society at-large: oppression, sexism, abuse, addiction, and violence.

Ecumenical News

Spiritual Contribution of Catholics and Orthodox

December 14, 2006, VATICAN CITY – This morning, the Holy Father received His Beatitude Christodoulos, archbishop of Athens and of all Greece, who is making an official visit to the Vatican. Prior to his audience with the Pope, the archbishop visited St. Peter's Basilica where he prayed at the tomb of John Paul II. In his address, the Holy Father recalled how "following the advent of Christianity, Greece and Rome intensified their relations" and how "this gave rise to very different forms of Christian communities and traditions in the regions of the world that today correspond to Eastern Europe and Western Europe. These intense relations helped to create a kind of osmosis in the formation of ecclesial institutions.

Joint Declaration of Pope and His Beatitude Christodoulos

December 14, 2006, VATICAN CITY – This morning in the Vatican, following their private meeting and after each had pronounced a public address, the Pope and His Beatitude Christodoulos, archbishop of Athens and of all Greece, signed a Joint Declaration in the presence of members of the archbishop's Greek delegation and of Catholic representatives. "We, Benedict XVI, Pope and Bishop of Rome, and Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens and of all Greece, in this sacred place of Rome, ... wish to live ever more intensely our mission to bear apostolic witness, to transmit the faith, ... and to announce the Good News of the birth of the Lord. ... It is also our joint responsibility to overcome, in love and truth, the multiple difficulties and painful experiences of the past."

Pope Benedict Visits with the Ecumenical Patriarchate

December 7, 2006, ISTANBUL, TURKEY – During the last week of November 2006, Roman Catholic Pope Benedict XVI visited Turkey, where he met with numerous state and religious officials. A highlight of his trip was his visit to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul's Phanar district, where he was welcomed by His All-Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. Upon the Pope's arrival at the Patriarchate, a Doxology was celebrated in the Patriarchal Cathedral of Saint George.

Spanish News

Los Mormones Crecen En El País

13 diciembre 2006, SAN PABLO, Brasil – En los últimos seis años, la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días, también conocida como Iglesia Mormona, creció 460% en el Brasil. Ellos sumaban 199 mil fieles, en el 2000, y hoy llegan a 928 mil, resultado do su trabajo de evangelización. El dato fue presentado por el Diario del Estado de San Pablo en la edición del domingo, 10 de diciembre. Los mormones "tienen un programa sistemático de vida, asumen compromisos, tienen un comportamiento muy reglado," comentó para el diario el profesor de Teología y Ciencias de la Religión de la Pontificia Universidad Católica – PUC de San Pablo, Edin Sued Abumanssur.

IPU Aplaude Postura Del Papa En Turquía

14 diciembre 2006, VICTORIA, Brasil – Así como criticó a Benito XVI cuando, en un aula en Regensburg, Alemania, en septiembre, criticó a un líder religioso musulmán, lo que generó indignación en sectores del Islam, la Iglesia Presbiteriana Unida del Brasil (IPU) aplaudió, ahora, la reciente visita del papa a Turquía, donde fue "realmente un constructor de puentes," un pontífice. En nota dirigida a la Iglesia cristiana, a los fieles musulmanes y a todos los que buscan la paz en el Brasil y en el mundo, el moderador de la IPU, reverendo Manoel de Souza Miranda, manifestó agrado a la forma como el pontífice católico-romano se posicionó en la mas importante visita de un jefe religioso cristiano en el propio ambiente religioso del Islam.

UNICEF Remarca La Importancia De La Igualdad De Género Para La Supervivencia De La Niñez

13 diciembre 2006, NUEVA YORK – El 11 de este mes, UNICEF conmemoró su aniversario número 60. El mismo dìa dió a conocer un informe en el que afirma que la igualdad de género reviste una importancia fundamental para la supervivencia y el desarrollo de los niños y las niñas. "La igualdad entre los géneros y el bienestar de la infancia están vinculados de manera indisoluble," afirmó Ann M. Veneman, Directora Ejecutiva de UNICEF. "Si las mujeres no reciben educación, no gozan de buen estado de salud y no gozan de autonomía, quienes sufren son los niños y las niñas."

National News

California Bishop Arrested During San Francisco War Protest

December 12, 2006 – Bishop Marc Handley Andrus of the Episcopal Diocese of California was arrested December 7 for blocking the front door of the San Francisco federal building to protest the deaths caused by the Iraq war. His participation in the protest and his arrest are "just one piece of a sustained effort" to work for peace, Andrus told ENS December 8. Other parts of the effort include other liturgical events, diocesan participation in the upcoming release of a documentary about four soldiers who sought conscientious objector status, and the possibility of having Episcopalians participate in a Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) trip to Iran. Andrus said that his protest sprang not just from his own convictions about the war but "from a base of considered opinion by the House of Bishops and the Episcopal Church about this war."

Ecumenical Leaders Welcome Passage of Trade Bill for Haiti

December 13, 2006 – Leaders of several U.S. Christian denominations have commended members of Congress for passing landmark legislation to bring economic opportunity to Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries. Congress passed the Haiti Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement (HOPE) Act on December 9 in the final hours of the 109th Congress. The HOPE Act grants preferential access to Haitian exports for entry into the U.S. market. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Methodist Church joined together to support the legislation.

White House Summit on Malaria Welcomes ERD President as Featured Speaker

December 15, 2006 – Robert W. Radtke, president of Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD), was a featured speaker at the December 14 White House Summit on Malaria, which was hosted by the President and Laura Bush at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C., in collaboration with the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development and Malaria No More. Malaria is an easily preventable disease. Yet, it currently kills 3,000 children daily and claims the lives of nearly one million people worldwide every year, ERD notes.

International News

In the Heart of Africa
Hermine Nikolaisen Gives an Overview of LWF's Work in Rwanda and the DRC

December 15, 2006 KIGALI, Rwanda/GENEVA – By evening, she will have reached Goma city in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Hermine Nikolaisen, reckons it takes about three hours from the Rwandan capital Kigali to Goma, the city that experienced extensive destruction in January 2002 when the Nyiragongo volcano erupted, leaving tens of thousands displaced, and nearly 50 people dead. Nikolaisen originally comes from near Munich, Germany. She started her work in Rwanda in November 2005, and has seen much of the of the "Land of a Thousand Hills," so-called because of its hilly terrain. She is the representative of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Department for World Service (DWS) and director of the Kigali-based LWF/DWS country program in Rwanda and the DRC.

Anglican Archbishop Speaks out in Support of Duly-Elected Government
Jabez Bryce Urges Prayer for a Peaceful, Democratic Resolution to His Country's Crisis

December 11, 2006 – Archbishop Jabez Bryce, the long-serving Suva-based bishop who shares the leadership of the Anglican Church in this province, has spoken out in the Fiji press of his support for Fiji's elected government – and his dismay at its overthrow by the military. In a personally signed statement delivered to Fiji's media December 6, Bryce publicly reaffirms his support "for the duly-elected government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase" and says that it is "regrettable that the Commander hijacked a process of dialogue that was moving, albeit slowly." Had that been allowed to continue, the result would "surely be better than the events that have unfolded in the last 24 hours," he said.

Chaos and War Avoidable, Church World Service Director Says

December 11, 2006 – The conventional wisdom among global analysts is that the West African nation of Guinea is teetering on the brink of a collapse that could destabilize a region where neighboring Liberia finally is peaceful after resolving its civil war, where Sierra Leone is struggling to maintain a fragile peace, and where the situation in Cote D'Ivoire remains volatile. But the head of New York-based global humanitarian agency Church World Service (CWS) is determined to look beyond that gloomy assessment. The Rev. John L. McCullough, recently returned from a consultation in the struggling country, says "war is completely avoidable in Guinea" – even with its corrupt government, collapsed economy, and poverty so crushing that the majority of its 8.8 million citizens have little or no reliable access to food, water, health care, education or government services.

Middle East News

ELCA Presiding Bishop, 33 Other Leaders Urge Renewed Mideast Peace Efforts

December 14, 2006, WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), joined 33 leaders from Christian, Jewish and Muslim national organizations in calling on U.S. President George W. Bush to make peace in the Middle East a "top priority" for his administration. The National Interreligious Leadership Initiative for Peace in the Middle East released a joint statement Dec. 14, titled "Arab-Israeli-Palestinian Peace: From Crisis to Hope" and sent a letter requesting a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to "discuss the urgent situation in the Middle East." The National Interreligious Leadership Initiative for Peace in the Middle East, made up of leaders from more than 25 Jewish, Christian and Muslim national organizations, was formed in December 2003.

Bethlehem Welcomes Church Leaders' Visit

December 12, 2006 – The Catholic and Anglican bishops of Jerusalem have welcomed the announcement by UK church leaders of their pilgrimage to Bethlehem. The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Moderator of the Free Churches the Revd David Coffey, and the Primate of the Armenian Church of Great Britain Bishop Nathan Hovhannisian are to undertake a four-day visit to the Holy Land from the 20th-23rd December. The focal point of their visit will be a pilgrimage to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Work Begins on an International Church Forum for Peace in Palestine and Israel

December 13, 2006 – With the urgent necessity of peace in Israel and Palestine at the top of the agenda, a World Council of Churches meeting has begun work on setting up an international forum to galvanize world-wide church advocacy for the Middle East. The proposed Palestine/Israel Ecumenical Forum is to be a key element in a multi-year programme for peace in the region involving WCC member churches and related organizations. Proposing "a place to face challenges as they really are," a way for churches to "overcome fear," and an opportunity for "communities of faith to play an unusually powerful role" in ending the conflict, participants from 13 countries debated various designs for the forum.

Presiding Bishop Joins in Call for Renewed Efforts at Middle East Peace

December 15, 2006 – Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is one of 34 Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders who wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice December 12 asking for a meeting with her to discuss the "urgent situation in the Middle East" and calling on the United States to make peace in the region an "urgent priority." The leaders, acting as the National Interreligious Leadership Initiative for Peace in the Middle East, issued a statement the same day, saying that "as Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders, our shared Abrahamic faith compels us to work together for peace with justice for Israelis, Palestinians and all peoples in the Middle East."

Tutu's Gaza Visit Blocked by Israel

December 11, 2006 – South African Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu says it is distressing that Israel blocked a planned mission by him and British professor Christine Chinkin to investigate the killing of 19 Palestinian civilians by Israeli shells. The former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town was due on December 10 to lead a team with law professor Chinkin on behalf of the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate the incident at Beit Hanoun in Gaza on November 8. Tutu and Chinkin said in a joint statement that the fact-finding mission, which some Israelis asserted had already made up its mind before leaving, had been cancelled because there would no longer be enough time to carry it out properly.