WASHINGTON (AP) _ American Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders say there is an urgent need for U.S. leadership to negotiate a lasting cease-fire in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
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Now, the group says the U.S. and its partners should ``press more urgently for meaningful, reciprocal, simultaneous steps by Israel and the Palestinian Authority to improve conditions on the ground and help restore people’s hopes that a peace agreement is possible.’’
The steps that the group is advocating include having the Palestinian Authority block illegal arms shipments and disarm militias; a freeze on any expansion of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories and reducing military checkpoints for Palestinians; and quietly urging Arab leaders to help form a new, unified Palestinian government that can govern both the West Bank and Gaza. Gaza is controlled by the Islamic militant Hamas, while the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement has a stronghold in the West Bank.
Among the more than 30 signers of the statement are Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington; Chicago Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; Conservative Rabbi Elliot Dorff of American Jewish University in Los Angeles; Sayyid Syeed, national director of the Islamic Society of North America; and Imam Yahya Hendi, Georgetown University chaplain.
Lutherans to release draft of sexuality statement next month
CHICAGO (AP) _ The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will soon release a draft of its social statement on human sexuality, including proposed teaching on gay relationships.
The document ``Free in Christ to Serve the Neighbor: Lutherans Talk about Human Sexuality’’ is scheduled to be made public on March 13 by the Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality.
Like many other Protestant groups, the ELCA has been struggling for decades to reconcile different views of what the Bible says about same-gender relationships.
Current church standards require clergy to ``abstain from homosexual sexual relationships.’’ But last year the Churchwide Assembly adopted a resolution that ``urges and encourages’’ bishops to refrain from disciplining clergy in ``faithful, committed’’ same-sex relationships.
The task force has been working on the issue for years. The final version of the document is expected to be on the agenda for the next Churchwide Assembly, Aug. 7-13, 2009, in Minneapolis.
With about 4.8 million members, the ELCA is the largest Lutheran group in the United States.
The 2.5 million-member Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, based in St. Louis, believes the Bible is literally true and does not ordain gays.
Church group slams Malaysian airport officials for confiscating Bibles
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) _ A church federation slammed Malaysian customs officials for seizing 32 Bibles, saying the incident shows the Muslim-majority country is becoming less tolerant of other religions.
The Royal Malaysian Customs department said it was only trying to determine if the Bibles were imported for commercial purposes.
``It’s the normal procedure,’’ said Iskandar Jaafar, a Customs department spokesman.
Custom officials at an airport in Kuala Lumpur took the Bibles from a Malaysian woman Jan. 28 on her return from the Philippines, said the Rev. Hermen Shastri, general secretary of the Council of Churches of Malaysia.
The woman was told that all religious materials have to be sent to the Internal Security Ministry’s publications control unit for clearance, Shastri said.
Shastri said he had never before heard of anyone being told to do this when bringing English-language Bibles into the country.
``It’s getting from bad to worse,’’ Shastri told The Associated Press. ``This either points to a concerted effort to undermine the current practice of religious tolerance, or the religious enforcement authorities have been given a free hand and they are having a field day.’’
The council called on Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to publicly reassure Christians of their rights. Malaysian law forbids proselytizing by non-Muslims, although Muslims are allowed to encourage people to accept Islam.
Religion is an extremely sensitive topic in Malaysia, where ethnic Malay Muslims make up about 60 percent of the 27 million people. But the Constitution guarantees freedom of worship for minorities, who include Christians, Buddhists and Hindus.
In protest to Vatican, Spanish government condemns bishops’ election comments
MADRID, Spain (AP) _ The Spanish government is protesting a veiled statement from Roman Catholic bishops that voters should shun the ruling Socialists in elections next month, the Spanish foreign minister says.
The Spanish ambassador to the Holy See, Francisco Vazquez, met Feb. 2 with a Vatican official to express ``perplexity and surprise’’ over the bishops’ comments, Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said.
The Spanish Bishops Conference had released a statement indicating that voters should not back parties that support gay marriage or other policies contrary to church teaching, nor should they support talks with armed Basque militants _ clearly references to the governing Socialists.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero legalized same-sex marriage, streamlined divorce, and tried in vain to negotiate a peace accord in 2006 with the armed Basque group ETA.
Moratinos, speaking in the southern city of Cordoba, criticized Spain’s church hierarchy as ``fundamentalist and neo-conservative.’’ He said the church does not represent a majority of Spanish Catholics and is ``using terrorism politically to divide all Spaniards.’’
``We want to maintain a better level of relations with the Holy See, but we do not understand this posture,’’ Moratinos said.
In Spain, leaders of the Catholic Church have long sided with the right. They supported the fascist forces of late Gen. Francisco Franco in the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War and his near four-decade dictatorship. Under democracy, church leaders, without naming a political party, have consistently indicated support for conservatives in elections.
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