Episcopal Press and News
News Briefs
Episcopal News Service. July 9, 2002 [2002-171-1]
Fresh elections in Zimbabwe necessary, says Tutu
(ENI) A potential political crisis in Zimbabwe could be averted by a rerun of the country's controversial March presidential election, said Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican archbishop from South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
The election, which extended President Robert Mugabe's rule for a sixth term, was characterized by international observers as "fundamentally flawed" and fraught with violence and intimidation.
"Evidence shows that the presidential elections in March were not free and fair and thus the current government cannot regain its legitimacy," Tutu said in a foreword to a report by a coalition of non-governmental organizations. "A new vote with guarantees of fairness and free expression will undoubtedly be necessary."
The country's main opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has lodged a court challenge to the vote and is planning a mass protest to force a reelection.
The Zimbabwe Report was issued to the news media on June 27 by the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, a group of 250 organizations. It describes a deteriorating social, economic and political situation in Zimbabwe. The coalition was launched last year to help civil society "deal with socio-economic and political crises" and to promote "freedom and democratic values" in the country.
"The hard facts on the ground in Zimbabwe, so well-compiled in this report, suggest an alarming array of policies and practices that may be leading the country to a catastrophic future," said Tutu, who in late March criticized the South African government for having endorsed Mugabe's controversial win.
"It is now clear that the resolution to the Zimbabwe crisis can only be found in recapturing the legitimacy of the government and returning the country to a fair and just rule of law."
The release of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition report came as a delegation from the African Commission on Human and People's Rights was winding up a six-day probe of alleged human rights violations against supporters of opposition parties, the privately owned press, white commercial farmers and the general population of Zimbabwe by the state and militants of the ruling Zanu PF party.
The commission was created by a charter signed by African heads of state and government. It is expected to issue a report on Zimbabwe at its next meeting, scheduled for October in Gambia.
WCC's Raiser tells Khartoum to end injustices
(WCC) World Council of Churches General Secretary Konrad Raiser has told the Sudanese government to end its policy of political exclusion and social injustice.
Raiser, who is on a July 1-16 pastoral visit to the Greater Horn of Africa and Tanzania, expressed his concerns during a July 2 meeting with the Sudanese government minister of Guidance and Endowments, Dr. Issam El Bashir, in Khartoum.
Raiser described the 18-year religious conflict in Sudan as a deceptive facade used by Khartoum's government while actively engaged in exacerbating all kinds of inequalities. He also told the minister that unfair distribution of wealth was yet another factor which must be addressed.
Addressing an ecumenical gathering organized by the Sudanese Council of Churches (SCC), Raiser noted that Sudanese peace talks had become "endless," and stressed the WCC's commitment to conflict resolution and reconstruction of war-ravaged southern Sudan. The protracted conflict between the Arab Muslims in the north and mostly Christian population in the South has killed an estimated two million southerners and produced one of Africa's largest refugee population, estimated at over half a million.
The WCC delegation also visited the Dar-es-Salaam camp for displaced people in Omdurman, Sudan province. It has a population of 250,000 people with a single clinic for tuberculosis cases. Describing the camp as a second hell, Raiser noted that the effects of two decades of war are pitifully evident on the faces of the children. For many of them, "the breath of hope is decreasing day by day," Raiser observed.
The SCC expressed concern that the exploitation of oil, located in the south, is being used to sustain the war against southerners. In a message to the WCC delegation signed by leaders of 14 member churches, the SCC stressed that "the recent battles in Western Upper Nile region, where most of the oil wells are located, justify our concern..." Noting that the root cause of the civil war "is uneven socioeconomic development" caused by "unfair distribution of wealth," the council stressed that oil exploitation "is aggravating that imbalance in wealth distribution and contributing to the underdevelopment of the marginalized areas."
The SCC went on to stress that religious freedom for non-Muslims remains restricted in Sudan. "Permits for building churches are not given and some of the old church properties built during the British colonial rule have been confiscated. Education syllabuses, they noted, "have been Islamized without due regard to Christian students." The council pointed out that "the state now favors Islam as a state religion. As Islam and Arabism are combined to project Sudanese identity, Africanism and Christianity are ignored. These two elements of identity (Islam and Arabism) have been utilized for control of power and wealth in Sudan."
Canadian church donors can now give with a click
(ACC) Canadian Anglicans can now make donations via computer to the Anglican Appeal, the Anglican Church of Canada and its various ministries, thanks to a Canadian charity Web site.
The General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada, the legal entity of the national church, recently registered with CanadaHelps. A not-for-profit Web site launched in November 2000 by three university students, CanadaHelps is financially supported by some of the country's largest banks and various other corporate sponsors. Charities pay no fees to register with CanadaHelps and are even saved from having to issue tax receipts. Minutes after the online donation is made, the Web site issues an electronic receipt to the donor's e-mail address. Revenue Canada accepts electronic receipts for charitable donations.
Donors may either use the "Give to the Anglican Church now" button on the home page of the national church Web site which links to the church's page on the CanadaHelps site, or log on to the CanadaHelps Web site and type General Synod into the search engine. The search engine then returns a page with the name 'General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada'; one click of the name brings up a page of general information about the church, a pull-down menu (donors may designate the donation to the Anglican Appeal, which funds the work of the church in the North and overseas) plus a box for the amount of the donation you wish to make. The site is, in Internet terms, secure so that credit card information is kept confidential. The donation appears as a charge on the donor's credit card.
Gail Holland, coordinator of the Anglican Appeal, is hopeful about the new donation method, which is already being used by the Primate's World Relief and Development Fund and a number of Anglican churches across the country. "Some of the other semi-automated methods we used leave a lot to be desired," said Holland.
The Web site's corporate sponsorship even absorbs the merchant fees that businesses and charities pay to credit card companies in order to receive funds from credit card purchases or donations.
English Anglicans and Methodists move closer to unity
(ENI) Anglicans and Methodists in England took a key step towards unity when their governing bodies accepted a report proposing a covenant between the two churches. Each church agreed overwhelmingly to refer the report for grass-roots reactions before bringing it back to the national bodies next year.
The covenant proposal was debated by the Methodist Annual Conference on July 1 and the Church of England's General Synod on July 6.
Richard Thomas, a Church of England diocesan official and a General Synod member, told Ecumenical News Internation: "It's likely to be a long process. Everyone is mindful of the previous attempt that failed [in 1972] because people were rushing it."
The 1972 unity attempt failed because of Anglican opposition -although it had come "within a whisker of establishing full, visible unity," the archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, told US Methodists in 2000.
Thomas expected that next year a timetable for further work would be set out if grass-roots reactions to the covenant were favorable. The plan needed "masses and masses of space."
The covenant was proposed in a Common Statement published in December last year following formal conversations between the two churches.
The statement explored common ground, including the profession of the fundamental Christian faith grounded in Scripture and expressed in the ecumenical creeds of the Church; the sharing of one baptism and the celebrating of one Eucharist; a common ministry of word and sacraments; and a common ministry of oversight. If adopted, the covenant would still be several stages short of a scheme of unity. It has been likened to an engagement with both partners working at removing obstacles to the marriage.
Thomas said that on the Anglican side, the covenant would be referred to dioceses. He described the timetable as "tight" but manageable.
The covenant would apply only to England, although the Methodist Church involved in the unity plan also covers Scotland and Wales. The Methodist Church is taking part in separate talks with Anglicans and other denominations in Scotland and Wales about church unity.
The founder of Methodism, John Wesley, was an Anglican clergyman, and the two churches have long been conscious of their common roots. In 1946 the then archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, issued an ecumenical appeal to which the Methodists responded, starting the process that has led to the proposed covenant.
Church leaders try to stem EU abortion report controversy
(ENI) Church leaders have reacted with concern to a European Parliament report calling on member states and candidate members of the European Union (EU) to ease access to abortion and contraception.
In a vote that could anger many church leaders, the parliament in Strasbourg adopted a report on July 3 calling for abortion to be made "legal, safe and accessible to all," and for the "morning-after" pill to be sold cheaply in all EU countries.
The document, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, also urges the establishment of medical centers for women undergoing abortions, and demands equal access for all citizens to "high-quality" contraceptive methods.
But whatever political pressure an EU parliamentary vote on abortion or contraception may bring to bear on member states, it remains advisory in nature, and not legally binding on any EU country. The report itself acknowledges this limitation, stating that "legal or regulatory policy concerning reproductive health" is a matter for individual EU member states.
Richard Fischer, Strasbourg-based executive secretary of the Conference of European Churches' Church and Society Commission, urged church members to keep the parliamentary report in perspective and not to "exaggerate the significance" of the vote. The conference groups more than 120 churches, mostly Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox.
"Religious affairs, like education and culture, are matters of national sovereignty under EU rules," Fischer said.
But even if abortion and contraception lay outside the legislative competence of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), Fischer regretted that the report could be "misunderstood" in countries seeking EU membership as an "attempt to dictate moral codes."
"Most churches lack sufficient knowledge of how European institutions work," he said.
The report comes at a sensitive time for the EU, when up to 10 countries, most of them from post-communist eastern Europe, are negotiating to join the union starting in January 2004. Several of these countries have strict abortion laws, and any discussion of the subject is likely to be inflammatory.
CEC's general secretary, Keith Clements, said opinions on abortion differed "between and within" European churches, and CEC would not seek a "collective position" on the controversy.
Archbishop's Christian-Muslim dialogue initiative to continue in Qatar
(ACNS) Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey has announced that the next meeting of the Christian-Muslim dialogue process will take place in Doha, Qatar, in the first half of next year, at the invitation of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.
The conference will bring together leading Christian and Muslim scholars in an event similar to the first meeting, "Building bridges: overcoming obstacles in Christian-Muslim relations," held at Lambeth Palace in January 2002. This conference was addressed by Britain's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and by HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, in addition to Carey.
Carey said he was pleased that the dialogue would be held in a Muslim country next year. "I am delighted that His Highness the Emir of Qatar has extended this generous invitation," he said. "I hoped that the work begun at Lambeth Palace earlier this year could be continued and that the conversations we started could be carried on.
"To move the discussions to a Muslim country will provide a new context as the participants share new insights and understanding about the history and development of our two great faiths and their place in the modern world," he added.
Carey has made inter-faith relations a significant aspect of his work during his tenure as archbishop.