Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 10, 1995 TAG: 9506120010
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - The Alabama-West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church adopted a resolution against gambling in any form.
Delegates representing nearly 700 churches and more than 140,000 conference members from south and central Alabama and the Florida Panhandle cited increased crime, gambling addiction and hardship on families who can least afford it in voting recently to oppose gambling.
``Families are robbed of needed money for food and for the household, and people are taught to want something for nothing,'' the resolution said.
Anti-pornography campaign launched
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - A campaign to stamp out pornography is gathering steam in Charlotte.
A Cincinnati preacher who worked to limit pornography in his town is looking to do the same here.
From smut on the Internet to topless bars advertising in local newspapers as ``gentlemen's clubs,'' Jerry Kirk spent his Memorial Day weekend firing up residents to wage battle against sexually oriented businesses.
``Pornography is anti-children, anti-woman, anti-family, anti-church and anti-God,'' Kirk preached to 1,500 recently at Forest Hill Church. ``We have allowed America to become a verbal and moral cesspool. And we have not done anything.
``We can go on the offensive,'' he told worshippers, hundreds of whom filled out cards to join his National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families.
S.C. bishop opposes death penalty
CHARLESTON, S.C. - Roman Catholic Bishop David Thompson has released a strong statement opposing capital punishment in a state where the chief prosecutor is a Catholic and staunch death penalty supporter.
Thompson, bishop of the statewide Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston, said he would work to try to repeal the death penalty.
South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon strongly supports executions and, during last year's campaign, said he would emphasize prosecuting capital cases.
Condon said that while the Catholic church has urged limiting use of capital punishment, ``they recognize the state's right to have it. I don't view my aggressive stand on capital punishment as being opposed to the core teachings of the Catholic Church.''
Thompson said he always has opposed the death sentence and that his letter to the people of South Carolina had nothing to do with Condon.
``I realize that capital punishment enjoys strong support in many states of our country, including South Carolina,'' the bishop wrote. ``People can and do feel the desire to retribution and vengeance. At the same time, however, I think our state has to challenge those feelings with strong convictions regarding the value of human life.''
Woman administrator makes history
SUPERIOR, Wis. - The new chancellor of the Superior Roman Catholic Diocese calls moving out of her basement office symbolic of how far women in the church have come.
For the first time since the diocese was established in 1903, the chancellor's position is occupied by a nun.
``What's happening in the church is reflective of what's happening in society,'' Sister Eileen Lang said recently among boxes of books prepared for movement upstairs to an office near the bishop's.
``As women become more involved in leadership roles in society, they are taking on more leadership in the church,'' she said.
The chancellor is the fourth-highest position in the diocese, and has been filled by women in other dioceses.
As chancellor, her primary duty will be to oversee the diocese's archives while continuing as director of the Office of Evangelization, a post she has held since 1993.
Urban kids need help from parents, churches
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.- Young children need help from parents, churches and other adult role models to escape from poverty and succeed in the 21st century, according to a national organization that helps the urban poor.
``Kids start to do badly in the fourth or fifth grades,'' said Hugh B. Price, president of the National Urban League. ``There's a pronounced dip in the lives of some children. This is the pattern we have to keep an eye on.''
Price spoke recently at the Urban League of the Pikes Peak Region's 31st Equal Opportunity Day dinner.
Price said the entire community should support children throughout their academic and social lives.
Parents can help by knowing what their children should be learning scholastically each school year, then make sure their kids are on track, Price said.
He also suggested churches and community groups help reward children and teen-agers who are ``doing the right thing,'' in school and through community involvement.
``We need to look for partnerships in lots of different ways,'' Price said. ``In many low-income communities, there's just not enough for kids to do after school.''
L.A. cathedral closed due to quake damage
LOS ANGELES - Cardinal Roger Mahony has closed 119-year-old St. Vibiana's Cathedral because damage from the Northridge earthquake left its bell tower in danger of collapse, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced.
The cardinal, who announced in January that St. Vibiana's would be replaced by a $45 million cathedral complex, ordered it closed after receiving a new seismic evaluation, the archdiocese said recently.
The cathedral has been the site of numerous important church events. Pope John Paul II stayed there in 1987, and President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton attended Mass at St. Vibiana's this past Palm Sunday.
The archdiocese said Joseph D. Irish, executive vice president of Peck-Jones Construction Corp., noted in a letter that he did not think the church should be used in its weakened state.
Irish stated that it would not take a very strong aftershock or new earthquake to topple the 83-foot bell tower through the wood roof and plaster ceiling over the sanctuary, according to the church statement.
St. Vibiana's, which is Mahony's residence, was completed in 1876 and is modeled after the Church of San Miguel del Mar in Barcelona.
Southern Baptists face slavery issue
RALEIGH, N.C. - The descendant of a North Carolina slaveholder is among those urging the Southern Baptist Convention to acknowledge for the first time that it was founded because of slavery.
Proponents are trying to get a vote on a resolution to that effect - with an apology to ``our brothers and sisters of African descent'' - at the annual meeting later this month in Atlanta of the 15.5 million-member convention.
The Rev. Jere Allen, executive director of the church's Washington association, said the denomination has to face the slavery matter to succeed in evangelizing among blacks and other ethnic groups in the nation's cities.
``We need this for our healing,'' he told The News & Observer of Raleigh. ``As a corporate body, we need to begin to admit this and repent of it in our own lifetimes.''
In 1845, Baptists from across the nation met in Augusta, Ga., and debated whether slave owners could be missionaries. Northerners objected, but Southerners said no one could question a call from God. The church split.
Now, Northern churches generally belong to the American Baptist Convention, Southern churches to the Southern Baptist Convention.
The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States with nearly 40,000 churches. The church in 1989 declared racism to be a sin.
Allen and Southern Baptist officials from Illinois, New York City and Alabama are promoting one version of the resolution. The proposal briefly recites the history of the convention and then says:
``We publicly repent and apologize to all persons of African descent for condoning and perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime, and though we may not have personally participated in such distant acts of evil [i.e. slavery], we continue to reap the bitter harvest of the resulting inequality.''
Approval of such a resolution would be a significant overture to racial healing among Baptists, said the Rev. Clifford Jones of Charlotte, president of the General Baptist Convention of North Carolina, which represents 2,000 predominantly black churches.
by CNB