New York, 4 December (ENI)--Prominent US Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders, united by what one called "common conviction", are calling for renewed efforts by their government in Washington to promote peace in the Middle East.

In a 2 December letter to President George W. Bush, the religious leaders said "active, determined US leadership in pursuit of peace between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states" would be needed to revive the accord known as the "road map to peace", which has stumbled in recent months because of renewed violence in the region.

That road map has the support of the United Nations, the United States, Russia and the European Union. The letter of the religious leaders also took note of an unofficial peace declaration signed in Geneva on 1 December by Israelis and Palestinians which has the backing of Nobel Prize winners.

Calling themselves the National Interreligious Leadership Delegation in Support of the Road Map to Peace in the Middle East, the leaders said they would begin campaigning for US public support of Middle East peace efforts.

"We believe working for peace together with justice in the Middle East reflects a central moral imperative of our common Abrahamic faith," Mark Hanson, the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), said at a 2 December news conference in Washington, DC, announcing the initiative.

The initiative is significant in at least one regard - major US Protestant and Jewish leaders have often been at odds publicly on Middle East questions, with some Protestant leaders often highly critical of Israeli policies.

Hanson said the US religious leaders did not "minimise the complexity of the Middle East conflict", and recognised that "relationships with people and communities living in the midst of violent confrontations on the ground sometimes have led us to significantly different perspectives on the conflict." But, he said, it was now time for interfaith cooperation to provide leadership for peace in the region.

The religious leaders called for an end to acts of violence on all sides; supported renewed efforts by a US special envoy in the region; and suggested that Israel and the Palestinians set specific simultaneous steps and a timetable to help ease tensions.

Other Christian leaders supporting the initiative include Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA); Archbishop Demetrios, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America; and Frank Griswold, presiding bishop of the Episcopal (Anglican) Church, USA. Two evangelical leaders were also among the supporters: David Neff, editor and vice-president of Christianity Today magazine; and Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary. Muslim leaders include Dr Sayyid Muhammad Syeed, secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America, and Dawud A. Assad, former president, Council of Mosques, USA. Jewish leaders include Rabbi Janet Marder, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis; Rabbi Jerome M. Epstein, executive vice-president of the United Synagogue Council. [496 words]
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New Delhi, 5 December (ENI)--Church leaders in India are blaming a campaign "targeting Christians" for the victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in elections for legislators on Monday, in the country's central Chattisgarh state. The BJP, whose opponents claim it has a Hindu-nationalist agenda, unseated a Congress Party state government headed by Chief Minister Ajit Jogi, who is a member of the Church of North India (CNI).

According to results published on Thursday, the BJP clinched 50 seats in the 90-member state assembly, while Jogi's party could muster only 36 seats. Opinion polls in the run-up to the election on 1 December had, however, indicated a victory for the Congress Party over the BJP, the main party in India's federal government. "Christians have been used as whipping boys to bring the BJP into power here," said the Rev. Cyril Cornelius, director of the Christian Association for Radio and Audio Visual Services.

The BJP had pledged during the election campaign that it would ban religious conversions if it came to power due to the notion of some party leaders that Christians are engaging in such activities to the detriment of Hindus. Hindu groups sponsored advertisements, during the campaign, in several local daily newspapers that portrayed a bishop forcibly converting a "tribal person" as some indigenous people are labelled, while a henchman was seen keeping watch on a cage holding other tribal people who were to be baptised on the orders of the Pope.

"As a result of this, conversion has again become the main issue," Cornelius told ENI from a meeting of the executive of the CNI Jabalpur diocese which covers Chattisgarh state. The issue is particularly sensitive in Chattisgarh where more than 35 per cent of Chattisgarh's population of 20 million are tribal people. Christians account for only half-a-million people in the state and most of them - including Jogi - are tribal people.

The Congress Party reportedly fared badly in areas with a predominant tribal population, where the leading BJP candidate Dilip Singh Judeo campaigned strongly against conversions. Roman Catholic Bishop Victor Kindo of Raigarh said the campaign focussing on conversions had "played a crucial role in BJP victory. This is very clear."

Four Indian states went to the polls on 1 December, and the BJP won three of the four elections. The Congress Party was able to retain power only in the tiny state of Delhi, the Indian capital. [416 words]
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Amsterdam, 11 December (ENI)--Churches in Europe are being called on to step up their efforts to combat trafficking in women, a problem estimated to affect hundreds of thousands of women every year. "The trafficking of so many women and children is a human rights abuse that shames us all," said Baroness Sarah Ludford, a member of the European Parliament, speaking on Wednesday at the launch in Brussels of a new publication to help churches and other bodies tackle the problem.

The 48-page document* has been produced by two Brussels-based agencies, the Churches' Commission for Migrants in Europe (CCME) and Caritas Europa. "Christian churches and related organizations, along with their partners from civil society, have repeatedly denounced trafficking as an unacceptable new form of slavery," the two agencies said in a joint statement at the offices of the European Parliament in Brussels.

The inauguration was timed to coincide with International Human Rights Day, marked around the world on 10 December. Accurate figures about the extent of the problem are not available because of the secrecy in the trade, but "it is fair to assume that each year several hundred thousand women are trafficked in Europe alone", the new publication states.

"The problem of trafficking in women, which for decades has been known in other regions (e.g. South-east Asia), has become one of the most tragic and alarming products of societies in crisis and transition in countries of the former Eastern Bloc," it notes. The new guide offers help on how to become aware that trafficking is taking place, protection efforts, legal requirements, and dealing with the authorities, CCME general secretary, Doris Peschke, told ENI. It builds on the experience of a joint programme, Christian Action and Networking Against Trafficking, launched by CCME and Caritas Europa in 2002.

A report drawn up for the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, which groups 45 European countries, said decreasing possibilities for migrants to enter the European Union (EU) legally increases their reliance on smuggling organizations and thus their risk of being trafficked and exploited by traffickers. Peschke said she hoped the enlargement of the EU by 10 countries next year would reduce trafficking in women since it would allow more women in central and eastern Europe "access to legal status and legal travel". As a result, they would "not need to use smugglers and end up in the hands of traffickers to enter [another] European country."

CCME, founded in 1964, is an organization of churches, ecumenical councils and related agencies in 18 European countries. Caritas Europa, founded in 1971, is a grouping of organizations working in 44 European countries and belongs to the Roman Catholic agency Caritas Internationalis.

* Christian Action and Networking Against Trafficking in Women: An action-orientated guide, available from CCME, 174 rue Joseph II, B - 1000 Brussels, Belgium; email: ccme@wanadoo.be [482 words]
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New York, 16 December (ENI)--The National Council of Churches (USA) has hailed the capture of Saddam Hussein by United States military forces and is calling on the US government to "facilitate the prosecution" of the deposed Iraqi leader "in a manner consistent with the highest accepted international standards of justice". "As the next days and weeks unfold, we remind the US government that the world will be watching to see how we treat our adversaries after they are in our custody," the council said in a statement on Monday. "This presents a teachable moment in Western ideals and democracy."

Opposed to the war in Iraq and frequently critical of policies of the administration of President George W. Bush relating to the Middle East, the council said "displays of celebration in the streets of Baghdad" demonstrated that Saddam's arrest "should bring to an end the fear that has gripped Iraqis throughout his long reign". It noted that the fear had "lingered throughout these last several months of US occupation".

The council said prosecution of the captured former Iraqi leader should "focus on the abundant evidence of heinous crimes he committed against his own people," rather than yet-unproven allegations of possession of weapons of mass destruction or a link between Saddam and terrorist networks such as al-Qaida. The statement came less than a week after the NCC criticised Washington for plans to deny corporations from countries that opposed the US-led war the opportunity to bid for post-war reconstruction contracts in Iraq. The NCC said the Bush administration was compromising "the success of reconstruction by repeating the unilateral policies that have created world wide ill will toward our country".

In Cape Town on Tuesday, Nobel Peace Laureate and South Africa's former Anglican leader, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, "I think someone like that [Saddam Hussein] ... all people like that … should be brought before the international criminal court. I hope that all of those involved will say they respect international law."

Speaking at a ceremony to establish the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre, the Anglican bishop went on to say, "Otherwise we allow ourselves to be subverted by the very terrorism we say we want to counteract." [375 words]
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Bethlehem, West Bank, 22 December (ENI)--The turn of the century seemed as though it would herald a turnaround for residents in the cradle of Christianity. There were predictions that a flood of Christian tourists would arrive to mark the 2000th anniversary of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, pilgrims who would provide much needed jobs and investment for years.

But with the approach of 2004, the dream has clearly not materialised. Bethlehem's mayor, Hanna Nasser, said he expected the town's worst Christmas in economic terms and he lamented that Palestinian Christians were leaving the region. Tourism, the main source of revenue, in Nasser's words, "is dead". Outside the mayor's office, unemployed tourist guides wandered through Manger Square, while businesses prepared for Christmas. Some local shops put up small Christmas trees and a few decorations in a bid to lift spirits for the festive season.

One of those who took a big gamble to invest in tourism was local businessman, Edward T. Tabash, a Roman Catholic, who built a large souvenir store on the main road that connects this West Bank town to Jerusalem. "This place was built with my partners and we built it with the dream that millions of people are going to come and visit the Holy Land," he told ENI. "It's a six hundred square metre place that sells olive wood, mother of pearl, jewellery to all kinds of nationalities."

At first, it seemed that Tabash had banked on a good idea as business began to soar. But he had not factored in that there would be a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli rule. And this changed everything. Since the start of the intifada, there have been at least six Israeli military incursions into Bethlehem, which Nasser, a Roman Catholic, calls "invasions".

As a result, he says, unemployment has soared to 65 per cent and per capita annual income has dropped from US$2400 in 2000 to less than US$400 now. He estimates that more than 60 per cent of the town's residents are living in poverty. In past years, the Palestinian Authority's president, Yasser Arafat, supplied the town with $100 000 for celebrations, Nasser noted. This year, Arafat told the mayor there were no funds and the town would have to draw on its own resources or donations. The town could afford no more than $10 000.

"We started with seven workers only and by the year 2000, we had 36 salesmen in this store and then when the intifada broke out, everything collapsed. Today we only have three workers, working in this store," Tabash said. Before the onset of the violence, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 3000 people, Tabash used to host up to 12 buses of tourists a day. Since the fighting, he has only seen a trickle of tourists. Like many other businesses in a town that is dependent on tourism for its livelihood, he is coping with daily financial losses.

Only in recent months, has he had cause for some hope, as some pilgrims have begun to make visits after a couple of months of relative quiet. His suppliers such as Atallah Zakaria, also a Catholic, hope this will become a trend. Along with his brother, Zakaria runs a small factory under the family's home, producing hand-made olive wood crafts. The business is more than 70 years old and is known for its artistry in making figures, most notably representations of the Nativity scene.

But he too has run into hard times and recently had to close down for six months. "There was no work, no nothing, no exports," he said. It was only recently that he decided to re-start production after receiving orders, not from the local businesses, but Europe and the United States. "The situation is bad," said Zakaria. "There are a lot of people leaving. For me and my family, I can't leave. Its means a lot for us that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. We are a witness to Jesus, we who are living here. "

His house is only metres away from the Church of the Nativity, built over the spot where tradition holds Jesus was born. Although it is one of the most revered sites in Christianity, the sanctuary itself has not been immune from the conflict. Adding to the gloom is more evidence that the Christian presence in the town is dwindling. The exodus of Christians began with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and eventually Muslims became the dominant religious group in Bethlehem. And more Christians have left the area in recent times because of the recent violence.

"We started to lose our demography, and we are no more the majority. Now we are only 35 per cent out of 28 000 inhabitants in the city," Nasser told ENI. "The emigration did not stop, during the last year, some 1500 left because they have no jobs, because they could not survive anymore." [836 words]
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London, 22 December (ENI)--Human bell ringers were first to fall to digitalisation, now the church organist is coming up against computerised church music - a possible boon where musical skills are scarce. From a commercial point of view, retailer Martin Phelps does not fear the usual post-Christmas sales slump. In fact, he expects January to be one of the busiest times for his company selling computerised church music.

"There's an influx of inquiries after Christmas and Easter. It's then that people really feel the lack of an organist," said Phelps, who gets orders for his Digital Hymnal from around the world at his shop in Croydon, South London. This digital instrument is the size of a laptop computer weighing 1.8 kilograms and powered by two chips. It will produce more than 2300 hymn tunes, including such traditional and modern favourites as Jerusalem and Shine, Jesus, Shine, in a range of instrument sounds from organ to piccolo.

The (Anglican) Church of England, the country's largest church, faces a "marked shortage" of organists, says Helen Foster of the Royal School of Church Music. "It can be difficult to find people with the time and the skills, which may include leading a choir and a worship band as well as playing the organ," she said. But Phelps said: "I would never call the Digital Hymnal a replacement for the human organist, but it's a wonderful first-aid kit."

Ahead of a service, up to 10 hymns can be programmed and stored. The Digital Hymnal will deal with those emergencies in a church service that human organists often face. It can be told to speed up, slow down, or add another verse. It will also change key and tempo without complaint, and add "amens" if desired. Chris Bishop is a Church of England priest in charge of four rural parishes in Essex, south-eastern England. He uses the Digital Hymnal every Sunday at one of his parishes, and from time to time at the others.

"I've never had anybody complain, and sometimes visitors have looked to see where the organist is," said Bishop. "It's not the same as having an organist, but it's better than having no music." He finds the equipment "brilliant" to operate. He likes the way hymns are accessed by the same numbers as in his hymnbook, Hymns Ancient and Modern. The hymnal can also be indexed to seven other hymnbooks in common use among Christian denominations, while a master index is available for those who do not use these books.

Phelps, who says the Digital Hymnal has no direct competitor, spotted the hymnal on a visit to the United States in the mid-1990s and arranged with manufacturers Gulbransen to sell it in Britain. Sales only took off in 2000 after Phelps recorded a new set of tunes for the British and Commonwealth markets. He says most of the 2300 tunes in the hymnal are new recordings.

The original collection lacked some firm favourites on the British scene. He said: "People wanted Jerusalem and Shine, Jesus, Shine, for example. I can understand that." The Digital Hymnal costs 1699 pounds sterling (US$3009) including tax in the United Kingdom and is also available in the United States. Perhaps worryingly for human organists, this is similar to just one year's stipend of a non-professional organist in a small English church. Professional organists in larger churches may be paid three times as much. [581 words]
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Jerusalem, 23 December (ENI)--The Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem and the highest ranking Roman Catholic in there, Michel Sabbah, has appealed to Israelis and Palestinians to make peace and to end the suffering of both peoples. His appeal was backed in a separate message by the Lutheran Bishop in Jerusalem, Munib Younan.

Archbishop Sabbah, the Vatican’s highest ranking Palestinian cleric in the Holy Land, made the plea in his yearly Christmas message. He said God wants Israelis and Palestinians to act, not as adversaries, but rather as "brothers and sisters". He told a news conference at his headquarters in Jerusalem’s walled Old City on Monday that this is the true meaning of Christmas. "The Christmas message is first of all a message of hope and spiritual strength that opposes all material strength," said Sabbah. "It is a message of hope and spiritual strength despite all the obstacles that rise up in the way of peace."

He said the key to ending to the conflict in the area is for the two sides to negotiate a settlement under a "land-for peace" formula. "The one who occupies the land of the other is more responsible," noted Sabbah. "Truly, nobody, neither Israeli nor Palestinian, wants war and bloodshed. Israelis are in search of their security and Palestinians are in search of their land and liberty,” he said. Sabbah noted that the way for Israelis to win over Palestinians was not to continue building a security barrier in the West Bank.

Israel says the barrier is necessary to prevent Palestinians from crossing into the Jewish state to carry out terror attacks and suicide bombings. But the archbishop said the project was driving the two sides further from peace. In his message Lutheran Bishop Younan, said: "Christmas also calls on Palestinians and Israelis to see God in the other and accept the humanity of the other, to mutually recognise each other's human, civil, political and religious rights and to be rid of walls of separation and division."

Israeli security lay not "in walls of separation but in a reconciled Palestinian neighbour," said Younan. "It is only then that just peace and reconciliation can become incarnate – only then will the dawn from on high break upon us and justice will prevail." [389 words]
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New York, 1 December (ENI)--The National Council of Churches (USA) has endorsed consumer boycotts against two US companies for practices it says are harming farm workers in the United States. The NCC support for the boycotts, announced in November during the council's general assembly in Jackson, in the state of Mississippi, targets the fast-food giant Taco Bell, which sells Mexican-style food, and Mt Olive Pickle, a manufacturer of pickles and other vegetable products.

The consumer boycotts are the first the NCC has endorsed since the apartheid era in South Africa, when the council called for a boycott of Royal Dutch/Shell products. The NCC rarely endorses boycotts, calling them "a measure of last resort". "Anytime a Christian community comes together and seeks to exercise economic justice in this way, it is because there is a very serious injustice that cannot be resolved in any other way," said the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Kirkpatrick's church, along with two other prominent NCC member denominations, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ, had already endorsed the Taco Bell boycott.

That boycott was called in March 2001 by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, based in the state of Florida. The workers' coalition called for the action saying Taco Bell refused to address the "exploitation" of farm workers who picked tomatoes for one of Taco Bell's suppliers, the Six L's Packing Company. The average rate paid to farm workers harvesting tomatoes is US 40 cents (.33 euros) per 32-pound (15 kilo) bucket - the same rate they were paid in 1980, according to US government figures. In order to make US$50 (42 euros), farm workers must pick and haul two tons of tomatoes - which amounts to a form of virtual slavery said the workers' group.

The Mt Olive boycott stems from failed attempts by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), a farm workers' union, to get the pickle company to negotiate a labour contract for workers who harvest the vegetables. The company, based in the state of North Carolina, is the largest independent producer of pickles in the US. Spokespersons of the companies quoted by the Associated Press (AP) said the boycott unfairly targeted their firms. Laurie Schalow, a Taco Bell representative, said its supplier had assured the company that its workers were paid well above the average wage, the AP reported.

Meanwhile, Lynn Williams, a Mt. Olive Pickle spokesperson, said the union unfairly sought the company's participation in three-way bargaining talks . "We just don't believe that's an appropriate role for us to play," Williams said, as quoted by the AP. [453 words]
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Bielefeld, Germany, 8 December (ENI)--German television viewers who voted in a poll to find the greatest German preferred the 16th-century Protestant reformer Martin Luther to Karl Marx, who inspired communism. But both Luther and Marx were beaten by Konrad Adenauer, West Germany's first chancellor after the Second World War, in the ballot at the end of November for the ZDF television channel in which an estimated 3.3 million people took part.

The Protestant reformer polled the second highest number of votes - 556 298 - against 778 984 for Adenauer. Marx, in third position, received 500 442 votes. A total of 1600 well-known past and present Germans were nominated for the honour, including politicians, authors, musicians, and scientists. The field was first narrowed to 100 and then to 10.

"In my opinion Luther is the most important German," said Lutheran Bishop Margot Kaessmann who argued Luther's case on the television programme. "He influenced our language and our culture and moulded world history with his theological insights." Germans voted for Luther because he had the courage to stand up for his belief, according to ZDF's opinion poll, and because he translated the Bible into German and thus laid the foundations of present-day language as well as the German educational system.

"Luther had courage and stood up for things that needed to be changed," said Thomas Gottschalk, a well-known German TV presenter, a Roman Catholic. Other finalists included Sophie and Hans Scholl, who were executed by the Nazis for their resistance to Adolf Hitler; Willy Brandt; Johann Sebastian Bach; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; Johannes Gutenberg; Otto von Bismarck; and Albert Einstein. [281 words]
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Warsaw, 8 December (ENI)--Serbia's Orthodox patriarch has become the first church leader in eastern Europe to declare public support for the restoration of the monarchy in his country. Patriarch Pavle has described the decision to abolish the monarchy in 1945 as "resulting from tyranny" and said the decision should be declared "null and void". The patriarch's statement comes in advance of parliamentary elections scheduled for the end of December in which the Serbian Renewal Movement political party is calling for the monarchy to be reintroduced.

In a letter at the end of November to Serbia's royal claimant, Crown Prince Aleksandar Karadjordjevic, Patriarch Pavle said the royal dynasty had helped liberate Serbs from Ottoman Turkish rule in the early part of the 20th century. After 1945, a "reign of terror" under a president had been installed, the Orthodox leader said. "At the same time, European countries that preserved parliamentary monarchy now represent examples of prosperous and well-organised countries, flagships of true democracy."

London-born Prince Aleksandar was granted Serbian citizenship in March 2001, and allowed to repossess the White Palace in Belgrade's exclusive Dedinje district in 2002. In an interview with Serbia's Danas daily newspaper in November, the prince said the failure to elect a president in 2002 and 2003 because of voter apathy demonstrated the "desperate need for stability".

"Constitutional parliamentary monarchy is not an instant solution, but the only system that provides respect for everybody regardless of their religious or ethnic origin," the prince told Danas. "Many EU [European Union] members are constitutional parliamentary monarchies, and debate on the issue is healthy. Spain went from dictatorship to democracy and EU membership, and has the most modern constitution in Europe today."

Hosting a dinner for the patriarch and other bishops on 18 November, the prince said the royal family had "always supported" the Orthodox church's message of "God's law and love among people", while "advocating democracy and respecting everyone regardless of their ethnic and religious origin or political orientation." In his letter, Patriarch Pavle said decisions on Serbia's constitutional future lay outside the competence of the Orthodox church, but added that the monarchy's abolition should be overturned "in the name of God's love and justice, and true general welfare and freedom". [384 words]
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Vancouver, Canada, 12 December (ENI)--Nine Canadian church leaders have warned of rising anti-Semitism in Canada and have appealed to Christians and all Canadians to step up their efforts to combat it. "We have become profoundly concerned and deeply dismayed by the alarming increase of anti-Semitism in Canada," the church leaders said in a statement published on Wednesday in advance of the Jewish celebration of Hanukah on 20 December.

"This has taken many forms, including violence against Jewish persons - simply because of their ethnic or religious background, and the desecration of Holy places and cemeteries," said the signatories to the statement who included the leaders of Canada's three largest Christian denominations, the Roman Catholic, United, and Anglican churches. They challenged "all churches, parishes, congregations and people of good will to find ways and means to expose and eradicate anti-Semitism within and from Canadian society."

In the past year, among other incidents, a fire was set at a Jewish Youth Library in Ottawa; two Jewish schools in Montreal were defaced with obscene graffiti; and a sign "Jewish Torah incites Jews to murder" was set up in front of the parliament buildings in Ottawa. "The cumulative weight of so many incidents prompted the letter. What it addresses is fundamental," Professor Richard Schneider, president of the Canadian Council of Churches and a member of the Orthodox Church in America, told ENI. He said that more church leaders were expected to add their names to the letter making it an official message from the council.

The church leaders acknowledged with "sadness ... regret ... and no little shame" the persecution of the Jews throughout history, and said this had been "too often inflicted by Christians, who have maligned Jesus' own people in Jesus' name." The leaders called on all Canadians to exercise diligence when Jews come under attack and their sacred places are desecrated. They encouraged people to become acquainted with Jewish people and their worship places, and to celebrate "all that we share with our Jewish friends and neighbours".

Of Canada's 32 million people, the Jewish population accounts for only 330 000, the 2001 census figures show, being vastly outnumbered by Christians and even by Muslims whose numbers were at 580,000. [381 words]
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