New York, 26 February (ENI)--The US Supreme Court has ruled that US states are not obliged to provide scholarships for students studying religion. The 7 to 2 ruling announced 25 February was notable not only for strongly reaffirming the traditional separation of church and state within the United States but also because it was written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, a Republican appointee and one of the court's most politically conservative members.

"Training someone to lead a congregation is an essentially religious endeavour," Rehnquist wrote for the majority. "Indeed, majoring in devotional theology is akin to a religious calling as well as an academic pursuit." The case centred on a one-time college student in the state of Washington who appealed against a decision by state officials denying him a state-funded scholarship based on academic merit. Joshua Davey was then a student at Northwest College, a school affiliated with the Assemblies of God denomination.

Davey had in 1999 been awarded a US $1250 scholarship, an award for low-to-middle-income students with good grades, but he was denied it after he declared he would be pursuing pastoral studies in preparation for the ministry. Davey mounted the legal challenge to the state of Washington - one of 37 states that do not subsidise scholarships for religious education - claiming the denial was a violation of his constitutional rights. The state ruling was initially upheld by one federal court; a federal appeals court later ruled in favour of Davey before the case was sent to the US Supreme Court. The administration of President George W. Bush supported Davey.

Those campaigning for a strict separation between church and state hailed the Supreme Court decision. "This is a huge defeat for those who want to force taxpayers to pay for religious schooling and other ministries," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington DC-based lobbying group. "Americans clearly have a right to practise their religion, but they can't demand that the government pay for it."

Those supporting Davey, however, criticised the ruling. The politically conservative American Center for Law and Justice argued the case on behalf of Davey. Jay Sekulow, the group's chief counsel, said the ruling sanctioned "religious discrimination" and was "irreconcilable with more than a half century of Supreme Court precedent regarding the free exercise of religion". [408 words]
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Sofia, 25 February (ENI)--For many Christians in the world, Lent began on Wednesday, but more than 250 million Orthodox Christians worldwide got a two-day start in their observance of the 40-day period of penitence and fasting. The Orthodox Christian Lent always begins on the Monday before the Sunday of Orthodoxy. In 2004 it falls on 29 February and is a special day in the Orthodox calendar when the faithful are called to rededicate themselves.

The Lenten period of prayer and fasting precedes Easter, which for Orthodox churches is celebrated this year on 11 April and coincides with the Easter date observed by Roman Catholics and Protestants. Orthodox churches designate the Monday that marks the start of Lent as "Clean Monday", or the "Monday of cleansing or purification". On this day, Orthodox faithful are required to begin a spiritual and moral purification through fasting, prayer, meditation, repentance, attending Lenten religious services and partaking of the sacraments of confession and communion.

In Bulgaria, the Sunday before the beginning of Lent is a day on which people traditionally ask forgiveness of each other for wrongdoing in the past year. Customarily, the young first ask their elders for forgiveness. Forgiveness is requested within the family, among friends, and in the workplace. The practice of asking forgiveness even manifested itself in the political arena, with the leader of Bulgaria's largest opposition party, Nadezhda Mihailova, asking her political rivals for forgiveness on Sunday, which was the second day of a special national conference held by the party.

After the fall of communism in 1990, observance of Lenten rules has become increasingly more widespread along with other important religious events. While there are other times of fast and abstinence in the Orthodox calendar, the pre-Easter Lent is the longest.

In a statement issued in New York, the Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas said, "As Orthodox Christians we have been given the blessed opportunity to enter into an intense period of worship, prayer, fasting, and philanthropy that will direct our lives in the path of salvation and draw us into deeper communion with God." [365 words]
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New Delhi, 25 February (ENI)--The united Church of North India has dismissed two of its bishops for violating the church's "faith and order" by taking part in the consecration of a prominent Pentecostal Christian leader as a bishop. "Faith and order are the foundations of the church," the church's general secretary, the Rev. Enos Das Pradhan told ENI. "By participating in the consecration of an individual whose church is not in communion with us, these bishops have violated the discipline of the church."

Bishop Premkumar Dhotekar of Nagpur diocese and Bishop Bancha Nidhi Nayak of Phulbani were removed from their positions in January by the church's executive committee. The decision followed a unanimous recommendation of a committee of inquiry set up last year to investigate the affair. Dhotekar said he would challenge his dismissal in the civil courts. "They are biased and too harsh to me," the bishop said on Tuesday, adding that he had been served an eviction notice to leave his official residence by the weekend.

K. P. Yohannan, the Pentecostal leader whose consecration as a bishop sparked off the dispute, is founder and president of Gospel for Asia. The movement, which describes itself as a mission organization promoting evangelism in Asia, is said to be among the Indian church groups that receive the most income in foreign donations. Yohannan strongly criticised the decision to dismiss the two bishops.

"I don't think this is what Christ would have done," said Yohannan, whose Believers' Church in India runs dozens of schools and other institutions and says it has a one-million-strong following in India. "This is very unfortunate. I don't understand why on earth they are reacting this way now," the Pentecostal leader said in an interview. The Church of North India is a united church bringing together Anglican, Congregational, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Brethren and Disciples traditions.

The consecration of Yohannan as a bishop took place in February 2003 at a service led by Bishop K. J. Samuel, moderator of the Church of South India, and attended by two other bishops from the church as well as the two bishops from North India. Samuel has since failed to win the support of his church synod for re-election as moderator. The Church of South India synod declared Yohannan's consecration to be "invalid" and said neither Samuel nor the other bishops had authorisation from the church to take part in the ceremony. [415 words]
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New Delhi, 23 February (ENI)--Corruption has penetrated the life of churches in India, says the country's main ecumenical body, which has drawn up an anti-corruption Code of Leadership to combat graft in church elections and appointments. "We recognise that corruption which is rampant in society has penetrated the life of the churches, undermining truth, justice and peace, dividing the community and destroying the credibility of the institutions," the National Council of Churches in India acknowledged in a statement following its general assembly earlier this month.

"We also recognise that the root cause of corruption lies in the misuse and abuse of power or privilege," noted the statement by the ecumenical body which groups 29 Orthodox and Protestant churches. "Corruption [in the church] is certainly a counter-witness," Bishop Jeyapaul David of the Church of South India, elected president of the NCCI at the organization's general assembly from 10 to 13 February, said on Monday.

The Code of Leadership approved at the NCCI assembly calls on churches "to refuse to accept money or gifts which can be construed as bribes" and says church leaders taking up and leaving office should make a mandatory declaration of personal properties. It also states that family members of church leaders should be banned from taking up positions of authority, and proposes setting up an ecumenical adjudicating authority to mediate in conflicts rather than having church disputes taken to the civil courts.

A prominent church activist who has been campaigning to end church corruption welcomed the NCCI code. "Many church leaders criticised us for going public with an 'internal matter' of the churches," when the campaign for a corruption-free church was launched three years ago, said Moses Manohar, director of the Inter-Church Service Association. "We are glad that finally our demand has been recognised by the NCCI." [315 words]
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Tirunelveli, India, 18 February (ENI)--India's churches are to step up their activities on HIV/AIDS amid concern that the disease is reaching dramatic proportions in the South Asian country which has the biggest number of people with HIV/AIDS outside South Africa. "So far, only four major churches have taken AIDS as a serious concern," said the Rev. Philip Kuruvilla, the coordinator of the HIV/AIDS campaign of the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI), following accusations that Indian authorities are in a state of denial about the prevalence of the disease.

India's National Aids Control Organization (NACO) estimates that 4.6 million people in India are living with HIV/AIDS. But health activists say the infection rate is much higher and some international agencies have projected that the figure will reach 25 million by 2010. The NCCI has created a special task force on AIDS with representatives from all of its 29 Protestant and Orthodox member churches as well as from the Christian Medical Association of India (CMAI).

In January, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced a US$130 million effort to fight HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in India. "Critical to any global effort to fight AIDS is preventing the Indian epidemic from exploding, which will otherwise occur over the course of this decade," said Richard Feachem, executive director of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The NCCI decision to create the task force was taken at the council of churches' 10 to 13 February general assembly in Tirunelveli, South India. Kuruvilla said that this meant NCCI member churches would be "forced to give greater attention to AIDS in their work". Dr Samuel Kishan, who heads the health service programme of the Church of North India, told ENI the setting up of the task force would "help mobilise the churches in the fight against AIDS".

Still, Dr Vijay Aruldass, general secretary of the CMAI, noted that there were "misunderstandings and fears regarding AIDS even among pastors and other church leaders". He said the campaign launched by the NCCI would help to counteract such fears by developing a "theological response to the AIDS challenge". :: Anto Akkara's attendance at the general assembly was sponsored by the NCCI. [380 words]
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New York, 17 February (ENI)--One of the most visible confluences of religion and popular culture is about to unfold with the Ash Wednesday release of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ", a film that has already generated heated debate, anger and wide anticipation. A movie that has been derided as a vanity project for Gibson, a traditionalist Roman Catholic, may prove to be a commercial hit, with wide distribution and expected support from the US evangelical Christian community, a diverse group that some estimate makes up a third of the US population.

With such a base, some Hollywood observers have said the film, set for a 25 February debut, may net as much as US$25 million in its first week of release. Conservative evangelical leaders have made no secret that Gibson's film depiction of the last hours of Jesus' life may become a major boon and tool for evangelising; the web site for the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) prominently displays a link for the film and urges supporters to "Help make this the largest opening film in history."

One man - Arch Bonnema, a suburban Dallas, Texas businessman and Southern Baptist layman - took up the call: he recently bought 6000 advance tickets for "Passion" at a cost of US$42 000 and distributed them to members of his community. Given such anticipation, a prominent US evangelical leader, Morris Chapman, quoted on 5 February in The New York Times, said the film might become a "catalyst for spiritual awakening in this nation".

"I don't know of anything since the Billy Graham crusades that has had the potential of touching so many lives," said Chapman, president of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee. Dissent and worry, though, are being expressed by US Jewish leaders and by some mainline Protestant and Catholic groups that have worked in the area of inter-religious dialogue. Their concern stems from worry that the film's portrayal of Jews could fuel anti-Semitism.

In a 6 February speech, Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent US Jewish group, said while he did not believe that Gibson was anti-Semitic, the film could have serious ramifications. "Is Mel Gibson an anti-Semite? No. He's a true believer," said Foxman, who has seen an early version of the film. "Is his anti-Semitism intentional? I don't believe so. But I worry about unintended consequences, especially when they mesh in history. Is the film anti-Semitic? No. But its consequences, its impact, its message may fuel anti-Semitism."

With such controversy brewing, the interfaith relations commission of the National Council of Churches (NCC), the nation's largest ecumenical agency, recently released a "reflection guide" to the film. The commission acknowledged that its members had not yet seen "Passion", but warned that "dramatic depictions of the passion story have a tragic history. Inflamed by such representations, some Christians have labelled Jews 'Christ-killers', which, in turn, has sometimes led to acts of violence against Jews."

For his part, the New York state-born and Australian-reared Gibson has denied "Passion" is anti-Semitic and has defended the violence depicted in the film. "I think it pushes one over the edge so that they see the enormity, the enormity of that sacrifice [by Jesus]," Gibson said during a nationally broadcast interview on Monday.

Maia Morgenstern, the Romanian woman who plays Mary in Gibson's biblical epic, says her parents were Holocaust survivors but she does not consider the film anti-Semitic. If there is a message, it's more about how people can be manipulated by their leaders, Morgenstern told The Associated Press in an interview.

Web sites: Movie site: www.thepassionofthechrist.com
National Association of Evangelicals: http://www.nae.net
Anti-Defamation League: www.adl.org
National Council of Churches (USA): www.ncccusa.org [627 words]
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Warsaw, 16 February (ENI)--When the Vatican announced the publication of its latest Annuario Pontificio - its directory of the Roman curia and cardinals, as well as archbishops and bishops worldwide - it confirmed a continuing global growth in Roman Catholicism. Yet there are signs of change in the church; in particular, a shift of gravity from Europe to the Third World.

"It will be good if this brings a change of priorities," says Maciej Zieba, the head of Poland's Dominican order. "Until now, our church's universal dimension has been understood too narrowly." In March, John Paul II will become history's third longest-serving Pope, heading a church which has grown by 40 per cent in 25 years - from 750 million members in 1978 to 1.07 billion today, representing 17 per cent of the world's population.

The Roman Catholic Church has also grown in Europe, yet at a much slower rate. In 1978, the year of Pope John Paul's election, Europe's 266 million baptised Roman Catholics comprised 35 per cent of the world total; in 2001, its 280 million total made up just over a quarter. Europe remains Catholicism's heartland, in historical and cultural terms.

Still, throughout most of the continent, the Roman Catholic Church is facing a decline in its influence. The number of people coming forward for the priesthood is going down everywhere, other than in the Pope's homeland of Poland, whose 86 seminaries currently boast 6682 trainee clergy, a third of the European total. In Spain, where 41 per cent of priests are past retirement age, almost half the church's 68 seminaries reported no recruitments in 2003, leaving a total of 1797 students nationwide compared to 7052, 50 years ago.

In neighbouring France, priesthood numbers have dropped fourfold over the same period, with fewer than one in 10 Roman Catholics now attending church. In Germany, where practising Roman Catholics dropped from 6.2 million to 4 million between 1990 and 2001, the church's Berlin archdiocese hopes to pay off a 150 million euro debt in 2004 through halving the number of parishes - currently 207 - and selling off selected churches.

By contrast, priestly vocations have flourished since 1978 in Africa, Asia and Latin America. There are now more than 20 000 men training for the priesthood in Africa. This represents a 6 per cent increase in 2002 alone, and a fourfold increase over 25 years.

With Third World church hierarchies now fully up-to-date with modern communications and media methods, non-western perspectives look set to take on greater importance. The number of foreign priests ministering in France has increased six-fold in the past five years, while key European archdioceses from Barcelona to Utrecht have become increasingly reliant on the help of priests from developing countries. The growing interchange could fuel tensions between an older generation of liberal western Catholics shaped by the Second Vatican Council, and their counterparts from the developing world.

Maciej Zieba, the Polish Dominican, thinks what he calls the "progressive internal agenda" of concern to Europeans and Americans - such as relaxing clerical celibacy, or admitting women to the priesthood - is of less interest to Catholics elsewhere. "To be credible witnesses, we have to move on from the kind of issues which focused energies 20-30 years ago," he says.

Meanwhile, Austen Ivereigh, deputy editor of The Tablet, a London-based international Catholic weekly, notes that when cardinals assemble at the Vatican to choose a successor to Pope John Paul, the choice will have to reflect the church's changing demographic and cultural face. "Many are already talking openly about the need for a Pope from Africa, Asia or Latin America, who will open up the Vatican to the developing world," he says, "just as this Pope opened it to Eastern Europe." [638 words]
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Tirunelveli, India, 13 February (ENI)--Church leaders in Sri Lanka are calling for "free and fair" elections as the country prepares to go to the polls amidst concern about the future of the peace process in the island nation which has been torn apart by a long-running civil war. "Civil society has a great responsibility in this election and we shall be keenly watching how the situation develops," said the Anglican bishop of Colombo, Duleep de Chickera.

The latest political crisis in Sri Lanka was triggered after President Chandrika Kumaratunga dismissed the government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on 7 February and called a snap election for April. The president and prime minister come from opposing political parties and have been at loggerheads over peace talks between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebels, who have been fighting since 1983 for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority.

A cease-fire agreement was declared in 2002 following Wickremesinghe's election as prime minister in December 2001. But President Kumaratunga believes Wickremesinghe's government has made too many concessions to the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam, known as the Tamil Tigers. Bishop Chickera said on Thursday that church leaders had resolved "to monitor the election campaign [in order] to have a clean election followed by a period of greater political stability".

He said that together with other groups, the church leaders would be "working towards ensuring a free and fair election". Roman Catholic Archbishop Oswald Gomis of Colombo told ENI: "We will concentrate our energies to ensure that the election is fair and just." Meanwhile, the Tamil Tigers described the dissolution of the parliament as a "grave setback" to the peace process.

The National Peace Council, a prominent advocacy group supported by churches, has also criticised the latest political developments. "With the dissolution of Parliament, the country faces its third general election in less than four years," the council said in a statement on Thursday. "This is an election that the vast majority of people had not asked for or desired."

Still, the peace council acknowledged an election might be the "best answer" to deal with the power struggle between the country's two top politicians. [376 words]
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Tirunelveli, India, 12 February (ENI)--Indian churches are planning ecumenical celebrations in 2006 to mark the 300th anniversary of the arrival of the first Protestant missionaries in India. "All the churches in India will own these celebrations and take an active part," said the Rev. Ipe Joseph, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI), which groups 29 Orthodox and Protestant churches.

Bartholomaus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Pluetschau were German Lutheran missionaries sent by the Danish king to find converts in India. They arrived in India on 9 July 1706 at Tranquebar (also known as Tarangambadi), at that time a Danish colony on India's eastern coast, and set about translating the Bible, prayers and hymns into Tamil, the local language. Though Pluetschau returned to Germany and Ziegenbalg died in 1719 at the age of 36, there was a Christian community of 20 000 people in Tranquebar at the end of the 18th century.

"The Tranquebar mission sadly has been a forgotten one in history," said the Rev. Chandran Paul Martin, executive secretary of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of India. "Other mission initiatives - probably due to their English origin - attracted more attention than these pioneering missionaries." Martin said the anniversary would be an opportunity to assess the heritage of the missionaries and the way in which they inspired Indian Christians "not only in evangelisation but in taking up social issues".

The venture received the approval of the NCCI's general assembly which has been meeting this week in Tirunelveli in southern India. Plans include an ecumenical celebration with the involvement of all Indian churches at Tarangambadi in July 2006. Mobile exhibitions on the life and work of the two missionaries in Europe and India are being planned, and the missionaries' houses at Tarangambadi will be restored and converted into a museum with the support of the German and Danish governments.

"This commemoration will not just be the privilege of the church, or the churches' concern, but also an opportunity for the governments of India, Germany and Denmark," Hans-Joachim Kiderlen, Germany's deputy ambassador in India, told the 500 delegates at the NCCI gathering. Kiderlen told ENI that the arrival of the Lutheran missionaries in India marked the beginning of "intercultural interaction" between Germany and India. :: Anto Akkara's attendance at the general assembly was sponsored by the NCCI. [402 words]
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Tirunelveli, India, 11 February (ENI)--The president of the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) on Wednesday warned of an increase in anti-Christian violence and accused India's federal government of advancing the agenda of Hindu fundamentalism. There had been a "drastic change in the political atmosphere" in India in the six years since the current government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power, said Metropolitan Geevarghese mar Coorilos, the NCCI president, in an address to the council's general assembly taking place in Tirunelveli, in southern India.

"Attacks on Christians and other minorities have become part of the hidden agenda of the Hindutva [Hindu nationalist] forces," and the BJP-led government had "in subtle ways ensured the propagation of their fundamentalist agenda", said Coorilos. The remarks of the NCCI president to the 500 delegates from the council's 29 Protestant and Orthodox churches come against the background of reports of violence towards Christians in various parts of the country.

"We were not courageous enough to stand up and confront the situation," said Coorilos. "We took the easier path of compromise and indifference." India is scheduled to go to the polls in April to elect a new parliament. The NCCI assembly, which began on Tuesday and lasts until Friday, marks the 90th anniversary of the council, which was founded in 1914 as the National Mission Council.

"This is a great honour and privilege for us to host you all," said Bishop Jeyapaul David of the Church of South India, whose diocese of Tirunelveli is hosting the assembly. The gathering opened with a procession of delegates being led to the assembly venue, accompanied by dancers and the sound of traditional drums. A Hindu and a Muslim joined church leaders in lighting an inaugural lamp to symbolise the common pilgrimage of churches with people of other faiths.

During the assembly, senior officials of India's federal postal department released a special postal envelope to mark the council's 90th anniversary. An estimated 2.3 per cent of India's population of 1000 million is Christian; 81.3 per cent is Hindu; 12 per cent Muslim; 1.9 per cent Sikh; and other groups including Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, account for 2.5 per cent in total. :: Anto Akkara's attendance at the general assembly was sponsored by the NCCI. [392 words]
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New Delhi, 6 February (ENI)--Church leaders are calling for official action to protect the Christian community in the Jhabua region of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh following recent violence directed against Christians there. "The situation is serious," said Cardinal Telesphore Toppo, president of the Roman Catholic Bishops' Conference of India.

"The violence in Jhabua would not seem to be accidental," the Zenit news service reported Toppo as saying at a recent press conference in New Delhi. "It would appear to have been purposely planned by fundamentalists to keep tension high." The anti-Christian violence broke out after Hindu extremists had accused Roman Catholic nuns and the headmaster of a Catholic school in Jhabua of being responsible for the death of a young tribal girl raped and murdered in the school grounds on 11 January.

Police arrested a Hindu suspect within days, but not before Hindu extremists had launched an anti-Christian campaign, burning effigies of priests in public and holding demonstrations in front of Jhabua's Catholic cathedral. Meanwhile, the Church of North India (CNI) is flying a top lawyer from Delhi to Madhya Pradesh to seek the release on bail of 17 members of the denomination arrested after one of the bouts of violence between Hindus and Christians.

Police arrested the 17 people after a crowd of Hindus armed with weapons and led by a local Hindu legislator broke into a CNI church and school complex near Alirajpur, not far from Jhabua. One Hindu died and four others were injured in subsequent scuffles between church members and the Hindu extremists. The 17 Christians, including a local pastor, have been charged with murder but the church insists they are innocent and says that the pastor was not even present at the church complex when the violence broke out.

In subsequent violence, all 20 Christian houses in the Alirajpur area were looted and burned down by Hindu mobs. "But the police never acted against them [Hindus] even as they burned three Christian homes right in front of the [Alirajpur] police station," said Suresh Carleton, treasurer of the CNI's local Bhopal diocese.

Said CNI Bishop Lawrence Maida of Bhopal: "It seems the government machinery is only aiming at the members of the Christian community." [385 words]
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New York, 20 February (ENI)--A survey commissioned on behalf of the US Catholic hierarchy has reportedly concluded that more than 4000 US Roman Catholic priests stood accused of sexually abusing children over a five-decade period. The report, scheduled for official release on 27 February, found that 11 000 allegations of child sex abuse were made against 4450 priests between 1950 and 2002, according to a report by the CNN television and online news service. These figures are far higher than previously reported.

The survey was commissioned by a group of prominent US Catholic laity named to investigate the matter in 2002 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The US Catholic hierarchy was rocked then by widely publicised revelations about child sexual abuse scandals involving priests. The Associated Press news agency reported on Friday that the Vatican would soon publish a report about clergy sexual abuse that draws heavily on scientific opinion, including experts sceptical about removing any priest who has molested a child, a psychologist who helped edit the report said.

The AP reported that earlier this month, Pope John Paul II urged church officials to be fair when judging priests accused of sexual abuse but stressed that the "predominant" need was to protect the faithful. Officials involved in drawing up the Catholic report said they would not comment until its official release date, when a companion report on the causes of the scandal is also scheduled to be made public.

"These reports will be a very sobering and important milestone. I have not seen the reports, and so I cannot comment on their substance," said Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, president of the US Catholic conference, in a statement on 16 February. "But I want to reaffirm that the bishops requested these studies so that we could understand as fully as possible what caused this terrible occurrence in the life of our community to make sure that it never happens again."

The CNN report said that 6700 of the 11 000 allegations had been investigated and substantiated; 1000 were investigated and found to be unsubstantiated; and the remaining cases had not been able to be investigated because the priests involved had died before the allegations were made. However, a prominent advocacy group for victims of abuse, Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests, called the reported number of past cases into question, saying it was likely they were too low.

Calling the report a "self-survey" because it is based on numbers supplied by US bishops themselves, Barbara Blaine, president of the group, said: "Common sense and prudence dictate that we assume these figures are incomplete." [455 words]
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