NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER
4
APRIL 14, 2006
IN THE BEGINNING Continued from Page 3
Biblical self-defense taught CHICAGO — Chicago Theological Seminary, affiliated with the United Church of Christ, is conducting an online self-defense course for church members besieged by conservative reactions to their denomination's liberal social positions on gay rights and other issues. The six-week online course, titled "Biblical and Theological Self-Defense for the United Church of Christ," is meant for those accosted for "not believing in the Bible," said a statement promoting the class. It began March 27. The class addresses such topics as theology, Christology and ethics in addition to more practical concerns, such as how to muster the "courage to stand up for themselves and their church," the statement said. The class is taught by the Rev. Susan Thistlethwaite, president of the seminary.
WORLD BRIEFS
Priests Study management PURWOKERTO, Indonesia—Kelompok Imam Balita, a diocesan association for priests ordained for less than five years, has turned to lay professionals to teach members courses in htmian resources management and organizational skills for nonprofit enterprises.
NAVONAL
These subjects were not taught in the seminary but studying them will further parish ministry, said association coordinator Fr. Michael Benedictus Sheko Swandi. Nineteen association meiftbers attended the first course here March 20-23. Didiek Dwinarmiyadi, one of the lay consultants who lead the training, said Catholics now demand that the church organization be managed more transparently and professionally. The program equips the young priests with managerial skills in planning, allocating resources and supervising activities, he said. "Management is an important tool for people working in an organization, including nonprofit organizations such as the church, to work effectively and efficiently to reach goals," he said.
HIV test isfedding prerequisite BUJUMBURA, Burundi — A spokesman for Burundi's Catholic bishops has insisted that the bishops' instruction to priests not to bless a marriage unless the couple proves they have taken HTV tests is an exercise in truth telling, not discrimination. A couple's HIV status does not matter, Gelase Mugerowimana, a spokesman for the Burundian bishops' conference, told local radio March 24. "We ask the [engaged couple] to teU the truth to each other, which is the only basis of their statement of union."
HIV-positive and HIV-negative people wiU be able to receive the church's blessings, he said. Burundi's HIV infection rate for people ages 15 to 49 is around 6 percent, among the lowest rates in sub-Saharan Africa. Sixty percent of Burundi's 7 million people are Catholic, one of the highest rates in Africa.
Aussies seek prison release SYDNEY, Australia — A 30 year-old Australian captured by US. forces in Afghanistan in 2001 and held in detention in Guantanamo Bay should be afforded "real justice" outside the U.S. military's legal system, said the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council. The chairman of the council. Bishop Christopher Saimders of Broome, urged the Australian government to ensure that detainee David Hicks receives "a proper trial before a nonmUitary court" or gets returned to Atisfralia. "This situation has gone on for far too long," he said. Hicks, a former Australian soldier, was captured with Taliban combatants in Afghanistan. Since his indefinite detention in Guantanamo Bay, Hicks has received no support from the Australian govemment for his release. "Concerns about conditions at Guantanamo, the indefinite detention and the deficiencies of military trials should be a basis for action on behalf of Mr. Hicks," said Saunders.
CArHouc REPORTER USES THE FOLLOWING NEWS SERVICES: A S I A N E W S , CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE, LATINAMERICA PRESS, N E W AMERICA MEDIA, RELIGION NEWS SERVICE A N D U C A NEWS.
STARTING POINT By JAMES STEPHEN BEHRENS
His name is Jim and he is the truck driver who delivered our container of bonsai pottery and tools. He was very friendly and wanted to know all about the monastery, so we filled him in as best we could. He told me he loves his job, driving all over the country, meeting all kinds of people and hearing all kinds of stories. He took up truck driving after retiring from the phone company. Previously, he traveled all over the world laying fiber optic cable. I asked him what his favorite place was and he immediately said, "Jerusalem, yeah, Jerusalem. It was something — to walk the same roads that Jesus
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walked. I wondered if my foot ever was in the same pl^ce on the road as his was." As we unloaded the container, he went for a long walk and came back an hour or so later. "Great place," he said. "My daddy used to come here. Maybe I walked just where he walked. He's been gone a long time." And here we are, in this time. Sharing this road we call life, walking in places where millions have walked before. I do not know Jim's religious affiliation. I would guess that he is Baptist. We aU know that Jesus was Jewish, and at the monastery we are all Roman Catholic. Me, the monks, Jim and Jesus all landed on roads not really of our own choosing but, I
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[Fr. James Stephen Behrens is a monk at Monastery of the Holy Spirit, Ccjnyers, Ga.]
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think, aU headed in, the same direction — call it what you wiU —^ Glory, Heaven, the Promised Land. Chatting with Jim, it did not seem to matter what our religious paths were, unless, I suppose, we wanted to get formal or stuffy about it. But that did not happen. We just stuck to the road of places where we had been and remembered some favorite things. When he left, I wished him well and he said he hopes God blesses us. It is beautiful, when you think about it, how we hope for God's blessing for and from each other. It is God, really, walking this road of life.
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Jesuit Fr. Thomas J. Reese, fonner editor ofAmerica magazine, is to return to Woodstock Theological Center ' at Georgetown University in Washington this July as a senior feUow. At Wood-CNs stock, a Jesuit-sponsored theological think tank on religious and social issues, he wiU specialize in contemporary church issues, religion and politics, and ethics and public policy. Reese resigned from America last year imder pressure from the Vatican. The Los Angeles Archdiocese Ministry with Lesbian and Gay Cathoiics win celebrate 20 years of ministry with a special multilingual Mass May ,6 at Blessed Sacrament Church in Hollywood, Calif. Lumen Christi Awards wUl be presented to eight persons in recognition of their significant contribution to this ministry. Priests, members of religious communities, and lay leaders ifrom throughout the archdiocese and the region are invited. The collection from this year's Holy Thursday Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican wiU be sent to Maasin, the Philippines, to help residents rebuild following massive landslides that struck the area Feb. 14. Kripa BhotenI, a member of an indigenous Tibetan tribe living in northeast Nepal, was convicted of butchering a cow and sentenced to 12 years in jail last month. Cows are revered in the Hindu kingdom and eating beef is taboo. Bhoteni's defense was that she slaughtered a yak calf, which is not forbidden, and she offended no one because the people in her area practice either Lamaism or Mahayana:Tantrik Buddhism, which allow the eating of beef.
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Some two dozen members of a church in Windsor, Ontario — mostly in their 70s and 80s — began March 26 an around-the-clock occupation of Riverside Presbyterian Church in a last-ditch effort to keep it open and financially afloat. The church has about 50 members and is $25,000 in debt and the local presbytery has ordered it closed.
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