White House stands by Powell's MTV condom comment despite conservative fire
"In my own judgment, condoms are the way to prevent infection and, therefore, I not only support their use, I encourage their use," Secretary of State Colin Powell said on MTV last week. "Forget about taboos, forget about conservative ideas with respect to what you should tell young people about it. It's the lives of young people that are put at risk by unsafe sex, and therefore, protect yourself." The remark has conservative Christian political groups upset. "Colin Powell is the Secretary of State, not the Secretary of Health," said radio psychologist James Dobson in a press release strongly denouncing the remarks. "He is talking about a subject he doesn't understand. He clearly doesn't understand the science regarding condom efficacy. … Powell is a career soldier. He knows what it means to follow the Commander-in-Chief. We have to assume he wouldn't contradict his boss without prior approval. If that is not the case, the President needs to publicly repudiate these statements immediately." The Family Research Council, which has strong ties to Dobson's Focus on the Family, also criticized Powell. "Sec. Powell's remarks are reckless and irresponsible," said the organization's president, Ken Connor. "They create the 'illusion' of safe sex, resulting in an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases in this country. President Bush should repudiate Sec. Powell's comments and publicly exhort him for his irresponsible remarks." So far, Bush hasn't repudiated the comments. In fact, National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice said, "I don't think there's any flap here, and I certainly know that the president doesn't feel that there is." Press secretary Ari Fleischer also supported the comments. "The question was in the context of for people who practice sex," Fleischer said Friday.
It was not a question about everybody in our society; it was a question of just those who are sexually active. … The President and the Secretary are shoulder to shoulder on abstinence education, as well as health education and sex education, as a way to prevent unwanted pregnancies and as a way to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. What the President has done, and Secretary Powell has long been involved in, is highlight for the first time the importance of abstinence education.
Radical Hindus attack Catholic church in southern India
Police arrested nine members of the Hindu fundamentalist group Bajrang Dal for attacking a Roman Catholic church service Sunday. Christian groups also accuse the Bajrang Dal's alleged parent organization, the Sangh Parivar (an umbrella group for several Hindu fundamentalist bodies). "The attack was a naked aggression by the Sangh Parivar," said All India Christian Council President Joseph D. Souza. "They have learnt nothing from their so-called dialogue, some rounds of which were held in Karnataka, with some leaders of the Christian community." Witnesses put the attacking mob at about 50 youth, who injured worshipers, broke furniture, and smashed windows while demanding to know how the priest was converting local villagers. The All-India Catholic Union says police merely looked on during the attack.
Food for the Poor in trouble again
"The charity's founder resigned amid a sex scandal, the FBI has been investigating for almost two years and the Catholic Church recently cut its support," reports the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "Even so, Food for the Poor has grown into South Florida's largest charity, raising more than $1 billion in its 20-year history for aid to the Caribbean." The charity says it has cleaned up itsact, but the newspaper's investigation "found that questions linger at Food for the Poor and that the charity has not always been open with donors who have contributed to its success." Most of the allegations against Food for the Poor, the fourth-largest international charity in the U.S., center on how much power the founding family has over the charity and how closely it is related to the family's for-profit business.
The court and school choice | Children in Cleveland, and millions elsewhere, are being disabled by the anti-choice coalition's campaign to turn the Constitution into a barricade to prevent poor children from escaping from the public school plantation (George F. Will, The Washington Post)
Debate evolves over biology lessons | Next month, the Ohio School Board will be the first to consider adding to its statewide standards the "intelligent design" theory, which advocates say explains complex parts of biology that are elusive in Darwin's evolution paradigm. (The Washington Times)
Variety of faiths make views known at Capitol | Unlike some of their fellow lobbyists, however, those representing religious causes have no political action committees and no hefty expense accounts (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
No faith in China | While we believe political and religious freedom will inevitably follow the greater economic liberty available to Chinese citizens, this seems unlikely to occur prior to the collapse of the party dictatorship (Editorial, The National Post)
Chinese clamps down on religion | Until recently, the campaign against Christian groups was overshadowed by China's effort to crush the Falun Gong spiritual movement. But the treatment of underground Christians is drawing increasing attention, and could be an issue when President Bush visits Beijing this week. (Associated Press)
AIDS crisis in spotlight | About 1,000 people, including missionaries, denominational leaders, and nonprofit and elected officials expected to attend the "Prescriptions for Hope" conference in Washington, D.C. (The News & Observer, Raleigh, North Carolina)
Church life:
Religious activity falling to pre-attack levels, say polls | U.S. economy jumped back to being the top priority of Americans, though their sense of "alienation" from people of power and wealth in the country has dropped (The Washington Times)
Facing a sin of the fathers | Is it something about being a Catholic priest? The headlines make it seem so. But the data is just not there to answer that question, or many of the other uncomfortable questions that arise on the subject. (The New York Times)
Celibacy doesn't cause child abuse | The church's pedophile problem, as I view it after years of dealing with priests sent to psychiatric treatment centers and sometimes prisons, lies not in its celibacy policy but in the way priests are educated in seminaries. (James J. Gill, The Hartford Courant)
Boston priests' sex scandal causes ripples across U.S. | People have come forward to tell of abuses by priests in other dioceses, and some dioceses have begun releasing the names of sexual abusers that they long kept secret (The New York Times)
Governor apologizes over sex scandal | Queen Elizabeth's representative in Australia, the Governor-General, Peter Hollingworth, is to apologise on national television for failing to help victims of child abuse. (BBC)
Also: Vatican to hold off opening Pope Pius XII wartime archives | Prewar archives will partly open next year, but documents on Pius XII's controversial World War II pontificate won't be available for at least three more years. (The New York Times)
Donor pays off debt at Christian TV channel | An anonymous saviour has backed plans by John Fashanu, the former footballer, to create "one of the biggest" Christian television networks in Europe. (Financial Times)
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
We’ve got little information on Jesus’ appearance and personality. But that’s the way God designed it.españolFrançais
The Grammy-winning artist was found dead at her home in Nashville at age 47.
