Opinion

The World Council of Churches must act with courage and expel Kirill, Russian Orthodox Church

Supporters of the effort to oust Kirill from the WCC believe he has disqualified the ecclesial entity he embodies by effectively endorsing Putin's military campaign.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow, Russia, early Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

March 28, 2022

By 

Rob Schenck

(RNS) — A growing number of global Christian leaders, including Pope Francis, Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and General Secretary Ioan Sauca of the World Council of Churches, has appealed to the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, to use his office to persuade Vladimir Putin to end his war against the Ukrainian people.

However, because Kirill hasn’t followed their counsel, some are going a step further, urging the WCC to expel Kirill’s Moscow-based church body for acting contrary to the WCC mission of fostering Christian unity, peace and justice.

Kirill was initially silent as Putin’s military campaign developed on the Russian side. However, once forces crossed over into Ukraine, Kirill seemed to justify the action blatantly. In a Feb. 27 sermon, he said the move was due to the West imposing secularism on Ukraine, including a requirement for the country to accept “gay pride parades.” He also dubbed the conflict “metaphysical” in nature, arguably turning it into a religious war.

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RELATED: How Putin’s invasion became a holy war for Russia

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Then, in a March 10 letter responding to the WCC’s Sauca, the Russian Prelate seemed to scold him, writing, “As you know, this conflict did not start today. It is my firm belief that its initiators are not the peoples of Russia and Ukraine, who came from one Kievan baptismal font, are united by common faith, common saints and prayers, and share common historical fate. The origins of the confrontation lie in the relationships between the West and Russia.” 

Kirill’s blame-shifting didn’t end with Europe and North America, however. He also faulted Bartholomew of Constantinople for granting Ukrainian Orthodox churches independence from Moscow, calling it a “schism” that has “taken its toll on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.” 

With distress about Kirill growing within the WCC ranks, Sauca, an Orthodox priest and acting general secretary, had written the Prelate on March 2, urging him “to intervene and mediate with the authorities to stop this war, the bloodshed and the suffering, and to make efforts to bring peace through dialogue and negotiations.”

Ioan Sauca, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, on June 24, 2021. Photo by Ivars Kupcis/WCC

After receiving Kirill’s defensive missive in response, the secretary posted a statement appealing for “an immediate end to such indiscriminate attacks, for respect for international humanitarian principles and the God-given human dignity and rights of every human being, and for a ceasefire and negotiations to end this tragic conflict.”

A day later, some 100 U.S. Christian denominational officers, institutional executives, academics and social influencers signed a letter to Kirill. They pled with him to “use your voice and profound influence to call for an end to the hostilities and war in Ukraine and intervene with authorities in your nation to do so.”

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RELATED: US Christian leaders ask Kirill to speak out, ‘reconsider’ comments on Ukraine

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While these initial communications with the Moscow Patriarchate were essentially congenial, prominent Czech theologian and ecumenical Protestant spokesman Pavel Černý, who, as a college student, lived through the Soviet invasion of his country in 1968, was much stronger. In an essay released to European and North American Christian publications on March 24, Černý decried Kirill’s mix of silence, implicit justification and tacit endorsement regarding Putin’s bloodletting: “If the WCC cares about peace, it must not allow such behavior among its members,” he demanded. “The ROC should not be permitted to continue as a WCC member until it turns away from this false path of religious nationalism.”

In support of Černý’s call for ROC expulsion, The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Institute, based in Washington, D.C., has launched a recruitment effort for help from the heads of WCC member denominations and the organization’s governing authorities. The institute is asking them to press for a vote at the octennial assembly in September terminating — or at the least, indefinitely suspending — the ROC’s membership. It has also posted a petition online that allows anyone to join the chorus of voices speaking to this massive humanitarian-cum-ecclesial crisis. In part, it reads, “Kirill persists in justifying Putin’s aggression by stylizing the invasion as a religious crusade. The scale of human suffering resulting from the unholy compact between Kirill and Putin requires the World Council of Churches (WCC) to take immediate action.”  

The World Council of Churches (WCC) logo. Courtesy image

There are those who might see expulsion of the ROC as inconsistent with another dimension of WCC’s purpose, which is to mediate differences between religious groups. But Kirill’s use of his religious imprimatur to justify the unprovoked brutal military assault on non-combatants — displacing tens of millions, violently separating families, starving whole cities, grievously wounding small children and killing pregnant women, the disabled and the elderly — are not fine points to ponder, negotiate or find compromise on. Such a scale of terror and irreversible injury constitute Bonhoeffer’s “third possibility” of intervention: to “not just bind up the wounds of the victims beneath the wheel, but to seize the wheel itself.” The extreme consequences of the ROC’s actions or inaction require suspension of WCC norms. Proper procedure does not trump controversial action when the latter is in the interest of preserving human life and flourishing.

There are also more than moral reasons to demand the WCC rescind the ROC’s status. First, there is credible evidence Kirill has a long history of clandestine work for various intelligence-gathering agencies, beginning in the Soviet era. Ejecting him may cut off Putin’s inside source on worldwide religious cooperation and internal messaging on the Ukraine war. Second, the ROC is something of a propaganda tool for Putin. Kirill and his Council of Bishops tend to echo official Kremlin pronouncements, applaud its policies, and, as they have done with Putin’s war against Ukraine, sacralize even the worst government conduct by styling it as a spiritual pursuit. Removing the ROC’s access to the WCC platform would weaken one of Putin’s disinformation pipelines. Finally, there is the matter of military morale. Around 90% of Russian soldiers, sailors and airmen identify as Russian Orthodox faithful. Censoring their supreme spiritual shepherd on a global and ecumenical level could significantly reduce his popularity and credibility, demoralizing the warriors who see themselves as divinely deployed.

Supporters of the effort to oust Kirill from the WCC believe he has disqualified the ecclesial entity he embodies by effectively endorsing Putin’s military campaign to annex Ukraine and failing to oppose the attendant mass violence against a peaceful nation. Not only does Putin’s bloody and mostly Christian-on-Christian conflict subvert the WCC’s mission statement, but it stands in stark contradiction to and rejection of Jesus’ high priestly prayer to his heavenly Father, “that they may be one as we are one” (John 17:11b). 

Given Patriarch Kirill’s aiding and abetting of war crimes perpetrated by Russian forces in Ukraine, the World Council of Churches must act with moral courage, ethical responsibility and spiritual integrity and remove the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church from its membership.  

(Rev. Rob Schenck, D.Min. is president of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Institute in Washington, D.C., administrative bishop of the Methodist Evangelical Church USA and author of “Costly Grace: An Evangelical Minister’s Rediscovery of Faith, Hope, and Love” (HarperCollins 2018). The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.) 

How Silicon Valley’s ‘Techtopia’ turned work into religion

In her new book, 'Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley,' Carolyn Chen examines how high-skilled workers have disinvested from organized religion and are instead finding belonging, identity, purpose and transcendence at the office.

Photo by Sigmund/Unsplash/Creative Commons

March 8, 2022

By 

Yonat Shimron

(RNS) — Americans have been abandoning religion for a long time. But much like the scientific principle that matter, though it changes forms, never disappears, so too, the religious impulse never quite goes away.

Carolyn Chen identifies where that religious impulse has reemerged — at work. In her new book, “Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley,” she examines how high-skilled workers have disinvested from organized religion and are instead finding belonging, identity, purpose and transcendence at the office.

Chen, a sociologist and professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, spent five years interviewing tech workers at Google, Facebook and smaller startups to learn how and why they decided to give their undivided loyalty to the companies where they work.

She also interviewed managers who have invested in the health and spiritual well-being of their employees in an effort to boost productivity. In addition to meditation and mindfulness practices, many of these Silicon Valley firms offer executive coaching and a raft of services such as gourmet cafeterias, gyms, swimming pools, woodworking studios and video game rooms. At one company, she even found an outdoor walking labyrinth, like the medieval spiritual mazes of ancient European cathedrals.

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RELATED: Why are people calling Bitcoin a religion?

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One downside to tech’s embrace of wholeness and wellness is that it has forced many religious practitioners, especially Buddhists hired by these companies, to downplay the religious origins and traditions of their faith to make it palatable to a nonreligious workplace. Chen calls this a “whitened Buddhism,” stripped of its Asian origins and ethical teachings and minus its rituals of bowing, chanting and burning incense. Instead, many of these practitioners must emphasize the scientific evidence for mindfulness, which, she points out, is often inflated or circumstantial.

The larger problem with worshipping work is that it sucks up employees’ interest and energy in any kind of civic engagement in neighborhoods, cities, local and national politics. “Techtopia,” she writes, “is corroding the collective capacity to build and sustain the common good.”

Author Carolyn Chen. Courtesy photo

Religion News Service spoke to Chen about her book and whether worshipping work has changed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The following interview was edited for length and clarity.

How did you get into this project?

My frustration being a scholar of religion in the Bay Area is that there’s a significant number of people who don’t identify as religious. How do you study them? I was interested in the presence of religion in secular spaces. I started looking at yoga studios because these are secular spaces with religious icons. In interviewing yoga practitioners the theme of work kept coming up: ‘I practice yoga and it helps me become a better teacher, lawyer, nurse.’ It became clear there was something going on. The thing that was sacred in their life was work. They were using yoga to support their work or relieve the stress of work. That’s when I thought, maybe I’m looking in the wrong place and I began to look at workplaces.

What is it about high-tech work that makes it so important to people? Is it the prospect of wealth or economic security or being the next Steve Jobs?

In the tech industry or the startup, there’s a high chance of failure. Nine out of 10 startups fail. So you go for broke. You invest your entire self into it. Someone told me, ‘Why the hell would I do this, if I didn’t think I’d be 1 out of 10 to succeed?’ That kind of intense gamble you’re making requires a kind of faith. It’s a spiritual fervor toward work.

You finished your research in 2019. How have things changed now that people are working from home? Has the Great Resignation affected Big Tech?

“Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley” by Carolyn Chen. Courtesy image

The companies are still caring for their employees and still practice a kind of corporate maternalism. They mail home snacks, they offer book clubs through Zoom, mindfulness meditation, executive coaching, therapy. These amenities are continuing. Work has become more demanding, if anything, because there’s no commute. But work doesn’t offer the same social and spiritual benefits you could get before. You’re not able to have lunch with your friends or do crafts with your friends or play video games with your friends. It also doesn’t offer the same spiritual benefits. That, on top of more hours, leads to burnout.

But the majority of workers who are quitting as part of the Great Resignation tend to be lower-skilled service workers. I’m really doubtful the place of work will change for high-skilled workers. This trend in people worshipping work is 40 years in the making. People have disinvested from social institutions, churches, synagogues, neighborhoods, schools, civic associations. You need to rebuild new institutions where you can find meaning, fulfillment and community.

You write a lot about the ambient Buddhism of the Bay Area. It’s a Buddhism stripped of its history, culture and rituals, even language. That’s been successful for these companies but at what cost to religion?

In Silicon Valley, Buddhist virtues, what are called “wholesome states,” are seen as work skills, means to an end. Compassion and empathy, which we might consider to be a virtue or a good in and of itself, becomes a way of making better product design or being more empathetic to consumers. Meditation teachers who taught in school or prisons found it wasn’t financially tenable anymore. The only way they can do it is to bring it to the Googles and Facebooks and LinkedIns. But in the process of doing that, they have to secularize the teachings to make it fit the goals of the workplace. They have to teach it as a productivity practice. It actually changes the religious experience itself. That’s bottom-line Buddhism. It has to change to be profitable. Or they have to remove the ethical teachings from Buddhism because they were not hired to teach about ethics or tell companies how to run more ethically. They were hired to make employees more productive.

Do these companies also have Christian or Jewish offerings for employees?

These are called employee resource groups. They’re like clubs organized by the employees themselves. You might have a Christian organization alongside the Chinese American Association or the knitting club. I talked to pastors who also face the same problem there. Churches draw from people of different walks of life. In the tech workplace, it only draws from an elite group of workers.

How should religious leaders respond to this worship of work? 

They could help by naming what they are offering — alternative and life-giving traditions and spaces for people to create lives, communities, meaning and fulfillment outside of work. What I’ve seen instead is that religions have simply accepted this and are finding a way to accommodate it. Some Christians are trying to figure out how to affirm the meaningfulness of work. There’s a danger to that. The first mention of work in the Bible is essentially a punishment. There’s no inherent goodness in work. There’s this striving to accommodate this. But when faith communities don’t name secular dangers, they’re totally missing the boat. There’s this other thing people are worshipping that they don’t see.

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RELIGION AND THE RISE OF CAPITALISM TAWNEY

Earliest mention of ‘Yahweh’ found in archaeological dump

The artifact, less than 1 inch in length and width, and known as a curse tablet, may spur renewed debate on the dating of biblical events, especially those told in the Book of Exodus.

This curse tablet was discovered by Mount Ebal, which is near the Palestinian city of Nablus. Photo by Michael C. Luddeni

March 26, 2022

By 

Jerry Pattengale

(RNS) — An ancient tablet discovered near the Palestinian city of Nablus may contain the earliest known mention of God’s name in proto-alphabetic Hebrew.

Scott Stripling, director of the Archaeological Studies Institute at The Bible Seminary in Katy, Texas, announced the discovery of the lead tablet Thursday (March 24).

He said it could push back the written record of the name “Yahweh” a couple of centuries earlier, to at least 1200 B.C. and perhaps as early as 1400 B.C.

The finding may also spur renewed debate on the dating of biblical events, especially those told in the Book of Exodus. A peer-reviewed article is in process.

The artifact, less than 1 inch in length and width and known as a curse tablet, also recalls the account of Joshua building an altar nearby, which Israeli archaeologist Adam Zertal excavated in the 1980s.

The curse tablet was discovered near Mount Ebal, also called the Mount of the Curse in the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua. Stripling found it in a dump site, part of the structure Zertal identified as Joshua’s altar. Stripling said the finding was a confirmation of the biblical account.

In recent years, Stripling also announced the discovery of a Tabernacle platform during his ongoing excavations at biblical Shiloh.

Scott Stripling announces the discovery of an ancient lead tablet, March 24, 2022, in Houston. Photo by Jerry Pattengale

But the 2-centimeter-square (.78-inch) amulet may be the signature discovery of a lifetime. Professor Gershon Galil of the University of Haifa said this type of discovery is made only once a millennia.

Galil deciphered the hidden internal text with another paleographer, Pieter Gert van der Veen of the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. A release from the Associates for Biblical Research press said they employed advanced tomographic scans to recover the hidden text.

The inscription reads: “Cursed, cursed, cursed — cursed by the God YHW. You will die cursed. Cursed you will surely die. Cursed by YHW – cursed, cursed, cursed.”

Stripling was joined by Museum of the Bible CEO Harry Hargrave, who noted, “This little artifact helps us understand better the history, story, and impact of the Bible — all within one square inch.”

Gabriel Barkay had helped Stripling learn the wet-sifting technique in Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Barkay made the remarkable discovery in 1979 of the Ketef Hinnom scrolls, which contain the earliest biblical text discovered (circa seventh century B.C.).

The Mount Ebal tablet’s text provides context outside the biblical canon but sheds light on the historical context six centuries earlier.

“Our discovery of a Late Bronze Age inscription stunned me,” Stripling said.

The dirt around the area of the discovery was discarded over 30 years ago. It had been dry-sifted before Stripling’s decision to run it through again using the wet-sifting technique.

Ancient curse inscription deciphered from tablet discovered during archaeological wet sift on Mt. Ebal

Biscuit Media Group

March 24, 2022

By 

RNS Press Release Distribution Service

High-tech scans reveal ancient Hebrew script, centuries older than any
other known tablets.

HOUSTON — Today, the Associates for Biblical Research (ABR) announced the discovery of a formulaic curse recovered on a small, folded lead tablet. The defixio came to light in December 2019 when archaeologist Scott Stripling, Director of the Archaeological Studies Institute at The Bible Seminary in Katy, Texas, led an ABR team to wet sift the discarded material from Adam Zertal’s excavations (1982–1989) on Mt. Ebal. 

The ancient Hebrew inscription consists of 40 letters and is centuries older than any known Hebrew inscription from ancient Israel. Stripling formed a collaboration with four scientists from the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and two epigraphers (specialists in deciphering ancient texts): Pieter Gert van der Veen of Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz and Gershon Galil of the University of Haifa. The scientists employed advanced tomographic scans to recover the hidden text. In collaboration with Stripling, Galil and van der Veen deciphered the proto-alphabetic inscription, which reads as follows:

Cursed, cursed, cursed – cursed by the God YHW.

You will die cursed.

Cursed you will surely die.

Cursed by YHW – cursed, cursed, cursed.

THE LAW OF 3 (THREE) IN THIS CASE "CURSED" IS SAID THREE TIMES BY THREE TIMES MAKING NINE, THE ACTUAL POWER OF THE AMULET REGARDLESS OF THE GODS NAME OR APPLICATION (WHICH IS ONLY TWICE) EP

According to Stripling, “These types of amulets are well known in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, but Zertal’s excavated pottery dated to the Iron Age I and Late Bronze Age, so logically the tablet derived from one of these earlier periods. Even so, our discovery of a Late Bronze Age inscription stunned me.” 

Almost immediately Galil recognized the formulaic literary structure of the inscription: “From the symmetry, I could tell that it was written as a chiastic parallelism.” Reading the concealed letters proved tedious, according to van der Veen, “but each day we recovered new letters and words written in a very ancient script.” 

Daniel Vavrik and his colleagues from Prague ensured the accuracy of the raw data which the team interpreted. According to Deuteronomy 27 and Joshua 8, Mt. Ebal was the mountain of the curse. Joshua 8:30 indicates that Joshua built an altar on Mt. Ebal. The defixio derived from previously excavated and discarded material from a structure Zertal believed was Joshua’s altar.

An academic, peer-reviewed article is in process and will be published later in 2022. The collaborative team consists of Scott Stripling, Gershon Galil, Ivana Kumpova, Jaroslav Valach, Pieter Gert van der Veen, Daniel Vavrik, and Michal Vopalensky.

For more information, media should contact the collaborative partners as follows:

Czech – Daniel Vavrik (vavtik@itam.cas.cz)

English – Scott Stripling (scott.stripling@thebibleseminary.edu)

German – Pieter Gert van der Veen (pvanderv@uni-mainz.de)

Hebrew – Gershon Galil (ggalil@univ.haifa.ac.il)

Spanish – Scott Stripling (scott.stripling@thebibleseminary.edu)

Biscuit Media Group
biscuitmediagroup.com

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Religion News Service or Religion News Foundation.

Orthodox Jewish women scholars’ growing authority is recognized in push to publish

A raft of new research fellowships and writing workshops represent a coming of age for the idea that learned women can claim authority in interpreting Jewish law.

Jewish Orthodox women attend an event celebrating the completion of the seven-and-a-half-year cycle of daily study of the Talmud, in Jerusalem, on Jan. 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

March 29, 2022

By 

Beth Kissileff

(RNS) — According to the Talmud, the first instructions on how Jews should celebrate the holiday of Purim were set down by one of its founders: Queen Esther, who with her cousin Mordechai helped saved the Jews in Persia from the evil Haman. In writing her book on Purim, Esther became one of two women, with Jezebel, whose writing is recorded in the Bible. 

Today, 50 years after the first woman was ordained a rabbi in America, and 100 after the first bat mitzvah, Orthodox Jewish women are being urged to write and publish more widely on religious topics than ever before, as publishers, schools and websites are opening the way to make women’s scholarship and thinking more widely available — including two new programs named for Esther’s decision to publish.

In May the Matan Women’s Institute of Torah Studies in Jerusalem will announce its first group of Kitvuni Fellows. Named for Esther’s command to her rabbis, “Kitvuni iederot” (“Record me for all generations”), the program invites female scholars and educators to develop books on the Torah, supporting them with workshops, access to experts and a monthly stipend.

“It is time to make room on the bookshelf,” said Rabbanit Yael Ziegler, who became academic director at Matan last fall and began “thinking what is the next stage of women’s learning.”

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RELATED: More Orthodox Jewish women are ordained; change is uneven

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The Matan Women’s Institute of Torah Studies logo. Courtesy image

Traditionally men, and especially male rabbis, have been granted exclusive authority in Orthodox Judaism, and only recently have women begun to be accepted as Torah scholars and earned the title “rabba” or “rabbanit.” The recent push to publish women’s views on the Torah represents a coming of age for the idea that learned women can claim authority in interpreting Jewish law.

Women’s scholarship itself is new, though there have been exceptional women seen as learned in all eras of history, such as Bruriah, whose opinions are quoted in the Talmud. Opportunities for women to study Torah have been growing for decades, but without access to publishing, learning is rarely recognized. According to Ziegler, female scholars’ accomplishments “have not been reflected in the written Torah scholarship that has emerged.”

After more than 30 years of existence, Nishmat, a center for women’s Torah study in Jerusalem, published Nishmat HaBayit, its first collection of answers to women’s questions about Jewish law and the first book of Jewish legal responses authored entirely by women. The book contains entries on pregnancy and pregnancy loss, birth, nursing and contraception. According to its website, over 400,000 questions asked by women have been answered by the 160 female experts who have trained there.

Ziegler is conscious that changing minds about women’s place in Torah study means providing examples for younger women scholars. If publishers “fill bookshelves with that kind of scholarship that we are looking for, it will be a message to young women,” she said.

Rabbanit Yael Ziegler. Photo courtesy of Matan

Encouragement to write is given to post-high school women in a three-year-old effort at Midreshet Lindenbaum, a yeshiva for Orthodox women started in Jerusalem in 1976, called Matmidot. The program tutors high school-age women to “cultivate (their) ability to research and produce high-quality Torah scholarship,” according to its website.

Rabbanit Sally Mayer, who founded the program in 2019, told RNS that one year her students decided to hold a year-end sale of books written by their teachers. Of the dozen books, only one was by a woman, even though the teaching staff was evenly split between the two sexes. The students asked, “Why aren’t women writing?” and Mayer says, “That has reverberated.”

Now in its third year, Mayer decided to start a journal for a select group of students to publish original research papers at the end of their year of studies. Mayer sees the value in this as something that will “enable those who have capability to spread Torah.” 

An increasing number of initiatives are also being designed to encourage women who have four years of post-college Jewish learning to write more. Last year, the Sefaria Women’s Writing Circle began providing coaching, editing and peer mentorship, as well as a paid fellowship, starting with a group of 14 participants.

Rabbanit Sara Wolkenfeld. Photo courtesy of Sefaria

According to Rabbanit Sara Wolkenfeld, the chief learning officer at Sefaria, the initial idea was to have a smaller program, but the volume of applicants led them to expand the number of writers. This year the program Va’tichtov: She Writes (a quote from the Book of Esther 9:29) is being run by Yeshivat Maharat, an institution based in The Bronx, New York, that trains women to be Orthodox “rabbas,” “rabbinets” or a title of their choosing at the end of their course of study. 

Darshanit Miriam Udel, the newly appointed head of the Yeshivat Maharat program, said of the new publishing initiatives, “I think there is a natural progression, a bid for some degree of permanence, the longevity of the ideas that we have.”

At the 41-year-old Drisha Institute in New York, a six-week program starting in April will have workshops in fiction, non-fiction, poetry and translation, according to a phone interview with No’a bat Miri, the program’s coordinator.

Jonathan Sarna, university professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, explained the importance of publishing in Jewish settings, saying, “Books are to power” just as “diamonds are to wealth, a visible display of who you are, what you are and what you can afford.”

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RELATED: Orthodox Jewish women’s leadership is growing – and it’s not all about rabbis

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He added, “Until there are women whose writing is read and disseminated and studied, there is a realization that women will not fully have been empowered in Jewish life.”

Sarna’s daughter, Rabbanit Leah Sarna, participated in the Yeshivat Maharat writing fellowship this past year. In a Zoom interview, Leah Sarna spoke of the importance of writing in leaving a legacy, noting that her grandfather, the late Bible scholar Nahum Sarna, has many books that help her “feel connected through his writing” to him and that the texts “give him immortality.” 

Matthew Miller, the publisher of Koren, which will be publishing the work of Matan’s Kitvuni scholars, said, “Women’s scholarship is finally getting the respect it deserves.”

Queen Esther would agree.

(Beth Kissileff is the co-editor of “Bound in the Bond of Life: Pittsburgh Writers Reflect on the Tree of Life Tragedy” and author of the novel “Questioning Return.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

 

Indigenous tell pope of abuses at Canada residential schools

This week's meetings are part of the Canadian church and government's efforts to respond to Indigenous demands for justice, reconciliation and reparation

Members of the Metis community arrive in St. Peter's Square after their meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican, Monday, March 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

March 28, 2022

By 

Nicole Winfield

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Indigenous leaders from Canada and survivors of the country’s notorious residential schools met with Pope Francis on Monday and told him of the abuses they suffered at the hands of Catholic priests and school workers. They came hoping to secure a papal apology and a commitment by the church to repair the harm done.

“While the time for acknowledgement, apology and atonement is long overdue, it is never too late to do the right thing,” Cassidy Caron, president of the Metis National Council, told reporters in St. Peter’s Square after the audience.

This week’s meetings, postponed from December because of the pandemic, are part of the Canadian church and government’s efforts to respond to Indigenous demands for justice, reconciliation and reparations — long-standing demands that gained traction last year after the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves outside some of the schools.

More than 150,000 native children in Canada were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools from the 19th century until the 1970s in an effort to isolate them from the influence of their homes and culture, and Christianize and assimilate them into mainstream society, which previous Canadian governments considered superior.

Francis set aside several hours this week to meet privately with the delegations from the Metis and Inuit on Monday, and First Nations on Thursday, with a mental health counselor in the room for each session. The delegates then gather Friday as a group for a more formal audience, with Francis delivering an address.

The encounters Monday included prayers in the Metis and Inuit languages and other gestures of deep symbolic significance. The Inuit delegation brought a traditional oil lamp, or qulliq, that is lit whenever Inuit gather and stayed lit in the pope’s library throughout the meeting. The Inuit delegates presented Francis with a sealskin stole and a sealskin rosary case.

The Metis offered Francis a pair of red beaded moccasins, “a sign of the willingness of the Metis people to forgive if there is meaningful action from the church,” the group explained. The red dye “represents that even though Pope Francis does not wear the traditional red papal shoes, he walks with the legacy of those who came before him, the good, the great and the terrible.”

In a statement, the Vatican said each meeting lasted about an hour “and was characterized by desire on the part of the pope to listen and make space for the painful stories brought by the survivors.”

The Canadian government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse was rampant at the schools, with students beaten for speaking their native languages. That legacy of that abuse and isolation from family has been cited by Indigenous leaders as a root cause of the epidemic rates of alcohol and drug addiction on Canadian reservations.

Nearly three-quarters of the 130 residential schools were run by Catholic missionary congregations.

Last May, the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc Nation announced the discovery of 215 gravesites near Kamloops, British Columbia, that were found using ground-penetrating radar. It was Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school and the discovery of the graves was the first of numerous, similar grim sites across the country.

Caron said Francis listened intently Monday as three of the many Metis survivors told him their personal stories of abuse at residential schools. The pope showed sorrow but offered no immediate apology. Speaking in English, he repeated the words Caron said she had emphasized in her remarks: truth, justice and healing.

“I take that as a personal commitment,” Caron said, surrounded by Metis fiddlers who accompanied her into the square.

She said what needs to follow is an apology that acknowledges the harm done, the return of Indigenous artifacts, a commitment to facilitating prosecutions of abusive priests and access to church-held records of residential schools.

Canadian Bishop Raymond Poisson, who heads the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, insisted the Vatican holds no such records and said they more likely are held by individual religious orders in Canada or at their headquarters in Rome.

Even before the grave sites were discovered, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission specifically called for a papal apology to be delivered on Canadian soil for the church’s role in the abuses. Francis has committed to traveling to Canada, though no date for such a visit has been announced.

“Primarily, the reconciliation requires action. And we still are in need of very specific actions from the Catholic Church,” said Natan Obed, president of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, who led the Inuit delegation.

He cited the reparations the Canadian church has been ordered to pay, access to records to understand the scope of the unmarked graves, as well as Francis’ own help to find justice for victims of a Catholic Oblate priest, the Rev. Johannes Rivoire, accused of multiple cases of sexual abuse who is currently living in France.

“We often as Inuit have felt powerless over time to sometimes correct the wrongs that have been done to us,” Obed said. “We are incredibly resilient and we are great at forgiving … but we are still in search of lasting respect and the right to self-determination and the acknowledgement of that right by the institutions that harmed us.”

As part of a settlement of a lawsuit involving the government, churches and the approximately 90,000 surviving students, Canada paid reparations that amounted to billions of dollars being transferred to Indigenous communities.

The Catholic Church, for its part, has paid over $50 million and now intends to add $30 million more over the next five years.

The Metis delegation made clear to Francis that the church-run residential school system, and the forced removal of children from their homes, facilitated the ability of Canada authorities to take indigenous lands while also teaching Metis children “that they were not to love who they are as Metis people,” Caron said.

“Our children came home hating who they were, hating their language, hating their culture, hating their tradition,” Caron said. “They had no love. But our survivors are so resilient. They are learning to love.”

The Argentine pope is no stranger to offering apologies for his own errors and what he himself has termed the “crimes” of the institutional church.

During a 2015 visit to Bolivia, he apologized for the sins, crimes and offenses committed by the church against Indigenous peoples during the colonial-era conquest of the Americas. In Dublin, Ireland, in 2018, he offered a sweeping apology to those sexually and physically abused over generations.

That same year, he met privately with three Chilean sex abuse survivors whom he had discredited by backing a bishop they accused of covering up their abuse. In a series of meetings that echo those now being held for the Canadian delegates, Francis listened, and apologized.

Armenian National Institute Website Now Includes 795 Official Records Affirming Armenian Genocide

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Published on22 March 2022

AUTHOR
MassisPost


WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Armenian National Institute (ANI) has completed a massive expansion of its widely-consulted website containing extensive information on the Armenian Genocide. The 2019 resolutions adopted by the House and Senate expressly “encourage education and public understanding of the facts of the Armenian Genocide, including the United States role in the humanitarian relief effort, and the relevance of the Armenian Genocide to modern-day crimes against humanity.’ President Joe Biden’s April 24, 2021, remembrance day statement called for a “world unstained by the daily evils of bigotry and intolerance, where human rights are respected, and where all people are able to pursue their lives in dignity and security.”

The Affirmation section of the ANI website, that contains a collection of official documents pertaining to the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide, was thoroughly updated. The Affirmation records are now organized in 14 distinct categories covering resolutions, laws, and declarations by federal level governments, U.S. presidential statements, statements by heads of states, international organizations, religious organizations, official reports, public petitions, and other relevant documents.

Eighty-six new records were added to the Affirmation page, especially updating the sections on ‘Resolutions, Laws, and Declarations,’ ‘State and Provincial Governments,’ and ‘Municipal Governments.’

With strong community support promoting instruction in human rights and genocide prevention, state educational curricula are now mandated in some 10 states across the United States, including Massachusetts, Nevada, Ohio, Connecticut, Michigan, Rhode Island, Illinois, California, New York, and New Jersey. The relevant pieces of legislation are all accessible under ‘Curriculum Mandates.’

As for the 31 countries that formally acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, they include: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Vatican City, Venezuela, United States, and Uruguay.

In all, the ANI website presently holds 795 affirmation records from around the world.

The ANI collection of affirmation records was developed with the collaborative support of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (AGMI) in Yerevan. A new cooperation agreement reached between AGMI and ANI allowed for extensive research in the AGMI holdings in order to reverify and update the records posted on the ANI website. The agreement was signed in Yerevan by AGMI Director Dr. Harutyun Marutyan and ANI Chairman Van Z. Krikorian on August 5, 2021. AGMI in Armenia and ANI in the United States have become two important depositories of official affirmation records, AGMI holding an international collection, and ANI holding a considerable American collection of original documents.

Robert Arzoumanian, who joined ANI as assistant to the director, conducted the research at AGMI where additional records were identified that have been mounted on the ANI website for easy access by the public. Arzoumanian, a Brown University graduate, interned at ANI and in Congressman Frank Pallone’s office in 2016 and returned the following year as the Armenian Assembly’s summer intern program coordinator. He also has experience working with Armenia-based media. Arzoumanian undertook the challenge of standardizing the presentation of the full scope of international records identified by ANI in order to facilitate their usage by an international audience.

Since its founding in 1997, the Armenian National Institute has been working closely with AGMI, and over the years has supported several conferences and joint projects. Continuing this long-standing cooperation with AGMI, ANI sent a video message on April 16, 2021, welcoming the release by the museum of the volumes prepared by Ara Ketibian and Father Vahan Ohanian titled, “Armenian Genocide: Prelude and Aftermath as Reported in the U.S. Press, The Washington Post (1890-1922),” to which ANI Director Dr. Rouben Adalian contributed an introduction.

Earlier in 2021, AGMI also released the fourth edition of Dr. Adalian’s essay, “Remembering and Understanding the Armenian Genocide,” which AGMI originally issued in 1995.

In 2021, ANI also continued to expand its online presence by launching the Arabic version of the popular ANI website. The announcement was issued in Arabic as well. Soon after its launch on April 17, the site was being consulted in countries ranging from Lebanon to United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Qatar, Oman and Morocco.

The Arabic-language site represents the third translated edition of the ANI website. The Spanish-language edition appeared in 2020 and the Turkish version in 2017. In light of U.S. President Biden’s affirmation and general media coverage, interest remains high on the subject of the Armenian Genocide. Following the disruptions associated with the shutdown precipitated by the pandemic, with the reopening of educational institutions, a large number of visitors are returning to the ANI website, which registered 4 million hits in 2021.

The process of international recognition remains an ongoing concern for Armenian communities around the world. Efforts are presently under way in England, Israel, and Australia. In 2021, Latvia formally adopted recognition on May 6. Dr. Adalian, along with Dr. Ronald Suny and Armenia’s Ambassador to the Baltic states Tigran Mkrtchyan, was invited on April 20, to testify in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Latvian Parliament that was considering the resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide.

Seven years after vowing not to purchase F-35 jets, the Liberals are now buying them
Bryan Passifiume

© Provided by National Post Canada's fighter replacement program that stretches back across decades and several governments seems to be nearing its conclusion with the intent to purchase Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II jets.

Seven years after vowing never to replace Canada’s aging fighter jet fleet with F-35s, the Trudeau Liberals are now planning to purchase 88 of them.

Defence Minister Anita Anand announced the news early Monday afternoon, confirming the government’s intentions to sign final purchase contracts with manufacturer Lockheed-Martin later this year.

“A new fleet of state-of-the-art fighter jets is essential for Canada’s security, sovereignty and ability to defend itself,” she said.

Canada’s road to replacing its fighter jets has been a 25-year odyssey, fraught with political machinations. In 1997, Jean Chrétien first signed onto the Joint Strike Fighter program.

In 2010, then-defence minister Peter MacKay announced Canada was entering into an untendered agreement to purchase 65 F-35s, with delivery expected in 2016 and at a cost of $9-billion.

A no-confidence vote triggered in part by refusals to release costs associated with the F-35 program led to the minority Harper government’s collapse 11 years ago this week, sending Canadians to polls and returning the Conservatives to power with a majority government.

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In 2015, opposition leader Justin Trudeau made the issue into a prominent plank in the Liberals’ election platform. “We will not buy the F-35 fighter jet,” he said, adding that if elected there would be a cheaper alternative.

“The Conservative government never actually justified or explained why they felt Canada needed a fifth-generation fighter,” Trudeau said in 2015. “They just talked about it like it was obvious. It was obvious, as we saw through the entire process, that they were particularly, and some might say unreasonably or unhealthily, attached to the F-35 aircraft.”

While the fighter replacement program stretches back across decades and several governments, Gen. Tom Lawson, retired Canadian Chief of Defence Staff and former RCAF aviator, credits concerns over Canada’s sovereignty in light of Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine with putting defence spending front-and-centre in the government’s priorities.

“It was Winston Churchill who said never to waste a good crisis,” Lawson said.

“That brings about ideal conditions for an announcement that might otherwise have been slightly embarrassing for the Liberals.”

On Monday, citing the precarious nature of current world affairs, Anand said it was important to ensure Canada’s military had the equipment it needed to maintain domestic security.

The F-35, she said, had proven itself to be both a mature and interoperable aircraft.

“This new fleet will ensure our continued ability to protect every inch of Canadian airspace, to meet our commitments to NORAD and NATO, and deal with unforeseen threats.”

Monday’s announcement came after officials with national defence, procurement and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) unanimously recommended proceeding with finalizing the contract with Lockheed-Martin, said Procurement Minister Filomena Tassi.

© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press Defence Minister Anita Anand announces the F-35 decision on Monday: “A new fleet of state-of-the-art fighter jets is essential for Canada’s security, sovereignty and ability to defend itself.”

Contracts were awarded two years ago to outfit 3 Wing Bagotville and 4 Wing Cold Lake with infrastructure needed to support the F-35.

Late last year, the government pared down the list of fighter jet contenders to the F-35 and Saab’s Gripen line of multi-role fighters after excluding a bid from Boeing, whose predecessor McDonnell Douglas manufactured Canada’s current fleet of CF-18 Hornets.

While final costing has yet to be determined, the deal’s expected to be worth about $19-billion.

Final contracts should be signed later this year, Tassi said, with delivery expected by 2025.

A product of research by Lockheed’s famed Skunk Works — the company’s legendary advanced development unit responsible for the U-2 spy plane, SR-71 Blackbird and F-117 Nighthawk — the F-35 is already in active service by a number of air forces, including the United States, Israel, Japan, the UK and Australia.

The F-35 comes in three variants — the standard A-model Canada has its eye on, the short-takeoff/vertical-landing capable F-35B, and the tailhook-equipped F-35C designed for use on aircraft carriers.

Lorraine Ben, Lockheed-Martin Canada chief executive, said the company looked forward to continuing its relationship with CAF.

“As a cornerstone for interoperability with NORAD and NATO, the F-35 will strengthen Canada’s operational capability with our allies,” she said in a statement sent to the National Post.

“The F-35 gives pilots the critical advantage against any adversary, enabling them to execute their mission and come home safe.”

The F-35 will be Canada’s first Lockheed-built jet since the CF-104 Starfighter was retired from service in 1986.

Other Lockheed-Martin aircraft in CAF inventory include the C-130 Hercules/C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft and CP-140 Aurora marine patrol plane.

© Andre Forget/Postmedia/File Then-defence minister Peter MacKay gives the thumbs up from the cockpit of a Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighter F-35 Lighting II on July 16, 2010 after announcing Canada would be purchasing some of the jets.

Lawson said the decision was a good one for Canada’s armed forces.

“When (in 2010) the Conservative government made the very decision that we’re seeing the Liberal government make 12 years later, it was pure joy,” said Lawson, who was the air force’s deputy commander at the time.

“Today it brings some joy, but mostly relief.”

Lawson, who also served as deputy commander of NORAD, said a fleet of Canadian F-35s was the ideal platform to continue Canada’s mission of protecting the north.

“The F-35 purchase just plain simplifies NORAD operations,” he said.

Erika Simpson, international politics professor at Western University in London, Ont., disagreed with that sentiment.

“Faced with the choice of what equipment to buy, I think the Liberals are printing money to buy more defence equipment that future generations will have to pay for,” she said, adding she believed Canada should instead return to examining unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology to patrol the arctic.

Germany’s decision earlier this month to buy F-35s to replace its aging Panavia Tornados could also have played a role in Canada’s decision to buy the jets, she said.

Canada, she said, was spending far too much money on an aircraft unsuited for our needs, and said this could mark the beginning of a defence spending spree by the Trudeau Liberals

“But that’s maybe not the way go, too,” Simpson said.

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