Deepening problems for the Pope.
The highest ranking American at the Vatican is Archbishop Paul C. Marcinkus, a Cicero, Illinois, native. In Rome since 1947, he has been president of the Vatican Bank since 1967.
After a bank scandal seven years ago, the Italian press speculated that Marcinkus would be eased out of the Vatican under the next pope. The big, brusque American was, after all, deeply suspected and opposed by the Vatican’s predominantly Italian bureaucracy, and had become vulnerable. Instead, John Paul II expanded his authority, confirming him as president of the bank and placing him in charge of all Vatican civil functions.
Now Marcinkus has become a central figure in another bank scandal, involving the Vatican in questionable financial dealings and defaulted loans of Banco Ambrosiano, Italy’s largest private bank.
To most Protestants, the Vatican Bank is a mystery. Is it a real bank? And if so, why does it exist?
When you enter the bank from its Vatican courtyard, it does look like a conventional bank except for the tellers, who wear clerical garb. It has vaults, safe-deposit boxes, and alarm systems. But its directors are appointed by the Pope, and its depositors are limited to citizens of Vatican State, diplomats accredited to the Vatican, and a few others so rewarded for service to the church.
Why should the Roman Catholic church have its own banking arm in the first place? The need for it grew out of the Vatican’s receipt in 1929 of indemnities totaling $2 billion in today’s dollars from dictator Benito Mussolini—compensation for the loss of Vatican property to the Italian State some 60 years before. During the 1930s and 1940s, this money was invested throughout the Italian economy. But the Vatican soon realized that its unique status as a sovereign state with extensive tax-exempt status could be used to better advantage with its own bank. The bank, formally called the Institute for Religious Works, was created in 1942.
By the late 1960s, the bank had a controlling or strong interest in many thousands of Italian companies and owned at least eight other large banks and thousands of small rural ones, making it a primary banking power in the country. It also operated the Banque de Rome Suisse in Switzerland, which enjoyed all the anonymity permitted under Swiss law.
But the bank’s fortune began to turn in the early 1970s. Several Vatican-owned companies lost millions of dollars. Violence and disruption in Italian society led to fears of a Communist takeover. The almost 25-year reign of the Catholic-aligned Christian Democrats came to an end.
These pressures led to a Vatican decision to transfer its major investments overseas—primarily to the United States. The bank bought extensively into Chase Manhattan, General Foods, General Electric, Shell, Standard Oil, and others. Vatican money is said to have financed construction of the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.
But the man Marcinkus chose to facilitate the transfer of funds from Italy was Michele Sindona, whose financial sleight of hand was in fiduciary trusts, phony deposits, and phantom holding companies. When Sindona’s empire crumbled in 1974, the Sindona-controlled Franklin National Bank of New York and Herstatt Bank of West Germany collapsed along with several Italian banks. Large sums of Vatican money had simply evaporated. The losses have been variously estimated from $120 million to $1 billion. Sindona is now serving a 25-year sentence in the U.S. on several counts of fraud.
Roberto Calvi, president of Banco Ambrosiano, succeeded Sindona as Marcinkus’s adviser on the handling of the Vatican’s assets and investments (so much so, that he had won the nickname “God’s banker”).
Questions about Calvi’s bank, known as l’Ambro, surfaced two years ago. A $790 million “hole” in its accounts was discovered. Also, it was learned that $1.4 billion in unsecured loans had been made to foreign subsidiaries, many of them in Latin America. Calvi was tried and convicted of taking $27 million out of the country in violation of currency regulations. (Italian authorities suspect that Italian financiers have used the Vatican bank as an easy conduit for smuggling money out of the country.)
Calvi was fined $19.8 million and sentenced to four years in prison, but he appealed and then disappeared from his Rome apartment. His body was found hanging from London’s Blackfriar’s Bridge, near the heart of London’s financial district, on June 18.
Italian authorities said they suspected murder. That conclusion is not surprising, considering the related violence they had already encountered. Calvi’s secretary threw herself out of an upper-story window in Milan. One investigative judge, Emilio Alessandrini, was assassinated. And l’Ambro vice-president Roberto Rosone had an attempt made on his life by Mafia figure Danilo Abbruciati.
Meanwhile, efforts by Italian central bankers to prevent the collapse of l’Ambro failed, and last month they decided to liquidate assets.
The Vatican Bank was directly involved with l’Ambro through “letters of patronage” it issued to cover the $1.4 billion in loans made by l’Ambro overseas. The Vatican Bank maintains that a separate letter from Calvi absolved it from all financial responsibilities. But according to one high Italian bank official, “The Vatican must have known that the two letters could not be genuine at the same time; the deal was intended to defraud and to lead people astray.”
The Vatican Bank acknowledges owning 1.6 percent of l’Ambro, but is believed to own far more. Marcinkus was until recently a director of l’Ambro’s Nassau subsidiary. As recently as last April, the Italian press quoted Marcinkus as saying, “Roberto Calvi merits our trust. I know of no reason to doubt him.” The Wall Street Journal reported that the Ambro affair could “entail a Vatican Bank liability far beyond its assets of $300 million or so.” Italy’s financial press claims that, in addition to that liability, Vatican direct losses could run from $10.7 to $11.7 million.
In July the Vatican secretary of state, Agostino Caserolli, announced the appointment of three respected bankers to investigate all financial dealings between the Vatican Bank and l’Ambro. The move was unprecedented, and its public announcement highly uncharacteristic of the secretive style of the Vatican administration. Caserolli stressed that the investigation was requested by Marcinkus, but it is clear that the commission will be reporting to him (Caserolli). This has fueled speculation that Marcinkus, John Paul’s confidant and bodyguard, may be asked to step down from the bank.
Only a week after announcement of the Vatican investigation, the Italian government ordered Luigi Mennini, the bank’s highest-ranking lay official, to stand trial with 25 other international bankers, including Sindona, for the 1974 collapse of the Banca Privata Italiana. Mennini had already been jailed for several weeks last year.
Massino Spada, Mennini’s predecessor as lay adviser to the Vatican bank, is also under indictment for fraud.
At the end of July, Milan prosecutors attempted to serve notice on Marcinkus, Mennini, and the bank’s chief accountant. But the Vatican, citing diplomatic immunity, returned the summonses unopened.
As a result of this latest financial disaster, Vatican officials who have advocated a radical change in the church’s financial arrangements may now get a hearing. The bank may be restricted to making interest-bearing investments only. The Wall Street Journal quotes a Vatican source as saying that “the idea of the cardinals is to stay away from all speculation.”
According to the Italian weekly Panorama, the Pope may call an unprecedented November conclave expressly to consider church finances. Should the Pope actually decide to call such a meeting, the church’s cardinals would be asked to decide on the most opportune ways to reform and open to scrutiny the Vatican financial affairs.
Openness would be a complete about-face. Even the committee of 15 cardinals appointed last year to find a solution to the Vatican’s operating deficit were given only minimal information about the bank.
In Italy especially, such action would be required to reverse the widespread impression that Vatican money is used merely to make more money and is sometimes diverted to purposes unworthy of a religious organization. Serious and recurring scandals only deepen that impression.
Meanwhile, headlines over open letters in respected Italian periodicals read, “Your Holiness, is it right?” and “Is it Christian to speculate with church money?”
Planned Parenthood Nearly Disqualified From Charity Drive
Planned Parenthood is facing careful scrutiny by Reagan administration officials over its participation in the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC)—a giving program that netted the organization $800,000 last year in contributions from federal employees.
This year, the group’s fund-raising capabilities may be hampered because it was classified as a national service agency rather than an international charity. This means local chapters of Planned Parenthood will have to qualify in 560 communities across America before they solicit donations from federal employees. In the past, it has been considered an international agency, like the Red Cross, automatically qualifying it to raise money anywhere in the nation.
This has sent Planned Parenthood chapters scrambling to qualify, because the campaign must be completed before the end of November. It also raises the specter of local challenges by well-organized right-to-life groups that often wield more clout than their national counterparts.
Because of the shift in status, Planned Parenthood has filed suit against the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which administers CFC. The organization, however, is lucky to be participating at all. In a move that stunned prolife and pro-abortion people alike, the CFC’S eligibility committee recommended in July that Planned Parenthood be excluded from the program because it has failed to earn “good will and acceptability.”
To the chagrin of right-to-life groups, OPM director Donald J. Devine overruled the committee’s suggestion because of administration pressure and the absence of hard data to support ineligibility. Also, because CFC included the National Right to Life Committee’s Educational Foundation as a participant for the first time this year, it was believed that Planned Parenthood deserved equal opportunity to solicit funds.
Devine has been active with Maryland’s Right to Life Committee and is hailed as a strong prolife advocate. But OPM spokesman Patrick Korten explained that Devine had to base his decision on whether the organization is national in scope and consistently attracts a significant number of private supporters.
Looking ahead to next year, though, the eligibility committee is conducting a detailed audit of Planned Parenthood’s income to determine if it measures up. To participate in CFC, an organization cannot receive more than 50 percent of its funding from government sources and must obtain at least 20 percent from individual contributors. “Planned Parenthood is close to the line,” Korten said. “Our major concern is that 50–20 ratio.”
National Right to Life spokesman Dan Donehey said his organization’s research into Planned Parenthood has uncovered “12 years of creative accounting” that mask possible violations of CFC rules as well as Internal Revenue Service tax laws. National Right to Life president J. C. Willke believes the cold facts as well as the rising heat of public sentiment will work against Planned Parenthood. “As the largest promoter and provider of abortion in the country, Planned Parenthood has no place in the federal charity campaign.”
Responding to the developments, Planned Parenthood president Fay Wattleton said “the decision to exclude Planned Parenthood was totally inconsistent with the rules and out of step with the thinking of millions of Americans. It was factually and legally indefensible. Planned Parenthood serves 2.5 million people each year.”
BETH SPRING
North American Scene
Chariots of Fire, the Academy Award-winning film, was so popular that a documentary on its hero will follow. Inspirational Films, cooperating with Penland Productions, plans a biography of Eric Liddell, the Christian athlete who would not compromise his principles and run on the Sabbath. The Flying Scotsman is set for release before the end of the year and will be narrated by former soccer star Kyle Rote, Jr.
The Evangelical Free church will not license or ordain persons who are divorced or married to those who have divorced. The policy was adopted at the denomination’s ninety-eighth annual conference in July. It does not apply to ministers already ordained or licensed. The Free church called for compassion for those who “have been wounded by divorce,” but was also compelled to “affirm, strengthen, and maintain” standards “set forth by God for godly homes and marriages.”
The Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform) has deferred judgment on a proposal that would change the definition of Jewishness. Currently, Jewish identity is granted to children of mixed marriages only when the mother is Jewish. Children born of mixed marriages in which the father is Jewish must undergo conversion. The deferred proposal would grant Jewish identity to any child born of a union in which one parent is Jewish, provided that child received a Jewish education and lived a Jewish lifestyle. A large majority of Reform rabbis support the change but warned that such a resolution would anger Jews of other branches, particularly the Orthodox.
United Methodists gained members in some areas of the country last year, but overall membership dropped 66,040. Church reports show that total membership in 1981 was 9,453,367. Last year’s decline follows drops of 65,000 in 1980, 69,000 in 1979, and 78,000 in 1978. Eighteen United Methodist church conferences had gains in 1981—most were in the South and Southeast, with the largest being in Texas.
Followers of Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and officials in Antelope, the central Oregon town closest to the guru’s 64,000-acre ranch, have declared a truce. Both sides announced early in July that Rajneesh followers would abort a civil rights lawsuit against the Antelope city council in exchange for “unqualified support” by the city council of the incorporation of the ranch into a city, Rajneeshpuram (CT, April 23, p. 38). It will become a city after the August 10 elections of a mayor and city council. Rajneesh followers are then expected to concentrate their energies on developing their own city instead of buying up neighboring Antelope.
The Pennsylvania assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has spoken against abortion and thus acted contrary to its denomination. The 1.17 million-member denomination in 1975 affirmed “each individual’s freedom and responsibility” on abortion. But the Pennsylvania regional assembly, meeting in July, declared its opposition to “the indiscriminate use of abortion.” It called on doctors and clinics to seek alternatives to abortion, noting that of the 9 million performed since 1973, only a fraction were related to rape or incest cases. Approved by a 10–1 margin, the resolution calls for society to “seek in every way possible to enhance the value and dignity of all human life.”
The Greek Orthodox church addressed creationism, “alternative lifestyles,” and abortion at its twenty-sixth biennial American Clergy-Laity Congress. The congress decided that both fundamentalist creationist theories and secular humanist denials of God’s direction “distort the revelation of God’s presence and power ‘in the heavens and on the earth.’ ” The congress denounced homosexuality, extramarital “live-in” arrangements, divorce for convenience, and abortion on demand. It called all those alternative lifestyles “degrading” to human beings. The congress also called for nuclear arms reductions.
Cult leader Sun Myung Moon was sentenced to 18 months in prison for tax fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice. He remains free following an appeal. Moon was also fined $25,000, the maximum allowable. His prison term could have been up to 14 years. A six-month sentence and a $5,000 fine. were imposed on Moon’s aide, Takeru Kamiyama.
“God Save Our Anthem,” Lament Some Britons
British subjects reacted with a storm of protest to the recent disclosure that a new Church of England hymnbook contains a radically altered version of their national anthem, “God Save the Queen.”
Written in the 1740s and sung to the tune borrowed by Americans for “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” the traditional hymn about the British monarchy calls on God to “scatter our enemies, and make them fall.” All this is deleted from the revised version and, in the hawkish mood prevailing in the aftermath of the Falkland Islands conflict, their removal strikes many as verging on treachery.
One Conservative MP, Viscount Cranborne, railed that “the Church of England is now peopled by buffoons.… All they can do is to arouse gales of laughter.”
And the Daily Telegraph groused editorially, “If a gaggle of clergymen wish to write, and even to circulate, their own poems, there is no scriptural, ecclesiastical, or legal authority to prevent them. But they should expect their efforts to be considered more as interesting symptoms of current attitudes than things of truth and beauty.
The editors of the new hymnal, to be published in November, defended their patriotism. They said they had “attempted to produce a version that will be more in keeping with today’s understanding of the monarchy,” and pointed out that their rendering does not replace, but is printed alongside, the traditional version.
The Church of England has no official hymnal, and Hymns for Today’s Church must compete with the four principal existing hymnals. The overall supervision of the 10 years of work was by Michael Baughen (pronounced “born”), the recently named bishop of Chester. A prominent evangelical, Baughen succeeded John Stott at All Souls Church in London, where he introduced guitars and pop-style worship.
That kind of innovation is viewed with distaste by the “high church” wing of the Anglicans. Canon D. W. Gundry predicted that the new hymnal would “attract mainly evangelical churches which have taken up the fashion of addressing God as ‘you.’ ”
The traditional version is:
God save our gracious Queen,
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen:
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the Queen:
Oh Lord our God arise,
Scatter our enemies,
And make them fall:
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On thee our hopes we fix,
God save us all:
Thy choicest gifts in store,
On her be pleased to pour,
Long may she reign:
May she defend our laws,
And ever give us cause,
To sing with heart and voice,
God save the Queen.
The revised version reads:
God save our gracious Queen,
God bless and guard our Queen,
Long live the Queen:
Guard us in liberty,
Bless us with unity,
Save us from tyranny,
God save the Queen:
Lord be our nation’s light,
Guide us in truth and right,
In you we stand:
Give us your faithfulness,
Keep us from selfishness,
Raise us to Godliness,
God save our land:
Spirit of love and life,
Healing our nation’s strife,
On you we call:
Teach us your better way,
Grant us your peace today,
God bless our Queen, we pray,
God save us all.
Oops! Falwell Spoke Too Loud Too Soon
In the beginning, it looked as if a quiet triumph for creationism was in the works in Virginia. Liberty Baptist College in Lynchburg, founded by Jerry Falwell, gained preliminary state approval for certifying its biology graduates to teach in public schools.
But news of the near-victory was trumpeted over the pulpit and across the airwaves by Falwell during an Old Time Gospel Hour broadcast last spring. He said certification would enable “hundreds of our graduates to go out into the classrooms teaching creationism.”
Falwell said he was defending academic freedom, but the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Virginia called it a violation of church and state separation. They turned up enough heat to cause a Board of Education committee to reverse itself and unanimously deny certification. The full board has postponed final judgment until this month, and Liberty officials are scrambling to convince board members of their school’s academic caliber.
The college has retained lawyer John Whitehead, who says “it all boils down to one crucial factor: Is it a quality program?” If it meets state requirements, its students deserve to be certified regardless of the fact that a renowned fundamentalist preacher serves as its chancellor, Whitehead explained. He views Falwell’s freedom of speech as a pastor and Liberty’s academic autonomy as independent of one another.
Liberty’s president, A. Pierre Guillermin, has pointed out to the board that Falwell is not involved with day-to-day administration of the college, nor is he responsible for hiring faculty or developing curricula. What Falwell does, according to Guillermin, is “provide vision and leadership for the institution involving issues of national interest.” In addition, he raises money for the school, primarily through broadcasts of the Old Time Gospel Hour.
Despite Falwell’s exuberance over the prospect of certification, Guillermin says Liberty Baptist College “does not require that its biology education students accept or endorse creationism.” Graduating from the program “is in no way conditioned upon opposition to evolution.”
Liberty’s biology program, headed by Terry Weaver, is conducted by seven faculty members, five of whom hold Ph.D. degrees from schools including Ohio State, Purdue, Pennsylvania State University, and the University of Kansas. Only a half dozen of Liberty’s 60 biology majors want to be certified as teachers. Certification is required for all teachers at public schools as well as accredited Christian and other private schools.
As Weaver sees it, the state board is going out of its way to find reasons to withhold approval, “for fear of our students teaching creation theories. That should have nothing to do with whether we’re training our students right. Our students are individuals who are taught to think and draw their own conclusions. If the state denies us certification based on the religious beliefs we hold, then in effect they will be establishing religion.”
The ACLU is maintaining an avid interest in the case, according to state director Chan Kendrick. While no legal challenge will be brought unless the full board decides in Liberty’s favor, Kendrick said he is sending letters to the board spelling out alleged contradictions. “The head of the school says they do not teach creationism as science and the chancellor says they do. Somebody’s lying or doesn’t know the facts,” Kendrick said.
If certification is approved, Kendrick said a “nightmare” would result for local school boards. He believes approval would effectively negate laws against sectarian religious instruction. “It would say that the state okays it, so take your chances. It would become a local enforcement problem, putting the burden on individuals and parents to fight it.”
Falwell, however, notes that “we have avowed Marxists certified as history teachers, and no one challenges their academic freedom, so why can’t we have Bible-believing Christians who fairly present both creation and evolution and leave it up to parents and students to decide?” The answer to that question, of course, is that until now, creationism has generally been ignored altogether in public school science classes, and the ACLU would just as soon leave it that way.
The skirmish represents the first time that any question concerning creationism has come before Virginia’s Department of Education, and it could set an important precedent for other Christian college graduates in the state who hope to teach science. If Liberty officials have their way, the question of certification will be based on the caliber of their academic program. If the ACLU succeeds, the issue could become mired in a First Amendment question of whether its students want access to public schools just to promote a religious belief under the guise of teaching science.
BETH SPRING
World Scene
Four evangelical Christian doctors conducted a 10-day seminar on cancer research in China in May. The medical team, organized by Dr. Kenneth Wiebe, director of medical education in the (Anglican) Church Missionary Society, was accompanied by David Adeney, affiliated with the Overseas Missionary Fellowship. The doctors lectured to more than 200 doctors assembled at Zheng Zhou, Henan Province, from every province and autonomous district of China except Tibet. They also attended consultations.
A common declaration, signed by Pope John Paul II and Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie, has announced agreement on formation of a new Anglican/Roman Catholic Commission. Big issues still dividing the two churches are the recognition of ministries in the light of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical declaring Anglican orders null and void, the question of papal infallibility, the dogmas of the Virgin Mary, and full communion. The easiest item in the commission’s long agenda will be the fairly uncontroversial task of fostering cooperation between Anglicans and Catholics at the local level.
The leader of Roman Catholic dissenting traditionalists plans to retire this month, resigning his post as head of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X, which he founded to oppose the reforms of the Vatican II Council. But Archbishop Marcel LeFebvre, 77, said he would continue to ordain priests. Because the French archbishop is the only person of the rank of bishop in the separatist movement that clings to Latin for the Tridentine Mass, he is the only one eligible to ordain graduates from his seminary in Econe, Switzerland—or to ordain a bishop to succeed him. There are reports of a deal between him and Pope John Paul II: the Pope will not excommunicate him if he refrains from consecrating a successor bishop.
The Greek Orthodox church is sticking to its guns. Just before civil marriage became legal for Greek citizens last month, one of its metropolitans warned that those who “scorn religious marriage” will be refused Communion, deprived of eligibility to serve as christening godparents or best men at weddings, and even denied priest’s visits to their homes during illnesses. Some of the clergy are not only offended by civil government but also by the Easter message of the Eastern Orthodox ecumenical patriarch Dimitrios. In it he expressed a hope that soon it would be possible for all Christians to observe Easter on the same day. Nothing doing, responded superiors of the monastic communities on Mount Athos. They said they were appalled by the idea of a “common celebration of Easter with heretics of all denominations.”
Evangelical factions in the (Lutheran) Church of Sweden are proceeding with plans to form a free synod—a kind of at-large alternative to the geographical synod units of the state church. Three groups formed separate diaconates last year (CT, Feb. 5, p. 83) and two more announced in July their intention to do so. Those forming the subunits that will be organized into the new synod complain of a lack of evangelism, the priority of political affiliation, and the ordination of women in the Church of Sweden. “One does not hear a true word of God in the services any longer,” wrote clergyman Christian Braw in explaining the “spiritual crisis” behind the developing split.
Radio Moscow has indirectly rebuked East German authorities for banning the wearing of a “swords into plowshares” patch. The patch, depicting a statue on the Micah 4 theme that was donated to the United Nations by the USSR, had been worn by young people protesting militaristic aspects of East German education. Commentator Valentin Sacharow said, “In the sculpture ‘swords into plowshares,’ the Soviet Union, its new socialist society, recognizes its foreign political aims and intentions.” He emphasized in the broadcast that “the needs of the moment require all nations to transform swords into plowshares.”
Poland’s new minister for religious affairs, Adam Loparka, 54, is well known for his antichurch pronouncements and writings. A law professor at the University of Poznan, he has been working since 1975 at the Marxist-Leninist Institute, which has close links with the Communist Party Central Committee. Word of Loparka’s appointment has been received with apprehension by the church because it is seen as signaling the start of an ideological attack on the church. He succeeds Jerzy Kuberski, who has been named official representative at the Vatican.
More Scriptures are being printed in Poland this year than ever before. As many as 195,000 Polish Bibles in various editions, 45,000 illustrated New Testaments, and 200,000 Gospels are being printed in Poland this year on paper furnished by the United Bible Societies. Apart from this local production, the Bible Society in Poland has also arranged the import of 50,000 pocket-sized Bibles.
Soviet authorities have now given permission for the annual printing of 10,000 Bibles, 10,000 New Testaments, and 10,000 hymnals, according to Alexei Bychkov general secretary of the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists, the grouping to which most registered Protestant churches in the USSR belong.
One Christian organization in Ghana has responded creatively to left-wing pressures from the country’s revolutionary regime. After churches were accused of not participating in the revolution, Scripture Union revamped its summer camping program. High schoolers engaged in Bible study mornings and in community service projects afternoons—a move that elicited approval from the government. That, in turn, is thought likely to boost attendance at the well-organized camps.
Member denominations of the Church of Christ in Zaïre (ccz) are threatening to withdraw from the government-mandated Protestant umbrella organization. Non-Episcopal denominations, such as the Baptists, Mennonites, and Presbyterians, say that ccz moderator Bokeleale Bokambanza has “widely exceeded the powers which are vested in him by the constitution” by demanding that each member entity be led by a bishop. Presbyterians were particularly incensed because they said Bokeleale attempted to reimpose as their leader a clergyman whom they had defrocked for, among other things, making people drink his blood at Communion services. At their spring assembly the Presbyterians voted unanimously to “reconsider” their membership unless Bokeleale desists from his efforts to change or to modify decisions of the denomination’s general assembly.
Saudi Arabia expelled pastors of congregations of expatriates in July. A Southern Baptist minister, James Canady, and two Roman Catholic priests, who shared facilities in a school on Raytheon Corporation property in Jidda, were ousted and their services closed. The Protestant congregation numbered 450, and the Catholic group was larger still. Earlier, according to Canady, a similar “house church” operation using Northrup Corporation facilities in Taif had been shut down by Saudi authorities. The Saudi government does not grant visas to missionaries or ministers, so the clergy were identified by the companies as consultants or teachers but paid by their congregations.
A recent evangelistic campaign in Sri Lanka made an impact on the Tamil (Hindu) minority in this predominantly Sinhalese (Buddhist) nation. Indian Youth for Christ director Victor Monagarom preached at a June cooperative crusade in the island’s largest east-coast city, Batticaloa, and others produced “Prodigal Son” and “Samaritan woman” dramas. Attendance averaged 1,000; 150 registered decisions, and 70 enrolled in follow-up classes.
Singapore’s charismatic Christians got out an average 40,000 attenders to a June gospel rally at which Korean pastor Paul Yonggi Cho preached. It was the second largest religious event in Singapore (after the Graham crusade in 1978, which crammed 75,000 people into the same stadium on one evening). But, since the charismatic movement surfaced there only a decade ago, the rally demonstrated that it had quickly established its sphere in the island state.
Chinese officials are searching more rigorously then ever before for Bibles, according to tourists. They often ask travelers pointblank, “Do you have any Bibles?” Then customs officials search their suitcases. According to the Hong Kong-based Chinese Church Research Center, use of x-ray machines is on the increase. Christian travelers are allowed to carry in only their personal Bibles, and these are recorded on their customs declaration forms and checked again on departure from China. Any additional Bibles, if found, are detained at the port of entry to be picked up at departure.
