British Clergy Getting Self-Defense Lessons

THE PRESS ASSOCIATION, Jan. 22 — Responding to an increased threat of violence against members of the clergy, an advocacy group has begun offering self-defense classes to priests, vicars and rabbis, the national news agency of Great Britain reported.

Tae kwon do lessons were being organized by the Amicus union for skilled and professional people.

The union reported last year that church workers were more vulnerable to physical attacks than doctors or probation officers. The research showed that one in eight had been assaulted in the previous two years.

Australian Archbishop Laments Abortion of Handicapped Baby

SUNDAY HERALD SUN, Feb. 3 — Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, Australia, disputed a coroner's ruling in the abortion of a handicapped child. A suicidal 40-year-old woman threatened to kill herself if a hospital did not abort her child after he was diagnosed as having a non-lethal form of dwarfism.

Archbishop Hart complained that the law in Victoria, which prohibits abortion unless a doctor believes it is necessary to protect a woman from serious danger to her life or mental health, seemed to permit ever-widening boundaries for abortion, the Melbourne daily said.

A spokesman for coroner Jacinta Heffey said the aborted baby, at 32 weeks gestation, was stillborn and that the coroner's court only has jurisdiction over reportable deaths. Since there was no birth, there was no death, the spokesman said. Archbishop Hart called that a “serious misjudgment.”

Said the archbishop, “If it is true that our laws do not protect children in such cases — indeed do not even allow a full coronial inquest — there is something seriously wrong with our laws.”

Messianic Groups Reaching Out to Russian Israelis

THE JERUSALEM POST, Jan. 31 — In an exposé of messianic Jewish groups targeting Russian immigrants in Israel, the Jerusalem daily reported the public burning of a copy of the New Testament by a teacher and principal of a Jewish religious school.

The Bible had been given to a student by Jewish Christians who believe that Jesus is the messiah.

The Post that there are an estimated 1,500 adult, Russian-speaking immigrants who belong to messianic congregations. The number of messianic groups in the country has more than tripled in the decade since mass Soviet Jewish immigration began, it said.

A Conservative rabbi who leads a Russian-speaking congregation said that one of the key factors attracting Russian immigrants to messianic groups is the social distance between them and native Israelis.

The U.S. State Department reports that evangelical Christian and other religious groups have complained that police in Israel are slow to investigate incidents of alleged harassment, threats and vandalism committed by an anti-missionary organization.

Ban Abortion, Cardinal Tells South African Government

SOUTH AFRICA PRESS ASSOCIATION, Feb. 5 — Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban, South Africa, said the government should suspend abortions as a gesture of its seriousness in calling for a moral renewal in society, according to the South African news agency.

Cardinal Napier made the appeal in the church newspaper Southern Cross. Commenting on President Thabo Mbeki's request to religious leaders to help address the nation's “moral decline,” especially in terms of violence, crime and corruption, the cardinal said suspending abortions would demonstrate the government's seriousness about the value of life.