Religious Leaders

Four religious leaders - representing blacks, Protestants, Roman Catholics and Jews - have denounced racially-oriented comments made by attorney Charles Bowser in a recent newsletter about mayoral candidate Edward G. Rendell and Rendell's supporters. In a statement issued yesterday, the religious leaders said Bowser's commentary "unfortunately has confirmed the fears of many Philadelphians regarding the injection of racism into the mayoral campaign. " "We, blacks and whites together, oppose such efforts to divide the community by color," they said.

Nobody knows the needs of a community better than its churches, mosques and synagogues, declared a gathering of clergy at yesterday's volunteer summit. But, they said, nobody has financial resources like the government and business. So what society needs now is a new partnership of church, government and business, the religious leaders agreed. "We need partnerships in the religious community," Gov. Don Sundquist of Tennessee told about 250 religious leaders and activists convened at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel.

Religious leaders from across Camden called on Gov. Christie on Saturday to meet with community and local government leaders in an attempt to resolve a financial crisis that has resulted in layoff notices to about half of the city's police officers and firefighters. Two days after City Council approved the cuts and a day after Christie engaged in a verbal clash with some city leaders, members of Camden Churches Organized for People (CCOP) held a news conference on the steps of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church on Market Street.

While some religious leaders in the Philadelphia area saw a good side of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, others said he was too divisive and not representative of Christianity. "Some people in my community said he was racist, and maybe he was," the Rev. Herb Lusk, pastor of Greater Exodus Baptist Church in North Philadelphia, said yesterday. "But when I met him he was the kindest and most affectionate, caring person I've ever met. " Mr. Falwell spoke last year at Lusk's church. "The guy always fought for what he believed to be right," Lusk said.

About 20 local religious leaders screened the controversial movie The Last Temptation of Christ yesterday, and their reaction was a far cry from the hostility the film has generated elsewhere. While some religious leaders in other areas have criticized the movie as blasphemous and protested its release, those watching yesterday differed widely on what they liked and what they didn't - but said they found no reason to urge others not to see it. The movie opens today at the Ritz Five theater.

Many religious leaders and antiwar groups remain steadfast in urging peace and reconciliation rather than revenge. Some warn that responding in kind will be the ultimate victory for the terrorists - by making us like them. "We can deny them their victory by refusing to submit to a world created in their image," said a statement released by the National Council of Churches and signed by 210 religious leaders as of Friday night. "Terrorism inflicts not only death and destruction but also emotional oppression to further its aims.

Rare is the religious organization without volunteers. They organize church basketball camps. They arrange the altar flowers, call the sick, polish the menorah, mail the pledge envelopes, paint the youth hall, feed the hungry and teach the little ones about Noah's ark. Congregational life would scarcely function without the goodwill and unpaid work of volunteers. But as presidents and corporations and movie stars gather in Philadelphia to celebrate volunteerism, local religious leaders are warning that volunteers can't replace government in the fight against poverty.

Summoned to worship by a Muslim chant, representatives of Philadelphia's religious community - including bishops, rabbis, imams and ministers - gathered yesterday in an old Quaker meetinghouse to pray for an end to racism and bigotry. They also signed a document calling on Philadelphians to observe Mayor Goode's proclamation of October as Human Relations Month by recalling that "each of us, created in the divine image, is worthy of respect and deserving of dignity. " More than 20 religious leaders gathered at the Free Quaker Meetinghouse, Fifth and Arch Streets, for a noon worship service sponsored by the Inter- Faith Support Group of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations.

Leaders representing four of the city's major religious organizations, concerned about the injection of race into the mayoral campaign, yesterday condemned a recent political newsletter as an unfortunate and ill-advised attempt "to divide the community by color. " "The next few months may test whether Philadelphians can live and work together in harmony," the leaders said. "Regardless of the outcome of the mayoral race, we cannot afford to fail this test. " The newsletter, circulated privately last month by lawyer Charles W. Bowser, "unfortunately has confirmed the fears of many Philadelphians regarding the injection of racism into the mayoral campaign.

I thank the NAACP and black religious leaders for their stand on the possible SEPTA strike. All of us who would be badly affected by a strike should support these groups. They helped not only the black people they represent but people of other ethnic groups. I know I'm not the only white person who would be affected by a strike. I don't feel SEPTA should be allowed to strike, and I am shocked that city officials have not taken a stand. I understand that firemen and policemen are not allowed to strike because of public safety.

Bible-believing evangelical voters kept Rick Santorum in the hunt for the Republican presidential nomination. But their fervor didn't translate into the dollars he needed to withstand the ad blitz of the deeper-pocketed Mitt Romney. Does Santorum's suspension of his campaign mean religion won't play a role in the fall campaign? No, with a Mormon and a Protestant who still gets wrongly accused of being a Muslim in the race, you can expect religion to remain a factor in the election.

H IS PARISHIONERS call him "Joshua," but whatever the Rev. Kevin R. Johnson is called, he is regarded nationally as a minister devoted to the ideals of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. As the fifth pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church in North Philadelphia, Johnson will be honored Thursday with induction into the prestigious Board of Preachers at the 27th annual Martin Luther King Jr. College of Ministers & Laity at Morehouse College in Atlanta....

WASHINGTON - Religious leaders told a House panel Thursday that the Obama administration was violating basic rights to religious freedom with its policies for requiring that employees of religion-affiliated institutions have access to birth-control coverage. The unity of the religious leaders contrasted with the partisan divide among lawmakers on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Democrats said they had been denied the ability to present witnesses who might support the government stance or speak for the rights of women to reproductive-health coverage.

NEWARK, N.J. - Religious and political leaders in northern New Jersey are displaying a sense of unity this week as police search for the perpetrators of a spate of fires and vandalism at several synagogues over the past month. More than two dozen lawmakers and community and religious leaders signed a statement yesterday condemning acts of hate and violence against the Jewish community in Bergen County, including the recent firebombing of a Rutherford synagogue. Signers of the statement said they chose to release it on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday to echo King's famous saying: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

WHOSE conscience is it? With a bogus appeal to "religious liberty," U.S. Catholic bishops reportedly have President Obama on the verge of diluting a proposed government regulation that health insurance cover contraception without co-pays. Members of his party are alarmed at this prospect, and they should be: Caving would be nothing less than government enforcement of religious doctrine, not to mention an unfair denial of equal treatment to millions of Americans based on where they work or go to college.

By Matt Breen He came from simple beginnings as the son of a sharecropper in North Carolina to achieve world-wide fame. And on Monday morning, the life of the humble and reserved Joe Frazier was remembered with elegance and passion in a two-hour ceremony at North Philadelphia's Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church. Mr. Frazier, who moved to Philadelphia as a teenager, died Monday of liver cancer. He was 67. Longterm adversary Muhammad Ali paid his respect to the former heavyweight champion, along with fellow boxers Bernard Hopkins, Larry Holmes and Michael Spinks, among other.

Amidst pomp and pageantry, thundering organ music and the soaring voices of the cathedral choir, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput will formally take charge of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia this afternoon. His three-hour installation service is scheduled to begin at 1:40 p.m. with a grand procession of 700 seminarians, priests, bishops and cardinals into the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Center City. The procession will begin on 17th Street between Vine and Race Streets, turn right onto Race, and right again onto 18th Street and through the cathedral's front doors.

Former Delaware County congressman Bob Edgar and 10 other religious leaders were arrested by Capitol police in Washington, D.C., Thursday afternoon after they knelt to pray in the Capitol Rotunda to protest proposed cuts to social services. Edgar, 68, a United Methodist minister who now heads the nonpartisan watchdog group Common Cause, was handcuffed with plastic binding, searched and taken into custody at about 1 p.m., said Mary Boyle, a spokeswoman for the group. "The point is to call on Congress, to essentially pray for Congress to have the wisdom and insight not to balance the budget on the backs of America's poor and middle class," Boyle said.

HARRISBURG - With more than 41,000 lower-income adults facing loss of their state-subsidized health-care coverage next week, religious leaders Tuesday begged for a last-minute bailout of the program and a social service advocacy group threatened to sue. The Corbett administration says it has exhausted its funding options and warns that coverage for adultBasic recipients will end Monday. At a news conference, several church leaders representing hundreds of faith groups said Corbett and nonprofit health insurance providers have a moral obligation to find a way to keep the program alive.

I LOVE THE Martin Luther King Day of Service. But I think I can improve it. Let me start by saying how great it is that, on the third Monday of every January, more and more people are observing this federally created holiday as "a day on, not a day off. " The 16-year-old event has passionate local support. Yesterday, 75,000 people in the Delaware Valley volunteered in 1,200 projects - like retooling computers for the poor, painting PAL centers, creating care packages for sick kids and distributing food boxes to the elderly.