epiScope

Chaplains find that Iraq changes them

Return to civilian ministry requires readjustment
The Winston-Salem Journal    
April 07, 2008

A year after honoring the dead with soldiers in Iraq, the Rev. John Weatherly was back to more mundane ministerial tasks at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church.

A parishioner caught him in the hall to ask permission to announce a planned yard sale during the 10 a.m. worship service. He directed another to a red binder to note a prayer request. Later, he led a dedication service of an education wing to honor a longtime parishioner.

“I think it is tough to do - two different types of ministry, military and civilian,” said Weatherly, an Army chaplain with the Virginia National Guard. “It is a different mind-set.”

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Five down

Group commemorates fifth anniversary of Iraq War
By Nate Poppino
Twin Falls (ID) Times-News
March 19, 2008

The rain was cold. But for some of the 30-strong crowd huddled on Twin Falls City Park, it was the furthest thing from their minds.

Five years after their first vigil on the eve of the war in Iraq, they had returned, pleading once again with man and God for peace.

Their numbers have thinned from the 100 who gathered that first evening, organizer Jeff Ruprecht said. But no matter the numbers, he said, the vigils have to take place.

"I've got to do it," he said shortly before the vigil began.

The meeting was marked by a sense of quiet desperation. With no end in sight to the war, Ruprecht tallied the costs: 3,990 American servicemen killed. At least 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed. Some $500 billion spent on a war that grows by $3 billion a week.

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Tolling bells to remember 5 years of war
By BDN Staff
Bangor (ME) Daily News
March 19, 2008

BANGOR, Maine - Church bells across the state will ring for five minutes at noon today to mark the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, the Maine Council of Churches announced Tuesday.

Dozens of churches from Biddeford to Bangor and Fryeburg to Dover-Foxcroft will participate in the memorial.

"This is a way for churches to call our community to remember all that we grieve and all that we hope for in the midst of war," the Rev. Jill Job Saxby, the council’s executive director, said in a press release.

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Hope and joy in the desert

While serving in Baghdad, Mobilian Scott Rye starts effort to raise funds for Iraq's only Anglican church
KRISTEN CAMPBELL
Mobile (AL) Press-Register
January 19, 2008

Cmdr. Scott Rye doesn't claim to be a saint.

Raising funds for a Baghdad church surrounded by razor wire just seemed like the right thing to do.

A partner and executive vice-president of the advertising and public relations firm Red Square (formerly Sullivan-St. Clair) in Mobile, Rye works as the day chief at the Media Operations Center at the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad.

His work in the so-called Green Zone is having a positive effect, he wrote in a recent e-mail.

But the erstwhile parishioner of Mobile's Trinity Episcopal Church is seeking to make a difference in Iraqis' lives personally as well as professionally.

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War casualties not forgotten by L.A. parish

At St. John's, a cross for each dead American and stars for dead Iraqis keep members protesting for peace.
By K. Connie Kang
Los Angeles Times
January 12, 2008

During a solemn 10 a.m. Mass at St. John's Cathedral on Sunday, Deacon Lester Mackenzie recited the names and ages of six Americans who had lost their lives in Iraq the previous week.

Pray for them, he told the congregation, and for prisoners of war and those missing in action.

Then Mackenzie, who is being ordained today as an Episcopal priest, called on parishioners "to pray for the Iraqi people who have died, whose names we do not know."

St. John's is one example of houses of worship remembering the casualties of the war. Some say prayers, some stage protests. In some cases, church decor changes.

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Displaced

Bush Urged to Add Iraqi Refugees to Mideast Agenda
Aaron Glantz
OneWorld US
Jan. 9, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 8 (OneWorld) - The heads of 21 international humanitarian organizations have sent a letter to George W. Bush, demanding the U.S. president address Iraq's "refugee crisis" during his week-long trip to the Middle East, which begins Wednesday.

Close to 5 million Iraqis have been forced from their homes since U.S. troops invaded the country in 2003; more than half of them have fled to neighboring countries and over 2 million are displaced internally within Iraq.

"This displacement crisis has grave humanitarian implications as well as potential negative ramifications for regional security," the letter said.

Among those signing the letter are the directors of Refugees International, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Human Rights First, and the International Rescue Committee. Faith-based groups including Episcopal Migration Ministries, the Jesuit Refugee Service, Mennonite Central Committee, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) also signed on.

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The need for peace

Confronting extremists' use of faith for violence
By JOHN CHADWICK
Bergen (NJ) Record
November 1, 2007

It's not every day that Christians, Jews and Muslims get together to discuss violence and terrorism.

But at a small, little noticed panel discussion in Paterson last month, a rabbi, an Episcopal priest and a Muslim activist spoke candidly of how their traditions have, at times, fueled fanaticism.

The rabbi read from the biblical book of Numbers in which God tells the ancient Hebrews to invade the Holy Land and drive out the inhabitants.

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Another voice / ‘The work of death’
Religious voices need to speak out against the war
By William H. Privett
Buffalo (NY) News
November 1, 2007

Nearly 30 years ago, Pope John Paul II prayed fervently, “On my knees I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence — I say to you, with all the love I have for you — do not listen to voices which speak the language of hatred, revenge, retaliation. Do not follow any leaders who train you in the way of inflicting death. Give yourself to the service of life, not the work of death. Violence is the enemy of justice. Only peace can lead the way of true justice.”

Local spiritual leaders such as Episcopal Bishop Michael Garrison, Lutheran Bishop Marie Jerge, the Rev. Ronald Sajdak, the Catholic Diocesan Justice and Peace Commission and the Interfaith Peace Network of Western New York have similarly cried out for an end to war. However, such voices are few and the volume seems low.

On Sept. 29, at a peace rally drawing up to 3,000 people in Syracuse, the largest upstate peace action since the Vietnam War, (unfortunately not mentioned by The News), Catholic priest Fred Daley questioned: “In the midst of the horror and evil of this Iraq War, where are our churches, where are our religious institutions, where are our religious bodies? Why this silence in our pulpits and congregations, while prophetic documents of peace from popes and bishops, councils and synods gather dust on library shelves?”

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Anglican flees Iraq

Vicar flees Baghdad after threats
BBC News
11 July 2007

A vicar who has been working to secure the release of five British hostages in Iraq has fled the country after being denounced as a spy.

Canon Andrew White, who ran Iraq's only Anglican church, left Baghdad amid fears for his safety.

The five Britons' abductors reportedly threatened to kill them unless the vicar stopped trying to find them.

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