Rebel Shiite cleric blames America for church

Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia is locked in a fight with U.S. and Iraqi forces, called the United States the enemy of the Iraqi people on August 6 and blamed it for all the violence in the country, including recent attacks on Christians. In a sermon read for him by an aide in a mosque in Kufa, Iraq, al-Sadr said: “I say America is our enemy and the enemy of the people, and we will not accept its partnership...I blame the occupier for all the attacks going on in Iraq, such as the attacks on the churches and the kidnappings...America is the greatest of Satans.”

Castro slams Bush’s faith

Fidel Castro celebrated Cuba’s Revolution Day on July 26 by taking pot shots at President Bush: “He depends on religion as a defense mechanism, substituting thought. In some ways, he doesn’t even have to think.” Bush, however, has been thinking about Cuba lately. During a July 16 press conference, the president accused the Cuban government of massive human rights violations and specifically condemned the country’s growing sex trade: “The regime in Havana, already one of the worst violators of human rights in the world, is adding to its crimes. Castro welcomes sex tourism.” Castro denied the allegations, saying the president “makes up his own reality about Cuba in his head.”

Chinese crack down on underground church

A Chinese court in Beijing on August 6 sentenced three Christians in the independent Protestant church to up to three years in prison for “leaking state secrets,” a court official and church activist said. The independent church refers to congregations outside the Communist Party-controlled official Protestant church. The court found Xu Yonghai, Liu Fenggang and Zhang Shengqi guilty of passing on information to an overseas magazine about a court case involving another member of the independent church, the China Aid Association said.

The cases against the men apparently stem from their efforts to publicize last year’s crackdown on unofficial churches, according to the Associated Press.

Catholic bishop freed by Columbian rebels

Marxist guerrillas freed a Roman Catholic bishop unharmed on July 28. The release came three days after his abduction sparked a global outcry and sent more than 1,000 soldiers into the jungle to rescue him. Misael Vacca Ramirez, the Bishop of Yopal, said he was taken by members of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, because they wanted to give him a political message to deliver to the government, though he was never given the message. “I was treated well. At no moment did anybody show me disrespect,” Vacca Ramirez told reporters. He tearfully hugged relatives on the tarmac in Yopal and thanked the Colombian people for their support during his kidnapping.

Brazil becomes international Bible belt

An apparent religious awakening in Brazil over the past decade, along with the rapid advance of evangelical churches and smart business planning by publishers have made Brazil a leading world publisher of Bibles.

“All 136 country-chapters of the World Bible Society taken together published 21 million Bibles last year. Our share was 4.2 million,” Erni Seibert, marketing director of the Brazilian Bible Society told AP. According to Roy Lloyd, a spokesman for the society’s U.S. chapter, “more Bibles are produced in Brazil than at any of the other Bible societies around the world.” Brazil’s other publishers printed an additional 1.5 million Bibles in 2003, according to Marino Lobello, vice president of the Brazilian Book Publishers Association.

“There is no way to know for certain whether Brazil is the world leader,” said Lobello. “But we sure put out a lot of Bibles!” One reason for the increase is the growing number of evangelical Christians in the country, which has risen from 9 percent of the country’s population in 1991, to 15 percent in 2000, according to the Brazilian Census Bureau. About 180 million people now live in Brazil.

– E.P. News