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Religion News Report - March 19, 2001 (Vol. 5, Issue 337)
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=== Aum Shinrikyo
1. Aum Doomsday Cult Shadows Japan
2. Key Members of the Aum Cult

=== Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
3. Uganda Cult Mass Murder Anniversary
4. Up in smoke or into thin air? Uganda's killer cult leaders a year on

=== Ho-no-hana Sanpogyo
5. Taxman sinks boot into foot cult
6. Bureaus put foot down over Honohana taxes
7. Foot cult leader failed to declare 750 million yen in income

=== Falun Gong
8. Girl Set Ablaze in Tiananmen Dies
9. Exhibition Targeting Falun Gong Begins in Hong Kong
10. Falun Gong puts spotlight on HK civil servants
11. Analysis: US, China still clash on Falun Gong

=== Scientology
12. Threat of Scientologists' Legal Wrath Prompts Slashdot to Censor a Posting
13. Scientologists Force Comment Off Slashdot
14. Slashdot buckles to Scientology loonies
15. Xenu Do, But Not on Slashdot
16. Holy? Or wholly without grounds

=== Buddhism
17. 'Buddha's hair' found in China

=== Islam
18. 400 Afghan clerics decided to destroy statues: Minister
19. Taliban Ways Under Question

=== Catholicism
20. Italy threatens to silence Vatican [Radio]
21. Few confessions

=== Mormonism
22. SLOC and the LDS Church downplay the church's involvement in the Olympics
23. From SLOC Leadership to Liquor, Church Has Long Had a Powerful Olympic Voice
24. Special Treatment for the Church?
25. Non-LDS Religious Leaders Cite Minimal Input
26. Courting Controversy
27. Sex change worshipper sues the Mormons

=== Hate Groups
28. Bertollini sues Coeur d'Alene newspaper
29. Parade foes to put best foot forward
30. Report Links Putin to Anti-Semitism
31. Estee Lauder's latest tangle
32. What's in a Name?

=== False Memory Syndrome
33. Jury awards family millions

=== Faith Healing
34. Senate Panel Backs Faith-Healing Ban When Kids At Risk
35. Mandatory medical aid for sick kids gets committee OK

=== Other News
36. Atheist leader's remains found on Texas ranch
37. China Extends Cult Crackdown to Protestants, Says Rights Group
38. Sect Not Allowed to Build Cult Hall [Universal Church of the Kingdom of God]
39. Man Shot Dead As Bulletproof Magic Fails
40. Moscow police make arrest in multiple murder
41. Poles rethink anti-sect moves after minority church complaints
42. Appeals court says Ohio motto is acceptable

=== Faith-Based & Community Initiatives
43. Conservatives call for ouster of director of faith-based charities


=== Faith-Based & Community Initiatives

43. Conservatives call for ouster of director of faith-based charities
San Francisco Chronicle, Mar. 17, 2001
http://www.sfgate.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Washington -- To repair a rift with the Christian right, White House officials privately have repudiated critical remarks that the director of a new office of faith-based initiatives made about evangelicals and have assured conservative leaders that their concerns will be addressed.

The White House has been stung by strong objections from the religious right to President Bush's idea for giving social ministries and faith-based charities wider access to federal grants to help the needy. And officials did not expect that less than two months after Bush appointed John DiIulio Jr. to head the office, some social conservatives would be demanding that he be fired.

At a meeting Wednesday between conservative leaders and a senior White House official, the Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, asked that DiIulio be replaced.

''We didn't know what he was made of, and we think he is the wrong person for the position,'' said Sheldon, adding that DiIulio is an academic, not a politician, and a Roman Catholic Democrat who voted for Al Gore.

''Bush is fine. The problem with his faith-based office is related to the person he put there to run it,'' Sheldon said.
(...)

Shelton said the White House official who spoke to him was noncommittal about Bush's appointee, but agreed ''100 percent'' that DiIulio's recent speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, in which he accused conservative Christian leaders of lacking a true commitment to the poor, was not helpful to the president or his faith-based policy.
(...)

Bush counts evangelical Christians as an important part of his political base and won the backing of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell in the 2000 campaign.

Now those two leaders are feuding with DiIulio, a streetwise University of Pennsylvania political scientist whom friends have nicknamed ''Joe Pesci with a Ph.D.'' Charges by Robertson and Falwell that the initiative could fund ''bigoted'' groups and foster government interference with churches angered DiIulio and undercut support for the initiative in Congress.

Shortly afterward, Robertson and Falwell became incensed by DiIulio's remark to a Jewish audience that ''Bible-thumping won't cut it'' in federally funded social programs.

At the evangelicals' convention on March 7, DiIulio went further, saying that African American and Latino congregations are more receptive to federal partnerships because they generally are more dedicated than white, conservative churches to serving the poor.
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