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player ready...The execution of Andrew Kokoraleis was a defeat for, among others, many of Chicago’s religious leaders.
But the defeat seems only to have stiffened opposition to capital punishment in the interfaith community.
Chicago-area bishops, ministers and rabbis gathered at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral last Sunday to request clemency for Kokoraleis, in one of the most unified demonstrations yet of local religious opposition to the death penalty.
But where Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan spared the life of a convicted murderer in January after the pope made a personal appeal, Gov. George Ryan did not even respond to the Illinois clerics’ efforts to make their case in person.
And stories of Ryan’s struggle of conscience over Kokoraleis failed to generate much sympathy for the governor among some of those religious leaders.
“If in fact the governor was struggling over this issue, why didn’t he meet with the clergy?” wondered Rev. Demetri Kantzavelos, chancellor of the Greek Orthodox Diocese of Chicago.
Kantzavelos had spearheaded efforts to rally the religious community after meeting Kokoraleis, who re-embraced his Orthodox faith in prison.
He had no trouble finding allies in his cause. On March 4, Cardinal Francis George wrote Ryan requesting clemency for Kokoraleis. The cardinal, like his predecessor, had made such pleas before, but this letter was longer, more detailed in its reasoning and firmer in its conclusion.
“I ask you to spare the life of Mr. Kokoraleis at this time,” George wrote. “It would be a serious miscarriage of justice if he received the death penalty for a crime he did not commit.”
George’s letter was influenced not only by the pope’s efforts in St. Louis, but by his recent pilgrimage to Istanbul and Rome with Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Iakovos of Chicago, which brought the two churches closer together.
From there it was a short step to gather many of the Protestant, Jewish and interfaith leaders who had already stated their opposition to capital punishment individually.
It is a group that Ryan can expect to hear from again.
Globe-spanning: Chicagoans who could sit back and let the world’s religions come to them in 1893 and 1993 may have to do a little more planning this year, as the 1999 Parliament of the World’s Religions prepares to meet in Cape Town, South Africa, from Dec. 1 to Dec. 8.
Registration is already under way, with a March 30 deadline for discounted registration fees. Between 6,000 and 8,000 people are expected to attend.
Organizers of the parliament have their hands full too. If it were once simply enough to gather representatives of every imaginable faith in a single place, there is pressure for the parliament to build on that accompllishment this time around.
Toward that end, the parliament’s Chicago-based leaders are working on “A Call to Our Guiding Institutions,” a document that attempts to find common ethical ground among all the world’s religions and derive from that some practical goals for government, academia, media, business, science and, of course, religious institutions.
The parliament that took place in Chicago in 1893 was the first gathering that brought together representatives of hundreds of religions around the world. It proved something of a cultural watershed, sparking new religious movements in the U.S. and a burst of popular and academic interest in all things “oriental.”
A century later, the next parliament attracted about 8,000 participants and observers to Chicago. Many local religious leaders credit that gathering with giving new momentum to interfaith efforts.
Nobody is sure what will come of the third parliament, but organizers can promise this: In Cape Town, December is summer. For more information, call the Chicago office of the parliament at 312-629-2990 or check out its Web site at www.cpwr.org.
Happy New Day: Christians and computer technicians may be focused on the looming start of the year 2000 nine months hence, but it is worth remembering that many people of the world–and of Chicago–calibrate their calendars a little differently.
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Baha’is around the world celebrate their new year this Sunday, the feast day they call Naw Ruz, or “New Day.” Not only is the day one of nine holy days in the Baha’i year that call for a complete suspension of all work, but Naw Ruz also signals the end of a 19-day daylight fast from all food and drink.
There are only about 2,000 Baha’is in greater Chicago, but the Baha’i National Center on the lakefront in Wilmette serves as the center of worship for more than 120,000 believers around the U.S.
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