Earth Day Anthem-APRIL 22

Earth Day anthem

There are many songs that are performed on Earth Day, that generally fall into two categories. Popular songs by contemporary artists not specific to Earth Day that are under copyright, or new lyrics adapted to children's songs. Creating new lyrics that are easily translated into multiple languages, and set to a universally recognized melody in the public domain, does not appear to have been attempted.

The "Earth Day Anthem" below satisfies these requirements for a universal song associated with Earth Day. Ludwig van Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" melody is already the official anthem of the European Union (in that case purely instrumental without lyrics), the melody is widely recognized and easily performed, in the public domain, and originally composed for voice. Lyrics for the Earth Day Anthem set to "Ode to Joy"^[60] are provided below:

Joyful joyful we adore our Earth in all its wonderment

Simple gifts of nature that all join into a paradise

Now we must resolve to protect her

Show her our love through out all time

With our gentle hand and touch

We make our home a newborn world

Now we must resolve to protect her

Show her our love through out all time

With our gentle hand and touch

We make our home a newborn world

CSI APPLAUDS UN RESOLUTION ON WAR-CRIMES IN SRILANKA.

CHURCH OF SOUTH INDIA APPLAUDS UN RESOLUTION ON WAR-CRIMES IN SRI LANKA, INDIA VOTING IN FAVOR OF THE RESOLUTION AT UNHRC, GENEVA & INDIAN DELEGATION’S VISIT TO SRI LANKA,  April 19, 2012

The thirty year long civil war in Sri Lanka and especially the last five months of the war is reported to have resulted in massive violence and human-rights violation. Although both sides seem to have committed atrocities throughout the many years of conflict, reports say that the last months of war saw tens of thousands of Tamil civilian men, women, children and the elderly killed, countless more wounded, and hundreds of thousands deprived of adequate food and medical care, resulting in more deaths.

The intentional shelling, shooting and infliction of suffering on civilians, shelling of hospitals and humanitarian operations have created thousands of widows and orphans displaced many more. While many of them are ‘believed’ to be in the detention camps, many others are reported to be still ‘disappearing’. Thousands of trees have been felled, forests were ravaged and even for resettlement acres of virgin forests were cleared. Forests that grew along the sides of roads were scorched lands and paddy fields were mined.  Our brothers and sisters in Sri Lanka, especially in the CSI Diocese of Jaffna have experienced the brutality of the war and continue to undergo the post-war trauma.

In this context, the Church of South India,

• Expresses deep concern over the post-war traumatic situation in Sri Lanka and our disapproval of all forms of human rights violations.
• Stands in solidarity with the people of Sri Lanka, especially the widows and the orphans, irrespective of their identities, who have become victims in the 30 year long civil war.
• Condemns all acts of violence, including the bloodshed, targeting the innocents, violating international norms and common decency, during the war and after the war.
• Endorses the United Nations resolution on war-crimes in Sri Lanka which urges the Government of Sri Lanka to implement the ‘Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) Report Recommendations.
• Insists that the recommendations made in the LLRC, to be implemented by the Government of Sri Lanka.
• Applauds India for voting in favour of the UN Resolution and the visit of Indian delegation to Sri Lanka, headed by Miss. Sushama Swaraj (Honourable Leader of Opposition), and hopes that this would promote reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka.
• Reinforces our commitment in ensuring justice, equity, accountability and reconciliation, so that the Sri Lankan Tamils can get justice and lead a life of dignity.
• Assures to journey with our brothers and sisters in the north-eastern provinces of Sri Lanka towards re-construction, rehabilitation and reconciliation.
• Calls the Government of India to be actively and politically involved in the peace-making process as an immediate and long time neighbour of Sri Lanka.
• Calls all the religious communities and civil societies in India and Sri Lanka to work together towards the training of grass-root workers, encouraging traditional practices and rituals, promoting positive family and community relationships and processes, rehabilitation, reconstruction and networking.
• Joins with all faith communities around the world, praying and hoping toward the establishment of peace with justice, upholding the aspirations of the Sri Lankan Tamils.

M. M. Philip, General Secretary, CSI Synod & Rev. Viji Varghese Eapen, Director, Department of Ecumenical Relations & Ecological Concerns, CSI Synod

CHRIST Centered Campaign (CCC) Newsletter No 62. April 12, 2012

CHRIST Centered Campaign (CCC) Newsletter No 62.  April 12, 2012

In This Issue

Moderator Postpones Consultation on Church Renewal

Church of South India is Not a Company!

RoC calls on the CSITA

Moderator Postpones Consultation on Church Renewal

In CCC No 59 we had reported how CSI Moderator G. Devakadasham was planning a “wider consultation” in Chennai on May 2, 2012 for renewal of the church. That CSI communiqué announcing this had first been spotted by the CCC on this blog http://csipass.blogspot.in/2012/03/happy-news-another-bold-step-by-church.html

But now the consultation has been shifted to July 23 and the same communiqué reissued with only a change in the date. See the CSI Synod websitehttp://www.csisynod.com/newsevents_view.php?Id=96 for the latest announcement. Why this postponement? On March 23, 2012 the Moderator had met in Nagercoil with a delegation from the “Movement for the Renewal and Reformation of the Church of South India.”  This is  a group comprising two former Moderators of the CSI,  a serving Bishop (of Thoothukudi-Nazareth Diocese), two former bishops,  former principals of theological and other colleges, Synod members, pastors and lay leaders. A Memorandum presented to the Moderator on the occasion and containing proposals for significant changes to the CSI Constitution is contained in Annexure 1.

The CCC appreciates the considerable thought and discussion that has gone into framing the various reform proposals. Unfortunately we are not convinced this will find a ready audience with the powers that be. And proof of how difficult it will be to change mindsets has come within days of the proposals being submitted to the Moderator. The CCC understands the Moderator circulated the Memorandum among his fellow bishops for their feedback at a retreat in Mizoram. Apparently the consensus reached  was that the Moderator himself should prepare a “policy paper” to be presented at the proposed consultation  – a decision that has resulted in the May 2 meeting being postponed. Any reform proposals the Moderator may articulate in his policy paper  will inevitably be vetted by other Officers of the Synod and by the Bishop’s Council before it becomes public and this will likely result in a weak reform document. It will be a document that will enable the leadership to take credit for mooting reform (instead of  letting the group that presented the Memorandum steal its thunder) while in actual fact doing little more than  tinker at the edges.

The challenge for the Movement for the Renewal ….. (apart from coming up with a catchy acronym of its name that people can remember easily) is to make it truly a movement of, for and by CSI members.   The current CSI leadership must be aware that the movement, despite it being called that, does not go beyond a few dozen people at this stage. Hence they  feel little pressure to agree to the reforms suggested. Unless there is pressure built from the grassroots it seems unlikely the powers that be will concede any dilution of their powers and agree to demands for  greater transparency and accountability that lie at the heart of the reforms suggested. Hopefully a May meeting proposed by Dr Jayakaran Isaac of the Abundant Life Movement, Vellore, to build an action plan to back the reform proposals will move things in the direction of turning what is now an intellectuals movement into a broader people’s one. 

Church of South India is Not a Company!

Two recent articles on the CSI, one in the Times of India (ToI) and another in its sister publication The  Economic Times (ET) have caused both confusion and consternation among CSI members. The ToI article was headlined “HC: Church of South India is a Company” (see http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-03-26/chennai/31239990_1_church-of-south-india-csi-trust-association-registrar ) while the ET story said pretty much the same thing. See   http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-04-01/news/31266997_1_csi-church-of-south-india-ta

Both headlines are completely wrong as the Madras High Court did not rule CSI  to be a company. The court only said since the Church of South India Trust Association (CSITA), which holds all the assets of the CSI and which had filed the suit,  is registered as a company, it has to  abide by the provisions of the Companies Act which inter alia gives the Registrar of Companies power to inspect its books. (for full text of court order please see Annexures in CCC No 60) The CSI Synod website itself declares CSITA to be a company. See    http://www.csisynod.com/csi-ta.php So that can hardly be called news. As for the church (CSI) itself, it remains an unregistered association of persons with a written constitution. By no stretch of imagination (and the sub editors in the two dailies who gave the headlines obviously had very fertile ones) can the CSI be called a company. The court certainly did no such thing. Since there are academic tomes now coming out on  the topic of CSI being a company (See Annexure 2) based on the misleading newspaper headlines, the CCC felt it important that the record be set straight about what the court order actually said.

RoC calls on the CSITA

For readers who have been following the saga of the Registrar of Companies’ (RoC) six-month long effort to inspect the books of the CSITA (See CCC Newsletter No 61) here is some Breaking News: An RoC team visited the CSITA office on 9^th April 2012. Even though the RoC had given two weeks notice of its visit, both the  Moderator and the General Secretary of the CSI (who as Chairman and Hon. Secretary respectively of the CSITA are its two top officials) made it convenient to absent themselves from the office. It was left to the Hon.Treasurer Bennet Abraham to answer the visitors’ queries. Much of the questioning related to the relationship between the CSI and the CSITA and Dr Abraham (a medical doctor by training) could not really satisfy his interrogators. So they left a set of questions asking for the answers to be sent in a week’s time or else face action under the law.

Shortly thereafter a three-member CSI delegation headed by the Moderator took off to Delhi. Perhaps the attempt is to repeat what the CSI leadership did when the Income Tax Department served a three page-long notice on the CSITA in December 2010. At that time a group of six bishops headed by then Moderator S. Vasanthakumar drove down to Thanjavur from Chennai to  press DMK MP and Deputy Union Finance Minister S.S. Palanimanickam to get the IT authorities to back off (see CCC Newsletter No 7). That visit -- involving  the brazen use of cassocks and crucifix to subvert a legitimate enquiry --  did not yield the desired results as the DMK was by then in the dog house in New Delhi where the 2G scandal involving its minister A. Raja had just blown up. The IT authorities in Chennai eventually submitted a couple of damming reports on CSI finances to higher ups in Delhi who appear to be sitting on them for the moment. One will  not be surprised if Moderator Devakadasham is expecting a more helpful response from Union Minister of Corporate Affairs Veerappa Moily ( under whom the RoC operates) than was the case with the DMK minister.  The CCC Convenor has e-mailed Mr Veerappa Moily requesting the law be allowed to take its own course in the RoC investigations. If you would like to help ensure the RoC gets to do its job,  write to us attime2savecsi@gmail.com and we will send you a draft  text of  how you can word your email to the minister

CCC Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, we thank you for giving people who drafted the Memorandum on church reform the necessary wisdom to frame its various points. We thank you for the spark of interest the proposals have generated in the Moderator. We pray Lord that you will guide him to use the most important points from this Memorandum in drafting his policy paper and resist the inevitable pressures that will be brought to water down its contents. There are two challenges, you know Lord, the Memorandum faces. First is its credibility stemming from the fact that some of the people who helped draft it have themselves been guilty of corruption and mismanagement when holding positions of power in the church and  its related institutions. The second Lord is how to gain support for it among the wider CSI membership. We pray that with your help these challenges will be overcome and the path cleared for meaningful and swift reform of the CSI. On the RoC investigation, we pray Lord that any attempt being made by the powers that be to scuttle or bury it will be defeated. In your precious name we ask this prayer. Amen.  

Cautious optimism in Burma: The Church of England Newspaper,

Cautious optimism in Burma: The Church of England Newspaper, April 13, 2012. 

Aung San Suu Kyi

Church leaders have welcomed the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Burma’s parliamentary by-elections elections his week, but have warned that a great deal of work lies ahead for the new government.

In just the third election the country has held in the last 50 years the NLD won 43 of the 44 seats it contested in Sunday’s by-election. Official results have not yet been released, but NLD leader and Nobel peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi hailed the vote as a “new era” for Burma.

“This is not so much our triumph as a triumph for people who have decided that they must be involved in the political process in this country,” Mrs. Suu Kyi said in a victory speech at her party headquarters in Rangoon. “We hope this will be the beginning of a new era.”

The NLD will be a minority party in a parliament that is dominated by representatives of the military junta and its political allies.  Of the 664 seats in parliament, the military is allotted 25 per cent of the seats and the junta controls a further 55 per cent of the seats.  However, Mrs. Suu Kyi stated “we hope that all parties that took part in the elections will be in a position to cooperate with us in order to create a genuinely democratic atmosphere in our nation.”

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) welcomed the election results but “warned that Burma still has a long way to go, and urged the Burmese government to proceed with further reforms as part of the process towards genuine democratisation, peace and national reconciliation in the country.”

CSW’s East Asia Team Leader Benedict Rogers said, “This is clearly a very significant and very welcome result, and it shows the true feeling of the Burmese people. Their clearly expressed desire is for freedom, justice and democracy, values represented by Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD whom voters have overwhelmingly supported. This is, however, just the beginning, and there is still a very long way to go.”

The military government’s hostile attitude towards religious groups, critics charge, is one of the key areas needing reform.  Last week the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) 2012 Annual Report listed Burma as one of its “countries of particular concern.”

“It’s no coincidence that many of the nations we recommend to be designated as CPCs are among the most dangerous and destabilizing places on earth,” said USCIRF Chairman Leonard Leo. “Nations that trample upon basic rights, including freedom of religion, provide fertile ground for poverty and insecurity, war and terror, and violent, radical movements and activities.”

Christian churches have been subjected to years of government repression in Burma. Within the last month government troops ransacked a Baptist Church in Kachin State and on 10 March broke up a Christian conference in southern Chin State.

Mr. Rogers urged the Burmese government to “initiate a political dialogue with the ethnic nationalities, to secure a political agreement and a peace process that will end more than sixty years of civil war and stop the military’s crimes against humanity.”

“Until these steps are taken, the international community should be careful about how it responds to the by-election results,” he said, noting that “until all the people of Burma can live in peace and freedom, we cannot say that Burma is free. Today Burma has taken a welcome step forward towards change, but it has not yet changed.”

First published in Church of England news paper.

courtesy-geoconger