LETTERS: RELIGIOUS GROUPS PUT ON WATCH LISTS

To the editor:

Today I read something that I have been expecting for years, but it still made my blood run cold.

In Europe today, there are networks of psychiatric, legal, media and socialist groups pressuring the European governments to outlaw or curtail the activities of well-know religious groups such as Catholic charismatics, Hasidic Jews, Baptists, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Quakers, Buddhists and the YWCA. These groups are listed as dangerous sects by state panel. On Dec. 7, the European Parliament began debate and then voted on a document identifying dangerous sects. A Roman Catholic scholar, Massimo Introvigne, calls for an international discussion to be started. He calls the European anti-sect movements "liberal rationalists." He says that since religion is not disappearing, they are very mad. Mr. Introvigne issued a report at a Washington press conference last week. He says that although these things are not ye a full-scale persecution, they are escalating to a kind of avalanche. He said that in several countries anti-sect lists are being compiled, with the Germans reporting 800 groups, Belgium 187 groups and France 172, including Baptists. The anti-sect groups propose laws to list groups, outlaw mind control by sects, to bar them from opening bank accounts or renting meeting halls and to set up government bureaus to monitor them. Some of the groups listed are Opus Dei, which is blessed by the pope, and Campus Crusade for Christ. Germany has assured the United States that it will not create a list of dangerous cults like Belgium has. The Belgium list includes four Catholic organizations, Hasidic Jews and the YWCA. Catholic bishops in France and Italy have criticized the lists, and when Belgium's list came out, the Vatican was alarmed.

I am sure there will be much more about this in the news in days to come. Perhaps it has already been reported. I can't help but wonder if this is not just another step down that slippery slope in the culture of death. When I went to high school many years ago, we discussed civilization -- what it was, how you could recognize a civilized society. It was a society with laws that protected the rights to life for all people, especially the helpless and the innocent. This great country at one time guaranteed us the right to freedom of religion over 200 years ago. Lately those rights seem to have been eroded by laws that don't allow us to pray in public places and in schools. A few months ago a group of Christians was touring the capital of the United States, and while in a federal building there were standing in front of a painting and silently praying. They were told that it was illegal to do so and threatened with arrest if they did not stop. When the group protested, they were escorted out of the building.

When will our country give in to the same type of pressure as some of these European countries have? Will we also be listed as sects or cults and put on a list and watched? Will the day come when we will be rounded up for practicing our religion? Do you remember when we were still allowed to pray in our schools and there was just a discussion that some day we may have a law outlawing it, and you said it would never happen? Do you remember when it was illegal to have an abortion and there were discussions that it might become legal, and you said it could never happen? Did you ever think that we would never think of or allow euthanasia? Yet we have Dr. Kevorkian delivering bodies to hospital morgues in his van almost every week, and nobody has been able to stop him. If you believe in a God, please pray that we will be able to turn around this country of ours before they put you on a list and come for your kids. Much of this news was reported in the Washington Times.

CHRISTINE STEPHENS

Cape Girardeau