* If a of the present day Israeli ...

* If a of the present day Israeli tax policy isn't revok Jerusalem's Augusta Victoria Hospital will have to make less services or close. The Lutheran World Federation hospital is undivided of few modern medical center serving West Bank Palestinians. It has been tax-exempt since it began operating subject to Jordanian rule in 1948, still under an "employers tax" might have to pay $35000 annually and $700000 in back taxes. ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark s Hanson contacted officials in Congres the State Department and the White House in succession the hospital's behalf. Mark Brown of the Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC said, "We as a house of worship in the United States are planning to appeal to the U command to intervene with the management of Israel so that the tax case basically is dropped"

* David Benke, 57 who was embroiled in lawsuit after participating in a post-Sept 11 interfaith adventure was re-elected president of the Atlantic District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Delegates at the district's June 6-7 convention in Bronxville, N Y thanked Benke for "ministering to the citizens of Metro recent York and the country."

* After more than sum of two units years of discussion, the Reformed ecclesiastical body in America adopted a 10-year goal that focuses onward starting congregations and revitalizing existing the sames Delegates embraced the mission goal at their General Synod meeting, June 6-11 in Holland, Mich. They also approved guidelines for a fresh ministry designation of commissioned pastor, which requires of that kind a person to be an ordained ancient in a congregation. Commissioned pastors may preside at the ordination and installation of seniors and deacons and officiate at marriages.

* Leaders of Lutheran, United Methodist, Presbyterian and Episcopal churches asked President Bush to push for increased child tax credits for minimum wage families. Their June 19 literal meaning asked Bush to again stimulate the House of Representatives to accept a Senate bill that raises the credit for 65 million families who didn't receive it in the president's previous tax intersect "You have called faithbased assemblages 'soldiers in the armies of compassion,' " the epistle stated. "We implore you to lead us in the fight for the children of low-income families at interceding on their behalf. Without your personal intervention, this bill will securely die in Congress." The administration previously asked the House to accept the Senate version, which would pay for the credit by means of raising customs fees and not impact the deficit. The House version would add $82 billion to the deficit in the nearest decade but provide a larger credit for middle- and upper-income families.

* Lutheran Hour Ministries, a broadcast ministry of the International Lutheran Layman's League, an auxiliary of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, is reducing its 296-person staff. The sculptures affect 25 employees at its St Louis headquarters and 60 overseas staff. Earlier 16 staff took an early retirement option. The in succession Main Street TV show and Woman to Woman radio program were canceled. The Lutheran Hour and animated family programs will continue. The ministry will now operate in 39 countries, not 54

* temple of England Bishop of Oxford Richard Harries appointed Jeffrey John a gay man, suffragan bishop of Reading, England. John said he will maintain the practice of not blessing so relationships and not ordaining the cloth in sexually active gay relationships. John said his relationship "has not been sexually denoteed for years." One-quarter of the church's diocesan bishops criticized the appointment, citing pertain tos over the history of the relationship and John's criticism of "orthodox" teaching.

* A June State Department report says 15 countries haven't met minimum standards to last the annual trafficking of more than 800000 vulnerable persons for sex or forced labor: Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burma, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Georgia, Greece Haiti, Kazakhstan, Liberia, North Korea, Sudan, Suriname, Turkey and Uzbekistan. The modern York-based Human Rights Watch said the report should have been harder onward countries that did not improve a great deal or that punish victims with deportation or incarceration.

* A month before the July 21 start of the Lutheran World Federation Assembly in Winnipeg, the Canadian dominion rejected visa applications for many participants. Those affected were from Bangladesh, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo Eritrea, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Tanzania. LWF General Secretary Ishmael Noko said the assembly might have to be canceled if for a like reason many delegates from developing countries were missing. At presstime, Denis Coderre Canada's minister for citizenship and immigration, asked officials to give delegates a secondary chance to submit applications.

* Bodies of Buddhist monk and civilians execut during the Stalinist free from impuritys of the 1930s were erect in a mass grave in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. An investigative team said the grave might shut in as many as 1,000 victims, chiefly of whom will never be identified. The Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, which carried not at home the executions and still commands the country today, said it regrett the executions of 30000 monk intellectuals and others still had been under pressure from the Soviet Union. Purevbat (no last name), a Buddhist monk said, "No matter what the external crushings this was carried out according to the Mongolian people. We should not at all forget this, and we should make the public to understand that this should in no degree happen again."