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Today's rapid social and economic changes will negatively affect the EU if it continues to be unresponsive. The lack of political commitment endangers our system of universal values, pluralism and open-mindedness. Freedom of religion is under threat and cultural diversity needs legal protection. Meanwhile, religious institutions can play a role in mitigating the crisis by offering solidarity and reinforcing human dignity. It is important that politics provide answers for the future regarding democracy, values, the social market economy, and sustainable and inclusive growth. As the party of values, the European People's Party (EPP) should play a central role in ensuring solidarity, freedom of religion, pluralism and universal values.

In contemporary US institutional religion grows with a vigor equalled only in the early decades of the 19th cent. From the earliest days before independence it was realized that religious liberty was the only workable rule in a land of increasing religious diversity. Yet contemporary trends indicate that America is being steadily transformed from a predominantly Protestant into a more or less equally Protestant, Cath & Jewish country. However, in some degree tension & conflict truly mirror the US religious scene; but religious individualism has not obscured the soc vision of the many Churches. IPSA.

In contemporary America institutional religion — the great religious bodies, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish — grows with a vigor equalled only in the early decades of the nineteenth century. In the last two decades church membership has increased at a ratio twice that of the rapidly accelerating population. Nearly every American affirms that he is a Protestant, Catholic, or Jew while three out of every five are actually members of one of the more than two hundred denominations which dot the religious landscape. In a period marked by economic depression, global war, and efforts to contain Communist totalitarianism, Americans look to religion as a major defense of democracy and the "American way of life."

Reprinted from the forthcoming book entitled, "What America stands for," a symposium by Notre Dame committee on international relations.

The prospect of creating children through somatic cell nuclear transfer has elicited widespread concern, much of it in the form of fears about harms to the children who may be born as a result. There are concerns about possible physical harms from the manipulations of ova, nuclei, and embryos, which are parts of the technology, and about possible psychological harms, such as a diminished sense of individuality and personal autonomy. There are ethical concerns as well about a degradation of the quality of parenting and family life if parents are tempted to seek excessive control over their children's characteristics, to value children according to how well they meet overly detailed parental expectations, and to undermine the acceptance and openness that typify loving families. Virtually all people agree that the current risks of physical harm to children associated with somatic cell nuclear transplantation cloning might justify a prohibition at this time on such experimentation[i]. In addition to physical harms, many worry about psychological harms associated with such cloning. One of the forms of psychological harm most frequently mentioned is the possible loss of a sense of uniqueness. Although the myth of genetic determinism is dispelled, but some doubts about cloning and identity remain that I am going to argue that somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning creates serious issues of identity and individuality especially in the Psychological identity and forces us to reconsider how we define ourselves because Cloned children each will be genetically virtually identical to a human being who has already lived and also the expectations for their lives may be shadowed by constant comparisons to the life of the "original."[ii] Moreover, comment on the importance of genetic uniqueness not only for individuals but also in the eyes of their parents [i] . See :National Bioethics Advisory Commission [NBAC], Cloning Human Beings, Bethesda, MD: Government Printing Office, June 1997.p.62 [ii] . See :President's Council on ...

In the RELIGION IN AMERICA series this book addresses the organizational aspects of religion. Topics covered include the historical sources and patterns of US religious institutions, contemporary patterns of denominational authority and the interface between religious and secular institutions

Four papers originally presented at a symposium on religious aspects of the question of Jerusalem, organised by the Centro Italiano per la Pace in Medio Oriente, Milan, as well as an introductory chapter. The papers deal with Jerusalem's significance to Islam (Nusseibeh) and to the Jewish people (Reiter), the political future of the city (Nusseibeh), and the christian community in Jerusalem (Sabella). (DÜI-Hns)

The functional context of local religious practices within the structure of formal Catholicism in Spain has received little attention. Close examination of the ceremonial life of a Castilian village, and of the attitudes accompanying ceremonial and nonceremonial events, points to the existence of a complex of political and economic activities that are the chief objects of ritual sanctification and the arena in which religious sanctions function to maintain social control in the community. A survey of the ethnographic literature indicates that religious ceremonial may function in similar contexts in extended areas of the Iberian peninsula. The Castilian case and the available comparative data point to the crucial role of local religious traditions in strengthening territorial ties and in helping to define and integrate some of the fundamental units of the social structure.