Branch Davidian Siege Named Top Story of ’93

Religion news specialists say the top religion story of 1993 was the government’s prolonged, deadly siege of the Branch Davidians, which scholars saw as a dangerous precedent for dealing with peculiar faiths.

In the government’s initial raid on Feb. 28, four officers and six Davidians were slain in the exchange of gunfire. Eighty-six members of the Davidian cult later perished in the fire that swept the group’s compound near Waco, Tex., when federal officers mounted a paramilitary assault after a 51-day standoff.

The affair was rated the year’s prime religion news by members of the Religion Newswriters Assn. The survey was taken before this week’s historic accord between the Vatican and Israel.

Ranked second was the swelling upheaval over sexual charges against clergy. Chicago’s widely esteemed Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Bernardin firmly denied charges that he sexually abused a seminary student years ago. In an unrelated development, American bishops asked the Vatican to change church law to make it easier to dismiss priests found guilty of molesting children.

Ex-priest James Porter was sentenced to 18 to 20 years in prison for abusing dozens of boys. Robert Sanchez, accused of having sex with five women, resigned as archbishop of Santa Fe. And an inquiry found that 11 Franciscan friars at a now-closed California seminary sexually molested dozens of students over 20 years.

The remaining top 10 1993 religion stories were:

* Pope John Paul II’s visit to World Youth Day in August in Denver.

* The peace agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

* The World Parliament of Religions meeting in Chicago, where 250 leaders of various religions signed a “Declaration of Global Ethic.”

* The bombing of New York’s World Trade Center, in which defendants were linked to a Jersey City, N.J., mosque, and identified as followers of a radical Muslim cleric.

* Adoption by Congress of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which overturned a 1991 Supreme Court decision restricting some religious practices.

* A firestorm of protests hitting the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on its release of a human sexuality study draft which would bless same-sex relationships based on loving, permanent commitments.

* Destruction of mosques by Hindu militants in India followed by waves of deadly violence against Muslims.

* A new encyclical from Pope John Paul II, “The Splendor of Truth,” which asserted a basic morality to which Catholics must adhere.