Role of Religious Right in GOP Sweep Called Top Story : Poll: Journalists surveyed picked Pope John Paul II as the biggest religion newsmaker of 1994.

The role of the religious right in November’s Republican election sweep was the top religion story of 1994, according to a national poll of journalists specializing in religion news coverage.

Having led millions of voters to the polls, the Christian coalition and abortion foes are now expected to use their political muscle on such issues as abortion funding and school prayer.

Besides ranking the top stories in the 50-item poll, members of the Religion Newswriters Association picked Pope John Paul II as the religion newsmaker of 1994. Members cover religion news for newspapers, wire services and news magazines.

They cited the pontiff’s authorship of a best-selling book; his instruction halting discussion of priesthood for women; his success in getting the U.N. Conference on Population and Development in Cairo not to endorse international abortion rights; the church’s new Catechism; the Pope’s many trips and health problems, and his appointment of conservatives as new cardinals.

In summary, one association member said the Pope had been “awesomely influential.”

A distant runner-up for religion newsmaker of the year was Paul Hill, an ex-minister convicted of killing an abortion doctor and escort. Hill, said an association member, “put a face” on the extremist wing of the anti-abortion movement.

Among others nominated for religion newsmaker were President Clinton; House Speaker-to-be Newt Gingrich; former President Jimmy Carter, and Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

There was no clear-cut winner of the association’s “Into the Darkness” designation, given to those who withhold information from the reading public. However, the most votes went to the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops for keeping secret a draft statement on human sexuality.

The No. 2 story in religion in 1994, according to the poll, was Pope John Paul’s instruction to his bishops ending discussion of priesthood for women. The U.S. bishops, in a related development, acknowledged sexism in the church and encouraged women to assume non-priestly leadership positions. Optional use of female altar servers was permitted.

A “Re-Imagining” conference in late 1993 in Minneapolis, called to rethink women’s concepts of God, ranked No. 3 in the poll. The conference brought angry protests, threats to withhold donations and the firing of a Presbyterian Church (USA) executive.

Ranking No. 4 was Hill’s conviction for killing the abortion doctor and escort.

Other developments that made the top 10 list included:

* Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed an agreement beginning Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank’s Jericho area and granting Palestinians a measure of self-government. Later, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to PLO leader Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his foreign minister, Shimon Peres, for their peace efforts. Also, the Vatican and Israel established diplomatic relations.

* The Church of England ordained 32 women priests. Opposition to such ordinations prompted an Episcopal parish and a retired Episcopal bishop in Texas to convert to Roman Catholicism.

* Forty-eight members of a doomsday sect, the Order of the Solar Temple, were found dead after fires in two Swiss villages. Another five sect members were found dead in Canada.

* A “painful ordeal” of several months ended for Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin when an alleged victim of sexual abuse dropped him from a lawsuit. U.S. bishops received a detailed resource manual on how to deal with sexual abuse of minors by church personnel.

* In his new book, “Crossing the Threshold of Hope,” Pope John Paul discussed why God has allowed so many religions to exist and attempted to show the “common fundamental element and the common root of these religions.”

* The United Nations Conference on Population and Development in Cairo concluded that population control cannot be disentangled from women’s rights and urged economic betterment for women and families.

Among other developments ranked as significant were:

* While recognizing that doctrinal differences still divide them, 39 Roman Catholic and evangelical scholars signed a statement pledging to reduce conflicts between their traditions and to cooperate on common concerns such as abortion and parental choice in schools.

* Ending nearly half a century of racial separation, the all-white association of Pentecostal denominations voted to disband to clear the way for a new multiethnic organization, the Pentecostal Churches of North America, open to an estimated 16 million U.S. Pentecostals.

* Enormous interest in angels was reflected in prime time TV programs and a flood of books and angel-themed products.

* The first draft of a proposed human sexuality statement created a furor within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which affirmed certain homosexual relationships. A second draft was called “more moderate.”

* Oregon voters approved physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill.

* True Love Waits, a Southern Baptist Convention campaign encouraging teen-agers to abstain from sex until they marry, spread to church groups across the nation.

* The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the Constitution was violated when the New York Legislature created a special school district for disabled children of a Hasidic Jewish group. * Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s black president after his African National Congress swept an all-race election. Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu led a service of reconciliation.