c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Following is a collection of news stories compiled from RNS staff, wire and denominational reports).

Vatican delays acting on views of gay ministry leaders

(RNS)-The Vatican has delayed deciding whether the theological views of the Rev. Robert Nugent and Sister Jeannine Gramick, founders of a controversial ministry with gays and lesbians, are compatible with church teaching on homosexuality.

Cardinal Adam J. Maida of Detroit, chairman of the three-member American commission handling the probe, said the Vatican had requested more information from Nugent and Gramick.”They want further statements on our views on homosexual behavior and orientation,”Gramick said in an interview with RNS.

In 1977, Gramick and Nugent founded New Ways Ministry in Mt. Ranier, Md., a suburb of Washington. The program stresses a pastoral rather than punitive approach to homosexuality and emphasizes justice and civil rights in the secular sphere. Critics contend it affirms the homosexual lifestyle and is at odds with church teaching that homosexuality is a”disorder.” The criticism led to concerns at the Vatican that”their ministry, along with selected teachings and writing, may have created an ambiguity which has caused confusion (about church teaching) in the minds of some people,”Maida said.

The investigation of the views of Gramick and Nugent began in 1981 and has proceeded in fits and starts since then. A commission appointed in 1988 was dormant after one of its members resigned before proceedings began.

In 1994, the Vatican announced that the commission was still in existence and was preparing to begin its study of Nugent’s and Gramick’s views.

Maida said that his three-member panel completed its investigation and forwarded its findings and recommendations to the Vatican a year ago. In November, he said, the Vatican made its request for more information. Gramick and Nugent are in the process of responding.

Gramick said the Vatican’s long delay in reaching a decision is”a hopeful sign.”We anticipate it will be recognized that our ministry is valid and legitimate,”she said.

Episcopal Church’s unity commission concerned about Catholic relations

(RNS)-The Roman Catholic Church’s insistence that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood is causing some ecumenical leaders in the Episcopal Church to urge the denomination to rethink its relations with the Vatican.”We need to quietly and carefully reconsider our relations with Rome in light of its recent teachings on the ordination of women,”William Franklin of the General Theological Seminary in New York told the Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations.

The commission met Jan. 24-26, and a report on its sessions was published this week by the Episcopal News Service.

In November, the Vatican issued a statement that said its teaching barring ordination was part of the infallible teaching of the church. The Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican communion, has ordained women since 1976.

Franklin said the Standing Commission should”maintain its links”with the Catholic Church but make its unhappiness over the women’s issue clear to Catholic officials.

He said it was time for Anglicans to publicly join forces with those who question the Vatican position on women’s ordination.

According to the report, several members of the commission urged postponing the next official meeting of the Episcopal-Roman Catholic dialogue, set for June. The dialogue brings together officially appointed theologians and bishops to seek agreement on doctrinal issues that divide the churches. No action on the suggestion was taken at the meeting.

Church leaders urge continuation of Irish peace process

(RNS)-Church leaders in the United States, Ireland and other European nations have condemned a Feb. 9 terrorist bombing in London and called for a continuation of the peace process in Northern Ireland.

The Irish Republican Army claimed credit for the attack, which killed two people and left more than 100 injured. It said it was ending a 17-month cease-fire in its war to bring the six counties of Northern Ireland into the Irish Republic.”It (the bombing) not only has killed and wounded innocent people, but it threatens to destroy hopes for peace in Northern Ireland,”Bishop Daniel P. Reilly of Worcester, Mass., said in a statement. Reilly is chairman of the International Policy Committee of the U.S. Catholic Conference.

Reilly said Americans can contribute to the peace process”by making it clear that no group that employs violence will have our support.” Archbishop Robin Eames of the (Anglican) Church of Ireland said that nowhere in the United Kingdom”is the disgust and anger and frustration”at the attack”more obvious than in Northern Ireland.” Eames said Protestants and Catholics, nationalists and unionists all long for peace and continuation of the peace talks.

Cardinal Cahal Daly, primate of Ireland’s Roman Catholic Church, called on the IRA to”think long and hard”before plunging Northern Ireland back into violence.”The peace process was, I think, making progress, slow, too slow perhaps, but nevertheless real progress and it would be a disaster if all that is lost,”he said.

Elsewhere in Europe, the Rev. Jean Fischer, general secretary of the Conference of European Churches in Geneva, said the conference is”outraged at the loss of innocent life … with this resumption of hostilities.” In a message to the Irish Council of Churches, Fischer urged that the churches of Northern Ireland continue”the search for a just and lasting solution to this problem.”

First Jewish woman to have a bat mitzvah dies

(RNS)-Judith Kaplan Eisenstein, the first Jewish woman ever to have a bat mitzvah, a ritual that marks the passage into religious adulthood, has died in Washington, D.C, at 86.

Eisenstein, who died Wednesday (Feb. 14) following a heart attack, was the daughter of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Judaism’s liberal Reconstructionist movement and a champion of women having an equal role within Jewish ritual life.

Prior to Eisenstein’s 1922 bat mitzvah-which translates from the Hebrew as daughter of the covenant-only boys participated in the ritual, which for them is called a bar mitzvah-son of the covenant.

A bar or bat mitzvah involves reading from the Torah, the Jewish Scripture, which is tantamount to leading a congregation in prayer. The ritual takes place around the child’s 13th birthday.

At the time, Eisenstein’s bat mitzvah was a radical break with tradition and caused a stir. However, today the bat mitzvah is a commonplace occurrence in Judaism’s Reconstructionist, Reform and Conservative branches.

Eisenstein was a noted musicologist and author who taught at various Jewish seminaries and colleges. Among the survivors is her husband, Rabbi Ira Eisenstein, founding president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia.

Adventist leader urges cooling off period in ordination debate

(RNS)-Alfred C. McClure, president of the North American Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, has appealed to members for a cooling off period on the divisive issue of ordination of women to the church’s gospel ministry.

McClure issued his statement this week in response to what church officials said was continuing confusion over the issue generated by the actions of three churches at which women were”ordained”by their congregations.

While Adventist women can perform all of the roles of men in ministry, including baptizing and performing marriages, they cannot receive what the church calls ordination to the gospel ministry. Such ordination requires approval by both a local and regional conference.

The world church, meeting in Utrecht, Netherlands, last July, rejected a proposal by the North American division to allow women’s ordination. Since that time, pro-ordination activists have continued to raise the issue. They have used the”irregular”ordination services to help publicize their point of view.”Services in at least three local churches have distressed some members, because they have interpreted these events as meaning that North America has rebelled against the authority of the world church,”McClure said in his statement.”While I was keenly disappointed by the actions of some people, I want to assure you that North America has not rebelled.”he said.

McClure said the North American Division would continue to abide by the world church’s action.

United Methodists may get their first American Indian bishop

(RNS)-The Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett, a Seneca Indian who serves as general secretary of the United Methodist Church’s Board of Church and Society, has been endorsed to be a bishop of the 8.6 million-member denomination.

Fassett’s endorsement came from leaders of the denomination’s Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference, who pledged to work for Fassett’s election.

If elected, Fassett would be the first American Indian to serve on the church’s Council of Bishops.

Bishops in the church are elected and assigned at five simultaneous jurisdictional (regional) conferences in July. There are currently 16 openings on the 60-member council.

King Hussein says he will provide new prayer carpets for Jerusalem mosque

(RNS)-King Hussein of Jordan plans to buy new prayer carpets for Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock mosque, the third-holiest shrine of Islam.

The Associated Press reported Friday (Feb. 16) that Hussein would use his money to replace the worn carpets.

Hussein claims direct descent from the Prophet Mohammed, the founder of Islam.

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