c. 1996 Religion News Service
Little Rock Methodists cancel event over bishop’s views on gays
(RNS)-A United Methodist committee in Little Rock, Ark., has canceled a planned”intergenerational day of celebration”meant to bring young and old people together because the event’s invited preacher, retired United Methodist Bishop Leontine T.C. Kelly, has voiced support for gay rights.
Kelly, who became a bishop in 1984, was the denomination’s first African-American woman elected to the post and has been one of the church’s most sought-after preachers. She retired in 1988.
She was one of 15 bishops who signed a statement at the denomination’s General Conference, or top policy-making gathering, in Denver last month urging the church to ease its ban on the ordination of gays to the ministry. It did not.
Kelly accepted the invitation to preach at the Little Rock event, scheduled for April 1997, in February, before the General Conference.”We were concerned, after Denver, because Bishop Kelly was one of the signers of the statement,”said Carolyn Elias, chairwoman of the Little Rock Conference Committee on Older Adult Ministries. A Methodist conference is similar to a Catholic diocese.
Elias, who attended General Conference as an observer for Good News, an unofficial conservative caucus in the denomination, said she was”pained”that the 15 bishops said their personal convictions were at odds with church teaching on homosexuality. She said the teaching against homosexuality is”biblically based.”Good News opposes any change in the church’s view that homosexuality is”incompatible”with Christian teaching.
Elias said having Kelly at the gathering”would cause division among our older adults, and … we would have had a problem getting people to support the event.”Elias’ committee considered rescinding the invitation to Kelly and looking for a different preacher but then decided canceling the event would be”the less divisive thing to do,”she said.
The Rev. F. Gladwin Connell, executive director of the Little Rock Conference Council on Ministries who supported having Kelly preach at the event, called the cancellation”an embarrassment.” Kelly, who lives in San Mateo, Calif., defended her support of gay rights in the church, saying that as an African-American and a woman she knows how discrimination feels.”I just feel we need to be open to persons, whoever they are,”she said.
Czech church leaders voice opposition to proposed euthanasia law
(RNS)-Leaders of Protestant and Roman Catholic bodies in the Czech Republic are opposing proposals to change the nation’s penal code to allow legalization of euthanasia.”… Any form of euthanasia is quite unacceptable from a Christian point of view,”Bishop Pavel Smetana, head of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, told Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency, on Wednesday (May 29).
His comments were in response to the publication of a draft of a new penal code that outlined conditions under which euthanasia would be allowed.
Miloslav Fiala, spokesman for the Czech Roman Catholic Bishops Conference, said the Catholic Church also opposes any easing of the current law against euthanasia.”Catholic doctors and nurses would not be permitted by the church to engage in a practice which violates Catholic morality and natural law,”Fiala said. He said there is a”lack of public understanding about the need to protect human life as a fundamental value.”
Popular French Catholic priest leaves country after Holocaust flap
(RNS)-Abbe Pierre, often voted France’s most popular priest because of his work among the poor, has left France after being strongly criticized for supporting a book challenging the authenticity of the Holocaust.
The Roman Catholic priest had voiced approval of the book,”Founding Myths of Israeli Politics,”which questions the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust.
Because of his support of the book, the Catholic Church in France rebuked him and the League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism expelled him from membership.
The priest, who helped save many Jews from deportation during the Nazi occupation of France, later backed off of his support for the book’s argument but continued to support its author and his friend, Roger Garaudy.
Abbe Pierre, 83, is staying in a Benedictine monastery in Padua, Italy, the AP reported Thursday (May 30).”The attacks against me were unprecedented,”Abbe Pierre told the Catholic magazine Pelerin.”At my age, I do not exclude the possibility of spending the rest of my life in this place.” When the dispute erupted at the end of April, the priest said he had read only a summary of the book and not the text itself.
Croatia’s Jewish, Muslim communities call for interfaith council
(RNS)-Croatia’s Muslim and Jewish communities, both minorities in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation, have called for creation of an interfaith council to ease religious tensions in the country.”The council should enable each religious group to react promptly to discrimination not only against itself but against other faiths too,”Sefko Omerbasic, head of Croatia’s Islamic community, told Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.”This mutual concern is essential if trust is to be rebuilt and an influence exerted on the authorities,”he added.”If Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims and Jews merely follow their own interests and doctrines, they will be unable to overcome prejudices.” In April, at a celebration of the anniversary of the Islamic community’s recognition in 1916 by the Croatian government, the leaders from the nation’s religious communities promised to intensify their dialogue, Omerbasic said. But he said the responsibility for practical improvements lies with Croatia’s dominant Roman Catholic Church.
Eugenia Price, author of inspirational books, dies at 79
(RNS)-Eugenia Price, author of inspirational books and faith-based romance novels, died at age 79 Tuesday (May 28) at a hospital in Brunswick, Ga., as a result of congestive heart failure, her longtime editor, Joyce Blackburn, announced.
Price began her career writing soap operas in Chicago, but her conversion to Christianity in the late 1940s moved her to write inspirational books including”Beloved World”and”The Eugenia Price Treasury of Faith,”The New York Times reported.
Later, Price wrote romance novels, including a Florida Trilogy, a Savannah Quartet and a Georgia Trilogy, which provided such compelling details about the characters and their homes that tourists would visit Price’s home in St. Simons, Ga., to search the area for information concerning the antebellum figures Price described.
Price sold more than 40 million books in 18 languages.
Quote of the day: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on victims and heroes.
(RNS)-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, speaking at commencement ceremonies at Liberty University, founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the independent Baptist preacher and religious broadcaster, cited what he saw as a fault line in society between heroes and victims:”Today our wonderful country is suffocating in a cultural fog of victimization. While a victim wallows in self-pitying defeatism, a hero takes on all challenges. … Today, as the fabric of our society is saturated with complaint, each of you (graduates) has an opportunity to be a hero. … Do those things that are before you and do them well.”
MJP END
