c. 1997 Religion News Service
Seminary librarian fired over letter to SBC president
(RNS) A librarian at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary was fired Sept. 26 apparently because he wrote a letter questioning the accuracy of remarks denominational president Tom Elliff made in a chapel address.
Paul Debusman, 64, was dismissed from the Louisville, Ky., seminary after writing a personal letter to Elliff about what he felt were historical inaccuracies in a chapel speech made on Sept. 16. He was given a month’s severance pay and dismissed immediately.
In April, seminary trustees amended a 1995″policy on constructive relationships”to state that staff and faculty”should seek to relate constructively to the denomination, donors or other constituencies within and without the seminary community.” The seminary viewed Debusman’s letter as”harmful,”the librarian said, according to Associated Baptist Press, an independent Baptist news service.
Debusman was a reference librarian at the school for 35 years. He was 10 months away from retirement.
Elliff and seminary officials declined to comment, citing the confidentiality of personnel matters.
Southern Seminary has seen moderate faculty and students gradually replaced by conservatives since the 1980s, mirroring the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Elliff, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church of Del City, Okla., spoke at Southern’s chapel as part of the seminary’s Pastor Appreciation Day and addressed changes that have occurred at the school since seminary president Albert Mohler took over.
Debusman has worked at the school through three presidents: Duke McCall, Roy Honeycutt and Mohler. In the letter, Debusman said he was concerned about Elliff’s comments when Elliff remarked that under previous moderate administrations he might not have been invited to speak at the chapel.”I reminded him that (in the past) we had heard SBC presidents and other ranking members of the Southern Baptist Convention,”Debusman said.”Chapel as I remembered it from the `50s, `60s, `70s and `80s was a time when we heard everyone. There was a deliberate strategy to bring in different points of view. … That’s no longer true.” Debusman said that under the Mohler administration, some people won’t be invited.”I’m not naive, and I don’t mean to sound Pollyanish. But I closed my letter by saying my heart had been broken since 1979 by the way we had sniped at each other and I would to God that we could unite around the larger mission of sharing the gospel, discipling and equipping believers.”
Wide range of Catholic opinion on”Nothing Sacred” (RNS) Despite efforts by the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights to boycott the ABC-TV drama”Nothing Sacred,”a number of Catholic leaders have hailed the new show or urged that it at least be given a chance.”I like it a lot,”said the Rev. Ellwood Kieser, head of Paulist Pictures and co-producer of the films”Entertaining Angels”and”Romero.””It portrays honest conflict. It certainly pulls you into a God-centered universe, and makes you think about questions of faith. The writing is terrific,”Ellwood said.
Mary Ann Glendon, who headed the Vatican delegation to the 1995 United Nations Women’s Conference in Beijing, serves on the Catholic League’s board, but questioned its work against the TV show.”I’m glad the Catholic League exists because there really is Catholic-bashing out there,”she said.”But sometimes such groups can be a little overly sensitive. This may be a case in point.” Henry Herx, director of the U.S. Catholic Conference’s Office of Film and Broadcast _ the successor to the Legion of Decency _ said there is a wider range of opinions than what has been expressed by Catholic League president William Donohue.”Donohue wants a Bing Crosby kind of priest, but that’s just not the real world of 1997 _ if indeed it ever was the real world at all,”Kieser said in a National Catholic Reporter report.
But Donohue, who insists”Nothing Sacred”is offensive to Catholics, has said he intends to keep up his campaign against the show until it is taken off the air.
More than a dozen advertisers already have pulled ads from the show.
Meanwhile, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles published an editorial Oct. 3 that said the show”should be allowed to develop before anyone passes final judgment.” The editorial added that, despite some flaws, the show”is a television drama; it is not the catechism of the Catholic Church.”
Panel: No church cover-up in Orthodox school’s sexual misconduct case
(RNS) A special panel of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America has concluded that neither Archbishop Spyridon nor the archdiocese acted to cover-up a sexual misconduct case at the denomination’s Hellenic College/Holy Cross School of Theology in Boston.”There is no evidence that the archdiocese or the archbishop attempted to influence or interfere”with a school disciplinary panel and its investigation of the sexual misconduct incident, the Legal Committee of the Archdiocesan Council said in a five page report released Tuesday (Oct. 7).”Neither the archdiocese nor the archbishop reassigned clergy at the school to hide any sexual misconduct, homosexuality or any other inappropriate behavior by students,”the panel added.
The report is meant to clear up a host of questions roiling the Orthodox community stemming from the school’s and the archdiocese’s handling of an investigation into a drunken party at the college during which a priest allegedly engaged in sexual misconduct with students.
In the wake of the investigation, Archbishop Spyridon ordered a general shake-up at the school that included the firing _”reassignment”_ of its president and three other faculty members.
While exonerating Spyridon and the archdiocese, the Legal Committee’s report said students involved in the February incident”engaged in a cover-up of the facts throughout the disciplinary hearing.” It said the school’s disciplinary panel”acted in good faith and in a fair and reasonable manner”in recommending punishments _ including the expulsion of one student, an ordained clergyman _ for those involved in the incident.
And it accused the Rev. George D. Dragas, then dean of the graduate school of theology who overturned the findings recommending the students be punished, of”deliberate, improper and disruptive”actions in reversing the punishments.
Shortly after the disciplinary committee recommendation was overturned, three of its four members were”reassigned,”leading critics to charge Spyridon and the archdiocese were engaging in a cover-up of the incident.
In its report, the Legal Committee said the”contemporaneous reassignment”of disciplinary committee members at the time of the dispute between the dean and the disciplinary panel”gives rise to an appearance of impropriety.” But the Legal Committee said there”may have been multiple reasons”for the reassignments and it would not say they were punitive or improper.
Supreme Court upholds convictions of abortion doctor murderer
(RNS) The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday (Oct. 6) upheld a lower court’s rulings handing down the murder convictions and death sentence of a former minister who killed a doctor and his bodyguard outside a Pensacola, Fla., abortion clinic.
Without comment, the justices discounted contentions that Paul Hill was incorrectly permitted to act as his own trial attorney.
Hill, 43, disavowed the appeal filed in his behalf by Roger Frechette, a New Haven, Conn., lawyer. Rather, he says, he welcomes his execution.
Hill was convicted of the 1994 murders of Dr. John Bayard Britton, 69, and James Barrett, 74, his volunteer escort.
The high court has determined in a number of rulings that criminal defendants are permitted to represent themselves as long as they intelligently and knowingly waive their right to an attorney’s assistance, the Associated Press reported.
A trial judge in Florida determined that Hill was completely aware of the disadvantages of serving as his own attorney when he requested to do so.
At his murder trial, Hill made just brief opening and closing statements focusing on his opposition to abortion. He did not cross-examine anyone or call any witnesses.
Frechette argued that Hill’s line of defense _ that he committed murders to save the unborn _ was complex enough to require an experienced lawyer.
Kenyan minister asks churches to support work for democracy
(RNS) The Rev. Timothy Njoya, a Presbyterian minister in Nairobi’s poorest slum, has urged the National Council of Churches to support work for Democratic reforms in the African nation.
During the NCC’s Sept. 18 meeting with the Africa Committee, Njoya said Kenyans working for democratic reforms”don’t need money and missionaries, but rather to know that others support us, are thinking of us and praying for us.”Beating activists in the reform movements and orchestrating ethnic clashes against members of communities suspected to be sympathetic with the opposition has now become the main extra-curricular activity for the Moi regime,”said Njoya, who recently began a one-year term as scholar-in-residence at the University of Toronto.
Reform workers are trying to prevent President Daniel arap Moi and his KANU party from winning another general election. KANU has been accused of using violence and rigging votes to win the 1992 election.
Njoya said he was beaten by government authorities and received 20 head injuries, 50 bodily bruises and a broken arm during a July 7 clash. He escaped being shot, but 14 people were killed that day.
Some ways Christians can support Kenyan’s struggle for democracy is through solidarity, Njoya said, by petitioning the United States to stop the supply of military and financial aid to the Moi government.
Cambodia OKs some abortions
(RNS) The Cambodian parliament ruled Monday (Oct. 6) to legalize abortion by a licensed health professional during the first three months of pregnancy.
The new law states that those performing illegal abortions will be fined to prison terms of up to 10 years. It also requires women under age 18 to obtain parental consent before having an abortion.
Cambodian officials have recently created legislation to regulate abortion the Asian nation that until now had no laws governing the procedure.
Cambodia’s maternal mortality rate is estimated to be 4.7 deaths for every 1,000 births according to the Health Ministry. The new law is aimed at curbing the rate, which health workers believe is twice as high.
Post office issues new holiday stamps
(RNS) Sano di Pietro’s Madonna and child will be this year’s traditional Christmas stamp.
Starting Oct. 27, the Italian painter’s 15th-century”Madonna and Child With Saints and Angels”will be sold in 32-cent, self-adhesive booklets of 20, the Postal Service announced Monday, (Oct. 6).
In the painting Jesus sits on his mother’s lap, holding a bird and looking at an angel. The image, whose painter was also known as Ansano di Pietro di Mencio, hangs at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
Two other holiday stamps also will be released soon. One honoring the African-American holiday Kwanzaa will be released on Oct. 22 and another of a holly bloom will be issued on Oct. 30.
Quote of the day: actress Geraldine Chaplin
(RNS)”I’ve admired her forever. I was sad when I had to get out of her. She was such a nice person to play.” Actress Geraldine Page, quoted in USA Today, on playing Mother Teresa in the made-for-TV-movie,”Mother Teresa: In the Name of God’s Poor.”
END RNS
