c. 1999 Religion News Service

Record numbers turn out for controversial New York exhibit

(RNS) A controversial art exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which has been criticized by New York’s mayor as being offensive to religion, opened Saturday (Oct. 2) to record crowds.

The long lines continued through the weekend at the exhibit that includes a painting titled”The Holy Virgin Mary,”which includes a clump of elephant dung and cutouts from pornographic magazines.

Cardinal John O’Connor, leader of the New York Catholic Archdiocese, thanked Catholics who had written letters of protest about the painting, the Associated Press reported.”This is our Blessed Mother,”he said in a Sunday morning sermon at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

He added that he believed anti-Catholicism is”one of the few things left in the country in which there seems to be very little uproar when attacks are forthcoming.” Another religious leader had a different point of view.

At the House of the Lord Pentecostal Church in Brooklyn, the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, a black activist, defended the painting, saying its African features are at the center of the criticism.”It’s not the feces, but the face,”he said.”It’s not the picture, it’s the pigmentation.” The museum, which usually draws little attention, had the largest opening in its 175-year history Saturday. More than 9,200 people viewed the exhibit titled”Sensation: Young British Artists From the Saatchi Collection”that day. More than 4,000 attended Sunday.

New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has withheld the October payment of the city’s $7 million annual subsidy to the museum on grounds that it cannot charge admission in a city-owned building. The museum is charging $9.75 for tickets to the exhibit.

The museum, claiming the mayor is violating the First Amendment, has sued to get the funding restored.”As the mayor of the city of New York, am I going to approve the hard-earned dollars of the people of this city supporting this? I have to say no,”the mayor told NBC’s”Meet the Press.””And for standing up for that principle, I’m being attacked by the First Amendment hysterics.”

U.S. Supreme Court rejects appeals in two religious cases

(RNS) On the first day of its new term, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected two appeals concerning religion.

In one case, the justices refused Monday (Oct. 4) to allow Newark, N.J., authorities to prevent two Muslim policemen from wearing beards.

Acting without comment, the court rejected the city’s appeal and left rulings intact that said such a prohibition would violate the officers’ freedom of religion.”This decision sends a message to employers worldwide that workplace religious accommodations are compatible with professionalism and public service,”said Omar Ahmad, board chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

In the other case, the high court rejected arguments of a New York public school teacher who said he is wrongly prevented from honoring students’ requests to join them in prayer outside the classroom. Dan Marchi, a teacher of emotionally disturbed and mentally disabled children in Albany-area schools, also believes he was wrongly barred from referring to God in letters to parents.

The court, without comment, chose not to hear his arguments that his freedoms of religion and speech are being violated by the Board of Cooperative Educational Services of Albany, Schoharie, Schenectady and Saratoga counties, the Associated Press reported.

The court’s new term also was marked by the annual Red Mass at the Cathedral of St. Matthew in Washington on Sunday.

Bishop Raymond J. Boland of Kansas City, Mo., urged six justices from the court who attended the service and other judges to maintain their religious beliefs inside the courthouse doors.”When they enter statehouses and courtrooms, they cannot leave their consciences along with their coats in the cloakroom,”the bishop told an audience of 1,200.

Boland also questioned whether religious expression is treated equally to secular expression in the courts, The Washington Times reported.”Is there a danger that devotees of secularism are `more equal’ than those who are proud of the faith they profess?”he asked.”Do secular symbols enjoy more protection than religious symbols?” The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, criticized the sermon as an inappropriate attempt to influence the court, which will hear cases dealing with religious and moral issues this term.”The judges are lured in, and then they are lobbied on the church’s view of the Constitution,”Lynn said, USA Today reported.

Among the cases the court will consider is one determining whether the government can provide instructional equipment such as computers to religious schools without violating the separation of church and state. The court also will determine the constitutionality of Colorado’s limitations on abortion protesters, which force demonstrators to stay at least eight feet away from anyone approaching a health clinic.

Mormon leader renews criticism of same-sex unions

(RNS) The president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has again urged Mormons to oppose efforts to legalize homosexual unions, which he called morally wrong.”Some portray legalization of so-called same-sex marriage as a civil issue,”Gordon B. Hinckley said Saturday (Oct. 2) at his church’s 169th semiannual General Conference. This issue has nothing to do with civil rights. For men to marry men, or women to marry women, is a moral wrong.” The Mormon church has long been involved in efforts to fight legal approval of same-sex unions around the nation. The church championed efforts in Alaska and Hawaii last year that blocked such unions and is involved in a similar campaign in California to be voted on in 2000.

There are some 740,000 Mormons in California and the church has asked them in an official letter”to do all you can by donating your means and time to assure a successful vote.”A second letter cautioned against violating Internal Revenue Service rules that preclude tax-exempt religious organizations from partisan political involvement.

Gay rights groups have threatened to challenge the church’s tax-exempt status because of its involvement in the issue.

Mormons place great spiritual importance on marriage between a man and a women, and regard them as having the capacity to last through eternity.

Hinckley, 89, is considered a”prophet, seer and revelator”by his 10 million-member church.

The general conference is scheduled to be the last held in the historic Tabernacle hall in Salt Lake City’s Temple Square. After 132 years, the conference will move next year to the new, larger 21,000-seat Conference Center.”The spirit of the Lord has been present in this structure,”Hinckley said Sunday, as the conference concluded.

Canadian churches to `ring in’ millennium in cooperative effort

(RNS) Every church in Canada is being asked to ring its bells on Jan. 1, 2000, as part of a unique project,”Together 2000: Christians in Canada honoring Jesus.” The project is being jointly sponsored by the mainline churches in the Canadian Council of Churches and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

Canadian church officials said the project is unusual because historically there has been little cooperation between evangelical Christians and the ecumenical council, which counts the Roman Catholic Church among its members. They said never before have the two groups co-sponsored a project.

Together 2000″connects with a contemporary need to learn how to hope in an age that swings between optimism and despair,”Janet Sommerville, general secretary of the CCC, told Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.

She said the idea for the project was inspired by Don Posterski of World Vision Canada, the evangelical relief agency.”He longed to see all the Christians in Canada doing something together to usher in the third millennium of Christianity,”she added.

Posterski said he hopes the project will lead Canadian Christians to find a voice in the next millennium that is”ecumenical in spirit, evangelical in passion, pentecostal in enthusiasm, catholic and inclusive in scope, and respectful and neighborly towards everyone.”The churches are still the largest single constituency of shared meaning in the Canadian cultural scene,”he added.”If we don’t speak out, at this milestone in the Christian journey through history, we can’t complain if no one hears anything except what the secular pundits say on television. And that would be a great pity.” In addition to the bell ringing, Together 2000 also recommends shared prayers on Jan. 2 and encouraging churches to engage in”new projects and acts of compassion.”

Quote of the day: David Coffey of the British Baptist Union

(RNS)”This decade commenced in such hope for peace, but it closed with the revelation that the poisoned cup of ethnic cleansing had still not been drained to the dregs.” _ David Coffey, general secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, speaking about the possible need for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission like that in South Africa to address”centuries-old animosities”in Europe. Coffey was quoted in a Baptist World Alliance news release on his final address as president to the European Baptist Federation Council in late September.

DEA END RNS