c. 2000 Religion News Service
UCC Sets Up Scholarship Fund for Gay, Lesbian Seminarians
(RNS) The United Church of Christ on Friday (June 16) announced a new scholarship fund specifically for gays and lesbians who want to enter the ministry, the first time a Christian denomination has actively promoted and financially supported the ordination of gays and lesbians.
The progressive denomination, which has long supported the inclusion of gays and lesbians in church life, named the fund after the Rev. William R. Johnson, the first openly gay man ordained in the UCC.
The fund will be endowed with $500,000 from the United Church Board for Homeland Missions. No offering contributions will be used, and a capital campaign will be conducted to raise money.
“The vitality of the United Church of Christ depends on equipping our best and brightest for ministry in the 21st century,” said the Rev. John H. Thomas, president of the church. “This scholarship fund is a powerful reminder that the response to God’s call to ministry should not be limited by economics or sexual orientation.”
According to UCC figures, seminary graduates face an average student loan debt of $28,000, while the average starting salary for pastors is $29,847. But in a larger sense, the church hopes the fund will help congregations move towards greater acceptance of gays and lesbians in the pulpit.
Johnson, who was ordained in 1972 and currently works with the church’s AIDS and gay/lesbian ministries, said he was humbled by the scholarship fund, and hopes the money will allow more gays and lesbians to enter the ministry.
“This is an affirmation not only of my ministry over the past 28 years, but also of the ministries of thousands of (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered) clergy in the UCC and the ecumenical community,” Johnson said. “This scholarship fund is a statement of faith in the commitment of UCC members to a truly inclusive church that values all of God’s children.”
Catholic Bishops Confront Increasing Priest Shortage
(RNS) For years, the Roman Catholic Church has said God will provide enough priests for the church to do its ministry, but confronted with some sobering statistics, church bishops are finally saying faith alone may not ease the growing shortage of parish priests.
Gathered in Milwaukee for their annual spring meeting, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops spent much of Thursday (June 15) pouring over a recent study that says the shortage of priests is not getting better, and is only likely to get worse.
According to church figures, the number of priests has dropped by 20 percent in the last 35 years, while the church has continued to grow. The U.S. church has grown by 261 percent in the West and 196 percent in the South.
In 1950, there was one priest for every 650 people. Now that number has nearly doubled, to one priest for every 1,200 people.
Catholic priests are getting older _ the average age is 57 _ and there are fewer and fewer new priests to replace them. There are more priests over the age of 90 than there are under the age of 30.
There are currently 3,474 men studying for the priesthood, down 57 percent since 1965. And the largest dioceses are ordaining fewer than 10 priests per year.
“The problems are simply enormous,” said Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry of Newark, N.J.
In addition, parish priests say they are overworked and do not have enough time to devote to neighborhood ministry. “Many say they feel inadequate, stressed and exhausted,” Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, Calif., told the Associated Press.
For lay members of the church, the study found that fewer than 25 percent said the priest shortage had negatively affected them. In fact, most reported no major difference. The situation has been helped by more men studying to be deacons, who can perform all the duties of a priest except celebrate Mass and absolve sins.
The Church has refused to consider the ordination of women and allowing priests to marry. Dissident groups say those two options would bring flocks of new priests into the church, and one organization said the Milwaukee discussion is a positive first step.
“We’re delighted that the U.S. bishops are finally beginning to talk about the critical shortage of priests, but the solutions they are proposing won’t solve the problem,” said the Rev. Lou Trivison, co-founder of FutureChurch.
AMA Adopts Compromise Measure on Access to Reproductive Services
(RNS) A key Catholic health agency and a religious coalition that supports legal abortions have both praised a measure approved Thursday (June 15) by the American Medical Association that preserves a patient’s access to reproductive services when Catholic and non-Catholic health facilities merge, but cautions doctors against carrying out procedures they consider morally objectionable.
The AMA resolution _ approved in a 247-184 vote at the end of the association’s annual meeting in Chicago _ calls for merged hospitals to continue offering pregnancy prevention services, including tubal sterilization and vasectomy, to patients, but also reaffirms a policy that health care workers do not have to violate any of their moral principles.
The measure was a compromise offered by the medical association’s California delegation, whose first proposal, which called upon merged facilities to provide a “full range of productive services,” was drafted out of concern that pregnancy prevention services would be limited in hospitals bought by Catholic health care systems.
Critics charged that the state delegation’s original resolution would have required Catholic hospitals to provide pregnancy services that violated Catholic tenets.
Thursday’s measure was welcomed by the Catholic Health Association of the United States _ which represents more than 2,000 not-for-profit Catholic health care systems nationwide. They said the resolution supported “freedom of conscience in the delivery of healthcare in this nation.”
“Today’s vote is also a victory for women,” said the Rev. Michael D. Place, president and chief executive officer of the health association. “A vote to inhibit religious freedom could have eliminated Catholic healthcare from the provision of obstetric services, and perhaps the fabric of healthcare.”
But a group at the opposite end of the abortion debate, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, also claimed victory.
“The resolution is a step forward in ending the steady erosion of reproductive health services caused by Catholic hospital chains elliminating or restricting services,” said a statement issued by the coalition. “The AMA refused to buy the fallacious argument of the Catholic Hospital Association that physicians and hospitals would be forced to provide services they object to.”
Dr. Delmar Tonge, the California delegation’s chairman, said the medical association will now assist Catholic hospitals with helping patients locate reproductive services at other health facilities when Catholic and non-Catholic institutions combine.
Vatican Welcomes Acquittal of Rwanda Bishop Tried for Genocide
(RNS) The Vatican on Friday (June 16) welcomed the acquittal of Bishop Augustin Misago by a Rwandan court trying him on genocide charges in the massacres of some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994.
“The Holy See learned the news with great satisfaction,” chief Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said. He praised the bishop’s “effective defense.”
The court in the Rwandan capital of Kigali cleared Misago on Thursday of charges of helping to organize the massacre of thousands of refugees at the Murabi camp on the night of April 20 and sending three priests and 30 schoolchildren to their deaths at the hands of Hutu extremists.
If convicted, Misago, 57, who is bishop of Gikongoro, could have faced
death by firing squad.
The Vatican supported Misago throughout his imprisonment and trial, and Pope John Paul II sent him a telegram last month saying he believed in the bishop’s innocence and hoped that he would be absolved of all charges.
The Vatican’s envoy to Rwanda, Archbishop Salvatore Pennacchio, was present in the courtroom for the reading of the verdict, which lasted two hours.
“It is impossible not to rejoice that the truth has been recognized and to hope that a just judiciary solution also will be found without inflicting the death penalty for the thousands of people still held in Rwandan prisons for genocide crimes,” the Vatican spokesman said.
“It is hoped that such a positive event may also have a positive effect on church-state relations in a nation so sadly marked by the appalling tragedy of genocide,” he said.
Cardinal Jozef Tomko, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, charged that the church in Africa is facing persecution similar to what it underwent in Latin America three decades ago.
“The church is persecuted in many countries of Africa, and in the Great Lakes there is an attempt to weaken the church with pretexts,”Tomko said. “Many Catholics have been killed, victims of false accusations, evening the score, vendettas or indifference.
The congregation’s missionary news service Fides reported that the papal nuncio was “visibly moved” by the verdict and quoted Pennacchio as praising the judges for demonstrating “the bishop’s innocence without uncertainty.”
“It was a hard trial, but I hope that it will be useful for the cause of peace and reconciliation. I want to thank the judges and to acknowledge the impartiality they maintained. Their decision was an act of courage,” Fides quoted Misago as saying.
Fides said the bishop wants to return to his diocese in the south of Rwanda as soon as possible but also hopes to travel to Rome to “personally thank the pope for his closeness.”
Convert to Judaism Alleges Bias by Christians in Job Loss
(RNS) An Alabama man who converted from Christianity to Judaism said he was fired after complaining about Christian prayers and an evangelism program conducted at a local high school.
Greg Thomas, of Hamilton, Ala., said that within weeks of making the complaints he was fired from his jobs as an artistic director at a community theater and a Bevill State Community College drama instructor. His former employers insist he was terminated for economic reasons.
“I rocked the boat, and I guess sometimes that’s the price you pay,” said Thomas, who said he will moving away from the rural town of 6,300 in northwest Alabama.
After Thomas enlisted the aid of the American Defamation League to help teach school administrators about federal statutes regarding religion and public schools, principals attended a county-sponsored training session about the issue. Coaches were told they could no longer pray with students, said Superintendent Bravell Jackson, and programs similar to revivals were stopped.
“That’s not what school is for,” said Jackson, the Associated Press reported. “We ought to leave the teaching of religion and the Bible up to the parents at home.”
Thomas said false rumors began to circulate that he intended to file a lawsuit against the school board. People stopped speaking to him, and he lost thousands of dollars in revenue when people stopped attending his theater productions.
He was fired from the Bevill Community Theater in November. One month later he lost the part-time job he had held at the community college for seven years when the school shut down its theater department.
“We just had to close the theater department because a cost analysis showed it was losing money every year,” said the department’s dean, Camilla Benton.
Thomas said he will enter graduate school this fall to study Holocaust studies at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey.
WCC Official Martin VanElderen Dead at 54
(RNS) Martin VanElderen, executive editor at the World Council of Churches, died Monday (June 12) of a massive heart attack. He was 54.
VanElderen _ a member of the Christian Reformed Church in North America _ was the managing editor of the Ecumenical Review, the WCC’s theological journal as well as the author and editor of several prominent major works on ecumenism.
First joining the WCC in 1980 as a consultant in the organization’s communication department, VanElderen was appointed executive editor of the council’s publications in 1994, Ecumenical News International reported. He had also served as editor of One World, a monthly magazine.
VanElderen’s book, “Introducing the World Council of Churches,” and his involvement with the “Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement” earned him an international reputation.
He is survived by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bas VanElderen; his wife Meribeth; and four daughters: Kimberly, Amy, Abigail and Elizabeth.
Quote of the Day: Irish singer/songwriter Sinead O’Connor
(RNS) “I have great love and admiration for (Pope John Paul II) _ and great sorrow for the fact that he’s being worked like a dog when he should be able to rest up and have some fun and have a wife and children.”
_ Irish singer/songwriter Sinead O’Connor, as quoted in USA Today defending a 1992 Saturday Night Live performance during which she tore the pontiff’s picture after finishing a song about child abuse.
DEA END RNS
