c. 2003 Religion News Service

Keating Chides Mahony for Move to Block Release of Documents

(RNS) The chairman of a review board that is charged with implementing Catholic sex abuse reforms criticized Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony for trying to delay the release of abuse-related church documents.

Frank Keating, the former governor of Oklahoma and head of a National Review Board established by Catholic bishops last summer, said Mahony sets a bad example for other bishops.

“I’m very concerned about what this suggests to other dioceses and the Catholic lay community at large,” Keating told The Boston Globe. “Transparency, the clear light of day, a fresh breeze, open windows _ that’s the policy of the board and the bishops. I’m just stunned we would try to hide facts.”

Mahony, leader of the nation’s largest Catholic diocese and an early proponent of full disclosure, argued earlier this month that he should not be forced to disclose communications between his office and priests because the conversations are protected by the First Amendment.

“The archbishop and the priests do not have a typical employer-employee relationship,” church spokesman Tod Tamberg told the Los Angeles Times on March 3. “Their relationship is much closer to that of a father and adult son. There is a need for confidential, intimate communication.”

District attorneys in Los Angeles and Ventura counties want access to the files to help them prosecute six priests who have been charged with abuse and 12 others who are under investigation, according to The Globe. A unique state law lifted the statute of limitations on all abuse cases for one year, starting on Jan. 1.

Keating also criticized Bishop Richard Lennon of Boston, who filed an unsuccessful court motion to dismiss all sex abuse suits against his archdiocese. Keating told The Globe he would voice his anger when his committee meets in Santa Fe, N.M., at the end of March.

“It’s just so sad that the front pages are still filled with stories of avoidance and denial and cover-up,” he said.

Pope Makes Final Plea Against War in Iraq

VATICAN CITY (RNS) In what could be his final appeal against an attack on Iraq, Pope John Paul II has said his own experience of World War II made it his duty to proclaim, “Never again war.”

The 82-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff spoke with evident emotion about the gathering threat of war to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday (March 16) for the midday Angelus prayer.

“I belong to that generation that lived through the Second World War and survived,” he said in impromptu remarks following his prepared statement. “I have the duty to say to all young people, to those younger than I am, who have not had this experience: `Never again war,’ as Paul VI said in his first visit to the United Nations.

“We must do everything possible. We know well that peace at any price is not possible, but all of us know how great is this responsibility. And thus (the need for) prayer and repentence,” the pope said.

The pope spoke as President Bush and Prime Ministers Tony Blair of Britain and Jose Maria Aznar of Spain, meeting in the mid-Atlantic Azores, demanded definitive action by the United Nations to disarm Iraq within 24 hours.

Despite John Paul’s renewed appeal, the Vatican appeared to recognize the inevitability of war. Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement Friday (March 14) that the Vatican’s diplomatic office in Baghdad, the apostolic nunciature, “will remain open even in the case of an eventual armed intervention in the country.”

“It is the Holy See’s constant tradition that its diplomatic representatives remain close to the peoples to whom they are envoys even in situation of extreme danger,” he said.

Cardinal Pio Laghi, who met in Washington with Bush on March 5 on the pope’s behalf, reported to John Paul at lunch on Saturday. “We are concerned over the suffering of the peoples, over the internal situation in Iraq,” Laghi said later.

In his prepared statement before the Angelus on Sunday, John Paul noted that the coming days “will be decisive for the outcome of the Iraqi crisis. We pray, therefore, that the Lord may inspire courage and farsightedness in all sides.”

Underlining the “urgent duty” of President Saddam Hussein’s regime to “collaborate fully with the international community to eliminate every motive for armed intervention,” the pope said, “I direct my pressing appeal to them: May the fate of their fellow citizens always take priority.”

“But I would also like to remind member countries of the United Nations and in particular those making up the Security Council that the use of force represents the last resource after every peaceful solution has been exhausted, according to the well-known principles of the U.N. Charter.”

John Paul warned of the “tremendous consequences that an international military operation would have for the Iraqi populations and for the equilibrium of the entire Middle East region, already so tried, let alone for the extremism that could derive from it.

“I say to everyone: There is still time to negotiate; there is still space for peace; it is never too late to understand each other and to continue to negotiate,” he said.

_ Peggy Polk

Study: Vast Majority of Nation’s Choruses Are Church Choirs

(RNS) A new study of choruses estimates that there are 250,000 choruses nationwide and the vast majority of them _ 200,000 _ are church choirs.

The research by Chorus America, the Washington-based service organization for North American choruses, included a poll of 1,000 adults that found that one or more adults in 15.6 percent of households performed in a chorus in public in the previous year.

“The study found that far more people participate in choral singing than in any other performing art,” states the executive summary of “America’s Performing Art: A Study of Choruses, Choral Singers and Their Impact.”

Researchers found that choral singers are often more involved in their communities than the average American. Seventy-six percent of choristers say they are involved in other volunteer activities. That percentage is far higher than the 44 percent of adults that Independent Sector found in a 2001 study had served as organization volunteers.

Sixty-three percent of chorus members reported charitable giving to other arts organizations, compared with 18.8 percent of American households reported by Independent Sector.

Chorus America researchers found that 76 percent of choral singers are members of a religious institution, compared to a finding in a Social Capital Benchmark survey that 65 percent of Americans belong to a church or synagogue.

Comments from the choristers sometimes linked their musical interests to religion and spirituality.

“These people whom I love dearly are politically or religiously very different from me,” one said of fellow singers. The 30-page report concluded: “In virtually every focus group, somebody described choral singing as spiritually uplifting.”

Researchers determined that the 250,000 nationwide choruses include 200,000 church choirs, 38,000 school choruses and 12,000 professional and community choruses.

Other findings:

_ About three-quarters of choristers read newspapers, compared to about one-third of the adult general population.

_ About 42 percent of chorus members say they have made a contribution to a political candidate or party, much higher than percentages in national studies of American political contributions.

_ 87 percent of choristers said they had visited a museum in the previous year, compared to about 35 percent of the general public.

_ 82 percent of chorus members had attended the theater at least once in the previous 12 months, compared to about 40 percent of the general public.

X X X

Following material is suitable for a graphic:

Number of choruses nationwide: 250,000

Number of church choirs: 200,000

Percentage of choral singers who volunteer: 76

Percentage of general public that volunteers: 44

Percentage of choristers who are members of religious institutions: 76

Percentage of general public who are members of religious institutions: 65

Source: “America’s Performing Art: A Study of Choruses, Choral Singers and Their Impact,” Chorus America

_ Adelle M. Banks

Evangelical Group in Britain Warns About `Prosperity Gospel’

LONDON (RNS) An evangelical organization in Britain warns that thousands of Christians are being taken in by a new style of preaching from a so-called “prosperity gospel” that promises untold wealth to believers.

The study produced by the Evangelical Alliance, an umbrella organization for Britain’s evangelical churches, said the teachings in what some critics call the “blab it and grab it gospel” encourage worshippers to pray for material wealth.

The prosperity gospel, the “Faith, Health and Prosperity” report said, claims that any money believers give to their preacher will be multiplied by God hundreds of times or more in favor of the giver.

The danger, it said, is that “prosperous, charismatic preachers” could replace Jesus as the object of admiration and adulation.

Ruth Gledhill, religion expert for The Times newspaper in London, said that the prosperity gospel “is proving attractive to wealthy Christians in the West, particularly in America, because it assuages their consciences.”

“Some preachers teach that material blessings, along with physical wealth, are confirmation from God of a righteous and holy lifestyle,” she said.

The Evangelical Alliance’s report said the prosperity gospel was born in the United States during World War II. “Lacking the traditional British embarrassment about money,” it added, “Americans are more likely to see wealth as something to be invested and exploited.”

The study said the movement “has been an unabashed advocate of material prosperity, and this has naturally invited the charge that it promotes a lifestyle and ethos fundamentally at odds with the values of the kingdom of God.”

The report said analyses of the “blab it and grab it” movement “abound with anecdotes about luxury cars and Rolex watches.”

Andrew Perriman, author of the alliance’s report, said prosperity gospel preachers were using mailings, satellite and cable television and other direct means as well as through the church to reach their audiences.

The Evangelical Alliance said the cited Bible text for the radical teachings is in the Gospel of Mark, where Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, `Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you.”

Texts from Corinthians and Proverbs also are cited in the report.

_ Al Webb

Irish Church Sets up Abuse Victims Support Network

(UNDATED) The archdiocese of Dublin is setting up a support network for victims of child sexual abuse by priests of the diocese.

The action follows meetings between Cardinal Desmond Connell, archbishop of Dublin, and representatives of victims.

“I now realize that the diocese will only be able to provide an appropriate service to those who have suffered abuse if it has been designed from their perspective,” said the cardinal. “Their feelings and their experiences throughout the time span of the abuse they have suffered and its consequences must be allowed to contribute to the shape and provision of this service and the way in which it is monitored once it has been set up.”

According to the archdiocese, the number of priests serving in the diocese over the last 50 years against whom allegations of abuse have been made is 35, and the number of victims who have approached the diocese directly is 107.

In a related development, a Catholic religious order in New Zealand says it plans to borrow $2.2 million to pay damages to 56 men who were sexually abused by priests.

The St. John of God Order said it hopes the payments will bring a “sad and sorry situation to closure,” the Associated Press reported.

_ Robert Nowell

Quote of the Day: The bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

(RNS) “Because the prospect of war is of concern to the entire global community, this is also an appropriate time to join with fellow Christians and persons of other faiths in times of worship, prayer and deeds which bear witness to our faith that God cares for all of creation and the whole of the human family.”

_ Statement by the bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America at their meeting March 6-11.

DEA END RNS