c. 2004 Religion News Service
Supreme Court Allows Military Institute Prayer Ruling to Stand
WASHINGTON (RNS) The U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to consider an appeal of a lower court ruling that mealtime prayers at Virginia Military Institute are unconstitutional, drawing praise and criticism from opposing sides of the church-state debate.
Justice Antonin Scalia issued a strong dissent to the high court’s Monday (April 26) refusal, saying the case raised key questions about church and state, the Associated Press reported.
“VMI has previously seen another of its traditions abolished by this court,” wrote Scalia, referring to the court’s 1996 decision mandating that VMI admit women.
“This time, however, its cause has been ignored rather than rejected _ though the consequences will be just the same.”
Virginia’s attorney general had appealed the case after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that the suppertime prayers violated the First Amendment.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the VMI case at the appeals level, cheered the high court’s announcement.
“The Constitution does not allow public schools to pressure students to pray, and this action is a reaffirmation of that important principle,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of the Washington-based watchdog group, in a statement.
Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, said he agreed with Scalia, whose dissent was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.
“It is disappointing to see the court let stand a decision that bars voluntary prayer at dinner _ a respected and time-honored tradition at a military institution that has played a vital role in training military leaders for more than 160 years,” he said in statement.
After a three-judge panel of the appeals court made its original ruling last April, a divided full court upheld that decision in August.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Methodists Protest Denial of Visas for Foreign Delegates
(RNS) The United Methodist Church is launching a last-minute diplomatic appeal to obtain visas for overseas delegates to its General Conference meeting in Pittsburgh who have been denied entry into the United States.
Church officials say dozens of the 178 foreign delegates have not been granted entry visas to the United States for the quadrennial legislative meeting, which opens Tuesday (April 27) and runs through May 7.
“Their absence will diminish the power, spirit and vitality of General Conference,” said a statement from the church’s Washington, D.C.-based General Board of Church and Society.
“Our gathering will be incomplete without all the delegates being present and joining hands to worship our God.”
Churches in Africa, Europe and the Philippines represent about 20 percent of the denomination’s 10.2 million members. The church has paid thousands of dollars to have General Conference proceedings translated into Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and Swahili.
Officials said bishops would hold a news conference Tuesday to protest the visa denials as a violation of religious freedom. Gretchen Hakola, a spokeswoman for the Washington agency, said at least 12 of the 38 delegates from the Philippines had been unable to obtain visas.
Hakola said some delegates had trouble documenting that the denomination would pay their expenses during their time in Pittsburgh, and others were told by U.S. consulates that their paperwork was incomplete or not specific enough.
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., a Methodist and chairman of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, has tried to obtain visas for the delegates, as have officials at the State Department.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Coalition Spanning Left, Right Urges Action on Uninsured
(RNS) Religious leaders are joining forces in an unusual coalition to curb the growing number of Americans without health insurance, as part of Cover the Uninsured Week.
The National Council of Churches and the Southern Baptist Convention, in a rare partnership, together called on the faith community to bring greater awareness of the 44 million Americans without health coverage _ including 8.5 million children _ in a conference call hosted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
“Health care has been up and down on our national agenda, and we believe the time has more than come,” said the Rev. Eileen Lindner of the NCC. “It’s not the most ordinary thing for these two groups to see eye-to-eye on this matter, but it’s illustrative of the magnitude of 44 million of our neighbors being uncovered.”
Cover the Uninsured Week urges leaders from Judaism, Islam and Christianity to commit to educate their congregations about the problem of uninsured Americans. It runs May 10-16.
Religious leaders will conduct discussions and seminars for clergy on solving the health care crisis in the United States as part of the week, and are distributing bulletin inserts and discussion and prayer guides.
“We’re calling the American people to come together to find creative solutions. In the faith community we have an obligation,” said Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. “Some churches have opened up free clinics in response to this. Church members who are doctors are donating their time so anyone who doesn’t have insurance can come and receive care.”
According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, eight out of 10 people who are uninsured either work or are in working families. Many hold jobs that don’t offer health care benefits, or can’t afford co-payments and premiums.
“We’re all affected in some way. It’s people we know, people who live next door to us,” said Elaine Arkin of the Johnson Foundation. “It’s a problem that touches each of us, but there’s also something each of us can do about it.”
A majority of Americans _ 64 percent _ believe religious organizations should be involved in raising awareness and concern for the millions lacking health insurance, according to Johnson Foundation research.
“Religious communities have the power to achieve this complex social change we’re working on,” said Arkin. “We know Americans are behind this.”
_ Amanda Mantone
Church of Brethren Voluntary Agency Bars Anti-Gay Bias
ELGIN, Ill. (RNS) The Church of the Brethren’s voluntary service organization has formally put on paper its longtime practice of not excluding homosexuals, adding sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination policy.
“It has been our practice, since before I was here, that you don’t discriminate,” said Brethren Volunteer Service director Dan McFadden. “We thought it was time to put it into print.”
He said the position is consistent with the denomination’s 1983 statement, “Human Sexuality From a Christian Perspective,” which states that “sexual intercourse … belongs with heterosexual marriage.” He said BVS expects celibacy of its single workers and does not place unmarried couples _ such as a man and woman living together _ in the same assignment location.
He also noted that BVS’ position is consistent with the statement’s call to welcome gays into the church.
But BVS doesn’t “go around doing bedchecks,” McFadden said, and does not ask applicants about their sexual orientation. He added that BVS’ position has not been knowingly tested by any gay applicants.
BVS has about 100 volunteers who serve one- to two-year terms in more than 30 locations in the United States and internationally. Workers serve in peace, justice, education, environment and other assignments.
Many volunteers come from outside the Church of the Brethren, McFadden said. “There’s not a particular faith stance to have to sign on the bottom line,” he said.
_ Rich Preheim
Church of Scotland Panel Urges Probe of Decision to Go to War in Iraq
LONDON (RNS) The Church of Scotland’s general assembly is being asked to urge a new, public investigation into Great Britain’s decision to join the United States in going to war in Iraq.
The new call, which will be acted on during the denomination’s May 15-21 general assembly meeting, came from the denomination’s Church and Nation Committee and was prompted by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and the deaths of “thousands of innocent people” as a result of the war.
In a scathing supplementary report, the committee argued that applying the term “war” to efforts to combat terrorism was “a major error of judgment by the Western powers,” creating the “wholly misleading” impression that it could be won through military campaigns such as that in Iraq.
“It simply plays into the hands of the terrorists, who are happy to be at war and pleased to have their campaign raised to such a status,” the committee continued. “It also allows governments to introduce laws which infringe the legal rights of its citizens because extreme measures can be taken in a `war’ situation. It is naive to believe that terrorism can be overcome simply by removing regimes considered to be dangerous, as the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan has shown.”
Meanwhile, in Cardiff, Anglican Archbishop of Wales Barry Morgan suggested the last 10 years in South Africa had shown that there was a “better way” to cope with violence than to react with violence and that it did actually work.
“It is the way of generosity, compassion and forgiveness,” he said.
It was not an easy option but a hard one, yet it worked. “It is not an option that many leaders in our world are willing even to contemplate,” continued the archbishop, who was preaching at a service of thanksgiving in Llandaff cathedral to mark the 10th anniversary of South African democracy. “They think terror must be met with terror. The snag then is that the cycle of hate is never broken and terrorism continues.”
_ Robert Nowell
Pope Names Italian Nun to Highest Position Yet in the Vatican
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul has named an Italian nun to the No. 3 post in the congregation that oversees religious orders worldwide, making her the highest ranking woman in the Vatican.
The Vatican said on Saturday (April 24) that Sister Enrica Rosanna, 66, would become undersecretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
Rosanna, a Salesian sociologist and educator who has served as a consultant to the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education, Italian Ministry for Public Instruction and Bank of Italy, will be the first woman to hold a top position in a Vatican agency with jurisdictional powers.
She was the fourth woman appointed to a high Vatican post in recent weeks. The earlier appointees were named to advisory bodies.
The Vatican announced March 6 that for the first time two women theologians would serve on the International Theological Commission, which is attached to the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
They are Sister Sara Butler, a member of the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity, who teaches at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Ill., and Barbara Hallensleben of the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.
Three days later, the pope appointed Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard Law School professor, to serve as president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, making her the highest ranking lay woman in the Vatican.
Rosanna has a degree in sociology from the University of Trento in northern Italy and is president of the Pontifical Faculty of Educational Science “Auxilium.”
The Vatican’s nine congregations are the governing agencies of the church. Their top two officials are a prefect, who is a cardinal, and a secretary, who is an archbishop. The undersecretary has customarily been a priest with the title of monsignor.
The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life has authority over the establishment, direction and suppression of religious and secular institutes and the discipline of members.
_ Peggy Polk
Quote of the Day: Arsenic Poisoning Victim Lester Beaupre of New Sweden, Maine
(RNS) “You are looking around at church, thinking there could be somebody out there who’s trying to play another trick on us. When I go to potlucks, I don’t eat anything unless the person’s name is on the Crockpot. It’s terrible to be paranoid like that, but once bitten twice shy.”
_ Lester Beaupre, who spent a month in the hospital last year after being poisoned by arsenic-laced coffee at Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church in New Sweden, Maine. The poisonings on April 27, 2003, killed one parishioner and sickened 15 others. Police are still unsure who was responsible. Beaupre was quoted by the Associated Press.
DEA END RNS
