c. 2004 Religion News Service
Boston Archdiocese Sells Bishop’s Mansion to BC in $100 Million Deal
(RNS) The Archdiocese of Boston has agreed to sell its ornate archbishop’s residence and 43 surrounding acres to Boston College for nearly $100 million, and could sell more land in two years for $8 million more.
The deal announced Tuesday (April 20) gives the cash-strapped archdiocese money to help finance an $85 million settlement with victims of clergy sexual abuse. It also gives the Jesuit-run college needed room to expand.
Under the deal, BC would acquire the archbishop’s mansion, a former high school seminary, a retreat house and 43 acres in suburban Brighton for $99.4 million. In two years, it will also sell the facilities and 3.25 acres of land of the archdiocesan tribunal _ responsible for annulments _ which could fetch as much as $8 million.
“While I am saddened that a large piece of our Brighton campus had to be sold to this end, I am pleased that the offer by Boston College was the one that we accepted at the end of the sale process,” said Archbishop Sean O’Malley, who chose to live instead at the rectory of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.
“It is good that we have been able to keep the property within the Catholic family.”
The two sides also tentatively agreed that if the archdiocese decides to sell St. John’s Seminary and chancery headquarters, BC could buy those remaining 18 acres for an additional $60 million.
“This agreement in principle is a milestone event for Boston College, and I believe it greatly benefits not only Boston College, but also the Archdiocese of Boston and the wider community,” said the Rev. William Leahy, the school’s president.
Church officials said the deal underscores their commitment not to use parishioners’ offerings or fund-raising campaigns to settle scores of sex abuse claims.
“As I said when I first came (to Boston), people are more important than money, and the church is more important than our buildings,” O’Malley said at a press conference, according to The Boston Globe.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Pope, Mel Gibson, Dalai Lama, Among “The Time 100”
(RNS) Pope John Paul II, “The Passion of the Christ” director Mel Gibson and the Dalai Lama were among the global figures listed in Time magazine’s new list of the world’s 100 most influential people.
“… (w)ithout the pope, without his political interventions, the 20th century could have ended differently,” wrote Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel in a tribute to the pontiff. “That is a measure of his influence on today’s world.”
The pope was only one of four honored in “The Time 100” who also was previously listed in the magazine’s “Time People of the Century.”
Gibson, whose tribute was written by Jerry B. Jenkins, co-author of the “Left Behind” novel series, was recognized for his box-office-topping movie.
“Gibson succeeded because he produced a film from that place within the fiber of his being where his own passions lie,” Jenkins wrote in the magazine’s April 26 issue.
Pico Iyer, author of “Sun After Dark,” heralded the Dalai Lama for drawing attention to Tibetan Buddhism and his native land.
“Now, largely thanks to him, Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism are a cherished part of many a neighborhood,” Iyer said.
Among the Muslim names cited on the list were Ali Husaini Sustani, a Shiite leader in Iraq, author Tariq Ramadan of France, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi of Iran.
Bono, the U2 lead singer who has worked with religious leaders to build awareness about AIDS, poverty and debt in Africa, also made the list.
“He has dedicated his life to making sure that such extreme poverty comes to an end,” wrote Bobby Shriver, who founded Debt AIDS Trade Africa with Bono.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Williams Criticizes Blair Government on Lack of Iraq `Truthfulness’
LONDON (RNS) Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, in an apparent reference to the British government’s justifications for the war in Iraq, said Tuesday the nation’s political health has been damaged by claims that turned out not be true.
The scholarly Williams made his comments in the annual John Mere commemoration sermon which explores the issue of obedience. While not specifically mentioning the war in Iraq, Williams appeared to be alluding to the government’s case that war was necessary because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons have been found.
Williams said Christian obedience should never be just a passive conformity to commands in the hope it would somehow ensure a reward.
“It is properly an obedience given where we see authority engaged with a truth beyond its own interest and horizon _ ultimately with the truth of Christ,” he said.
“Credible claims on our political loyalty have something to do with a demonstrable attention to truth, even unwelcome truth,” the archbishop said.
He said that “part of the continuing damage to our political health in this country has to do with a sense of the events of the last year on the international scene being driven by something other than that attention” to truth.
“There were things government believed it knew and claimed to know on a privileged basis which, it emerged were anything but certain; there were things which regional experts and others knew which seemed not to have received attention.
“Forgetting the melodramatic language of public deception, which is often just another means of not attending to what is difficult and takes time to fathom, the evidence suggests to many that obedience to a complex truth suffered from a sense of urgency that made attention harder.”
Williams also rejected the argument that independent observers such as church leaders should not speak out because they did not have expertise in military strategy or economics.
He said such a view is understandable but misplaced.
“Government will always know some things that citizens don’t and probably shouldn’t; but this is not an argument for civic quiescence,” he said. “Some citizens also know things that governments don’t know and probably should; NGOs, churches, educators and health workers may know what neither diplomacy nor intelligence are aware of; and the demand that government attend to such informal but extensive knowledge is a fair condition for recognizing a governmental claim on our attention as citizens.”
_ Robert Nowell
Lutherans Encourage Members to Consider Organ Donation
(RNS) Leaders of the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination are encouraging pastors and parishioners to consider organ and blood donation as “an expression of sacrificial love for a neighbor in need.”
The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America approved an 11-point statement in support of organ donation at its April 17-18 meeting in Chicago. The resolution grew out of a statement on health care passed by the church’s 2003 Churchwide Assembly.
The ELCA “regards the donation of organs, tissue and whole blood as an act of stewardship and as appropriate means for contributing to the health and well-being of other persons,” the statement said.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 84,750 Americans are awaiting organ transplants. Last year, 6,455 people donated their organs after death, an increase of 4.3 percent from 2002. More than 6,800 living people donated organs.
The church urged members to communicate their wishes to family members and file the necessary legal paperwork. It called for “all coercion and manipulation be absent from the donation process.”
The statement spoke against selling or trafficking organ tissues, and said technology that involves cloning or cross-species transplants “may represent notable shifts in the economic, moral, social and theological assumptions of current practice.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Scholar Charles Haynes to Receive Religious Freedom Award
(RNS) First Amendment scholar Charles Haynes will be honored with the Religious Freedom Award from Associated Baptist Press, the independent news service has announced.
Haynes, senior scholar at the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va., will receive the award at an April 30 ceremony.
“The quiet leadership of Charles Haynes understates his key role in the fight for religious liberty in the classroom,” said ABP Executive Editor Greg Warner in a statement. “The directors of ABP are grateful to him and the Freedom Forum for all they do to champion our religious freedoms.”
Haynes is the author or co-author of six books, including “Finding Common Ground: A Guide to Religious Liberty in Public Schools.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: Joanne Golen, lifelong resident of Hamtramck, Mich.
(RNS) “It says Allah is the one and only God. I am Christian. My God is Jesus Christ. That is my only objection _ that I have to listen to a God other than the one I believe in praised five times a day.”
_ Joanne Golen, lifelong resident of Hamtramck, Mich., whose city council is considering an ordinance that would allow a mosque to send out a call to prayer to Muslims on a loudspeaker. She was quoted by the Associated Press.
DEA/JL END RNS
