c. 2004 Religion News Service
Study: Vast Majority of Teens Believe Prayers Are Answered
(RNS) The vast majority of U.S. teenagers who pray believe their prayers are answered, a new study by the American Bible Society has found.
Ninety-one percent of teens said they believe their prayers are answered, the New York-based society said.
But teens had varying views on how often their petitions received a response: 24 percent believe their prayers are answered all the time; 24 percent believe they are answered most of the time and 44 percent said they are answered at least some of the time.
They also vary in the kinds of prayers they utter: 54 percent say they most often say a personal prayer; 22 percent say the Lord’s Prayer or the Our Father; and 1 percent say the rosary. Eleven percent of teens say they utter some other kind of prayer and 14 percent say they do not pray at all.
Most praying teens pray for a sick relative or friend (77 percent) or for personal needs (72 percent). Fifty-one percent pray for world peace or other global concerns. Twenty-three percent pray for material things.
Asked about ongoing religious activities, 45 percent of teens said they pray daily or weekly before meals at home, compared to 23 percent who never pray in that setting. Most students _ 64 percent _ never pray before meals at school, while 36 percent pray before school meals daily or weekly.
While 35 percent of teens said they never read the Bible, 29 percent said they do so at least weekly and 7 percent said they read the holy book daily.
The results were part of a study of 500 female and male teenagers ages 12-17 that has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 4.38 percentage points. Participants were interviewed April 8-14, 2004.
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Information suitable for a graphic:
Praying Teens Beliefs/Topics
Prayers are answered: 91 percent
Prayers are answered all the time: 24 percent
Prayers are answered most of the time: 24 percent
Prayers are answered at least some of the time: 44 percent
Pray for sick friend/relative: 77 percent
Pray for personal needs: 72 percent
Pray for world peace/global concerns: 51 percent
Pray for material things: 23 percent
Source: American Bible Society
_ Adelle M. Banks
Proposed Resolution Urges Southern Baptists to Reject Public Schools
(RNS) A former vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention has asked denomination officials to consider a proposed resolution that would encourage Southern Baptists to remove their children from public schools and instead support “thoroughly Christian education.”
The proposed statement also “encourages all churches associated with the Southern Baptist Convention to work aggressively to counsel parents regarding their obligation to provide their children with a Christian education.”
T.C. Pinckney, a former second vice president of the denomination, co-wrote the resolution for consideration at the annual meeting of Southern Baptists, to be held June 15-16 in Indianapolis.
It states that public school education is “officially godless” and public schools teach the acceptability of homosexuality.
Pinckney, of Alexandria, Va., told Religion News Service that he proposed the resolution to express his personal convictions about biblical teaching on the matter.
“The most important reason is that in the Bible, God assigns the responsibility for educating children to the parents, not to government,” he said.
Pinckney, editor of the independent Baptist Banner, co-wrote the proposed statement with Bruce Shortt, a Texas attorney. Shortt is the Texas coordinator of Exodus Mandate, an organization that wishes to replace public schools with private, Christian and home-school education.
John Revell, a spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, issued a statement saying a resolutions committee “prayerfully and carefully evaluates each proposal to determine if it is suitable for submission to the Southern Baptist Convention.”
The denomination’s bylaws state that if a resolution is rejected by the resolutions committee, it would take a two-thirds vote of messengers, or delegates, at the meeting for it to still be considered.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Abuse Charges Filed Against Elderly Nuns in Boston
(RNS) Nine former students at a suburban Boston school for the deaf accused 14 nuns of physical, sexual and emotional abuse on Tuesday (May 11), the first time widespread allegations of abuse have been made against women in the scandal-scarred archdiocese.
The three women and six men, now 41 to 67 years old, said they were raped, beaten, fondled and had their heads submerged in toilets by nuns at the now-closed Boston School for the Deaf in Randolph, Mass.
All of the alleged victims are deaf and mute and attended the school between 1944 and 1977, according to the Associated Press. The school, run by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston, closed in 1994.
The suit names 14 nuns from the nuns’ order, a priest, a staff member and retired Bishop Thomas Daily of Brooklyn, who held several top jobs in the Boston archdiocese.
“They are all speech-impaired and hearing-impaired,” said their attorney, Mitchell Garabedian. “Instead of receiving an education, they received beatings and sexually abusive actions.”
The nuns named in the suit are all between 75 and 95 years old. A statement from the order promised an immediate investigation “that will be fair and sensitive.”
“We will proceed with sensitivity and dignity for the alleged abuse and with a sincere reverence for the truth and respect for civil and canon law,” the sisters said.
Garabedian, who represented hundreds of abuse victims who reached a $85 million settlement with the archdiocese last year, told The New York Times that some of the victims had their hands tied behind their backs for trying to use sign language. The suit seeks unspecified monetary compensation.
Gay Retired Bishop Cut Loose From Diocese After Same-Sex Union
(RNS) An openly gay retired Episcopal bishop has been told he can no longer serve as an assistant bishop in San Francisco after he and his partner held a holy union commitment ceremony in an Episcopal church.
Bishop Otis Charles, who disclosed he was gay after he retired in 1993, held a commitment ceremony on April 24 with his partner, Felipe Sanchez Paris, at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco.
San Francisco Bishop William Swing said on Monday (May 10) that Charles could no longer function as a priest in his diocese because his ceremony was “an altogether more public event than I had wanted.”
Swing had authorized Charles to assist him in presiding at weddings, baptisms and confirmations.
“I have lived through many of his idiosyncrasies and special insights,” Swing said of Charles. “Otis is a charming, thoughtful, gifted pilgrim. Now the time has come for him to be retired completely from the Diocese of California.”
Swing, a longtime supporter of gay rights, said Charles knew “what would be permissible and what would not. Bishop Charles chose to override my decision and proceed on his own authority.”
In an interview with the Associated Press, however, Charles said Swing was kept in the loop. “It was done with the bishop’s knowledge and done according to his protocols,” he said.
Charles, 78, served as bishop of Utah from 1971 to 1986 and president of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., from 1986 to 1993. He divorced his wife of 42 years after he announced he was gay.
Charles’ ceremony came after the state Supreme Court ordered a halt to marriage licenses for same-sex couples, so he is not legally married. Because the Episcopal Church does not officially recognize same-sex unions, he is not married in the eyes of the church either.
The only other openly gay Episcopal bishop is the Right Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, whose consecration last year touched off a firestorm of controversy and prompted threats of schism from conservatives.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
`Sister Rose’s Passion’ Take Tribeca Film Fest Honor
(RNS) The documentary “Sister Rose’s Passion,” detailing a Seton Hall University nun’s work to better relations between Jews and Christians, won the Tribeca film festival’s best documentary short award Tuesday (May 11) night.
“I can barely get the words out,” Risa Goldstein, one of the film’s producers, said from the awards ceremony in Manhattan. “I’m stunned. I’m just so happy.”
Goldstein met 83-year-old Sister Rose Thering a few years ago by chance at an event for Seton Hall’s Department of Jewish-Christian Studies. Though Goldstein is an architect with no film background, she knew the story of Thering’s life needed to be told on screen.
The 39-minute documentary, co-produced by Oscar-nominated filmmakers Steve Kalafer and Peter LeDonne and directed by Oren Jacoby, traces Thering’s efforts to thwart anti-Semitism after she entered the Dominican order at age 20, in 1940, in Racine, Wis.
Thering particularly worked to change the way Jewish people were described in Catholic school books. Her dissertation at St. Louis University in 1961 on the subject drew the attention of the American Jewish Committee and Cardinal Augustin Bea at Vatican II.
“Sister Rose’s Passion” was filmed and produced during the past 18 months. The producers said they plan to take the documentary to other film festivals in Nantucket, Mass.; Aspen, Colo.; Miami; and elsewhere.
Thering, who has been at Seton Hall University since the 1970s, resides at Metrowest Jewish Center complex in Whippany, N.J.
_ Jeff Diamant
Quote of the Day: Roman Catholic Coadjutor Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando, Fla.
(RNS) “You cannot have your `waffle’ and your `wafer,’ too. Those pro-abortion politicians who insist on calling themselves Catholics without seeing the contradiction between what they say they believe and their anti-life stance have to do a lot more practicing.”
_ Roman Catholic Coadjutor Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando, Fla., writing in the Orlando Sentinel about Catholic politicians who support abortion rights.
DEA/PH END RNS
