c. 2006 Religion News Service

Bishops’ Spokesman Says Media Distorted Sex Abuse Stories

ROME (RNS) A spokesman for U.S. Catholic bishops accused the media on Thursday (April 27) of exaggerating their coverage of the clergy sex abuse scandal, which he said was “past a point of crisis.”

Speaking at a Rome conference aimed at improving church-media relations, Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, director of communications of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, lambasted media coverage of the sex scandal.

He said it unfairly painted church officials as acting with impunity to cover up the affair. Maniscalco also alleged that the media’s initial reaction to the controversy created a “hell storm of bad publicity” that made it “impossible to get another point of view to be taken care of.”

“The supposedly competitive media told a single story, one that put the bishops in the worst light. They told a story of great complexity as if it were a simple melodrama of good guys and bad guys,” he said.

Maniscalco said coverage of the scandal had been primarily driven by a need to fill a “news hole” aimed at discrediting the church authorities.

“I can understand why people would never want to talk to the media again after 2002. I used to tell people back then that I’ve lost my faith _ not in the church, but in the American media,” he said.

The clergy sex abuse scandal exploded in 2002 in the Boston Archdiocese and subsequently spread throughout the United States, resulting in massive civil suits that have hobbled the finances of some dioceses.

Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston, resigned in disgrace in 2002, after the Boston Globe pushed for the release of court records demonstrating Law had permitted priests guilty of child sex abuse to change parishes without informing the public. The Globe won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage.

Maniscalco made his comments at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, before a lecture hall filled with church communications officials from across the globe.

He also cited statistics showing that most cases of abuse occurred before the 1990s, which he characterized as evidence that the scandal had subsided.

“Are we past the point of crisis? Yes,” he said. But he added that church officials actively engage the media, providing outlets with “timely responses” to controversial topics. He noted that some members of the media were “fine professionals who do an excellent job.”

_ Stacy Meichtry

Southern Baptist Leader: Emphasize `American’ Part of Hispanic-American

(RNS) WASHINGTON _ A prominent Southern Baptist leader on Thursday (April 27) advocated Christian support of immmigrants but stressed that lawbreakers should be punished and newcomers should work hard to assimilate.

“Put the emphasis on the American part of Hispanic-American and you are welcome,” said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

Land was one of several evangelical Christian leaders speaking at an immigration policy panel hosted by the Family Research Council, a Washington-based conservative group. The discussion came at a time when Congress is considering controversial legislation regulating immigration.

The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez Jr., president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, expressed concern about the exploitation of human and drug trafficking across the Mexican border, but said that a mass deportation would hurt the economy in the long run as well as disenfranchise millions of families, separating illegal parents from their American-born children.

Joan Maruskin from Church World Services’ Refugee and Immigration Program used Bible stories to stress her point.

“We must ensure due process and embrace the fact that we are a nation of immigrants that has once followed the mandate to welcome the stranger,” Maruskin said. “We might want to ask as we decide on our response, `What would Jesus do?”’

The debate in Congress is over two bills, one approved by the House, another proposed by the Senate. The former holds that illegal residency and assistance to an illegal immigrant could be tried as felonious offenses. The Senate bill urges a guest worker program and paths to legalized citizenships for aliens, provided they pay fines and back taxes and learn English. Legislation stalled in the Senate earlier this month over bipartisan bickering.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., also at the panel, said that immigration will be the “major legislative issue of this year’s Congress,” and that there’s a decent chance that a comprehensive bill by a bipartisan coalition will be drawn up.

“I don’t think amnesty works. I don’t think enforcement works,” Brownback said. “We have to deal with the whole package.”

But panelist John O’Sullivan from the policy research group the Hudson Institute said there is still a great divide on the issue between different faiths, and even between parishioners and their leaders.

Land tried to make a distinction between the responsibility of government and of Christians.

“While the government must insist on enforcement of the law, Christians are mandated to forgive and act redemptively to all people, including illegal immigrants,” Land said.

_ Piet Levy

`Prayer for Peace’ Summit Held in U.S. for First Time

(RNS) WASHINGTON _ Faith leaders representing more than 30 countries congregated at Georgetown University on Wednesday (April 26) for the International Prayer for Peace summit, held for the first time in the U.S.

The annual gathering, principally organized by the Catholic organization Community of Sant’Egidio out of Rome, started 20 years ago in Assisi, Italy, at the bequest of Pope John Paul II. The gathering is traditionally one of the largest interfaith meetings in the world.

This year marked the first time the event left European cities to take place in the United States.

“This is a city where we know something about peace and we know something about the absence of peace,” said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, at an opening ceremony of the two-day summit. “And it is important that we come to pray for peace at this time.”

A diverse lineup of religious leaders took turns speaking to an audience that included priests, nuns, rabbis, monks, Orthodox ministers and others. Speakers, including Sant’Egidio founder Andrea Riccardi, U.S. Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes, and Georgetown President John J. DeGioia, expressed a unified message of communication across religious lines in order to confront atrocities such as warfare, poverty and terrorism.

“Those who do not desire love and liberty do not want dialogue,” Riccardi said. “But we want dialogue because we love life. We love the life of everyone, we love the life of the other and we love the beauty of living together, even if we are different.”

The summit included discussion of terrorism, poverty, pluralism, genocide, AIDS and religious freedom, among other topics. Panelists included Catholic archbishops, Mennonites, Zen Buddhists, religion reporters, humanitarian activists, professors and a member of the New Delhi Supreme Court.

“A beautiful garden is not one that has one color of flowers,” said Rabbi Shear-Yashuv Cohen, chief rabbi of Haifa, Israel, and a summit participant. “The beauty of diversity, the different colors, is really rich provided there is harmony.”

_ Piet Levy

Legal Request Made for Free Prayer at Israel’s Western Wall

JERUSALEM (RNS) The Conservative/Masorti Movement of Israel has petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to order the Israeli government to allocate a prayer area where non-Orthodox Jews can pray free of charge at the main Western Wall compound.

The suit, filed April 23, cites “egregious discrimination and violation of freedom of worship in the arrangements for public worship.”

The petition states that the government’s current prayer arrangement for non-Orthodox Jews “prevents Masorti/Conservative Jews from worshipping according to their own practices at the Western Wall Plaza (including seating of men and women together and some ritual roles for women), while at the same time the government does not provide any adequate substitute at another venue.”

The Masorti movement began holding prayer sessions at Robinson’s Arch, a picturesque archaeological site containing a segment of the Western Wall, in the late 1990s. That followed repeated attacks on their prayer groups by fervent Orthodox Jews offended by mixed male/female prayer and the sight of women in prayer shawls.

The movement expects roughly 250 bar- and bat-mitzvah ceremonies and other prayer events to take place at the Arch this year.

In a 2000 agreement with the government, the movement agreed to conduct prayer services at Robinson’s Arch rather than at the Western Wall Plaza. In return, the government promised free access to the site from 7 to 8 a.m., and to provide Torah scrolls and prayer books.

In practice, the authorities allowed free admission at all hours of the day, due largely to the dearth of visitors during the Palestinian uprising that began in September 2000.

In September 2004, when the uprising began to wane, the East Jerusalem Development Corp. (EJDC), a municipal-federal body, and the Israel Antiquities Authority, which oversee the Davidson Archaeological Park where Robinson’s Arch is located, began to charge an admission fee of NIS 30 (about $7) to groups entering after 8 a.m.

In contrast, entrance to the main Western Wall prayer sections, where worshippers must adhere to Orthodox ritual, is free of charge all day long.

_ Michele Chabin

Quote of the Day: The Rev. James Moran, Priestly Sex Abuse Victim

(RNS) “My gut feeling is that I have been raped again.”

_ The Rev. James Moran, a Catholic whose priestly credentials were pulled six weeks before his retirement after he criticized church leaders for protecting abusers. The former chaplain at the Washington Hospital Center in the District of Columbia told The Washington Post that he was a victim of sex abuse as a 25-year-old seminarian and the perpetrator was a priest.

MO/PH END RNS