c. 2006 Religion News Service

Presbyterians Call for Medical Marijuana

(RNS) The Presbyterian Church (USA) on Wednesday (June 21) became the seventh major religious organization in the nation to support the use of medical marijuana.

The consensus vote of the church’s General Assembly in Birmingham, Ala., comes as the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to take up the issue next week.

In explaining its reasoning for the policy shift, a church committee wrote that marijuana may alleviate the pain that some patients who are confined to “ineffective” prescription drugs are forced to endure.

“Medical marijuana is an issue of mercy,” said the Rev. Lynn Bledsoe, a Presbyterian minister in Alabama. “It is unconscionable that seriously ill patients can be arrested for making an earnest attempt at healing by using medical marijuana with their doctors’ approval.”

Eleven states have passed laws allowing medical uses of marijuana following a doctor’s prescription, but federal law enforcement officials can arrest people in those states.

A proposal by Reps. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., and Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., that will be considered next week would prohibit the federal government from using any of its budget money to pursue medical marijuana users who comply with their state laws and doctors’ orders.

Similar amendments, including another by Rohrabacher and Hinchey, were defeated twice in the last two years, and a separate bill died in a House committee in 2005.

But Hinchey’s chief of staff, Wendy Darwell, is optimistic that the amendment will fare better this year.

“There has been at least one other state that has expanded its own medical marijuana rules,” Darwell said. With the growing number of states with provisions for medical marijuana, “that should only draw the support of more members of Congress who represent those states.”

In 1982, the Episcopal Church became the first to endorse the use of medical marijuana, according to the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative, a Washington-based advocacy group. In more recent years, the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the Unitarian Universalist Association have announced similar support.

_ Peter Sachs

Pope Clears Founder of Indiana College for Sainthood

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Mother Theodore Guerin, founder of an Indiana-based religious community, has been approved for sainthood, the Vatican announced on Friday (June 23).

A bulletin released by the Holy See press office confirmed plans to canonize Guerin, announcing a decree approving Guerin’s sainthood would be read during a July 1 ceremony at the Vatican.

Born in 1798 in France, Guerin, a member of the Sisters of Providence, moved to the United States in 1840, taking up service in what would later become the Archdiocese of Indianpolis.

A year later she established the Academy of Saint Mary of the Woods at Terre Haute, America’s first Catholic women’s liberal arts college. She died in 1856.

A campaign for her sainthood was initiated 1909, paving the way for Guerin’s beatification by the late Pope John Paul II in 1998 _ the last step before sainthood.

Once beatification is performed, one miracle must be attributed to the candidate before the pope can declare the individual a saint. According to Dave Cox, a spokesman for Guerin’s religious order, an employee of the order had his eyesight restored after praying for Guerin’s intercession. That miracle gained Pope Benedict XVI’s approval on April 28, he said.

_ Stacy Meichtry

American Jewish Committee Offers Bonus for Hybrid Cars

(RNS) The American Jewish Committee announced a program that will offer its employees bonuses of up to $2,500 for buying or leasing a hybrid car, practicing what it’s been preaching for a long time about promoting fuel alternatives.

“Everyone has a role to play in reducing our oil dependency from hostile nations. These are simple steps we are taking,” said spokesperson Kenneth Bandler, who recently wrote an op-ed in The New York Times about driving an electric car for three years.

Executive Director David A. Harris announced the program as “integral to AJC’s long-term commitment to developing a serious energy policy in the U.S.”

The organization employs about 200 people in the United States, and about 300 abroad. So far, no employee has taken advantage of the program.

The program comes on the heels of the Vehicle and Fuel choices for American Security Act, a bill that promotes improving the technology in hybrid cars, which AJC supports.

“It is important that we act in a fashion that is consistent with our traditions,” said Legislative director Richard Foltin. “Certainly the obligation to be good caretakers of the earth that we’ve been given by the creator.”

_ J. Edward Mendez

Oregon Woman Plans to Give `Jesus’ Brick Some Divine Company

BEAVERTON, Ore. (RNS) Nancy Baiter was shocked to see Jesus in front of Beaverton City Library.

It’s not the second coming, merely the name “Jesus” engraved on a plaza brick. But it surprised Baiter nearly as much as if she had seen the Galilean carpenter himself.

Another library patron, Linda Gosse, had paid $100 as part of the city’s “Pave the Way” fundraising campaign to have the brick inscribed and placed.

The city began selling the bricks nearly three years ago, said library director Ed House. Only 115 have been sold. After expenses, the city has banked a little more than $7,000 in a trust account.

But Baiter, a retired librarian, thinks the city should have rejected the brick because she considers it a public agency’s endorsement of religion. Now she has a plan to both state her case and win a laugh.

“I think it’s outrageous that there’s a religious brick there,” she said. “That bothers me. So I try to make the point with humor.”

The name “Jesus” meets the city’s standards for the bricks, said City Attorney Alan Rappleyea. City rules reject symbols, profanities, trademarks or quotations. But they allow names and brief dedications.

But Baiter thinks the brick violates another portion of the policy, which states, “The wording will be limited solely to a personal or family name, or the name of a business or organization.”

Rappleyea said the city doesn’t know or care whether the name refers to the Son of God or a Latino man. “We said, `A name is a name, put a name down,”’ he said.

Baiter thinks the city is being disingenuous. “Clearly this is intended as a religious statement,” she said.

Gosse, who purchased the brick, says it does refer to the Messiah. She says she first thought of honoring her parents. “But then I thought, who do I honor above all? And that’s when the name Jesus came to mind.”

Baiter already bought one brick and now wants to buy more bricks and inscribe them with the names of the Egyptian gods Isis and Osiris and their son Horus. City officials are fine with that, Rappleyea said.

So is Gosse. As far as she’s concerned, the more supreme beings, the better. “If she or anyone else wants to put deity names out there,” Gosse said, “they’re welcome to do that.”

_ David R. Anderson

Quote of the Day: Southern Baptist Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr.

(RNS) “The Christian faith is based exclusively in the understanding that God alone has the right to name himself. … He does not invite his creatures to experiment in worship by naming him according to their own desires.”

_ Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr., commenting on the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s new report that encourages alternatives to traditional references to the Trinity. Mohler, of Louisville, Ky., made his comments in a column on his Web site.

KRE/JL END RNS