c. 2006 Religion News Service

Cardinal Says Stem Cell Researchers Don’t Deserve Communion

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Roman Catholic doctors and researchers involved in stem cell research are unfit to receive Communion, a top Vatican cardinal declared Wednesday (June 28).

The comments appeared to step up the Vatican’s opposition to stem cell research _ a stance that has been strongly criticized by scientists who believe the research could produce life-saving breakthroughs.

In an interview with the Italian Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, reasserted his position that politicians who support legislation that defies church teaching on abortion should be denied Communion.

Asked whether the ban also applied to stem cell researchers, Trujillo replied: “Certainly. It’s the same thing. Destroying an embryo is equivalent to abortion, and excommunication applies to the woman, the doctors and the researchers that eliminate the embryo.”

Trujillo, who is considered a Vatican hard-liner, is one of the principal organizers behind Pope Benedict XVI’s upcoming visit to Valencia, Spain, for the World Meeting of Families.

In recent years, traditionally Catholic Spain has passed laws legalizing gay marriage and adoption, liberalizing regulation on stem cell research and in vitro fertilization, and relaxing laws on divorce and abortion.

In predominantly Catholic Italy, meanwhile, ministers in the newly elected center-left government have begun to challenge the country’s stiff ban on stem cell research and in vitro fertilization. Some lawmakers have also called for Italy to legally recognize gay couples.

Trujillo called the legal recognition of gay couples a “juridical fiction.” He also said Benedict had “expressly” asked him “to explain the defense of life and the family to lawmakers.”

_ Stacy Meichtry

Presbyterian Leaders Pen Pastoral Letter to Church

(RNS) In the wake of potentially divisive actions on issues such as the ordination of gays and divestment in the Middle East, leaders of the Presbyterian Church (USA) have called the recently concluded General Assembly meeting “the Presbyterian process of doing things at its best.”

“We observed people working fairly and treating each other graciously,” Moderator Joan Gray and Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick said in a brief pastoral letter that sought to set in context the actions of the recent 217th General Assembly in Birmingham, Ala.

During the weeklong meeting, delegates granted local bodies more leeway on church standards on gay clergy; modified the church’s investment strategy away from divesting in Israel; and “received” a paper that outlined new ways to speak of the Trinity.

Writing about divestment, Gray and Kirkpatrick said the assembly did not “rescind” the church’s 2004 action calling for divestment from companies that profit from Israeli occupation of Palestinians. “Divestment is still an option, but not the goal,” they said.

The two also stressed that the church did not change “our historic standards for ordination” but “made clear that more responsibility is to be exercised by sessions and presbyteries regarding the examination of candidates for ordination.”

They noted that the assembly also “received” a paper on the Trinity that affirms the traditional language of “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” as the church’s “primary” language but also points to other biblical images for study and possible use in worship.

“Not everyone will like what the commissioners did, but the spirit coming out of the assembly was something we think will be a blessing to the whole church,” the two leaders said.

But they also acknowledged it was “obvious to us that this assembly, like the church, had deep differences on a number of issues.”

“The unity we seek for the church _ and the unity we experienced at the assembly _ is not just about coming to an agreement,” they wrote. “It is also about being with each other in the healthy struggle to discern God’s will.”

_ David E. Anderson

British Methodists Say No to Blessing Civil Partnerships

LONDON (RNS) The Methodist Church of Great Britain has ruled against any formal church blessing of civil partnerships or “gay marriages,” but said Methodist clergy will be able to say private prayers with a couple in a civil partnership.

The decision follows the new Civil Partnership Act, which allows same-sex couples to enter into a formal legal relationship with many of the legal benefits conferred by marriage.

The church’s assembly in Edinburgh, Scotland, said it will not authorize any form of service for blessing a civil partnership, and Methodist premises cannot be used for any prayers for civil partnerships.

On Tuesday (June 27), the conference said there is no reason why Methodists may not enter into a civil partnership, but reaffirmed the traditional teaching on marriage between a man and a woman.

The Methodist Church’s position on the issue is similar to that of the Church of England, whose bishops last July firmly rejected any idea of Anglican clergy offering a service of blessing for those registering a civil partnership.

“When clergy are approached by people asking for prayer in relation to entering into a civil partnership, they should respond pastorally and sensitively in the light of the circumstances of each case,” the Anglican bishops said.

The Methodist Church of Great Britain traces its roots to the Church of England. The United Methodist Church in the United States _ which also bans any blessing of gay unions _ was an offshoot of the British Methodist church.

_ Robert Nowell

Massachusetts Clergy Blast Catholics on Gay Marriage Stance

BOSTON (RNS) Clergy who support gay marriage lashed out Tuesday (June 27) at Catholic bishops in Massachusetts, saying they are “promoting prejudice” through their campaign to ban gay marriage.

During a press conference in Boston, leaders of the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry unveiled a letter to Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley and the other three Catholic bishops of Massachusetts, calling on them to stop lobbying legislators for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

“You are promoting prejudice through your political campaign, intentionally or not,” said the letter, released by the Rev. Anne C. Fowler, rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Boston and president of the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry, a group of 700 clergy, congregations, lay leaders and organizations that support gay marriage. “You are harming us and our families and your faithful as well.”

Massachusetts became the only state to allow gay marriage in 2003, when the state supreme court said it was unconstitutional to deny equal marriage rights to same-sex couples.

Edward F. Saunders Jr., executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the Roman Catholic Church in Massachusetts, said the church will continue its support for the proposed constitutional amendment.

“The church has never discriminated and does not discriminate,” Saunders said. “Nobody is preventing any religion from conducting a same-sex marriage. Where is the discrimination?”

Saunders said gay marriage is a public issue and the Catholic Church’s position is nothing new. “The marriage amendment should go to the people,” he said. “Let the people debate it. Let the people have the final say.”

Saunders said the bishops want Catholics to contact legislators and ask them to support the proposed constitutional amendment. If approved, the amendment would ban future same-sex marriages, but it wouldn’t affect couples who married before the vote.

The Catholic bishops are members of a coalition that collected 123,356 signatures of registered voters for the proposed ballot question to ban gay marriage.

In order to make the ballot in 2008, the proposed amendment needs approval of at least 50 of the state’s 200 legislators this year, and again either next year or in 2008.

Legislators are scheduled to convene in a constitutional convention July 12 for a possible vote on the amendment.

_ Dan Ring

Moscow Mayor Says Hindus Can Build Temple

(RNS) City leaders in Moscow will allot land for the construction of a Hare Krishna temple, ending a long-standing controversy over whether Hindus should have a place of worship in the Russian capital.

Sheila Dixit, chief minister of Delhi state _ which includes the Indian capital, New Delhi _ announced the move during a recent visit to Moscow, during which she attended a three-day cultural festival held under a “sister city” accord between the two capitals.

Dixit said Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov had given her an assurance about the allotment of land for the temple, according to a report in the leading Indian newspaper The Hindu and a joint statement issued after the visit.

In January 2004, the mayor of Moscow signed a decree allocating land for the building of a new temple in place of an older Hindu temple that had been demolished under a city development plan.

The offer was later withdrawn, however, following mass protests that were reportedly organized by the Russian Orthodox Church against the building of a Hindu temple.

Archbishop Nikon, a leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, has described Lord Krishna _ who is worshipped by more than 1 billion Hindus _ as an “evil demon, the personified power of hell opposing God” in a letter to city officials urging a halt to temple construction.

There are an estimated 100,000 Hindus in Russia, including about 15,000 in Moscow. “However, this peaceful community is being denied a simple right to have a place of worship where they can pray, counsel and celebrate their faith,” said Ramesh Kallidai, secretary general of the Hindu Forum of Britain, in a recent letter to the mayor of Moscow on behalf of 270 Hindu organizations.

_ Achal Narayanan

Quote of the Day: Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley

(RNS) “She has, on this campus, a chair which carries her name and now I have a building. Maybe we could move her chair into my building and we’d be together again.”

_ Gordon B. Hinckley, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for Brigham Young University’s new Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center on Friday (June 23), his 96th birthday. Hinckley, who was quoted by the Deseret Morning News, recalled that his late wife Marjorie Pay Hinckley was honored in 2003 by the school, which named a chair of Social Work and Social Sciences in her honor.

KRE/PH END RNS