c. 2007 Religion News Service
Conservative Seminary to Allow Openly Gay Students
NEW YORK (RNS) Openly gay students who want to serve as rabbis or cantors are now welcome at the Jewish Theological Seminary, school officials said Monday (March 26).
The announcement came three months after the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, the Conservative movement’s decision-making body, gave seminaries and congregations permission to ordain homosexual rabbis and bless same-sex unions.
JTS made its decision after evaluating thousands of survey responses and conducting discussions with faculty, religious leaders and students. The application deadline for prospective students has been extended to June 30.
“The decision to ordain gay and lesbian clergy at JTS is in keeping with the longstanding commitment of the Jewish tradition to pluralism,” said Arnold Eisen, the seminary’s incoming chancellor. “Pluralism means that we recognize more than one way to be a good Conservative Jew, more than one way of walking authentically in the path of our tradition and of carrying that tradition forward.”
Eisen said, “It means, too, that we respect those who disagree with us and understand that in the context of all that unites us, diversity makes us stronger.”
The school has not taken a position on same-sex union ceremonies; those decisions are up to individual rabbis and congregations, Eisen said.
Keshet, a student-led group that helped push for the change to allow openly gay rabbis, hailed the decision. “We believe passionately that the Conservative movement will be strengthened by the complete inclusion of gay and lesbian Jews who, like all people, are made in the image of God,” said Elizabeth Richman, a third-year rabbinical student at JTS.
An estimated 1.5 million Americans consider themselves members of the Conservative movement, which ideologically falls in between the Reform branch _ which allows gay ordination and same-sex unions _ and the more traditional Orthodox branch, which does not.
JTS serves as an academic center of Conservative Judaism and is one of the movement’s five seminaries. The other U.S. seminary, the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, has admitted two openly gay students for its fall term; seminaries in Israel, Hungary and Argentina have not announced plans to follow suit.
_ Nicole Neroulias
Former Alabama Megachurh Pastor Suspended Because of Affair
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) A former Alabama megachurch pastor and chaplain for the Samford University football team has been suspended from his evangelistic ministry after he admitted to “moral and spiritual indiscretion.”
Rick Ousley, founding pastor at the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, saw his speaking engagements canceled and his Web site shut down by the board of directors of Quixotic Ministries, which he founded after retiring from Brook Hills in 2005.
Ousley, 55, a nationally known evangelist who has given invocations at NASCAR races, admitted having an extramarital affair, said Ousley’s attorney and spokesman, Gordon Pate.
Ousley issued a written statement last Thursday (March 22):
“In the fall of 2005, I committed a moral and spiritual indiscretion with a woman not my wife. That woman has decided to make this public. I have acknowledged my sin to God, my wife, my family and to my ministry team. We are all now attempting to deal with this as God leads. I ask for your prayers during this difficult time.”
Donna Jones of Katy, Texas, said that the reference to an indiscretion in fall 2005 refers to a weeklong trip she and Ousley took together to a cabin near Dallas.
Jones, 43, said that she began a sexual relationship with Ousley in 1981 and met him twice in recent years for trysts on his trips with Samford’s football team.
Ousley has been team chaplain for 15 years at Samford, where he graduated in 1975. Pate said Ousley will no longer be chaplain for the team. “He is voluntarily stepping down from that position.”
Jones said she began baby-sitting Ousley’s children when she was 15, and began a sexual relationship with Ousley in Houston when she was 18 and he was 29, after he and his first wife divorced. Jones said Ousley continued the relationship with her after he married his current wife, Joyce.
“It’s sad,” Jones said. “I’m not proud of it.”
Ousley, who helped grow the Church at Brook Hills from 30 members in 1990 to worship attendance of 4,000, retired amid serious health problems. But he continued to work as a traveling evangelist through Quixotic Ministries.
“We don’t have much comment,” said current Pastor David Platt. “We want to be a source of prayer and support for Rick Ousley and his family.”
_ Greg Garrison
Vatican to Probe Miracle Credited to Pope John Paul I
VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Roman Catholic Church will investigate a life-saving miracle attributed to the late Pope John Paul I, bringing the pontiff who served only 33 days in 1978 one step closer to possible sainthood.
John Paul reigned from Aug. 26 to Sept. 28, 1978, when he died of an apparent heart attack. His papacy was one of the briefest in history. In June 2003, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints opened the way for his beatification, the rank just below sainthood.
To qualify for beatification, a candidate must have been a martyr or have a miracle attributed to his or her intercession. An investigation by John Paul’s native diocese of Belluno in northeastern Italy concluded last November without finding evidence of such a miracle.
Now another tribunal will consider the case of a man in the southern Italian region of Apulia who claims to have been cured of lymphoma 14 years ago through the intercession of the late pope.
The diocese of Altamura-Gravina-Acquaviva delle Fonti will begin investigating the presumed miracle “in the coming weeks,” said the Rev. Enrico Dal Covolo, the postulator (or official advocate) for the cause of John Paul’s beatification.
In his brief time as a world figure, John Paul acquired a reputation for exceptional warmth and humility. His reported first words to his fellow cardinals upon his election were: “May God forgive you for what you have done.”
Although he seems to have suffered from poor health prior to his election as pope, John Paul’s sudden death and his burial without an autopsy gave rise to suspicions and conspiracy theories.
Dal Covolo dismissed rumors that the pope was poisoned as an “urban myth” inspired by a desire to “give the church a bad name.”
John Paul’s embrace of the responsibilities that apparently precipitated his death is evidence of his sanctity, Dal Covolo said. “If the Lord wills that that he be canonized a saint, it will be because he is the model of the Good Shepherd who gives his life for his sheep.”
If John Paul is beatified, a second miracle would be required for canonization.
_ Francis X. Rocca
Chao: Program Involving Faith-based Groups Produced Lower Recidivism Rates
WASHINGTON (RNS) Government officials said a pilot prisoner-entry program that partners government and faith-based groups may have helped reduce the percentage of former prisoners who returned behind bars.
U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao announced the results of a “Ready4Work” project at a gathering of policymakers, faith-based and community leaders and government and foundation officials on Thursday (March 22). It showed recidivism rates for program participants were 45 percent lower than the national rate after six months and 30 percent lower than the national re-incarceration rate a year after release.
“The results have been very encouraging,” Chao said in remarks at the meeting hosted by the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives.
A total of 4,482 former prisoners were involved in the three-year program. Analysis of the program found that 2.75 percent returned to state prisons within six months of release and 7.28 percent were reincarcerated a year after release.
According to statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the national average recidivism rate was 5 percent after six months and 10.4 percent after a year.
The Ready4Work program, which the faith-based office launched in 2003, involved providing services such as mentoring and job training to former prisoners in 11 cities. The $25 million program was funded by the Departments of Labor and Justice, private foundations and Public/Private Ventures, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization.
Fred Davie, president of Public/Private Ventures, said the findings followed typical results for programs for ex-offenders, who are more likely to return to prison after a year’s time than after six months.
“The idea, obviously, is to get it to the point where you don’t have this attrition and this drop-off,” he said. “We believe if we can sustain these efforts that we can hopefully hold that six-month rate steady.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: Federal Judge Lowell A. Reed Jr.
(RNS) “Despite my personal regret at having to set aside yet another attempt to protect our children from harmful material, perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection.”
_ Lowell A. Reed Jr., a federal judge in Philadelphia, in his March 22 ruling that struck down the 1998 Child Protection Act. He was quoted by The New York Times.
KRE/RB END RNS
