c. 2007 Religion News Service
Presiding Bishop of Church of God in Christ Dead at 67
(RNS) Bishop Gilbert E. Patterson, the presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ, died Tuesday (March 20) of heart failure. He was 67.
Patterson was in his second term as presiding bishop of the predominantly black Pentecostal denomination, after first being elected in 2000. Patterson, the pastor of Temple of Deliverance Church of God in Christ in Memphis, Tenn., was defeated by one vote in a close election in 1996.
“The entire church and world mourns the loss of our leader,” said Bishop Charles E. Blake Sr., the denomination’s first assistant presiding bishop, in an announcement on the Church of God in Christ’s Web site.
“He was the leader of our international church, a leader in the Memphis community and a leader in the Christian community.”
Sherry DuPree, an authority on African-American Pentecostal groups, said Patterson worked to modernize his denomination, helping ministers and others gain health insurance benefits and other services.
“I think he carried the church forward,” said DuPree, a member of the Church of God in Christ. “He was working towards helping the church to become more self-sufficient and helping the members of the church to have services that they don’t have ordinarily.”
Patterson, a native of Humboldt, Tenn., was ordained in 1958. His Memphis congregation has more than 12,000 members.
The Church of God in Christ was ranked as the fifth-largest denomination in America by the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, with a membership of almost 5.5 million. It will celebrate its 100th annual Holy Convocation in November in Memphis.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Lobbying Begins to Allow Women Clergy in Christian Reformed Church
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (RNS) Lobbying has begun to persuade delegates to this year’s Christian Reformed Church Synod to overturn measures that would allow all CRC churches to ordain women but bar them from serving as synodical delegates or deputies.
The measures were approved by last year’s Synod, but allowing all churches to ordain women must be ratified this June to take effect.
“I’d like to see women in the Christian Reformed Church be empowered to lead,” said the Rev. Jacci Busch, a Calvin College chaplain and member of vigil organizer Hearts Aflame.
“It’s a matter of putting ourselves as a denomination and as a people before God in prayer over the issue of women in office. We want God to heal our denomination and to move the issue forward.”
Hearts Aflame is one of two groups formed to build momentum for change as the Synod approaches. A second, called Cloud of Witnesses, plans a number of lobbying efforts.
Shirley Roels, a management professor at Calvin College and a member of Cloud of Witnesses, attended the vigil.
“I work with a lot of students thinking about ministry,” she said. “There is an abundance of men and women. The church needs their energy so badly, and I just want the church to have places for all of them.”
_ Patricia Mish
Michigan Diocese to Sell Episcopal Cathedral
PORTAGE, Mich. (RNS) The landmark cathedral for the Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan will be sold after church officials determined they cannot afford upkeep on the Cathedral of Christ the King.
Faced with a dwindling operating fund and lack of public support for a capital campaign, the diocese’s executive council voted there was no way to retain the building and its 30-acre grounds.
“Practically, it was the only decision the diocese could make, because we’re out of money, and the building costs quite a bit just to maintain,” said Bishop Robert Gepert, leader of the diocese’s 14,000 members. “The shame is that we haven’t been good stewards in the past, and this is a resource that could have been used in the future.”
But the pastor of a small congregation that meets in the cathedral disputed Gepert’s rationale, saying she believes he wanted it sold.
“I believe if half the energy that has been used to tear down this building had been used to build it up, we would not find ourselves in the position we find ourselves in now,” said the Rev. Cynthia Black, rector of the Parish Church of Christ the King.
The Portage city assessor’s office estimates the value at $1.2 million. It is one of the last large parcels of land that could be developed in Portage, said city assessor Jim Bush.
Black said she was one of three on the 13-member council who voted against the sale. With its medieval castle-like architecture looming close to Interstate 94, the cathedral is a beacon to passing motorists, she said.
“It in many ways is the face of the Episcopal Church in this part of the world,” Black said. “What does it say to those 100,000 cars that in the blink of an eye the bishop and authorities are willing to get rid of it?”
_ Charles Honey
Catholic Bishops Condemn Maguire on Birth Control, Gay Marriage
(RNS) The U.S. Catholic bishops have denounced as “irresponsible” and “false teaching” a longtime Catholic theologian’s insistence that Catholics are able to dissent from the hierarchy’s opposition to contraceptives, same-sex marriage and abortion.
Daniel C. Maguire, a professor of moral theology at Marquette University, has written pamphlets that are “erroneous and incompatible with the Church’s teaching,” the bishops said in a statement released Thursday (March 22).
“We deplore as irresponsible his public advocacy of his views as authentic Catholic teaching,” the bishops said. Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the bishops, said the denunciation carries the full weight of the U.S. bishops.
Such condemnations are “not unheard of, but they don’t happen every week,” Walsh said. The U.S. bishops supported the Vatican’s condemnation of Jesuit theologian Roger Haight in 2005 and “expressed concern” over the Rev. Richard McBrien’s book “Catholicism” in 1996, according to Walsh.
Maguire, 75, said in an interview that he’s been disputing the Catholic hierarchy’s views on sexuality since 1968, when Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical, Humanae Vitae, that opposed artificial birth control.
The bishops practice “theology in a cocoon. They’re out of touch with mainstream theologians,” he said. A tenured professor at Marquette, a Jesuit institution in Milwaukee, Maguire said he does not expect to be punished by the school.
“They’ve been defending my academic freedom for 35 years and I don’t think it’s going to stop now,” he said. Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan has banned Maguire from speaking on church property, Maguire said.
Last June, Maguire sent two pamphlets, “The Moderate Roman Catholic Position on Contraception and Abortion” and “A Catholic Defense of Same-Sex Marriage,” to 270 U.S. bishops. Maguire said between 1,500 and 2,000 pamphlets were also distributed by the Religious Consultation on Population, Reproductive Health and Ethics, which he serves as president.
In the pamphlets, Maguire asserted “there is no one position on contraception and abortion” that can be called “Catholic.” The bishops are but one of three “sources of truth,” he argued, insisting that the laity and theologians share a role in formulating doctrine.
The U.S. bishops sharply disagreed. “The bishops are the successors of the apostles, who are given the authority to proclaim the teaching of Jesus Christ,” the bishops’ doctrine committee wrote.
_ Daniel Burke
Fessio Rehired at Ave Maria University
(RNS) A day after the Rev. Joseph Fessio was fired as provost of Ave Maria University, he was re-hired to be the school’s theologian-in-residence.
“I’m back and I’m glad,” Fessio told the Naples Daily News.
The 66-year-old Jesuit was fired on Wednesday (March 21) after meeting with Ave Maria’s founder and chancellor, Domino’s Pizza magnate Tom Monaghan. Fessio said he was not given a reason. The university, based near Naples, Fla., said he was ousted because of an “irreconcilable difference over administrative policy and practices.”
On Thursday, Ave Maria said “as a sign of our esteem for his great gifts and abilities, we have asked Father Fessio and he has agreed to continue a relationship.”
Fessio will keep a room on campus and teach during the spring semester, the university said. He will also attend the commencement exercises, teach a planned summer course and look into semester-abroad programs in Rome and Austria, according to the university.
Monaghan, who envisions Ave Maria and its surrounding town as bastions of Catholic orthodoxy, has poured millions into the project. Founded in 2003, Ave Maria plans to open its new campus later this year.
_ Daniel Burke
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.
_ Nicole Neroulias
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.”
_ Francis X. Rocca
List of Top 50 Rabbis Raises a Few Eyebrows
NEW YORK (RNS) Many versions of a common Jewish joke boil down to a basic punchline: two Jews will always have at least three opinions. So it’s no surprise that the list of “America’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis” unveiled Monday (March 26) in Newsweek has prompted a few raised eyebrows among readers.
The rankings, compiled by Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton, News Corp.’s Gary Ginsberg and Jay Sanderson of JTN Productions, include 18 Reform, 17 Orthodox, 10 Conservative, three Reconstructionist and two Renewal rabbis.
The businessmen used a point system that rewarded rabbis with international reputations and large constituencies, granting the top spot to Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.
Critics say the subjective list favors Los Angeles and New York, downplays local influence and ignores religious scholarship.
This list also mixes rabbis that lead congregations with ordained men who are not practicing rabbis, such as the No. 2 slot’s Yehuda Krinsky, head of the Chabad movement’s emissary program.
At the same time, it excludes lay leaders of major religious institutions, such as Jewish Theological Seminary’s Arnold Eisen, who recently announced the school’s decision to begin accepting gay students.
“Perhaps it would be more `scientific’ to restrict the list to congregational rabbis,” said Jonathan D. Sarna, an expert in American Judaism at Brandeis University.
Sarna, an Orthodox Jew, also questioned Yehuda Berg’s inclusion as an Orthodox rabbi. Berg, who earned the No. 4 spot, founded the Kabbalah Centre, a controversial center in Los Angeles that has attracted many non-Jews.
No female rabbis were named in the top 10 list; only five made the list at all. A better list of 50 influential Jews, Sarna said, is compiled every year by The Jewish Daily Forward.
“That list includes rabbis and lay leaders and is, therefore, more revealing of the power structure of the American Jewish community,” he said.
_ Nicole Neroulias
Soulforce Members Arrested at Seminary Sit-in
(RNS) A dozen members of the Christian gay rights group Soulforce were arrested Monday (March 26) outside the office of a seminary president who recently said he would support medical treatment to change the sexual orientation of a fetus from homosexual to heterosexual.
Twenty-two members of Soulforce tried to visit the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr. at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Twelve were later arrested and charged with criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor, Soulforce said.
In a March 2 entry on http://www.albertmohler.com, Mohler said he would support the idea of changing the sexual orientation of a fetus inside its mother’s womb if such a treatment were to be developed.
“… Where President Mohler sees distortion, we see diversity,” the protesters said in a statement read outside Mohler’s office during their “Equality Ride” to Christian college campuses.
“As it stands, his voice is terribly misguided in believing that God does not affirm the identities of gay and transgender people.”
In his blog, Mohler advised Christians: “If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin.”
Mohler later said in an interview that he was referring to a possible hormone treatment and not arguing for genetic therapy.
When the protesters were not allowed to see Mohler, they staged a sit-in. Seminary spokesman Lawrence Smith said he asked students to leave because “they were disrupting seminary business.”
“This wasn’t about trying to create dialogue,” Smith said. “It was about trying to attract attention.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Archbishop of Canterbury Says Slavery Reparations Should be Paid
LONDON (RNS) Saying that apologies don’t go far enough, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has suggested the Church of England should consider paying back the money it once received as compensation when the hundreds of slaves it owned were freed.
Williams said Monday (March 26) that the church and other organizations profited from the “historic legacy” of compensation after Britain outlawed slavery in the early 19th century. The leader of the Church of England said the church still has a “responsibility” to make amends in some fashion.
The immediate problem, he said, is in deciding where the money should go, or how much money might be involved. “I haven’t got a quick solution to that,” he conceded.
The archbishop made his suggestions during a radio debate marking the 200th anniversary of Britain’s abolition of slavery _ although it was another 26 years, until 1833, that the slaves themselves were actually freed.
The British government paid 20,000 pounds _ equivalent to nearly $3 million today _ to Anglican organizations and individuals for what was described as “loss of property and revenue” when the slaves were freed.
“While it sounds simple to say, all right, so we should pass on the reparation that was received” when the Church of England, on orders from the government, freed its slaves, “exactly to whom?” Williams asked. “Exactly where does it go?”
“So I haven’t got a quick solution to that,” but “I think we need to be asking the question and working at it,” he said. “That’s, I think, (what) we’re beginning to do.”
Anti-slavery campaigners in Britain have been calling for years for reparations to be made to the descendants of slaves, or said the money should be used to help pay off the debts of African nations.
The Church of England’s record in the slave trade included the 665 slaves for which the Anglican bishop of Exeter and three business colleagues were paid nearly 13,000 pounds in 1833.
The Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Foreign Parts, an Anglican group, received another 8,828 pounds from the British government when the society’s slaves were freed from its plantation in Barbados.
_ Al Webb
Quote of the Week: 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.
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