c. 2008 Religion News Service
Two Jesuits found murdered in Moscow
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Two Jesuit priests have been found dead, apparently victims of murder, in their Moscow home.
The bodies of the Rev. Victor Betancourt, 42, and the Rev. Otto Messmer, 47, were found in their shared apartment in the Russian capital on Tuesday (Oct. 28).
According to a statement from local prosecutors quoted by the Reuters news agency, the two “had skull and brain injuries. Forensic experts have established that they died more than a day before.”
Betancourt, a native of Ecuador, was a professor of theology. Messmer, a Russian citizen from an ethnic German family, was the senior official of the Society of Jesus (as the Jesuits are officially known) in Russia.
“People are really, really shocked,” said the Rev. Tomas Garcia Huidobro, a Jesuit in Washington, D.C. who worked with both of the dead priests this summer in Moscow. “We have no idea how this could have happened.”
Huidobro said that he had “absolutely not” felt any hostility toward the city’s small Jesuit community during his time there, despite occasional tensions between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches.
“We are so respectful of the Orthodox Church,” he said. “We do not do any proselytizing.”
The Rev. Igor Kovalesky, head of Russia’s Catholic Bishops Conference, told Reuters that these were not the first killings of Catholic priests in Russia.
“As for the motives, in previous cases it was purely crime, like robbery,” Kovalesky said.
The prosecutors’ statement said there was no evidence that property had been stolen from the apartment, and that investigators were considering the possibility of a “domestic crime, because the room bore signs of a party.”
Jesuit headquarters in Rome issued a statement on Wednesday (Oct. 29) specifying that Betancourt had been killed on Saturday (Oct. 25), and that Messmer had been killed “two days later _ in the same place,” “after returning from a trip abroad.”
The statement did not explain how timing of the first death had been determined.
_ Francis X. Rocca
Judge dismisses suit by New Orleans Catholics
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) A state court judge on Tuesday (Oct. 28) threw out a civil lawsuit by parishioners of Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church aimed at keeping their parish open.
Civil District Court Judge Kern Reese said four parishioners who brought the suit were not members of the legal corporation that constitutes the church parish, and thus had no standing to sue. The suit was filed in response to an Archdiocese of New Orleans consolidation plan.
The corporation members include the archbishop, his vicar general, the pastor of Good Counsel and two lay members of the parish. The lay seats apparently have been vacant for years.
The lawsuit was one of several actions parishioners are taking in an attempt to keep Good Counsel and a nearby parish, St. Henry, open.
Meanwhile, parishioners continued to spend 24-hour shifts sitting behind locked doors in the churches.
Reese told parishioners he was formerly a member of St. Frances Cabrini parish, a storm-damaged parish that earlier this year was merged with another. He sympathized with plaintiffs in their post-Katrina turmoil, but said his court offered no remedy.
_ Bruce Nolan
Zondervan acquires Bible Gateway, Gospel.com
CASCADE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (RNS) Christian book publisher Zondervan is acquiring BibleGateway.com, a popular nonprofit Bible search engine, from Gospel Communications Inc. of Muskegon.
The agreement signed Monday (Oct. 27) includes the Bible search engine, which averages 6 million different users each month, and Gospel.com, a central Web site for more than 250 Christian groups.
Eight employees involved in BibleGateway have been hired by Zondervan, said Gordon Loux, CEO of Gospel Communications.
Loux took the helm of the Internet and film organization two months ago, charged with finding new owners for sectors of the financially troubled nonprofit.
“We couldn’t be happier with the relationship with Zondervan,” he said. “Our expectations are that it will blossom many, many times over.”
Zondervan CEO Moe Girkins commended Gospel Communications “for being ahead of the curve” in the mid-1990s.
“They first had the vision to create a free, online Bible search tool that would include content from all of the key Bible publishers, would be functional and user-friendly and would meet a felt need of those looking to explore God’s word,” Girkins said.
Owned by HarperCollins, Zondervan expects to expand the Bible search site to incorporate more reference materials and study resources.
“Our vision is for BibleGateway.com to be the premier online aggregator of biblical resources, blending relevant content and community features for anyone searching for information to help them in their spiritual journey, wherever they may be,” Girkins said.
A waning pace of donations hit Gospel Communications starting in mid-2007, and the slowdown in the economy has not improved the outlook this year, Loux said.
On Oct. 1, Gospel Communications stopped accepting donations as it searched for buyers for its film production company and Internet sites. Zondervan’s offer came first, for an undisclosed sum.
Gospel.com, a Web site focused on bringing Christian organizations together, started last year. But Gospel Communications had worked with the groups for years.
“We were providing a lot of free services to about 250 organizations,” Loux said, “but those kinds of services are not free” to provide.
_ Julia Bauer
Quote of the Day: Hospice chaplain Vincent Corso
(RNS) “The ones with a family priest, they’re not calling us.”
_ Vincent Corso, pastoral care director for the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, describing efforts by his non-profit agency to provide hospice chaplains to New York City area patients who have no religious affiliation. He was quoted by The New York Times.
KRE/RB END RNS
