c. 1996 Religion News Service
Oregon judge denies church’s request to destroy tape of jailed suspect
(RNS)-An Oregon judge has denied the Catholic Church’s request to destroy a tape recording made secretly during a jailed suspect’s confession meeting with a priest.
Lane County Circuit Judge Jack Billings said in a June 13 letter that the church is not a party in a triple-murder case against Conan Wayne Hale and cannot intervene, the Associated Press reported.
Hale has been charged with the Dec. 21 shooting deaths of three teen-agers.
Bud Bunce, Archdiocese of Portland spokesman, said church officials have not decided whether they will appeal the decision.
Church lawyers argued that destroying the tape would not harm the state’s case against Hale or Hale’s defense. They said the mere existence of the tape causes suspicion that priests cannot administer sacraments in jail without being overheard.
Last month, District Attorney Doug Harcleroad, who ordered the taping, said his office would not use the tape against Hale.
However, Harcleroad wants the tape preserved so he can prove that evidence he introduces was not tainted by the taping. Terri Wood, Hale’s lawyer, also wants the tape preserved, so it can be used to challenge evidence in the case.
The tape was made April 22 when Hale met with the Rev. Timothy Mockaitis. The contents of the tape and a transcript are sealed under a court order, with no indication that Hale confessed to the crimes.
Christian Reformed Church retains 1995 stand allowing women’s ordination
(RNS)-Delegates to the annual synod of the Christian Reformed Church in North America decided Tuesday (June 18) to decline 24 petitions challenging the 1995 synod decision to allow regional church groups to ordain women.
The issue of women’s ordination has divided the denomination for 30 years.
Gordon Pols, vice president of the the synod-the denomination’s top decision-making body-called women’s ordination”an intractable problem.” He encouraged unity within the denomination despite disagreement on the issue.”If we let each other go, none of us will fare well,”he said.
But some delegates said they were doubtful that they could remain in a denomination where women can be ordained as ministers, evangelists and elders.”We have the feeling that we are gradually being pushed out of the church,”said the Rev. Henry Vanden Heuvel of Oak Lawn, Ill.”Where can we as conservatives go?” The meeting in Grand Rapids, Mich., attended by 184 delegates, is scheduled to conclude by Friday (June 21).
In other action, the synod passed a resolution supporting African-American churches that have recently been burned across the country.
The delegates also decided to discontinue exchanging delegates at major assemblies with the Gerformeerde Kerken in Nederland, or the Reformed Church of the Netherlands. This marks another step in restricting relations with the Netherlands group, which decided in 1979 to allow practicing homosexuals to serve as pastors. The Christian Reformed Church voted in 1973 that practicing homosexuals could not serve as pastors or hold other offices in the church.
Many members of the Christian Reformed Church were members of the Netherlands group before they moved to North America.
Meanwhile, the synod acknowledged a letter from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church suspending ecclesiastical fellowship between the two groups. The conservative Presbyterian denomination intends to terminate its relationship with the Christian Reformed Church if it does not change its 1995 decision concerning women’s ordination.
The Christian Reformed Church has 291,796 members in the United States and Canada.
Scientist finds surprises in St. Chad’s bones
(RNS)-Carbon-14 dating has confirmed the bones of St. Chad, venerated at Birmingham, England’s Roman Catholic cathedral, date to the time of the saint’s life.
But over time, two other people’s bones have been mixed with those of St. Chad.
Announcing her findings at Archbishop’s House, Birmingham, Friday (June 14), scientist Angela Boyle stated that five of the collection of six bones comprising St. Chad’s relics dated from the sixth or seventh century while the sixth belonged to the eighth or ninth century.
One bone within the group of five is larger than the other four and those relics include three leg bones. These findings led to the conclusion that three people’s bones have been mixed together.
St. Chad or Ceadda was a pupil of Aidan of Lindisfarne, one of the celebrated saints of Northumbria, an early English kingdom covering what is now northeast England. He was appointed by Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury as the first bishop for the previously pagan kingdom of Mercia in 669, where he established his see at Lichfield, just 16 miles north of Birmingham.
He died three years later, in 672. During the Reformation his relics were removed from Lichfield Cathedral and kept by one of the region’s Catholic families. When Birmingham’s Roman Catholic cathedral was consecrated in 1841 the relics were transferred there.
Vatican in the black for third straight year
(RNS)-The Vatican has announced that it registered a small budget surplus in 1995 for the third consecutive year.
Total operating income for 1995 was $194.1 million, while the total operating cost was $192.4 million-leaving a $1.7-million surplus. In 1994, the Vatican reported a surplus of $433,000.
The Vatican budget covers the Roman Catholic Church’s central administration, its diplomatic missions, Vatican Radio, the newspaper L’Osservatore Romano and the Vatican’s printing and publishing departments. The budget does not cover”Peter’s Pence”donations from local churches to the pope as well as the Vatican’s museum, post office and mint operations.
In 1993, the Vatican recorded its first operating surplus following 23 consecutive years of losses. In 1991, the annual deficit peaked at $87.5 million.
Despite the turnaround, Cardinal Edmund Szoka, the former archbishop of Detroit who now heads the Vatican’s Prefecture for Economic Affairs, said Vatican finances are still tenuous.”Even a slight shift in expenses or income could again put us in a deficit situation,”he said Wednesday (June 19), according to Reuter news agency.”However, having had three consecutive years with an operating profit, we can certainly be more confident about the future than we were in the past.” Szoka said the prime reason for the 1995 surplus was a $55.4-million profit from financial and real estate investments, the Associated Press reported.
Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury to meet later this year
(RNS)-Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey will meet with Pope John Paul II in December.
The Anglican and Roman Catholic leaders will meet at the Vatican, which said in a statement released Wednesday (June 19) that Carey will be accompanied by his wife, Eileen.
Carey and the pope last met in 1992, when their meeting was clouded by disagreement between the two churches over the ordination of women.
Carey defended the ordination of women, which is widespread in the worldwide Anglican Communion. John Paul, who opposes female ordination, said the issue presented a”grave obstacle”to eventual unity between the two churches.
Tajikistan elects a new Muslim leader
(RNS)-Tajikistan Muslims have a new religious leader, Haji Amonullo Negmatzoda, imam of the central Asian republic’s oldest mosque.
Negmatzoda was chosen Tajikistan’s new mufti-a title that implies having the legal authority to make religious decisions-by delegates to the nation’s second Muslim congress held Wednesday (June 19) in Dushanbe, the capital city.
Negmatzoda’s predecessor-Fatkhullo Sharifzoda-was assassinated in January by unknown assailants. Tajikistan, a predominantly Muslim nation of 5.6 million people, has experienced civil strife between government forces and militants who want the state ruled in accordance with Islamic law.
Reuter news agency said Negmatzoda, 55, is considered a compromise candidate who poses no threat to the government and has no deep connection to any of Tajikistan’s rival clans.
Quote of the Day: Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations
(RNS)-Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, was recently installed as president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Reform Judaism’s synagogue umbrella agency. In his installation sermon, Yoffie addressed the spiritual predicament of contemporary American Jews:”They are searching for the poetry of faith, because the need for transcendental meaning is as present as an open sore. This is a generation that wants to believe; that is seeking a modicum of decency; that is yearning for the sacred. The modern Jew-so successful and sophisticated, so cynical and skeptical-is yearning, knowingly or not, for God.”But the tragedy, of course, is that they have no idea how to proceed. They have no reservoir of Jewish memory, no enduring ethnic ties. Their religious desires are fraught with contradictions; they want to be open to mystical modes of perception, without surrendering rational thinking; they want both a world of meditation and a world of e-mail. And most significant of all, too many of them are frightfully ignorant of all things Jewish; they know nothing whatever of the mystery and romance of Jewish history, of the power and profundity of Jewish faith.”
MJP END RNS
