c. 1997 Religion News Service
Episcopal convention opens with gay, ecumenical issues
(RNS) The head of the Episcopal Church said his denomination will not be excommunicated by other members of the worldwide Anglican Communion if it decides to bless same-sex unions.
Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning made the prediction Wednesday (July 16) during an opening-day press conference at his church’s triennial General Convention meeting in Philadelphia. The convention, which continues through July 25, promises to be a watershed meeting for the influential church.
Not only is it facing issues involving sexuality, but it also is on the verge of a major ecumenical agreement between Episcopalians and Lutherans.
The ecumenical agreement appears to be a shoe-in. The church’s bishops approved it handily Wednesday, sending it to the convention’s lower House of Deputies for final action.
But the same-sex union proposal is in trouble.
Browning said there are reports that at least one Anglican group in Asia has said it will consider the Episcopal Church out of communion with the rest of the world’s Anglicans if same-sex unions are approved. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Browning said that while pressure is building for the church to bless same-sex unions in the United States, he doesn’t think the issue will pass this convention.
However, Michael Hopkins, a spokesman for Integrity, the denomination’s gay and lesbian caucus, said a compromise is being worked out.
The convention is being asked to place same-sex union rites on the same level as heterosexual marriage as a churchwide policy. But Hopkins said it is likely the convention will allow rites based on a “pastoral response” to the needs of gay and lesbian couples in local congregations.
Hopkins predicted such a local-option measure will pass the convention’s House of Deputies. He added there are as many as 20 bishops in the 200-member upper House of Bishops who are ready to authorize the blessings in their dioceses.
Greek Orthodox school wracked by dispute
(RNS) The only Greek Orthodox college complex in the United States _ the 182-student Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Mass. _ has become the scene of a major struggle pitting ecclesiastical authority against academic tradition.
The campus has in recent months seen the firing of four of its 17 professors, including the president, who is also a tenured professor. A lawsuit has also been filed against the school by an administrator who leaked details of the dispute to the press and two deans have resigned.
Now, a new president has been appointed who vows to move forward a school several faculty members and clerics said has long been riven by personality conflicts, infighting and power struggles, according to the July 18 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education.
The turmoil began after a committee was established this spring to investigate allegations of drunkenness at a student party and sexual misconduct by a priest at the party. The committee recommended in April that the priest _ a student at the theology school who has since graduated _ be expelled and several students disciplined.
The students appealed to the Rev. George D. Dragas, dean of the graduate theology school. In mid-June, Dragas issued a response disputing most of the committee’s findings and overturning its recommendations for discipline.
The result has been firings, demotions, resignations and reassignments. The actions were ordered by Archbishop Spyridon, who was named head of the Greek Orthodox Church in the United States last year.
Defenders of the archbishop say new prelates traditionally have made personnel changes at the school. Others see the dismissals as part of the ongoing tension between intellectual independence and obedience to the church hierarchy.
Dragas resigned in June, as did Aristotle Michopoulos, dean at Hellenic College. Administrator Valerie A. Karras, who leaked details of the dispute to reporters, was told she could leave the school with full pay before her contract expires on August 31.
The offer was made one day before she filed a complaint with the attorney general of Massachusetts alleging that the dismissals and demotions violated the institution’s bylaws and threatened its accreditation. She said she will reject the school’s offer.
The archbishop has named Bishop Isaiah, head of the church’s Denver diocese, as the new president, replacing the Rev. Alkiviadis C. Calivas, a member of the investigating committee.
In a statement released Monday (July 14), Isaiah said he would seek to clear up the dispute to preserve the school’s integrity.
Pax Christi urges outlawing of nuclear weapons
(RNS) Fearing the further proliferation of nuclear weapons in the 21st century, members of Pax Christi International, the Roman Catholic peace movement, are urging international negotiations that would lead to the outlawing of such weapons.
A resolution calling for an international convention on the issue by the year 2000 was approved at Pax Christi’s International Council, held in London July 5-13 and attended by about 170 people from 37 countries, the organization reported.”The Holy See has called nuclear deterrence an impediment to peace,”said Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels, president of Pax Christi International.”This resolution expresses the hope of concerned Catholics all over the world that we must enter the third millennium free of the cataclysmic potential these weapons pose.” The resolution asks the nations who have nuclear weapons to fulfill their obligation under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, as reiterated by the International Court of Justice in its landmark advisory opinion last year.
A statement from Pax Christi said the nuclear weapons nations, particularly the United States, are embarking on the largest expansion and reinvestment in their nuclear weapons infrastructures since the Manhattan Project 50 years ago. The United States will spend more than $340 billion on nuclear weapons complex over the next decade, according to Pax Christi.”The allocation of such enormous resources to the nuclear weapons complex raises extraordinary concerns for Catholics that `progressive disarmament’ has once and for all been abandoned,”said Bishop Walter Sullivan, president of Pax Christi USA.
Draft of new Thai constitution calls for no state religion
(RNS) Thailand, although overwhelmingly Buddhist, will not have a designated state religion in its new constitution now being formulated.
Resisting pressure from Buddhist clergy, an assembly drafting the constitution in Bangkok voted 66-7 Sunday (July 13) against designating Buddhism as the national religion.
Buddhist monks had threatened to refuse religious rites for those spurning their demands, according to the Associated Press. But a greater fear in the assembly seemed to be that elevating Buddhism above other religions could incite secular passions in the south, where most of Thailand’s Muslim minority lives.
Muslims constitute 4 percent of the Thai population.
Backers of a national religion said it would help Buddhist clergy collect state subsidies and other support. One opponent said that Buddhist clergy, whose reputation has been stung by recent scandals, should stay out of politics.
The new constitution for the 60 million Thais will replace one written by the country’s last military government in 1991-92. It will be submitted to the parliament for approval in August.
Additional food aid for North Korea welcomed
(RNS) Religious and humanitarian agencies applauded the Clinton administration’s announcement Monday (July 14) to double previous U.S. donations of food aid to famine-plagued North Korea.
The United States will send an estimated 100,000 tons of grain worth $27 million to children and the elderly through the United Nations World Food Program and independent groups, according to news sources.”The United States is finally stepping up to the plate and assuming its leadership role, which it should have done before,”said Andrew S. Natsios, vice president of World Vision, the international Christian aid agency.
The issue of how much food to provide North Korea has been debated among officials in the Clinton administration and Congress for several months. The main obstacle has been the fear that the aid would be diverted to the North Korean military.
Natsios and other religious and humanitarian officials have recently visited North Korea and decried the famine conditions.
Also just returned from North Korea is David E. Sorensen, an official of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A release from the church said it has contributed some $3 million in humanitarian aid to North Korea between 1995 and June of this year.”It appeared to us during our tour that relief agencies were distributing aid in an efficient and satisfactory manner,”said Sorensen.
The U.S. decision comes three weeks before a crucial meeting in New York of North Korean, South Korean, Chinese and U.S. officials to decide the timing,location and agenda for future negotiations on a permanent peace treaty ending the 1950-53 Korean War, a negotiation that North Korea has frequently linked to receiving additional food aid.
U.S. officials publicly denied any connection between the aid and the forthcoming talks. Privately, officials said past assistance has improved the political climate, the Washington Post reported.
Said Natsios,”It is literally true that politics is killing people”(in North Korea) because the international response has been so slow.”
Chinese official: Religion in China enjoys”golden time” (RNS) The head of religious affairs for the Chinese government said Tuesday (July 15) that believers in his country are experiencing a”golden time”compared with the past.
Speaking through a translator at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Ye Xiao Wen, director general of the Religious Affairs Bureau of China’s State Council, said new Christian churches are continually opening and religious freedom is growing in China.
However, Ye emphasized that nonbelievers constitute the vast majority in China. Only 100 million of China’s 1.2 billion citizens hold religious beliefs, Ye said, according to the Washington Times.
Human rights and Christian watchdog groups allege the number of believers in China is much higher than Ye’s figure. For example, the Chinese government says there are 4 million Catholics and 10 million Protestants in China.
However, critics of the Chinese government say there are between 40 million and 60 million Christians in China, the majority of them members of illegal underground churches known as”house churches.” Believers resort to these underground churches to worship freely and avoid what they call religious persecution, according to groups such as Freedom House.
Wednesday (July 16), Ye met in Washington with representatives of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE).”We had a very candid exchange of views on the subject of religious freedom in China,”said the Rev. Richard Cizik, an NAE representative who presented Ye with a list of individuals believed to be victims of religious persecution.
Ye promised to investigate the list. But his initial response was that the individuals on it were being held because they are criminals, not because of their religious beliefs, Cizik said.
Ye is visiting the United States with a delegation from China’s Center of Religious Research and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches, the only Protestant denomination officially sanctioned by the Chinese government.
The visit, sponsored by the Christian Leadership Exchange, included meetings in Washington with the NAE and some members of Congress. Friday (July 18), the delegation will meet in New York with representatives of the National Council of Churches, the Church Center for the United Nations and the American Bible Society.
Quote of the Day: The Muslim Journal on boxer Mike Tyson
(RNS) Reacting to boxer Mike Tyson’s recent one-year suspension and $3 million dollar fine for biting opponent Evander Holyfield during a fight, the weekly Muslim Journal wrote:”Mike Tyson has declared himself a Muslim. Therefore, he must work to bring his behavior in accord with the civilized code of Muslims. Even in battles of war where lives and liberties are at stake, the Muslim has a code of conduct. It would be great therapy for Tyson to become familiar with this Islamic history.”
MJP END RNS
