c. 1998 Religion News Service

Missouri Synod Lutherans end triennial meeting

(RNS) Some 450 years after Martin Luther sparked the Protestant Reformation that splintered Christendom, Lutherans themselves are divided over forging new relationships with other Christians.

Expressing”deep regret”and”profound disagreement,”delegates to the national convention of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod passed a resolution Wednesday (July 15) critical of ecumenical actions approved by their spiritual siblings in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.”… In faithfulness to God’s Word and the Lutheran Confessions, and motivated by our love and concern for the people and pastors of the ELCA, we express our deep regret and profound disagreement with these actions taken by the ELCA,”the convention said.

At issue is the ELCA’s approval last year of a declaration establishing”full communion”with three Reformed churches and the adoption this year of an agreement with the Roman Catholic Church on the doctrine of justification, the theology of how people are saved.

But the LCMS said it maintains its doctrinal differences with Reformed Christians on the nature of Holy Communion and with Catholics on the justification issue.

The 2.6 million-member Missouri Synod is the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States. Because of its conservative theological bent, the denomination did not participate in the 1988 merger that brought together most U.S. Lutheran churches to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

In other matters at the triennial convention, which ended Friday (July 15) in St. Louis, LCMS delegates considered a resolution to begin the process of changing the denomination’s name.

The process, said John Schuelke, would involve focus groups and an”implementation team”of board members, pastors and lay people, which would”lead to recommendations, one way or another, to the (Synod’s) 2001 convention.

Some believe the denomination’s name confuses outsiders.”When we talk to people in our district, especially people outside the church, they say `What’s a Missouri church doing in Texas?'”said Texas district president Gerald Kieschnick.”If we really are serious about reaching out to the unchurched, we need to be sensitive to any barriers which would be confusing to those we are trying to reach.” Three years ago, the Texas District suggested the denomination change its name to the International Lutheran Church to better reflect the church’s mission. This year it submitted an overture suggesting a name change to the Lutheran Church International.

The denomination was first called the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States when it was founded 150 years ago. It took its present name at its centennial convention in 1947.

During the weeklong meeting, the LCMS also passed resolutions decrying the”continued promotion of immorality and violence in the entertainment media,””the inhumane treatment of unborn children through willful abortion,”and”the erosion of those family values that are based on the Scriptures.”

Calif. Catholic diocese ordered to pay $30 million for clergy sex abuse

(RNS) Two brothers who were molested by a Roman Catholic priest for more than a decade were awarded $30 million Thursday (July 16) by a jury in Stockton, Calif.

Jon, 19, and James Howard, 23, sued the Diocese of Stockton, saying officials should have done more to protect children from the Rev. Oliver O’Grady, a priest with a history of child sex abuse, according to news reports.

In 1993, O’Grady was sentenced to 14 years in prison for molesting the Howards.”I am ecstatic,”Jon Howard said after the award.”I feel so relieved and vindicated by this. A huge amount of burden and shame has been lifted. This has been an incredible day.” The award comes on the heels of last week’s agreement by the Diocese of Dallas to pay $23 million to eight former altar boys who were sexually abused by a priest. A jury had awarded the plaintiffs in that case $119 million _ the largest such award for a clergy sex abuse case _ but they settled for the lesser amount after the diocese said the huge award would bankrupt it.

The brothers testified that O’Grady was like a trusted uncle, often sleeping at the family’s house, taking the boys on vacation, or having them sleep at the rectory, the Washington Post reported. They said they had been molested by O’Grady throughout their lives as their family followed him from one parish to another.

A star witness in the case was Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, who was bishop of Stockton from 1980 to 1985. He testified he was unaware of the abuse.”For the last 17 years, innocent children were traumatized because top church officials wouldn’t tell parents or police about this pedophile priest,”said David Clohessy of SNAP _ Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.”The level of corruption may be mind-boggling to some, but thankfully not to the jury and victims who spent years trying to get justice and protect others.”

Robertson asks university to return grant tied to NEA

(RNS) Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson has asked his Regent University to return $1,000 it received from the Virginia Commission for the Arts because the funds had ties to the National Endowment for the Arts.

The money was used to help finance”Pavel’s Chariot,”a recently completed film about the Holocaust.

The decision by Robertson, a staunch critic of the NEA, came after American United for Separation of Church and State suggested Regent University was hypocritical in accepting the grant, the Associated Press reported.”If a multimillionaire like Robertson is so opposed to public arts funding, one has to wonder why he would go to the government for a handout,”said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United.

But a statement released by the university said Robertson”was not aware, had no knowledge about the grant involving the NEA.” Robertson and the Christian Coalition, which he also founded, have accused the NEA of using tax money to support artists who”attack religion and promote obscene and blasphemous images,”according to the AP.

Guatemalan rights activists say they won’t cooperate with the government

(RNS) Human rights activists who worked with slain Guatemalan Roman Catholic Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi say they no longer trust the Guatemalan government and have ended their cooperation with a high-level commission probing last April’s murder of the bishop.

Gerardi was murdered three days after he presented the first part of a four-volume report on human rights abuses during the Guatemalan civil war and which accused the U.S.-backed military of committing widespread rights abuses.

The Archbishop’s Office on Human Rights cut off its contact with the investigating commission because it said the panel has not acted on information the rights activists provided that may link two military officers to the murder of Gerardi, the Los Angeles Times reported.”Losing the confidence of the human rights office and, by extension, of the Roman Catholic Church would be a very serious thing,”Hugh Byrne, an expert on Guatemala for the Washington Office on Latin America told the Times.”They (the activists) are the representatives of the project that Bishop Gerardi was working on,”he said.”They are the people that many people will look to”when judging the government investigation.

The timing of Gerardi’s murder has led many to suspect the slaying was politically motivated.

Quote of the day: Roman Catholic Bishop Patrick Walsh

(RNS)”The airwaves and the printed page have been saturated with hate-filled words. These words inevitably fueled weapons of murderous destruction.” Roman Catholic Bishop Patrick Walsh of Down and Connor in Northern Ireland, in his homily at the funeral Mass for three young boys killed in the firebombing of their home Sunday (July 12) as militant Protestants sought to march in Catholic neighborhoods.

DEA END RNS