c. 1998 Religion News Service
Penthouse: article about Episcopal priest was unsubstantiated
(RNS) Penthouse magazine has issued a statement admitting it published unsubstantiated claims in a 1996 story that led to the defrocking of one Brooklyn priest and the firing of another at the Episcopal Church Center in New York.”Penthouse has now had the opportunity to obtain information … that was not previously available and to read the diocesan report of the Episcopal Church of its investigation,”said a statement from the magazine’s editor.”Had this information been available to Penthouse, we would not have published the article that appeared in the December 1996 issue.” The statement was issued in response to a lawsuit by the Rev. William Lloyd Andries, who was the primary focus of an expose that included claims that Episcopal priests from the Long Island diocese, which includes Brooklyn, performed same-sex marriage ceremonies and were involved in homosexual orgies with young men from Brazil.
A report issued last year following an investigation conducted on behalf of the diocese found that 22 of the 38 allegations in the Penthouse article were completely untrue or unproven and nine more were largely untrue, reported Episcopal News Service.
Andries, 61, has said he was never asked by the magazine or the article’s author, Rudy Maxa, to respond to allegations made by two Brazilian men who accused Andries and others of participating in orgies with them at a church and rectory in Brooklyn. He denied most of the claims and called the article”a tissue of lies.” Andries agreed to renounce his orders and resign as rector of St. Gabriel’s Church in Brooklyn after the magazine article was published. Now unemployed, he continues to reside in Brooklyn.
The Rev. Howard Williams, 47, of Brooklyn, former coordinator of children’s ministries at the Episcopal Church Center, was fired after he was identified in a photograph of guests attending a same-sex blessing between one of the Brazilians and Andries. He now works at an auto dealership.”The main thing I have learned from this experience is that, whatever its mission, an institution’s first concern is self-preservation,”said Williams.”That takes precedence over justice, truth and integrity.” The lawsuit is concluded now that the letter from Penthouse has been issued. Lawyers for Andries said he settled for the retraction given the high cost of continuing a libel suit.
Supreme Court declines to review Utah student’s case
(RNS) The U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear a case concerning a former Utah high school student who claimed her First Amendment rights were violated by the alleged promotion of religion by her music teacher.
In its rejection of the case Friday (June 26), the High Court left standing two lower court decisions that dismissed Rachel Bauchman’s federal complaint against Richard Torgerson, her choir teacher, and other officials at West High School in Salt Lake City.
At the end of the 1994-95 school year, Bauchman filed suit charging that Torgerson had violated her rights by choosing Christian music for the choir to perform and scheduling performances in churches and other religious settings. She was a sophomore at the time, reported Associated Baptist Press, an independent Baptist news service.
Bauchman also alleged that the choir director chided her in front of classmates and called attention to the fact that she is Jewish after she and her parents opposed Torgerson’s actions.
A federal district court dismissed her suit, and its decision was upheld by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The appellate court said there were”a number of plausible secular purposes for the defendants’ conduct”and added that a”significant percentage of serious choral music is based on religious themes or text.”The appeals court also said performances might have been scheduled at churches because they are”acoustically superior to high school auditoriums or gymnasiums.”
Report: Chinese killed six Tibetan prisoners
(RNS) Six jailed Tibetans _ including a monk and four nuns _ have been killed by Chinese prison guards during pro-Tibetan independence demonstrations, according to Tibetan exiles.
The deaths reportedly occurred in May at Tibet’s Drapchi prison, the Associated Press reported Wednesday (July 1), citing information from the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy. The center is connected to the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled Buddhist religious and political leader.
The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959, some nine years after China forcibly occupied Tibet. In recent years, the Dalai Lama has said he would settle for greater autonomy for Tibet, even as some, primarily younger Tibetans, continue to agitate for restoration of full Tibetan independence.
The center said a monk was killed May 1 when Chinese guards fired into demonstrating prisoners. The four nuns were killed when the guards fired on another demonstration three days later.
A man identified as Karma Dawa also died, apparently after being seized by guards for throwing”Free Tibet”flyers into a crowd of prisoners gathered for a Chinese flag-raising ceremony at the prison. The exact cause of his death was not clear, however.
Word of the incidents came just days after President Clinton, while in Beijing, urged Chinese leaders to open dialogue with the Dalai Lama. Chinese President Jiang Zemin responded by saying should the Dalai Lama acknowledge that Tibet is an”inalienable”part of China and Taiwan a province dialogue could proceed.
The Dalai Lama said the exchange between Clinton and Jiang, broadcast live on Chinese television, was an important step forward for the Tibetan cause because it heightened awareness of the issue in China.
Update: Kidnapped missionaries are Mennonites from Pa.
(RNS) Four American missionaries briefly kidnapped in Guatemala have been identified as apparently Mennonites, some originally from Lancaster, Pa.
The four were kidnapped Monday (June 29) in northern Guatemala, near the Mexican border. They were freed about six hours later by Guatemalan police and soldiers. Ransom was apparently the motive, according to reports from Guatemala.
The missionaries were associated with Nueva Vida, or New Life, an independent Mennonite group established some 24 years ago by Elam and Barbara Stoltzfus, who came to Guatemala from Lancaster. In Guatemala, the Stoltzfus family operates a farm and small hospital and has established several churches.
Darrell Yoder-Bontrager, an official with the Mennonite Central Committee’s Latin America department, said Wednesday (July 1) the family has no official connection with the committee, but is likely Mennonite.
The four kidnapped missionaries were Barbara Stoltzfus, 57; her 27-year-old daughter, identified by the Associated Press only as Stoltzfus Cosigua; Jenny Glick, 23, of Oley, Pa.; and Otto Dueck, 19, who lives in Belize. No one was harmed.
Criticism prompts Holocaust scholar to quit museum post
(RNS) An internationally known Holocaust scholar has resigned as director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s new studies center following a furor within the Jewish community over past articles he wrote that were highly critical of Israeli policies toward Palestinians.
John Roth said Monday (June 29) that he would remain at Claremont McKenna College in California rather than assume the directorship of the new Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies in August as planned.
In past articles, Roth, who is not Jewish, had compared Israeli treatment of Palestinians to Nazi treatment of Jews during the Holocaust, angering some Jewish leaders. He had also compared actions of the Israeli military to those of Palestinian terrorists.
At Claremont, Roth chairs the philosophy and religious studies departments.
The Holocaust Museum is one of Washington’s busiest tourist attractions.
Courts act on state laws limiting late-term abortion
(RNS) Federal judges in three states have taken sharply differing approaches to state-passed laws seeking to ban a controversial late-term abortion procedure.
A ban on the procedure, called”partial-birth abortion”by its opponents, has been the top legislative and political priority at both the state and federal level for the last couple of years. A congressional ban on the procedure has been stalled as abortion opponents seek to round up enough votes to override a presidential veto.
In Virginia, Judge J. Michael Luttig of the 4th U.S. Circuit of Appeals allowed Virginia’s ban on the procedure to go into effect Tuesday (June 30), lifting a lower court order issued last week that kept the law off the books while a suit challenges its constitutionality.
But in Florida and Montana, federal judges blocked state-passed bans from going into effect, saying in the Montana case that the law was vague and infringed on a woman’s right to abortion and in the Florida ruling that the state law”appears to pose a threat”to the right to an abortion.
U.S. District Court Judge Donald Graham in Miami issued a temporary stay blocking enforcement of the law until a hearing is held on the ban’s constitutionality. No date was set for the hearing.
In Helena, Mont., District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock said Monday (June 29) the 1997 law passed by the state legislature so poorly described the prohibited procedure that it does not give fair warning to people who may face prosecution under its terms.
Renowned `death of God’ theologian dead at 74
(RNS) The Rev. Paul van Buren, a leading proponent of the controversial”death of God”school of theology of the 1960s, died June 18 of cancer. He was 74.
Van Buren, a retired religion professor, was one of three principal Christian theologians identified with the”death of God”movement, although he rejected the term.”The so-called death-of-God movement is a journalistic invention,”he said in a 1974 interview.”It missed the serious questions that needed to be discussed at the time, such as whether the Christian message can make sense in the world we’re living in today.” Trained in the philosophical method of linguistic analysis, van Buren said it was problematic to speak meaningfully about a God for whom no sensory verification is possible.
With transcendent”God talk”ruled out, van Buren built a faith on ethical behavior based on the historical Jesus, The New York Times said July 1 in reporting his death.
In his landmark 1963 book”The Secular Meaning of the Gospel: Based on an Analysis of Its Language,”which established his reputation as a nontraditional theologian, van Buren argued he was”trying to find an utterly nontranscendent way of interpreting the Gospel”so”sense could be made of it.” Some theologians critical of van Buren’s methodology and thinking countered that if faith is stripped of its mysticism, there was little left of religion.
Van Buren, a native of Norfolk, Va., graduated from Harvard College in 1948 after serving in the Coast Guard during World War II. In 1951, he earned a degree in sacred theology at the Episcopal Theological School and was ordained in the Diocese of Massachusetts. In 1957, he earned a doctorate of theology from the University of Basel.
He began his academic career in 1957 as an assistant professor of systematic theology at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas. In 1964, he began his tenure at Temple University in Philadelphia, where he served as chairman of the religion department from 1974 to 1976. In 1986, he took emeritus status from Temple.
During the ’80s, Van Buren, well known for his interest in Judaism and his discussions with rabbinical scholars, was an associate of the Shalom Hartman Institute of Judaic Studies in Jerusalem, working to build bridges between the two faiths. His last book,”According to the Scriptures,”looks at how early Christians might have understood the death of Jesus through Jewish methods of biblical interpretation. It will be published by Eerdmans in October.
Quote of the Day: National Commission on Civic Renewal
(RNS)”We believe that democracy means not only discussing our differences, but also undertaking concrete projects with our fellow citizens to achieve common goals. The goals can be as focused as cleaning up a neighborhood park, or as broad as defending our country. Whatever their scope, such endeavors offer the best hope for bringing Americans together across lines of race, class, and religion.” _ From the final report of the National Commission on Civic Renewal, a group co-chaired by former Education Secretary William J. Bennett and former Senator Sam Nunn to address concerns about the nation’s civic life.
DEA END RNS
