c. 1999 Religion News Service
Clinton appoints gay ambassador, draws conservative criticism
(RNS) President Clinton has appointed gay San Francisco businessman James C. Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg, drawing criticism from conservative Christian groups.
Clinton used a constitutional provision that permits him to make such appointments during a congressional recess. Hormel, who will become the first openly gay U.S. ambassador, can serve in the diplomatic position until the end of 2000, which is when the current session of Congress ends and when Clinton’s term will be concluding.
Conservative Christian groups were among those who criticized Clinton’s recess appointment, made on Friday (June 4).
The Traditional Values Coalition called it”a cowardly tactic of sneaking in an undesirable appointment while avoiding public scrutiny.” The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has opposed Hormel’s appointment because it believes he supports the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group that mocks Catholics. The population of Luxembourg, a small European country, is 97 percent Catholic.”In a move that was quintessentially Clintonesque, the president showed contempt for Congress by doing an end run around the legislative process in appointing James Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg,”said Catholic League President William Donohue.”That he managed to offend Catholic sensibilities as well is hardly a shocker.” The appointment of Hormel, 66, an heir to the Hormel food fortune and a former University of Chicago Law School dean, was hailed by gay-rights activists, the Associated Press reported.
His confirmation had been blocked by Senator Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.”The denial of a confirmation vote by the Senate leadership, a vote he would have easily won, was nothing more than anti-gay discrimination,”said Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay and lesbian political group in the country.
John Czwartacki, Lott’s spokesman, called the appointment”a slap in the face,”particularly to Catholics, and also cited Hormel’s link to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, drag queens in San Francisco who dress as nuns.
The White House denied that Hormel supported the group, calling the notion that he would”outrageous.”
New England Greek Orthodox back archbishop’s removal
(RNS) The Greek Orthodox Diocese of Boston, which covers most of New England, has voted to back a report that calls for the ouster of the embattled spiritual leader of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.
By a 58-51 margin, the diocese’s Clergy Laity Conference voted Saturday (June 5) to back a January 1999 report by five archdiocese metropolitans, or bishops, in which they called for the reassignment of Archbishop Spyridon because of his”lack of Christian and pastoral love, as well as on account of his `paranoid’ manner of dealing with his `enemies.'” The vote marked the first time such an action has been taken by any of the archdiocese’s eight dioceses. The resolution calling for Spyridon’s removal will be forwarded to the church’s next national Clergy Laity Congress for further consideration. That meeting is set for next year.
More than 50 of the diocese’s 63 parishes sent delegations consisting of priests and lay members to the congress, held at a church facility in Brookline, Mass. The diocese covers Greek Orthodox parishes in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont and eastern Connecticut.
The metropolitans wrote the January report in advance of a meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the international Orthodox Christian leader who appointed Spyridon to head the American church. Bartholomew rejected the call for Spyridon’s ouster, which came at the height of a long-running battle over the future of the archdiocese between Spyridon and his more liberal opponents.
Despite Bartholomew’s action, church dissidents have continued to seek Spyridon’s removal because of his alleged fiscal mismanagement and authoritarian management style.
Michael Karloutsos, a dissident leader from New York, characterized the vote as”a turning point”in the campaign against the archbishop, who was present at Saturday’s vote.”You now have an entire diocese saying the church in its present state is not good. I really believe the vote is representative of where the church is going,”Karloutsos, who was in Brookline for the meeting, said Monday.
However, the Rev. Mark Arey, Spyridon’s chief spokesman, downplayed the vote, saying”things have changed dramatically in the archdiocese since January and continue to change.” The vote, he said, was”a measure of some past frustration that needed to be expressed, but I think members of the church are tired of the infighting and want to move on.” In comments delivered to the congress prior to the vote, Spyridon urged church unity, while adding that”there is always room for differences of interpretation.” Boston Metropolitan Methodios, one of the five church leaders who had signed the January report, also took a conciliatory stand during his remarks.”The controversies, the bickering, the enmity and distrust, most importantly the apathy, must stop,”he said. At the same time, he said the metropolitans”must be co-responsible for every aspect of the administration of the archdiocese.”Additionally, he called for clarification of the role of lay leadership _ a prime demand of church dissidents.
Pope concerned about stumbling Kosovo peace accord
(RNS) Vatican officials accompanying Pope John Paul II on the pope’s 13-day visit to Poland said Monday (June 7) the pontiff is concerned about the faltering accord to end the conflict between NATO and Yugoslavia.”The news we are hearing is not encouraging,”said Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls after talks on the withdrawal of Serb forces from the contested province of Kosovo broke down.”I know that the pope keeps the situation in mind all the time,”Navarro-Valls added.”We are keeping him informed minute by minute because he asks for the news very often.” On the third day of his visit, John Paul consecrated Poland’s largest church, the still uncompleted cathedral in Lichen. Modeled after St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, it will be the seventh largest church in Europe when completed.
And the pope, addressing a group of Polish academics, ducked the opportunity to fully rehabilitate the the Polish-born astronomer Copernicus.
In 1543, Copernicus wrote a letter to Pope Paul III asking for his blessing on his work”On the Movement of Heavenly Bodies.”He got no reply and in 1616, 73 years after the astronomer’s death, the book was banned by the Vatican. It remained on the list of prohibited books until 1822.
The rector of Copernicus University in Torun, where the pope addressed the academics, said he had hoped John Paul would use the opportunity to lift the cloud that remains over Copernicus’ head in church circles.
Instead, the pope said merely that the astronomer’s work had been misunderstood.”Many people took it as a means of setting reason against faith,”he said, adding that splitting the two was a great tragedy.
The pope also urged the professors to use the horrors of the concluding century to instill hope for the future.”Today, the world needs hope and is searching for hope,”he said.”But does not the tragic history of our century, with its wars, its criminal totalitarian ideologies, its concentration camps and gulags, make it easy for us to yield to the temptation of discouragement and despair?”he asked, then added:”In order to discover hope, we need to lift our gaze on high.”
Denver-area Methodists express support for their bishop
(RNS) Some 175 United Methodists from three states have signed a statement supporting Denver-area Bishop Mary Ann Swenson, who has been accused by a layman of violating church rules for permitting clergy under her jurisdiction to participate in same-sex union ceremonies.
The statement, initiated by the Rev. Donald Messer, president of the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, deplores what it calls”the unwarranted charges”against Swenson.
The charges, filed by layman Mel Brown, a longtime opponent of the bishop, accuse Swenson of breaking church rules because she allows the Rev. Toni Cook, a Denver minister, to remain in her post despite Cook’s participation in the prohibited ceremonies.
The statement called for the”prompt dismissal of these allegations, lest they detract from the church’s greater mission of serving Christ and the world.”It said Brown’s accusations were”inappropriate and distressing.” Under Methodist rules, Brown’s charges will be investigated by a panel of church leaders and could result in a trial and possible removal from office.
Last year, the denomination’s highest court, the Judicial Council, ruled that performing a same-sex ceremony is a chargeable offense. Earlier this year, the Rev. Gregory Dell was found guilty of breaking the rule and indefinitely suspended from the ministry.
But Swenson is the first bishop charged with breaking the rule for allowing the practice.
At the heart of the charges is that Cook, pastor of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church on Capitol Hill, has been outspoken in making it known that she has performed several of the barred ceremonies and considers them a part of her ministry.
Quote of the day: The Rev. Arthur Hilson
(RNS)”I hope it’s not an end to something. If it is, we’ll have missed the real meaning of this. The dream he talked about certainly has not been fully realized.” The Rev. Arthur Hilson, New Hope Baptist Church, Portsmouth, N.H., speaking Sunday (June 6) on the signing into law _ two decades after the first bill was introduced _ of legislation to establish a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in New Hampshire, the last state to adopt a holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader.
DEA END RNS
