c. 2000 Religion News Service
Vatican Gives Approval to Bishops’ Guidelines for Catholic Colleges
(RNS) A plan to tighten control of the country’s 230 Catholic colleges and universities has received official approval from the Vatican, the nation’s Catholic bishops announced Wednesday (June 7).
The controversial document, “Ex corde Ecclesiae,” gives the church greater control over colleges and universities and requires, among other things, that theologians receive permission to teach from local bishops.
The National Conference of Catholic Bishops voted in November to submit the plan to the Vatican for approval, and Wednesday’s announcement signals the Vatican’s official blessing.
The document is an outgrowth of Pope John Paul II’s 1990 guidelines for Catholic higher education. The Vatican had previously vetoed the plan and sent it back to the bishops for revisions, resulting in last year’s vote to try again.
Some educators said the guidelines do not leave enough leeway for academic freedom and give the church too much control. Church officials, however, wanted to maintain Catholic identity and prevent church-sponsored schools from taking on too much of a secular identity, such as Princeton, Yale or Harvard.
The mandate, or Application, is scheduled to take effect May 3, 2001.
Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza, president of the bishops’ conference, said the new guidelines will strengthen the academic integrity of these institutions and help keep them in line with official church teachings.
“Ex corde Ecclesiae and its Application envisage Catholic higher educational institutions _ while maintaining their own proper autonomy _ working in communion with the entire church community through the ministry of the bishop to provide our society with this kind of alternative,” Fiorenza said in a statement.
The plan’s most controversial element _ requiring theologians to receive certification to teach from local bishops _ says a bishop must grant a “mandatum” in writing, and the reasons for withdrawing or denying it must also be given in writing.
Some academics feared giving that power to bishops could be used to punish dissenting or alternative voices within the church. But the statement insists that theologians “have a … duty to be faithful to the church’s magisterium (teaching) as the authoritative interpreter of sacred Scripture and sacred tradition.”
American Red Cross Supports Israel, Kazakhstan IFRC Membership
(RNS) The American Red Cross has passed resolutions reaffirming its support for granting full international Red Cross membership to Red Cross equivalents in Israel and Kazakhstan.
“Both Israel and Kazakhstan are unjustly excluded from the 176-member International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) despite liberal precedents for inclusion,” the American Red Cross said in a statement issued Wednesday (June 7).
The statement highlighted two resolutions adopted at the final business session of the American Red Cross at its 75th national convention in May in Columbus, Ohio.
“The American Red Cross reaffirms the position … supporting the admission of (Israel’s) Magen David Adom and its emblem into the international Red Cross and Red Crescent movement,” said one resolution. In the other, it said it “affirms its recognition of the Kazakh Red Crescent and Red Cross as a national society” and believes its membership in the international organization “is right and just.”
The IFRC has excluded the Magen David Adom and the Kazakhstan Red Crescent and Red Cross society because of the emblems the two organizations use.
For 70 years the Israel organization has used a red Shield of David, while its counterpart in Kazakhstan uses both the red crescent and the red cross.
The Red Cross said it supported efforts to establish “a new neutral emblem,” but said the international organization should MDULaccept the two organizations and their emblems by the end of December.
The Red Cross said it has no plans to withdraw from the international federation but will continue to withhold overhead dues until the matter is resolved.
Church of England Report: Healing Ministry a `Gospel Imperative’
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(RNS) The ministry of healing is a “gospel imperative” and should be an integral part of the Church of England’s life and ministry, according to a new report by the denomination.
The report, “A Time to Heal,” was written by a 12-member committee headed by Bishop John Perry of Chelmsford, England.
“The healing ministry is one of the greatest opportunities the church has today for sharing the gospel,” the report said. “More than before in the last hundred years, many in our society realize there is a spiritual as well as a physical and a mental dimension to healthy living.”
It notes that since the 1950s the Church of England, along with other denominations, “has grasped more fully the truth that the ministry of healing is an integral part of her mission, not just one aspect of pastoral care.”
It defines the ministry of healing as “a charismatic work of the Holy Spirit through sacramental and non-sacramental means,” but rejects the idea God’s healing power is located only in “extraordinary signs and wonders.”
Instead, under the term “healing ministry” the report covers everything from ordinary worship _ “the Eucharist is essentially a service of healing even though many lay people do not appreciate it as such” _ and the work of hospital chaplains, through services of healing with anointing and the laying on of hands, to exorcism, which it terms “deliverance.” But it warns against the danger of the use of exorcism becoming “a form of Christian magic.”
Calling for the ministry of healing to become a normal aspect of parish life, the report stresses: “The local church needs to become a healing church, but it can only be effective as such inasmuch as it is `a church being healed’ _ that is, a community which is open to God’s healing in all its fullness and not just somewhere where a healing service is held on the third Wednesday in the month for a handful of people.”
Accompanying the 400-page report is a smaller 58-page handbook setting out the principles of good practice in this field. The handbook is being sent to all of the Church of England’s 11,500 clergy.
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Greek Church Calls for Mass Protests Against State ID Plan
(RNS) The Holy Synod of the Church of Greece announced Tuesday (June 6) it will stage two major rallies later this month to protest the government’s decision to remove religious affiliation from state-issued identity cards _ a move church leaders say is an attempt to diminish the role of the church.
“(This) is the first in a series of measures aimed at putting religion on the margin of public, social and national life,” said a statement released by the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, according to Reuters news agency.
The protests will be held June 14 in Thessaloniki in northern Greece and on June 21 in Athens, where a May 31 protest against the government’s decision drew about 8,000 members of the Greek Orthodox Movement for Salvation, according to news reports from Athens.
In May, Greece’s Socialist government moved to comply with a 1997 law and ordered the exclusion of religious affiliation from the identification cards Greek citizens older than 13 are required by law to carry. The government also ordered that identity cards exclude a person’s occupation and fingerprints, and the name of the cardholder’s spouse.
Leaders of the Orthodox Church _ the official state church of Greece _ have called for a national referendum to decide whether compliance with the ruling should be optional.
But government officials say they want to abide by privacy protection laws,according to the Associated Press, and discourage discrimination against the Jewish, Muslim and non-Orthodox Christian populations in Greece.
Greece is one of a handful of European nations requiring state identity cards and is the only European nation to include religious affiliation on the cards. More than 90 percent of the Greek population is Orthodox Christian.
Quote of the Day: The Rev. Brian Jordan
(RNS) “Display these executions on television and they will have higher ratings than `Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’. It takes no strength to have someone do our killing for us in secrecy.”
_ The Rev. Brian Jordan, a Franciscan priest and director of the Franciscan Immigration Center at St. Francis of Assisi Church in New York, on the calls for the death penalty for John Taylor and Craig Godineaux, who are accused of killing five people at a Wendy’s restaurant in Queens. Jordan, a death penalty opponent, said if the two suspects are killed for their crimes, the executions should be public.
DEA END RNS
