c. 2003 Religion News Service
Orthodox Jews Release Revised Prenuptial Agreement
(RNS) The Orthodox movement in Judaism has released a new version of its decade-old Prenuptial Agreement in an attempt to prevent delays in divorce proceedings.
The agreement, which is both legally enforceable and in accordance with Jewish law, or halacha, was released June 17 by the Beth Din of America, which is a Jewish legal entity, the Orthodox Caucus and the Rabbinical Council of America.
The major changes from the previous form of the agreement involve a simplification of the document and the addition of clear instructions, making it easier for couples to understand and sign it.
In addition, the new agreement specifies that if a couple is separated and the husband fails to appear before the Beth Din to finalize the Jewish divorce, which is also known as a get, the husband must pay the wife $150 for every day that he delays the proceedings.
The previous document did not specify an amount for this payment.
Many Orthodox rabbis have instituted a policy whereby they will not marry a couple that has not signed the agreement.
The purpose of the agreement, Orthodox leaders said, is to eliminate the problem of vindictively delaying divorce proceedings when a couple needs to separate.
Without a get, a couple is still considered to be married under Jewish law. The husband is the only one who can give the get, and in a troubling trend called iggun, some husbands withhold a get from their wives as a way of stigmatizing the women in the community if the wives should want to remarry or have children.
Leaders hope that the prenuptial agreement will become more widely used to stop this practice.
“When a couple signs the agreement it in no way implies a problem in their relationship or a lack of good faith, but rather conveys an awareness by both parties that if all couples were to sign it prior to marriage, we would go a long way toward the goal of eliminating the scourge of iggun from our community once and for all,” said Rabbi Basil Herring of the Orthodox Caucus in a statement announcing the new agreement’s release.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Catholic Leaders Urge Prayers for Former Phoenix Bishop
ST. LOUIS (RNS) The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops urged prayers and support Friday (June 20) for the former bishop of Phoenix, who resigned Wednesday after being involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident.
The accident has caused health problems for Bishop Thomas O’Brien, 67, who is under immense stress and has had trouble sleeping, said Santa Fe Archbishop Michael Sheehan, who was named by Pope John Paul II to run the diocese until a permanent successor is chosen.
Sheehan said he helped pay the funeral expenses for pedestrian Jim Reed, who was killed in northwest Phoenix last Saturday. O’Brien admitted to police he was involved in the accident on his way home from Mass, but said he thought he had hit an animal or his car had been hit by a rock.
“What happened in Phoenix over the last couple of days has greatly affected us all,” Bishop Wilton Gregory of Belleville, Ill., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Thursday (June 19). “Jim Reed and his bereaved family are in our prayers as are all the faithful in the Diocese of Phoenix.”
Witnesses of the accident gave police a partial license plate number, which they traced to the bishop’s car. When they arrived at his house on Monday, they found the windshield on O’Brien’s car caved in on the passenger side.
Police charged O’Brien with leaving the scene of an accident, a felony, and said he could still be charged with obstruction of justice for trying to have his windshield replaced.
Gregory also expressed sympathy for O’Brien, a bishop since 1981, saying: “We know him well for his dedication throughout these years. We pray for him at this time of suffering in his life.”
Sheehan said he intends to abide by a landmark agreement with local prosecutors in which O’Brien agreed to cede some authority in exchange for avoiding criminal prosecution for his role in the clergy sex abuse scandal.
“I didn’t see any reason to change anything that was agreed upon before,” Sheehan said Friday.
Sheehan, who was named to Santa Fe in 1993 after a massive sex abuse scandal there, said he promised to work pastorally with Phoenix Catholics and apply the lessons he learned in Santa Fe to help the diocese heal.
“It doesn’t have to be that it’s all gloom and doom,” he said. “I can see hope for the church in Phoenix just as I have seen real progress for the faith in Santa Fe.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Gay British Bishop Defends Stance on Homosexual Relationships
LONDON (RNS) In his first interview since being appointed bishop, Canon Jeffrey John has firmly defended his stance on homosexual relationships while pledging not to step out of line as a bishop.
John, who has been named to be the bishop of Reading, England, said his relationship with another man, which began when he was an ordinand, “is a permanent thing” but “has not been sexually expressed for years.” He also said he and his partner have never had their relationship formally blessed, nor would he conduct a service of blessing for such a relationship.
“I would like the church to bless relationships based on that kind of covenant,” he told Ruth Gledhill of The Times. “But I stand in a tradition which does respect the discipline and authority of the church. I would argue for it within the councils of the church, but the point of consensus has not been reached.”
Citing the view that marriage reflects the covenant between God and his people, he said: “I believe that the mystery of covenant love actually can work for two people of the same sex just as much as it can work for a married couple.”
Discussing how in his student years he struggled with the emerging awareness of his own sexuality, he said, “I wrestled hugely with it and prayed about it, as I think so many gay people do.
“The issue of celibacy never really arose. I was aware that there was a great deal of homosexuality in the church, which confused me. I was aware that quite a lot of clergy got into trouble about it and that quite a lot of people led disordered lives.
“I was determined that I was going to try to work out a viable way of life which would not get me into that kind of mess, a way of life which was honest and which was compatible with faith.”
To his regret, Bishop-elect John will not be ordaining any open and actively gay clergy. “The current discipline of the Church is set out in `Issues in Human Sexuality’ (the 1991 report of the Church of England’s House of Bishops which tolerates active homosexual relationships among the laity but not among the clergy), and that states that a sexually active gay relationship is not compatible with ordination.
“That is where the church is. Obviously I regret that personally. As a bishop I will have to abide by that. It is a matter of corporate discipline.”
_ Robert Nowell
In Implicit Criticism of U.S., Pope Backs Strong U.N. Role
VATICAN CITY (RNS) In an implicit criticism of Bush administration policy, Pope John Paul II has urged a strong role for the United Nations and said the Iraq crisis had shown the danger of unilateral action.
The Roman Catholic pontiff made his position clear in a letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan written on his behalf by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state. The Vatican issued the text of the latter, dated June 5, on Friday (June 20).
“The recent Iraqi crisis has drawn attention to the need for a greater commitment to the principles set forth in the United Nations Charter in order to avoid unilateral actions, which could lead to the weakening of international law and existing agreements,” the letter said.
In the weeks before the U.S.-led attack on Iraq in March, the 83-year-old pope mounted a diplomatic offensive against unilateral military action, sending personal envoys to Baghdad and Washington and meeting with half a dozen world leaders, including Annan, to urge mediation of the crisis.
Sodano’s letter, the first major Vatican statement on Iraq since the end of hostilities, expressed satisfaction over the enlarged role that the United Nations will now play in Iraq.
“The recent Security Council Resolution 1483 (2003) regarding the rebuilding of the institutions and the economy of Iraq can be considered the beginning of a reconfirmation of the validity of the mission of the United Nations Organization as stipulated by the Charter of 1945,” the letter said.
Sodano said he was writing because John Paul recognized “the importance of the United Nations” and wanted to make clear the Vatican’s “support for the fundamental role of the United Nations Organization at the present time.”
Quoting from the pope’s address to the General Assembly on Oct. 5, 1995, the letter said John Paul hoped the United Nations might “become a moral center where all the nations of the world feel at home and develop a shared awareness of being, as it were, a family of nations.”
“The Holy See is confident that the United Nations Organization will be able to develop more efficient and concerted forms of cooperation, which will enable world leaders to join in combating situations of injustice and oppression leading to hostility between peoples rather than building that `family of nations’ of which Pope John Paul II spoke in 1995,” the letter said.
Sodano praised the commitment of Annan in particular and of all those “who daily work for peace in the world, especially those associated with the efforts of the United Nations to foster international peace, dialogue and cooperation.”
_ Peggy Polk
Britain’s Liberal Jewish Movement Approves Same-Sex Blessing Ceremony
LONDON (RNS) The Liberal movement within British Judaism has become the first Jewish body to allow the blessing of a homosexual couple in a ceremony in the synagogue.
The decision came at a meeting of the council of the Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues earlier this month but has not yet been officially announced. The decision was reported in the Jewish Chronicle on Friday (June 20).
The ceremony will make it clear that what is involved is not a wedding. There will, for example, be no chopah, the canopy under which a Jewish bride and groom stand to make their vows. It will just be a blessing on two people of the same sex committing themselves to each other.
Officially such ceremonies have not yet been sanctioned, but it is understood that some Liberal rabbis have conducted them, though not in a synagogue.
In the United States there is no exact equivalent to Liberal Judaism, but roughly speaking it equates with the left wing of Reform Judaism. In Britain the gradations, reading from theologically left to right, run Liberal, Reform, Masorti, Orthodox and Charedim.
_ Robert Nowell
Methodists Want to Double Spending for Ad Campaign
(RNS) Officials at the United Methodist Church said they want to double the spending on a television ad campaign to reach teenagers and people outside the United States.
The Methodists’ “Igniting Ministries” media campaign has been seen by 92 million people, according to the church’s communications agency. The “open hearts, open minds, open doors” ads, launched in 2001, gained recognition especially after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The church initially designated $20 million through 2004 for television and print ads, as well as grants to congregations for local supplements and welcoming programs.
The Rev. Larry Hollon, top executive of United Methodist Communications, said he wants to double the spending to $41 million between 2005 and 2008. Funding will need to be approved by next year’s General Conference meeting in Pittsburgh.
“In the past two years, we’ve heard many amazing stories of how the ads’ messages have touched hearts and caused them to seek fellowship in our churches,” he told United Methodist News Service.
Hollon wants to target youths between the ages of 14 and 18 to help revive the graying denomination, as well as partner with Methodist churches in Asia, Africa and Europe to establish “a media presence.” Hollon said he wants to expand the campaign’s current Lent, back-to-school and Advent formats with 22 additional weeks of ads on cable news channels.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Quote of the Day: Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun
(RNS) “Targeted assassinations are destroying the road map to peace in the Middle East and must be publicly and unilaterally suspended by the Israeli government. When Israel chooses to designate someone a `militant’ without giving that person any chance to defend himself or herself in a legal proceeding, and then proceeds to order his or her assassination, it not only violates international standards of human rights, it also endangers the Jewish people.”
_ Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, speaking to the Bay Area chapter of the Tikkun Community.
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