c. 2004 Religion News Service

Catholic Bishops Begin Closed-Door Meeting in Colorado

(RNS) The nation’s Catholic bishops convened a closed-door retreat in Colorado on Monday (June 14), with discussions scheduled on denying Communion to certain politicians and additional audits on sexual abuse.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is meeting at the Inverness Hotel in Arapahoe County outside Denver. Once every five years, the bishops suspend normal business to focus on prayer and spiritual reflection.

This year, however, the bishops will consider varying responses to dissenting Catholic politicians, and whether to authorize a second round of audits to measure compliance with two-year-old sexual abuse reforms.

A handful of conservative bishops have said politicians who support abortion rights _ namely presidential candidate John Kerry _ should be denied Communion. A task force led by Washington, D.C., Cardinal Theodore McCarrick that is studying the issue is scheduled to make a preliminary report this week.

But using Communion as a sanction appears to be losing support. Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., vice president of the bishops’ conference, said recently he does not want to use the Eucharist as “a weapon.”

“As a bishop, I believe we are called to persuade, not to bludgeon,” Skylstad wrote in the June 10 edition of his diocesan newspaper. “We have neither need nor call to take God’s gifts _ God’s plowshares, if you will _ and turn them into weapons of divisiveness and anger.”

A prominent U.S. theologian, Cardinal Avery Dulles of Fordham University, sparked an uproar in a recent article in America magazine in which he called the bishops’ new sex abuse rules an “extreme response” that should be revised.

Lay activists are urging the prelates to reject calls from more than 30 bishops to delay a second round of audits to measure compliance with new sex abuse policies. The first audits last year found that 90 percent of dioceses were in compliance.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and the liberal lay group Call to Action both held news conferences in Denver calling on the bishops not to stall on further audits. The bishops could authorize audits that could be finished by the end of the year.

Both SNAP and the Boston-based Voice of the Faithful tried unsuccessfully to get the bishops to open their Colorado meeting to public scrutiny.

“Some bishops have taken the concept of `fraternal correction’ and turned it on its ear to be more like fraternal collusion,” said Steve Krueger, executive director of Voice of the Faithful. “Others have argued that they need to take a break from this scandal, but taking a break is not a luxury afforded either survivors or lay Catholics.”

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Danish Lutheran Priest Suspended for Saying He Doesn’t Believe in God

(RNS) A Danish Lutheran pastor who was suspended last year for saying he doesn’t believe in God was suspended again June 10 for ignoring an order not to repeat his beliefs.

The Rev. Thorkild Grosboel was temporarily removed from his duties in Taarbeck, a small town north of Copenhagen, by the bishop of the Helsingoer diocese, Lise-Lotte Rebel.

Grosboel “has again spoken in a strongly provocative, hurting and confusing way,” Rebel said, the Associated Press reported. She said his sermon was “clearly incompatible with the state church’s faith.”

Rebel referred to a recent sermon in which Grosboel allegedly said there is “only the godly kingdom (on earth) that is achieved by us and between us. So if it fails, there is nothing.”

In giving this sermon, Grosboel echoed the statements he made in a May 2003 interview that resulted in his first suspension. He told the AP, “There is no heavenly God, there is no eternal life, there is no resurrection.”

After several meetings with the bishop, Grosboel eventually apologized for his comments. It was not clear whether he had to recant his belief.

His more recent comments have surprised some members of Denmark’s state-supported Evangelical Lutheran Church.

“I expected he would change his mind,” Rebel said.

About 85 percent of Denmark’s 5.3 million people belong to the Lutheran Church, even though only 5 percent attend church regularly.

While Grosboel did not deny giving the sermon, he said there was “nothing concrete” in Rebel’s order and he doesn’t understand “what she means and talks about.”

Rebel has turned Grosboel’s case over to the government “requesting that it take the necessary steps.” Lutheran ministers are state employees and only the government can dismiss them.

_ Juliana Finucane

Increased Levels of Anti-Muslim Bias Reported in Britain

LONDON (RNS) Increased levels of anti-Muslim prejudice in some quarters of British society have been noted in the second report of a commission originally set up in the 1990s to examine the extent of Islamophobia in Britain and what could be done to combat it.

Its first report, published in 1997, made 60 recommendations to improve the situation. Since then much has been done, especially in hospitals and prisons, but the events of Sept. 11, 2001 have encouraged people to regard all Muslims as at least potential supporters of al-Qaida, the report said.

While the report emphasizes the need for more face-to-face contact between Britain’s different communities, it also calls for institutional change.

“Racism is not in the minds of black people, nor is Islamophobia in the minds of Muslims, nor Anti-Semitism in the minds of Jews,” wrote the commission’s chairman, Richard Stone, who is also chairman of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality. “Racism, Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism are in the minds of white people, non-Muslims and non-Jews, and in the institutions, organizations and cultures that they mold and lead.”

Among key questions raised by the report, Stone said, were: “How can a broadly secular society such as Britain, but with many Christian traditions and reference points, provide space for observant Muslims? Why is the anti-racist movement so reluctant to address prejudice, hate and discrimination based on religion? Should Islamophobia be defined as a form of racism, in much the same way that anti-Semitism clearly is, and should the full force of race relations legislation be brought to bear to defeat it?”

The report was welcomed by the Muslim Council of Britain, a body set up in 1997 with the aim of doing for British Muslims what the Board of Deputies of British Jews has long done for the Jewish community.

“We have been witnessing a relentless increase in hostility towards Islam and British Muslims, and it is clear that existing race relations bodies have been either unable or unwilling to combat this phenomenon effectively,” said Iqbal Sacranie, its secretary general.

_ Robert Nowell

Catholic Leader in Scotland Asks End to Protestant Marches

LONDON (RNS) A call for Protestant Orange marches to be banned in Glasgow has come from the Roman Catholic archdiocesan chancellor, the Rev. Peter Smith, parish priest of a church in the city’s east end that has been on the route of seven Orange marches since the end of April.

Writing in The Herald, the Glaswegian daily newspaper, Smith said that last July more than a dozen Orange marches passed the presbytery. On one day three marchers tried to kick the front door in.

“For the next walk, 30 police officers had to stand in a line outside the church guarding us,” he wrote.

The Orange marches, which celebrate historic Protestant military victories, often fuel anti-Catholicism, including violence. They have been especially controversial _ and virulent _ in Northern Ireland.

Last weekend the Orange march passed the church about 10 minutes before Mass. “No coincidence this,” said Smith. “Our congregation had to breathe the stench of hatred just to get to Mass.”

When the issue was raised with Orange Order officials, the Catholic leader was told that it was the traditional route _ “precisely because it passes the front door of a Catholic church,” Smith said.

Glasgow political leaders said the issue needed careful handling.

“Roughly translated that means Glasgow is a city in which a tiny band of bigoted eccentrics effectively blackmails the rest of the population into allowing them to parade their prejudices without hindrance _ or else,” Smith wrote.

“As long as we have the officially tolerated menace of sullen Orangeism marching through our streets, using our police resources, and frightening those of us who live along their route, then all the anti-sectarian rhetoric it has become so politically correct to espouse will sound completely meaningless.”

Smith has the backing of Archbishop Mario Conti, who said he was “appalled” by the manifestations of sectarian abuse experienced by Smith and others. “These unwelcome echoes from the past should no longer be heard in this city,” said the archbishop. “Glasgow’s good name and the ease of its citizens are at stake.”

_ Robert Nowell

Former PBS Executive Named to Head Catholic Film Office

(RNS) Harry Forbes has been named the new director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office for Film and Broadcasting, the conference has announced.

Forbes is a New York drama critic and former PBS press relations executive. He has written for Back Stage, The Manhattan Spirit and Time Out New York. In addition to his 20 years with PBS, he has held positions at CBS and NBC in New York.

“Harry Forbes brings an extensive background in TV, dramatic arts and management to this vital position at the USCCB,” said Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, director of the U.S. Bishops’ communications department.

The Office for Film and Broadcasting reviews mainstream movies for “moral content as well as technical and artistic considerations” and then assigns a “moral classification” to each.

Maniscalco said Forbes has an “excellent background” to help the office achieve its goals.

“The office directly assists America’s 65 million Catholics with its reviews and ratings of films by bringing the Church’s moral perspective to bear in this arena,” Maniscalco said.

Forbes will succeed Gerri Pare, who chose to retire early after being with the office for 14 years.

_ Juliana Finucane

Quote of the Day: Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando, Fla.

(RNS) “Had Pontius Pilate shown up and presented himself for Communion, the apostles certainly would have admitted him to Communion _ but only after he had first repented and reconciled himself to God and the church.”

_ Roman Catholic Coadjutor Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando, in a statement on why Catholic politicians who dissent from church teaching on abortion should not present themselves for communion.

DEA/PH END RNS