c. 2004 Religion News Service
Survey: Most Community Foundations Fund Faith-Based Organizations
(RNS) Most U.S. community foundations fund faith-based social services but the majority do not permit their grants to support explicit religious activities, a new study shows.
Sixty-eight percent of 215 foundations responding to a survey from the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy said they had awarded at least one grant to a faith-based organization in their last fiscal year. Researchers found that, on average, each foundation had awarded three grants in a year, with an average grant amount of $40,314.
A bit more than half of the grants to faith-based organizations _ 54 percent _ were awarded to local nonprofits, while congregations and nationally affiliated faith-based organizations each received 23 percent of the grants.
Foundations are organizations that give grants to nonprofits. Community foundations are often supported by tax-deductible contributions from the general public while private foundations tend to be funded largely by trusts or individual or family contributions.
About 64 percent of the community foundations said they did not fund sectarian or explicitly religious activity.
“Our research suggests that community foundations appear to be hesitant to fund activities that are inherently religious,” concluded Jason D. Scott and Christopher D. Kidder, authors of a report on the survey.
They said foundation policies that prohibit such funding reflect a concern about the wishes of donors, a desire to stay neutral about religion and an aim to be open to all members of the community regardless of their religious ties.
The researchers found that grants to faith-based organizations were most frequently used to aid services related to children, youth and families, including mentoring, summer camps and after-school activities. Grants for emergency services and outreach, such as those providing food assistance or supporting the homeless, also were common.
The survey results, released Aug. 3, are based on responses from 215 community foundations via mail or the Internet. The survey, originally sent to 694 community foundations, had a 31 percent response rate.
The roundtable _ based in Albany, N.Y _ is a project of the Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Pope Blesses Olympics, Calls on Virgin Mary to Protect Games
(RNS) Pope John Paul II has given his blessing to the Athens Olympics, saying he hopes that the games will “promote understanding and peace among peoples.”
The 84-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff, an enthusiastic skier and hiker in his younger days, spoke of the games to pilgrims gathered for the (Aug. 8) Sunday Angelus prayer at his country residence in Castelgandolfo, south of Rome.
John Paul said he sent his “cordial greetings” to everyone taking part in the Olympics, to the city of Athens, which he visited three years ago, and to the Greek people. The Olympics open Friday (Aug. 13) in the Greek capital.
“I hope from my heart, that in a world that is troubled and sometimes rocked by so many forms of hatred and violence today, (that) the important sports events of the games may constitute an occasion of calm encounter that can promote understanding and peace among peoples,” the pope said.
John Paul said that he invoked “the maternal protection of the Most Holy Virgin on the Olympics and the entire world of sports.”
The Vatican announced last week that the Pontifical Council for the Laity has established a “Church and Sports” section to promote ethical values in sports.
Activists Protest Planned Destruction of Ailing Harlem Church
NEW YORK (RNS) Small demonstrations are greeting the Archdiocese of New York’s decision to demolish St. Thomas the Apostle Roman Catholic Church, a Harlem landmark.
Activists compare the planned demolition to the 1963 razing of the old Penn Station, a much-lamented act that spawned a drive to preserve landmarks in New York City.
“The cardinal is tearing down our church,” Harlem preservationist Michael Henry Adams of Harlem said Wednesday (Aug. 4) as he led more than a dozen demonstrators outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The goal was to convince the archdiocese, headed by Cardinal Edward Egan, to reverse its decision.
At the site of the church, West 118th Street, the archdiocese plans to construct a 57-unit housing complex for the elderly. The church has been in decline for years, with a dwindling parish base and lack of funds to make an estimated $5 million in repairs.
Several prominent black New Yorkers, including one-time Manhattan Borough President Hulan E. Jack, have called the church their spiritual home. But it has struggled in recent years.
“People were not coming to the church, and that was what really led to the deterioration of the church,” archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling told The New York Times.
“If you were to pour all your resources into St. Thomas’s to fix it up, you might have to go to two other parishes in the Harlem community and say, `You have to close and you have to close,’ ” Zwilling said.
Zwilling said the archdiocese believes using the site for affordable senior housing is consistent with the church’s overall mission. Construction on the site is expected some time next year.
But those plans have not deterred Adams and other activists from vowing to stop the planned demolition of an acclaimed architectural landmark, dedicated in 1907. Times writer David W. Dunlap described the church as a “fantastic Gothic grace note,” with “spidery fan-vaulted ceilings, sumptuous high altar, elaborate stations of the cross and jewel-like stained-glass windows.”
_ Chris Herlinger
Boston Archdiocese Announces More Church Closings
(RNS) The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston said it will close 10 more parishes, bringing to a total 81 churches that will be shuttered by year’s end under a massive reconfiguration plan.
The closings, in the old industrial cities of Lowell and Lawrence, north of Boston, were considered separately from previously announced closings.
Archbishop Sean O’Malley said (Aug. 6) the closings were necessary because of changing demographics, dwindling congregations, a shortage of priests and costly repairs needed on many church buildings.
By year’s end, 81 of the 357 churches in the scandal-scarred archdiocese will have closed. O’Malley has met with some of the affected parishes but has been unwilling to consider appeals.
The closings in Lowell and Lawrence were considered separately because of the strong ties many churches had with ethnic communities. “We gave them more time and more options,” Kathleen Heck, the church official overseeing the restructuring, told The Boston Globe.
In Lowell, six of the city’s 13 parishes will close; in Lawrence, four of seven parishes will close. One additional parish in Lawrence will close and its congregation will be merged with another church to form a new parish.
“The parishes here will have much different maps than they did 100 years ago,” Heck told The Globe.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Dead Sea Scrolls on Display Again
JERUSALEM (RNS) Visitors to Jerusalem may once again view the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The scrolls, the oldest surviving biblical texts, had been stored while a wing of the Israel Museum designed to house the ancient texts underwent extensive renovations.
The scrolls were discovered at Qumran, in the Judean Desert, decades ago. Some were found nearly intact while others were reduced to tiny fragments that scholars around the world have painstakingly puzzled together. The scrolls survived because they were stored in jars in an extremely dry climate.
In addition to the scrolls, museum visitors can view the Aleppo Codex, the famed hand-written bible from the 10th century, as well as never-before-seen scroll fragments excavated from Qumran.
The renovation of the Shrine of the Book includes the installation of state-of-the-art technology that controls climate as well as a “face lift” of the wing’s signature round white roof, which was modeled to resemble the lids of the jars in which the scrolls were discovered.
_ Michele Chabin
Readers Rank `Passion of the Christ’ as Most `Pro-Catholic’ Film
(RNS) Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” was ranked the most “pro-Catholic” film by readers of a conservative Catholic newspaper, while judges rated last year’s “The Order” as the most “anti-Catholic” film.
The unscientific poll by the National Catholic Register surveyed readers’ opinions about which films “most celebrate Catholic life.” A panel of eight judges then listed 10 films that painted the church in a negative light.
Gibson’s film, which was condemned by Jewish groups for its portrayal of Jewish leaders during the Crucifixion, received more votes than the next three finalists combined. It has earned $370 million at the box office.
“Look at the list of pro-Catholic movies and you’ll see some of the top-grossing movies of all times,” said an editorial by the Denver-based newspaper. “Look at the list of anti-Catholic movies, and you’ll see films moviegoers largely rejected.”
Readers nominated more than 100 films in May, which were then voted on by 1,000 people on the newspaper’s Web site. Their picks:
Most Pro-Catholic Movies
1. The Passion of the Christ (2004)
2. The Sound of Music (1965)
3. A Man for All Seasons (1966)
4. The Song of Bernadette (1943)
5. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
6. The Ten Commandments (1956)
7. The Scarlet and the Black (1983)
8. Jesus of Nazareth (1977)
9. Schindler’s List (1993)
10. The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)
The newspaper also convened a panel of judges to rate films that portrayed the church harshly or unfairly.
“Hollywood is generally hostile to religion,” radio host and culture critic Michael Medved told the newspaper. “The church is a particularly juicy target because it is the world’s most visible religious institution and … gets much more than its share of flak.”
The judges included Medved, Catholic League President William Donohue and David DiCerto, a film reviewer for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and others. Their picks, starting with the most recent release:
Most Anti-Catholic Movies:
1. The Order (2003)
2. The Magdalene Sisters (2002)
3. Sister Mary Explains it All (2001)
4. Chocolat (2000)
5. Stigmata (1999)
6. Dogma (1999)
7. Elizabeth (1998)
8. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
9. Priest (1994)
10. Agnes of God (1985)
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Quote of the Day: Quadriplegic Advocate Joni Eareckson Tada
(RNS) “I think suffering is God’s way of sometimes waking us up out of our spiritual slumber with an ice-cold splash in the face and getting us seriously to consider his claims, who he is and where we’re going.”
_ Joni Eareckson Tada, a quadriplegic advocate who serves as president of Joni and Friends, a ministry to the disabled. She made her comment during an interview Aug. 3 on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”
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