c. 2004 Religion News Service
Vatican Closes Austrian Seminary Investigated in Sex Scandal
VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican on Thursday (Aug. 12) closed a 200-year-old Austrian seminary at the center of a sex scandal involving thousands of child pornography photographs and evidence of homosexual relations between priests and seminarians.
Bishop Klaus Kung of Feldkirch, acting for Pope John Paul II, announced the decision at a televised news conference in Vienna following his three-week investigation of accusations against the St. Poelten Seminary, just outside Vienna.
“The seminary is closed from this instant,” Kung said. “After the events of the last academic year, we must begin anew.”
The prelate said the decision was made “in accord with the highest Vatican authority.” He accused the seminary faculty of paying “too little attention to the criteria of recruitment necessary” for future priests, adopted in recent years.
John Paul appointed Kung as “apostolic visitor for the diocese of St. Poelten and in particular for that episcopal seminary” on July 20, a day after Austrian police charged an unidentified 27-year-old Polish ex- seminarian with distributing and possessing child pornography.
Authorities said they found some 40,000 photographs and videos of child pornography in seminary computers, allegedly downloaded from a Web site in Poland. They also found photographs of priests and seminarians kissing and fondling each other.
The former seminarian was scheduled to appear before a regional court at St. Poelten on Friday. If convicted, he would face a prison sentence of up to two years.
The rector of the seminary, the Rev. Ulrich Kuechl, and his deputy, Wolfgang Rothe, resigned July 5.
A poll released July 17 showed that 72 percent of Austrians also wanted the bishop of Poelten, Kurt Krenn, to resign, but Krenn, 68, dismissed the photographs as a “schoolboy prank” that had “nothing to do with homosexuality” and said he had no intention of resigning.
_ Peggy Polk
ACLU to Offer Legal Aid to Muslims Questioned by FBI
(RNS) The American Civil Liberties Union will provide free legal representation to any Arab or Muslim who is approached by the FBI in what the ACLU is calling “dragnet technique” interviews by the bureau.
The ACLU announced the free counsel Aug. 5, in the wake of an announcement by Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller that a new round of interviews of Arab and Muslims would begin soon.
The national office of the ACLU sent a memo to its 53 affiliate offices across the country, asking them to provide a list of attorneys who will be available to accompany Arabs and Muslims to their FBI interviews. The ACLU also has a phone hot line that can help people connect with their local affiliate office.
Saying that the interviews are similar to a program that took place in 2001 and 2002, in which more than 8,000 Arab and Muslim men were questioned but none were arrested, the ACLU said that the current program is invasive.
“These types of FBI tactics are counterproductive,” said Dalia Hashad, who is the ACLU’s Arab, Muslim and South Asian advocate.
“They produce fear and resentment, not results,” Hashad said in an ACLU statement announcing the free counsel. “Treating innocent people like criminals is certain to drive a wedge between law enforcement and the communities that agencies should be reaching out to.”
An Islamic civil liberties group has partnered with the ACLU in order to connect Arabs and Muslims with local lawyers.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced its partnership with the ACLU on Aug. 6, offering to provide American Arabs and Muslims with attorneys who are in their geographic area.
“CAIR’s partnership with the ACLU will help Muslims who are unaware of their legal rights or who just have concerns about being approached by the FBI,” said Engy Abdelkader, CAIR’s civil rights director.
In addition to the free legal representation, the ACLU has also updated its “Know Your Rights” pamphlet, which is published in eight languages, and urged Congress to pass legislation defining and ending racial profiling.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Openly Gay Episcopal Bishop Expresses Doubts About His Choice
LOS ANGELES (RNS) New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson told a gathering of peace activists Monday (Aug. 9) that his willingness to become the denomination’s first openly gay bishop “might not have been the best thing.”
“Am I absolutely, 100 percent sure that I’m doing the right thing? No, I’m really not,” said Robinson in remarks made at a national conference of Fellowship of Reconciliation, a peace group.
Robinson’s doubts were expressed during a question-and-answer session following a lively speech in which he displayed confidence in the rightness of his cause.
“I believe without any shadow of a doubt that I’m going to heaven,” Robinson said. “God will not have any of us on the margins.”
Robinson’s audience of several thousand activists at Occidental College had spent the weekend conference in workshops on nonviolence and pacifist activism. While the conference was officially apolitical, there was no doubt what most of the audience thought about the Bush administration.
One Fellowship of Reconciliation officer inspired applause when he stood with a microphone and encouraged fellow activists to work this fall for, “the defeat of George W. Bush … and we must devote all of our energies to that cause.”
_ David Finnigan
Kirkpatrick Named Head of World Alliance of Reformed Churches
(RNS) The top official of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has been named president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, a Geneva-based coalition of 75 million Christians in 200 different churches.
The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA), was elected to a seven-year term at the group’s General Council meeting in Accra, Ghana, on Monday (Aug. 9).
Kirkpatrick, who was elected last month to a third four-year term as top official of the U.S. church, will hold both posts simultaneously.
“I invite every one of our churches to support WARC and one another in points of needs; to be a community that truly covenants for justice in the economy and the Earth, to be a community that works in our churches all over the world for gender justice, for full participation of youth in all our activities,” Kirkpatrick said after his election, according to Ecumenical News International.
The World Alliance of Reformed Churches is an alliance of churches that trace their roots to the 16th century Protestant reformers John Calvin, John Knox and Ulrich Zwingli.
Kirkpatrick will serve with six vice presidents who hail from Madagascar, Indonesia, Switzerland, Colombia, New Zealand and Cuba. He succeeds Choan-Seng Song of Taiwan.
Kirkpatrick, 59, also serves on the executive committee of the World Council of Churches and is active in the New York-based National Council of Churches.
He is the second American to lead a Geneva-based ecumenical group. Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is president of the Lutheran World Federation.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Quote of the Day: Episcopal Bishop William Swing
(RNS) “I’ve always told the gay and lesbian community that I’ll support you, but not to the extent that I’m going to let all the other ministries die. So in one sense, everybody’s got to take a number and stand in line. We’ll get to you when we can get to you.”
_ Episcopal Bishop William Swing of San Francisco, a strong supporter of gay rights, on the need to balance competing ministries in his diocese. He was quoted by Episcopal News Service.
MO/DEA END RNS
