c. 2004 Religion News Service

Seattle Review Panel Says Celibacy Helped `Set the Stage’ for Abuse

(RNS) A lay review panel in the Archdiocese of Seattle said the Catholic Church’s celibacy requirement for priests helped “set the stage for the deviant behavior” of clergy sexual abuse.

The 10-member Case Review Board said mandatory celibacy was one “contributing factor” to the sexual abuse scandal by blurring distinctions between “deviant or exploitative behavior and normal but unacceptable behavior.”

“While we make no judgment about the appropriateness of a celibate lifestyle, it is clear to us that, by combining the requirement of celibacy with a repression of the expression of human sexuality for priests, the church set the stage for the deviant and illegal behavior of a few that has been the focus of our work,” the panel said in its report.

The board was asked by Archbishop Alex Brunett to review how the archdiocese handled 13 priests accused of sexual abuse between the 1950s and 1986. The panel made its report in June and it was released by Brunett on Oct. 5.

Celibacy was one of many areas that was not properly addressed in seminaries, the board said, adding that “extraordinary efforts” are required by priests when they are asked to “abstain from expression of a fundamental aspect of the human condition.”

Brunett thanked the panel for its report but did not respond directly to the celibacy critique. He referred Catholics to a Feb. 27 report by the church’s National Review Board, which called for greater understanding of the role of celibacy.

“It is clear that bishops must remain watchful to ensure that priests embrace chaste celibacy as part of their priestly identity and not as a burden imposed upon them or as a means of escape or denial,” the board said.

Church leaders have rebuffed calls from some priests’ associations and lay groups for a discussion on mandatory celibacy, saying celibacy remains a “gift” to both priests and the larger church.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Latter-day Saints Plan New Temples, Add to Leadership

(RNS) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced plans for new temples in Idaho and Utah as well as additions to its leadership.

The Twin Falls, Idaho, Temple will be the fourth temple in that state. A new temple in the Salt Lake Valley will be the third temple in the Salt Lake area and the 12th in Utah.

The temples, considered the most sacred sites on Earth to church members, are open throughout the week for services that Latter-day Saints believe bind families together forever. Meetinghouses are used for Sabbath worship.

Two new members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, one of the highest governing bodies of the church, were announced during the Latter-day Saints’ semi-annual General Conference in Salt Lake City, which was held Oct. 2-3.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf, a native German, previously served on another governing body, the First Quorum of the Seventy. A former airline pilot, he has served in other church leadership roles in the United States and Europe.

David A. Bednar, the president of Brigham Young University-Idaho, has previously served as a management professor at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. He also worked in various leadership roles in the church in Arkansas.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Finnish Theologian Returns to Fuller, but Status Still Unresolved

(RNS) A renowned Finnish theologian has returned to teach at California’s Fuller Theological Seminary after not originally qualifying for a visa under controversial new regulations for religious professionals.

But even though Veli-Matti Karkkainen, a scholar of Pentecostalism, is back at his job at Fuller after only six weeks away in his native Finland, his status as a potential permanent resident of the United States is far from settled.

Karkkainen was able to return to California on a more restrictive visa that is good for three years, the Christian Century magazine reported in its Oct. 5 issue.

Karkkainen said he is grateful to Fuller for its full support and to the staff of the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki, Finland, for expediting the new visa. But the experience, he said, has proven enormously frustrating.

“It all sounds so absurd,” Karkkainen told Religion News Service.

He wondered how the U.S. government “has extra resources for waste on these kinds of `immigration’ activities when there are real threats out there.”

Karkkainen, his wife and two daughters, ages 18 and 21, had to leave the United States on July 31 when he was unable to appeal government decisions that denied him permanent U.S. residency and an extension of a visa and a work permit.

The case, which prompted floods of e-mail to Karkkainen from fellow educators and religious professionals throughout the world, stems from the interpretation of new immigration rules imposed in the wake of Sept. 11.

The new guidelines state that a religious worker must share the denominational affiliation of his or her institution. The problem for Karkkainen arose because Fuller _ a prominent evangelical, interdenominational seminary _ does not have a formal denominational affiliation.

The government did not accept Karkkainen’s qualifications, which include holding a master’s degree from Fuller and holding two doctorates, prompting the need for the theologian and his family to leave the United States once appeals in his case had run out.

While in Finland, Karkkainen, his wife and one daughter acquired permission to return to the United States on a more restrictive visa and a second daughter was granted approval to return on a student visa. But the new visa status comes with a financial cost to the family, as Karkkainen’s wife now cannot, as she did before, work as a teacher.

Karkkainen told RNS he is concerned that his case and the cases of other non-resident scholars and academics are sending the wrong message internationally about the United States.

“Academia should not be the place where (restrictive immigration rules) hit hard,” he said. “That actually works against `homeland security.”’

_ Chris Herlinger

Quote of the Day: Evangelist Billy Graham

“Conscience is the e-mail your head gets from God.”

_ Evangelist Billy Graham, speaking at the first night of his Oct. 7-10 crusade in Kansas City, Mo.

MO/PH END RNS