c. 2004 Religion News Service
Defense Department, ACLU Settle Suit Over Scouting Practices
(RNS) The Department of Defense and the American Civil Liberties Union have reached a settlement regarding sponsorships on military property of Boy Scout troops with religious practices.
The ACLU objected to military units sponsoring Boy Scout troops and Cub Scout packs that required that participating youth believe in God and take an oath swearing duty to God.
Under the agreement announced Monday (Nov. 15), the Defense Department will inform its bases and other facilities in the next 60 days that they cannot serve as sponsors of the Boy Scout units.
“If our Constitution’s promise of religious liberty is to be a reality, the government should not be administering religious oaths or discriminating based upon religious beliefs,” said Adam Schwartz of the ACLU of Illinois in a statement about the settlement.
“This agreement removes the Pentagon from direct sponsorship of scout troops that engage in such discrimination.”
Charles Miller, a spokesman for the Justice Department, which acted as the attorney for the Defense Department in the case, said the settlement addresses participation of nongovernmental organizations such as the Boy Scouts. But he said the settlement will lead to the reiteration of an old rule, not the creation of a new one.
“There has been a pre-existing policy … that DOD personnel cannot in any form or fashion in an official capacity be involved in this,” he told Religion News Service.
The ACLU noted that the settlement does not prevent off-duty military employees from sponsoring Boy Scout units on their own time. Scouting troops that are not sponsored by the Defense Department will continue to have access to military facilities that are made available to other nongovernmental organizations.
Conservative Christian groups criticized the settlement.
“If you’ve got a problem with the Boy Scouts on military bases because the Scouts rely upon God, then you’ve got a problem with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both of which rely upon God,” said Gary McCaleb, senior counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund in Scottsdale, Ariz.
The Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, agreed.
“This is a history of humanistic fascism over religious freedom and the right of private organizations to set their own membership standards,” declared Sheldon.
The settlement resolves one part of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU in 1999. Still unresolved is whether the Defense Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development can spend taxpayer funds to support Boy Scout groups with religious practices.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Bishops’ Director of Child Protection to Leave Post Next Year
(RNS) A former FBI official who has overseen the Catholic Church’s response to the clergy sexual abuse scandal said she has “completed what I said I was going to do” and will leave her post in February.
Kathleen McChesney, director of the church’s Office of Child and Youth Protection, said Monday (Nov. 15) that she will resign after she completes her second annual report. She said she will extend her contract that ends Dec. 1, 2004.
“We have a lot of initiatives that we’ve completed and others that are ongoing,” McChesney said in an interview. “I think that I’ve pretty much completed what I said I was going to do, and it’s time to move on.”
McChesney, the former No. 3 official at the FBI, was hired in 2002 and promised a two-year commitment. Her office oversaw a massive study of the clergy sexual abuse scandal that revealed more than 4,300 minors had been abused by 10,667 clerics since 1950.
She also oversaw the implementation of new “zero tolerance” reforms that removed abusive priests after a single incident of abuse, as well as an independent-minded National Review Board of prominent lay Catholics that monitored the bishops’ progress.
McChesney said the bishops need to continue their vigilance, especially by reporting new abuse cases and complying with annual audits to ensure they uphold the reforms adopted in 2002. “Many (bishops) provided excellent outreach (to victims),” McChesney said. “There are others who still have not become involved in that process and need to do more with the victims.”
McChesney’s departure comes during a time of major transitions for the bishops. Half of the National Review Board has left the panel, and Bishop Wilton Gregory, who presided during the abuse crisis, ends his term as the bishops’ president Thursday (Nov. 18). The bishops elected their vice president, Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., to succeed him.
McChesney’s replacement will be hired by the general secretary of the bishops’ conference, Monsignor William Fay. McChesney, 53, said she has not “really had time to think about where my next job will be, but I’m sure there will be one.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
First Woman Named President of a U.S. Lutheran Seminary
(RNS) The newly named president of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, Calif., will be the first woman to lead a Lutheran seminary in the United States.
The Rev. Phyllis B. Anderson will become the seventh president of the seminary, affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, on Feb. 1, 2005, the ELCA News Service reported.
She succeeds the Rev. Timothy F. Lull, who died in May 2003 from complications following surgery. The interim president, the Rev. Ted F. Peters, will continue his duties until Anderson begins.
“The PLTS commitment to ecumenism, to diversity, to the spiritual experience of people in the American West, and to the mission of ELCA seminaries and congregations across the country will be truly enhanced by her leadership,” said the Rev. Steven L. McKinley, chair of the seminary’s board.
Anderson began serving as the first director of the Institute for Ecumenical and Theological Studies in Seattle in 1998. She previously worked as a pastor in Iowa, director of pastoral studies at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and director for theological studies in the ELCA’s Division for Ministry.
“I am excited about the opportunity to lead this excellent seminary as it shapes Lutheran leaders for our time and place, marked by rapid change, diversity, secularity, spiritual longing and great human need,” she said.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Survey: More Women, Older Clients Being Served in Rescue Missions
(RNS) The nation’s rescue missions have seen an increase in women clients and are finding older people need their services more, a new survey by the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions shows.
In 2004, 23 percent of clients were women, compared to 18 percent in 1994.
“Rescue missions responded to the extreme needs of homeless women and children and opened new shelters to care for families,” said the Rev. Stephen E. Burger, executive director of the association, based in Kansas City, Mo. “We could be serving more females today, but most women’s facilities are usually at capacity.”
The 15th annual Snapshot Survey of the Homeless, involving 20,500 individuals, also showed that mission clients are generally older than they were in the past.
“In 1994 half were under age 35, and in 2004, nearly two-thirds are age 36 or older,” Burger said in a statement.
Other findings in the survey were similar to conclusions in previous years. For example, 62 percent of those responding said they have been homeless less than one year. In 2003, 65 percent of clients said that was the case, compared to 56 percent in 1994.
Thirty-five percent of those surveyed in 2004 said they had never been homeless before, compared to 37 percent in 2003.
The survey was conducted at 154 missions across North America.
_ Adelle M. Banks
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MercyMe Wins American Music Award
(RNS) The Christian music group MercyMe was honored as the winner of the inspirational category at the American Music Awards on Sunday (Nov. 14).
The group received its award for Favorite Contemporary Inspirational Artist backstage but made an on-camera presentation of the adult contemporary award to Sheryl Crow.
“Tonight was an amazing night for us!” the group said in a brief statement on its Web site that was posted Sunday. “What a truly wonderful and humbling experience.”
The other nominees for the award were Steven Curtis Chapman and Third Day.
The three-hour awards show aired live Sunday on ABC from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: Pope John Paul II
(RNS) “You are crazy to make a film about me. But what have I ever done?”
_ Pope John Paul II when introduced to the Polish actor who will play him in a made-for-television film about his life.
MO/PH END RNS
