c. 2004 Religion News Service
Former Bishops’ President Named to Lead Archdiocese of Atlanta
(RNS) The Illinois bishop who guided the U.S. Catholic Church through a bruising clergy sexual abuse scandal received a major promotion from Pope John Paul II on Thursday (Dec. 9) when he was named the archbishop of Atlanta.
Bishop Wilton Gregory of Belleville, Ill., was tapped to lead the Archdiocese of Atlanta, succeeding Archbishop John Donoghue, 76, who was required to submit his resignation last year when he turned 75.
“Thank you is not sufficient to express my gratitude for your acceptance and countless acts of kindness,” Gregory said in a letter to his flock in southern Illinois, where he has served since 1993. “I have attempted to serve you with all of my heart and I ask your forgiveness for the mistakes I made during my time in your midst.”
Gregory, 57, was the first African-American to hold the presidency of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He ended his three-year term in November, just days before he was notified of his transfer to Atlanta.
Gregory’s new post will put him in the former home of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Gregory’s status as the first black bishop to hold the top post was quickly overshadowed by the growing sex scandal.
“One of the graces of the moment was that all of a sudden I was being judged, as Dr. King liked to say, by the content of my character and not the color of my skin,” Gregory told Religion News Service last month. “What a great day.”
Gregory received high praise for his handling of the national abuse crisis and was widely expected to receive a promotion for his efforts. Many church observers say Gregory could one day become the first black American cardinal.
The Archdiocese of Atlanta is roughly twice as large as the Belleville diocese. As archbishop of Atlanta, Gregory will also oversee four dioceses in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
The sprawling archdiocese, which covers 69 North Georgia counties, has nearly doubled in size in the last decade. Gregory will be formally installed as archbishop Jan. 17.
In another promotion, the pope named Monsignor Michael Bransfield, rector of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, as the next bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, W.Va.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Community of Christ President Resigns, Cites `Inappropriate Choices’
(RNS) W. Grant McMurray, the president of Community of Christ, has resigned, citing “inappropriate choices” and the onset of Parkinson’s disease.
McMurray submitted a Nov. 29 letter of resignation to top officials of the church, renamed three years ago from the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
“For a matter of several years I have struggled with personal and family issues that have impacted my ability to function unreservedly in my office and calling,” McMurray wrote, adding that he nevertheless had tried to fulfill his leadership responsibilities for the Independence, Mo.-based denomination.
“However, along the way I have made some inappropriate choices, and the circumstances of my life are now such that I cannot continue to effectively lead the church.”
He added that the recent diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, though treatable, means he must attend to his personal health.
A statement from the other two members of the church’s First Presidency was posted on the church’s Web site. Kenneth N. Robinson and Peter A. Judd said they accepted McMurray’s resignation with regret and acknowledged his “visionary leadership” as president for more than eight years and as a minister for 33 years.
“We know that this will be a challenging time for the church,” they said. “However, we are confident that God’s guiding Spirit will continue to be with us.”
The church’s Council of Twelve Apostles unanimously approved a resolution on the day after McMurray’s resignation declaring that Robinson and Judd will jointly preside over the church until a new president is selected.
In other online documents related to the resignation, church officials said they did not intend to reveal further details about the nature of McMurray’s resignation.
“The Presiding Bishopric has assured us that Brother McMurray’s resignation does not involve any financial irregularities, nor is it related in any way to the budgetary challenges facing the church,” reads a portion of a “Questions & Answers” page written by Robinson and Judd.
The denomination has about 250,000 members in more than 50 nations. It dates to 1830, and split from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) in the mid-19th century. McMurray was the first denominational president who was not a direct descendant of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon family of churches.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Grammys Introduce `Best Gospel Performance’ Category
(RNS) The Grammy Awards introduced a seventh category to highlight gospel music as nominees were announced for the 47th Annual Grammy Awards on Tuesday (Dec. 7).
The new “Best Gospel Performance” category will honor solo, duo and group work in collaborative performances and include nominations of singles or tracks with vocals containing gospel lyrics. The awards ceremony, to be broadcast live on CBS, will be held Feb. 13 in Los Angeles.
The first nominees are: Shirley Caesar and Ann Nesby (“The Stone”); Ray Charles and Gladys Knight (“Heaven Help Us All”); Dr. John and Mavis Staples (“Lay My Burden Down”); Fred Hammond (“Celebrate (He Lives)”); and Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama (“There Will Be a Light”).
Other nominations in the traditional gospel categories are as follows:
Best rock gospel album: “Take Me Away” by Sarah Kelly; “Collide” by Skillet; “Lose This Life” by Tait; “Wire” by Third Day; “Welcome to Diverse City” by tobyMac; “Holy Hip Hop `Taking the Gospel to the Streets”’ by various artists.
Best pop/contemporary gospel album: “The Creed” by Avalon; “All Things New” by Steven Curtis Chapman; “Who We Are Instead” by Jars of Clay; “Everyday People” by Nicole C. Mullen; “Rising Son” by RainSong.
Best Southern, country or bluegrass gospel album: “Driven” by the Crabb Family; “20th Century Gospel: From Hymns to Blackwood Brothers Tribute to Christian Country” by the Jordanaires, Art Greenhaw and the Light Crust Doughboys and Nokie Edwards; “Universal House of Prayer” by Buddy Miller; “Worship & Faith” by Randy Travis; “Amazing Grace 3: A Country Salute to Gospel” by various artists.
Best traditional soul gospel album: “The Live Experience” by the Rance Allen Group; “There Will be a Light” by Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama; “The Water I Give” by Dottie Peoples; “The Praise & Worship Songs” by Richard Smallwood; “Still Here” by the Williams Brothers.
Best contemporary soul gospel album: “Somethin’ ’bout Love” by Fred Hammond; “Live From Another Level” by Israel and New Breed; “He-Motions” by Bishop T.D. Jakes; “Nothing Without You” by Smokie Norful; “Out the Box” by Tonex and the Peculiar People.
Best gospel choir or chorus album: “Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus” by Shabach Praise Co.; “Live in New York” by New York Fellowship Mass Choir II; “Live … This Is Your House” by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir; “Spirit & Truth” by New Birth Total Praise Choir; “Unplugged … The Way Church Used to Be” by New Generation Chorale.
_ Adelle M. Banks
U.N. Food Agency: Hunger Kills More Than 5 Million Children a Year
ROME (RNS) Hunger and malnutrition kill more than 5 million children a year and cost developing countries billions of dollars in lost productivity and national income, according to a United Nations report.
“The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2004,” issued Wednesday (Dec. 8) by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), estimated the number of hungry people in the world at 852 million in 2000-2002, up by 18 million from the mid-1990s.
The total includes 815 million people in developing countries, 28 million in countries in transition from communism and 9 million in industrialized countries, the FAO said.
Unless the international community changes its priorities, the world will not meet the target set by the World Food Summit in 1996 of halving the number of the hungry by 2015, the annual report said.
“And this is already a modest goal. We should be eliminating hunger,” Hartwig de Haen, assistant FAO director-general for economic and social development, told a news conference. He accused industrialized countries of failing to provide the development aid they have pledged.
Contending that investing in the fight against hunger makes economic sense, the report estimated that the direct costs of dealing with damage caused by hunger are roughly $30 billion a year.
This is more than “five times the amount committed so far to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria,” it said. “Conversely, every dollar invested in reducing hunger can yield from five to 20 times as much in benefits.”
“Under-nourishment and deficiencies in essential vitamins and minerals cost more than 5 million children their lives every year,” the report said.
In addition, it said, they “cost households in the developing world more than 220 million years of productive life from family members whose lives are cut short or impaired by disabilities related to malnutrition, and cost developing countries billions of dollars in lost productivity and consumption.”
The report urged a “twin-track approach” to fighting hunger _ helping the poor to increase their ability to produce food and/or earn income to buy it while giving immediate aid to the most needy families. It recommended large-scale national programs to promote agriculture and rural development.
Under this strategy, 31 countries with a total population of 2.2 billion people _ nearly half the population of the developing world _ reduced their percentage of hungry by at least 25 percent during the 1990s and have made “significant progress” toward the millennium goal, the report said.
_ Peggy Polk
Troubled Louisiana College Put on Probation
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) Louisiana College said it was put on probation Tuesday (Dec. 7) by a major accrediting agency concerned about months of turmoil at the Southern Baptist liberal arts college.
The leadership of the Pineville, La., college of 1,000 students pledged to remedy the situation, lest the school lose accreditation entirely.
Loss of accreditation would nullify the school’s claim to excellence. In addition, the federal government would cut off financial aid to students at Louisiana College if it were unaccredited.
Interim President John Traylor and Trustee Board President Rev. Bill Hudson were in Atlanta on Tuesday to hear the decision from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges.
The school disclosed the action in a statement posted on its Web site. Representatives of the accrediting agency were unavailable Tuesday to explain the specific reasons behind probation.
The school said it had 12 months to get into compliance, with the possibility of a year’s extension.
Faculty members said they were saddened but not surprised by the commission’s action. Some have expressed fear that probation would slash the size of the incoming freshman class.
“It’s obviously not helpful in the short term,” said Linda Peevy, a faculty officer and chairwoman of the Division of Humanities. “But if it spurs those in control to return to time-honored principles of governance, perhaps in the long term it’ll be a helpful thing.”
For several years, the school has been embroiled in increasing internal turmoil between the faculty and the college’s trustees, about half of whom are pastors of Southern Baptist churches in Louisiana.
Many of the Louisiana convention’s member churches say Louisiana College is no longer authentically Southern Baptist and is becoming increasingly secular. The faculty sharply disputes the claim.
A team dispatched by the accrediting agency in September said it found a demoralized faculty operating in “a general climate of fear.” It said it was concerned that the trustees’ activist role jeopardized academic freedom at the college.
The team also found that the state convention and an organization called Louisiana Inerrancy Fellowship, a core of hard-line conservatives in the state convention, exerted “undue influence” over the nominally independent trustee board.
_ Bruce Nolan
Quote of the Day: San Diego Lawyer James McElroy
(RNS) “Crosses belong on churches, not in public parks. It doesn’t make any difference if it’s on federal land, state land or city land. … The government should not be in the business of religion.”
_ San Diego attorney James McElroy, who represents atheist Philip Paulson in his efforts to see a 43-foot cross removed from Mount Soledad in La Jolla, Calif. McElroy, who opposes efforts to move the land the cross sits on from city to federal ownership, was quoted by The Washington Post.
KRE/PH END RNS
