c. 2005 Religion News Service
Abusive Priest Paul Shanley Sentenced to 12-15 Years in Prison
(RNS) Former Boston priest Paul Shanley was sentenced Tuesday (Feb. 15) to 12-15 years behind bars for raping a minor in a Catholic church, with his victim wishing him a “slow and painful” death in prison.
Shanley, 74, faced a possible life sentence for abusing a boy, now 27, at St. Jean’s parish in Newton, Mass., in the 1980s. The unnamed accuser said Shanley would pull him out of religious education classes and molest him over a course of six years.
“I want him to die in prison,” the victim said in a statement read by prosecutor Lynne Rooney. “I hope it is slow and painful.”
Judge Stephen Neel said “it is difficult to imagine a more egregious misuse of trust and authority,” according to the Associated Press. The victim’s wife told Shanley in court that “no words can ever explain my disgust for you. You are a coward. You hid behind God.”
Shanley’s case was one of several in the Archdiocese of Boston that sparked a nationwide scandal in 2002. Critics said church leaders were told of accusations against Shanley and his advocacy of sex between men and boys but simply shuttled him from parish to parish.
Shanley will be eligible for parole after serving two-thirds of his sentence and faces 10 years’ probation. The other key figure in the Boston scandal, former priest John Geoghan, was murdered by another inmate in 2003 after he was convicted of molesting a 10-year-old.
Shanley’s sentencing came just days after a third notorious pedophile priest, James Porter, died Friday (Feb. 11) in a Boston hospital. Porter pleaded guilty in 1993 to abusing 28 children in the Diocese of Fall River. An attorney said Porter had incurable cancer, according to the Associated Press.
Episcopal Church 2004 Giving Drops 12 Percent
(RNS) The Episcopal Church is hoping the financial fallout from a gay bishop’s election will level off this year after a conservative-led financial boycott helped create a 12-percent drop in giving in 2004.
Church treasurer Kurt Barnes said giving from the church’s 112 dioceses fell about $4 million in 2004 compared to 2003, but the church should be on target to meet a 2005 budget that was scaled back to balance the decline.
2004 was the first full year for conservatives to withhold funds in protest of the 2003 election of openly gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson. Three dioceses _ Dallas, Pittsburgh and Quincy, Ill. _ cut all donations to the national church.
Anticipating a decline, the church cut spending last year by 5 percent and lowered its expectation of $29 million to $27.4 million in diocesan giving. So far, Barnes said he has collected $22.8 million for 2004 and expects year-end contributions to plug the remaining $4.6 million gap.
Still, that $27.4 million is a 12-percent drop from the $31.2 million collected in 2003. Barnes said a sputtering economy is partly to blame, but conservatives quickly dismissed that excuse as tired and worn.
“That big of a downturn, whatever the dollar amount is, hardly argues for a church where everything is fine and wonderful,” the Rev. David Anderson, president of the American Anglican Council, told the Associated Press.
Barnes told the church’s Executive Council Feb. 11-14 meeting in Austin, Texas, that he expects income to rise about $1 million, or 3.7 percent, in 2005 over current levels to $28.4 million.
Despite the modest improvements, the figures show that the protest over Robinson’s election has stalled growth in the church’s budget. By 2006, the church hopes to be barely above where it was in 2003, when Robinson was elected.
The church relies on contributions from local dioceses to fund 60 percent of its national operating budget _ currently $49 million in 2005. Each diocese is asked to voluntarily send 21 percent of its income to church headquarters in New York.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Former Faith-Based Official says Bush Fails on `Poor People Stuff’
WASHINGTON (RNS) A former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives says President Bush has failed to support the program as he had promised.
David Kuo, who left the position in December 2003, said the White House didn’t push hard enough for Congress to deliver the $8 billion Bush promised to faith-based initiatives during his first year in office.
“From tax cuts to Medicare, the White House gets what the White House really wants,” Kuo wrote in a Beliefnet editorial. “It never really wanted the `poor people stuff.”’
When Bush ran for president, he promised $6 billion in charity tax incentives; $1.7 billion for groups that cared for drug addicts, at-risk youth and teen moms; and $200 million for a “Compassion Capital Fund,” Kuo wrote.
“When he became the president, there was every reason to believe he’d be not only pro-life and pro-family, as conservatives tended to be, but also pro-poor, which was daringly radical,” Kuo’s editorial said.
But in June 2001, the tax incentives were dropped from Bush’s tax cut to “make room for the estate-tax repeal that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy,” according to Kuo. The White House allocated $600 million to other programs, which is billions of dollars short of what was promised, he said.
“Who was going to hold them accountable? Drug addicts, alcoholics, poor moms, struggling urban social service organizations and pastors aren’t quite the (National Rifle Association),” Kuo said. “Charities haven’t quite figured out the lobbying thing yet.”
Kuo said writing the editorial was difficult because of his “respect, appreciation, and affection for the president.”
“The White House can still do a great deal for the poor,” Kuo wrote. “It can add another few billion to insure every American child has health care. It could launch a program to simply eliminate hunger.”
He urged the president to push for supplemental funding for faith-based projects, and added, “No one ever said faith was easy or cheap.”
In response to a request for reaction to Kuo’s comments, Maria Tamburri, a spokeswoman for the White House, defended the work of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives.
“The faith-based and community initiative has been a priority to President Bush since the beginning of his first term and continues to be a priority,” Tamburri said in an interview.
“The president has mentioned the initiative in every State of the Union and has fought for funding for its important programs. The faith-based and community initiative has transformed the regulation landscape to enable faith-based and community organizations to compete fairly for federal funding to make a difference in the lives of our most vulnerable citizens in communities across America.”
_ Andrea James and Adelle M. Banks
Bush Administrations Challenges Church’s Use of Hallucinogenic Tea
(RNS) The Bush administration is challenging the right of the New Mexico branch of a Brazilian-based church to continue using a hallucinogenic tea as part of its religious rite, saying that it is illegal and dangerous.
The Supreme Court appeal filed Thursday (Feb. 10) by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is yet another move in a lengthy battle between the New Mexico branch of the Brazilian church _ O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal _ and the government.
The church, which has about 140 members in the United States and 8,000 worldwide, according to the Associated Press, says consumption of the tea, called hoasca, is an integral part of its religion. To prevent church members from using the tea in their rites would violate their constitutionally protected right to worship freely, church leaders say.
A federal appeals court had upheld a lower court ruling that allowed the church to continue using the tea pending a final ruling by that court. Ruling only on a procedural issue, the U.S. Supreme Court in December upheld the lower court injunction, allowing the church to use the tea in its rituals.
Now the Bush administration wants the court to rule on the merits of the case.
“It is not surprising that (the court is) doing this, although I think it reflects an appropriate level of hysteria on the part of the government,” said John Boyd, a co-counsel of the church.
At issue is the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act, a piece of legislation intended to prevent the government from enacting legislation that would infringe on religious freedom. The act required the government to show a “compelling interest” if a piece of legislation infringes on the First Amendment guarantee of free exercise of religion. In the New Mexico church case, the government argues that the compelling interest is in regulating hoasca, a controlled substance.
Opponents say that if the court agrees with the government, it would essentially strip the act of any meaning and amount to a violation of their religious freedom.
Tom Berg, legal adviser to the Center for Law and Religious Freedom, which filed a brief to the Supreme Court on behalf of the Brazilian church, said that while the center does not advocate the use of illegal substances, it is the principle of religious freedom that is at stake.
“ … If you are going to protect mainstream Christians, to be consistent you need to apply the same principle to those you strongly disagree with.”
_ Lauren Etter
Robertson Says Media Missing Story of Christian Growth in `Global South’
(RNS) Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says one story most U.S. media have missed is the growth of Christianity outside the Western world.
“The growth of Christianity has taken place in the Southern Hemisphere and Asia, outside of the radar of most Western media,” the chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network told members of the National Press Club at a Tuesday (Feb. 15) luncheon.
“While the American media is fixated on priestly sex abuse and homosexual marriages, the real story is on simple faith and supernatural power literally exploding around the world.”
Robertson added that often the Christians of Africa, Asia and South America don’t agree with the more liberal theology of some Christians in the West.
“Now there are more Presbyterians who worship in Ghana than in Scotland,” he said. “`More Anglicans worship in Nigeria than in Britain. These Christians from `the global South’ cannot relate to the watered-down religion of their fellow religionists in the Northern liberal churches.”
In a brief interview afterward, Robertson said the media need to pay attention to statistical predictions that the largest number of Christians in the world will be from Asia in 20 years, followed by Christians in Africa.
Asked why this is occurring, he said: “I just think these people are open to faith and they’re responding whereas in Europe you’ve gotten too sophisticated. But fortunately the United States is still staying strong.”
In his remarks, Robertson added that his staff at his Virginia Beach, Va.-based network _ which he founded in 1960 _ also has noticed little coverage of growing interest in Christianity in Muslim nations.
“Throughout the Muslim world, there is a profound spiritual hunger and a willingness of the people to learn more about Jesus Christ,” he said.
Robertson, who turns 75 in March, also addressed domestic issues, including the role of “people of faith” in the most recent presidential election. He said those same people “feel outraged and helpless as they watch unelected judges methodically crafting a Constitution unknown to the founders” by protecting abortion, homosexual marriage and “blatant Internet pornography.”
He reiterated his views on the federal judiciary when he was asked to list the top three moral issues he’d like to see addressed in President Bush’s second term. Said Robertson: “Judges, judges and judges.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: Evangelist Franklin Graham
(RNS) “Our immediate focus is to keep people alive. But our long-term work includes finding ways to help get people working again and earning a living.”
_ Evangelist Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse, on the relief agency’s plan to donate a thousand fishing boats to areas of South Asia hit by the recent tsunami.
MO/JL RNS END
