c. 2005 Religion News Service Pope, Leaders of World Council of Churches, Reaffirm Quest for Unity VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI met with leaders of the World Council of Churches Thursday (June 16) and reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s “irreversible” commitment to the search for Christian unity. Both the pope and the Rev. Samuel Kobia, secretary general of the WCC, indicated that they wanted to put behind the strains caused by a controversial Vatican document that asserted that only Catholics were assured of salvation. The document, entitled “Declaration Dominus Iesus (Lord Jesus),” was issued in 2000 by Benedict, who was then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican’s top authority on church doctrine. Since his election as pope on April 19, however, Benedict has repeatedly stressed the need for ecumenical dialogue to “rebuild the full and visible unity of all Christ’s followers.” “The commitment of the Catholic Church to the search for Christian unity is irreversible,” Benedict told the WCC delegation. He urged “concrete gestures” toward this goal. Kobia invited the pope to visit the council’s headquarters in Geneva as his predecessors, Paul VI and John Paul II, had done. This, he said, would be “one more concrete step in our long journey towards visible unity.” The Catholic Church does not belong to the WCC, a union of 330 Orthodox and Protestant churches, but it formed a Joint Working Group with the council in 1965 to maintain contact and cooperation. Kobia told the pope that he saw three areas for further cooperation _ spirituality, teaching ecumenism to young people and dialogue on the “fundamental” question of whether Christian churches can “recognize each other’s baptism as well as their ability or inability to recognize one another as churches.” “Dominus Iesus” stated that with the exception of the Orthodox churches, other Christian faiths “suffer from defects” and therefore are “ecclesial communities” and not “churches in the proper sense.” Kobia told a news conference following the audience that he considered “mutual recognition of churches as churches” to be “very important” and intended to make what Benedict has said since he became pope, rather than “Dominus Iesus,” the “point of departure” on the issue. _ Peggy Polk Bush Affirms Faith and Family at Hispanic Prayer Breakfast WASHINGTON (RNS) Speaking to hundreds of Hispanic clergy, most of them evangelical Christians, President Bush testified to the power of faith at the annual National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast on Thursday (June 16). “It really is the strength of America, isn’t it?” said Bush, referring to prayer, in a short speech sprinkled with Spanish phrases. “America is founded on los valores de fe y familia” (the values of faith and family) he said. The crowd interrupted Bush’s speech with bursts of applause and shouts of “amen” and “yes.” In an interview after the speech, the Rev. Danny Cortes, senior vice president of Esperanza, said he identified with the president’s message. “This is our core value,” he said, “to preach and live the values of the Gospel. That’s at the center of what evangelicals do.” Republican and Democratic leaders joined the president at the gathering, which featured Latino musicians, a hot breakfast and prayers for American lawmakers. “. . . Americans are a faith-filled people, and the personally held faith of millions leads to great acts of conscience, charity and community,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat. She listed programs on employment, social security, immigration and education as examples of “policies that reflect our faith.” Tom Ridge, former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, also spoke at the event. “Religion and morality were the cornerstones of this country and this great democracy,” he said. This was Bush’s fourth Hispanic prayer breakfast. Last year he appeared via a recorded video message. The event was founded in 2002 by the Rev. Luis Cortes, president of Esperanza USA, a Philadelphia-based religious charity that has received millions of dollars in federal grants. The Hispanic prayer breakfast gives politicians a chance to stump with a group of “uncommitted” voters, said Ted Jelen, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “Because a lot of Hispanics are fairly recent arrivals to the U.S. and don’t have firm ties to either political party as they haven’t been voting that long … it’s a very important swing constituency,” he said. According to Jelen, the Republican party is becoming increasingly interested at the presidential level in reaching out to Hispanics, a consituency that tends to be religious, socially conservative and has large communities in swing states including Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada. _ Nancy Glass Presbyterians Approve New Sex Abuse Policies (RNS) Presbyterians have officially approved 11 new policies on clergy sexual abuse, marking a shift, church leaders say, from focusing on the accused to protecting innocent victims. The Presbyterian Church (USA) approved the 11 amendments to its constitution last summer, but to become church law the reforms needed to be ratified by a majority of the church’s 173 regional bodies called presbyteries. As of June 8, at least 120 presbyteries have approved the amendments, and they will become church law on July 3, according to Presbyterian News Service. “Out of fear of possible damage to those accused, our system has, at times, not allowed justice to be pursued for victims and survivors of abuse,” said the Rev. Paul Masquelier, the chairman of a task force that drafted the amendments. The Presbyterian policies were announced at the same time the U.S. Confernece of Catholic Bishops is meeting in Chicago this week (June 16-18) to renew the abuse policies that were initially adopted in 2002. The reforms were sparked by a 2002 report that documented abuse by the late Rev. William Pruitt against at least 22 children at a missionary school in the Congo between 1945 and 1985. Pruitt died before he could be charged. Church officials say they continue to hear from victims, who thought they had no chance of finding justice in a church system that favored the rights of the accused. The new laws, among other things: _ Mandate that church personnel report allegations of abuse to civil authorities. _ Grant accusers and survivors an opportunity to participate in church disciplinary procedures. _ Require public disclosure of “out-of-church” legal settlements. _ Give presbyteries the right to place accused clergy on administrative leave. Previous policy allowed accused clergy to remain in their jobs during an investigation. “Accusers and survivors of abuse are now stakeholders in the disciplinary process,” said the Rev. Mark Tammen, director of the church’s Department of Constitutional Services. “We have flipped from being more concerned with protecting the rights of the accused.” _ Kevin Eckstrom Update: Protests Pay Off as Massachusetts Catholic Church to Open Again

(RNS) Nearly 10 months after launching a defiant sit-in that sparked a trend among Boston area parishes slated for closure, St. Albert the Great Church in Weymouth, Mass., has received an official ruling: the church doors will re-open.

Roman Catholic Archbishop Sean P. O’Malley this week (June 13) issued a decree reinstating the parish and appointed a priest to serve as pastor. Parishioners, who had been taking turns sleeping in pews, greeted the news with cheers and hugs.

“I think you have seen that David did slay Goliath,” said Mary Akoury, co-chair of the parish council, in remarks quoted by the Boston Globe.

Last year, St. Albert’s was one of 83 parishes planned for closure in a cost-cutting measure launched by a diocese strained by priest shortages, slumping donations and emotional turmoil from the clergy sexual abuse crisis. After St. Albert’s parishioners refused to go, members of seven other area parishes due to close followed suit, staging “vigils” of their own.

Acting on a recommendation from a committee appointed to review the closure process, O’Malley reversed the initial decision earlier this year and completed the canonical process for reinstatement this week. Other parishes have learned a lesson to “find your own voice, be strong and stand up for your rights,” said Peter Borre, co-chair of the Council of Parishes, a Boston area group supportive of congregations holding vigil.

“Given that St. Albert’s was the very first to mobilize a sit-in, given that they have been told that they may re-open as a full parish and not just as a chapel, that tells me it pays to take a tough line,” Borre said in an interview.

“In other words, the meek do not inherit the Earth. The meek inherit night soil,” he said, referring to manure collected by peasants.

_ G. Jeffrey MacDonald

New York Congressman Calls for Study of Religious Freedom in Military

(RNS) Responding to allegations of religious proselytizing at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., called Wednesday (June 15) for a commission to study religious freedom in the military services.

Israel suggested legislation creating a commission to study how to balance religious expression in the military with the constitutional separation of church and state. The proposed commission would consist of experts in pastoral care, representatives from the military and government, and outsiders.

Recent allegations “raise profound issues that transcend the academy” Israel said in a news release. “. . . we should not downplay and dilute reports that a particular religious view is being forced at any military institution.”

Israel is a member of the House Armed Services Committee. His proposal follows the revelation last week that the Air Force is investigating the second-in-command at the academy, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, an evangelical Christian who has been criticized, among other things, for promoting the National Day of Prayer in an e-mail message.

The Air Force announced in May that it had created a task force to study allegations that faculty and staff had inappropriately promoted evangelical Christianity at the academy.

_ Nancy Glass

Watchdog Group Asks for Apologies in Schiavo Case

(RNS) A religious liberty watchdog group is asking Christian conservatives to apologize for their role in the Terri Schiavo case, but so far, there aren’t any takers.

“These religious right zealots owe the entire country an apology,” Barry W. Lynn, executive director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State said in a Wednesday (June 15) statement.

“They intervened in a personal family matter, gave this poor woman’s parents false hope, libeled her husband with unfounded accusations and turned a tragic situation into a political football. Have they no shame?”

Schiavo suffered extensive, irreversible brain-damage, according to an autopsy report released Wednesday. Schiavo died March 31, after her feeding tube was disconnected, ending months of prayer and protests by religious conservatives to save her life.

Even after the autopsy, religious organizations describing themselves as “pro life” maintained Schiavo was cruelly treated.

“The fact that Terri Schiavo was brain damaged and her condition was irreversible did not make her any less of a human being,” said Jim Sedlak, vice president of American Life League, in an interview.

Concerned Women for America, a Washington-based group, took a similar position.

“Terri Schiavo died because the court ordered the removal of the instrument that provided her water,” said Wendy Wright, senior policy director for Concerned Women for America.

“Only a calloused society in moral freefall would deny a disabled person her most basic need _ water,” Wright said.

_ Heather Horiuchi

Quote of the Day: Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin

(RNS) “If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime _ Pol Pot or others _ that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, this is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.”

_ Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., after reading an email from an FBI agent describing the U.S. military’s treatment of Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Durbin was quoted in The Washington Times.

MO/JL END RNS