c. 2005 Religion News Service

Vatican, Russian Orthodox Officials Find Common Ground Against Secularism

VATICAN CITY (RNS) High-ranking Vatican and Russian Orthodox officials agreed Thursday (June 23) on the need for both churches to join in affirming “spiritual values” to combat growing secularism in the world.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s chief ecumenical officer, met in Moscow with Metropolitan Kyrill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, who is No. 2 in the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Russian news agency Ria-Novosti reported that a brief meeting between Kasper and Kyrill stretched into three hours. It was Kasper’s first visit to Moscow since Pope Benedict XVI pledged after his election in April to jump-start efforts toward Christian unity.

The two sides have had strained relations since the fall of communism 15 years ago, with the Orthodox accusing Rome of seeking converts among traditionally Orthodox Russians and Ukrainians.

The Rev. Vsevolod Chiaplin, spokesman for the Russian Orthodox, said the prelates agreed on the need for cooperation in “the affirmation of spiritual values and Christian morals” at a time of moral crisis and secularization in Europe and the world.

Chiaplin said Kyrill repeated “explicitly and with firmness” Moscow’s opposition to possible Vatican plans to transfer Catholic governance from the city of Lvov, in the Catholic enclave of Western Ukraine, to Kiev, the Ukrainian capital and cradle of Russian Orthodoxy.

The so-called Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine practices the same Byzantine liturgy as the Orthodox Church, but is united with the Vatican. The Orthodox Church in Ukraine comes under Moscow’s jurisdiction.

“Such a transfer would represent a serious obstacle for the development of relations between the two churches,” which both Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II and Benedict consider “necessary to our faithful as well as to the people of Europe and the world,” Kyrill said.

“The Catholic delegation took note of our position, and we hope that it may be held in consideration in the elaboration of initiatives that the Holy See will adopt in future in Ukraine,” the prelate said.

At the Vatican, Benedict on Thursday told Roman and Greek Catholic leaders to “favor everything that is useful for reconciliation and fraternity” among Christians in Ukraine.

_ Peggy Polk

Episcopalians, Canadians Banned From Anglican Meetings Until 2008

(RNS) In sanctions narrowly approved Wednesday (June 22), the Episcopal Church and its Canadian counterpart were told they will not be welcome at an international panel that sets policy for the Anglican Communion.

The Anglican Consultative Council, meeting in Nottingham, England, voted 30-28 to ban the U.S. and Canadian churches from future meetings until 2008. There were four abstentions in the closed-door vote.

However, a U.S. church spokeswoman said there are no further ACC meetings scheduled between now and 2008, which makes the sanctions “a moot point.”

The sanctions were recommended by senior Anglican bishops at their meeting in February, when they urged the two churches to “voluntarily withdraw” from the global panel because of their support of homosexuality.

Both churches made their case to the panel Tuesday, with Americans arguing there is “genuine holiness” among gay parishioners and within same-sex unions, as part of a 130-page report.

The Canadian and U.S. churches normally have three representatives each on the council; they were present at the Nottingham meeting but did not participate.

The council’s vote seems to signal that those arguments fell flat, at least with Anglican leaders from the Third World who are most opposed to homosexuality and make up a bulk of the council’s membership.

The resolution that censures the North American churches was signed in support by Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, one of the most outspoken critics of the U.S. church’s actions.

The leader of the U.S. church, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, said the close vote revealed a “divide” within the Anglican council, but said much of the church’s work happens in other venues where Americans are still invited.

“It is through these means and our numerous other relationships focused on mission to our hurting world that we will, with God’s grace, find our way forward,” Griswold said in a statement.

The conservative Atlanta-based American Anglican Council applauded the sanctions, saying they reflect “the mind of the Communion” and traditional understandings of human sexuality.

The sanctions will remain in place until Anglicans hold their most important legislative meeting, the Lambeth Conference, in London in 2008. The sanctions also remove both churches from the communion’s financial affairs board and steering committee.

In another important change, the council voted to expand itself to include the senior Anglican bishops, or primates, of the communion’s 38 autonomous churches. Such a move presumably gives the primates a more direct voice in the communion’s affairs beyond their yearly meetings.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Bill Would Make White House Faith-Based Office and Initiative Permanent

WASHINGTON (RNS) Congress is considering a bill that would make President Bush’s faith-based office and initiative a permanent White House fixture.

Proponents argue it’s a success worth continuing, but critics question whether it makes the wall between church and state too low.

A subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee met Tuesday (June 21) to discuss a bill sponsored by Rep. Mark Green, R-Wis., to codify the initiative Bush established when he issued an executive order during his first term.

“The Tools for Community Initiatives Act” (H.R. 1054) would make permanent the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and the Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in 10 federal agencies that Bush created to pursue equal treatment of faith-based groups.

The offices were created to promote government partnerships with faith-based and community organizations in providing publicly funded social services. Bush argued faith-based groups had been discriminated against by federal grant programs.

Green praised the efforts of faith-based and community-oriented groups in combating problems such as substance abuse, homelessness and youth violence.

“This initiative is about serving people in the most effective way,” Green said, noting that the groups are “reaching out not to further their ideology, but to help their neighbor.”

Some panelists at the hearing acknowledged that religious organizations can have a positive role in meeting American’s social needs. However, questions remain about defining the government’s role in funding faith-based organizations.

There is a “right way and a wrong way for the government to partner with religious organizations,” said Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-Va., adding that he is concerned, among other things, about permitting federally funded programs to proselytize.

_ Heather Horiuchi

Another Drop: Presbyterians Report Loss of 43,000 Members in 2004

(RNS) The Presbyterian Church (USA) continues to hemorrhage members, with new statistics showing an overall loss of 43,175 members in 2004.

The Louisville, Ky.-based church’s membership stood at 2.36 million at the end of 2004, a drop of about 1.79 percent from 2003, according to statistics released Tuesday (June 21). It was the second-largest decline in a decade after a loss of 46,658 in 2003.

The church’s highest officer, Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick, attributed most of the loss to churches that purged inactive members from membership lists, who were lost “out the `back door’ to nowhere.”

“Statistically, we are not losing people to other churches,” Kirkpatrick said in his annual report. “Our problem is that we are losing people to the secular world _ to no active church affiliation.”

The membership loss, which is seen across most mainline Protestant bodies, continues a trend that started in the mid-1960s. When the Presbyterian Church (USA) was formed through a merger of other bodies in 1983, it had 4.2 million members.

Kirkpatrick said that 40,476 transferred into the denomination last year from other churches, compared to 30,319 that transferred out. Still, 36,034 members died and 109,000 moved to churches “not in correspondence” with the Presbyterians or dropped out altogether.

Kirkpatrick said the figures should be a “wake-up” call for Presbyterians, especially in the area of starting new churches. During 2004, the church dissolved 63 congregations and started only 25 new ones.

“We as Presbyterians will only become a growing church if we begin on our knees, praying for forgiveness for our timidity in evangelism and seeking God’s renewal so that we lose our image as God’s `frozen chosen,”’ Kirkpatrick said.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Canadian Military Presides Over Its First Same-Sex Wedding

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (RNS) Canada’s military has confirmed that two soldiers exchanged vows in May in the first gay marriage to be recognized by the country’s armed forces.

Canadian Press reports that the two unnamed men, one a sergeant, the other a warrant officer, both in their late 30s, were married at Canadian Forces Base Greenwood in Nova Scotia on May 3.

It was the first time the military has presided over a same-sex wedding, now legal in almost all of Canada after a series of court rulings over the past two years.

The ceremony took place two years after the Defense Department issued guidelines on the contentious issue and more than a decade after gays were allowed to join Canada’s armed forces.

The policy states that “every chaplain in the branch will receive all couples who come to them _ regardless of sexual orientation _ with respect and dignity.”

The men were wed at the base’s chapel in front of about 45 friends, Canadian Press reports.

A United Church of Canada minister presided after the base’s chaplain, an Anglican, refused to perform the ceremony. Canada’s Anglican church last month declared a two-year moratorium on the blessing of same-sex marriages.

Lt. Cmdr. David Greenwood, the base’s head chaplain, helped arrange the ceremony and said it might encourage other gay soldiers to step forward.

“I think there was a sense that many people thought they would never have seen something like this in their lifetimes _ and not in a negative way, but in a positive way,” Greenwood told Canadian Press.

“It was something that I was very proud to be involved in.”

_ Ron Csillag

Quote of the Day: William Franklin Graham IV, Billy Graham’s grandson

(RNS) “We’re a Christian family. … The only way to the father is through the son, not through the grandson.”

_ William Franklin Graham IV, the grandson of evangelist Billy Graham, jokingly explaining his response when people ask him if they can meet his famous grandfather. He addressed Southern Baptists on Wednesday (June 22) at the denomination’s annual meeting in Nashville, Tenn.

MO/PH END RNS