c. 2005 Religion News Service
American Religious Orders to Protest Expected Vatican Document on Gays
VATICAN CITY (RNS) American religious orders are organizing a trip to Rome to protest a forthcoming Vatican document expected to bar gay men from the priesthood, according to a published report.
The New York Times reported on Friday (Sept. 30) that the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, which coordinates activities between leaders of major Catholic religious orders in the U.S., has circulated a letter among its members discussing the trip.
Although the Vatican has yet to release any document barring the ordination of gays, word of its publication appears to have stirred the religious orders to pre-emptively challenge the promulgation of any Vatican guidelines that contain exclusionary language.
A Vatican official who confirmed that the document has been submitted to Pope Benedict XVI said the guidelines were still subject to revision and could be “years away” from receiving the pope’s final approval.
The trip represents the most outspoken attempt yet to influence the contents of the forthcoming document. Although no travel dates have been set, the orders are likely to make the trip in the near future.
While many expect the document will exclude all homosexuals, including celibate ones, observers have questioned whether Benedict will fully endorse the guidelines, which are being prepared by the Congregation of Catholic Education.
The pope has the option of approving the document in “forma specifica,” giving the guidelines his full authority and making them harder to overturn.
“It will be interesting to see if at the end of that document we’re told that this was given the approval of Pope Benedict XVI. That will be the key,” said Anthony Figueiredo, a theologian at Seton Hall University who is in Rome as a special assistant to Benedict.
Others point out that much of the document’s impact will hinge on how it defines homosexuality and if it will tolerate priests who experience homosexual attractions but do not act on them.
_ Stacy Meichtry
Court Testimony Alleges School Board Members Pushed Creationism
HARRISBURG, Pa. (RNS) Two former board members of a Pennsylvania school district testified that fellow board members openly advocated the teaching of creationism in science class before a policy on intelligent design was officially adopted.
The effort began in January 2002, when Dover Area School District board member Alan Bonsell cited a need “to bring prayer and faith back into the school,” former board member Carol “Casey” Brown said in U.S. Middle District Court in Harrisburg on Thursday (Sept. 29).
The board completed the task in October 2004, when it voted to amend the biology curriculum to include a statement on intelligent design as an alternative to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, said lawyers representing 11 parents opposed to the policy change.
Brown and her husband, Jeffrey A. Brown, also a former board member, testified that they resigned in protest over the policy, which requires teachers or administrators to read a four-paragraph statement on evolution and intelligent design at the start of ninth-grade biology segments.
The parents sued, claiming that the policy violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause prohibiting government from passing legislation to establish an official religion or to single out preference of a religion. District lawyers call the intelligent design statement a “modest policy change” that does not result in less instruction on evolution.
The statement calls evolution “just a theory” with inexplicable “gaps” and refers to intelligent design as “an explanation of life that differs from Darwin’s view.” Proponents of intelligent design say the universe and many living things are so complex that they must have been created by an unspecified intelligent designer.
The board “intended to promote religious views, which is unconstitutional in any classroom” in public schools, American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Witold Walczak said during a break. The ACLU filed the lawsuit against the district on behalf of the 11 parents opposed to the policy change.
But one of the school district’s lawyers, Richard Thompson, said in an interview that any discussion leading up to the policy change is irrelevant as long as the change does not promote religion.
“There’s nothing wrong with (board members) talking about their religious beliefs,” said Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center, a nonprofit Christian firm based in Ann Arbor, Mich. “The question at the end of the day is, does it violate the Constitution of the United States?”
Both sides said the case could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. If the district loses its case in Middle District Court, Thompson said the district’s odds of success improve with each Supreme Court justice appointment made by President Bush.
_ Bill Sulon
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod Reports Membership Decrease
(RNS) Membership in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has continued its decades-long decline, with a loss of more than 25,000 people from 2003 to 2004, the denomination announced.
But at the same time, the church group’s congregations increased their total contributions by $51 million.
Congregations related to the St. Louis-based denomination reported 2,463,747 baptized members, a figure that is 25,189 fewer than 2003.
“Since 1972, our peak membership year, the Synod has lost some 317,000 baptized members,” said John O’Hara, research analyst for the LCMS.
Despite some sporadic increases, the denomination has seen far more annual declines. About 124,000 members left due to a schism within its ranks in the 1970s.
O’Hara is hopeful that the declining statistics will encourage more congregations to take part in denominational efforts aimed at increasing their sharing of the gospel.
Despite the membership losses, giving is on the increase. Church members gave a record $1.3 billion to the denomination. Giving also increased by $53 million in 2003 following declines the previous two years.
Of the $1.3 billion received in 2004, congregations directed $121.8 million for work outside their local communities.
The denomination had 6,151 congregations, which were served by 5,323 pastors, in 2004.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Schuller Bible Study Accompanies Release of `Ben-Hur’ DVD
(RNS) The 1959 MGM blockbuster “Ben-Hur” has been released in a new four-disc DVD set, complete with a study guide for using the movie with church groups.
The Bible study packaged with the new release was written by the Rev. Robert H. Schuller and his son, the Rev. Robert A. Schuller, co-chairmen of Garden Grove, Calif.-based Crystal Cathedral Ministries, which produces the weekly television program “Hour of Power.”
The DVD, released Sept. 13, is another example of the entertainment industry marketing to religious groups after Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” successfully reached out to people of faith.
Based on the popular 19th-century novel of the same name by author Lew Wallace, “Ben-Hur” focuses on the life of Jewish nobleman Judah Ben-Hur, played by Charlton Heston. With the story set in the time of Christ, Ben-Hur is unjustly condemned to the Roman galleys by a former childhood friend, now a military official in Palestine. The epic story takes Ben-Hur to Rome and eventually back home, his life marked by tragedy and the search for revenge but changed by his encounters with Jesus.
The Schuller study guide draws messages for contemporary viewers from the more than 40-year-old film. “`Ben-Hur’ is a heroic quest of one man’s journey from riches, to slavery, to transformation,” the authors comment in the guide. “Just as God changed Judah, God wants to make something new out of you.”
The guide recommends a marathon-like format for incorporating the three-hour-plus film into a Bible study. The authors suggest that churches, perhaps using small groups, show the film in the afternoon, host a meal for study participants, then utilize the guide to talk about the movie and “God’s Transformational Power.”
_ Ted Parks
Quote of the Day: Red Sox outfielder Johnny Damon
(RNS) “We know it’s going to come down to this weekend. It’s the master plan. God’s way. Yankees-Red Sox.”
_ Red Sox outfielder Johnny Damon, predicting that the outcome of the American League East baseball standings will be determined when his team meets its rival, the New York Yankees, face to face to close out the regular season. He was quoted by The Boston Globe.
MO/PH END RNS
