c. 2006 Religion News Service
Schuller Announces Son Will Be Next Pastor of Crystal Cathedral
(RNS) The Rev. Robert H. Schuller, the longtime pastor of the Crystal Cathedral in southern California, has announced that his son, the Rev. Robert A. Schuller, will become the church’s new senior pastor on Jan. 22.
The younger Schuller, 51, will assume leadership of the megachurch in Garden Grove, Calif., the church said. His father, 79, will remain as chairman of the board of Crystal Cathedral Ministries and will hold the title of founding pastor.
The consistory, or church board, of the Crystal Cathedral called Robert A. Schuller to be the next pastor.
The transition has been expected for a decade. In 1996, Robert A. Schuller was publicly named as his father’s eventual successor and vice chairman of Crystal Cathedral Ministries.
“My father and I will continue as pulpit partners on many Sunday mornings for years to come,” the younger Schuller predicted during the Jan. 1 service.
The two men plan to continue joint appearances on the church’s international television broadcast, the “Hour of Power.”
“I have plans and goals over the next 10 years and will use my 50 years of experience as founding pastor to assist Robert as he assumes the position as senior pastor,” the elder Schuller said.
Robert H. Schuller marked 50 years of ministry in Orange County, Calif., last year. Affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, he began with a drive-in church that eventually grew into a much larger ministry, including the landmark glass-walled edifice with a congregation of more than 10,000 members.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Superdome Service Hosts Prayers for Renewal of New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) It was perhaps the saddest moment and the most joyous, wrapped into one.
Irvin Mayfield stepped to the microphone, golden trumpet in hand, and announced that this would be his last performance of “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” the first song his father taught him how to play. He dedicated the song, typically played during jazz funerals, to his father, who drowned during Hurricane Katrina.
Mayfield chose to lay the song to rest at Sunday’s (Jan. 1) interfaith celebration, the first event held at the Superdome since it sheltered thousands during the storm. He said the time for mourning is over and the time for celebrating at hand. From now on, Mayfield said, he plans to play his trumpet to herald only glad tidings.
Mayfield’s sentiments echoed the day’s theme, one praising the start of the new year as a time for the renewal of New Orleans and Louisiana. Gov. Kathleen Blanco, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu and Mayor Ray Nagin, as well as several of the city’s religious leaders, joined Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu in praying for strength and giving thanks to those who have stuck with the city during its time of need.
“Today is the first day of the rest of our lives: Jan. 1, 2006,” said the lieutenant governor, the event’s host. “A New Year’s Day marks a new beginning, a rebirth. We come here today to stick our pole in the ground and reclaim what has always been ours.”
About 300 people attended the celebration, which was decidedly religious in tone. The politicians showed their spiritual sides as well, reciting Scripture and, in Blanco’s case, issuing a call for residents “to bow down in prayer for the strength only God can give us.”
Yet the thought of politics never strayed too far from anyone’s mind.
Nagin, who smiled and nodded when one pastor said some people have felt like stoning the city’s and state’s leaders since Katrina hit, stressed that only through unity can the city achieve rebirth. But he said he has news for people who don’t want to see the city return to its former glory, with all its residents intact.
“This is our city,” Nagin said to those who want to take New Orleans in a different direction.
Toward the back of the crowd, Mark and Wendy Cartozzo of Destrehan, La., watched as their children, Evan and Hannah, danced as the crowd sang “This Little Light of Mine.”
Mark Cartozzo, who works in New Orleans, said he invites friends to the city once a week for dinner, with the hope that they will do the same, and attends as many of the city’s events as possible. “Especially after the hurricane,” he said, “we want to be part of all of the rebirth of the city.”
_ Christine Harvey
Judge Says Archdiocese Owns Parishes, Schools
PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) A bankruptcy judge has ruled that Catholic parishes and schools in Western Oregon are not separate from the Archdiocese of Portland, a decision that could help plaintiffs who are seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in priest sex-abuse claims.
Judge Elizabeth Perris, however, left unanswered whether selling churches and schools would be an undue burden on the religious freedom of Catholics.
The Archdiocese of Portland became the nation’s first Roman Catholic diocese to file for Chapter 11 protection after multimillion-dollar sex-abuse lawsuits in 2004.
The issue before Perris was whether parish property belongs to individual parishes or to the Archdiocese of Portland, which encompasses 124 parishes, three high schools and about 400,000 parishioners.
The ruling could determine whether the parishes’ estimated $500 million in real estate, cash and investments are available to pay millions of dollars in child sexual-abuse claims.
The bankruptcy came the same day that the archdiocese was scheduled to go to trial in a $135 million sex-abuse lawsuit involving the late Rev. Maurice Grammond.
The archdiocese already has made settlements totaling $53 million for more than 130 previous claims.
The bankruptcy froze dozens more claims seeking hundreds of millions more in damages. Perris’ ruling covered ground from obscure real estate law to broad constitutional questions of religious freedom.
Church lawyers argued that Portland Archbishop John G. Vlazny made a sacred vow to uphold canon law, which prohibits him from seizing assets that church law says belong to the parishes.
In the main bankruptcy case, the archdiocese recently filed its reorganization plan, which asks Perris to set aside $40 million to pay the remaining sex-abuse claims.
Many plaintiffs argue that the figure should be significantly higher. Perris has set Feb. 14 as the hearing date for arguments on the plan.
_ Ashbel “Tony” Green and Steve Woodward
Boston Mosque Sues to Save Reputation and New Worship Center
BOSTON (RNS) A Boston mosque is suing three organizations that have publicly alleged links between the faith community and known terrorist groups as fundraising for a new $24.5 million worship center slows to a trickle.
A stalled building project in the Roxbury section of Boston bears witness to the sweeping damage done to the reputation of the Islamic Society of Boston, according to a report in The Boston Globe.
“Given a choice between sending a check to an organization that has been labeled as supporting terrorists, and doing something that is perceived as safer, I think it’s simply a matter of logic,” said Salma Kazmi, assistant director of Islamic Society of Boston, in an interview with the Globe. “A person would choose just not to get involved with something they sense is controversial.”
In October, the Society sued The Boston Herald, local Fox network affiliate WFXT-TV and the David Project, a pro-Israel group. The suit also named terrorism specialist Steven Emerson, according to the Globe report.
News reports citing the David Project have investigated allegations that one of the Society’s founders, Abdurahman Alamoudi, also raised money in the United States for al-Qaida. The society’s role as plaintiff in the aftermath is unwarranted, according to one defendant.
“From our perspective, this is an attempt by the Islamic Society of Boston to essentially intimidate those who have asked questions about the leadership into not asking them anymore,” said Jeff Robbins, a David Project lawyer, in a Globe interview.
Originally planned as a shining symbol of tolerance in a state known first as home to Puritan settlers and then to waves of Irish-Catholic immigrants, the Roxbury mosque and cultural center was supposed to be finished by November 2004. But instead of reaching completion, the project has become mired in lawsuits. A local landowner is suing with a claim that the society acquired the land in a sweetheart deal, including an artificially low price, with the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
The Islamic Society of Boston has had no ties with Alamoudi for years and opposes extremist messages, according to Kazmi. To convey these messages and others to the wider public, the organization has hired a local public relations firm.
_ G. Jeffrey MacDonald
Quote of the Day: Rev. Craig McLaughlin of Bel Air, Md.
(RNS) “I was just sitting there while it was going on, praying that everybody would stay still and not do anything that would get anybody hurt.”
_ The Rev. Craig McLaughlin, pastor of Mount Zion United Methodist Church in Bel Air, Md., whose New Year’s Day evening service was interrupted by a gunman who robbed some of the members. McLaughlin was quoted by The Washington Times.
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