c. 2006 Religion News Service

Cardinal Warns Church of England Against Women Bishops

LONDON (RNS) One of Pope Benedict XVI’s top envoys has told Church of England bishops that if they go ahead with the ordination of women as bishops, any hopes of Roman Catholic-Anglican unity would become “unreachable.”

Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Council for Christian Unity, and the Vatican’s ecumenical point man, said such a move “would lead not only to a short-lived cold, but to a serious and long-lasting chill” in relations between the two churches.

Kasper, one of Benedict’s oldest friends and most trusted allies, journeyed to Britain to deliver his warning at a closed-door meeting of the Church of England bishops at Market Bosworth, England, on Monday (June 5).

A significant dialogue between Catholics and Anglicans has been ongoing for the past 40 years, the cardinal said, and “we had invested great hopes and expectations” with what had become “a pleasing rapprochement that justifiably aroused promising expectations.”

But he said those hopes may now about to be dashed, because “the growing practice of the ordination of women to priesthood (has) led to an appreciable cooling-off.”

Ecumenical dialogue “in the true sense of the word” has as its goal “the restoration of full church communion,” Kasper said, but “that presupposition would realistically no longer exist following the introduction of the ordination of women to episcopal office.”

“Above all _ and this is the most painful aspect _ the shared partaking of the one Lord’s table … would disappear into the far and ultimately unreachable distance,” he said. “Instead of moving toward one another, we would co-exist alongside one another.”

In reply, the Anglicans’ liberal archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said “nothing is served by avoiding these hard questions” and that “it is important to have this kind of honesty and clarity” about such matters.

Along with homosexual clerics, ordination of women bishops is among the most controversial issues facing the archbishop and other Anglican leaders _ and both may remain unresolved for some time, although they are headed for major debate at the Anglican General Synod in July.

_ Al Webb

Pennsylvania House Approves Amendment Banning Gay Marriage

HARRISBURG, Pa. (RNS) The national debate on same-sex marriage played out on the floor of the state House Tuesday (June 6) with a vote to strengthen the state’s law defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.

The House voted 136-61 to propose adding language to the state constitution that would ban same-sex marriage and the legal recognition of any union “identical or substantially equivalent” to marriage.

The bill goes to the Senate, where it would need to pass in identical form. The same bill would have to pass both chambers again in the next legislative session and then win voter approval in a referendum before it could become part of the state constitution.

Erik Arneson, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader David “Chip” Brightbill, said the Senate could vote on the bill this month.

“I believe it would pass the Senate, but to my knowledge, no one has done a real head count on it,” he said.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Scott Boyd, R-Lancaster, seeks to have Pennsylvania join other states that have passed constitutional amendments limiting marriage to between a man and a woman. Alabama became the 20th state on Tuesday when voters approved a constitutional amendment.

A federal constitutional amendment died in the Senate on Wednesday (June 7) in a 49-48 vote.

The definition of marriage should be left to voters, not judges, Boyd argued. “Without the marriage-protection amendment, what ultimately will marriage and the family look like 30 years from now?” Boyd asked.

Rep. Babette Josephs, D-Philadelphia, voiced dismay over the move to include what she called discriminatory language in the constitution. She noted that no court challenges have been filed to the state’s marriage-definition law from 1996.

Rep. Jerry Nailor, R-Mechanicsburg, tried unsuccessfully to limit the bill to defining marriage as between a man and woman, dropping the marriage-equivalents language. He said that language could affect such things as hospital visitation rights, survivor benefits and adoptions involving unmarried opposite-sex couples as well as gay couples.

“The unintended consequences of this legislation could go far beyond defining a marriage,” Nailor said.

_ Jan Murphy

`Ten Commandments Judge’ Loses Alabama Primary Race

MOBILE, Ala. (RNS) Gov. Bob Riley breezed past one of the best known figures in Alabama politics _ “Ten Commandments Judge” Roy Moore _ to win the Republican nomination for governor.

Riley, seeking a second term, routed Moore by a double-digit margin in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley appeared to have won the Democratic nomination after beating former Gov. Don Siegelman and five other opponents.

For Riley, Tuesday’s overwhelming win represented electoral redemption almost three years after voters buried his $1.2 billion tax and accountability plan in a statewide referendum. Rather than pitch significant proposals for a second term, he focused on the economy, education spending and a recently enacted tax cut that will mainly benefit low-income people.

“We came on a train for one reason _ because Alabama is finally on the right track,” Riley told cheering supporters at Montgomery’s Union Station after he pulled in aboard a one-car CSX train.

He also reached out to his opponent, saying that nobody would ever accuse Moore of “not standing up for what he believes in.”

At the Senior Activity Center in downtown Gadsden, Moore appeared to welcome the result Tuesday night.

“It’s in the hands of God, and win or lose, we’ve won. You can never lose when it’s in the hands of God,” Moore said moments after hundreds of flag-waving supporters welcomed him with the chant, “We want Moore! We want Moore.”

As Alabama Supreme Court chief justice three years ago, Moore became a hero to some Christian conservatives by defying a federal court order to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Judicial Building. That defiance cost him his job, but as recently as January of last year, a Press-Register/University of South Alabama poll showed him leading Riley by eight percentage points.

Despite a campaign platform promising a reversal of Riley’s requirement for annual property reappraisals, Moore was apparently unable to widen his appeal beyond his core supporters.

For evangelicals across the country, he had become “quite an important symbol,” said John Green, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life who was struck by how much time Moore spent out of state during the campaign.

Green was unsure how Moore’s defeat will affect those supporters’ attitudes toward political involvement, but added the election may show a single issue is not enough to win. “Even a lot of conservative evangelicals in Alabama might say there’s a lot more to being governor.”

_ Sean Reilly

Poll Suggests Gender Inequality Not a Concern of Muslim Women

WASHINGTON (RNS) Muslim women should be allowed to vote, drive and work outside the home, but gender inequality is not a primary problem, a majority of Muslim women said in a new Gallup poll.

The 2005 poll, released Tuesday (June 6), questioned 8,000 women about their perceptions of life in Muslim and Western countries. Women were polled in Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

A majority said that women should be allowed to vote, ranging from 68 percent in Pakistan to 95 percent in Egypt. A majority also said that women should be allowed to work at any job they’re qualified for, serve in high levels of government and drive cars by themselves. Most of these countries allow women to conduct these activities legally, said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

A vast majority of Muslim women surveyed most admired their society’s adherence to Islamic values, suggesting that Sharia (Islamic law) should serve as a source of political legislation.

Those sampled said that lack of unity, extremism and political corruption were the main problems with their societies. Inequality between the sexes, criticized by many in the West, barely registered with Muslim women. No more than 2 percent of women in Egypt and Morocco said it was an issue. In the more westernized countries of Lebanon and Turkey, 11 percent said gender inequality was a problem.

While most prefer their Islamic ways, the study said many Muslim women associate gender equality with Western Europe and the United States. But they disapprove of the way women are treated and greatly resent the “promiscuity, pornography and public indecency” in western countries.

“So while the veil is often perceived by many in the West as a symbol of women’s inferior cultural status in the Muslim world,” the report reads, “in Muslim societies, the perceived lack of modesty portrayed in Western media is thought to signal women’s degraded cultural status.”

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

The report also maintained there was little difference in access to higher education in Muslin and Western countries. Iran and the United States have no gender gap at universities, for instance, while France and Germany have gender gaps favoring men exceeding 50 percent.

The survey was conducted in the women’s homes, in rural and urban areas, between August and October 2005. The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.

_ Piet Levy

Quote of the Day: Wedgwood Baptist Church Pastor Al Meredith

(RNS) “Fort Worth’s greatest crime scene is also the site of one of her greatest miracles. The Darkness sought to shut us down, but the Light shines ever brigher and ever stronger and will not be extinguished.”

_ Al Meredith, senior pastor of Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, writing in that city’s Star-Telegram in reaction to an online survey that chose the 1999 “Wedgwood Baptist Church Massacre” as the No. 1 Tarrant County crime in the past century. He said hundreds of people have become Christians and millions of dollars have been raised for mission causes since the shooting that killed seven people.

KRE/JL END RNS