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
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.”
_ Piet Levy
Jerusalem Ordered to Pay $75,000 to Gay Rights Group
JERUSALEM (RNS) The Jerusalem District Court has ordered the city of Jerusalem to pay a gay and lesbian rights organization more than $75,000, after the city failed to provide it with mandatory funding.
The May 29 ruling said the city had discriminated against the Jerusalem Open House (JOH), a meeting place and advocacy center for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people (LGBT), by withholding a total of 350,000 shekels (about $77,000) in funding in 2003, 2004 and 2005.
Every year, Jerusalem, which is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims, allocates millions of dollars to a wide variety of local organizations.
In her decision, Judge Judith Tzur wrote: “Even if municipal officials have a hard time accepting the community, and believe this is an unwanted phenomenon, the municipality cannot veer off from fundamental principles and ignore this community. It must treat this community equally, out of recognition of the supreme value of equality, and out of respect for the values of tolerance and pluralism, which are at the core of democratic values.”
This is the second time that Jerusalem Open House has scored a victory against the city government, which since 2003 has been headed by Uri Lupolianski, an ultra-Orthodox Jew. In 2005 Lupolianski tried to prevent the annual Gay Pride march from taking place, according to JOH officials.
In August, Jerusalem will host WorldPride, a weeklong gay pride festival featuring lectures, films and other events that is expected to draw people from around the world.
Prominent Jewish, Muslim and Christian leaders launched a campaign last year to pressure the city to cancel WorldPride, which initially had been scheduled to take place in Jerusalem in August 2005. Ultimately, the organizers decided to postpone the event until August 2006, so as not to coincide with Israel’s “disengagement” from Gaza.
Hagai El-Ad, director of JOH, lauded the ruling.
“This is the right decision at the right time. We hope this case will set a strong precedent for LGBT people here in Israel and elsewhere. With WorldPride coming up in August, this win generates even more positive energy among JOH activists working toward WorldPride.”
A Jerusalem Municipality spokeswoman said the city “will act in accordance with the court’s ruling.”
_ Michele Chabin
McCarrick Says Church Could `Live With’ Civil Unions
WASHINGTON (RNS) Outgoing Cardinal Theodore McCarrick said this week (June 7) that the Catholic Church “can live with” civil unions between homosexual couples “in order to protect their right to take care of each other.”
McCarrick, 76, is retiring this summer after five years as head of the Archdiocese of Washington. Because his pulpit is located in the nation’s capital, McCarrick is often looked upon as a national spokesman for American Catholics.
During an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, McCarrick said marriage between a man and a woman is “the ideal.”
However, “if you can’t meet that ideal, if there are people who for one reason or another just cannot do that or feel they cannot do that, then in order to protect their right to take care of each other, in order to take care of their right to have visitation in a hospital or something like that, I think that you could allow, not the ideal, but you could allow for that, for a civil union,” McCarrick said.
Civil unions confer on same-sex couples many of the legal rights traditionally accorded to heterosexual couples, such as hospital visitations, child custody and the inheritance of property.
Massachusetts is the only state to allow full marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples; Vermont and Connecticut offer civil unions.
While he said he was willing to compromise on civil unions, McCarrick said he does not believe that homosexuals should be allowed to marry.
“If you begin to fool around with the whole _ the whole nature of marriage, then you’re doing something which affects the whole culture and denigrates what is so important for us,” the cardinal said.
A transcript of McCarrick’s remarks is posted on CNN’s Web site.
On Friday, McCarrick issued a statement distancing himself from his remarks, saying that he “misspoke.”
“In trying to reply to a question, I mentioned people who may need the right to take care of each other when they are grievously ill and hospitalized, but it was always in the context of the proposed legislation and in no way in favor of a lifestyle that is contrary to the teaching of the church and Scripture. … I regret any confusion my words may have caused. I just did not make myself sufficiently clear,” McCarrick said.
Brian Saint-Paul, the editor of Crisis, a conservative Catholic magazine, said McCarrick’s initial comments did not “overly surprise” him, though he could not recall another U.S. cardinal articulating any support for civil unions.
While American Catholic prelates have voiced support for limited “domestic partner” benefits for gay couples, they also warned Catholic politicians in 2003 that supporting civil unions for gay and lesbian couples would be “gravely immoral.”
McCarrick’s remarks seemed to signal a willingness to soften the church’s condemnation of civil unions.
Earlier this month, McCarrick was one of eight American cardinals who signed a letter in support of a constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriage. That amendment died in the Senate on Wednesday, when it failed to win enough votes.
_ Daniel Burke
School District Suspends Lunchtime Visits by Pastors
BEND, Ore. (RNS) Central Oregon’s largest school district has suspended a long-standing practice of allowing youth pastors from a local evangelical church to talk to students eating lunch in school cafeterias.
Representatives of Bend’s Westside Church had been going to lunches about once a month at four middle schools and three high schools in Bend for about three years, church officials said.
They would check in on students who were part of Westside’s youth ministry program, called 180.
“We’re just there to visit with the kids and encourage them,” said Steve Stern, Westside’s youth program coordinator. “We don’t have Bible studies or anything.”
A few parents found out about the visits from their children and complained to officials at Cascade Middle School and the Bend-La Pine School District.
“For me it’s a concern because middle schoolers are so impressionable, and if the school district is going to allow one religion to be represented, they have to allow other religions to be represented, too,” said parent Judy Drake.
Bend-La Pine, with 14,675 students, isn’t the first place such conflicts have occurred. School districts in Oregon and across the country often struggle with balancing state and U.S. constitutional provisions that protect religious expression while restricting entanglement between church and state.
“They also have to deal with parents,” whose opinions on what’s appropriate for their children can vary wildly, said attorney Nancy Hungerford. Her Oregon City firm counsels districts across the state on the issue.
School officials called Westside leaders on Tuesday (June 6) and asked them to stop the visits until the district can revise its current visitor and volunteer policies to address the situation.
“There are some really tough legal questions that we have to sort through, and it will lead to a complete review of how we do this,” Bend-La Pine Superintendent Doug Nelson said.
Stern, the youth program leader, said the Foursquare Gospel church has complied with all district policies and was happy to acquiesce to the district’s suspension of the visits.
“We’re not out here to ruffle feathers,” he said. “We’re just out here to love on kids and let kids know there are people there who care for them.”
_ Matthew Preusch
Anglican Archbishop Says Civil Partnerships Erodes Traditional Marriage
LONDON (RNS) Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams claims the British government will undermine the institution of marriage with its plans to give similar legal rights to couples who choose to live together but not get married.
Law advisers to Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government are pushing ahead with reforms under which unwed couples in long-term relationships would be treated like married couples. Under the plan, they would be ordered to sell their homes, pay lump sums and share pensions and other assets in the event they split up.
But marriage already has “suffered a long process of erosion,” Williams told a British newspaper (the Sunday Times, June 11), and the benefits the Blair administration proposes to give to cohabiting couples would simply add to a “prevailing social muddle.”
Williams leads the Church of England and is the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
The planned reforms primarily target traditional man-and-woman relationships, although gay couples living in civil “partnerships” that were recently approved by the government would also be affected.
“The concept of cohabitation is an utterly vague one that covers a huge variety of arrangements,” Williams said. “As soon as you define anything, you are creating a kind of status that is potentially a competition with marriage, or a reinvention of marriage.”
“One of the problems,” he said, “is trying to solve individual and infinitely varied problems by legislation.”
Williams said one of the long-term results could be “dire consequences” for any children involved. “I don’t think I need to spell out the research about educational factors that can be traced to children from unstable or broken partnerships,” he added.
The governmental Law Commission that generated the proposals insisted such reform could actually encourage more men and women to wed because partners could no longer avoid financial responsibilities by opting to live together instead of getting married.
_ Al Webb
Federal Judge Upholds `In God We Trust’
(RNS) A federal judge in California ruled against an atheist on Monday (June 12) who argued that minting the phrase “In God We Trust” on U.S. currency violated constitutional prohibitions against the government promoting religious ideas.
Following precedent established by a 1970 court decision, U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. ruled that the words “In God We Trust” are a national motto that “have nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion.”
Michael Newdow, a Sacramento doctor and lawyer who argued that the phrase violates his right to be treated equally, vowed on Tuesday to appeal the ruling.
“It’s such a fraud,” Newdow said in an interview. “In this nation that’s supposed to be this beacon of religious liberty, a bastion of equality. What’s next `In Jesus We Trust,’ `In Protestantism We Trust’ ?”
Two years ago, Newdow, an avowed atheist, battled all the way to the Supreme Court to have the phrase “under God” removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. The high court ruled the Sacremento man lacked the standing to bring the case.
With new plaintiffs, Newdow brought an identical lawsuit back to the courts, where it now sits before the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals. Newdow said he plans to appeal the coin decision, as well, to the same appeals court. Newdow estimated that he has spent between $7,000 and $8,000 on his court cases.
Newdow’s “In God We Trust” case claimed that the government was “excluding people who don’t believe in God,” and violating the constitutional principle of a separation between church and state.
Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, said Newdow’s lawsuit is an “attempt to alter history by removing a legitimate expression of our religious history.”
Federal lawmakers authorized a reference to God on a 2-cent piece in 1864, according to the Associated Press. Congress passed a law that required all U.S. currency to bear the words “In God We Trust” in 1955.
_ Daniel Burke
Tennessee Catholic School Gets Pope’s Ski Jacket
(RNS) A Tennessee high school named after John Paul II has landed itself a sporty new souvenir: the late pope’s ski jacket.
Former Knoxville Bishop Edward Kmiec had been trying to acquire a personal item of the pope since John Paul II High School in Hendersonville, Tenn., opened in 2002, according to Catholic News Service.
Kmiec, now bishop of Buffalo, returned to the school earlier this year to present the jacket, according to the news service. “I hope it gives a little human connection to the pope,” the bishop told CNS.
Kmiec obtained the jacket through a Polish priest in Buffalo who knows Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow, who was John Paul’s friend and secretary.
Dziwisz provided the ski jacket and documentation to prove the pope had worn it on one of his many outdoor jaunts, according to CNS. John Paul, who died April 2, 2005, was an avid sportsman.
Hans Broekman, principal of Pope John Paul II High School, said the jacket will be displayed at the school. “Having some material we can take care of is special,” he told CNS.
If John Paul II is named a saint, the jacket would be considered a second-class relic, Kmiec said. Second-class relics are items worn or used by a saint.
In May 2005, Pope Benedict XVI started John Paul on the fast track to sainthood, waiving the usual five-year waiting period between a candidate’s death and eligibility for beatification.
Meanwhile, the Tennessee high school, which is located about 185 miles from Knoxville, has “a little touch of a great man,” Kmiec told CNS, adding that “if you’re wondering, I tried it on.”
_ Daniel Burke
Quote of the Week: Congressional candidate Keith Ellison of Minnesota
(RNS) “Perhaps it would be good for somebody who is Muslim to be in Congress, so that Muslims would feel like they are part of the body politic and that other Americans would know that we’re here to make a contribution to this country.”
_ Congressional candidate Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who, if elected, would be the first Muslim in the U.S. Congress, according to several national Muslim groups. He was quoted by The Hill newspaper.
KRE/JL END RNS
