c. 2006 Religion News Service
Davenport Becomes Fourth Diocese to Declare Bankruptcy
(RNS) The Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Oct. 10, becoming the fourth U.S. diocese to pursue the financial shelter because of costly sexual abuse litigation.
“I and the leadership of the diocese believe that, as difficult as this decision is, it provides the best opportunity for healing and for the just and fair compensation of those who have suffered sexual abuse by clergy in our diocese,” Davenport Bishop William Franklin said in a statement.
The diocese is facing 25 claims of sexual abuse by clergy, according to the diocese. Since 2004, the diocese has paid more than $10.5 million to resolve dozens of claims filed against abusive priests, according to the Associated Press.
But a new set of accusations against former Bishop Lawrence Soens has led the diocese to seek financial protection through filing for bankruptcy, according to the AP. The first trial against Soens was scheduled to begin Oct. 23, but may now dismissed because of the bankruptcy filing, according to the alleged victims’ attorney.
“I think it’s a sad day for victims of clergy abuse in the Davenport Diocese as well as its parishioners,” Craig Levien, the victims’ lawyer, told the AP. “I believe it’s just an unnecessary step … with the real purpose being an effort to try and eliminate future responsibility.”
The dioceses of Portland, Ore., Spokane, Wash., and Tucson, Ariz., have also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
_ Daniel Burke
French Jewish Community Divided Over Role of Women
PARIS (RNS) A debate over whether women can run for leadership positions in the Jewish community has divided Jews in northeastern France, where five women are defying a rabbinical ruling against female candidates in upcoming administrative elections.
The dispute involves the Strasbourg-based Israelite Consistoire of Bas-Rhin, an administrative body representing the Jewish faith in a slice of the bucolic Alsace region along the French/German border.
Late last month, an administrative court in Strasbourg ruled in favor of the women _ who have launched an Internet petition promoting their candidacy and garnered more than 750 signatures. Strasbourg’s grand rabbi, Rene Gutman, has launched an appeal, and administrative elections originally slated for Oct. 22 have been delayed.
Gutman bases his arguments on the region’s unique historical status _ shifting between German and French hands more than a century ago.
The Alsace region was not part of France when the French government passed a 1905 law separating church and state. The legislation is also used as basis for other religious issues _ presumably including the status of women within administrative councils.
“Only the law can modify the law,” Gutman said in remarks carried by France’s leading Le Monde newspaper last month. “We are not competent to modify texts that specify the special status of cults” in France’s Alsace-Moselle region near Germany.
The women have vowed to carry their fight to the end. The consistoire’s Strasbourg-based president, Jean Kahn, previously favored admitting women into the administration.
“To be completely frank, the grand rabbi gave a personal decision,” said consistoire spokeswoman Sylvie Kauffman. “The president of the consistoire wasn’t completely in agreement with the rabbi. But it’s the rabbinical authority that for religious reasons refused. And the consistoire members and president yielded before that decision.”
Kauffman predicted the court would rule on Gutman’s appeal “fairly rapidly.”
_ Elizabeth Bryant
Book Claims White House Ridiculed Evangelical Leaders
WASHINGTON (RNS) A new book about President Bush’s already controversial faith-based initiative charges that White House officials ridiculed evangelical leaders and used the program to build political support.
“Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction,” by former Bush administration staffer David Kuo, will be published Monday (Oct. 16). Evangelical leaders have dismissed the book as “sour grapes,” while critics of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives say it’s proof that the program is more about politics than faith.
Kuo, former deputy director of the office, claims that the Bush administration used evangelical Christians who supported the program to gain votes without meeting their agendas.
“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person, and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as `ridiculous,’ `out of control’ and just plain goofy,” the book says, according to a transcript from MSNBC, which obtained a copy before the book’s release.
Kuo, who left the office in late 2003, writes that “roundtable events” held by the faith-based office that were billed as “nonpartisan” actually were designed to aid Republican campaigns.
Carrie Gordon Earll, director of issue analysis for Focus on the Family, said the book is full of “mischaracterizations” and will not alter the support of the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based ministry for the initiative.
“The release of this book criticizing the Bush administration’s handling of its faith-based initiative program seems to represent little more than a mix of sour grapes and political timing,” she said in a statement.
The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, used the book to reiterate his call for the White House office to be shut down.
“This is proof that the faith-based initiative was a deplorable sham from day one,” said Lynn, whose headquarters are in Washington. “This initiative was never about helping the poor; it was about shameless partisan politicking.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Pope Meets Dalai Lama
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI held a private meeting with the Dalai Lama on Oct. 13 that highlighted the troubled relations that both religious leaders have with the Chinese government.
Although the Vatican confirmed that the meeting took place, the encounter did not appear on the pontiff’s official schedule and no statement was released from the Holy See press office afterward.
The secrecy surrounding the Tibetan leader’s visit underscored the Vatican’s desire to avoid further straining relations with China.
The Dalai Lama went into exile after China occupied Tibet in 1951. Now based in Dharamsala, India, he remains a fierce critic of the Chinese government for its continuing crackdowns on Buddhist groups.
Since his election, Benedict has pushed for reconciliation with China, which cut diplomatic ties with the Holy See decades ago. The effort has been stymied by disagreements over who has the right to name new bishops in China _ Beijing or the pope.
Five million Chinese Catholics currently belong to a state-controlled “Catholic” church while at least 8 million faithful are believed to belong to an underground church loyal to Benedict. Members of the underground church are routinely harassed, beaten and jailed by Chinese authorities.
_ Stacy Meichtry
Canadian Muslim Group Asks for Probe of `Death Threats’
TORONTO (RNS) A moderate Muslim group here has called on authorities to investigate what it calls “thinly veiled death threats” from conservative and fundamentalist Muslims.
In an Wednesday (Oct. 11) letter to the attorney general of Ontario, the Muslim Canadian Congress cited “the recent pattern of allegations by Islamic fundamentalists against moderate and liberal Muslims, accusing the latter of being anti-Islam or (of) smearing Islam.”
The letter said MCC members “have been in the crosshairs” ever since the organization publicly opposed a plan last year to introduce Islamic legal tribunals in Ontario; the idea was later shelved.
The group said its opposition led to charges of apostasy and blasphemy _ allegations “that are nothing less than thinly veiled death threats.”
MCC President Farzana Hassan told a news conference she believes it is “a very real threat. This is not some kind of a fanciful conclusion on our part.”
In early August, MCC’s spokesman and co-founder stepped down, citing anonymous threats. He had been tagged as “anti-Islam” earlier by the more conservative Canadian Islamic Congress.
The MCC said it recently received an e-mail threatening to “get rid of” and “destroy” the Congress and its leaders.
The group’s letter went on to say that “tactics from overseas are now being imported into Canada where ordinary liberal and moderate Muslims are being bullied into silence by well funded Islamist organizations.”
It appealed to Ontario’s law enforcement agencies “to work towards an end to the use of religion to silence and threaten political opponents.”
In an interview, Hassan said “some” of her organization’s members have been physically assaulted, while others have faced threats and intimidation.
“I myself have had nasty e-mails and I’ve been avoided at my mosque,” she said.
_ Ron Csillag
Abuse Lawyers, SNAP Director Banned from Mexico
(RNS) After suing a powerful Mexican cardinal, three American men known for challenging the Roman Catholic hierarchy over sexual abuse by priests have been banned from traveling to Mexico for five years.
Mexico’s National Immigration Institute announced the ban Oct. 12 on two American lawyers, Jeffrey Anderson and Michael Finnegan, as well as David Clohessy, the national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.
The three men were briefly detained in Mexico City on Sept. 20 after announcing a lawsuit against Cardinal Norberto Rivera of Mexico City and Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony for allegedly protecting an abusive priest, Clohessy said.
The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles, but the men traveled to Mexico City “to alert the people of faith and the public and the police that there are crimes of sexual molestation down there and Cardinal Rivera is in the middle of of it,” Anderson said.
But the American men conducted “different activities than those authorized upon their entry to Mexican soil” and neglected “to attend a call from authorities to verify their immigration status,” according to a statement from Mexico’s Immigration Institute.
The Americans entered Mexico with a travel visa and were not authorized to “conduct a professional or lucrative activity in the country,” according to the institute.
Anderson said he will challenge the ban through the Mexican and U.S. state departments.
“I don’t intend to be silenced, it is too important to protect the children in Mexico in peril,” said Anderson. The St. Paul, Minn., attorney is well-known for representing victims of clergy sexual abuse.
Clohessy said, “For me this is a temporary inconvenience. The real injustice here is being done to innocent Mexican children and wounded Mexican victims who need and deserve protection and healing.”
_ Daniel Burke
Pope Names Four Saints, Including Founder of Indiana College
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI has conferred sainthood on four people, including Mother Theodore Guerin, a 19th century French nun who founded a religious community in America.
In the second batch of canonizations of his young papacy, Benedict on Sunday (Oct. 15) also bestowed Roman Catholicism’s highest honor on two Italian educators and a Mexican bishop who struggled against Mexico’s anti-clerical rulers in the 1920s.
Mother Guerin, a member of the Sisters of Providence, was born in 1798 in France and moved to the United States in 1840, taking up service in territory that would later become the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.
A year after her arrival she established the Academy of Saint Mary of the Woods at Terre Haute, a school for women that later became America’s first Catholic women’s liberal arts college. Guerin died in 1856.
“Mother Theodore overcame many challenges and persevered in the work that the Lord has called her to do,” Benedict told thousands of faithful who had gathered within the oval contours of St. Peter’s Square.
A campaign for Guerin’s sainthood was initiated in 1909, paving the way for Guerin’s beatification by the late Pope John Paul II in 1998 _ the last step before sainthood.
Once beatification is performed, one miracle must be attributed to the candidate before the pope can declare the individual a saint. That occurred after an employee of the Sisters of Providence had his eyesight restored after praying for Guerin’s intercession. Pope Benedict XVI approved the miracle last April.
Benedict also canonized Bishop Rafael Guizar Valencia, who cared for the wounded during the Mexican Revolution and died in 1938. The other new saints included the Rev. Filippo Smaldone, who set up schools for the deaf in southern Italy, and Sister Rosa Venerini, an Italian nun and fierce advocate for the establishment of schools for girls in Italy. She died in 1728. Smaldone died in 1923.
_ Stacy Meichtry
Woman Sues Over Different Standards for Cross and Hijab
LONDON (RNS) A Christian employee of British Airways says she is suing the airline for telling her she cannot wear her crucifix while still allowing Muslim and Sikh employees to don their religious scarves and turbans.
Nadia Ewedia, a check-in worker at London’s Heathrow Airport, claims she was told in a letter from the company that showing her cross breached its uniform rules, despite the fact that workers of other faiths were free to continue wearing their religions’ own jewelry, including iron bangles.
“British Airways permits Muslims to wear a headscarf, Sikhs to wear a turban and other faiths religious apparel,” said Ewedia, a seven-year employee of the airline. “Only Christians are forbidden to express their faith.”
British Airways said religious items such as Muslims’ hijabs (headscarves) and Sikhs’ turbans and traditional iron bangles could be worn by its workers “as it is not practical for staff to conceal them beneath their uniforms.”
Ewedia, a Coptic Christian with an Egyptian father and an English mother, said she refused to remove the crucifix or hide it beneath a British Airways scarf. She was sent home and told in a letter that she “failed to comply with a reasonable request.”
“British Airways uniform standards stipulate that adornments of any kind are not to be worn with the uniform,” the letter said. The company put her on unpaid leave pending a disciplinary hearing.
Ewedia said the small cross she wears on a chain around her neck is the symbol of her deeply held Christian beliefs. “I belong to Jesus _ one body, one spirit, one baptism,” she said.
“I have been badly treated,” Ewedia said. “I have been treated harshly by British Airways management.”
The airline’s chief executive, Willie Walsh, upheld the action against Ewedia.
_ Al Webb
Muslim Scholars Challenge Pope Over Islam Remarks
VATICAN CITY (RNS) A group of Muslim scholars and leaders issued an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI on Monday (Oct. 16), challenging remarks the pontiff made on Islam that enraged the Muslim world.
The letter offered a point-by-point rebuttal of an address Benedict made at the University of Regensburg in Germany in September, in which he quoted a medieval Christian emperor describing the teachings of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad as “evil and inhuman” and “spread by the sword.”
Amid violence that ensued after the address, the pope has sought to distance himself from the remark and offered a measured apology. However, he has stopped short of retracting his comments as many Muslim leaders have demanded. He has insisted that his address was intended as a critique of religiously motivated violence and of the Western world’s tendency to divide God from scientific reason.
The letter accused Benedict of implying that Islam lacked reason by framing the religion as a “counterpoint” to his remarks.
“While we applaud your efforts to oppose the dominance of positivism and materialism in human life, we must point out some of the errors in the way you mentioned Islam as a counterpoint to reason,” the letter said.
Top religious authorities signed the letter, including Shaykh Ali Jumu’ah, the grand mufti of Egypt, and the Ayatollah Muhammad Ali Taskhiri of Iran. The letter also carried the signatures of prominent Muslim scholars in the United States and the United Kingdom.
The letter rejected Benedict’s definition of the Islamic term “jihad” as “holy war,” asserting that holy war “is a term that does not exist in Islamic languages.”
“It seems to us that a great part of the object of interreligious dialogue is to listen to and consider the actual voices of those we are dialoguing with, and not merely those of our own persuasion,” the letter said.
_ Stacy Meichtry
Secularists Offer Prize for Highest-Ranking Nonbeliever
(RNS) The Secular Coalition for America is offering a $1,000 reward to anyone who can identify the highest-ranking, elected nonbeliever currently serving in the U.S. government.
“We’re here to show that nontheists are good citizens and good patriots,” said Lori Lipman Brown, director of the group, in a statement.
The group believes that though the Constitution prohibits a “religious test” for holding public office, atheists, humanists, freethinkers and other nontheists are “invisible in the electoral arena.”
“Ask most people if they would vote for an atheist and the immediate response would be a firm `No!,’ and they would not consider their response to be bigoted,” Brown said in a statement. “Anyone would think it’s bigoted if we said we wouldn’t vote for somebody simply because he or she is a Christian, Muslim or Jew, but very proudly they’ll say, `I would never vote for an atheist.”’
Entries must be received by Dec. 31. Entries must contain the name of the elected official, the office held, and the contestant’s name, address and contact information. A letter will be requested from the public official acknowledging that he or she is a nonbeliever.
The rules and entry form for the “Find an Atheist, Humanist, Freethinker Elected Official” contest can be found at http://www.secular.org/contest. The winner will be announced in January.
_ Chansin Bird
Quote of the Week: Evangelical Lutheran Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson
(RNS) “I was sitting in a library waiting to use a computer, between a Jewish man and a Muslim woman. … He had on a yarmulke and she was wearing a head scarf, a hijab. And I thought: How would they know that I’m a Christian? That’s when I decided that we Christians have to get ourselves some headgear.”
_ The Rev. Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, during a sermon at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in McLean, Va.
KRE/JL END RNS
