c. 2007 Religion News Service
Conservatives Pressure Catholic ’08 Candidates on Abortion
WASHINGTON (RNS) U.S. conservatives are seizing on Pope Benedict XVI’s condemnation of pro-abortion rights politicians to pressure lawmakers _ particularly Catholic 2008 presidential candidates _ to fall in line with church teaching.
On his way to Brazil for a four-day trip, Benedict said Wednesday (May 9) that Catholic politicians who had recently legalized abortion in Mexico City could be considered excommunicated, according to The Associated Press.
A Vatican spokesman later offered a clarification from the pope that said “legislative action in favor of abortion is incompatible with participation in the Eucharist.” Catholic politicians who vote for such legislation should “exclude themselves from communion,” the statement said.
The debate over pro-abortion rights politicians taking Holy Communion has escalated in the U.S. since 2004, when a handful of bishops said they would not offer the sacrament to then presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
Fidelis, a conservative Catholic advocacy group, quickly picked up on Benedict’s comment to pressure Catholics in the 2008 presidential field, calling out by name Sens. Joe Biden, D-Del., and Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., as well as Republican frontrunner Rudy Giuliani.
“The Holy Father’s message serves as a powerful teaching moment for all pro-abortion politicians, including those in the United States, especially those who are Catholic and running for president in 2008,” said Joe Cella, president of Chelsea, Mich.-based Fidelis.
The abortion issue has been particularly thorny for Giuliani, who has said he dislikes the procedure but believes in “a right to choose.” He has also donated money to Planned Parenthood.
“I don’t get into debates with the pope,” Giuliani said Wednesday, according to New York’s Newsday. “Issues like that for me are between me and my confessor. … I’m a Catholic and that’s the way I resolve those issues, personally and privately.”
Last year, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops passed a resolution, “Faithful Citizenship,” which says that “when a person is publicly known to have committed serious sin or to have rejected definitive Church teaching … reception of Holy Communion by that person is likely to cause scandal for others. This is a further reason for refraining from receiving Holy Communion.”
_ Daniel Burke
Tammy Faye Messner Bids Her Fans Goodbye
WASHINGTON (RNS) Down to 65 pounds and unable to continue treatment for cancer, Tammy Faye Messner, one of the most colorful figures in religious broadcasting, has posted a goodbye letter to fans on her Web site.
“The doctors have stopped trying to treat the cancer and so now it’s up to God and my faith,” Messner wrote Tuesday (May 8) on http://www.tammyfaye.com. “And that’s enough!”
She asked supporters to continue praying for her. Messner’s daughter, Tammy Sue, and her friends are staying with her while husband Roe Messner builds churches.
Messner, the former wife of disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker, was first diagnosed with colon cancer in 1996. In 2004, she announced that the disease had spread to her lungs.
“To those of you who are suffering as I … “don’t give up”!! Make up your mind you’re going to live!!” wrote Messner.
Messner and Bakker were household names in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. Bakker built the Praise The Lord (PTL) club into a multimillion dollar cable television empire. Messner co-hosted the flagship show, on which she would sing and emotionally ask viewers to open up their hearts to Jesus. She was well known for her heavy makeup, fake eyelashes and tearful pleas.
Financial scandals landed her ex-husband in prison for five years and brought down the television network that raked in an estimated $130 million annually at its peak in the 1980s. Messner divorced Bakker and married Roe Messner, a religious writer and church contractor.
Messner has been open throughout her illness, trying to inspire others to stay faithful during their own tough times.
_ Philip Turner
Churches Launch `New Sanctuary’ Movement for Immigrants
CHICAGO (RNS) A coalition of faith-based groups on Wednesday (May 9) launched a “New Sanctuary Movement” to provide shelter for illegal immigrants and boost support for immigration reform.
By connecting immigrants who are facing deportation orders with host sanctuaries, the movement aims to provide a broad range of support for these families. Unlike their counterparts in the original 1980s Sanctuary Movement, many of today’s immigrants have a physical shelter but still need financial, legal and spiritual support.
Immigration activists and faith leaders celebrated the launch with events in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City, San Diego and Seattle.
The movement is uniting Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim traditions. Rabbi Laurie Coskey, an organizer and executive director of the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice in San Diego, said that immigration reform has a key appeal with faith-based groups. “Every tradition has the message about how we treat human beings because the spark of God lives in every person,” Coskey said in an interview.
She added that the cause especially resonates with Jews, explaining that the Judaism “really clearly states the command for Jews to interact with the world in an activist way because of our experience of being strangers.”
The movement currently includes two families in New York City, two in Los Angeles and one in San Diego that have been connected with “sanctuary churches.” Churches in 28 cities nationwide are in the process of being linked with illegal immigrant families, Coskey said.
The movement was partly inspired by illegal immigrant Elvira Arellano, who has emerged as the poster child for immigration reform activists. Arellano has sought refuge in the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago with her son Saul since August 2006, when she was ordered to report for deportation.
Officials from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency have pledged to deport Arellano at some point in the future.
Coskey said that it would be up to individual churches whether to bar the door if immigration officials came to deport immigrants harbored within a sanctuary.
_ Kat Glass
Survey Detects Hostility Toward Evangelicals Among Professors
(RNS) About half of nonevangelical university faculty acknowledge that they have cool or unfavorable feelings about evangelical Christians, a new survey shows.
A survey released Monday (May 7) by the San Francisco-based Institute for Jewish & Community Research found that 53 percent said they have “cool/unfavorable feelings” toward evangelical Christians. In comparison, 30 percent said they had favorable feelings toward them, 9 percent were neutral, 4 percent said they didn’t know and 4 percent refused to answer.
Researchers found this portion of the findings to be the “most troubling” result of the survey.
“Faculty do not feel positively about evangelicals at all,” concluded Gary A. Tobin and Aryeh K. Weinberg, co-authors of “Religious Beliefs & Behavior of College Faculty.”
“In fact, they feel less positively about evangelicals than about any other religious group. The combination of responses … raises serious concerns about how evangelical Christian faculty and students are treated or feel they are treated on campus. The levels of faculty disapproval are high enough to raise questions about the overall climate on campus.”
One-third of non-Mormon faculty reported unfavorable views of Mormons. Views about other religious groups were more positive, with Muslims getting a 22 percent unfavorable rating, followed by atheists (18 percent), Catholics (13 percent), persons not practicing any religion (10 percent), nonevangelical Christians (9 percent), Buddhists (4 percent) and Jews (3 percent).
Faculty from any particular group were excluded from rating other members of their faith.
Results of the online survey were based on a sample of 1,269 faculty members at 712 four-year colleges and universities. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera
(RNS) “I feel I’m being tested right now, my character, my faith, how I conduct myself. It’s different. But I love it. If God allows this test to be on me, hey, I’m willing to carry it.”
_ New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera, who has begun the baseball season with a 1-3 record through May 9, on his early trials. He was quoted Wednesday (May 9) by the New York Daily News.
KRE/LF END RNS
