c. 2007 Religion News Service
Gay N.H. Bishop Endorses Obama
(RNS) The openly gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president, saying the Illinois Democrat can “bridge the old divides.”
Bishop V. Gene Robinson emphasized that he was endorsing Obama as a private citizen and said he will not be speaking about the campaign from the pulpit or at church functions.
Robinson also told reporters that “here in New Hampshire, it’s important that we get involved early,” alluding to his state’s first-in-the-nation primary on Jan. 22.
“As a private citizen I will be at campaign events and help in any way I can,” Robinson said. “Frankly, I don’t think there’s any major candidate that is where we in the gay community would hope they would be on our issues. That being said, I would say the senator has been enormously supportive of our issues. We appreciate his support for civil unions.”
_ Daniel Burke
Spanish Bishops, Government Clash Over Curriculum
VATICAN CITY (RNS) A senior Vatican official has entered the debate between Spain’s Socialist government and the country’s Roman Catholic bishops over a new school curriculum that touches on ethics, religious belief and sexuality.
On a visit to Spain last week (July 26), Archbishop Angelo Amato, the No. 2 official of the Vatican’s highest doctrinal body, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that “it is not the state that should impose religious and ethical convictions but one’s own conscience.”
The statement was an apparent endorsement of the Spanish bishops’ campaign against “Education for Citizenship and Human Rights,” which Spanish elementary and high school students will begin studying this fall.
The controversial course includes knowledge of the country’s laws and civic institutions but also considers wider social topics such as globalization, multiculturalism and gender roles.
Introduced by the Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the course has encountered fierce opposition from Spanish bishops, who fear that it will undermine Catholic teaching on marriage, sexuality and the place of religion in public life.
Cardinal Antonio Canizares, archbishop of Toledo and primate of the Spanish church, said in April that the course represented a “slippery slope on the way to a totalitarian regime.”
Education for Citizenship, as it is usually called, will be obligatory in all Spanish schools _ including Catholic institutions, which in Spain receive state funding.
In response, bishops have called upon Catholic parents and teachers to claim exemption from the requirement as “conscientious objectors.”
But on the same day that Amato seemed to encourage such resistance, Justice Minister Mariano Fernandez Bermejo warned that “whoever does not obey the law will have to face the consequences.”
Not all elements of the Spanish church support the campaign for conscientious objection. The Spanish Federation of Religious in Education has said its members will comply with the law, while making sure to teach the course in a way compatible with church doctrine.
_ Francis X. Rocca
Quote of the Day: Former White House speechwriter Michael Gerson
(RNS) “There may be other reasons to oppose (Mitt Romney) for president, but his belief about the destiny of the soul is not one of them.”
_ Washington Post Columnist Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for President Bush, about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons).
KRE DS END RNS
