c. 2008 Religion News Service

Vatican’s No. 2 says pope wants to heal sex abuse scandal

VATICAN CITY (RNS) During his visit to the United States next week, Pope Benedict XVI “will try to open the path of healing and reconciliation” with the victims of clergy sex abuse, the Vatican’s second highest official said Tuesday (April 8).

Sex abuse by priests has caused “so much suffering for the victims, for the families of the victims and above all to the church because it was a contradiction with the great educational mission of the church,” Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, told the Associated Press.

Bertone said the pope will bring a message of “trust and hope” when he celebrates Mass before priests in New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral on April 19.

Benedict’s visit to Washington, D.C., and New York April 15-20 will be the first papal visit to the U.S. since 1999, three years before the main sex abuse scandal broke out, beginning in Boston.

Some victims’ advocates have complained that the pope’s itinerary will not include Boston, and that his schedule so far does not include a meeting with sex abuse victims.

The top Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told reporters on Tuesday that the papal trip had been organized in response to an invitation from the United Nations in New York, and that Washington had been added to the itinerary because it is the nation’s capital and seat of the U.S. bishops’ conference.

In answer to a reporter’s question, Lombardi said he didn’t know if Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned as archbishop of Boston as a result of the sex abuse crisis and has been working in Rome since, would accompany Benedict in Washington and New York.

Leaders of one victims’ group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), predicted that Benedict’s visit would feature a “small, closed-door meeting with a few victims who are still Catholic,” and that the pope would “make brief, vague statements expressing remorse and blasting pedophile priests.”

“Neither of these measures,” SNAP’s statement said, “will help protect the vulnerable or heal the wounded.”

_ Francis X. Rocca

World Evangelical Alliance responds to Muslim document

(RNS) The World Evangelical Alliance has responded to a Muslim overture for interfaith dialogue by saying its members want to “live in peace with Muslims” but disagree with their view of God.

Last fall, more than 100 Islamic clerics and scholars issued their open document, “A Common Word Between Us and You,” to call on Christians to join them in a belief “that we shall worship none but God, and that we will ascribe no partner to him.”

The evangelical alliance, in a four-page response released March 29, said the document’s use of Quranic statements about God having no partner reveal a key difference between Christianity and Islam.

“Even though we are convinced that you misunderstand our doctrine of God being Three in One, when you speak about a `partner’ of God, we are convinced of the truth of Trinity and, therefore, we cannot accept your invitation,” wrote the Rev. Geoff Tunnicliffe, the alliance’s international director.

Muzammil Siddiqi, chairman of the Islamic Jurisprudence Council of North America and a signatory on the Muslim document, said last fall that it was not calling for Christians to abandon their belief in the Trinity.

The evangelical association’s response, which seeks additional discussion between the religious groups, states appreciation for the Muslims’ expression that the two faiths play a key role in a peaceful future in the world.

The association stated “regret” for past and present actions by Christians that “do not match the teachings and examples of Jesus.” It also asked that Muslims help Christians practice their faith freely in Muslim countries.

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

The evangelical response to Muslims was issued a day after the same group released a statement on “The Gospel and the Jewish People.”

“It is out of our profound respect for Jewish people that we seek to share the good news of Jesus Christ with them, and encourage others to do the same, for we believe that salvation is only found in Jesus, the Messiah of Israel and Savior of the World,” the brief statement concludes.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Poll: Pope enjoys 70 percent approval among U.S. Catholics

(RNS) On the eve of Pope Benedict XVI’s first visit to the United States next week, his approval rating among U.S. Catholics is 70 percent, according to a LeMoyne College/Zogby International poll released Wednesday (April 9).

But that still doesn’t top the popularity of his predecessor, John Paul II.

The Contemporary Catholic Trends poll also found that a quarter of U.S. Catholics say the pope has only a little influence on world affairs.

A 70 percent approval shows that a significant majority of respondents believe Benedict is doing a good job leading the church, said Matthew Loveland, a sociologist of religion at Le Moyne who works with the Le Moyne/Zogby poll.

In spring 2003, the poll found that John Paul II had an 87 percent approval rating, and right after his death on April 2, 2005, 90 percent of Catholics said he did a good job, Loveland said.

“People really liked John Paul,” he said.

In fall 2005, Pope Benedict’s approval rating was 75 percent, and in spring 2007, his approval rating reached 86 percent.

“It’s still very high,” Loveland said. “There are very few world leaders who would be complaining about a 70 percent approval. By his very nature he speaks out about controversial issues.”

Several other polls have also focused on the pope’s upcoming visit.

A poll commissioned by the Knights of Columbus and conducted by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion found that 58 percent of Americans, Catholic and non-Catholic, have a favorable view of the pope. That compares with 13 percent who have an unfavorable opinion and 17 percent who say they have never heard of him.

A Pew Research Center poll found that 52 percent of Americans (also not exclusively Catholics) have a favorable view of the pope, while 30 percent say they do not know enough about Pope Benedict to offer an opinion.

The LeMoyne/Zogby poll found that 42 percent of Catholics disagree with the church’s position that using artificial birth control is a sin, and 61 percent either strongly or somewhat agree that the Catholic Church should allow women to be ordained as priests.

_ Renee K. Gadoua

Quote of the Day: Christopher Buckley, son of the late William F. Buckley

(RNS) “No pharaoh went off to the afterlife better equipped than he.”

_ Christopher Buckley, son of the late Catholic intellectual William F. Buckley, about some of the items placed in his father’s casket, including his rosary, a television remote control, a jar of peanut butter and his mother’s ashes. Christopher Buckley was quoted by Catholic News Service.

KRE/RB END RNS