c. 2008 Religion News Service

Catholic bishops told immigration is key to future of church

ORLANDO, Fla. (RNS) Immigration has not weakened the Christian identity of the United States but rather strengthened it, the director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life told Catholic bishops here Thursday (June 12).

“Even though immigration is increasing diversity,” Luis Lugo said, “its primary result is that it’s reinforcing the Christian character of American society.”

Lugo presented findings from Pew’s sweeping U.S. Religious Landscape Survey to some 240 Catholic bishops attending their annual spring meeting.

The survey, first released last February, measured the changing and diversifying religious affiliations of some 35,000 American adults. Researchers found that Catholics lose more adherents than any other religious group; one in 10 Americans are former Catholics.

Despite those losses, Catholic numbers have held steady during the last two decades, at about a quarter of the U.S. population. That’s thanks in large part to immigrants, notably Hispanics. About one-third of U.S. Catholics are Hispanic, which is helping offset the more secular attitudes that have gained ground in Europe, Lugo said.

“Immigration is not leading to the de-Christianization of American society but to the de-Europization of American Christianity,” said Lugo, a native of Cuba.

“The future is here. And by that I mean the future of the United States is here in the Catholic Church. As it goes in the Roman Catholic Church on this question of ethnicity, so goes the country. The Catholic Church is a harbinger of what we’re going to see for the country as a whole.”

_ Amy Green

Norway OKs gay marriage

(RNS) The Norwegian parliament, disregarding objections from some of the nation’s churches, has overwhelmingly approved legislation giving same-sex couples the right to marry and to adopt children on an equal basis with heterosexual couples.

Norway already allows gays and lesbians to enter into civil unions, but gay rights groups had argued the law does not go far enough in granting equal rights.

The Storting, as the parliament is called, voted 84-41 to approve the measure. It will take effect in 2009.

The new legislation follows action last November in which the state Evangelical Lutheran Church lifted an outright ban barring gays living in partnerships from serving in the clergy, and allowed individual bishops to decide whether to employ gays. At least six of the country’s 11 bishops support gay clergy.

Some 85 percent of Norway’s 4.7 million people are registered with the state church.

The proposal was opposed by the country’s Roman Catholic Church as well as the Christian Council of Norway.

Media reports in Norway said the new legislation authorizes the state church to bless civil unions, but religious marriages will not be performed until the church has adopted a new liturgy. In addition, same-sex couples will have a church ceremony only if a majority of the congregation agrees; clergy will not be obligated to officiate against their will.

The most controversial part of the new law gives lesbians the right to be artificially inseminated in state health facilities, but the bill contains a conscience clause for health care workers who object. In addition, the sperm donor must be identified so the child can seek out his or her biological father at age 18.

Norway joins Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, South Africa and Canada in granting same-sex couples full marriage rights.

_ David E. Anderson

Vatican knocks fundamental, literal reading of the Bible

VATICAN CITY (RNS) A tendency to read the Bible through the lens of “fundamentalism” threatens to undermine Catholics’ understanding of Scripture, the Vatican said Thursday (June 12).

The statement appears in the agenda for the next general assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which will bring prelates to Rome in October to consider the “importance of the Word of God in the life and mission of the Church.”

The 86-page document released Thursday emphasizes the need to increase Catholics’ knowledge and understanding of Scripture. While encouraging the faithful to read the Bible either alone or in study groups, it stresses that all interpretation must be in light of church teaching.

“Fundamentalism takes refuge in literalism and refuses to take into consideration the historical dimension of biblical revelation,” the document states.

“This kind of interpretation is winning more and more adherents … even among Catholics,” the agenda’s authors add, quoting an earlier Vatican document. “It demands an unshakable adherence to rigid doctrinal points of view and imposes, as the only source of teaching for Christian life and salvation, a reading of the Bible which rejects all questioning and any kind of critical research.”

Fundamentalism in its “extreme form” exists in “the sects,” the document states.

The term “sects” refers to “marginal” Protestant churches that do not participate in dialogue with Rome, explained the Synod’s general secretary, Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, at a press conference to present the document.

Eterovic noted that representatives of several non-Catholic Christian churches will attend the October meeting.

_ Francis X. Rocca

Southern Baptists decry Calif. gay marriage move

(RNS) Southern Baptists called the California move to allow same-sex marriage a “terrible wrong,” but stopped short of recommending that Christian students be pulled out of California public schools.

“This decision has dire national implications because California law will allow same-sex couples from any state to marry in California, return to their home state, and challenge that state’s traditional marriage laws,” reads the nonbinding resolution adopted Wednesday (June 11) at the end of the Southern Baptist Convention’s two-day meeting in Indianapolis.

But an ongoing effort by some Baptists to remove Christians from public schools arose again after a recent change in California law prohibited instruction that discriminates based on sexual orientation.

Ron Wilson, a pastor from Thousand Oaks, Calif., argued that the resolution should also encourage removing children from public schools, which he called “the main training ground for the teaching of same-sex marriage.”

But others said Christian teachers and students provide a Christian “witness” within the schools and should remain there.

“We wanted to try to strengthen the moral resolve of our brothers and sisters in California as well as influence our national government for a marriage amendment to protect the institution of marriage,” said Resolutions Committee Chairman Darrell Orman of Stuart, Fla. “We felt like this is where we should train our guns at this time.”

Bruce Shortt from Spring, Texas, supported pulling students from public schools and said a vote against Wilson’s proposal would make people think the denomination had “blandly turned its face away, shrugged its shoulders, muttering `Am I my brother’s keeper?”’

The schools amendment was defeated overwhelmingly, but Baptists approved another amendment that asked Christian pastors nationwide to speak out against homosexuality and affirm traditional marriage.

“I am from California and we appreciate your concern for us but all of the rest of you are going to deal with this eventually,” warned Walter Price, pastor of a church in Beaumont, Calif. “Don’t wait until the fox is in the henhouse.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Watchdog panel concerned by textbooks at Saudi academy

WASHINGTON (RNS) A federal religious freedom watchdog panel says it has reviewed textbooks used in a Saudi-run school in northern Virginia and confirmed that they contain passages that promote violence and intolerance.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said Wednesday (June 11) that the most troubling elements of the textbooks at the Islamic Saudi Academy refer to the interpretation of the Quran.

Excerpts from “Tafsir,” a Quran interpretation book for 12th graders, state that it is permissible for a Muslim to kill an apostate, an adulterer, or someone who has murdered a Muslim intentionally, the commission said.

Another textbook, “Tawhid,” says Muslims may take the life and property of followers of “polytheism” faiths, which the panel said would include Christians, Jews, Shi’a and Sufi Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists.

The K-12 academy has been under scrutiny by the religious freedom panel and others for allegedly teaching a violent interpretation of Islam. The school’s Web site says ISA “not only promotes respect and mutual understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims … it strives for its staff and students to uphold tolerance, honesty, integrity and compassion.”

The commission had asked the State Department to obtain and release all Arabic-language textbooks used at the school’s two locations. Under pressure, the ISA distributed some textbooks, but the panel said those books did not contain the most troubling passages.

The Saudi government, which runs the school, had earlier promised “to remove remaining references that disparage Muslims or non-Muslims or that promote hatred toward other religions or religious groups” from its textbooks.

The commission said judging from the materials they reviewed, that job remains incomplete.

“These troubling passages should be modified, clarified, or removed altogether from the next edition of the books in order to bring these books at this Saudi government school into conformity with international human rights standards,” the commission said.

An unidentified woman who answered the phone at the school declined to comment on the report.

_ Ashly McGlone

Quote of the Day: Muslim cartoonist Naif al-Mutawa

(RNS) “We should not allow a very limited number of people to tell us how to practice our religion. An Islam where I can be an active participant is the only Islam I can belong to.”

_ Kuwaiti Muslim Naif al-Mutawa, who has created cartoon superheroes imbued with Islam’s 99 attributes of God. He was quoted by The Washington Post.

KRE/LF END RNS