c. 1997 Religion News Service
Taping of religious confessions exempt from new U.K bill
(RNS) In the wake of the uproar in the United States over the taping by authorities of a sacramental confession in prison, the British government has announced it will exempt religious confessions from a new law giving police wider power to use concealed microphones.
The Police Bill, which passed in the House of Commons last week, has given British law enforcement officials greater”intrusive surveillance”powers in hopes of snagging drug traffickers, kidnappers, terrorists and frauds.
But in a letter to Michael Howard, the government official responsible for the police, Roman Catholic Cardinal Basil Hume, archbishop of Westminster, expressed concern that the sanctity of the confessional might be violated.”An individual penitent who goes to confession to a priest has to be certain that, whatever the crime, not only will the priest never reveal what is said, but that the state will not conspire to undermine the church’s guarantee of absolute secrecy,”Hume wrote.
On Feb. 12, Howard announced the police had agreed to exempt religious confessions from the new legislation.”I am very grateful that the (government) has given a firm assurance that the sacrament of confession will be immune from intrusive surveillance techniques,”Hume said.
Civil libertarians, however, remain concerned that the surveillance powers granted by the legislation could be used against doctors, lawyers and journalists.
Former Klansmen apologize, sentenced for burning churches
(RNS) Two former members of the Ku Klux Klan were sentenced to prison Thursday (Feb. 20) for burning two black churches in rural South Carolina.
The men, Gary Christopher Cox, 23, and Timothy Adron Welch, 24, apologized for their civil rights violations prior to their sentencing in a Charleston, S.C., court.
Cox was sentenced to 19 1/2 years and Welch was sentenced to 18 years. Both previously pleaded guilty to setting the fires in June 1995, the Associated Press reported.”I’m deeply sorry for all the pain I’ve caused the reverends, the parishioners, the state of South Carolina and humanity itself,”Welch said.
Cox added,”I didn’t have anything against nobody. I didn’t hate them.” Investigators said Cox and Welch used a cigarette lighter to set wooden chairs, hymnals and wicker baskets on fire at Mount Zion AME Church in Greeleyville. The next day, they burned Macedonia Baptist Church in nearby Bloomville by igniting oil and gasoline on the floor of the century-old structure.
The Rev. Terrance G. Mackey Sr., pastor of Mount Zion, met privately with the men on Thursday.”Forgiveness starts in the heart,”Mackey told Judge David Norton during the hearing.”We have nothing against them or their families or anyone else.” Two other Ku Klux Klan members, Hubert Rowell, 50, and Arthur A. Haley, 51, await sentencing after they admitted to conspiring with Welch and Cox to set the fire at Macedonia Baptist.
Croatia moves toward forming national church council
(RNS) In what is being described as an ecumenical breakthrough, Croatia’s five primary minority religious bodies have set up a committee with the dominant Roman Catholic Church as the first step toward a full-scale national council of churches.”It was concluded that what we have in common is much more significant than what divides us,”representatives of the Roman Catholic, Serbian Orthodox, Lutheran, Baptist, Pentecostal and Reformed churches said in their founding declaration.
The denominations have agreed to cooperate in expanding church-run education and in stopping abortion, reported ENI, the Geneva-based religious news agency. The groups also plan to hold joint prayer meetings and translate”all important international documents relating to ecumenical dialogue”into Croatian.
The declaration marked a”significant ecumenical breakthrough”for a”structured, organized”relationship between the signatory churches in the former Yugoslavia, said Boris Peterlin, the Baptist head of Croatia’s Christian Information Service.”For the first time, representatives of different confessions have met on an equal basis and made an attempt to live up to the standards of ecumenical dialogue,”said Peterlin.
Nearly 77 percent of Croatia’s 4.8 million people are Roman Catholics, 11 percent are Orthodox Serbs and the other groups signing the statement comprise nearly 7 percent.
Former minister pleads guilty to child pornography charge
(RNS) A former Southern Baptist minister pleaded guilty Feb. 12 to possession of child pornography and was sentenced by a U.S. District Court judge to 15 months in a federal prison.
Charles Sherrill Lloyd, 52, had served as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Bethany, Okla., for four years before church leaders found child pornography on his church computer in October 1995.
According to a report by the Associated Baptist Press, an independent Baptist news service, Lloyd had been prosecuted more than once for indecent exposure since 1972. He also had been charged with child molestation for exposing himself to minors in Georgia during the 1980s.
U.S. District Judge Wayne Alley refused to grant a request from Lloyd’s lawyer to place the former pastor on probation, saying Lloyd’s criminal history demonstrates an”episodic”problem. After his 15-month prison term, Lloyd has to spend three years on supervised release, including a year of community service.
Current First Baptist Church pastor Charles Womack said the congregation supports the prosecution of its former minister but grieves for his family.”The church is strongly opposed to pornography,”he said.”It ruins the lives of children, voluntary and involuntary participants in making pornography, and leads to rape, violent crimes and abortions.” Since October 1995, officials at First Baptist Church have drawn up more stringent employment guidelines mandating background checks for all employees.
Lilly Endowment offers grants for technological development
(RNS) Thirty U.S. seminaries will take part in a $6.8 million Lilly Endowment program that will help the schools develop computer and technological resources for teaching and learning.
The Indianapolis-based foundation plans to give each school $10,000 for preliminary planning and research to create proposals for technological development. It intends to award implementation grants later this year that will be each in the $200,000 range.”Many of the leading schools have the technology in place,”said Craig Dykstra, Lilly Endowment’s vice president for religion.”The problem most face is how to make the best use of it, how to keep it updated and, most importantly, how to integrate this new technology to serve the central purpose needs of a seminary _ namely, teaching and learning.” The foundation, one of the nation’s largest funders of religion research and scholarship, hopes the program will help the seminaries develop new, creative learning methods.
Institutions participating in the Library Technology for Theological Teaching Program are: Anderson (Ind.) University School of Theology; Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Ind.; Bethel Theological Seminary, St. Paul, Minn.; Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Mich.; Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis; Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind.; Earlham School of Religion, Richmond, Ind.; Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, Calif.; Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, Ill.; Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Mass.; Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta; Louisville (Ky.) Presbyterian Theological Seminary; Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn.; Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
Also: McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago; Memphis (Tenn.) Theological Seminary; Methodist Theological School, Delaware, Ohio; New Brunswick (N.J.) Theological Seminary; Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Lombard, Ill.; Pontifical College Josephinum, Columbus, Ohio; Princeton (N.J.) Theological Seminary; Saint Meinrad (Ind.) School of Theology; Saint Paul (Minn.) Seminary; Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, Evanston, Ill.; Southern California School of Theology, Claremont, Calif.; Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio; Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Va.; United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio; United Theological School of the Twin Cities, New Brighton, Minn.; Washington (D.C.) Theological Union.
Naylor named NCC director of communication
(RNS) The National Council of Churches (NCC) has named the Rev. Randy L. Naylor as its new director of communication.
Naylor, former president of the World Association of Christian Communication and former general secretary for communication of the United Church of Canada, will head the New York-based NCC’s departments of news and interpretation, media advocacy and education, and electronic media. He begins the post May 1.
Naylor succeeds Betty Thompson, who has been the NCC interim communication director since last year.
1997 Christopher Awards honor”Touched By An Angel” (RNS)”Touched By An Angel,”the CBS television series about angels who inspire and aid people, will receive the Special Christopher Award on Feb. 27 at the 48th annual Christopher Awards Ceremony.”`Touched By An Angel’ offers a sense of direction for people grappling with everyday concerns,”said the Rev. Thomas McSweeney, director of The Christophers, a non-profit media organization that recognizes movies, books and TV programs for their uplifting qualities.”These heavenly messengers, the angels, remind their charges and viewers everywhere that there’s more to life than meets the eye and that a loving God knows and cherishes each one of us,”he said.
Quote of the day: U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan
(RNS) The new U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was asked why he had not yet been able to reform the United Nations since his election Dec. 17, given that God had created the universe in only seven days. His response, according to Time magazine:”The Lord had the wonderful advantage of being able to work alone.”
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