c. 1997 Religion News Service

U.S. bishops welcome Vatican’s tough anti-death penalty stance

(RNS) U.S. Roman Catholic bishops have welcomed the Vatican’s strengthening of the church’s opposition to the death penalty as expressed in the new Latin version of the Catechism, Catholicism’s chief summary of doctrine.

Last week, the Vatican announced the Catechism’s teaching on the death penalty was being revised to bring it more in line with views expressed by Pope John Paul II.”The clarification of teaching about the death penalty is in the context of a state’s right and duty to protect society from unjust aggression,”Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., said in a statement.”This revision makes it clear, however, that when non-lethal means are sufficient to achieve this protection, civil authorities ought to use only those means. And because of the advances in state options to otherwise remove the offenders from further harm to society, cases where the death penalty should be used are very rare if practically non-existent.” Skylstad, who heads the bishops’ committee on domestic policy, said the U.S. Catholic Church has called into question the necessity for capital punishment in the context of its respect for all life.”Within our culture, we are tragically turning to violence in the search for quick and easy answers to complex human problems,”he said.”Increasingly, our society looks to violent measures to deal with some of our most difficult social problems _ millions of abortions to address problem pregnancies, advocacy of euthanasia and assisted suicide to cope with the burdens of age and illness, and increased reliance on the death penalty to deal with crime.” He said he hoped the changes in the Latin edition of the Catechism _ the definitive edition of the doctrinal guide that has been in circulation in English and other languages since 1992 _ will increase dialogue around the issue of the death penalty and”create an environment where we take a hard look at the violence in our culture and the need to defend life at all levels and in all circumstances.”

Britain’s Catholic priests ask study of uniform pay

(RNS) Roman Catholic priests in England and Wales have asked their bishops to study implementing a uniform national stipend and pension program.

The resolution, adopted at a meeting of the National Conference of Priests of England and Wales, reflected unhappiness over the present situation where pay levels and pension provisions vary from diocese to diocese. Pension plans were described as varying from”scandalous to only just sufficient.” One speaker supporting the resolution, the Rev. John Thomas of Neath, said there is no pension provision in his diocese other than that provided by the state, so some priests work well into their 80s because they have nowhere else to go.

The resolution asked for the establishment of a joint commission, including members of the priests organization and the bishops conference, to investigate the best current practices now being used in various diocese to ensure financial security for priests. It acknowledged that a potential problem in creating a national program is that each diocese is autonomous.

In other action, the priests:

_ Voiced support for the opposition of the International Mariological Congress petition asking that Mary be defined as a”co-redemptrix”with Jesus.

_ Praised British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the government’s support of an anti-land mines treaty currently being negotiated in Oslo, Norway.

_ Expressed concern, without a formal resolution, for priests who have left the ministry to marry and for divorced and remarried Catholics.”We continue to ask at our conference whether or not a whole new liberating gesture could be made enabling those who have resigned their ministry for marriage to be invited back to various aspects of priestly ministry,”the Rev. Owen Hardwicke, vice chairman of the organization, said in his official report of the conference.

Speaking through Hardwicke’s report, the priests also suggested that”the millennium might be the moment to offer married men, not only from among the Anglican clergy, the possibility of ordination.”The Catholic Church in Britain has accepted a number of married Anglican priests who oppose the Anglican church’s ordination of women.

WCC accepts three new members

(RNS) The Central Committee of the World Council of Churches has agreed to accept three new churches as members of the world ecumenical body, bringing the WCC’s membership to a total of 333 denominations.

The three churches are the Christian Biblical Church in Argentina, the United Church in Papua New Guinea and the United Church of the Solomon Islands.”Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Christian Biblical Church is that it is a Pentecostal church, and we have few Pentecostal members in the World Council of Churches,”Huibert van Beek, executive secretary of the WCC’s Office of Church and Ecumenical Relations, told Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.

The Argentine church, with a membership of 10,000, has its origin in an Italian migration to Argentina in the early part of the 20th century. Missionaries from the Italian Pentecostal Church in Chicago traveled to Buenos Aires where they founded Pentecostal communities among the Italian immigrants out of which grew the Christian Biblical Church.

The three churches’ membership will become final in six months provided there are no objections from current WCC members.

The Central Committee also voiced support for extending for the first time formal recognition to some 20 international organizations such as the World Association for Christian Communication, the World Student Christian Federation, and the World Alliance of Young Men’s Christian Associations.

Quote of the day:

(RNS)”One of the central realities of our histories has been the utter failure of most Christians and most Christian countries to carry out this commandment (of forgiveness). … Until we truly forgive our enemies, we carry within our hearts a bitterness which can poison every other aspect of our lives.” F.W. de Klerk, former president of South Africa, speaking at Reconciliation ’97, an international Christian gathering at Coventry Cathedral in England, as reported in Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.”

END RNS