c. 2000 Religion News Service
Soulforce, Dignity Plan Demonstrations at Catholic Bishops’ Meeting
(RNS) A national Christian gay-rights movement and a group of gay Catholics are planning a prayer vigil and peaceful protest next month when the nation’s Catholic bishops hold their annual meeting in Washington.
Soulforce, an ecumenical movement advocating greater inclusion of gays and lesbians in church life, and Dignity/USA, a grass-roots gay Catholic organization, will demonstrate outside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Nov. 13 and 14 as bishops gather for Mass.
The Rev. Mel White, a former ghostwriter for Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and founder of Soulforce, said he is leading the demonstration to protest the “acts of spiritual violence” committed against homosexuals by the Roman Catholic Church.
“The anti-homosexual teachings of the Roman Catholic Church have tragic consequences not just in the lives of Roman Catholics, but in the lives of millions of God’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender children around the world,” White said in a statement. “We are holding the churches accountable.”
Earlier this year, Soulforce led a string of similar protests at the meetings of the United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), Episcopal Church and Southern Baptist Convention. Hundreds of people were arrested, including two Methodist bishops, in the nonviolent demonstrations.
Mary Louise Cervone, president of Dignity/USA, said her group is joining Soulforce to seek “an end to the teachings that demean and exclude us from full participation in our church as whole and holy people.” The Catholic Church does not allow Dignity/USA chapters to meet on church property and prohibits priests from officiating at Dignity Masses.
Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, has had no official statement on the planned demonstrations. But in a letter to White, Fiorenza said he could not change the church’s teachings on homosexuality but was willing to work with White to overcome “unjust discrimination.”
“I know that you understand the sincerity of our beliefs and that we are not interested in such things as purchasing favorable media converage by compromising them,” Fiorenza wrote. “We cannot agree with you about morality of homosexual activity or engage in actions which would seem to suggest that we do.”
American Muslim Advocacy Group Backs Bush
(RNS) Swayed in part by George W. Bush’s stance against racial profiling of Arab-Americans in the United States, the political arm of a Washington, D.C.-based American Muslim group endorsed the Texas governor’s White House campaign.
At a news conference on Monday (Oct. 23), the Political Action Committee of the American Muslim Political Coordination Council cited remarks Bush made during the second presidential debate as the main basis for its support for his presidential bid.
The council approved of Bush’s denouncement of racial profiling and the use of “secret evidence” by federal prosecutors.
“There is other forms of racial profiling that goes on in America,” Bush said during his debate with Vice President Al Gore. “Arab-Americans are racially profiled in what’s called secret evidence. People are stopped, and we’ve got to do something about that.”
Those words showed that Bush “has elevated the level of his concern about civil rights of Arab-Americans in the United States,” said Yahya Basha, president of the American Muslim Council, one of four member organizations of the Political Coordination Council.
The other organizations that comprise the council are the American Muslim Alliance, the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
Bush was also credited with being more “accessible” than his rival.
“It is ironic that the Clinton administration has set a precedent above all others in appointing Muslims to top policy positions,” said Salam Al-Marayati, national director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. “We’re kind of perplexed about why Al Gore has not been as accessible and spoken out officially on racial profiling.”
The group denied that its endorsement of Bush was influenced by the religion of Democratic vice presidential contender Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew.
“Since the days of Truman, Washington’s support for Israel has been one-sided and unbalanced,” Al-Marayati said. “Blind support for Israel is a problem with every politician _ it has nothing to do with whether a person is Jewish or not. For us, Lieberman is not the issue.”
The council’s decision to endorse Bush is a signal to lawmakers that the voice of Muslim voters cannot be ignored, Al-Marayati said, and issues important to what the group said are the nation’s 6 million Muslims must be addressed.
“Our objective is to get out the Muslim vote and show politicians that we can make a difference,” he said. “They need to know it’s time they started addressing our issues.”
Vatican Criticizes Israel on Human Rights
(RNS) In a strongly worded message addressed to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, the Vatican has warned there will be no peace in the Middle East as long as the Palestinian people are deprived of their “fundamental rights to an independent state and government” and to free expression of their culture and history.
“As long as one people remains unable to enjoy its inalienable rights, there will always be situations of tension which sooner or later could degenerate into violence and feed sentiments of hatred and bitterness that reason would no longer be able to control,” said Archbishop Giuseppe Bertello, the Holy See’s permanent observer to the commission.
Bertello spoke at the commission’s fifth session, held Oct. 17-19 in Geneva.
The Vatican envoy mentioned Israel’s right to live in peace and within secure borders but dedicated the rest of his address to the rights of the Palestinians including those living in “degrading conditions” in refugee camps.
“These two peoples need to see their rights recognized, the first, to enjoy living conditions that are secure and peaceful, the second, to have a land and the chance to govern itself and to live in harmony and tranquillity with its neighbors,” Bertello said.
“Despite numerous and encouraging efforts, especially in recent times, to achieve the peace desired by all, we still must note, unfortunately, an absence of respect for certain fundamental rights such as the right to an independent state and government as well as the rights to security and free expression of one’s own culture and history,” Bertello said.
“The realization of people’s rights to self-determination and to free collaboration with others for the common international good cannot but help build peace.”
Lutheran Church Prepares to Ordain Open Lesbian as Pastor
(RNS) A Lutheran congregation in Kansas City, Mo., is scheduled to become the first church in a decade to ordain an open lesbian as its pastor, putting the small church at risk of discipline for violating church rules against ordaining homosexuals to the pulpit.
Abiding Peace Lutheran Church, a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), will ordain Donna Simon as pastor on Saturday (Oct. 28). Simon is a recent seminary graduate but is not on the church’s roster of eligible clergy because she has refused to take a vow of celibacy for non-married clergy. Simon, 35, has been involved in a relationship with another woman for four years.
The 5.2 million-member ELCA calls homosexuality a “departure from the heterosexual structure of God’s creation” and says gay clergy must remain celibate. The church also prohibits the blessing of same-sex unions.
The congregation of about 40 people has been without a full-time pastor for several years, and officials with Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries said the church was told by ELCA officials that a pastor would not be available for them.
Mari Irvin, co-chair of Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries, said Simon’s ordination is the first since 1990, when three San Francisco gay pastors were ordained. Their congregations were later expelled from the church. Irvin’s organization maintains an alternative roster of clergy who, like Simon, are ineligible to serve as church-sanctioned pastors.
“Clearly this is an act of bravery on (the congregation’s) part,” Irvin said. “They very much wanted a pastor, and they were very happy to get her.”
Simon, reached at her church, said her ordination was both symbolic and significant.
“What it means for the church is that the gospel will go on, regardless of what the law of the church indicates,” Simon said. “This is going to happen, this is going to be happening, because people are tired of having the church say that they want gay and lesbian people welcomed, but then turn around and not ordain us.”
Bishop Charles Maahs, bishop of the Central States Synod, was unavailable for comment. Simon said if charges are filed against the church, they would come from either the bishop, or three other congregations that file charges together. Still, she said the synod’s staff has been “very gracious” since she arrived.
Theologian Martin Marty Named Interim College President
(RNS) Theologian Martin E. Marty has been named interim president of St. Olaf College by the school’s board of regents.
Marty became interim leader of the college in Northfield, Minn., on Oct. 1 and will serve until Jan. 15, 2001, when the Rev. Christopher Meredith Thomforde is scheduled to become the college’s 10th president.
Marty, chair of the school’s board of regents since 1994, is well known as a commentator on religion, culture and education.
St. Olaf is a college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and has an enrollment of 2,950 students.
Christian Web Site iBelieve.com Closes, Cites Funding Issues
(RNS) The Christian Web site iBelieve.com has announced that it is shutting down due to lack of funding.
“Despite a tremendous launch and site traffic that ranks as the leading Christian community on the Internet, iBelieve.com has not been able to secure additional funding to continue to keep the site up, and we are forced to close our virtual doors effective immediately,” says a note to members posted on the site.
The site was launched in January to be an online spiritual and social outlet for Internet-savvy Christians.
Jeff Fite, president of the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based company, told the Associated Press Friday (Oct. 20) that its 35 employees will be laid off within two weeks.
The company said on the Web site that it had exceeded business objectives, with 550,000 members and 2 million visitors, but found funding to be a challenge.
“Like many Internet companies, we were unable to raise capital given the current market conditions, and we are left without options,” read the statement from “The iBelieve.com Family.”
iBelieve.com was a sister company of Family Christian Stores, a chain of more than 300 Christian retail stores in 39 states. It had received a $30 million first-year investment, primarily funded by the private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners in Chicago.
England’s Traditionalist Anglicans Meet
(RNS) Members of the Church of England opposed to women priests have been told they must consolidate their position so as to make it impossible for the denomination to rescind a 1993 rule establishing a system of “provincial episcopal visitors,” or “flying bishops” to assure they would receive the ministry of a bishop with the same view as themselves.
The challenge came at the seventh annual assembly of Forward in Faith, held in London Oct. 20-21.
The meeting came one day after liberals met to launch an effort to overturn the “flying bishops” rule.
Bishop John Broadhurst of Fulham told the traditionalists the act was crucial to the survival of the conservative movement within the Church of England, saying it allowed the church to stay together despite the bitter differences over women’s ordination.
“Without the Act of Synod we cannot live with the rest of the Church of England _ and not only cannot but will not live with the rest of the Church of England,” he said.
Broadhurst reaffirmed the view that women cannot be priests. Claiming growing disenchantment with women priests in parishes that had experienced them, he said, “No real woman wants to be a priest because real women know that women are not priests.”
Last July, the denomination’s general synod took a first step toward inclusion of women in the episcopate by calling for a study by the house of bishops of the theological issues involved.
The bishops are due to report back to the synod within the next two years, and following this the first steps are expected toward initiating legislation.
Quote of the Day: African Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop Adam J. Richardson
(RNS) “Too much blood has been shed in our history for the right to vote. Too much is at stake for our future to lose a vote and too much of a difference is obvious _ in candidates and ideas _ for us to sit this one out.”
_ African Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop Adam J. Richardson, chairman of the denomination’s Lay Organization Commission, in a statement about an AME Church voter mobilization campaign.
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