c. 2000 Religion News Service

Reported suggestion that pope should resign stirs controversy

(RNS) A reported suggestion by an influential German bishop that Pope John Paul II should resign if ill health prevents him from doing his job stirred controversy today among Roman Catholic leaders.”The church is neither Fiat nor General Motors,”Bishop Alessandro Maggiolini of Como said.”Its criterion cannot be efficiency. And (as) in a family, even an aged father can be the conscience of the church and continue to govern it.” Bishop Karl Lehmann of Mainz, who holds the important post of president of the German bishops conference, denied he had called for the 79-year-old pontiff to take the almost unprecedented step of retiring.

A spokeswoman for the bishop said his comments in a German radio interview Sunday (Jan. 9)”in no way called for the pope to resign.”She said his words were”totally falsified”in translation.

Lehmann, who is considered a progressive churchman, was involved recently in a dispute with Vatican officials over abortion counseling. The bishops bowed to pressure to stop the counseling.

The once vigorous John Paul, who will be 80 on May 18, has been in failing health in recent years. He has had trouble walking since he broke his thigh in a fall in his bathroom in 1994, and the Vatican has acknowledged he also suffers from a debilitating neurological ailment believed to be Parkinson’s Disease. But he shows no sign of any intellectual impairment.

The Vatican had no comment on the controversy, but it issued a statement by Ambassador Giovanni Galassi of San Marino, dean of the Vatican diplomatic corps, at the diplomats’ annual New Year’s audience with the pope today. Galassi expressed admiration for the pope’s”strength and courage”and said he hoped John Paul would continue for”many years as successor to Peter.” Close associates testified to the pope’s fitness to lead the Roman Catholic Church.”I must say that we have a holy father who is excellent and exceptional, and there is absolutely no need (for him to retire),”said Cardinal Pio Laghi, who himself retired last month at age 77 as prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education.”I, who know him, can say that the pope has full awareness of the affairs of the world. And such is his responsibility that he feels it opportune to go forward as long as his forces support him,”Cardinal Ersilio Tonini of Ravenna said.

Cardinal Camillo Ruini, president of the Italian bishops conference, told the Catholic newspaper Avvenire that the pope”shows himself fully capable, now as in the past, of carrying out his office of pastor of the universal church with full personal responsibility.” Referring to John Paul’s decision to personally open the Holy Doors of the three major basilicas in Rome, a job usually left to cardinals, Ruini noted that the pope”at the price of undoubted fatigue and sacrifice”takes on tasks that he doesn’t have to carry out in person.” Lehmann, asked to comment in his interview with Deutschlandfunk radio on whether it might be time for the pope to step down, was quoted as replying:”I have confidence that when he feels he is no longer capable of leading the church with responsibility, the pope will have the strength and the courage to say: `I cannot fulfill this as is required.'” The church, Lehmann reportedly said,”needs a strong man to lead it.

(Otherwise) a worldwide church of 1 billion people with so many very strong differences cannot hold together.” Lehmann cited the example of Pope Celestine V, who resigned in 1294.”It is naturally difficult to imagine such a situation,”the bishop said.”Nonetheless with Celestine V we have someone who has done that.” Pope Paul VI instituted a rule that on reaching the age of 75, a prelate must submit his resignation to the pope, but the rule does not apply to the pope who would have no one to whom he could present his resignation.

Canon 332 of the church’s Canon Laws states:”If it should happen that the Roman pontiff resigns his office, it is required for validity that he makes the resignation freely and that it be duly manifested, but not that it be accepted by anyone.”

Franklin Reigns at Stellar Gospel Music Awards

(RNS) Gospel musician Kirk Franklin reigned at the 15th annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards held in Atlanta on Saturday (Jan. 8), taking home eight trophies, including major honors as Artist of the Year, Producer of the Year, and in the CD of the Year class.

Franklin also emerged on top in the following categories: Song of the Year, Contemporary CD of the Year, Music Video of the Year, Rap/Hip Hop Gospel CD of the Year and, along with Nu Nation, Contemporary Choir of the Year.

Host Vickie Winans claimed three awards: Female Vocalist of the Year, Traditional Female Vocalist of the Year and Traditional CD of the Year.

Richard Smallwood won Traditional Male Vocalist of the Year and, along with Vision, Choir of the Year and Traditional Choir of the Year awards.

Donnie McClurkin earned Male Vocalist of the Year and Contemporary Male Vocalist of the Year awards, while Maurette Brown Clark won New Artist of the Year.

Europe’s Jews Get Two New Leaders

(RNS) In elections held over the weekend in Berlin, Jews in Europe elected new leaders for the European Jewish Congress (EJC) and for the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

The Sunday (Jan. 9) election was called to choose successors to former EJC President Ignatz Bubis of Germany, who died last August after seven years in office. Bubis led both the EJC and the Central Council of Jews.

Frenchman Henri Hajdenberg was voted president of the EJC, an organization that represents the 2 million Jews living in Europe.

Hajdenberg currently serves as president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions, which represents France’s 700,000-member Jewish community _ the world’s third largest, after those in the United States and Israel.

Theatrical agent and Holocaust survivor Paul Spiegel succeeded Bubis as leader of the 90,000-member Central Council.

Spiegel, 62, defeated his only opponent _ fellow board member and Munich Jewish Leader Charlotte Knobloch, 67 _ with six of the nine votes required from the Central Council’s nine-member executive board.

He will serve a three-year term.

Anglicans to Consider Criticizing BBC for Trivializing Religion

(RNS) – A motion critical of the trivialization and marginalization of religious broadcasting by the BBC has shot to the top of the list of private members motions and will be debated by the Church of England’s general synod when it meets at the end of February.

The motion has attracted the signatures of 226 of the synod’s 580 members, including eight of the 53 bishops who are synod members. When the synod last met in November it had only 98 signatures.

The motion, put forward last July by a former BBC radio producer, Nigel Holmes, calls for more religious broadcasting on both radio and television at peak times and for the hours of religious television to be restored to the average of the 1980s.

It also wants”high production values”retained and programs for young people that treat religion seriously.

In support of his motion, Holmes argues that in 1987 the BBC broadcast 11,500 hours of television programs of which 177 were described as religious, but that in 1997 the total had dropped to 122 hours out of over 15,000 _ a proportional decline from 1.5 per cent to 0.8 per cent. In addition, religious programs like Heart of the Matter and Everyman were put on so late at night that they attracted fewer viewers.”It is no surprise that audiences have fallen from 3 million to 1 million in recent years,”he said.

Meanwhile, on radio, the popular Sunday program of religious news and current affairs, which used to run from before the 8 a.m. news on Radio 4 until 9:a.m., has been shifted to three quarters of an hour from 7:10 a.m. to 7:55 and has seen its audience drop from 1.8 million to 1 million.

The issues Holmes sees his motion as highlighting are the drop in the total number of hours of religious broadcasting and the proportion they form of the total, the marginalization of religious programs, and what he calls the trivialization or”dumbing down”of their content.

The fact that Holmes’ motion is now top of the list of resolutions to be considered by the synod means a motion on the role of women in the episcopate is not now likely to be debated until the synod meets in July, provided it retains its position at the top of the list.

Although the Church of England has ordained women priests since 1994, fresh legislation by the synod is needed for it to be able to ordain women bishops. Many fear the three-to-five years of debate any proposed legislation would re-open the old wounds of the women’s ordination debate.

For that reason there are understood to be several bishops and others who would be only too happy if the synod were not to debate this issue. If the motion on women bishops is not reached at the synod’s July meeting it will automatically be consigned to limbo along with all the other so-called private member’s motions until after the election of a new general synod this autumn.

Quote of the day: Frank Lu, of the Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China

(RNS)”While China continues to jail any democracy activist it can find, these days the Communists are really concerned about religions. They realize there is a spiritual void in China. They know most people are cynical about politics, so they won’t follow the democratic activists. But they will follow a new messiah.” _ Frank Lu, head of the Hong Kong-based Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, commenting in the Jan. 10 Washington Post on Beijing’s crackdown on the Falun Gong movement and underground Christian churches.

DEA END RNS