c. 2000 Religion News Service

Gore’s Invite to Catholic Hospital Revoked by Local Bishop

(RNS) The Roman Catholic bishop of Scranton, Pa., revoked an invitation to Vice President Gore to speak at a Catholic hospital on Wednesday (June 14) because of Gore’s support for legal abortion.

Bishop James C. Timlin rescinded the invitation for Gore to speak at Mercy Hospital because he wanted to be clear about where the Catholic Church stands on abortion, according to the Associated Press.”The Mercy Hospital has decided not to give Vice President Gore a platform, lest there be any misunderstanding about the hospital’s Catholic identity and its commitment to the sanctity of life,”Timlin said Wednesday.

Gore instead delivered a speech on health care at the corporate offices of Allied Services, a health care company.

The vice president brushed off the snub, saying in his speech,”It was not by accident that I chose this place for the second of my series of speeches.” The incident highlighted the difficulties both Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush will have in courting the Catholic vote, which is about evenly split between Democrats, Republicans and a sought-after slice of independent voters.

Catholics gave their support to President Clinton in 1992 and 1996, but the social issues most important to the Catholic Church-such as abortion, the death penalty and help for the poor-are split between the two parties.

Reformed Church to Seek Dual Membership in NAE, NCC

(RNS) The Reformed Church in America has voted to become the first denomination to seek membership in both the National Council of Churches (NCC) and the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), signaling what the NAE hopes will be a new era in ecumenical cooperation.

Until a decision earlier this year, the NAE had prohibited its members from also holding membership in the NCC, which is comprised mostly of mainline Protestant churches. After a NAE bylaw change, churches can now hold membership in both bodies.

Meeting in Hempstead, N.Y., for its annual General Synod, the 259,651-member church voted to seek membership in the NAE as a way of maintaining ecumenical relations while also stressing its evangelical nature.

If the NAE accepts the church as a member, it would become the first church to be duly aligned in both organizations.”The Reformed Church has historically been both ecumenical and evangelical,”said the Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, general secretary of the church.”I trust that we can build bridges between divided parts of the Christian community for the sake of our common witness to the world.” The church also agreed to circulate a letter between local congregations about the church’s relationship with the more progressive United Church of Christ. Under a 1997 agreement, the UCC, RCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Presbyterian Church (USA) signed a sweeping agreement allowing the churches to share clergy, sacraments and mission projects.

Some conservatives in the RCA said the UCC’s open policy on homosexuality was too radical for the more conservative RCA policy. The letter said the RCA’s position on homosexuality was contrary to the UCC, and that the two churches should not pursue further ecumenical relationships beyond the local level.

Judge Strikes Down Louisiana School Prayer Law

(RNS) A Louisiana federal court Wednesday (June 14) struck down a state law permitting student volunteers to open the public school day with a prayer.

The law”cannot help but create the appearance that the state of Louisiana is endorsing religion”by”creating a venue for public prayer … under the supervision of public officials,”said U.S. District Judge Robert G. James.

The ruling does not apply to students’ individual prayers, or to group prayers by self-selected students before, during or after the school day.

For years Louisiana law has permitted educators to allow a moment of silent meditation at the beginning of the school day. In 1992, the Legislature added the word”prayer.”Last year, state Rep. Cynthia Willard, D-New Orleans, sponsored a move to delete the word”silent”from the law, thus authorizing spoken prayer as a matter of school routine. “The Louisiana statute was an egregious violation of the constitutional separation of church and state,”said Ayesha Khan, an attorney for Americans United for Separation of Church and State.”The law was deeply misguided. The court recognized in its decision that the Louisiana legislature cannot authorize the prayers of the majority to be foisted upon nonbelievers.” The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State sued the Ouachita Parish School Board last year on behalf of a 13-year-old junior high school student, a 15-year-old high school student and their parents. The students’ schools had a long-standing practice of letting student volunteers include a prayer with Monday morning announcements to assembled students.

The plaintiffs discovered that such prayer-often introduced by a principal-was a common practice in five of 11 high schools and junior high schools in the Ouachita district, and had been since the mid-1950s, said Khan.”They simply disregarded every Supreme Court ruling on prayer since the 1960s,”said Khan.

But the schools maintained that the prayers had no official character, said Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit organization that provides legal aid in First Amendment cases. “It was a forum for student messages,”he said.

The federal court will next consider the plaintiffs’ request that the court actually force educators in the city of Monroe-where the case originated-to stop the school prayers.

Pope Eats Lunch With 200 Homeless People in Holy Year Gesture

(RNS) Pope John Paul II sat down to Holy Year lunch with 200 homeless people Thursday (June 15), welcoming them as”friends who are so dear to me.” The lunch was intended to dramatize the pope’s call to the world’s 1 billion Roman Catholics to celebrate Holy Year by performing acts of charity, and the Vatican treated the homeless people as honored guests.”This event,”the pope said,”constitutes the heart of the Jubilee year.” Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the foreign minister, and Milwaukee, Wis.-born Bishop James Harvey, prefect of the papal household, were among more than a score of prelates sitting with the homeless people at 23 tables in the atrium of the Paul VI Audience Hall.

Sixty-five seminarians waited on the table while an orchestra formed of 30 priests belonging to the order of the Legionaries of Christ played and 10 more sang popular folk songs, starting with the Italian”O Sole Mio.””Among the so-many Jubilee appointments, this for me is surely one of the most heart-felt and significant,”the 80-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff told his guests.”I wanted to meet you. I wanted to share a meal with you to say that you are in the pope’s heart.”With great affection I embrace each of you, friends who are so dear to me.” Many of the guests were Italians but they also included migrants and refugees from all five continents, some of them Muslims. They were chosen by three charities that provide food and shelter to many of Rome’s 6,000 homeless-the Community of Sant’Egidio, Caritas and the Gift of Mary House of Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity order.

Each received a formal printed invitation with his or her name hand-written, saying John Paul invited them to a”convivial meeting”on the occasion of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000. Chartered buses took them to the Vatican.

There were linen tablecloths and napkins and flowers on each table and each place was set with three glasses for wine, water and spumante, Italian champagne.

The menu, described by the Vatican as”typical of a middle class Italian family,”consisted of ravioli stuffed with ricotta and spinach, roast veal and potatoes, salad and mozzarella cheese, a sweet dessert, fruit salad with ice cream and coffee.”The time that I can spend with your is certainly little,”the pope told the guests,”but I assure you that every day I follow you with prayer and affection. While I look at you one-by-one, I think of how many in Rome as in every part of the world pass through moments of trial and of difficulty.”I want to draw near to each of you to tell you: do not feel alone because God loves you. The pope loves you, dearest brothers and sisters, and with him the entire church opens its arms in welcome and fraternity.”

Catholic League Protests Connecticut Donations to Pro-Choice Group

(RNS) Just days after the Boy Scouts of America filed suit to get back on a list of charities which can receive paycheck deductions from Connecticut state employees, a Catholic watchdog group says the state should also remove a pro-choice Catholic group.

The Catholic League, which monitors anti-Catholic bias, said the controversial Catholics for a Free Choice should not be listed with other charitable groups to receive contributions as part of a United Way campaign.

Connecticut officials removed the Boy Scouts because they said the Scouts’ policies against gays in leadership positions violates the state’s anti-discrimination laws.

Last year, the fund raised more than $1.3 million for more than 800 charities by allowing state employees to designate a portion of their paychecks to go to charities. The Scouts are suing to be put back on the list.

William Donahue, president of the Catholic League, said if the Boy Scouts do not belong on the list, then neither does Catholics for a Free Choice, which is heading up a controversial campaign to remove the permanent observer status of the Vatican at the United Nations.

The Nation’s Catholic Bishops have denounced Catholics for a Free Choice as a front for the abortion lobby which merits”no recognition or support as a Catholic organization.””There is no way that any state program would allow Jews for Jesus the right to participate, and neither should Catholics for a Free Choice be allowed,”Donahue said in a statement.”Indeed, whatever can be said of Jews for Jesus, few would accuse it of sponsoring bigotry. The same is not true for Catholics for a Free Choice-it is expressly anti-Catholic.”Pope Concerned About Unsolved Murder of Guatemalan Bishop

(RNS) Pope John Paul II called on officials in Guatemala on Thursday (June 15) to track down the killer of Guatemala City Auxiliary Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera, who was bludgeoned to death in 1998 after issuing a report on human rights violations.

The Roman Catholic pontiff also called on the government to respect the culture of its indigenous peoples and to give them access”to a better and more worthy life.” Speaking during a ceremony at which he received the credentials of Acisclo Valladares Molin as Guatemala’s new ambassador to the Holy See, the pope expressed”satisfaction”that Guatemala has lived in peace in recent years.

But he noted that the country has”had to face a series of difficulties in coexistence”and said,”Among them I must underline the still unsolved assassination of Monsignor Gerardi.” Gerardi was beaten to death in his garage with a block of cement on April 26, 1998, two days after he issued a report on human rights violations committed during 36 years of civil war.

The 1,400-page report,”Project for the Recovery of Historical Memory,”asserted that the army and paramilitary groups were responsible for 80 percent of human rights violations numbering in the tens of thousands.

The ambassador acknowledged that the investigation into the murder had been faulty but assured the pope that Guatemala’s newly installed government would”make a major effort to solve the assassination.””We have to find lost evidence and to do what should have been done from the start,”Valladares Molina said. He said his government assumes responsibility”with deep sorrow”for past omissions which were”negligent at best.”

Quote of the Day: Uruguayan Theologian Julio de Santa Ana

(RNS)”The process of the capitalist economy has aimed at subordinating all other interests. It aims at freedom, but imposes oppression. It aims at happiness, but creates pain and suffering. It says it affirms life, but it brings death.” -Uruguayan theologian Julio de Santa Ana in a speech at Colloquium 2000: Faith, Theology, Economy: Churches and Social Movements Facing Globalization in Hofgeismar, Germany. He was quoted by Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news service.

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