c. 2000 Religion News Service
Ally McBeal Joins Mission-Minded Tenants of Boston Office Building
(RNS) Heirs to New England’s stern Congregational heritage seem to have added a famous perky lawyer to their assemblage of sober, mission-minded tenants _ television’s Ally McBeal.
Keen-eyed visitors to the American Congregational Association’s stately downtown Boston building will find the sitcom star’s name on the office directory in the foyer. That’s because tourists expect to find her there _ and because the keepers of the region’s oldest Christian tradition have a sense of humor.
In the “Ally McBeal” show, the Fox Network uses an image of the association’s building to suggest that’s where the fictional McBeal works for the fictional law firm of Cage, Fish. A mystery person within the association thought it would be fun to let the star-crazy public think she works on the seventh floor, and the Congregationalists are playing along by letting her moniker stay up, according to Executive Director Harold F. Worthley.
“Some people come into the building, look at it and smile,” Worthley said. “I think the point is, `what’s the harm in it?”’
Two of every three tenants at 14 Beacon St. are nonprofit groups with a social mission, Worthley said. The 1898 building houses a wealth of original, historical documents in the Congregational Library as well as offices for the Massachusetts Council of Churches, the City Mission Society and the United Church of Christ.
Seventh floor tenants have reported only one interruption from someone looking for McBeal since her name joined the directory 10 days ago, Worthley said. For the time being, the Congregationalists have no plans to evict their peppy, fantasy neighbor.
“I think (her name) might come down eventually,” Worthley said. “But Ally might not be on TV forever either.”
Vatican Attacks Healing and Exorcism Rites by Charismatic Catholics
(RNS) In an authoritative “instruction” to Roman Catholics throughout the world, the Vatican has attacked faith healing and exorcism rites conducted by charismatic groups within the church.
The 11-page Instruction on Prayers for Healing, issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on Nov. 23 with the approval of Pope John Paul II, set 10 “disciplinary norms” for healing and exorcism. It was signed by German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the congregation and a vigorous enforcer of doctrinal orthodoxy.
The document, based on a study of biblical precedents, said any Catholic may “pray to God for healing.”
But, it said, liturgical services of both faith healing and exorcism will now require explicit permission from the diocesan bishop, “even if they are organized by bishops or cardinals or include such as participants.”
Although the rules endorse “special prayer intentions for the healing of the sick in the general intercessions or prayers of the faithful,” they state that prayers for the healing “must not be introduced into the celebration of the Holy Mass, the sacraments or the Liturgy of the Hours.” Making exorcism part of the liturgies is “absolutely forbidden.”
“Anything resembling hysteria, artificiality, theatricality or sensationalism, above all on the part of those who are in charge of such gatherings, must not take place,” it said.
The document distinguished between “meetings connected to a `charism (gift) of healing,’ whether real or apparent, and those without such a connection.” It said a “charism of healing” existed when the “efficacy of the prayer” depended on a specific person or persons, often the director of the service.
“If there is no connection to any `charism of healing,’ then the celebrations provided in the liturgical books, if they are done with respect for liturgical norms, are obviously licit and often appropriate,” the instruction said. “If the celebrations do not respect liturgical law, they lack legitimacy.”
The Vatican already has acted against a controversial charismatic healer on its own doorstep, Zambian Bishop Emmanuel Milingo, 70. The prelate’s faith healing and exorcism rites have drawn huge crowds in Italy where he moved after the church in Zambia rejected him.
Although he survived a Vatican investigation into his activities, he was stripped of his official title of special delegate for migrants and itinerants just before the start of Holy Year. Both Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the pope’s vicar general for Rome and head of the Italian Bishops Conference, and Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini of Milan have banned his services in their dioceses.
English Vicar Undergoes `Gender Re-Assignment’ Operation
(RNS) For the past four years the parishioners of St. Philip’s Church in Upper Stratton, a suburb of Swindon, a railway town 80 miles west of London, have been ministered to by the Rev. Philip Stone. Next Sunday (Dec. 3) their services will be conducted by the Rev. Carol Stone.
At the age of 46, their vicar has had a sex-change operation _ or “gender re-assignment,” as the church’s news release _ and is at last the woman she _ or he _ always wanted to be.
“I only have two vocations in my whole life,”Stone told a news conference in Swindon on Tuesday (Nov. 28). “They are to be a priest and to be a woman. My last prayer at night was that I’d wake up a girl.”
Stone, twice divorced and with an 18-year-old daughter, has had the support of her family, her congregation and her bishop, the Rt. Rev. Barry Rogerson of Bristol, who said last June he could see no reason in church law why Stone should not continue as a priest in the Church of England after the sex-change operation.
“I don’t believe there’s a moral issue here,” he said. “This is a medical condition and can be dealt with medically, now.”
Stone acknowledged some people might find her change of sex unacceptable.
“As a priest you always have to be prepared for people to come and go,” she said. “There will obviously be those people who won’t come with me, and they will be sorely missed, but there will always be a place for them at St. Philip’s.”
Hadassah Donates $550,000 to Birthright Israel
(RNS) A national Jewish women’s Zionist organization has donated $550,000 to a program to help create greater ties between Israel and Jewish youth in the United States.
Hadassah is the largest Jewish women’s organization in the United States. At the United Jewish Communities meeting in Chicago, the organization gave the money to allow Jewish youths to “touch and be touched by” the nation of Israel.
“This is a vital program because our youth are not only the future of the Jewish community but of Zionism,” said Bonnie Lipton, Hadassah’s national president. “And the best way we know how to raise committed Zionists is by allowing them to touch and be touched by the people and the land of Israel.”
The money will help fund Birthright Israel, a program that allows thousands of Jewish youth to travel to Israel. This winter, Birthright Israel will send 10,000 Jewish college students to Israel. Birthright Israel is a joint program between the Israeli government, American Jews and several benefactors.
WHO Warns Against `Complacency’ in Fighting AIDS
(RNS) As AIDS infection rates climb in North America and Western Europe _ more than doubling this year in Russia _ “there is no excuse” for complacency among the world’s wealthiest nations about the AIDS epidemic worldwide, according to a joint report from the World Health Organization and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS United Nations released Tuesday (Nov. 28).
“It’s very striking that in the wealthy countries there is a perception that AIDS is over _ there is far less investment in education programs,” Peter Piot, executive director of the U.N. HIV/AIDS program, told the Associated Press.
“The availability of treatment has resulted in a complacency which is becoming really dangerous. Considering that today we’ve got as many new infections in Western Europe and North America as 10 years ago, there is no excuse for that.”
By the end of December, AIDS will lead to 3 million deaths (compared to 2.6 million last year), the 27-page annual AIDS Epidemic Update concluded. Also by the end of the year, some 36.1 million people worldwide will be living with the HIV virus (which causes AIDS), including 5.3 million newly infected people.
Some 1.5 million of those new infections will occur in industrialized countries.
In North America (where 920,000 people are living with the HIV virus), 45,000 new AIDS cases will occur this year, while 30,000 new cases will arise in Western Europe.
In Russia alone, about 300,000 people will become infected with the virus that causes AIDS by the end of the year _ compared to 130,000 cases of infection in all of 1999.
“In one year, more people have been infected in Russia than all previous years combined,” Piot said, adding that spread of the disease shows no sign of slowing down.
The report’s “conservative estimate” places the number of AIDS cases in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union at 700,000 this year, up from 420,000 the year before.
In South and Southeast Asia, where some 5.8 million people are living with AIDS or are infected with the HIV virus, about 780,000 new infections will occur by the end of this year. That number drops to 80,000 in North Africa and the Middle East, and 150,000 in Latin America.
The number of new HIV infections in some 55 nations on the African continent dropped for the first time this year, from 4 million last year to 3.8 million. The report expects the bulk of those new infections, 3.8 million, will occur in Sub-Saharan countries.
Lucker Retires as Bishop of New Ulm, Minn.
(RNS) One of the last liberal Roman Catholic bishops has retired after serving in a Minnesota diocese for nearly 25 years.
Bishop Raymond A. Lucker, leader of the Diocese of New Ulm, Minn., since 1976, submitted his resignation to Pope John Paul II earlier this year and it was accepted on Nov. 17.
Although bishops are required to submit their resignations at age 75, Lucker has been battling melanoma cancer and submitted his notice two years early “to get the ball rolling early,” said Paula Marti, a diocesan spokeswoman.
The retirement was accepted earlier than expected, and now the diocese is now without a bishop until one is appointed by the pope. Lucker said in a statement he leaves the diocese with a sense of fulfillment.
“After 25 wonderful years I leave this responsibility with peace in my heart,” he said. “These years have been exciting and challenging. I am grateful to the priests and pastoral leaders of the dioceses for their cooperation and love.”
Lucker said he looks forward to writing and teaching and continuing to work with local parishes. He plans to continue to live at the diocese’s pastoral center until a spot opens up at a St. Paul retirement home.
Lucker, who followed in the progressive pastoral tradition of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernadin, was appointed auxiliary bishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 1971. In 1975, he was appointed bishop of New Ulm and officially started as bishop in 1976.
Lucker was a leader in the movement to develop cathechesis materials in the U.S. church. He helped spearhead the development of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) classes and the National Conference of Diocesan Directors.
The 73-year-old bishop has also not been afraid to take on the Vatican for what he called oppressive and stiffling centralized oversight. At a recent meeting of progressive Catholics in Milwaukee, Lucker said “the biggest obstacle to the renewal of the church is the Roman curia (the cardinals and other Vatican bureaucrats who run the church),” according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Lucker said bishops bow to Vatican authority out of fear that they will never be able to climb the church’s hierarchical career ladder.
“People don’t believe me when I say that bishops are constantly in fear, looking over their shoulders. A lot of it has to do with power (and) advancement _ `Unless I do so and so, I’ll always be in New Ulm,”’ Lucker quipped.
Quote of the Day: Evangelical Pastor Ron Larson
(RNS) “Dealing with the devil is ugly work. The devil is ugly. Evil is ugly. When you get to what I call pure extreme evil, it’s not going to be pretty.”
_ The Rev. Ron Larson, an evangelical pastor who runs an exorcism ministry in Denver, talking about the proliferation of exorcisms around the country. He was quoted in The New York Times.
DEAEND RNS
