c. 2003 Religion News Service
Bishops’ President Stands Firm on Celibacy Discussion
(RNS) The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said he does not foresee any action on petitions by priests’ groups asking for a discussion of mandatory celibacy.
Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of Belleville, Ill., in a meeting with the editorial board of The New York Times, said the church’s position on priestly celibacy is clear.
“Since the Second Vatican Council the question of celibacy has been raised by popes and a number of synods and bishops’ conferences, and I think we have a fairly clear position on the importance of celibacy and its relationship to the Catholic priesthood,” he said.
On Aug. 19, 163 priests from Milwaukee sent a petition to Gregory that said the church’s sacramental life was at risk because of a shortage of priests. Opening the clergy to married men would boost the number of priests, the letter said.
Since then, priests’ groups in New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Gregory’s own Belleville diocese have said they intend to circulate similar letters on celibacy.
Gregory told The Times he has not conferred with Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan on the petition. The Rev. Robert Silva, president of the National Federation of Priests’ Councils, has asked the bishops’ Priestly Life and Ministry Committee _ headed by Dolan _ to consider the petition.
Gregory said the issue has already been “fairly well discussed” and did not need to be re-examined. The Times said he was “emphatic” that the church’s recent sex abuse scandal should not prompt discussions or changes on celibacy.
One Milwaukee organizer was not surprised by Gregory’s response. “We were just asking for dialogue,” the Rev. Joseph Aufdermauer told The Times. “That was a fond wish, but I think I’m a bit of a realist.”
Giving to United Methodist Church Down 3 Percent
(RNS) The United Methodist Church reported a 3.3 percent drop in general giving to the church for the first half of 2003.
As of June 30, the church had received $37.1 million, a drop of about $1.3 million compared to the same point in 2002, according to the church’s General Council on Finance and Administration.
Giving is funneled up from local churches to regional bodies known as annual conferences, and then to the Evanston, Ill.-based finance agency. That agency then distributes the money to seven “apportioned funds” that run most of the church’s operations.
Still, the bulk of the church’s money is usually received from local churches in the last quarter of the year. Last year, the church had received 30 percent by the end of June; this year, the church had received 28.6 percent of its projected 2003 income by the end of June.
Giving to the largest fund, the World Service fund, was down 4.7 percent from last year, to $19.7 million, compared to $20.6 million. Four other funds also showed decreases.
Two funds that go to administrative activities and ecumenical efforts showed modest increases over last year, according to United Methodist News Service.
A drop in income, combined with sagging investments and rising health care costs, has prompted the Nashville, Tenn.-based United Methodist Communications to cut spending by $350,000 for the rest of 2003.
The agency will phase out six staff positions, not fill two jobs vacated by retirements and trim budgets. The Rev. Larry Hollon, who heads UMCom, also shuffled UMTV and the respected United Methodist News Service under the Office of Public Information.
Ginny Underwood, who formerly directed the church’s Native American communications office, was named director of the news service, replacing Garlinda Burton, who had been named to the post in April 2002.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Cleveland Catholic High School Bars Girl Wearing Muslim Scarf
CLEVELAND (RNS) Amal Jamal is not welcome at Regina High School anymore.
The returning senior learned Monday as she stood in line to buy textbooks that she now violates her Catholic school dress code by wearing a Muslim headscarf, or hajib. Surrounded by classmates, Amal put down her books, fought back tears and left.
“I was in shock; I didn’t understand,” said Amal, 17. “All along, they gave me a room to pray in. They asked me questions about Islam. They always accepted me for who I was. Now they have decided it is against school policy to wear my hajib.”
“I feel very bad about this situation. I’ve agonized over it,” said Sister Maureen Burke, Regina’s principal for 12 years. “Amal is a wonderful young woman. The family is very fine. … But the uniform issue is very important to who we are as a Catholic school.”
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations in Washington, said he knew of no other American private school dismissing a Muslim girl in this way. “It’s just ridiculous,” he said.
“You have a religious school denying a student the right to her religious belief.”
On Thursday (Aug. 28) Hooper called Burke in an effort to intervene. Burke explained that a private school had a right to enforce its particular rules. In contrast, no American public school can prohibit a girl from wearing a religious headscarf, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
But uniforms are often at the core of Catholic school culture, and enforcement can be a contentious matter, especially among adolescents. The Regina handbook includes a sentence reading, “No hats, no bandannas or head wraps are permitted.”
Burke elaborated: “It’s a broad-based policy. It’s certainly not just about do-rags or turbans or African headdresses. The purpose of the uniform is to bring everybody together, not to be distracted by self-expression.”
_ Karen R. Long
Arsonists Again Try to Burn Down Synagogue in Minsk, Belarus
MOSCOW (RNS) For the third time in three years, arsonists have tried to burn down a Minsk synagogue, this time succeeding in causing only minor damage to the building’s facade, a Jewish leader in the former Soviet republic of Belarus reported Friday (Aug. 29).
Police in the Belarus capital detained four teenage boys for questioning but have not charged them with the early Wednesday morning attack with kerosene, said Yury Dorn, president of Belarus’ Jewish Religious Union. Dorn credited a night watchman with reacting quickly and calling police and firefighters.
Belarus, a repressive country little changed since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, has a Jewish population estimated at 30,000. It generally has a better track record on anti-Semitism than its larger neighbors, Russia and Ukraine.
In Grodno, a city in western Belarus, local officials agreed earlier this month to halt construction at a soccer stadium that had resulted in the unearthing and destruction of dozens of Jewish graves. Excavated soil from the Jewish cemetery was used as landfill for public works projects around the city. Residents complained of encountering human remains along newly repaired city streets and in mounds of earth trucked from the stadium.
“The agreement is that the soil taken from the cemetery will not be touched any further and that they will cover New Street with asphalt, so that the remains wouldn’t just be lying around,” said Grigory Khosid, leader of the city’s 600-member Jewish community, by telephone from Grodno.
The deal resulted, in part, from pressure from Western Jewish groups as well as a bipartisan letter from 21 members of the U.S. Congress sent in July to Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.
Elsewhere in the southern Belarus town of Mozyr, a local Jewish activist is protesting to the mayor and prosecutor’s office over the destruction of two Jewish cemeteries. Workers are digging a natural gas line through one cemetery, said Yakov Gutman. A second cemetery, located in an especially scenic part of the town, is threatened by the construction of a private home “by one of the town leaders,” Gutman said.
_ Frank Brown
James Shannon, Excommunicated Former Bishop, Dies at 82
(RNS) James P. Shannon, the outspoken former Catholic auxiliary bishop of Minneapolis and St. Paul who left the priesthood over the birth control issue and later married, died of a stroke Thursday (Aug. 28). He was 82.
Shannon quietly submitted his resignation to the Vatican in 1968 after saying he could not support Pope Paul VI’s “Humanae Vitae,” which condemned the use of birth control. The Vatican refused to accept the resignation and Shannon was put on leave.
Shannon had already angered Los Angeles Cardinal James Francis McIntyre after he narrated an NBC special about “The New American Catholic.” McIntyre called the production “erroneous, misleading and unauthorized” and ended Shannon’s chances to head his own diocese, and possibly the Catholic University of America.
His resignation did not become public until June 1969, and two months later a newspaper in Rochester, N.Y., reported that Shannon had married Ruth Wilkinson. Shannon was immediately excommunicated.
“We had many shocks in those days … but there was nothing else with this kind of drama to it, a bishop actually quitting, stepping down,” Bernie Casserly, a former editor of the Catholic Bulletin in St. Paul, told the Pioneer Press.
Shannon, a native of South St. Paul, was ordained in 1946 and 10 years later was named the president of the College of St. Thomas at age 35. In 1965 he was named an auxiliary bishop of the Twin Cities.
After leaving the church, Shannon launched a successful career in philanthropy, including director of the General Mills Foundation, and earned a law degree from the University of New Mexico. His autobiography, “Reluctant Dissenter,” was published in 1998.
“Dr. Shannon … left the active priestly ministry during a time of great turmoil in our church, and his departure was a real loss for the Catholic community,” Archbishop Harry Flynn said in a statement. “We are pleased that, through the special permission of Pope John Paul II, Dr. Shannon lived his last years in full communion with our church.”
Quote of the Day: Pop Musician Elton John
(RNS) “I’m a mad shredder. I get these Bibles sent to me saying `repent now’ and I shred them.”
_ Pop musician Elton John, quoted by The New York Post.
DEA END RNS
