c. 2003 Religion News Service
Church Leaders Seek Meeting With Bush Over Iraq
WASHINGTON (RNS) Forty-six Protestant and Orthodox Christian leaders have asked for a “pastoral opportunity” to meet with President Bush to discuss their opposition to the impending war with Iraq.
The religious leaders, including the heads of the National Council of Churches, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Presbyterian Church (USA), said war with Iraq is a “moral and ethical matter of the highest order.”
“It is with this utmost urgency that we seek a meeting with you to convey face-to-face the message of the religious community that we represent on the moral choices that confront this nation and your administration,” said the letter, sent on Thursday (Jan. 30).
“You are no doubt well aware of our activities to slow the rush to war and our continuing uneasiness about the moral justification for war on Iraq.”
There was no immediate response from the White House.
The signers included 20 bishops from Bush’s own United Methodist Church. It was not, however, signed by Episcopal Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, who recently lambasted Bush’s “reprehensible rhetoric” and was in turn rebuked by former President George H.W. Bush, an Episcopalian. Episcopal Bishop Christopher Epting, the church’s lead ecumenical liaison, did sign the letter.
Almost all of the leaders of U.S. mainline Protestant churches have strongly opposed the war. A new ad sponsored by the National Council of Churches featuring Methodist Bishop Melvin G. Talbert says a war against Iraq “violates God’s law and the teachings of Jesus Christ.”
The religious leaders addressed Bush as “a member of the community of faith” and acknowledged the “unprecedented challenges” facing both Bush and the nation.
In a separate but related development, Roman Catholic Cardinal Edward Egan of New York told a Vatican teleconference on Tuesday (Jan. 28) that United Nations weapons inspectors must be allowed to finish their work without the threat of war.
“The truth of the danger must be established beyond any doubt” and “clearly set before us” before the United States can engage in any war, Egan said, according to Catholic News Service.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Episcopal Presiding Bishop Responds to Former President’s Rebuke
(RNS) Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, responding to strong criticism from former President George H.W. Bush, has written a letter to him explaining his recent comments about the “deep hostility” of overseas faith leaders toward U.S. foreign policy.
The former president reacted to comments Griswold made to Religion News Service in a recent interview in which he declared he would “like to go somewhere in the world and not have to apologize for being from the United States.”
Bush, in remarks aired Monday (Jan. 27) by the Fox News Channel, said, “I can understand a man of God or anyone else, a kid from a university, of being against war, any war. But I found these particular quotes to be offensive.”
Speaking as the father of the current president, Bush added: “And knowing the president as I do, I found them uncalled for. And I can tell you they hurt this loving, proud father very much.”
Bush said he, like Griswold, travels the globe and has not felt the loathing the bishop described, except from people like “tyrants.”
“But I can assure you, when I go abroad, I do not _ never have and never will _ feel the need to apologize for this great country, the United States.”
The former president, an Episcopalian, was applauded by those attending a Connecticut awards ceremony.
Griswold, in his Jan. 30 response, explained that he spoke from the context of his travels to meetings with bishops throughout the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is a member.
“Sadly, they look upon the United States, and on me as sign and symbol of the Episcopal Church in the United States, with deep hostility,” the bishop wrote. “It is only when I apologize for or explain what they perceive as our unilateralist and self-serving ways which ignore the needs and suffering of their nations that we are able to enter into a relationship of mutual care and understanding.”
Griswold said he would like national policies to be based on the “generous spirit” of Americans concerning suffering beyond its borders.
He added that he is praying constantly for national leaders, “particularly your son.”
The bishop’s comments to the former president were released on the same day he reacted to the current president’s State of the Union address. He praised Bush’s proposal to commit $15 billion to the fight against AIDS but urged he work toward peace.
“I will not second-guess those who unquestionably have better information than is available to me about options for action in response to Iraq,” the bishop said. “However, I call on President Bush to exhaust all diplomatic and multilateral initiatives as the alternative to waging war.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Scottish Mosques, Synagogues Given Funds to Tighten Security
LONDON _ With war against Iraq looming and the Middle East still in turmoil, mosques and synagogues in Scotland are taking steps _ with nearly $1.7 million worth of help from the province’s parliament _ to protect themselves against racist attacks.
The money from the Scottish Executive is being used to carry out protective measures at 46 mosques, temples and synagogues across Scotland.
They are installing closed-circuit television cameras, building fences, and securing doors and windows.
Scottish Justice Minister Jim Wallace said about 75 percent of the work has been completed.
Scotland’s population has a relatively small percentage of Muslims and Jews, but a backlash is feared as the British government steps up its preparations, including sending nearly 30,000 troops to the Gulf, for a possible war against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, and the Palestinian-Jewish crisis in Israel continues to ferment.
Wallace cited a firebomb attack on a mosque in Edinburgh in October 2001 and said a “small prejudiced and ignorant minority” had used the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington to justify assaults against ethnic communities.
In outlining steps taken by places of worship in Scotland to defend themselves against more such attacks, Wallace told an Edinburgh conference organized by the Commission for Racial Equality that it was important to be “vigilant, not vindictive.”
He warned Scottish citizens against using the fear of terrorism as an excuse for acts of prejudice, racism and religious hatred.
Wallace also cited a series of police anti-terrorism raids in England, to the south, in which nearly a score of Muslims, most of them from north Africa, were arrested and a quantity of ricin, a lethal toxin for which there is no known antidote, was found. The raids have stirred angry reaction within Britain’s Muslim population.
_ Al Webb
Judge Apologizes to Bishops’ Protesters
WASHINGTON (RNS) A Washington judge apologized to three gay activists who were denied Communion last November during a meeting of Catholic bishops and refused to sentence them for a protest at the bishops’ hotel.
Judge Mildred M. Edwards, a Catholic, found the three protesters guilty of unlawful entry and suspended their sentence. The three members of the gay rights group Soulforce could have faced six months in jail and a $350 fine. Each spent 30 hours in jail after being arrested.
Kara Speltz, Ken Einhaus and Mike Perez refused to leave the bishops’ hotel on Nov. 12 until they were served Communion. They said they had been refused Communion during a bishops’ Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception the previous night.
“Tremendous violence was done to you when the body of Christ was denied to you,” Edwards said from the bench. “I am terribly sorry for what happened to you. As a member of your church, I ask you to forgive the church.”
Church officials said the three were misidentified as members of the Rainbow Sash movement, who had planned to take Communion in protest of church policies.
“The Eucharist is the core of our faith and a sign of our unity,” Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Washington, told the Washington Post. “It is very rare to deny Communion, but since it was publicly announced it would be a protest and not a sign of faith, the Rainbow Sash group was denied the sacrament.”
Gibbs called the incident a “case of mistaken identity.”
Each defendant was ordered to pay a $50 fine to the Victims of Violent Crime Compensation Fund. Edwards told the protesters to “go in peace” and said she would not ban them from the bishops’ hotel or any other “law-abiding” protest.
Einhaus, of Arlington, Va., called the verdict “a great victory for the three of us as faithful gay Catholics, and for all those who love God and seek healing for the wounds the church has inflicted upon gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.”
Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, who testified for the three protesters, said in a Soulforce press release, “This experience reinforces my opinion about how important it is that the Catholic Church reach out to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Vatican Said to Issue Order to Bar Transsexuals From Religious Orders
ROME (RNS) The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has issued a confidential directive to religious orders to bar transsexuals from joining and to expel those who already are members, it was reported Friday (Jan. 31).
Adista, a Rome-based lay Catholic news agency, said that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the congregation, sent the authoritative ruling to the superiors of all Catholic religious orders for men and women.
“Given the complexity and the delicacy of the question, the recipient of this circular letter is asked to maintain it, together with the attached note from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in maximum reserve and to make only internal use of it in the institute or society for the indicated ends,” Ratzinger reportedly wrote.
In a move linked to the recent scandals over pedophile priests, the Vatican also is preparing instructions to heads of seminaries not to admit homosexuals as candidates for the priesthood.
Adista published excerpts from the directive on transsexuals and said it would provide the full text in the next edition of its thrice-weekly newsletter.
The directive said that transsexuality is a “pathological personality situation” because it involves a dichotomy between physical and psychological aspects of the personality in the determination of sex.
Transsexuality falls into the “category of purely psychic pathologies” as distinct from forms of “intersexuality,” which are characterized by the discordant development of bodily sexuality, it said.
“When by clear external attitudes and on the testimony of those in charge of formation, a prudent doubt arises about the presence of transsexuality, the superior should arrange a careful medical and psychiatric visit,” the directive said.
“In the case that a serious and irreversible pathology of transsexuality is found, there cannot be valid admission to the institute or society, while in the case of doubt, admission is not permitted as the candidate lacks a clear and full suitability,” it said.
If a member of a religious order voluntarily undergoes a sex change operation, he or she “must be expelled from the religious house for the good of souls,” the directive said.
Marianne Duddy, executive director of the gay Catholic group Dignity USA, said: “There are profound truths about humanity, and about God, to be learned from their (transgendered) experience. Transgender people need pastoral attention that is respectful and open, not judgmental and dismissive.”
_ Peggy Polk
Bridgeport Bishop Succeeds Law as Chairman of CUA Trustees
WASHINGTON (RNS) Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., has been elected president of the board of trustees at the Catholic University of America.
Lori succeeds former Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, who left the post three days before he resigned as archbishop after a yearlong sex abuse scandal.
Lori, a 1982 graduate of the school and former auxiliary bishop of Washington, pledged to work with CUA President David O’Connell and the university community “for the good of this great university.”
“His deep knowledge of the university and of the Washington metropolitan area will contribute significantly to his effectiveness as chair of our governing board,” O’Connell said in a statement.
Lori, considered by many to be a man to watch in the U.S. hierarchy, is a member of the bishops’ ad hoc committee on sexual abuse and helped negotiate changes to new sex abuse rules with Vatican officials.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Monk Named Britain’s `Gardener of the Year’
LONDON (RNS) A monk of Ampleforth, the famed Benedictine monastery in Yorkshire, has been named Gardener of the Year by the magazine Country Life.
He is Father Edward Corbould, who retired last summer after 36 years as housemaster of St. Edward’s, one of the houses where pupils at the boarding school attached to the abbey live.
He leaves behind, according to Country Life, “a remarkable garden made largely by boys.” It is built up the hill behind the house, and was the subject of a three-page illustrated feature in the magazine last June.
Asked how he recruited his gardeners, Corbould told the magazine, “There are always at least one or two boys who would do anything rather than games.” Compulsory games are a traditional feature of English boarding school life.
_ Robert Nowell
Quote of the Day: Lutheran Bishop Munib Younan
(RNS) “The church is not only a building where you sing hallelujah. We have a political responsibility.”
_ Bishop Munib Younan, leader of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jerusalem, addressing Swedish journalists about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He was quoted by Ecumenical News International.
DEA END RNS
