c. 2003 Religion News Service

Conservative Bishop Tells Conservative Parish It Can’t Leave

(RNS) The Episcopal bishop of South Carolina, who has joined a new “network” of dioceses in opposition to the Episcopal Church, has told a conservative breakaway parish that it may not leave the denomination.

All Saints Church in Pawleys Island, S.C., is the home church of the dissident group Anglican Mission in America and its senior bishop, Charles Murphy, who cut ties with the denomination in early 2000. Murphy, the rector emeritus of All Saints, was irregularly ordained a bishop last year by like-minded conservative bishops from Africa.

South Carolina Bishop Edward Salmon, who like the parish opposes the church’s policies on homosexuality, nonetheless said the congregation cannot leave because the property is owned by the diocese, and ultimately the denomination.

The Pawleys Island parish, which voted to delete all references to the Episcopal Church from its 1902 charter, has been locked in a legal battle over its property with Salmon and the national church for three years.

Salmon, in a Dec. 18 letter, reduced the parish to “mission” status, allowing him to replace its pastor and name new lay leadership. He called the church’s attempts to leave “schismatic.”

The church’s vestry, or elected leadership, defied Salmon’s order, saying in a statemetn it “will remain on the property and continue to maintain possession and responsibility for that property that is All Saints Church.”

Salmon, with at least 10 other dioceses, has joined a new “network” that hopes to be recognized as the legitimate Anglican “franchise” in North America by overseas leaders of the Anglican Communion.

In related news, the Anglican bishop of New Westminster, British Columbia, has shut down a mission church that declared itself “independent” from his leadership. Bishop Michael Ingham has angered conservatives for formally allowing the blessing of same-sex unions in his diocese.

“As far as the diocese is concerned, we do not exist. We are a nonentity,” said the pastor of Holy Cross Church, the Rev. James Wagner. “But I will not abandon these people.”

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Study: American Teens Use Internet For Religion Far More Than for Porn

(RNS) U.S. teens say they are three times as likely to use the Internet for religious purposes than for pornography, a new study shows.

The National Study of Youth and Religion found that 17 percent of teens surveyed use the Internet a few times a month or more frequently to link to religious Web sites while 5 percent use the Internet to connect to pornographic sites.

Overall, teens used the Internet most for homework, with 77 percent saying they used it for this purpose a few times a month or more frequently.

The survey looked at teens ages 13 to 17 with access to the Internet.

Researchers found a connection between teens who identified themselves as religious and their use of faith-related Web sites.

Forty percent of teens who say faith is extremely important to them said they visited religious sites a few times each month or more often. Another 20 percent who say faith is very important to them said they visit such sites at the same rate. In comparison, 4 percent of those who say faith is not very important to them visited such sites with the same frequency.

Researchers also found that teens who say they have a low interest in religion are far more likely than their religious counterparts to use the Internet to access pornography.

Fourteen percent of those who said faith is not important to them at all said they use the Internet to view pornographic Web sites a few times a month or more often. That compares to 3 percent of teens who say faith is very important or extremely important to them.

Researchers found similar findings when comparing frequency of attendance at religious services.

Three percent of those who regularly attend services report that they view online pornography a few times a month or more often. That compares to 8 percent of teens who never attend religious services and 7 percent of those who attend sporadically.

The findings, released Dec. 10, were based on 2,600 teens surveyed through the National Study of Youth and Religion. The four-year research project, which is based at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is funded by the Lilly Endowment and continues through August 2005.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Methodist Men Make President Bush a John Wesley Fellow

WASHINGTON (RNS) President Bush has been awarded the highest honors from the United Methodist Men society for his leadership following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The group inducted Bush, a United Methodist, into the Soceity of John Wesley Fellows during a recent meeting in the Oval Office with Gilbert Hanke, national president of the group.

Bush is the 426th person to given the honor. “The recognition of President Bush as a John Wesley fellow emphasizes the significance of this award and honrs him for his daily walk with Christ,” said the Rev. Joe Harris, director of the Commission on United Methodist Men.

In Jan. 2002, Bush was named “Methodist Layman of the Year” by Good News magazine, an evangelical publication. Bush, a member of Hyland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, does not regularly attend a Methodist church in Washington.

During the recent meeting to receive the award, Bush asked Hanke how many presidents had been Methodists. (There have been five.)

“I don’t know, but you’re the best,” Hanke responded, according to United Methodist News Service.

“Right answer,” the president replied.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Pope Says Migrants Can Contribute to Peace Between Civilizations

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II says migrants can “contribute to the consolidation of peace” between different civilizations by taking part in an inter-cultural dialogue.

In his Dec. 23 message for the Catholic Churche’s observance of the 90th World Day of the Migrant and the Refugee next year, the pontiff also urged greater respect for migrants and refugees and denounced traffickers who exploit them.

“The world of migrants is capable of offering a valid contribution to the consolidation of peace,” the pope said. “Migrants can, in fact, ease encounters and understanding between civilizations as well as among people and communities.”

John Paul said, however, that migrants should be integrated gradually into their new societies in order to respect their identity while safeguarding the culture of the host country and to lessen the risk that the newcomers will form ghettos where they will be isolated from the rest of society.

“Let no one remain indifferent in the face of the condition of so many migrants,” the pope said. “These are people at the mercy of events, fleeing from often dramatic situations.”

John Paul condemned “exploiters without scruples,” who abandon migrants in dangerous, small crafts in the sea.

Bishops conferences in each country will set their own dates for the 2004 observances of the day on the theme of “Migrations in a Vision of Peace.”

_ Peggy Polk

Anglican Prelate Warns Gay Debate is Skewing Church Priorities

LONDON (RNS) A warning that the vitriolic debate over homosexuality is causing Anglicans to lose sight of more pressing and vital priorities was sounded by Archbishop of York David Hope in his Christmas sermon.

Noting that in the world today the promise of peace “still seems so elusive, even impossible,” Hope said that if people were to turn their attention to the church, the picture is not much different given the debate over human sexuality “where the exchanges have at times been shrill and unrelenting.”

“Many quite outside and beyond the church have looked on in disbelief, wondering quite what all the fuss is about, and asking whether in so focusing on this one issue almost to the exclusion of all others we have not lost sight of more pressing and vital priorities for our world and its peoples,” the archbishop said.

“Others within have sought to use their best efforts to promote a more informed and dignified debate on what clearly is a controverted and disputed issue.

“But a more fundamental question emerges, too, about our ability to live together with and in difference, and the extent to which that is possible _ given such passionately felt views on this and for that matter on any other deeply disputed question.”

_ Robert Nowell

Affluent Resident Object to Church Chimes in Scottish Village

(UNDATED) (RNS) The clock in the tower of the parish church at Bothwell, Lanarkshire, nine miles southeast of Glasgow, has had its hours of chiming reduced following complaints from alluent residents who have moved into new homes near the church.

Part of the church dates back to the Middle Ages though the nave and tower with the offending chime was built in 1833.

The clock used to ring out the Westminster chimes _ as heard from Big Ben _ every quarter of an hour from 6 a.m. until 11.30 p.m.

But one resident was quoted by The Scotsman as complaining: “We all get exactly six hours’ sleep a night whether we like it or not. We have to go to bed at midnight and rise at 6 a.m., or lie in bed and pretend not to hear it.”

One resident complained to the local council, who took the matter up. The parish minister, the Rev. Jim Gibson, and his kirk (church) session were “quite happy” to agree to changing the times when the clock rings, and now its chimes can only be heard from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m.

_ Robert Nowell

Quote of the Day: Catholic Historian Giorgio Rumi

(RNS) “It’s like a family in which the patriarch is tired. The rest of the family helps out, but always respecting the fact that the patriarch is in charge. It would be odd if it was any different.”

_ Catholic historian Giorgio Rumi, commenting on how the role of the close-knit group of aides to Pope John Paul II has not changed much since his health declined. He was quoted by The Washington Post.

DEA END RNS