c. 2003 Religion News Service
Poll: Most U.S. Adults Say Faith and Medicine Can, Should Mix
(RNS) The vast majority of American adults think patients’ religious faith can have a positive effect on their medical recovery and say they pray for others in hopes of improving their health.
A Newsweek poll released with a Nov. 10 cover story on “God and Health” found that 89 percent of Americans surveyed said they think a patient’s personal faith can have a positive effect on his or her recovery from an injury or illness. Eight percent disagreed and 3 percent said they did not know.
Almost as high a percentage _ 84 percent _ said they believe praying for others who are sick or injured can have a positive effect on their recovery. Eleven percent disagreed and 5 percent said they did not know.
And 72 percent said they believe God can cure people who have been given no chance of survival by doctors.
In general, a majority of respondents said they think religion and spirituality have a place in the realm of medicine. Sixty-three percent said there is a place for religion in medicine, while 28 percent said the two should be kept separate and 9 percent said they did not know.
More than half of those surveyed _ 53 percent _ said they have personally relied on their faith to help them through a health problem or major illness while 44 percent said they had not and 3 percent said they did not know.
Researchers also found that health is much higher on people’s prayer lists than financial success. Seventy percent of respondents said they pray often for good or better health for themselves or someone in their family. Sixty-two percent said they pray often for the health of someone outside their family. But only 27 percent said they pray often for financial or career success.
Despite these views, the subject of religion apparently seldom comes up in the doctor’s office.
Ninety-one percent of those surveyed said they had never asked their doctor to pray with them and 19 percent said a doctor or other health professional had brought up religion during a doctor’s visit or hospital stay.
Almost three-quarters of respondents (72 percent) said they would welcome their doctor asking about ther faith or spirituality while 16 percent said they would consider it an invasion of privacy.
The survey results were based on interviews conducted Oct. 30-31 by Princeton Survey Research Association of 1,007 adults ages 18 and older. They have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Following information suitable for graphic:
What People Often Pray For:
Good/better health for yourself or family member: 70 percent
Good/better health for someone outside family: 62 percent
Strength to overcome a personal weakness: 55 percent
World peace: 52 percent
Financial or career success: 27 percent
Source: Newsweek Poll
_ Adelle M. Banks
Yukon Bishop Agrees to End Oversight of Dissenting Parishes
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (RNS) Yukon Bishop Terry Buckle, an adamant opponent of same-sex blessings, has agreed to stop flouting the authority of the Vancouver area’s liberal Anglican bishop.
Buckle withdrew as the “flying bishop” for the Diocese of New Westminster, where 10 disaffected conservative parishes were claiming obedience to him rather than Bishop Michael Ingham. Buckle, who serves in Canada’s Arctic, took almost a week to agree to an order by the Canadian House of Bishops to stop interfering in the Vancouver-area diocese, which has become the focus of international controversy.
“It is apparent to me that the way ahead in this regard is … for me to now withdraw,” Buckle wrote in a letter to his conservative backers in Greater Vancouver.
The top Anglican for British Columbia and the Yukon, Metropolitan David Crawley, said from a meeting of bishops in Ontario he was “delighted” to receive a copy of Buckle’s letter.
For his part, Ingham called Buckle’s decision “a step forward in restoring the order of the church,” adding he was praying it would lead to reconciliation within his diocese.
Now that Buckle has withdrawn, Ingham said he will agree to the House of Bishops’ request to suspend disciplinary hearings against seven disaffected priests who had been charged with “disobedient and disrespectful conduct.”
In his withdrawal letter, Buckle urged Greater Vancouver’s conservative Anglicans to “stand strong together” as they respond to the House of Bishops’ promise to set up a new system to meet the spiritual needs of dissident minorities in a diocese.
That proposed church plan could include the use of so-called “flying bishops” to minister to unhappy members. But the external bishops would have to be mutually agreed upon by the disputing parties.
_ Douglas Todd
French Bishops Dismayed at Religious Symbols Ban
PARIS (RNS) French Roman Catholic bishops expressed dismay Monday (Nov. 10) over new efforts to ban the wearing of religious symbols, like crosses, in public and some private schools in France.
“The proposal to ban students from wearing all religious symbols in schools, when it does not trouble public order, seems to us a regression of freedom of expression,” said Bishop Jean-Pierre Ricard, president of the Council of Bishops in France, during a closing speech of the group’s annual meeting in Lourdes.
The question of wearing religious accessories to public school first surfaced earlier this year, after a number of Muslim girls refused to take off their veils or head scarves in French public schools. The furor sparked calls for new French legislation that would ban wearing not only veils in public schools, but also Catholic crosses, Jewish skullcaps and other religious symbols. Some lawmakers are even considering extending a new ban to include parochial schools dependent on state funds.
The issue of banning religious symbols in school is being debated elsewhere in Europe, notably in Italy and Germany. France’s 1905 law established a strict separation of church and state. But gray areas, like this one, remain.
France’s center-right government is divided over passing a law. A government-appointed secularity commission is expected to give its opinion on the matter next month, and President Jacques Chirac is expected to make a decision early next year. The French parliament has formed a similar commission.
Like their Catholic counterparts, Muslim leaders in France have expressed concern about a possible law. But one poll, published by Le Figaro newspaper last week, found 55 percent of French favorable to legislation.
The majority of French people are Roman Catholic, but many are nonpracticing. Church attendance in France, like elsewhere in Europe, has plummeted in recent decades.
Last week, the French Catholic Church suffered another setback when the government decided to revoke a key religious holiday _ Whit Monday _ for public sector employees. The proceeds from the new, post-Easter working day will be used to help finance care for the French elderly and disabled.
_ Elizabeth Bryant
Update: Lynch Loses Cincinnati Council Race
CINCINNATI (RNS) The Rev. Damon Lynch III, the Baptist minister turned Cincinnati City Council candidate, learned one of the tough rules of politics Nov. 4 when he placed 10th in a contest that awarded the top nine finishers with a seat on the council.
Lynch, with a total of 21,764 votes, fell about 1,000 votes short of the number nine finisher, incumbent Democrat David Crowley.
Lynch ran as an independent for a seat on a governmental body he’s been at odds with for the past two years in the wake of race riots that spilled onto the streets of downtown Cincinnati following the shooting death of a black youth by a policeman in the city’s troubled Over-the-Rhine district.
Lynch gained additional notoriety in August after announcing his candidacy when a Republican opponent questioned whether Lynch, who owned a home in suburban Woodlawn and a condo in Cincinnati, was really eligible to run. The Hamilton County Board of Elections ruled on Lynch’s behalf shortly after he filed. For many years, Lynch has been a voice of reconciliation and ecumenical initiatives in the city and Hamilton County.
But he has been criticized by Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken at nearly every turn over the past of couple years, especially for his role in an African-American boycott of city events since the riots. Lynch formed the Cincinnati Black United Front more than a year ago in an effort to seek federal investigations of a police department that he and other religious leaders in the region have called racist and trigger-happy.
_ Dennis P. O’Connor
Pope Tells Palestinians `Terrorism Must Be Condemned in All Its Forms’
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II told a delegation of Palestinian Christians on Monday (Nov. 10) that “terrorism must be condemned in all its forms” and urged “patient dialogue” with Israel to achieve peaceful coexistence.
Addressing the delegation, which represented the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the Roman Catholic pontiff pointedly sent his “greetings and good wishes” to PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
John Paul, who has met with Arafat at the Vatican a number of times and in Bethlehem during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2000, has not joined Israeli and U.S. officials in disowning the PLO leader for failing to halt terrorist attacks against Israel. But he made clear his strong opposition to terrorism as a tactic.
“Terrorism must be condemned in all its forms, for it is not only a betrayal of our common humanity but is absolutely incapable of laying the necessary political, moral and spiritual foundations for a people’s freedom and authentic self-determination,” the pope said.
“Despite the recent setbacks on the road to peace and fresh outbreaks of violence and injustice,” he said, “we must continue to affirm that peace is possible and that the resolution of differences can only come about through the patient dialogue and persevering commitment of people of goodwill on both sides.”
The pope urged acceptance of United Nations resolutions and commitments made during the peace process and a common quest for “reconciliation, justice and the building of a secure and harmonious coexistence in the Holy Land.”
John Paul said he hoped the Palestinians’ national constitution now being drafted will give “due recognition of all religious communities and adequate legal protection of their freedom of worship and expression.”
Palestinian Christians have a “significant role” to play in building a Palestinian nation, the pope said.
The Vatican has become increasingly concerned in recent years over the exodus of Catholics and other Christians from the Holy Land because of violence and a lack of economic opportunity.
_ Peggy Polk
Baptist Megachurch Pastor Takes Leave After Assault Alleged
(RNS) The pastor of a prominent Southern Baptist megachurch in Houston has taken a paid two-month leave of absence after allegations he sexually assaulted a 37-year-old man.
The leave for Pastor Joe Samuel Ratliff of Brentwood Baptist Church was approved at a church business meeting Oct. 27, the Houston Chronicle reported.
In a lawsuit filed in August, Arnold Blake alleged that Ratliff assaulted him in the pastor’s office in February. Blake sued the church and the pastor for an undisclosed sum, and the suit was resolved without terms being disclosed.
Ratliff, 53, attended the church meeting at which the leave was approved.
“There was overwhelming support for the pastor by the church,” Paul E. Jefferson, business administrator for the 12,000-member church, told the Chronicle.
Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention, reported that Ratliff is one of the founders of his denomination’s African American Fellowship.
“Dr. Ratliff has recommitted himself to God and is working through this for the good of himself, his wife, the congregation and the community,” a church statement provided to Baptist Press read.
In an unrelated development, a youth group leader who volunteered at the Willow Oak Assembly of God in Mulberry, Fla., was charged Nov. 2 with molesting three boys ages 10 to 12. Paul Allen Fagiole, 44, was convicted of child molestation in 1981, the Associated Press reported.
Quote of the Day: Army Chaplain Maj. Mitchell Lewis
(RNS) “I’ll go into a church and sing a hymn and it overwhelms me. It is like putting an ankle that is sprained in a whirlpool for a massage. Going to worship for me massages my spirit, putting my spirit in a whirlpool.”
_ Army Chaplain Maj. Mitchell Lewis, returning from the war in Iraq, on what it’s like to come home to Georgia. He was quoted by United Methodist News Service.
DEA END RNS
