c. 2003 Religion News Service

Study Finds Two-Thirds of Immigrants are Christian

(RNS) Nearly two-thirds of new immigrants to the United States are Christian, fueled mostly by Catholics coming from Latin America, according to research sponsored by several government agencies.

Forty-two percent of immigrants are Catholic, 19 percent are Protestant and 4 percent are Eastern Orthodox, according to a study of almost 1,000 adult immigrants in 1996. Eight percent are Muslim, 4 percent are Buddhist, 3 percent are Jewish, 3 percent are Hindu, and 1 percent claim other religions.

While the percentage of immigrants who are Christian is lower than in the general U.S. population (82 percent), the percentage of immigrants who are Catholic is nearly twice the national percentage of Catholics. The 16 percent of immigrants from non-Judeo-Christian faiths is four times higher than the national average of about 4 percent.

Catholicism was claimed most often among immigrants who hailed from Poland (92 percent), Peru (89 percent), the Dominican Republic (86 percent), the Philippines (82 percent), Mexico (78 percent), El Salvador (63 percent), Vietnam (53 percent) and Canada (43 percent).

Fifteen percent of immigrants claimed no religion. Countries with the highest percentage of nonbelieving emigrants to the U.S. were China (64 percent), Taiwan (41 percent) and the former Soviet Union (37 percent). The United Kingdom, Vietnam, Canada and El Salvador also had high numbers of nonbelieving emigrants to the U.S.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the National Science Foundation.

The study was conducted by Guillermina Jasso of New York University, Douglas Massey and Mark Rosenzweig of the University of Pennsylvania and James Smith of the Rand Corporation. Excerpts from the study were reprinted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Poll Says Half of Americans Split on Abortion, Death Penalty

(RNS) Nearly half of all Americans hold seemingly contradictory positions on the value of human life when asked about their support for capital punishment and abortion, according to a new Gallup survey.

Forty-seven percent of respondents said they support the taking of life in either abortion or the death penalty, but not in the other. For the survey, abortion was regarded “as a cessation of life; no value judgment is intended.”

Sixteen percent support the “ending of life in the womb” through abortion but oppose the death penalty _ the position closest to the platform of the Democratic Party _ while 31 percent oppose abortion but support the death penalty, a position closest to the Republican platform.

“Public opinion on abortion and the death penalty appears to be about much more than simply life and death,” the Gallup Poll’s Tuesday Briefing said.

Half of all Americans hold positions that embody a “consistent” life ethic, pollsters found. Twenty-two percent support both abortion and the death penalty, while 28 percent oppose abortion and the death penalty, a philosophy that would mirror the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, for example.

Pollsters found that the people most likely to have “inconsistent” philosophies on life and death are the “strong ideologues” on both the left and right, while moderates in the center are “more evenly torn” on the issue.

“Conservatives have been known to scoff at liberals for defending the value of human life when it comes to convicted murderers while minimizing the value of life in the womb through their support of abortion,” Gallup senior editor Lydia Saad said.

Saad suggested one reason for the split in opinion may be the drive to conform to partisan political ideology and that “there is no firm philosophical basis for one belief or another.”

The survey of 1,005 adults was conducted in May and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Update: Phoenix Bishop Says He Did Not Admit to Cover-Up

(RNS) After signing a sweeping plea agreement with a county prosecutor, the Roman Catholic bishop of Phoenix said he did not admit to a criminal cover-up when he conceded that he allowed priests accused of sexual abuse to continue working.

Bishop Thomas O’Brien agreed to surrender his role in all abuse cases and appoint new staff in exchange for immunity from criminal prosecution under a deal unveiled Monday (May 2).

O’Brien signed a three-sentence statement in which he acknowledged allowing accused priests to continue working, and admitted to transferring those priests “without full disclosure to their supervisor or to the community in which they were assigned.” Six priests have been indicted on charges of child sexual abuse.

But O’Brien and Maricopa County Prosecutor Rick Romley differ on exactly what O’Brien agreed to. In a brief statement issued Monday, the bishop said he had not “committed a crime.”

“It was never my intention to obstruct or interfere in any way,” O’Brien said. “I certainly never intentionally placed a child in harm’s way. To suggest a cover-up is just plain false. I did not oversee decades of wrongdoing.”

Romley, who said he could have indicted the bishop for obstruction of justice but chose not to, said the bishop could already be in violation of the agreement if he denies his role in the abuse scandal.

“Is he revising history?” Romley said to the Arizona Republic. “Did the bishop fail to understand the confession he was signing? Did he fail to understand that he needed immunity? If he continues to lie about everything, I’ll have to consider whether or not that’s a breach of our agreement.”

O’Brien also denied that his resignation had been a focus of negotiations with Romley’s office. “My resignation was not an option,” he said. “I serve at the pleasure of the pope, not the county attorney.”

Danish Priest Suspended for Saying There Is No God

(RNS) A Danish priest was suspended Tuesday (June 3) for saying he does not believe in the existence of God or the afterlife.

“There is no heavenly God, there is no eternal life, there is no resurrection,” Thorkild Grosboel, a Lutheran pastor, told the Associated Press in a recent interview.

His comments have baffled members of Denmark’s state-supported Evangelical Lutheran Church and raised questions over whether a pastor must profess a belief in God to serve the church.

Grosboel has been suspended from his pastoral duties in Taarbaek, a town north of Copenhagen, by the bishop of the Helsingoer diocese. In a meeting Tuesday, Bishop Lise-Lotte Rebel asked Grosboel to retract his statement and issue an apology, saying his remarks have caused confusion within the church.

“There should be no doubt that priests have committed themselves to act within the church’s confession of faith,” Rebel told the AP. Grosboel will meet with the bishop in her diocese 20 miles north of Copenhagen next week.

Though just 5 percent of Denmark’s 5.3 million people attend church regularly, 85 percent of its population belongs to the Lutheran Church, and religious feelings among Denmark’s faithful can run strong. Recently a parish south of Copenhagen filed suit against a Denmark supermarket chain for selling flip-flops that featured images of Jesus and Mary. Christian demonstrators who stormed one of the chain’s stores said the sandals made a mockery of their faith.

While most church leaders have said that a pastor must believe in God and the Resurrection to serve the church, Mogens Lindhardt, the leader of Denmark’s Theological College of Education, told the AP he found Grosboel’s comments “refreshing.”

Despite the strong reactions Grosboel’s words provoked within the church, the final decision over whether he should be defrocked falls to the Danish government’s Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs. Under Denmark’s Constitution, Lutheran priests are employed by the state and cannot be dismissed by bishops.

_ Alexandra Alter

Australian Bible Says `G’day’ to Baby Jesus

LONDON (RNS) Most Bibles present the baby Jesus as a “babe wrapped in swaddling clothes.” In a new Bible from Down Under, the babe of Bethlehem is “a nipper wrapped up in a bunny rug, and lying in a food trough.”

“The Aussie Bible (Well, bits of it anyway!),” a new 90-page volume to be published in August by the Australian Bible Society, also presents the Three Wise Men as “three eggheads from out east” who go in search of the baby Jesus.

“We saw his star out east, and we’ve come to say `G’day Your Majesty,”’ according to the new translation.

This new version is the work of Australian broadcaster and journalist Kel Richards. It carries a foreword by the Anglican archbishop of Sydney, the Most Rev. Peter Jensen, as well as one by the country’s deputy prime minister, John Anderson. The initial print run is 30,000.

The Christmas shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night become drovers. “Their eyes shot out on stalks when an angel of the Lord zapped into view, and the glory of the Lord filled the air like a thousand volts of electricity.

“The angel said: `Stop looking like a bunch of stunned mullets. Let me give you the drum, the good oil, it’s top news for the whole crew _ everyone, everywhere. Today in that little town on the hill a rescuer has been born: he is the Promised One, the King, the Lord.”’

After visiting “Mary and Joe and the baby,” the drovers went back to their sheep “as excited as a race horse on Melbourne Cup day, and saying what a bottler God was, because everything was spot-on just as they’d been told.”

The Good Samaritan becomes “a grubby old street sweeper you wouldn’t look twice at” who uses his first aid kit to patch up the bloke left as good as dead by a bunch of bushrangers who had attacked him and stolen his dough. He puts him on his old nag and takes him “to the nearest pub.”

A year ago the Australian Bible Society launched the Surfers Bible, a New Testament with testimonies by well-known figures in the world of surfing. It has sold more than 35,000 copies, and plans are afoot for a copy to be sent to every surf shop in the United States.

_ Robert Nowell

Quote of the Day: Evangelist Jerry Falwell

(RNS) “The fact is that we, as Christian leaders, do have a biblically ordained responsibility to reach out with the gospel of Christ to all people, including Muslims. This is not a popular concept with many on the left. But our responsibility is to Christ, and not our earthly critics, as we strive to do his will.”

_ Evangelist Jerry Falwell, pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., in a column for Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.

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