c. 2003 Religion News Service
Poll: 60 Percent of Americans Oppose Religious Same-Sex Blessings
(RNS) A new Washington Post poll found that six in 10 Americans oppose the Episcopal Church’s decision to allow bishops to authorize the blessing of same-sex couples.
And, in a sign of discomfort over recent victories by gay rights activists, nearly half _ 47 percent _ of respondents said they would look for a new church if their minister decided to bless same-sex couples. Forty-eight percent said they would stay at their church.
After approving the church’s first openly gay bishop, Episcopalians voted last week (Aug. 7) to “recognize” that gay unions already occur within the church’s “common life.” The church declined, however, to draft liturgies that would be used in such ceremonies.
Sixty percent of respondents said they opposed the church’s new policies, while 33 percent approved and 7 percent had no opinion. Three out of four frequent church attenders opposed the policy, according to The Post.
On the larger question of granting gay couples the same legal benefits as married heterosexuals, 58 percent were opposed, 37 percent supported the idea and 5 percent had no opinion.
The 37 percent in support of civil marriage rights was the lowest figure in three years, and represented a 12-point drop from a Gallup poll taken in May before the Supreme Court’s decision that overturned sodomy laws.
“I am entirely against it. I don’t think it’s correct _ at least that the way it is in the Bible,” William Nelson, a Catholic from Malden, Mass., told the Post.
Others, such as Darlene Midlang, a Lutheran from North Branch, N.Y., hoped their church would follow the Episcopalians’ lead. “If people love each other and they want to have a public recognition of that love, why shouldn’t we support it?” she told The Post.
The poll of 1,003 people, including 420 people who attend church at least once a week, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The margin of error for frequent church attendees was 5 percentage points.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Virginia to Appeal Military Institute Prayer Case to Supreme Court
(RNS) Virginia Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore plans to appeal a case involving Virginia Military Institute’s dinnertime prayers to the Supreme Court after an evenly divided appeals court upheld its previous decision declaring the prayers unconstitutional.
“These prayers are part of VMI’s educational program and are precisely the kind of prayers recited in the United States military, on ships at sea each night, and before lunch at the United States Naval Academy,” Kilgore said, the Associated Press reported.
His comments came after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused Wednesday (Aug. 13) to reconsider an April decision by a three-judge panel.
None of the judges voting on the prevailing side gave an explanation for their decision but one of the dissenters, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III said he disagreed with the panel’s finding that the institute’s emphasis on conformity places pressure on cadets to take part in a religious exercise.
“I doubt that cadets who are deemed ready to vote, to fight for our country, and to die for our freedoms, are so impressionable that they will be coerced by a brief, nonsectarian supper prayer,” he wrote.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which sued on behalf of two former cadets in May 2001, argued that the rigid atmosphere of the state-sponsored school in Lexington did not provide accommodation for cadets who did not want to participate.
Kent Willis, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, said the latest ruling was “a close call” but he hopes it serves as a conclusion to the case.
Pope Names Special Bishop for Israel’s Hebrew-Speaking Catholics
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II has created the new post of auxiliary bishop for Hebrew-speaking Catholics in the Jerusalem Patriarchate and named an Algerian-born Benedictine abbot to fill it, the Vatican said Thursday (Aug. 14).
The Rev. Jean-Baptiste Gourion, 68, will provide pastoral care for the growing number of non-Palestinian Catholics now living in Israel. Immigrants since 1991 include an estimated 150,000 from the former Soviet bloc, most of them Orthodox, but also some 20,000 Catholics from the Philippines and 10,000 from India and Africa.
Vatican sources called the naming of an auxiliary to Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah “with special powers” a significant move. They said it has been under consideration for at least a year while church officials studied the implications for the Patriarchate and for relations with the Jewish state.
The Italian news agency Adnkronos said the Vatican sent formal notification of the move Wednesday to Israeli President Moshe Katsav after Israeli officials assured the Vatican that the government did not object.
The Vatican Secretariat of State reportedly had first considered creating a separate apostolic administration, reporting directly to the pope, as a kind of ad hoc diocese for the community but met with strong objections from Sabbah.
The patriarch feared this could weaken his leadership and diminish his authority to plead the Palestinian cause with Israeli officials. Adnkronos said he also argued this “split” within the Patriarchate, which includes Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan, would go “against history and tradition.”
Gourion has spent more than a quarter century in Israel and for more than a decade served as Sabbah’s episcopal vicar for the Hebrew-speaking community. The Israeli Knesset last year awarded him its prize for Judeo-Christian friendship.
Born in the Algerian port city of Oran, he was baptized in 1958 at the age of 23 while studying natural sciences and medicine at the University of Paris. He went on to study theology and philosophy at the Abbey of Bec and was ordained there in 1967.
In 1976, he was sent as superior to the medieval Monastery of St. Mary of the Resurrection at the Arab village of Abu-Gosh in the hills overlooking Jerusalem where Benedictine monks celebrate the Mass in Hebrew. The monastery houses the institute of the Work of St. James, which Pope Pius XII created in 1955 to combat anti-Semitism and foster friendship with Israel.
Gourion was elected the monastery’s first prior in 1987 and its first abbot in 1999. Sabbah appointed him episcopal vicar and president of the Work of St. James in 1990.
_ Peggy Polk
Excavations of Indian Mosque Site Show No Trace of Hindu Temple
(RNS) After completing a five-month excavation, government archaeologists say they have found no evidence of an ancient Hindu temple under the ruins of a 16th century mosque in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya.
The Ayodhya site has been an inflammatory issue for Hindus and Muslims since it was razed by a Hindu mob in 1992, triggering nationwide riots that killed more than 3,000 people.
Hindu nationalists claim the Babri mosque stood above a Hindu temple marking the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama, an avatar of Krishna, the god in that tradition that sustains the universe.
Muslims and Hindus are now vying for rights to build on the site of the Babri mosque, which was built by the Mogul emperor Babur in the 16th century.
Recently, Hindu nationalist groups, including the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, have expressed their determination to build a temple on the site.
The excavation to find out whether the mosque was built over a destroyed temple was commissioned by the Allahabad High Court in March. The Federal Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) will submit its excavation report to the court on Aug. 22.
“Even before ASI started digging at Ayodhya, we were sure that no temple ever existed at the site,” archaeologist Suraj Bhan, who served as an observer at the excavation site, told the Washington Times. “In fact, Babri was superimposed on top of another 200- to 250-year-old mosque from the sultanate period. The ASI diggers have found evidence of that mosque at this time.”
Hindu organizations have expressed dissatisfaction with the excavation’s results, arguing that evidence of a temple could be buried further down.
Muslim leaders, meanwhile, have said they will wait for the court to pass its final verdict on the ownership of the site before they consider rebuilding the mosque.
“All along, we have been confident that no temple was ever pulled down to make way for the Babri mosque. The final report by ASI is only going to prove our position,” Zafaryab Jilani, convener of the All-India Babri Masjid Action and counsel for the Sunni Central Waqf board, the key Muslim claimant for the disputed site, told the Washington Times. “It may take months for the court to take a decision on the proprietorship of the disputed land. However, this ASI report is going to weaken the standpoint of the Hindus in this case.”
Bishop Sullivan Named Pax Christi `Ambassador of Peace’
(RNS) Pax Christi USA, the independent Catholic peace movement, has commissioned retiring Bishop Walter Sullivan of Richmond, Va., with its highest honor as an “Ambassador of Peace.”
Sullivan, one of the church’s strongest anti-war voices, is expected to retire soon. He reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 in June. Pope John Paul II has not announced Sullivan’s successor.
Sullivan served as president of the group and liaison to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for 12 years. His successor at Pax Christi will be Bishop Gabino Zavala, an auxiliary bishop in Los Angeles.
“Bishop Sullivan has led this movement with grace and wisdom, speaking out prophetically on behalf of peace and justice in his diocese and across the country, within the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and to all of us within Pax Christi USA,” said the group’s national coordinator, Dave Robinson.
The Ambassador of Peace mantle has previously been bestowed on 21 other peace activists, including Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton; the late Bishop Raymond Lucker of New Ulm, Minn.; the late Rev. Richard McSorley, founder of the Center for Peace Studies at Georgetown University; and the late Eileen Egan, co-founder of Pax Christi USA.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Quote of the Day: Semeen Issa, founding director of the sports camp of the Muslim Women’s League
(RNS) “Nowhere do you find Muslim women athletes. Muslim women soccer players, basketball players, volleyball players, tennis players, where are they? There aren’t any. Why? Because they haven’t had role models.”
_ Semeen Issa, founding director of the Muslim Women’s League girls’ sports camp in Pasadena, Calif. She was quoted by USA Today.
DEA END RNS