c. 2003 Religion News Service
United Methodist Gay Pastor Will Likely Face Trial
(RNS) A United Methodist pastor in Washington state who told her bishop she is a lesbian will likely face trial for flouting the church’s ban on “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy.
The church’s highest court ruled Monday (Oct. 27) that two lower panels made an “egregious error” by not bringing charges against the Rev. Karen Dammann, who disclosed her sexual orientation two years ago.
Dammann, who is currently pastor of First United Methodist Church in Ellensburg, Wash., told Bishop Elias Galvan that she was living in a “partnered, covenanted, homosexual relationship” after her partner gave birth to a son in 2001.
The decision by the church’s Judicial Council sends Dammann’s case back to an investigative committee of the church’s Pacific Northwest Annual Conference for a new hearing. The court did not specify a trial, but ordered committee members who disagree with church law to “step aside.”
If convicted, Dammann could lose her ministerial credentials. “I take this over one minute in the closet,” she told the Associated Press.
The last time a Methodist pastor was defrocked due to sexual orientation was in 1987 when the Rev. Rose Mary Denman of New Hampshire was removed from ministry, church spokesman Stephen Drachler told The Washington Post.
“When it came right down to it, I wasn’t going to teach my little boy to lie or be deceptive, which is what was going to happen if I served a church in the closet,” Dammann told The Post.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
General’s Remarks on Religion and War Come Under Fire in Congress
WASHINGTON (RNS) A resolution urging President Bush to “clearly censure” a defense undersecretary who made “religiously intolerant remarks” was introduced in the House on Tuesday (Oct. 28).
The statement, introduced by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., calls on Bush “to clearly censure Lieutenant General William Boykin, United States Army, for his religiously intolerant remarks against people of the Islamic faith.”
The resolution, which had 16 co-sponsors, also requests that Boykin be reassigned to a position where his views will not influence “government policy decisions toward Muslims.”
The resolution cites recently reported remarks by Boykin, including that “Islamic extremists hate the United States because `we’re a Christian nation.”’
Such remarks, made by a high-ranking official of the military, undermine the war against terrorism by insulting Muslim allies and U.S. citizens, including those in the military, the resolution said.
The statement has been referred to the House Committees on the Judiciary and Armed Services.
President Bush has twice stated publicly that he does not share Boykin’s views. At a Tuesday news conference, the president said: “He doesn’t reflect my point of view or the view of this administration. Our war is not against the Muslim faith.”
An inspector general is investigating Boykin as a result of the controversy.
Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian organization, has asked its supporters to contact Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and members of Congress to defend Boykin.
Sojourners, a more moderate Christian magazine, has requested that people send members of the Senate Armed Services Committee a message urging them to ask Rumsfeld to remove Boykin from his position.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Archbishop of Canterbury Appoints Panel to Probe Divisions
LONDON (RNS) The leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion on Wednesday (Oct. 29) named a 17-member task force to find ways to maintain unity despite deep disagreements on homosexuality.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the head of the 77 million-member Anglican family, named Archbishop Robin Eames of Ireland to head the panel, which will report back by Sept. 30, 2004.
The commission was requested by the 37 primates, or leaders, of the Anglican Communion during an emergency meeting two weeks ago in London. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion.
The commission came just four days before the scheduled consecration of the first openly gay bishop in the communion’s history. The Rev. V. Gene Robinson will be consecrated as an Episcopal bishop on Sunday.
Eames, who trained as a lawyer before entering the ministry, chaired a commission on women bishops following the 1988 Lambeth Conference to study how provinces with women bishops could stay united with those that oppose women’s ordination.
One U.S. bishop will serve on the commission _ Mark Dyer, director of spiritual formation at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Va. Two primates who have openly criticized the U.S. church _ Archbishop Bernard Malango of Central Africa and Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies _ will also serve.
The commission’s immediate task is to examine the legal and theological implications of Robinson’s consecration and a policy in the Vancouver, British Columbia-based Diocese of New Westminster to formally bless same-sex unions.
Specifically, the panel will probe “the canonical understandings of communion, impaired and broken” and what to do when one province feels “unable to maintain the fullness of communion” with another autonomous province.
The panel will also study ways to minister to minorities who seek guidance and oversight from like-minded bishops beyond their diocese or province, and when the archbishop of Canterbury himself should intervene to maintain communion.
Six other bishops will serve on the commission, including the primate of Wales and the primate of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. Other members are theologians and church officials with legal backgrounds.
_ Robert Nowell and Kevin Eckstrom
Supporters of `Under God’ in Pledge Petition Supreme Court
WASHINGTON (RNS) The Supreme Court was given more than 700,000 reasons on Wednesday (Oct. 29) to keep the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Representatives from Grassfire.net, a conservative grass-roots organization, delivered petitions to the Supreme Court signed by citizens nationwide who want to preserve the pledge’s traditional wording.
“The effort to remove `under God’ from the pledge strikes a blow to the very heart of our American understanding of freedom,” said Keith Fournier, president of the Common Good Foundation, a Christian activist group.
“Our American rights and liberties are endowed by a creator. … (`Under God’) must remain part of our national language,” he said.
Next year, the high court will consider the case of Jeffrey Newdow, a California atheist who does not want his 9-year-old daughter to hear the pledge in school.
The Supreme Court’s decision to hear the appeal caused an outcry from conservative groups who fear the phrase will be removed. Church-state groups, meanwhile, heralded the decision.
The Rev. Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council, said he believes “the Constitution exists for one purpose, and that is to secure the rights given to us by our creator.”
“Only God can give permanent rights to human beings and only God can take them away,” he said.
Rick Wingrove, a Virginia computer consultant and atheist, also stood outside the Supreme Court in the cold October drizzle.
The pledge, with the words “under God,” “equates patriotism with religion,” Wingrove said. “If I say the pledge as an atheist, it’s a lie, but by not saying it, I’m not a patriot.”
_ Michelle Gabriel
Pope Intervenes in Dispute Over New Patriarch for Church in Iraq
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II has intervened in a dispute that has prevented election of a new leader of the Baghdad-based Chaldean Catholic Church in post-Saddam Iraq, the Vatican said Wednesday (Oct. 29).
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the pope has called a synod, or meeting, of bishops of the church on Sunday and Monday (Nov. 2-3) in the Vatican to choose a new patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans.
The Chaldean Catholic Church was established in 1552 by bishops who broke away from the Assyrian Church of the East to seek union with Rome. It won formal recognition from Pope Pius VIII in 1830 and now claims some 800,000 members, including 65,000 in Michigan.
Like other Eastern Catholic churches united with Rome, the Chaldeans use an Eastern Rite similar to that of Orthodox churches.
The Chaldean patriarch Raphael I Bidawid died after a long illness on July 7 at the age of 81.
The 22 Chaldean bishops met Aug. 19 in Baghdad to try to decide on a successor but adjourned at the start of September without agreement. Vatican sources said they were divided over policy following the war that toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
The bishops were said to be concerned over the course that the process of democratization has taken and preoccupied about the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism in post-war Iraq.
Bidawid, like the pope, had criticized the economic embargo imposed on Iraq after the first Gulf War and agreed with John Paul’s strong opposition to the U.S.-led attack on Iraq earlier this year.
Navarro-Valls said that in calling the synod, the pope acted out of “paternal solicitude toward the venerable Chaldean Church,” using powers given him by the Code of Canon Law for Eastern Churches.
Normally the church elects its patriarch and then submits his name to the pope, who can confirm the choice or suggest another name.
_ Peggy Polk
Update: Prison Officials, Jewish Prisoner Settle Kosher Diet Case
(RNS) A Jewish prisoner who filed suit in hopes of receiving kosher food has reached a settlement with Florida prison officials.
Alan Cotton, 58, who is serving a life sentence at the Everglades Correctional Institution, reached the agreement on Oct. 3 with the Florida Department of Corrections.
Under the agreement, he will receive pre-packaged kosher meals, which correctional officials will be able to inspect for security reasons.
“Any questions as to whether a particular food item is kosher may be resolved through FDOC’s chaplaincy services, which shall consult a rabbi,” the agreement states.
It notes that Cotton’s right to the meals will be revoked under certain conditions, including if he provides the kosher food to another inmate or decides to no longer observe the tenets of Judaism.
“After this settlement, the Florida Department of Corrections has no justification for denying kosher food to any inmate similarly situated,” said Derek Gaubatz, an attorney with the Washington-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty who defended the inmate.
Cotton, who began serving his sentence in 1967, was born and raised in the Jewish faith and became interested in the serious practice of Judaism again in the 1990s. He had sought kosher meals since 2000 and filed suit after informal and formal grievances were denied.
Department of Corrections spokesman Sterling Ivey said it was “probably a cost factor” that caused state prisons not to offer kosher meals while federal and some county prisons do, the Associated Press reported.
He said further applications for kosher meals would be “evaluated on a case by case basis.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani
(RNS) “If you don’t know what you believe, you can’t lead anyone else honestly. And if you don’t know what you believe, you have no place to go in a crisis; you have nothing to hang on to when your life is in jeopardy.”
_ Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, speaking at an Oct. 27 scholarship banquet for Union University in Jackson, Tenn. He was quoted by Baptist Press.
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