c. 2004 Religion News Service

McCarrick Says Denying Communion Is a `Slippery Slope’

WASHINGTON _ The Catholic bishop who is heading a task force on how to handle dissenting politicians said denying them Communion is a “slippery slope” that will be unwelcome in his archdiocese.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, in his strongest statement to date, told Catholic journalists that “I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to ask my priests to do it.”

McCarrick said denying Communion to politicians puts the church on a “slippery slope” that would eventually lead to denying Communion to voters who support those politicians.

“We should have no confrontation at the altar,” McCarrick told members of the Catholic Press Association on May 27, according to Catholic News Service. “I’m not going to have a fight with someone, holding the sacred body and blood (of Jesus) in my hand.”

McCarrick, who had said previously that he was reluctant to use the Eucharist as a “sanction” against dissenting politicians, is heading a task force of bishops that is expected to make its recommendations after the November elections.

At the same time, a bishop who said Catholics who vote for politicians who support abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage or stem-cell research would be banned from Communion until they have sought Confession, said he was misunderstood.

Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs, said he would never “deny” Communion to parishioners. But, he said there was no room for Catholics to support abortion as a matter of “conscience.”

Only Catholics whose consciences were in line with church teaching could receive Communion, he said, and a Catholic who votes “in bad conscience” commits a “sinful act” that precludes him or her from the sacrament.

“Put bluntly, anyone who says he has a well-formed conscience that stands opposed to the most fundamental moral teachings of our church simply does NOT have a well-formed conscience,” he wrote in his diocesan newspaper, the Catholic Herald.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

California Judge: `Partial-Birth’ Abortion Ban Unconstitutional

(RNS) After a California judge declared Tuesday (June 1) that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is unconstitutional, religious groups and others with opinions on the abortion debate have reacted with words of disappointment and welcome.

U.S. District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco concluded that the 2003 law “poses an undue burden on a woman’s ability to choose a second trimester abortion” and is “unconstitutionally vague.” She said the ban should require an exception regarding the health of the mother.

President Bush was among the dissenters who immediately opposed the ruling. He vowed to continue to defend the law.

“Partial-birth abortion is an abhorrent procedure that must be ended once and for all,” a Tuesday statement from his press secretary said. “The president strongly disagrees with (Tuesday’s) California court ruling, which overturns the overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress that voted to pass this important legislation.”

During the controversial procedure that the law sought to ban _ called “partial-birth abortion” by its critics _ a fetus is partially extracted through the birth canal and its skull is collapsed by suctioning out the brain.

“Once again a federal judge has declared that Roe v. Wade stands for the right to kill a child in the process of being born,” said Cathy Cleaver Ruse, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities.

Others opposing the decision looked to future court rulings on the same issue.

“Rulings from courts in New York and Nebraska are pending, and we remain cautiously hopeful that at least one of these jurisdictions may yield a different finding,” said Carrie Gordon Earll, senior policy analyst for Focus on the Family.

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, took a different view, referring to the ban as “the Ban on Safe Abortions.”

He said the ruling “affirms our strong belief that sensitive medical decisions should remain in the hands of women, in consultation with their doctors and on the basis of their own beliefs, without interference from those with political agendas in opposition to established rights.”

Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which filed the suit challenging the ban, hailed the ruling as “a landmark victory for medical privacy rights and women’s health.”

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice issued a statement saying the decision confirms its stance on the law.

“Thirty years after Roe v. Wade, it should be unthinkable that a doctor could be prosecuted as a criminal for performing an abortion procedure yet that is what would happen under this bill,” the coalition said.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Parents in Boston File Suit to Save Catholic School

(RNS) Parents at a Boston Catholic school scheduled to be closed have filed suit, seeking to use some of the school’s assets to start a new private, Catholic-oriented school.

Parents at St. Peter’s School in South Boston asked a judge to impose a temporary injunction to keep school funds from reverting back to the Archdiocese of Boston, according to The Boston Globe.

St. Peter’s was one of three parish schools ordered closed (two others will merge) under a controversial plan to close 70 parishes in the cash-strapped archdiocese.

Parents say money in four accounts was given for the purpose of the school, not to support other parishes or pay clergy salaries in the archdiocese. They want to use some of the money to open Peter Academy, a private school with a Catholic emphasis.

Students, teachers and parents from St. Peter’s joined with allies at Our Lady of the Presentation School in a noisy demonstration outside church headquarters in Brighton on Tuesday (June 1) to protest the closing plans.

“We’re going to do it all summer if we have to,” parent Siobhan McHugh told The Globe. Police estimated that 400 people took part in the protest.

The Rev. Christopher Coyne, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said he had not seen the suit and could not comment on it. Parents from Our Lady of the Presentation were scheduled to meet with a bishop overseeing the closing plan.

Bush Expands Faith-Based Initiatives in Federal Agencies

(RNS) President Bush has expanded his support of faith-based and community initiatives by signing another executive order creating offices within his administration designed to give them equal footing for governmental funding of social services.

The new Centers for Faith-based and Community Initiatives will be housed in the Departments of Commerce and Veteran Affairs and the Small Business Administration.

Bush said in the order, issued Tuesday (June 1), that the new centers will “help the federal government coordinate a national effort to expand opportunities for faith-based and other community organizations and to strengthen their capacity to better meet America’s social and community needs.”

The agency centers are designed to end obstacles to the participation of such groups in regulations, contracts and other aspects of federal programs.

The order calls for the centers to work with the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives to distribute information and develop pilot programs to increase the participation of community and faith-based groups in governmental projects.

Bush signed the order on the same day that he addressed the first White House National Conference on Faith-based and Community Initiatives in Washington.

The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, criticized the conference and the order.

“I guess it’s just a bigger pep rally for the same losing team,” he said. “Once again, the president has expanded the faith-based initiative to three more agencies without the support of Congress.”

In previous executive orders, the president created similar centers in the Departments of Justice, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Education and Agriculture and in the U.S. Agency for International Development.

_ Adelle M. Banks

New Director Named for Episcopal News Service

(RNS) The Episcopal Church has named the director of communications for the Diocese of Los Angeles as the new director of Episcopal News Service.

Robert Williams will lead the New York-based news agency and oversee media relations starting on July 1. He succeeds Jim Solheim, who retired earlier this year after directing the news service since 1989.

Williams joined the diocese’s communications staff in 1986. Last year, he edited the daily newspaper of the church’s General Convention in Minneapolis, and in 1998 he edited the daily newspaper of the Lambeth Conference, which brings together Anglican bishops from around the world every 10 years.

Williams plans to open a West Coast bureau of ENS in Los Angeles, and beef up coverage from the church’s 113 dioceses. Dan England, the church’s director of communications, said the news service “cannot be New York-centric.”

“I look forward to collaborating with communications professionals across the church to help amplify the good news of our faith and shared mission,” he said.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Quote of the Day: Tom Allio of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland

(RNS) “We are not a single-issue church. Anyone who would say one issue is all the litmus test that’s needed is being guided by something other than Catholic social teaching. Our church does not keep a voters’ scorecard.”

_ Tom Allio, senior director for the Cleveland Diocese’s Social Action Office. He was quoted in an article in Sojourners magazine about “pro-life progressives” who view their stance as related to broader issues than just abortion, including poverty, health care and affordable housing.

DEA/JL END RNS