c. 2005 Religion News Service

Catholic and Sikh Leaders Urge Canada to Not Legalize Same-Sex Marriage

TORONTO (RNS) Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Toronto, has sent an open letter to Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin urging “caution” on the issue of impending same-sex marriage legislation.

In another religious warning, Sikhism’s leading cleric, Giani Joginder Singh Vedanti of India, issued an edict condemning Canada’s proposed legislation.

“Can we say with certainty what the social outcome of a re-definition of marriage would be?” Ambrozic asked in his letter, made public Wednesday (Jan. 19). “In all humility, none of us can do so.

“If same-sex marriage receives the approval of Parliament, then what?”

Martin has promised a free vote in Canada’s House of Commons sometime this year on whether to legalize same-sex marriage across the country. The country’s Supreme Court ruled last month that the government is permitted to change the traditional definition of marriage.

Ambrozic is to date the most powerful Canadian Catholic voice to try to sway the prime minister.

The day before his letter was made public, the Roman Catholic bishop of Calgary triggered a torrent of criticism by sending out a pastoral letter that said the state must unleash its power either to ban or curtail homosexuality.

In his letter, which was also posted on the Calgary diocese’s Web site, Bishop Fred Henry linked homosexuality with adultery, prostitution and pornography as human acts “that undermine the foundation of the family,” and argued for “the state … (to) use its coercive power to proscribe or curtail them in the interests of the common good.”

Henry said he received a flood of hate mail and told the Globe and Mail that if he had to redo the letter, he would omit the reference to the state’s “coercive power.”

The developments on the Catholic front came as Martin was on a state visit to India, where Giani Joginder Singh Vedanti issued an edict condemning Canada’s proposed legislation. The decree ordered all practicing Sikhs to oppose same-sex marriage and not to support anyone who promotes it.

Canada is home to more than 300,000 Sikhs, many of them ardent liberals.

_ Ron Csillag

Vatican Urges `Humanitarian Momentum’ to Continue After Tsunami

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican has urged the world to harness the “humanitarian momentum” generated by the Indian Ocean disaster to help achieve broader conflict resolution and development goals.

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican’s permanent representative at the United Nations, made the proposal in a speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday (Jan. 18). The Vatican issued the text Thursday.

“The extraordinary impact of the power of nature in a radius of thousands of miles has elicited an equally extraordinary response from the peoples and governments of the whole world in an outpouring of sympathy and solidarity rarely seen in recent times,” the prelate said.

With the death toll revised upward in Indonesia, authorities now believe that the devastating underwater earthquake and tsunami that struck 11 Indian Ocean countries on Dec. 26 claimed nearly a quarter of a million lives.

Migliore reported that Catholic agencies, in cooperation with the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, are distributing donations of nearly $500 million in emergency aid and funding for longer-term projects through local church networks.

“As well as strengthening emergency relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction,” he said, “the world’s nations should seize this opportunity and the goodwill generated by the world’s peoples so as to further important humanitarian goals on the broader agenda at this time. There is now a sense of humanitarian momentum, and we should not let it slip by.”

Migliore called for a redoubling of efforts to “bring a rapid and just political solution in those areas still suffering from conflict” as well as a continued focus on the crisis faced by the so-called Small Island Developing States and the drive to meet the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals.

“It is well known that 25 million people throughout the world still suffer bitterly due to largely man-made wars, disasters and mismanagement,” he said.

The Vatican, Migliore said, “earnestly hopes, therefore, that this year will be one in which solidarity will be the hallmark of the political agenda in a way that will help all nations refocus on ways to achieve the development goals agreed upon at the start of his millennium.”

_ Peggy Polk

Victims’ Group Asks for Disclosure of All Abusive Priests

(RNS) A national support group for victims of clergy sexual abuse has asked Catholic bishops to post the names of abusive priests on their Web sites and personally urge victims to come forward with allegations of abuse.

The recommendations from SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, were made as the bishops prepare this summer to review and amend abuse policies that were initially adopted in 2002.

SNAP director David Clohessy and president Barbara Blaine said the recommendations came “with great reluctance and little hope” since the bishops have declined to meet with SNAP leaders since 2002. The deadline for submitting recommendations was Saturday (Jan. 15).

SNAP asked that diocesan Web sites list “known or suspected abusive priests” and the names should also be published in diocesan newspapers and church bulletins. So far, only five of 195 dioceses have publicly disclosed the names of all suspected abusers.

In addition, SNAP asked that bishops visit the parishes where known abusers served and “publicly, emphatically, repeatedly beg victims or witnesses to contact the police.”

“Many bishops lack the honesty to tell their flock just how dangerous some of these predators are, how much church officials knew, how little church officials did,” Clohessy and Blaine wrote in a letter to Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

SNAP again criticized the bishops’ decision to discontinue the use of outside auditors to measure their compliance with the 2002 rules. “It’s like having speed limits with no cops,” the letter said.

The 2002 policies are up for review and renewal at a June meeting of bishops in Chicago. A spokesman for the bishops’ conference was unsure how many groups or individuals had made recommendations for the revisions.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Orthodox Express Cautious Optimism on World Council Reforms

(RNS) A meeting of leaders of Orthodox churches that are members of the World Council of Churches expressed cautious optimism that reforms being undertaken by the international ecumenical body may accommodate their concerns.

“We affirm without reservation the work and recommendations of the Special Commission (of the WCC), its report in all its aspects,” said a statement issued Monday (Jan. 17) at the end of a meeting of 50 Orthodox church leaders on the Greek island of Rhodes, reported Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.

A number of Orthodox churches have expressed dismay over the years at what they see as Protestant theology and political issues dominating the WCC. In 1998, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Georgian Orthodox Church left the council.

In reaction, the WCC established a special commission to study the Orthodox concerns. It has made a series of recommendations for establishing a consensus procedure for decision-making and for inter-church worship services aimed at meeting the Orthodox concerns.

“We have every confidence that these recommendations bear great promise for the whole fellowship, as long as they are given a real chance to work,” the statement from the Rhodes meeting said.

The statement also said the reforms being undertaken by the WCC might help the Roman Catholic Church join the WCC, ENI reported.

There are 22 Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches among the WCC’s 342 members but together they have almost as many members as the WCC’s Protestant, Anglican and other churches.

The introduction of consensus decision-making would offer the WCC a way to create an atmosphere of openness, trust and humility “where the views of all churches will be encouraged and listened to with respect,” the Rhodes statement said.

_ David E. Anderson

After 90 Years or More, Cathedral May Return Tennis Ball to Family

LONDON (RNS) Lodged in a crevice of the masonry of Lincoln Cathedral for at least 90 years has been perhaps the oldest tennis ball in England _ apparently unnoticed by everyone except the family of the boy who put it there.

Gilbert Bell and his brother would play with the ball against the cathedral wall, but one day the ball got stuck. The latest this could have been was 1914, when war broke out, Gilbert joined the army, survived life in the trenches (including being gassed), and came back to England. The ball was still there.

The story has been passed down in the family. His 78-year-old nephew David, who now lives in Diss in Norfolk, told his children and grandchildren about it, and whenever members of the family visit Lincoln, they go and see if the ball is still there.

But when the family recently spotted scaffolding up against the wall, David wrote a tongue-in-cheek letter to the cathedral authorities asking, “May we have our ball back, please?”

The scaffolding is there to re-roof the Galilee porch, where the ball is lodged, but there are no plans to clean that part of the cathedral masonry for the next 10 years or so.

The cathedral works manager, Carol Heidschuster, has said that if the ball comes out on its own, or if they need to remove it before they get around to cleaning the stonework, they will return it to the Bell family.

Meanwhile, the family is happy for the ball to stay where it is _ adding another story to the many surrounding the cathedral.

Assuming the ball is a tennis ball, as the Bell family has always understood, it is probably the oldest surviving one in the country. The earliest proper tennis ball held by the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum dates from 1916. The game itself dates only from 1874, when it was patented as “sphairistike.”

_ Robert Nowell

Quote of the Day: President Bush

(RNS) “May God bless you and may he watch over the United States of America.”

_ President Bush, closing his inauguration speech on Thursday (Jan. 20).

MO/PH END RNS