c. 2005 Religion News Service
Democrats Convene Group to Develop `Faith Agenda’
WASHINGTON (RNS) House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has convened a group of Democratic lawmakers to develop a “faith agenda” for the party, a Capitol Hill newspaper reported Monday (Jan. 31).
The “working group” of 15 to 25 members would help Democrats cast issues through a faith lens in a way that would help them speak to “faith-minded” voters, Roll Call reported.
“Our problem is not our programs,” said Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C. “It’s been our expressions and interpretations of those programs. We are people of faith.”
Pelosi, a Catholic from San Francisco, has been soliciting ideas on the proposal for two years from faith and political leaders, including former Clinton White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry. Pelosi said religious voters have been co-opted by Republicans.
“House Democrats are people of deep faith and share the values of faith communities,” Pelosi told the newspaper.
Pelosi’s group will have an uphill climb after exit polls from November’s presidential election showed the so-called “values voter” flocking to the GOP in record numbers. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., has made similar overtures in recent weeks, attempting to moderate her party’s position on abortion in an effort to broaden support with swing voters.
“I knew that we had a problem two or three days after the election when I started looking at the exit polling,” Clyburn said. “I saw that our Catholic nominee for president lost the Catholic vote.”
There are 154 Catholics in the 109th Congress _ an all-time high _ including 87 Democrats and 67 Republicans. While Democrats hold their traditional lead among Catholics, Republicans are gaining, with two-thirds of new Catholic members coming from the GOP.
Clyburn told Roll Call that most Democrats “may not wear their religion on their sleeves” but said the party must “go on the offense on these issues” in an attempt to attract swing and moderate voters.
Pope Struck by Flu, Cancels Monday Audiences
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II has come down with influenza and canceled his audiences scheduled for Monday (Jan. 31), the Vatican reported.
“Because of an influenza syndrome that began yesterday, the Holy Father was advised to suspend the audiences scheduled for today,” Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a brief statement at midday that did not include details of the illness.
The pope was well enough, however, to be presented with a copy of the Pontifical Yearbook for 2005, issued by the Vatican on Monday, the spokesman said.
John Paul, who is 84 and suffers from Parkinson’s disease, sounded hoarse and had trouble enunciating at midday Sunday when he led the Angelus prayer and spoke briefly from his study window to pilgrims gathered below in St. Peter’s Square.
_ Peggy Polk
Pope Warns Against `False Compassion’ in Marriage Annulments
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II has issued a stern warning to church courts against letting “false compassion” influence their judgment in cases of Catholic couples seeking annulments of their marriages.
The pope made the statement Saturday (Jan. 29) in his annual address to the judges, officials and advocates of the Roman Rota, the church’s court of appeals on annulments, at the start of its judicial term. He also deplored falsification of evidence and said that speeding up the annulment process could lead to injustice.
Archbishop Antoni Stankiewicz, the dean of the Roman Rota, told John Paul that the role of the tribunal was not only to rule on annulments but also to reaffirm “the identity and the natural and sacramental dignity” of marriage.
Stankiewicz said that neither unwed heterosexual couples nor same-sex couples could “claim the identity and the dignity of a true marriage, on which the family is founded.”
The prelate also reaffirmed the church’s refusal to give Communion to Catholics who have remarried after divorce, a major issue among some Catholics in America and Europe.
John Paul said that bishops must personally oversee diocesan courts dealing with marriage to ensure “the conformity of the sentences with the correct doctrine,” which he said is as “morally binding” as secular law.
“The judge who truly acts as a judge, that is with justice, must not let himself be conditioned neither by sentiments of false compassion for people nor by false models of thought even if they are widespread in the environment,” the pope said.
John Paul underlined “the moral dimension” of every court’s activity.
According to statistics for 2003, the most recent available, Italy brought the largest number of annulment appeals to the Roman Rota, 331, followed by the United States with 172 and Poland with 121.
_ Peggy Polk
Methodists to Spend $25 Million on Ads to Boost Membership
(RNS) Hoping to capitalize on a $20 million ad campaign that raised name recognition of the United Methodist Church, the denomination will now spend an additional $25 million on advertising to fill church pews with new members.
The second phase of the “Igniting Ministries” campaign will use television ads pegged to Christmas, Easter and the start of the school year in late summer to target adults ages 25-54.
Church officials said that between 2001 and 2004, the Methodists’ “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors” campaign boosted first-time attendance at Methodist churches by 19 percent and increased long-term attendance by 9 percent in 160 test markets.
They said the Methodists became the second-most recognized American church and name recognition among the 25-54 set rose from 3 percent to 19 percent. Officials said they hope the church’s brand identity will now translate into more members.
“How they grow will vary,” said Pittsburgh Bishop Thomas Bickerton, president of United Methodist Communications. “… Some will grow in numbers. All will grow in service to their community and to the world.”
Part of the campaign includes training for local churches to learn welcoming techniques, as well as matching grants to help churches buy local TV and billboard advertising.
The Methodists, like most other mainline Protestant churches, have been steadily losing members since the 1960s. The church now has 8.2 million members in the United States and about 10 million around the world.
In 2003, the church battled the Reuters media company to display a 30-second video clip on that company’s 11-screen electronic billboard in the heart of Times Square. After initially rejecting the ad for its religious content, Reuters eventually agreed to accept the ad on its billboard.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Claim That Swedes Are Punished by God Called `Out of Order’
(RNS) Baptists in Sweden are offended by the Web site of a controversial Baptist Church in Kansas because it claims the deaths of vacationing Swedes in the Asian tsunami disaster is a punishment from God.
About 20,000 Swedes were vacationing in the region when the deadly waves struck in December. Scores are dead while many are still unaccounted for. While many in Sweden are mourning their loss, Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., appears to be celebrating the deaths as an act of God.
In a statement printed on its Web site, the American church described Sweden as the “land of the sodomite damned” because of its increasing acceptance of homosexuality. The Web site proclaimed, in capital letters, that “WE PRAY FOR ALL 20,000 SWEDES IN THE TSUNAMIS WAKE TO BE DECLARED DEAD.” It added that, “God hates Sweden and all things Swedish.”
The head of the Swedish Baptist Union, Soren Carlsvard, has dismissed those statements as “completely out of order.”
“We don’t think the catastrophe in Asia has anything to do with homosexuals,” said Carlsvard, adding that the opinions expressed on the Web site run contrary to traditional Baptist values and goals, which emphasize God’s love.
Carlsvard said his union complained to the Baptist World Alliance, a worldwide fellowship of Baptists, only to discover that Westboro Baptist Church is not a member.
The church describes itself as an “Old School” or “Primitive” Baptist Church. Its founder, the Rev. Fred Phelps, has outraged fellow Baptists in the past. For example, he appeared at the 1998 funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay man beaten to death in Wyoming, holding a sign saying, “God hates fags.”
Even the Rev. Jerry Falwell, a Baptist known for his opposition to homosexuality, told the Associated Press that he “found it almost impossible to believe that human beings could be so brutal and vicious to a hurting family.”
Falwell described Phelps in 1998 as “a first-class nut.”
_ Simon Reeves
Grave Sites in Britain Could Provide Clues to Jamestown, Va., Colony
(RNS) Is a grave excavated recently at Jamestown, Va., that of one of the colony’s 17th century founders, Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold?
The answer may well lie at two English churches, where his sister and his niece were buried. The Church of England has allowed researchers using radar to conduct surveys to find the relatives in a scientific attempt to match DNA samples.
A ground radar survey began Monday (Jan. 31) to find out whether the graves are actually where the memorial stones say they are.
The first survey is at the church of St. Peter and St. Mary, Stowmarket, Suffolk, where Katherine Blackerby, Gosnold’s niece, is believed to be buried in the family vault. A second survey will be conducted 13 miles south in the village of Shelley where Gosnold’s sister, Elizabeth Gosnold Tilney, is buried in the chancel of All Saints Church.
Once the graves have been identified, permission will be sought from church authorities and the relevant heritage bodies to take DNA samples from the two graves to match against the remains found at Jamestown.
Gosnold’s grave was excavated by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, whose director of archaeology, William M. Kelso, says, “Based on the archaeological evidence and forensic analysis, we are confident that the remains excavated at Jamestown are those of Bartholomew Gosnold.
“If we can find matching DNA, we will have done everything possible to confirm the identity of this great man and raise awareness about his contribution to the founding of the United States.”
_ Robert Nowell
Quote of the Day: David Burton, Florida Baptist Convention Evangelism Director
(RNS) “This is like a foreign mission trip, only the people are coming to us.”
_ David Burton, director of evangelism for the Florida Baptist Convention, expressing how he is treating the upcoming Super Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., like any other big evangelism project. He was quoted in Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
MO/PH RNS END
