c. 2005 Religion News Service
Cardinal Says `Majority’ of Bishops Wouldn’t Deny Communion
WASHINGTON (RNS) A leading American cardinal on Monday (July 11) said “a majority” of U.S. bishops would not deny Communion to Catholic politicians who dissent from church teaching on abortion or other issues.
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, who heads a task force of U.S. bishops in responding to dissenting politicians, repeated his longtime belief that it is impossible to “judge the contents of a man’s soul” at the altar rail.
“This is not an opinion that is foreign to the teaching of the church nor to the practice of the majority of bishops,” McCarrick said in a speech at the National Press Club.
The issue flared up last year after a vocal minority of bishops said they would deny the sacrament to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, a Catholic who supports abortion rights.
Last summer, U.S. bishops refused to issue a blanket policy on receiving Communion, but said politicians who support abortion risk “cooperating in evil and sinning against the common good.”
At the time, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger _ now Pope Benedict XVI _ said bishops could deny Communion, but were not required to.
While the issue largely faded after the November elections, McCarrick’s task force is still expected to issue recommendations to the bishops, and his speech could indicate what tone that report would take. A release date for that report has not been announced.
McCarrick said Communion can only be denied for Catholics who reject church teaching out of “arrogance or contempt.” But McCarrick left little doubt that church teaching is clear on the sanctity of human life.
“I believe you can’t be a strong Catholic if you believe in abortion,” he said, “I believe you can’t be a faithful Catholic if you believe in euthanasia.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Marriage of Rabin’s Assassin Approved by Rabbinical Court
JERUSALEM (RNS) The Rabbinical Court of Jerusalem has approved the marriage by proxy of the man who murdered Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.
According to Israeli media reports, the religious court on Sunday (July 10) formally acknowledged the marriage of Yigal Amir, the imprisoned Orthodox Jewish assassin, and Larisa Trimbobler.
The rabbinical court rendered its ruling following a series of hearings in civil courts, including the country’s High Court, as to whether Amir was entitled to marry and have conjugal relations.
A decade after the assassination, many Israelis still find it difficult to stomach the thought that Amir is enTITLE: _ Michele Chabin
Filipino Protestant, Catholic Churches Divided in Political Crisis
(RNS) While Protestant churches in the Philippines have joined the chorus of those calling for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Roman Catholic bishops have stopped short of asking Arroyo to quit.
The Catholic position has eased the pressure on Arroyo, embroiled in a growing political crisis over an election scandal.
“We do not demand her resignation,” the nation’s Catholic Bishops’ Conference said in a statement released on Sunday (July 10). “Yet, neither do we encourage her to simply dismiss such a call from others.”
The 85 bishops in the predominantly Roman Catholic country _ 80 percent of the nation’s 88 million people _ are key players in Filipino politics and have been instrumental in the downfall of two presidents _ dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Arroyo’s predecessor, Joseph Estrada, in 2001.
The Catholic bishops asked Arroyo to “discern deeply to what extent she might have contributed to the erosion of effective governance and whether the erosion is so severe as to be irreversible. In her heart, she has to make the necessary decision for the sake of her country.”
On June 7, Protestant churches belonging to the National Council of Churches in the Philippines called on Arroyo to resign.
“The most honorable thing for her to do now is to resign,” the council said in a statement.
The current crisis erupted May 30 when senators began hearings into allegations by the opposition that Arroyo’s husband and other relatives took payoffs from gambling syndicates. Near the end of June, lawmakers opened another probe into allegations Arroyo tried to sway the closely contested 2004 presidential election.
Polls show more than half of Filipinos think Arroyo should resign. On Friday (July 8), former President Corazon Aquino, one of the country’s most popular figures and a devout Catholic, also called on Arroyo to resign.
The alternative, the iconic Aquino said, “is the long and inherently contentious process of a congressional impeachment that can only generate more divisions in a society and cast more suspicions on the threatened institutions of democracy.”
Congress is expected to take up an impeachment resolution on July 25. Arroyo has apologized for a “lapse of judgment” but has defied the resignation calls.
_ David E. Anderson
Six New York Priests Defrocked by Vatican for Sex Abuse
(RNS) Six New York priests either convicted or accused of sex abuse have been defrocked by the Roman Catholic Church.
The decision, handed down by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, strips the priests of their titles and abilities. Those defrocked also lose all pension and financial support from the Roman Catholic Church.
Four of the priests were from Staten Island, and two of those had previously been convicted of sex abuse in state criminal courts. The names of those defrocked appear in the current Catholic New York, the archdiocesan newspaper. Cardinal Edward Egan had previously promised to name those permanently removed from the church.
Patrick Quigley, ordained in 1981, had previously pleaded guilty in 1994 to a misdemeanor charge after admitting he had offered three young boys money for oral sex in Haverstraw Village in Rockland County. The incidents took place within an hour and the teens, none of whom knew Quigley was a priest, declined his offers, prosecutors said.
Daniel Calabrese, ordained in 1987, pleaded guilty in 1992 to charges he had performed oral sex on a teen-ager after getting him drunk on vodka in the rectory of St. Mary’s Church in Poughkeepsie. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail and five years probation.
Also defrocked was David Carson, ordained in 1984, who served at Holy Child Roman Catholic Church in Eltingville from 1988 to 1993 before being transferred to Our Lady Star of the Sea R.C. Church in Huguenot.
Another former Staten Island priest to be defrocked was Ralph W. LaBelle, who was ordained in 1978. Known as “Father Ralph” when he served at St. Clare’s in Great Kills and St. Roch’s in Port Richmond, LaBelle was relieved of his duties in 2002. As the then-pastor of a parish in upstate Putnam County, he was investigated for his friendship with a parish teenager.
Also defrocked were Kenneth A. Jesselli and Francis J. Stinner.
A seventh man, the Rev. Alfred Gallant, 69, was penalized with “a life of prayer and penance,” reserved for priests who are sick or elderly.
Although Gallant retains his priest status and can continue to receive a church stipend, he is not permitted to function publicly as a priest or wear priestly garb, Archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling said in a published report.
_ Doug Auer
Catholic Lay Group Seeks Greater Voice in Church Affairs
INDIANAPOLIS (RNS) A Catholic lay reform group that emerged in the wake of the Catholic sex abuse scandal has called for wholesale financial transparency in the U.S. church, as well as allowing lay Catholics a voice in the appointment of bishops.
Voice of the Faithful, a Boston-based group that claims 30,000 members across the country, also promised to work for legislation that “holds bishops accountable for their failure to protect children.”
During the group’s national convention (July 8-10) here, some 600 lay activists said church leaders must carve out a greater role for lay Catholics in financial affairs, governance and women’s roles in the church.
Paul Lakeland, a professor of religious studies at Fairfield University in Connecticut, suggested that financial boycotts may be one way of forcing church leaders to take the laity seriously.
“We want to ask questions,” he said. “And we want answers. This isn’t an issue of the laity wanting to have a voice in theology. Not at all. But we do want a say in how things are run and how our money is spent.”
In Boston, where the abuse scandal angered parishioners into action, lay activists who have staged round-the-clock vigils have been successful in forcing Archbishop Sean O’Malley into revising a massive church-closing plan.
But that may not be enough, suggested the Rev. Thomas Doyle, a Dominican priest and retired Air Force chaplain who has long pushed church leaders to take the abuse scandal more seriously. Doyle told activists that legislative action may be the only answer.
“The fact is, a powerful organization like the Catholic Church only will be influenced by a more powerful organization,” Doyle said. “Any thinking that you can have effective dialogue with the clergy (that effects change) is naive.”
Nine resolutions passed at the convention called for independent lay councils at all levels of the church, a process that allows parishioners and priests to have a say in the appointment of bishops _ currently they are appointed only by the pope _ and an “independent, widely disseminated, understandable annual … audit report for all church-related entities” that would report both profits and losses.
“But we are not the enemy,” said Voice of the Faithful president Jim Post. “The laity is not the problem. In fact, the laity may be the best friend the church has.”
_ Dennis O’Connor and Kevin Eckstrom
Oregon State Senate Endorses Civil Unions Bill
SALEM, Ore. (RNS) After more than two hours of debate that included talk of God’s will and the history of the civil rights movement, the Oregon Senate endorsed legislation on Friday (July 8) to allow civil unions and to prohibit discrimination against gays and lesbians.
The historic 19-10 vote marks the first time an Oregon legislative chamber has taken up the question of civil unions for same-sex couples.
However, there’s little chance of passage in the House, where Republican leaders said the bill won’t reach the floor for a vote this session. Despite that, Senate Democrats had the votes in their chamber and seized the symbolic and political opportunity to put civil unions and anti-discrimination protections up for public debate.
If the bill were to become law, Oregon would be the third state to offer same-sex couples many of the same protections that married couples receive.
The proposal landed in the Legislature after voters last fall endorsed Measure 36, a constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. It also followed a decision from the Oregon Supreme Court earlier this year declaring that Multnomah County had no authority to issue marriage licenses to 3,000 same-sex couples.
“Fundamentally, I believe that this bill throws the vote of 57 percent of Oregonians back in their face,” said Sen. Bruce Starr, a Republican from Hillsboro.
Senate Majority Leader Kate Brown, D-Portland, said Measure 36 did not prohibit the Oregon Legislature from providing to same-sex couples many of the same rights and responsibilities that opposite-sex married couples currently hold. Brown also stressed that civil unions are not the same as marriage and offered a list of benefits same-sex couples would not receive through a civil union, such as the joint filing of federal tax returns and Social Security benefits.
“Is anyone on the Senate floor willing to trade their marriage for a civil union? I doubt it,” Brown said.
_ Michelle Cole and Felicia Heaton
Quote of the Day: Amir Taheri, columnist for the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Sharq Al Awsat
(RNS) “The real battle against the enemy of mankind will begin when the `silent majority’ in the Islamic world makes its voice heard against the murderers, and against those who brainwash them, believe them, and fund them.“
_Amir Taheri, columnist for the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Sharq Al Awsat, on Muslims’ reactions to the London bombings.
MO/JL END RNS
