c. 2005 Religion News Service

Powerful Archbishop Agrees to Testify on Sex Abuse by Priests

PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) Three days after being served with a subpoena before Mass, the Vatican’s most powerful American promised to testify about the Roman Catholic Church’s child sex-abuse policies and practices in Oregon.

William J. Levada, the archbishop of Portland from 1986 to 1995, had been scheduled to give sworn testimony Friday after being served with a subpoena Sunday before his farewell Mass in San Francisco’s St. Mary’s Cathedral.

But Levada _ who will soon become the Catholic Church’s worldwide watchdog of doctrine _ got a five-month extension Wednesday (Aug. 10) by signing a agreement negotiated by his lawyers and Erin K. Olson, a Portland plaintiffs’ attorney.

In the agreement, Levada said he would return to the United States from Rome to be deposed for one day in early January at his lawyer’s California office. He also agreed to be bound by the rulings of U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Perris, who is overseeing the Archdiocese of Portland’s bankruptcy case in Oregon.

Olson originally proposed an agreement that called for Levada to waive any claim to diplomatic immunity he might make after starting his service at the Holy See. But Levada declined to sign the agreement, prompting Olson to send process servers to serve the archbishop with a subpoena Sunday.

The final negotiated agreement eliminated the reference to diplomatic immunity. But Levada agreed to Olson’s request that he make himself subject to federal and state laws of the United States.

“I was not comfortable with his desire to eliminate the diplomatic language,” Olson said. “I needed assurance that he was under U.S. jurisdiction.”

The archbishop reserved his right to challenge the scope of questions that plaintiffs’ lawyers intend to ask him. He also reserved his right not to answer questions that he considers privileged, subject to Perris’ consent.

“That scope issue is an issue to be resolved by the lawyers,” said Maurice Healy, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, where Levada is completing a 10-year term as archbishop on Wednesday (Aug. 17) before taking his new Vatican post.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys in Oregon decided months ago to question Levada to determine whether the Portland archdiocese engaged in a pattern of behavior that protected priests at the expense of children. But when Levada was named in May to the post formerly occupied by Pope Benedict XVI, Olson got Perris’ permission to pursue Levada’s deposition before he left the country.

_ Steve Woodward

Editors: The word “nature” in the 7th graph was italicized in its original text.

Appeals Court Rules `Under God’ in Pledge Is Constitutional

(RNS) A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that the recitation of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance by Virginia schoolchildren is constitutional.

“The Pledge, which is not a religious exercise, … does not amount to an establishment of religion,” wrote Judge Karen J. Williams in the Wednesday (Aug. 10) opinion of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Accordingly, the Recitation Statute, requiring daily, voluntary recitation of the Pledge in the classrooms of Virginia’s public schools, is constitutional.”

Edward Myers, a Loudoun County, Va., man affiliated with the Anabaptist-Mennonite faith, sued the Loudoun County Public Schools in 2002, claiming that the recitation of the pledge violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. He had two children in the district’s schools at the time and said he was concerned that the county was indoctrinating them with a “`God and Country’ religious worldview.”

He appealed when a lower court dismissed the case, saying the law requiring the Pledge recitation did not have a religious purpose.

Williams affirmed the lower court’s decision in her ruling, saying the pledge is a patriotic activity rather than a religious one.

“Undoubtedly the Pledge contains a religious phrase, and it is demeaning to persons of any faith to assert that the words `under God’ contain no religious significance,” she wrote. “The inclusion of those two words, however, does not alter the nature of the Pledge as a patriotic activity.”

Myers’ lawyer, David Remes, said Wednesday that he and his client had not yet decided whether to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Associated Press reported.

“The problem is that young schoolchildren are quite likely to view the Pledge as affirming the existence of God and national subordination to God,” Remes said. “The reference to God is one of the few things in the Pledge that children understand.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Leader of Russia’s Old Believers Dies During Cross-Bearing Procession

MOSCOW (RNS) The head of the Russian Orthodox Old Believers’ Church, Metropolitan Andrian, suffered a heart attack and died Wednesday (Aug. 10) during a traditional 150-mile cross-bearing procession in east-central Russia.

The church’s Council of Bishops on Thursday elected 79-year-old Archbishop Ioann of Yaroslavl and Kostroma to replace Andrian as leader of the church, which represents the largest grouping of Russia’s Old Believers, who split from mainstream Orthodoxy over liturgical reforms in the 17th century.

Experts estimate there are about 2 million Old Believers in Russia and the former Soviet Union, as well as sizable communities abroad, especially in Oregon, Alaska and the Canadian province of Alberta.

Andrian, 54, had previously suffered two heart attacks and had cardiac surgery, the Interfax news agency reported. He collapsed on the banks of the Gryadovitsa River in the Kirov Region while leading the procession, held annually to commemorate the appearance of the icon of St. Nicholas in the 14th century.

Andrian, elected as metropolitan only last year, had been praised as a young and energetic leader who brought a new spirit of openness to the church. His tenure saw the opening of a major exhibition of Old Believer artifacts at Russia’s Historical Museum and the establishment of stronger ties with the Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate.

“We share in the grief of the heavy loss … suffered (by) the leadership, clergy and laymen of the Russian Orthodox Old Believers’ Church,” Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II said in a statement Thursday (Aug. 11). “The metropolitan, despite the brevity of his services, worked fruitfully for the development of his flock and the strengthening of spiritual life.”

The schism between the Old Believers and the Russian Orthodox Church centered on Patriarch Nikon’s decision in 1652 to bring Russian rites into line with those of the Greek Orthodox Church. The Old Believers rebelled and stuck with the old rituals, using, for example, two fingers instead of three for making the sign of the cross. They were repressed for centuries in Czarist Russia and the Soviet Union _ prompting thousands to flee abroad _ but have been free to worship in Russia since the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991.

_ Michael Mainville

Conservative Christian Activist Gets Position With FCC

(RNS) The agency charged with regulating content on television and radio has hired a conservative Christian activist and former lobbyist to serve as a special adviser.

Penny Nance, founder of the Kids First Coalition of Alexandria, Va., now serves as a liaison between the Federal Communications Commission and Congress, public interest groups and industry. She began her job at the FCC in July and was not replacing anyone, according to FCC spokesman David Fiske.

“Where you have special advisers and special assistants, these positions can be fluid,” Fiske said, adding that staffers bring a range of expertise to meet agency needs at any given time.

For years, the Mississippi-based American Family Association and other conservative activist groups have criticized the FCC for failing to crack down on indecency. In hiring Nance, the FCC has tapped someone who has identified a “huge indecency problem” on cable television and advocated for a family hour when racy programming is held off the air, according to Mediaweek Magazine.

Fiske declined to say why the FCC had chosen Nance.

“It’s common for people to come to the FCC from all sorts of backgrounds,” Fiske said.

The Kids First Coalition addresses obscenity and pornography among other child-related issues. Until recently, Nance also served on the board of directors for the Washington-based Concerned Women for America, a group committed to “bring biblical principles into all levels of public policy,” according to Mediaweek.

At the FCC, Nance now holds a part-time position in the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis. Fiske said she works on consumer and social issues that come before the commission.

_ G. Jeffrey MacDonald

Quote of the Day: National Council of Churches General Secretary Bob Edgar

(RNS) “There are those who try to dilute our witness and mislead our friends by suggesting that the National Council of Churches is a partisan, left-wing organization. But you know who it is that calls us to pursue peace, fight poverty and injustice, and care for the Earth. It is the Prince of Peace who each day of his life showed his bias for the poor and prayed to the creator who gave us this beautiful world.”

_ The Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, addressing criticism that his New York-based ecumenical agency has become politically liberal. He spoke to a gathering of the Progressive National Baptist Convention in Detroit.

MO/PH END RNS