c. 2005 Religion News Service
Leading Archbishop Says Gays Should be Banned from Seminaries
(RNS) The U.S. archbishop who will oversee a Vatican review of all Catholic seminaries says gay men, even if celibate, should be barred from them.
Archbishop Edwin O’Brien told the independent National Catholic Register newspaper that he expects a Vatican policy on gay seminarians to be released soon, according to the Associated Press.
“I think anyone who has engaged in homosexual activity, or has strong homosexual inclinations, would be best not to apply to a seminary and not to be accepted into a seminary,” O’Brien told the newspaper.
O’Brien oversees the church’s Washington-based Military Archdiocese. He was recently tapped to oversee a two-year Vatican review of U.S. seminaries that was approved in the wake of the clergy sexual abuse scandal.
Church observers expect the Vatican investigation to focus sharply on how men are prepared to live celibate lives as priests. The review also is expected to look at how they are schooled in moral theology and church teaching on sexuality.
On-site visits will be made to all 229 U.S. seminaries by three- and four-member teams appointed by the Vatican.
In 2004, there were a total of 4,556 seminary students in the U.S., including 1,248 in college-level programs.
Although church teaching officially considers homosexuality “objectively disordered,” the church expects all priests _ gay and straight _ to live celibate lives, regardless of sexual orientation.
Gay Catholic groups say they fear that gay priests and seminarians will be treated as scapegoats for the sexual abuse scandal.
A leading umbrella group for abuse survivors said the focus on gay priests is a smokescreen.
“As long as the focus remains … on priests, the root cause of this crisis _ cowardly, cold-hearted bishops _ will escape accountability,” said Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Jordanian King Calls Upon Faiths to Prevent `Clash of Civilizations’
WASHINGTON (RNS) Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Tuesday (Sept. 13) called on Jews, Christians and Muslims around the world to “live by a common word of faith” in order to defeat religious extremism.
The king, in a speech at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law, said Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed his respect for Muslim people and his commitment to dialogue during an audience with Abdullah on Monday.
“But there are those who think there is or will be a clash of civilizations, and … this idea is held by far too many people, both in the West and Muslim countries,” Abdullah said during his 15-minute speech. “Worse, there are those who want conflict to occur and are actively working to that end.”
“For all our sakes, we must turn away from such a path. We need a dialogue of deeds as well as words,” he said.
The speech, titled “Traditional Islam: the Path to Peace,” was the king’s only major address in Washington before he heads to the U.N. General Assembly, which opens Wednesday in New York.
The king pointed to his own initiative to promote moderate Islam, launched last November. The “Amman Message” on Islam, as it is known, draws on Muslim history and sacred scripture to argue for tolerant, nonviolent expressions of faith.
His most notable accomplishment in this vein has been the hosting of a conference last July, which brought together senior Islamic scholars from 45 countries. The gathering affirmed that extremists cannot justify violence against other Muslims on grounds of apostasy.
The summit also said religious edicts, or fatwas, could only be issued by qualified scholars, not untrained extremist leaders. That declaration prompted U.S. Muslim groups to give their most robust condemnation of terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The ultimate goal of the Amman message, Abdullah said, is “to take back our religion from violent and ignorant extremists.”
“They don’t speak for Islam anymore that Christian terrorists speak for Christianity. The real voice of faith will be and must be heard,” he said.
Joseph Grieboski, president of the Washington-based Institute on Religion and Public Policy, said Abdullah, and his progressive counterpart in Morocco, King Muhammed VI, are providing key moral, academic and political support to moderate Muslims around the world.
“There had been no support or development of that silent majority. That’s why it was so easy for extreme fringes to take the lead they did,” he said.
Washington’s Cardinal Theodore McCarrick closed the event by praising Abdullah for his courage and leadership. “You have said things we have looked forward to hearing from Muslim leaders.”
_ Andrea Useem
Catholic Dioceses in Seven States Urge Court to Uphold Marriage Amendment
(RNS) Catholic dioceses in seven states are urging the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to restore a Nebraska ban on gay marriage that was overturned by a district court last May.
All 21 dioceses within the circuit court’s jurisdiction _ including Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas _ joined Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning’s appeal to reverse the lower court’s decision.
U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon in Omaha struck down the 5-year-old ammendment to the Nebraska Constitution in May, calling the ban overly broad and saying it prevented gays from fully participating in the political process.
The ruling was the first to reverse a state constitutional amendment confining marriage to one man and one woman.
“This is a highly significant case, with major public-policy ramifications both in the present and for the future, and the opportunity to have a voice in the current process could not be ignored or bypassed,” James R. Cunningham, executive director of the Nebraska Catholic Conference, said in a statement.
Similar state constitutional amendments in North Dakota, Missouri and Arkansas could be jeopardized if the ruling were allowed to stand, Cunningham said.
Joining in the brief are Nebraska-based family advocacy organizations Family First and Families for America. Each “friend of the court” brief was filed by state Catholic conferences. The dioceses of Rapid City and Sioux Falls, S.D., and Little Rock, Ark., joined the brief individually because there are no state Catholic conferences in those states.
_ Jason Kane
CNN Taps Gallagher as First Faith and Values Reporter
(RNS) CNN has chosen Vatican analyst Delia Gallagher to be the network’s first full-time faith and values correspondent.
Gallagher will report on breaking news from a religious angle, covering stories such as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of John Roberts. She will also produce in-depth features on subjects ranging from abortion to Islam.
“It’s going to be a great experience,” Gallagher said, “because it’s the first time that CNN is putting itself out there, realizing there is a religious voice that needs to be brought into the mainstream.”
Based in New York, Gallagher said she plans to travel the country, focusing on faith-based organizations that “are doing great things that don’t reach the national news.”
She spent her first week on the job in Louisiana, covering Catholic schools’ efforts to teach children displaced by Hurricane Katrina and reporting on a Baptist center that cared for babies born during the crisis.
Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S, said in a statement: “Her hire as a full-time correspondent represents a major commitment by CNN to covering the religious revival in the United States, where tens of millions of people cite faith as a central part of their lives.”
Gallagher spent five years covering the Vatican as a contributing editor to the news magazine Inside the Vatican and, since 2002, as a CNN analyst. “The Vatican’s been a great training ground,” she said. “There’s nothing more impenetrable and more difficult than covering the Vatican.”
A Catholic, Gallagher said her experience in Rome would help her report on all religions. “To cover any religion, you’ve got to already be imbued with one of them,” she said.
_ Sarah Price Brown
Quote of the Day: Orthodox Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb
(RNS) “The destruction of a synagogue is akin to a knife being thrust into our very being. When synagogues are destroyed, with … lack of action of a governing authority, we can only ask, `What kind of government is this?”’
_ Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, lamenting the destruction of former Jewish synagogues by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The synagogues were abandoned when Israel forcibly removed all its citizens from the Gaza settlements.
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