c. 2005 Religion News Service
New Orleans Archdiocese Lays Off 881 Employees
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) The Archdiocese of New Orleans says Hurricane Katrina has forced it to lay off 881 employees in its sprawling charitable, housing and other ministries.
The number, disclosed Thursday (Oct. 6), does not include hundreds of teachers and parish employees already let go by pastors in dozens of decentralized parishes and schools severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
The archdiocese, which says it employed 9,000 people before the storm, is still canvassing its church parishes, particularly in Orleans and St. Bernard, to develop an accounting for the total number of jobs lost, said archdiocesan spokesman the Rev. William Maestri.
The number will be large, however. Of its approximately three dozen New Orleans and St. Bernard schools, apparently all are closed but one, St. Andrew the Apostle in Algiers. In addition, dozens of the church’s approximately 70 parishes in Orleans and St. Bernard are still out of business.
Maestri, who serves as both archdiocesan spokesman and Catholic schools superintendent, saved the layoffs disclosure for the end of a wide-ranging news conference otherwise filled with announcements devoted to extraordinary recovery efforts and church offers of hospitality.
The archdiocese asked all its employees to check in with supervisors by Monday. It said it would offer two weeks severance pay and assistance finding new jobs to those it had to lay off.
The church also announced a number of initiatives to help restore New Orleans, including a plan to reopen an elementary school in the French Quarter _ perhaps the first attempt since the Aug. 29 storm to welcome children back into New Orleans.
That announcement symbolized a tiny step toward normalcy, “an important time for hope” for the battered city, Maestri said.
_ Bruce Nolan
Air Force Critic Files Suit Over Evangelistic Practices
(RNS) A U.S. Air Force veteran who has been a sharp critic of the military service has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to halt the Air Force from encouraging what he considers to be unconstitutional evangelistic practices.
Mikey Weinstein, an Air Force Academy graduate and the father of two Air Force members, filed the complaint Thursday (Oct. 6) in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, N.M., marking the latest development in his almost two-year challenge to Air Force policy.
“Despite claims by the USAF (U.S. Air Force) that it has changed its policies regarding evangelizing at the academy and throughout the entire USAF, USAF officials have made it clear that they have no intent to actually remedy the unconstitutional practices of the USAF,” he said in the complaint.
He charged the stance of the military service may be illustrated by comments made by Brig. Gen. Cecil R. Richardson, the Air Force’s deputy chief of chaplains, who told The New York Times: “We will not proselytize, but we reserve the right to evangelize the unchurched.”
Weinstein said he repeatedly asked Air Force officials to repudiate those comments but they have refused.
In a statement, the Air Force said it could not comment on the specifics of the suit.
“The U.S. Air Force is committed to defending the rights of all our men and women whatever their beliefs,” the military service stated.
Weinstein also claimed that cadets have been forced to say prayers during mandatory events and encouraged to “witness” to other cadets to try to covert them to evangelical Christianity.
On Aug. 29, the Air Force issued new interim guidelines urging its military members and civilian employees to protect the free exercise of religion. Those guidelines were called for in a June report that investigated the religious climate at the academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Irish Archbishop Praises Episcopal Church’s Response to Conflict over Gays
(RNS) A top leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion is praising action taken by the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) to diffuse an international uproar over gay issues.
“I think there’s been a very positive response and one that has pleased me greatly,” Anglican Archbishop Robin Eames, primate of the Church of Ireland, this week told the PBS program “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.”
Eames chaired the Lambeth Commission, a blue-ribbon panel appointed by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to study how the 77 million-member Anglican Communion can avoid schism over homosexuality.
A year ago, the Lambeth Commission released its “Windsor Report,” which criticized the Episcopal Church for provoking tensions by consecrating Bishop V. Gene Robinson, who is openly gay. The report called on ECUSA to express its regret and impose a moratorium on both consecrating gay bishops and permitting same-sex blessings.
Earlier this year, Episcopal bishops offered their “sincerest apology and repentance for having breached our bonds of affection” with other Anglicans who have been outraged by the U.S. Church’s actions.
“I think there is now a general regret expressed by my colleagues here in the states that they didn’t take the time to realize what international reaction would be to what they were doing as a church,” Eames told “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.” “I think they’ve done that, and I believe it was what my commission was looking for.”
But many conservative Anglicans in the U.S. and around the world want ECUSA to go further and admit its actions were wrong.
Much of the conservative activism is being spearheaded in Nigeria, which has the world’s largest body of Anglicans. Last month, the Anglican Church in Nigeria changed its constitution and deleted all references to a relationship with the archbishop of Canterbury.
“I can understand why Nigeria is doing this. I think they are frustrated,” Eames said, adding, “I would beg them to pause and think of the consequences of what they are doing, because schism, schism could quickly become a reality.”
Eames said much of the future depends on what happens at ECUSA’s next General Convention in June 2006.
_ Kim Lawton
Report Says New Jersey Agents Targeted Muslims for Their Faith
(RNS) A confidential federal review has concluded that New Jersey’s counterterrorism agents filed 140 intelligence reports into a crime-fighting database with no grounds for suspicion other than the suspects’ Muslim faith.
The report, issued this week, backs State Police contentions that the computer entries made by New Jersey’s Office of Counter-Terrorism amounted to improper profiling of suspects. Because of this concern, State Police had barred counterterrorism agents from making entries into the database and on Monday (Oct. 3) removed 14 troopers who had been assigned to that office.
“The submissions, as presented, neither described any specific terrorist or other criminal activity nor contained the necessary factual information on which a determination of reasonable suspicion could have been determined,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice-approved report, a copy of which was obtained by The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.
The report added that the State Police apparently “acted responsibly in removing the 140 submissions” from their database.
The findings will be used by Attorney General Peter Harvey in a report he is expected to issue by Oct. 17 on standards for identifying potential terrorists. Harvey and State Police Superintendent Rick Fuentes said they believe the federal review affirms their decision to distance the State Police from Counter-Terrorism, according to top law enforcement officials.
The State Police move to reassign the troopers drew an angry response from acting Gov. Richard Codey, who said he was tired of a “turf battle” being waged between the state’s top terror-fighting units. Codey on Tuesday issued an executive order removing Harvey’s authority over the day-to-day operations of the Office of Counter-Terrorism.
Nearing the end of a series of federally mandated reforms to rid the State Police of racial profiling practices, the attorney general and State Police feared the computer entries could make it appear they condoned profiling.
“We have come too far under the federal consent decree to have the outfit tainted by conduct they were not involved in just because the troopers were sitting in the same office,” one high-ranking law enforcement official said. “This report confirms Harvey and Fuentes did the right thing.”
_ Rick Hepp
Catholic Priest in India Wins $1 Million Opus Prize
(RNS) A Catholic priest fighting poverty in India is the 2005 recipient of the $1 million Opus prize, awarded by a Minneapolis-based foundation that honors humanitarianism.
The Rev. Trevor Miranda was chosen for establishing literacy centers throughout the city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, according to The Opus Prize Foundation, which will award the prize Nov. 7.
Miranda established Reach Education Action Programme in Mumbai to empower poor residents of the city to become self-sufficient. In six years, the organization has opened more than 450 literacy centers that bring teachers and books to impoverished children. Miranda has also worked to establish adult literacy programs aimed at giving women the education and training needed to transition into the job market.
The foundation also awarded $100,000 prizes to pediatrician Juliana Akinyi Otieno for her service in eastern Kenya and Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos (“Our Little Brothers and Sisters”), a charitable organization serving orphaned and abandoned children in Latin America.
A panel of members from Catholic universities throughout the country selected the recipients, who will travel to Marquette University in Milwaukee to receive their awards.
“All three award recipients are living examples of key values that Marquette as a Catholic, Jesuit university seeks to promote,” said the Rev. Robert A. Wild, Marquette’s president, in a statement. “Our participation in the Opus Prize this year is, in fact, a catalyst for our students and faculty to engage further in the work of promoting human rights and human dignity around the world.”
The Opus Group, a commercial real estate development company based in Minneapolis, founded the prize to honor outstanding humanitarian individuals or organizations, regardless of religious background or geographic location. The company donates 10 percent of its pre-tax profits to community and religious organizations.
Recipients of the annual award must demonstrate innovative strategies to solving deeply rooted problems in their community in ways that foster personal responsibility and independence.
_ Jason Kane
Quote of the Day: Interfaith Alliance President Rev. C. Welton Gaddy
(RNS) “It appears that the White House is soliciting support for (Supreme Court nominee) Harriet Miers by focusing on her evangelical faith. Just as opposition to a candidate for the Supreme Court because of their faith is wrong, so is using faith to garner support. The administration can’t have it both ways.”
_ The Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Washington-based Interfaith Alliance, responding to reports that President Bush is telling worried conservatives to support Miers because she is an evangelical Christian.
MO/JL END RNS
