c. 2005 Religion News Service

Pope Condemns Human Trafficking

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI condemned human trafficking on Friday (Oct. 28), underscoring the role smugglers play in funneling unknowing immigrant women into foreign prostitution rings.

Benedict described trafficking as a “scourge” that preys upon the vulnerability of immigrant women in search of better economic conditions.

“It becomes easy for the trafficker to offer his own `services’ to the victims,” Benedict said, adding that immigrant women “often do not even vaguely suspect what awaits them.”

“There are women and girls who are destined to be exploited almost like slaves in their work, and not infrequently in the sex industry too,” he said.

According to a recent study by the International Labor Organization, people subjected to the sex trade account for 11 percent of the 12.3 million victims of forced labor worldwide.

“Indeed it often happens that the migrant woman becomes the principal source of income for her family,” Benedict said.

Noting the large number of trafficked women who perform menial and domestic work, Benedict called on his faithful “to dedicate themselves to assuring just treatment for migrant women out of respect for their femininity in recognition of their equal rights.”

_ Stacy Meichtry

Professor Demoted for Criticizing Church in Newspaper

(RNS) An associate dean at Seton Hall University was demoted by the Catholic school’s administration after he wrote a letter to a newspaper that was critical of the Roman Catholic Church’s stance against homosexuality.

The letter by W. King Mott, a tenured associate professor of political science who has been an associate dean for three years, appeared in The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., on Oct. 19, and said the Catholic hierarchy wrongly attacks gay priests and unfairly blames them for the clergy sex scandal.

The dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Molly Smith, called Mott, who is openly gay, the next day and asked him to step down because he had identified himself in the letter as associate dean, which she said confused his stance with the school’s, Mott and a university spokesman said.

Mott said he was asked to resign the position at the end of January. But that request, which he viewed as an attack on his academic freedom, made him want to step down earlier, so Nov. 4 will be his last day.

Mott, who will lose his associate dean’s stipend, will prepare to teach at Seton Hall next semester, but said he will be looking for a new job. Mott has been at Seton Hall for seven years.

The Catholic Church teaches that a homosexual inclination is an “objective disorder.”

“Shouldn’t a university be a place where this sort of conversation (about homosexuality) can happen in a good way? In a rational and coherent way?” Mott asked in an interview. “That’s what’s important here. … A university ought to be a sanctuary for the expression of ideas, diverse ideas, contrary ideas.”

University spokesman Tom White said if Mott wanted to publicly disagree with church policy, he should have done so without affiliating himself with Seton Hall’s administration.

“Clearly, it is inappropriate to speak against the Catholic Church or its policies as if representing Seton Hall University,” White said. “If a university employee does this as Joe Q. Public, it’s a different matter altogether.”

Smith declined to comment specifically on Mott’s case, but said that “when you have an administrative position, you speak with a voice that represents the university, the college, the institution.”

“I have the deepest respect for King. He’s a friend and a colleague.”

Mott’s letter appeared as Catholics await an expected announcement from the Vatican imposing some restrictions on gay men in the priesthood. At the same time, church officials are investigating U.S. seminaries for “evidence of homosexuality” following the clergy sex scandal.

_ Jeff Diamant and Nickolas Lioudis

Boston Clergy Spread Anti-Crime Blueprint

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (RNS) Boston clergy who successfully cut crime are now working with a group of Springfield leaders on an anti-violence program to combat crime in a city that now has the state’s highest violent crime rate.

Members of Boston’s Ten Point Coalition, an ecumenical group comprised of more than 60 clergy from a various faiths, said Springfield will need patience, communication and commitment before it can get a handle on youth violence.

Approximately 40 people, representing various churches throughout the city, took part in the meeting at police headquarters in Springfield, a city of about 152,000 people located 90 miles west of Boston.

B. Christopher Sumner, the coalition’s executive director, said the coalition was formed in 1992 following a rash of gang-related shootings and homicides that culminated with a shootout inside a church during a funeral.

Outrage over the incident led religious leaders to reach out to one another, the police and city and state agencies to prevent violence, he said.

The effort, dubbed “the Boston Miracle,” has led to spinoffs in other communities, such as Los Angeles and Detroit, and is the basis for what Springfield is attempting.

“You can learn from Boston. You don’t need a shooting in your churches,” said the Rev. Christopher G. Womack, the coalition’s manager of outreach services.

City Councilor Kateri B. Walsh, chairwoman of the council’s public health and safety committee, said the outbreak of summertime gang violence and recent FBI data portraying Springfield with the highest violent crime rate statewide necessitates trying something new.

“It is incumbent to issue a call to action,” she said.

In the Boston model, area churches work with the courts, schools, youth counselors and police to reach out to troubled teenagers.

Churches also promote street ministries and educational and mentoring programs, and serve as go-betweens for troubled teenagers seeking honest employment and businesses willing to take a chance, Womack said.

_ Patrick Johnson

Bulgaria Denies Entry to Founder of Unification Church

(RNS) Bulgaria barred the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder and leader of the Unification Church, from entering the country for a lecture on world peace and a “symbolic” wedding of a group of couples.

“The Ministry of the Interior finds the presence of Sun Myung Moon in Bulgaria undesirable,” the government said in a Wednesday (Oct. 26) news release, according to Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.

A private meeting of members of the Unification Church at a Sofia hotel on Thursday went on without Moon, according to Bulgarian media reports.

Reports that Moon was to visit Bulgaria set off a flurry of protests from both Christian groups and one of the country’s nationalist political parties.

Bulgaria’s religion law requires all religious groups, with the exception of the officially recognized Bulgarian Orthodox Church, to apply for court registration before being allowed to operate. The Unification Church was denied permission to register in 1992 and 1994, according to ENI.

_ David E. Anderson

Quote of the Day: Roman Catholic Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Wash.

(RNS) “There are many wonderful and excellent priests in the church who have a gay orientation, are chaste and celibate, and are very effective ministers of the gospel. Witch hunts and gay bashing have no place in the church.”

_ Roman Catholic Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, writing in his diocesan newspaper, the Inland Register, about a forthcoming Vatican document about gay men and the priesthood.

KRE/PH END RNS