c. 2005 Religion News Service

Pope Commemorates Anniversary of Second Vatican Council

VATICAN CITY (RNS) A life free of sin is not “boring,” Pope Benedict XVI said Thursday (Nov. 8), marking the 40th anniversary of the end of the Second Vatican Council, which aimed to modernize the Roman Catholic Church.

Speaking on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the German pope touched on the council’s reforms but focused his comments on the significance of an 1854 doctrine that says Mary was conceived free of original sin, or “immaculate.”

“Man nurtures the suspicion that God, at the end of the day, takes something away from his life, that God is a competitor who limits our freedom and that we will be fully human only when we will have set him aside,” Benedict said.

“There emerges in us the suspicion that the person who doesn’t sin at all is basically a boring person,” the pontiff said.

Addressing the legacy of the council, Benedict praised former popes for “working ceaselessly for the faithful interpretation and implementation” of the reforms, which led to groundbreaking change in the Catholic Church.

In particular, the council replaced the Latin Mass with local language ceremonies and called for dialogue with other faiths and denominations.

Implementation of the reforms, however, remains a deep source of controversy among many Catholics who disagree over whether the “spirit” of the council called for greater liberalization of church government.

As a reform-minded “pertitus,” or theological expert, the then Rev. Joseph Ratzinger played a key role in the council sessions, advising Cardinal Josef Frings of Cologne who led the push for more “collegiality,” or power-sharing between Rome and local diocese.

Years later, Ratzinger would begin to question the legacy of the council, expressing concern that it had unleashed a drive for liberalization that undercut church tradition.

As the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under John Paul II, the then Cardinal Ratzinger cracked down on several theologians and churchmen who challenged traditional church teaching.

_ Stacy Meichtry

Oregon Case Raises Legal Question of Who Owns a Church

PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) After hearing more than three hours of sometimes heated debate, a U.S. bankruptcy judge will decide who owns the pews that Catholics in Western Oregon sit in each Sunday.

The issue argued before Judge Elizabeth Perris on Tuesday (Dec. 6) is whether parish property belongs to individual parishes or to the Archdiocese of Portland, which encompasses 124 parishes, three high schools and about 400,000 parishioners.

The ruling will be closely watched nationally for the precedent it could establish for all religions regarding church property disputes. In Portland, the issue is whether the parishes’ estimated $500 million in real estate, cash and investments is available to pay millions of dollars in child sexual-abuse claims.

Perris has set no timetable, although she is expected to rule within the next several weeks. It’s also possible that she will skip a ruling and order a trial instead. A trial would enable her to consider factual evidence, in addition to the purely legal arguments that lawyers have presented so far.

Sexual-abuse plaintiffs first posed the property ownership question to Perris in August 2004. That was one month after the Archdiocese of Portland became the nation’s first Roman Catholic diocese to file for Chapter 11 protection in the wake of multimillion-dollar sex-abuse lawsuits.

The bankruptcy came the same day that the archdiocese was scheduled to go to trial in a $135 million sex-abuse lawsuit involving the late Rev. Maurice Grammond. The archdiocese had already made settlements totaling $53 million for more than 130 previous claims. The bankruptcy froze dozens more claims seeking hundreds of millions more in damages.

Tuesday’s hearing covered ground from obscure real estate law to broad constitutional questions of religious freedom.

_ Steve Woodward

Muslim College Worker Who Condemned Homosexuality Wins Appeal

(RNS) A Muslim graduate student and university employee has won an appeal to have a letter removed from his permanent file that reprimanded him for sending an e-mail condemning homosexuality.

Jihad Daniel, a graduate student and employee at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J., sent the head of the women’s studies department a one-paragraph note last March. He complained about a mass e-mail she sent announcing an on-campus showing of a film about a lesbian relationship.

Daniel, who is Muslim, e-mailed the professor asking not to be included in any further announcements about events involving homosexuality.

“These are perversions,” Daniel wrote the professor. “The absence of God in higher education brings on confusion. That is why in these classes the Creator of the heavens and the earth is never mentioned.”

The professor filed a complaint, and officials on the Wayne campus found Daniel guilty in June of violating state discrimination and harassment regulations. A formal reprimand from William Paterson President Arnold Speert was placed in Daniel’s employment file.

The case gained national attention when the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a Philadelphia-based civil rights group, stepped in to help Daniel appeal the reprimand.

Daniel, 63, was told Tuesday (Dec. 6) he won his appeal, and the letter would be removed. He was, however, verbally reprimanded for sending a personal e-mail while at work.

“Nobody should have to go through what Mr. Daniel did merely for expressing religious beliefs in a nonviolent and non-threatening way,” David French, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said in a statement. “The harassment charge was ridiculous from the beginning, and the many attempts to pass the buck on upholding the First Amendment were deplorable.”

Campus officials declined to comment on the case.

“We don’t discuss personnel matters,” said Stuart Goldstein, a William Paterson University spokesman.

_ Kelly Heyboer

Survey: Half of Americans Say a Spiritual Experience Has Changed Them

(RNS) Half of Americans have had a spiritual transformation experience, and 35 percent of those are not born-again Christians, according to newly released research from the University of Chicago.

Most “changers” were part of a religious community when they had the experience and reported an increased commitment to God that has lasted for many years, the study found. Many transformations occurred early in life and at a turbulent time _ during an illness or after an accident or a relationship breakup.

Tom W. Smith, the study’s author, was surprised by the reported endurance of the behavioral changes, which also included becoming more compassionate and quitting bad habits.

“I expected a deterioration,” Smith said, noting that 13 years, on average, have passed since most respondents’ experiences. “They’re not still tingling from the change.”

The question was posed to 1,328 adults in 2004 as the religion component of the General Social Survey by the university’s National Opinion Research Center.

Fundamentalist and evangelical Christians reported the highest percentage of changers (72 percent).

These groups are more poised for a change experience because their language encourages it, Smith said.

But nearly half of Protestants in moderate and liberal denominations and 30 percent of Catholics also reported transformations. Jews, Muslims and other religious groups were omitted from the report because of small sample sizes.

Transformations were least likely in New England (24 percent) and most common in the South (about 60 percent). About 15 percent more blacks reported spiritual transformations than those of other racial backgrounds.

The survey marked the first time a quantitative study asked open-ended questions about transformations, Smith said.

“We asked `What was it like? How has it changed your life?”’ he said. Language from the answers _ for example, how many times Jesus was mentioned _ was evaluated mathematically.

Smith expects other researchers will build on the anecdotal answers, examining them in new ways.

He also expects further research based on the finding that changers were more likely than others to describe their lives as “exciting” as opposed to “routine” or “dull” in the General Social Survey.

The Pennsylvania-based John Templeton Foundation, which supports scientific research in religion, funded the study.

_ Nicole LaRosa

Quote of the Day: Hip-Hop Church Pastor Tommy Kyllonen

(RNS) “Hip-hop has what all corporate America wants _ 18-35-year-old employed adults with growing families. That’s why you see Russell Simmons producing clothes, Snoop Dogg hawking Chrysler. Everyone wants us. Why not the church?”

_ The Rev. Tommy Kyllonen, senior pastor of Crossover Community Church in Tampa, Fla., a hip-hop church where sermons are enhanced by rap music and videos. He was quoted by USA Today.

MO/PH END RNS