c. 2006 Religion News Service
Presbyterians Say They Must Cut National Staff
(RNS) The Presbyterian Church (USA) must cut $9.15 million from its budget and may be forced to lay off as much as a quarter of its 600-person national staff, most of whom work at denominational offices in Louisville, Ky.
The denomination’s General Assembly Council (GAC) will vote on the budget cuts at an April 26-29 meeting. Budget reductions must be made by 2008 and resulting staff cuts will probably be announced May 1, the denomination announced on Tuesday (March 14).
No final decisions about exact positions to be cut have been made.
The denomination has approximately 2.4 million members, 11,100 congregations and 14,000 ordained and active ministers. The cuts would follow $7 million in cuts that were made in 1993 during a major restructuring. The 1993 cuts eliminated approximately 140 jobs from a workforce of about 700.
Denominational officials say the cuts stem from reduced amounts of giving to national programs by local congregations and presbyteries because Presbyterians are giving more to their local churches.
“This is clearly part of a longer trend in the church and probably most churches,” John Detterick, the executive director of the General Assembly Council, told Presbyterian News Service.
He said national programs will remain important for the denomination, but said work coordinated by the GAC is likely to be “smaller, less resource-producing and more networking, less programmatic and more enabling of the presbyteries and congregations.”
Joey Bailey, the denomination’s chief financial officer, told the Presbyterian News Service that the national denominational programs actually underspent their budgets by $2.1 million in 2005.
“If we could do that again in 2006, most of this year’s problem would be solved,” he said.
However, he said contributions for non-designated programs by congregations and presbyteries are expected to decline even further in 2007.
_ Chris Herlinger
Concern Builds Over U.S. Restrictions on Religious Groups in Cuba
WASHINGTON (RNS) Seventeen U.S. senators have joined more than 100 members of the House of Representatives to protest Treasury Department rules that have blocked some religious organizations from traveling to Cuba.
Religious leaders attended a Capitol Hill meeting on Wednesday (March 15) called by the members of Congress who had sent word of their concerns about the policy changes to Treasury Secretary John Snow.
“We are dismayed, and even outraged, at the loss of these licenses, and what we view as unjustified interference in and hindrance to the mission of he church,” the Rev. John McCullough, executive director and CEO of Church World Service, said at the hourlong meeting.
Some of the affected groups have traveled to the communist island nation for more than a decade, meeting with partner churches and attending conferences. Those affected include the National Council of Churches, the American Baptist Churches USA and the Alliance of Baptists, which no longer have licenses, and organizations such as the Presbyterian Church (USA) which now has a more restrictive license.
Representatives of the Treasury and State departments attended the meeting, and religious leaders delivered letters to Snow and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed by a dozen officials of religious groups. The letters state that the groups believe Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control is unfairly granting less restrictive licenses to local churches in the U.S. than the ones national organizations have.
“Any premise that the U.S. government is favoring a particular religious group over another is categorically wrong,” Treasury spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said when asked about the concerns.
She said the office issuing the licenses is continuing to grant them but is trying to be certain that “legitimate religious travel” occurs.
“This policy also helps to ensure that those simply looking for R&R on the island are no longer able to line Castro’s pockets under the pretext of religious travel,” Millerwise said.
The religious leaders strongly denied that their groups had misused licenses and asked Snow to address those that might have.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Vatican, Russian Orthodox Church Try to Mend Relationship
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican appeared to thaw Friday (Mar. 17) as Pope Benedict XVI and Patriarch Alexei II of Moscow expressed hope for more collaboration in promoting Christian values worldwide.
The gesture occurred through an exchange of messages between the two leaders in late February, which the Vatican released on Friday.
In a letter carried to Moscow by Cardinal Roger Etchegaray on Feb. 17, Benedict wished Alexei a happy birthday and called for the two churches to undertake “more intense collaboration in truth and charity that increases the spirit of communion.”
Benedict wrote, “The contemporary world needs to hear voices that indicate the path of peace and respect for everyone and condemn all acts of violence.”
Alexei responded to the message saying that Catholics and Russian Orthodox shared “a common vision of the current problems of the contemporary world” and that the “defense of Christian values in society must be one of the priorities for our churches.”
“I hope that this will contribute as well to the rapid resolution of problems that face our two churches,” Alexei wrote without elaborating.
Since Benedict’s election in April, relations between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church have at times appeared to be on the mend. In recent years, Alexei has repeatedly accused the Catholic Church under John Paul II of supporting proselytism, or conversion, of Orthodox Christians to Catholicism in Russia.
Alexei’s opposition ultimately prevented John Paul from fulfilling his long-held wish of visiting Russia.
Tensions between Catholic leaders and the Orthodox have also been high in Ukraine, which Alexis considers Orthodox territory.
_ Stacy Meichtry
Financially Ailing John Paul II Cultural Center Discusses Future
(RNS) Directors of the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., discussed the institution’s financial woes for three hours Thursday (March 16), but failed to reach consensus on a plan to save the troubled project.
Faced with debts in the tens of millions and revenues at a trickle, the 13-member board of directors brainstormed on ways to boost fundraising and trim costs.
The center launched in 2001 with a mission to “bring the wisdom and faith experience of the Catholic Church” to bear on contemporary issues. But disappointing visitor attendance at the center has prompted it to reconsider its mission, programs and organizational structure.
The board “met to consider how best to restructure finances and energize fundraising,” said Cardinal Adam Maida, board chairman and the archbishop of Detroit, in a written statement after the meeting. “I was encouraged by the frank and creative suggestions that came forward during the meeting.”
Detroit Catholics have a stake in the center’s financial situation. The Archdiocese of Detroit has secured the center’s mortgage in the amount of $23 million and has directly loaned another $17 million to cover costs incurred over the past five years, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press.
“The archdiocese has invested in (the center), and the center has not been able to service its debt back to us, so that’s an issue,” said Ned McCarthy, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Detroit, in an interview. “But it’s one we feel can and will be addressed.”
With just 70,000 visitors in 2005, the center is falling far short of the 750,000 annual visitors predicted when dignitaries gathered for a gala kickoff five years ago. Construction costs also skyrocketed from the $30 million predicted in the 1990s to $73 million.
_ G. Jeffrey MacDonald
Pope Benedict XVI Asks Mass Media to `Support Marriage and Family Life’
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Friday (Mar. 17) urged the mass media to avoid representations of marriage that “debase” traditional definitions of family life.
In an address to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Benedict said he wished “to draw particular attention to the urgent need to uphold and support marriage and family life, the foundation of every culture and society.”
“How disheartening and destructive it is to us all when the opposite occurs! Do not our hearts cry out, most especially, when our young people are subjected to debased or false expressions of love which ridicule the God-given dignity of the human person and undermine family interests?”
Benedict also called on the mass media “to denounce what is false, especially pernicious trends which erode the fabric of a civil society worthy of the human person.”
Although Benedict did not take issue with any specific media portrayals, he has been vocal in his opposition to legal unions between gay couples. In one of his earliest speeches as pope, Benedict referred to the unions as “pseudo marriages” that directly threaten family life.
_ Stacy Meichtry
Parents of Suspects in Ala. Church Burnings Attend Community Service
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) The parents of all three college students accused of burning nine rural Baptist churches attended a grief service Thursday (March 16) organized by Birmingham-Southern College officials.
“They’re here because their hearts are broken,” said Stewart Jackson, dean of the chapel at Birmingham-Southern, during the service in Munger Hall auditorium.
Several dozen fellow students and friends of Ben Moseley, 19, Russell DeBusk, 19, and Matthew Cloyd, 20, also attended. Mosely, DeBusk and Cloyd all attended Birmingham-Southern; Cloyd transferred to the University of Alabama at Birmingham last year.
Michael and Kimberly Cloyd, Stephen and Patricia Moseley, and Russell and Laura DeBusk and numerous other family members attended the ceremony. Some students hugged the parents and cried.
During the service, which featured hymns, scripture reading and a litany of repentance, several students read from prayers they had written.
“They reject what they did; they don’t reject them as people,” said Jackson. “We don’t accept what they did. That’s not who we knew.”
Jackson said the purpose of the service was to help deal with the grief experienced by the college community since learning of the arrests of Moseley, DeBusk and Cloyd on March 8. They are charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to damage and destroy buildings by fire, and maliciously and damaging by fire the Ashby Baptist Church in Bibb County.
The Rev. Jim Parker, pastor of Ashby Baptist, which burned to the ground on Feb. 3, spoke at the service.
“It breaks my heart to know what these young men have done because of what it’s going to cost them,” Parker said. “I believe redemption is going to come for them.”
Parker said he brought a message of forgiveness.
“They made a terrible mistake,” Parker said. “We bear no malice.”
_ Greg Garrison
(Editors: BreakPoint in lede of the following item is cq)
Mainline Watchdog Group Appoints New President
WASHINGTON (RNS) The Institute on Religion and Democracy has appointed the former managing editor of Prison Fellowship’s BreakPoint ministry as its new president.
The Rev. James Tonkowich began working at the Washington-based conservative think tank on Thursday (March 16). He is the successor to Diane Knippers, who died of cancer last April.
The institute, founded in 1981, is known for its criticism of liberal mainline Protestant denominations.
“The work of the IRD in seeking to restore accountability, theological integrity and a vibrant social witness in the mainline is a benefit to all Christians,” said Tonkowich, who is ordained in the conservative Presbyterian Church in America.
He worked at Prison Fellowship from 2001 to 2006 and previously pastored a California church and worked in campus ministry in Massachusetts.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: Gov. Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho
(RNS) “God bless America, the beautiful. I would be honored to serve this land.”
_ Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, speaking at the White House on Thursday (March 16) after President Bush nominated him to be interior secretary
MO/RB END RNS
