c. 2006 Religion News Service
Two More Episcopal Bishops Enter Race for Presiding Bishop
(RNS) The race to become the next presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church has gotten more intense with the entrance of two new nominees _ Bishop Charles Jenkins of New Orleans and Bishop Francisco Duque-Gomez of the missionary diocese of Bogota, Colombia.
The nominations of Jenkins and Duque bring the total number of candidates to seven. The church’s new top leader will be elected to a nine-year term by the denomination’s General Convention meeting in Columbus, Ohio, on June 18.
Jenkins and Duque were added to the mix by petition. A third candidate, Bishop Stacy Sauls of Lexington, Ky., was also nominated by petition. Church leaders have set an April 1 deadline for nomination petitions.
The four original candidates _ Bishop Neil Alexander of Atlanta, Bishop Edwin Gulick of Louisville, Ky., Bishop Henry Parsely of Birmingham, Ala., and Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of Las Vegas _ were named by a 29-member nominating committee.
All seven candidates addressed the church’s House of Bishops on Sunday (March 19) during a meeting in Hendersonville, N.C.
Jenkins, 54, has served as bishop of New Orleans since 1997. He was originally thought to be a strong contender for the top job until Hurricane Katrina devastated his diocese last year and forced him to focus his energies there.
Jenkins said 12 bishops asked to put his name in nomination. “These 12 bishops who asked me were from across the spectrum of the church and included liberal and conservative, male and female, and are of various colors. I am humbled by and conflicted by their request,” he wrote to his diocese on Sunday.
Jenkins voted against the election of the church’s first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in 2003 and in 2004 was elected president of the Presiding Bishop’s Council of Advice, an informal advisory group.
Duque, 55, became bishop of Bogota in 2002. He is a practicing attorney and the fourth Episcopal bishop to lead the church’s missionary outreach to Colombia’s 1,200 Episcopalians. In 2003, he voted to confirm Robinson as a bishop.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Delay in Katrina Aid Blasted By National Clergy Group
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) Clergy from more than 100 cities have called on Washington lawmakers to stop squabbling over $4.2 billion in federal money earmarked to rebuild hurricane-damaged housing in Louisiana, and to direct more money to evacuated residents trying to return to the New Orleans area.
“We stand here in solidarity in New Orleans to say that something has to be done to change things,” said Monsignor Robert McDermott of St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Camden, N.J.
McDermott decried recent reports that U.S. Senate leaders might hold up consideration of the housing assistance until June. “What’s wrong with today or tomorrow? It’s too late in June. It has to happen now,” he said.
The clergy members, representing 30 church denominations, gathered Friday (March 17) on the steps of Mount Moriah Baptist Church in New Orleans’ 9th Ward following a three-hour bus tour of flooded neighborhoods in the city. They were in New Orleans for a summit organized by People Improving Communities through Organizing, or PICO, a national network of interfaith organizations that work to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods.
Wrecked houses line the street around Mount Moriah, and the surrounding neighborhood that used to be home to the church’s 500 members remains largely abandoned. The church suffered about $500,000 in damage and remains closed, said its pastor, the Rev. Donald Robinson.
The clergy members said Congress has moved too slowly to put money into the hands of evacuees for repairing their homes and reviving their communities.
“Not a penny of federal aid has reached families to help them rebuild,” said the Rev. Heyward Wiggins III, pastor of Camden (N.J.) Bible Tabernacle.
Others said the personal needs of hurricane victims are getting lost in Washington deal-making. “What is happening in New Orleans is not about morality or spirituality,” said the Rev. Timothy McDonald of Atlanta’s First Iconium Baptist Church. “It’s about politics.”
The religious leaders promised to use their congregations to launch grass-roots lobbying efforts supporting more federal aid for housing reconstruction in New Orleans.
_ Keith Darce
Hindu Group Files Lawsuit to Stop Sixth-Grade Textbooks That `Demean’
(RNS) A group claiming to represent 2 million American Hindus has sued the California State Board of Education to block publication of sixth-grade textbooks that “demean, stereotype and reflect adversely upon Hindus.”
In superior court in Sacramento, the Hindu American Foundation is seeking a temporary restraining order to keep the proposed textbooks from going to press. In a lawsuit filed Friday (March 17), the HAF claims the board failed to hold sufficient deliberations after a public hearing on the textbook and failed to abide by a state open meetings law.
“Today Hindu Americans have taken a stand against not only the illegal machinations of the SBE and unfair treatment Hindus received during the textbook adoption process, but also the inaccurate and unequal portrayal of their religious tradition in school textbooks,” said Nikhil Joshi, a member of the HAF Board of Directors. “This is about treating Hindus in America and their religion with the same level of sensitivity and balance afforded to other religious traditions and their practitioners.”
The California State Board of Education declined to comment.
At issue in the case is the text’s portrayal of ancient Hinduism.
Harvard University Sanskrit scholar Michael Witzel intervened in the editorial process last year, he said, to make sure the textbook didn’t “whitewash” the history of ancient Hinduism. The state school board last month voted to adopt most of his recommendations, which included linking Hinduism to women’s inferior social status and to India’s caste system.
HAF said it is concerned that “Hinduism not be unfavorably compared with other religions or made to appear as a more regressive or archaic belief system,” according to a statement released Friday.
But Witzel says the integrity of history is at stake.
“We cannot allow right-wing groups to rewrite textbooks according to political games being played in India,” Witzel says.
_ G. Jeffrey MacDonald
Suspects in Alabama Church Burnings Will Not Make Bond
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) The three men suspected of starting a string of Alabama church fires in February will remain in federal custody and not make bonds, their attorneys say.
An attorney for Matthew Lee Cloyd, 20, said Cloyd would remain in federal custody. Attorneys for the other two suspects, Benjamin Moseley, 19, and Russell DeBusk Jr., 19, said the same will be true for their clients.
A federal magistrate judge said Thursday (March 16) that the three men could be released on $50,000 bond, in cash or property, with strict conditions.
But the filing of arrest warrants on state arson charges in Bibb County means the three suspects, if released on federal bond, would be transferred to the Bibb County Jail, where a state judge would also consider setting bond. Moseley and Cloyd also face arrest warrants out of Pickens County.
Bill Clark, Moseley’s attorney, said in a statement that in recognition of the seriousness of the church fires and in an effort to promote healing, his client had no plans to make the bond set in federal court.
“Ben Moseley is concerned for the members of the churches involved, the people in those communities and the injured firefighters,” Clark’s statement said. “It is hoped that this decision will help us move forward with efforts to resolve all of these matters in a way that will result in reconciliation and restoration.”
DeBusk’s attorney, Brett Bloomston, said Saturday that DeBusk also would not seek release. All three suspects remained in federal custody at the Shelby County Jail.
The state warrants charge Moseley, Cloyd and DeBusk with arson in Bibb County, where five blazes occurred Feb. 3. A second set of fires, on Feb. 7, destroyed four churches in Pickens, Sumter and Greene counties.
The three suspects were arrested March 8 on federal charges of conspiracy and setting fire to Ashby Baptist Church in Brierfield, in Bibb County.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Armstrong Jr. had said the suspects could be released on bonds of $50,000 each, provided they live with their parents under house arrest with electronic monitoring.
Their case is to be presented to a federal grand jury at the end of this month.
_ Val Walton
Church Volunteer Finds Stack of $100 Bills in Post-Hurricane Rubble
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) As Trista Wright dragged a rake through the dusty pile of moldy Sheetrock Wednesday (March 15), she noticed the corner of a faded piece of green paper poking out of the rubble.
Wright, a college student in New Orleans on a spring break church mission, reached into the pile and dusted off the slip of rectangular paper. A portrait of Benjamin Franklin stared back at her.
That grubby piece of paper was a $100 bill.
Wright quickly picked through the pile at her feet and found another just like it. Then another. And another.
“I was shocked,” said Wright, who attends Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Ga. “I thought it was Monopoly money.”
The small three-bedroom brick home in Arabi was the third house Wright and her church group had gutted.
She immediately peeled back the Sheetrock from around an air-conditioning vent in the closet wall where she’d been working. Wedged between the drywall near the base of the vent sat a stack of bills almost six inches high.
It was more money than Wright had ever seen. By unofficial count, it was more than $30,000.
Unsure of the legal responsibilities and ramifications of the find, the students called the organizers of the church mission, who, in turn, notified the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff’s Office.
Deputy Gary Adams responded. He verified the identity of the woman who owned the home, which she said previously belonged to her father and had been in the family for generations. When the succession papers checked out and a call to a local lawyer who handled the transaction confirmed her story, Adams handed the money over to the homeowner.
“She was speechless,” said Wright, 19, one of 175 Georgia college students who spent a week gutting homes in the area.
“They were elated, but they didn’t know what to do with it,” Adams said. “It’s good to see someone find something like that and turn it over to proper authorities and the rightful owner.”
The lucky woman, an Arabi native in her 50s who asked to remain anonymous, said she suspects the money belonged to her father, who grew up in the Depression and was wary of keeping his money in a bank.
_ Jeff Duncan
Quote of the Day: Pastor Joshua Harris of Gaithersburg, Md.
(RNS) “Our concern is for his soul. Our desire _ and Claude shares this _ is for him to walk with humility and integrity.”
_ Senior Pastor Joshua Harris of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md., on church member and former Bush administration adviser Claude Allen, who is facing felony charges for allegedly trying to secure refunds for items he hadn’t bought at a Target store.
MO/RB END RNS
