c. 2006 Religion News Service

Vermont Catholic Church Protects Parish Assets in Trusts

(RNS) The Roman Catholic Church in Vermont has placed each of its 128 parishes in charitable trusts, a legal strategy that church leaders hope will protect parish assets from being seized to settle sexual abuse lawsuits.

As a result of the move, individual parishes now possess the legal titles to their property. The titles previously had been in the name of the statewide Diocese of Burlington.

In a letter to the state’s Catholics, Bishop Salvatore Matano of Burlington wrote, “In such litigious times, it would be a gross act of mismanagement if I did not do everything possible to protect our parishes and the interests of the faithful.”

Buildings owned by the Burlington Diocese have been valued at more than $405 million, according to an insurance appraisal. More than 50 parishes have buildings worth more than $1 million, according to the appraisal, which was contained in court records related to sexual abuse lawsuits.

The diocese settled one lawsuit related to sexual abuse for $965,000 and 19 lawsuits are pending. Jerome O’Neill, a Burlington lawyer who represents 19 people suing the diocese over sexual abuse, said the diocese is “trying to hide the money.”

“You can’t take property you have, transfer it and then say it’s beyond the reach of your creditors,” O’Neill told The Boston Globe.

As U.S. dioceses continue to settle big-dollar abuse settlements, the legal status of parishes is becoming a prominent question for the church in an attempt to shield them from being sold off to pay settlements.

In 2004, the Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., declared bankruptcy after paying more than $53 million to settle allegations of sexual abuse. A bankruptcy judge there ruled that the archdiocese and its parishes _ estimated to be worth $500 million _ were not separate legal entities.

_ Daniel Burke

Episcopal Clergy Petition Bishops Against Same-Sex Blessings

(RNS) Just weeks before their church’s General Convention meeting, some 900 Episcopal clergy have signed a petition urging church bishops not to approve gay bishops or bless same-sex unions.

The petition, which will be presented to the Episcopal House of Bishops before the June 13-21 legislative session, further exposes the rift between liberals and conservatives over homosexuality in the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church.

“It is our hope to demonstrate to the House of Bishops with absolute clarity that the clergy of this church want to return to our historical, biblical roots,” said the Rev. David Roseberry, a priest from Plano, Texas, who started the Web-based petition.

Conservative groups like the Anglican Communion Network would like to bring the Episcopal Church in line with other member churches in the 77 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion.

The petition asks Episcopal bishops to “fully endorse” the 2004 Windsor Report, which was commissioned by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of Anglican Communion.

The Windsor Report was issued after Episcopalians elected openly gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire. The report calls on the U.S. bishops to express regret for electing Robinson and to declare moratoriums on blessing same-sex unions and ordaining gay clergy.

The House of Bishops, in various actions, has said it regrets the “pain” caused by Robinson’s consecration, but church leaders have rejected outright repentance because many do not feel the action was wrong.

The petition’s Web address, http://www.bcp526.org, refers to page 526 in The Book of Common Prayer, from which priests ordained by the Episcopal Church take their vows. In that vow, the priest swears to “conform to the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Episcopal Church.”

_ Daniel Burke

Church of Scotland Approves Blessing Gay Unions

LONDON (RNS) By a narrow majority the Church of Scotland on Tuesday (May 23) became the first major church in Britain to formally allow its ministers to bless gay relationships, but only if they want to.

The fiercely contested decision is provisional, however, and will have to be approved by a majority of the church’s 49 regional presbyteries before coming back to next year’s General Assembly for final approval.

The question arose as the result of the 2005 Civil Partnership Act, which allows same-sex couples in the United Kingdom to register their partnership in a civil ceremony. However, ministers who blessed those relationships until now ran the risk of church disciplinary proceedings.

As the debate made clear, many ministers and elders still feel that approving gay and lesbian relationships runs counter to Scripture.

“We are standing on the edge of taking the first decision that I can remember where we have taken a step out of God’s word,” warned the Rev. Bruce Gardner of Aberdeenshire.

Some ministers, meanwhile, feel they have no option but to bless a particular relationship if asked to do so.

The Rev. Tom Gordon, who for 12 years has served as a chaplain at a cancer hospice, told the assembly how he blessed the relationship of two lesbians, one of whom was dying. “I could do no other,” he said.

Under the policy approved Tuesday, the church said any minister who conducts a service to bless a civil partnership would not face disciplinary action. The church also said no minister was obliged to conduct such a service against his or her conscience.

The final policy passed in a 322-314 vote.

The church’s sister body in the United States, the Presbyterian Church (USA), allows the blessing of gay unions as long as they are not equated with or treated the same as marriage.

_ Robert Nowell

Exiled Russian Orthodox Church Votes to Resume Ties With Moscow

(RNS) Leaders of an exiled overseas Russian Orthodox church have unanimously voted to reunify with the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church, ending a split that began with the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (also known as the Church Abroad) was founded in 1920 by Russian refugees who wanted to preserve a church that was free from communist control.

The exiled church accused clergy in the Russian Orthodox Church of conspiring with the Soviet regime, and even in the decade since the fall of communism continued to maintain its distance from the Moscow Patriarchate.

The vote by the church’s Council of Bishops _ convening for the first time in over 30 years and only the fourth time ever _ followed the recommendations of the denomination’s All-Diaspora Council, which met May 7-14 in San Francisco.

“It is difficult to measure and assess how much time and energy has been wasted on confrontation on both sides in those decades of division during the godless regime, which tried to destroy but was unable to overcome the church of Christ in the much-suffering land of Russia,” the Council said in a statement.

In recent years, members of the Church Abroad had worried that their voice would be ignored if they surrendered their independence. Worldwide, there are 400 Church Abroad parishes with fewer than 200,000 members. The Moscow Patriarchate has 19,000 parishes and 80 million members.

Metropolitan Laurus, the first hierarch of the Church Abroad, visited Russia in 2004 to discuss the possibility of reunification. In some U.S. cities, parishes from both denominations can be found in the same neighborhoods.

“The Word of God teaches us that the times are changing,” the Council said, citing Ecclesiastes: “`To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”’

“There was a time for resistance; now the time has come for reconciliation.”

_ Nate Herpich

Quote of the Day: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

(RNS) “More than six decades after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is not just an historical fact … it is a current event.”

_ U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking about anti-Semitism at the swearing-in of the U.S. Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism on Monday (May 22).

KRE/PH END RNS