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
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
Canadian Newspaper Retracts Story on Iran’s Color-Coded Badges
(RNS) Muslims welcomed an apology from Canada’s National Post newspaper for a story alleging that Iran planned to make the country’s non-Muslim religious minorities wear special badges.
Muslim groups, however, said the apology did not resolve bigger questions about what many Muslims see as the conservative newspaper’s habitual Islam-bashing.
“It’s good they retracted the story. But still unresolved is the continued anti-Muslim slant of the Post in every story that runs about the Middle East or the Muslim community,” said Tarek Fatah, communications director of the Muslim Canadian Congress, a moderate advocacy group in Toronto.
On May 19, the National Post ran a front-page story alleging that Iran’s parliament had passed an Islamic dress code law that included provisions that Jews wear yellow strips of cloth, Christians red and Zoroastrians blue. The story evoked images of Nazi Germany when Jews were forced to wear yellow Stars of David in public.
The story was based on a column that ran in the Post the same day by Iranian-born journalist Amir Taheri, who has so far stuck to his story.
“It is now clear the story is not true,” National Post editor Douglas Kelly wrote in Wednesday’s (May 24) paper. He said Taheri’s allegation “did not seem out of the question” given a recent string of anti-Semitic remarks made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
However, Kelly said the paper did not do enough reporting or exercise enough skepticism on the story. “We apologize for the mistake and the consternation it has caused.”
Activists said the Iran story disturbed North American Muslims because what happens in the Islamic world reflects on Muslims here.
“It does affect us. They’ve planted the seed in people’s head of, `Look at those Muslims again,'” said Alia Hogben, executive director of the Canadian Council on Muslim Women in Ontario. “It’s not just Ahmadinejad that people see when they read these stories, they see all Muslims.”
Hogben, whose own group helped block an effort to introduce Islamic law into Ontario’s family law system, added that such stories make it harder for moderate Muslims like her to fight extremism.
“You’re constantly fighting a rear-guard battle. We have to go around explaining ourselves and correcting this kind of stuff instead of doing our job of fighting for human rights,” she said.
-Omar Sacirbey
Nepal Declares Itself Secular, Ends Official Hindu Rule
(RNS) Nepal, which until recently proclaimed itself the world’s only official Hindu kingdom, has proclaimed itself a “secular state” with equal rights for all its citizens.
The decision was announced May 18 by the country’s reconvened parliament following prolonged pro-democracy protest rallies and has been welcomed by several religious leaders.
Since February 2005, when King Gyanendra engineered a military-backed coup, the Royal Nepal Army had been the de facto administrator of the country, with control over the police force and central bureaucracy.
Last month, pro-democracy movements led by seven major political parties finally forced the king to reconvene the parliament he had earlier dissolved, and appoint a senior politician as prime minister and head of a new government.
The reconvened parliament issued a proclamation ending the absolute power of the monarchy and also declaring Nepal a secular state. Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala said the move would protect the rights of the nation’s indigenous peoples and minorities.
Roman Catholics throughout Nepal offered prayers of thanksgiving at weekend Masses and Buddhist, Christian and tribal groups also welcomed the country’s new secular status.
Robert Gurung, a member of the Good Hope Pentecostal Church, said the decision was “revolutionary and democratic. It will ensure justice among the different religious, cultural and linguistic minorities in the country.”
Pasang Sherpa, secretary-general of the Confederation of Indigenous and Ethnic Groups of Nepal, said: “With this declaration, the nation has moved towards ensuring social justice and harmony. In a democracy, minorities cannot be marginalized. Nepal is starting a new chapter now.”
Kesab Adhikari, a senior teacher in a school within Nepal’s holiest Hindu temple complex of Pasupathinath, expressed anguish over the declaration. “If we ran a referendum, 80 percent would still be for calling Nepal a Hindu state,” he said.
-Achal Narayanan
Ohio Law Lets God Inside Schoolhouses
COLUMBUS, Ohio (RNS) When Ohio public school students return to class this fall, they could see a prominent new name among the student body-God.
The state General Assembly this week passed a bill that would require public schools to post donated copies of the U.S. or Ohio mottoes, each of which contain the word “God.”
House Bill 184 requires the phrases to be framed or printed, 8.5×11 inches, free of any image other than the motto words and the American or Ohio flag, and not paid for at taxpayer expense. Any person or group could donate the mottoes.
The national motto is “In God We Trust”; the state’s is “With God All Things Are Possible.”
“The goal is to make sure that students have a basis to talk about the historical aspects of how this country was founded,” said state Rep. Keith Faber, who sponsored the bill.
“I don’t think the mottoes are necessarily religiously based,” the western Ohio Republican said.
Theresa Fleming, of Strongsville, who heads Moms for Ohio, a political action committee, testified for the bill during committee hearings.
“Our kids spend the majority of their time in school, and I think it is a really good thing for them to be surrounded by good things, and this will be a good influence,” she said Thursday (May 25).
But critics of the bill say the legislation will add nothing to the students’ learning experience and is merely an election year campaign item in place of other more pressing education matters such as school funding.
“Fundamentally, it is at odds in the historical sense of who we are,” said Jeff Gamso of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. “It is the state deciding rather than the parents what religious exposure or images our children are exposed to.”
Gamso testified against the bill months ago and thought it had stalled. But the Ohio House approved the bill Thursday, after the Senate did a day earlier.
“I had hoped it would die a quiet death,” said Gamso, who also wondered if the provision violates the U.S. constitutional principle separating church and state.
Gov. Bob Taft is expected to sign the bill, and after the mandatory 90-day wait, the mottoes could be in public schools-including charters-this fall.
-Reginald Fields
Dutch Teachers Learn Essentials of Islam for Schools
PARIS (RNS) Dutch officials have handed out diplomas to the first three graduates of an innovative program that aims to train primary school teachers about Islam and Muslim cultural sensitivities.
Roughly 80 teachers are now enrolled in the two-year training course that will allow them to better understand and respond to needs of the growing number of Muslim students in their midst.
“The idea is to teach them how to deal with the parents, how to deal with the children-and how to work with other teachers in the school.” says Koos Rusting, spokesman for IPABO, a teacher training institute in the Netherlands that is spearheading the initiative.
“They learn about the Koran, but also about the differences and similarities between religions.” Rusting adds, “and that there are more similarities than differences.”
So far, the program is limited to teachers from primary schools in Amsterdam and Almere-Dutch cities with flourishing Muslim populations.
Its target-to bridge cultural and religious divides- is particularly apt in the Netherlands, where rising anti-Islamic sentiments have been fueled by droves of new immigrants from Turkey and North Africa, and the 2004 killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh.
An estimated 945,000 people (5.8 percent of the Dutch population) are Muslim.
Among other subjects, students in the program study the Koran and religious opinions about controversial issues, such as whether head scarves are mandatory for Muslim women.
The program’s graduates are all primary school teachers from public schools, along with private Islamic ones-the Netherlands’ Islamic schools administration, ISBO, recently recognized the new certificates.
They will return to teaching reading, writing and arithmetic, but will also be on hand to work as mediators of sorts between the school system and Muslim pupils.
IPABO, the training institute, offers similar programs for the Roman Catholic and Protestant religions.
Diplomas to the first three graduates were passed out last week by Job Cohen, Amsterdam’s Jewish mayor who has worked hard to reduce tensions between the city’s Muslim immigrants and its long-time, majority-Christian
inhabitants.
-Elizabeth Bryant
Bishop Removes Gay Priest After Long Absence
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (RNS) The local Roman Catholic bishop has removed from ministry a priest who stunned his parishioners nine years ago by announcing he was gay.
In a memo sent to priests on Friday (May 26), Grand Rapids Bishop Walter Hurley said he removed the Rev. Martin Kurylowicz from public ministry “with great reluctance.” The removal takes effect Tuesday (May 30).
Kurylowicz has been absent from the diocese since coming out to parishioners in Sparta, Mich., in 1997. The action means he no longer can publicly celebrate Mass, wear his clerical clothes or present himself as a priest.
Hurley said he removed Kurylowicz because the priest did not comply with repeated requests or orders to meet with the bishop about his status in the diocese.
“It’s just unacceptable to have someone gone for nine years and absolutely refuse to meet with the diocesan bishop under whose authority he functions.” Hurley said.
Kurylowicz, who lives and works outside Detroit, countered it is difficult to find the time or money to meet with Hurley. He said he is busy “24/7” working as a psychotherapist, studying and receiving therapy himself.
“I didn’t refuse to come there.” said Kurylowicz, 56. “I can’t just up and leave. I’m not trying to avoid him.”
He called Hurley’s action “wrong” and an attempt to silence his criticism of the church’s treatment of gays.
I think the underlying stimulus for all of this is the issue of homosexuality.” Kurylowicz said. “This is a silence thing.”
Hurley rejected that charge. “The issue has nothing to do with sexual orientation. It’s time for us to clarify what his relationship with the diocese is going to be.”
Kurylowicz has not worked in the diocese since July 1997. After Kurylowicz announced he was gay and celibate, he took a one-year sabbatical. However, he did not return, earning a master’s degree and entering the therapy practice.
His status remained in limbo while the diocese continued to pay his health insurance and pension. Hurley said his leave was extended several times.
Kurylowicz said he will pray about whether to meet with Hurley or appeal his decision to the Vatican.
“If I go back to Grand Rapids, I’m just going to be put in another closet.” he said. “Where are they going to put me? Send me up north?”
-Charles Honey
Quote of the Week: Washington Post Editorial Writer Ruth Marcus
(RNS) “Occasional drop-bys and clunky dropping of biblical references aren’t going to do the trick. These voters weren’t born again yesterday.”
-Washington Post editorial writer Ruth Marcus, discussing Democrats’ attempts to persuade evangelical Christian voters to consider their political party.
END RNS
