c. 2007 Religion News Service
Gay Lutheran Pastor Appeals Ruling
(RNS) An openly gay Lutheran pastor has appealed a recent church court ruling that removed him from his Atlanta pulpit for being in an open, committed homosexual relationship.
The Rev. Bradley Schmeling, the pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church, told Southern Voice, an Atlanta-based gay and lesbian newspaper, that he mailed the appeal Tuesday (March 6).
Schmeling is appealing on grounds suggested by members of the panel that convicted him. They said they were forced to remove him because current policy requires gay and lesbian clergy to be celibate.
Seven of 12 committee members voted to remove Schmeling, but they noted that if they had used only the church’s constitution as a guideline they “would find with near unanimity that no discipline of any sort should be imposed.”
The constitution of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America does not expressly prohibit clergy from committed gay relationships. The committee said “there is nothing about Pastor Schmeling’s acknowledged and stipulated homosexual relationship” that would impede his ministry.
Additionally, the disciplinary panel delayed Schmeling’s removal until August so the church could override what the panel described as “bad policy” at its Churchwide Assembly in Chicago in early August.
Frank Imhoff, a spokesman for the ELCA, said the church had no statement on the case because of the pending appeal.
The ELCA has 4.9 million members nationwide. Schmeling was strongly supported by his congregation during his hearing.
_ Katherine Boyle
Obama’s Pastor Says He Doesn’t Want to Taint Campaign
WASHINGTON (RNS) Sen. Barack Obama says he has been deeply influenced by his church, Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s South Side, and its senior pastor, Jeremiah Wright. But that connection is now generating political controversy for Obama’s presidential campaign.
Conservative bloggers and pundits have raised concerns about Wright’s Afrocentric theology and his liberal _ some say radical _ politics. Wright has been an outspoken opponent of the war in Iraq and a strong supporter of the Palestinians. One blog called him a racist and an anti-Semite.
“You think it’s ugly now, it’s going to get worse, it’s going to get much worse,” Wright told the PBS program “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.”
Some campaign advisers are reportedly urging Obama to distance himself from Wright. Obama asked Wright not to offer a public prayer at the Feb. 10 rally when he announced his run for the presidency in Springfield, Ill. Wright attended and prayed privately with the candidate and his family.
Wright said he has long understood that Obama may be forced to put distance between them. “He can’t afford the Jewish support to wane or start questioning his allegiance to the state of Israel because I’m saying I think the position we’ve taken in terms of Palestinians is wrong,” Wright said.
The pastor says he warned Obama at the beginning of his career that their relationship could have negative ramifications. “`They’re going to associate your name with mine, (and) that could be detrimental,’ I told him back then. It holds just as true, even more so, now,” Wright said.
With nearly 9,000 members, Trinity is the largest and one of the most prominent congregations in the United Church of Christ. Obama credits the congregation _ and Wright _ with bringing him to a personal faith.
“Kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt that I heard God’s spirit beckoning me,” Obama said last year, recalling the altar call at Wright’s church. “I submitted myself to his will and dedicated myself to discovering his truth.”
A campaign spokesman says Obama remains proud of his pastor and of Trinity, and he doesn’t want to see the church receive negative attention because of his candidacy.
For his part, Wright said he doesn’t want to do anything to harm Obama. “His position across the years has been, `I know who I am, I know what I believe, but I don’t disrespect you or diminish you because you have a different belief. And we don’t have to believe the same thing to get along and to build a better world,”’ Wright said.
_ Kim Lawton/Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly
McCarrick Pushes Greater U.S. Role in Middle East Peace Talks
WASHINGTON (RNS) Retired Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, on a trip to the Middle East to promote a U.S. role in brokering peace between Israelis and Palestinians, said it’s important for “nations to sit around a table rather than dig trenches.”
McCarrick is visiting the region as part of the Interfaith Initiative for Peace in the Middle East, a looseknit alliance of Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders who are pushing for greater U.S. involvement in solving the Israeli-Palestinian stand-off.
McCarrick met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas; Patriarch Michel Sabbah, the archbishop of Jerusalem; Sheikh Taysir Tamimi, the supreme judge of the Islamic court; and Rabbi David Rosen, who oversees international interfaith affairs for the American Jewish Committee.
The retired cardinal also hoped to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert before returning to Washington.
“I think a lot of us feel, as did the Baker-Hamilton report, that peace in the holy land is very important for peace in the Middle East,” he added.
McCarrick, who retired as archbishop of Washington last summer and now functions as an unofficial senior statesman for the Catholic Church, said he was heartened to see increased U.S. involvement in the peace process.
“I think President Bush and Secretary (of State Condoleezza) Rice have really made it more and more of a priority in the past few months,” he said. “She’s been over here just about on a monthly basis, and the president has spoken about it so much.”
McCarrick said every time he visits the holy land he sees an increasing number of checkpoints and security measures. But he also said he is always struck by the beauty of the area.
“As a Catholic priest, it’s a special grace to me to be able to offer Mass and to pray here, where the Lord prayed,” he added.
_ Katherine Boyle
Priest Says Poverty Vow Prevents Child Support Payments
PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) A retired Jesuit priest and former Oregon prison chaplain contends that his vow of poverty prevents two men recently identified as his children from collecting back child support.
The Rev. James E. Jacobson, 83, also is asking an Alaska judge to dismiss a lawsuit that accuses him of sexually assaulting a teenage girl because the victim came forward decades later.
Jacobson worked in remote Yup’ik Eskimo villages from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s. In a deposition filed in an Alaska court, Jacobson acknowledged having sex with more than half a dozen women, but denied using force.
He also acknowledged using church money to hire prostitutes and said he was aware of fathering two other children besides the men who are suing him for child support.
After leaving Alaska, Jacobson worked as an Oregon prison chaplain for 25 years before retiring in 2005. An attorney for the plaintiffs said Jacobson’s sons are entitled to a share of the more than $1 million in salary Jacobson earned while he worked for the Oregon Department of Corrections.
Christopher R. Cooke, an Anchorage-based attorney, said Jacobson also has cashed out more than $500,000 in state retirement benefits and transferred the money to the Jesuits since his clients filed their suit two years ago.
Cooke said the law was unsettled on whether Catholic priests or their religious orders had to pay child support, but the fact that Jacobson was a state employee for a quarter-century made this case different.
Jacobson now lives in a priest retirement community in Spokane, Wash.
“We are saddened that one of our members has failed to live the life he promised, and we hope that we might find a way to reconcile with those whose lives have been affected by this tragic failure,” the Rev. John D. Whitney, the Portland-based Jesuit superior, said in a statement.
“As in all matters of this type, we see the suffering of the women and men involved, and look for a direct, just and pastoral solution _ though we understand that sometimes litigation is the only path available.”
_ Ashbel Green
Quote of the Day: Islamic Cultural Center Spokesman Dukary Camara
(RNS) “God is the one who gives us the children and the family, and he is the one who takes them.”
_ Dukary Camara, a spokesman for the Islamic Cultural Center, which is located a mile away from the site of a Bronx, N.Y., fire in which eight children and one adult were killed Wednesday (March 7). Grieving relatives gathered for prayer at the mosque Thursday. Camara was quoted by The Associated Press.
KRE/PH END RNS
