c. 2007 Religion News Service
Poll Says Seven in 10 Republicans Doubt Evolution
(RNS) Republicans are far more likely to doubt the theory of evolution than Democrats, according to a new Gallup Poll.
Sixty-eight percent of Republicans say they doubt that humans evolved from lower life forms over millions of years, while only 40 percent of Democrats hold the view. The poll was conducted by telephone June 1-3, 2007 and has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
Evolution proved to be a hot-button issue among GOP presidential candidates during a May debate. Three of the 10 candidates in the debate _ Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee _ raised their hands to indicate they don’t believe in evolution.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., an Episcopalian, said he believes in evolution but qualified the statement saying, “I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also.”
McCain’s loose belief reflects the view of a large number of Americans. In a separate Gallup poll this May, respondents were asked to choose between three hypotheses about human origin and development. Just 14 percent believed God had no part in the process, while 43 percent believed God created man in present form. A full 38 percent took a centrist view, affirming that man evolved but God guided the process.
Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, asserted a stronger position on creation during a CNN debate on June 5.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth,” he explained. “A person either believes that God created the process or believes that it was an accident and that it just happened all on its own.”
During the second debate, McCain stood in support of the governor’s creation narrative. “I admire (Huckabee’s) description, because I hold that view,” said McCain.
Beyond political parties, the poll also found a correlation between church attendance and belief in evolution. Those who seldom or never attend church are three times more likely to be evolutionists than those who attend church weekly.
_ Michelle C. Rindels
Church Angry After Cathedral Used in Violent Video Game
LONDON (RNS) Church of England clerics are angry at electronics giant Sony for using Britain’s Manchester Cathedral as a backdrop for a gory video game featuring a shootout that kills hundreds in the 800-year-old building’s nave.
The PlayStation3 game, entitled “Resistance _ Fall of Man,” reportedly has already sold more than 1 million copies in Britain and the United States _ and church leaders are furious.
“For a global manufacturer to recreate one of our great cathedrals with photo-realistic quality and then encourage people to have gun battles in the building is beyond belief and highly irresponsible,” Manchester Bishop Nigel McCulloch told journalists.
The cathedral’s dean, the Very Rev. Rogers Govender, condemned the game as “virtual desecration.” He sent a letter to Sony on Monday (June 11) demanding that every copy of the game be withdrawn and that the Japanese giant make a “substantial donation” to the cathedral for its work with young people to combat violence in Manchester.
The Times newspaper in London quoted David Wilson, a Sony spokesman, as arguing that “Resistance” contains simply “game-created footage. It is not video or photography. It is entertainment, like … any other science fiction. It is not based on reality at all.”
Wilson insisted that “throughout the whole process, we (Sony) have sought permission where necessary” _ a claim hotly denied by church officials. Govender said officials are “currently seeking the advice of our lawyers.”
“What a display of gratuitous violence, sickening and showing the cathedral as an empty space filled with horror rather than living prayer,” said Canon Paul Denby, the cathedral’s sub-dean and administrator.
“It just shows what a vivid imagination and a sick mind can produce,” Denby added.
_ Al Webb
Blair, Rumored to Be Mulling Catholicism, to Meet with Pope
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair plans to visit Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican later this month, amid the latest rumors of his planned conversion to Catholicism.
Blair will visit the Vatican before he leaves office on June 27, the British newspaper The Daily Mail reported on Saturday (June 9). A spokeswoman for the British embassy to the Holy See confirmed on Tuesday (June 12) that a visit is “likely,” but said a date had not been announced.
The meeting would be Blair’s second with Benedict, and his third visit to the Vatican in a little over four years. The news comes shortly after the latest in a series of rumors that the prime minister, an Anglican, plans to become a Catholic after he leaves office.
According to a forthcoming book, “The Darlings of Downing Street,” Blair has talked with a Catholic priest, the Rev. Timothy Russ, about the possibility of converting and even becoming a deacon, a rank of Catholic clergy who can administer certain sacraments and are permitted to marry and have children.
Last month, The Times of London reported that another Catholic priest, the Rev. Michael Seed, had predicted that Blair would convert after he steps down. Both Russ and Seed regularly offer Mass for Blair and his wife Cherie Booth Blair, who is Catholic.
The prime minister’s office has denied reports of his plans to convert. No Catholic has ever served as prime minister of Great Britain, although there is no constitutional bar to such an event. According to a 1701 law, Catholics and those married to Catholics are ineligible to become king or queen.
In 1996, the late Cardinal Basil Hume, then Catholic primate of England and Wales, rebuked Blair for receiving Communion at Catholic Mass in Britain. He was subsequently reported to have taken Catholic Communion while vacationing in Italy, and from the late Pope John Paul II during a visit in February 2003.
_ Francis X. Rocca
N.J. Church Evicts Clergy-Abuse Victims
MENDHAM, N.J. (RNS) A Catholic church has rescinded permission for a group of victims of clergy sex abuse to meet on its property, after letting the group gather there for five years.
The pastor says St. Joseph’s Catholic Church needs the meeting space for its new pre-kindergarten, and said the state chapter of Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP) can no longer meet on church grounds.
But SNAP members say the eviction order is troubling given the abuse some members suffered there decades ago when James Hanley was pastor. They say there is ample space at the church for SNAP to meet one night a month.
Hanley, the worst known perpetrator of clergy sex abuse in New Jersey, was a priest at five churches, including St. Joseph, from 1962 through 1986. At least one parishioner from four of those churches has accused him of abuse. In 2005, the Paterson Diocese settled with 21 of Hanley’s accusers for nearly $5 million.
After several victims came forward with allegations in 2002, the church, under its former pastor, Monsignor Kenneth Lasch, let victims meet at its Pax Christi Center. In 2004, the church let them establish a small memorial to sex-abuse victims, just 150 feet from the rectory where they were abused.
“Ironically, it is this same parish that was transformed in 2002 from a serial child molester’s hunting ground to a healing center,” said Mark Crawford, co-director of SNAP in New Jersey. “If (Paterson) Bishop Serratelli truly supported survivors of clergy sexual abuse, this eviction notice would have never been served.”
Marianna Thompson, a spokeswoman for the bishop, said the room SNAP had used for meetings “needs to be set up as a pre-K, not a mixed-use room.”
She said parish organizations get priority for space on church grounds, and that the pastor, Monsignor Joseph Anginoli, decided he could not find time or space to accommodate SNAP.
“It has nothing to do with what a particular organization does,” she said. “The pastor of the parish has the right to use his space as he sees fit, to accommodate the parish ministries.”
“SNAP chapters throughout the state of New Jersey meet in places other than Catholic schools. Other Catholic organizations meet in places other than Catholic parishes or schools,” she said.
_ Jeff Diamant
Quote of the Day: Hollywood Director Jerry Zucker
(RNS) “For the fertilized eggs that are being discarded on a daily basis in this country, why is it better to throw them away than to use them to cure diseases?”
_ Hollywood director Jerry Zucker of “Airplane!” and “Ghost” fame, on embryonic stem cell research. Zucker has just produced a 31/2 minute film on the controversial field of research and posted it on youtube.com. He was quoted by USA Today.
KRE/CM END RNS
