c. 2007 Religion News Service

No Public Memorials Scheduled for Amish School Shootings

(RNS) The Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pa., will conduct no public memorials next month to mark the one-year anniversary of a massacre in an Amish schoolhouse that left five young girls dead and five more seriously injured.

But the new school set up for the survivors, including the same teacher and additional students, is expected to close on Oct. 2, the anniversary, according to a statement Wednesday (Sept. 12) from the Nickel Mines Accountability Committee.

“The children are reported to be enjoying their classes but they keenly miss the girls who died,” the four-page statement reads.

On Oct. 2, 2006, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a non-Amish Lancaster County milk-truck driver, burst into a one-room schoolhouse, ordered the male students to leave and shot 10 young girls at close-range.

The Nickel Mines committee, founded to help allocate the more than $4.3 million in donations that poured into the tiny Lancaster County town from around the world, includes seven Amish and two non-Amish members.

About a third of the funds have been used for medical expenses, counseling services and other expenses related to the shooting, according to the committee.

The remainder of the funds will be placed in a trust to pay for long-term healthcare costs, which the committee expects to be substantial. A contribution has also been made to Roberts’ widow, Marie Roberts, according to the committee.

Four of the five survivors of the massacre have been attending school since last December, though some still suffer from serious injuries and trauma.

The fifth survivor is confined to a reclining wheelchair, unable to talk or feed herself and totally dependent on her family for personal care.

“To the casual observer `life goes on’ in Nickel Mines, with its daily and seasonal demands of work, school, births, family and church, but for the families each day brings with it the pain, grief and questions that remind them of their loss,” the Amish committee said.

_ Daniel Burke

Vatican Investigating Georgetown Professor

VATICAN CITY (RNS) A Catholic theologian at Georgetown University is under investigation by the Vatican and U.S. bishops, for writings that allegedly conflict with church doctrine on the uniqueness of Christianity and Catholicism.

According to an article published Wednesday (Sept. 12) in the National Catholic Reporter, the subject of the investigations is the Rev. Peter Phan, a Vietnamese native who teaches at Georgetown and is a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America.

In July 2005, Phan reportedly received a letter from an official of the church’s highest doctrinal body, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, regarding his 2004 book, “Being Religious Interreligiously.”

The letter said Phan’s book was “notably confused on a number of points of Catholic doctrine and also contains serious ambiguities,” particularly with respect to the Congregation’s 2000 document, “Dominus Iesus,” which describes non-Christians as being in a “gravely deficient situation.”

At the time of the publication of “Dominus Iesus,” and up until April 2005, the Congregation was led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.

Phan was subsequently notified that the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine was conducting its own investigation of his book. Among the bishops’ stated concerns were reportedly Phan’s views on the “role and function of the Catholic church in salvation.”

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops acknowledged the correspondence with Phan, and told the Associated Press: “There was not complete satisfaction with his response, which is why the dialogue continues.”

A spokeswoman for Georgetown University was unavailable for comment on Thursday.

_ Frank Rocca

Jewish Groups Weigh In on Circumcision Case

PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) The Anti-Defamation League and several national Jewish organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of a Washington state father who wants to circumcise his son against the wishes of the boy’s Oregon mother.

The dispute is pending before the Oregon Supreme Court, which has scheduled oral arguments for Nov. 6.

The groups agree with James Boldt, a Jewish convert who says he should be able to make the decision for his 12-year-old son because he is the custodial parent.

The mother, Lia Boldt, says the boy is afraid to tell her ex-husband that he does not want to be circumcised. She also says circumcision is dangerous.

The Anti-Defamation League says that “routine male circumcision is the type of religious and medical decision that is squarely within the rights of the custodial parent,” according to a news release. “Enabling the circumcision of a child, whether as part of a religious conversion or for medical reasons, cannot as a matter of law indicate any infirmity in a parent’s ability to function as a parent. Moreover, any decision to single out circumcision as a basis for questioning the fitness of the custodial parent would violate the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion.”

The American Jewish Congress, American Jewish Committee and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America also signed the brief.

_ Ashbel S. Green

Quote of the Day: Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley

(RNS) “It’s swatting a fly with a sledgehammer. There’s no need to get rid of literally hundreds of thousands of books that are fine simply because you have a problem with an isolated book or piece of literature that presents extremism.”

_ Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley, reacting to a decision by the federal Bureau of Prisons to have chaplains clear library shelves of books and other materials that are not on a list of approved resources. Earley, who leads a Christian group, was quoted by The New York Times.

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