c. 2007 Religion News Service
Wilberforce Honored for Work Against Animal Cruelty
(RNS) After the release of the film “Amazing Grace” earlier this year, William Wilberforce received attention for his work to abolish the British slave trade. What many do not realize is that Wilberforce also played a role in fighting cruelty to animals.
“Without Wilberforce … there wouldn’t be an animal rights movement today,” said the Rev. Andrew Linzey, director of Britain’s Oxford Center for Animal Ethics and author of “Animal Theology.”
This year, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Clergy has called on churches “to celebrate the life and animal welfare work of William Wilberforce” on Animal Welfare Sunday (Oct. 7).
The event also falls near the World Day for Animals (Oct. 4) in conjunction with the celebration of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and the environment. Churches of a variety of denominations will celebrate these holidays with pet blessings.
In 1824, Wilberforce and several others, including members of Parliament and clergymen, joined with the Rev. Arthur Broome to establish the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Linzey said.
In her admiration for their work, Queen Victoria eventually appended “Royal” to the Society’s name. To this day, the RSPCA remains an active charitable organization with associates worldwide.
Linzey pointed out that the RSPCA’s establishment was “the direct result of Christian vision.”
“The central theological point is that Christian faith and cruelty are incompatible,” Linzey said. “That was Wilberforce’s dictum. Whether the subjects were children or animals, cruelty was deemed intrinsically objectionable.”
Wilberforce “was obviously a Christian and his devotion to animals certainly was aligned with his Christian faith,” said Christine Gutleben, director of the Animals and Religion program at the Humane Society of the United States.
Gutleben agreed that Wilberforce’s abolition work overshadows his work with animals. However, to her, “the issues seem to go hand in hand.”
“When you’re against cruelty in one form, you’re usually against cruelty in all forms,” she said.
_ Heather Donckels
Italian Bishops Buy Soccer Team to Help `Moralize’ Sport
VATICAN CITY (RNS) In an effort to “moralize” a sport recently beset by scandal, Italy’s Roman Catholic bishops have purchased a professional soccer team, announcing plans to raise ethical standards for players, executives and fans.
The Conference of Italian Bishops has acquired an 80-percent interest in AC Ancona, a third-division team in the central Italian city of Ancona.
“It’s a way to moralize soccer, to bring back a little bit of ethics into a sector that is undergoing a grave crisis of values,” said the archbishop of Ancona, Edoardo Menichelli, to the Turin newspaper La Stampa.
According to the team’s new ethics code, players who commit fouls will be required to perform volunteer work as part of their punishment, ticket prices will be lowered, team profits will go to support relief projects in developing nations, and spectators must promise not to insult rival fans or to display offensive banners.
Stadium violence at soccer games has been an increasing problem in Italy. In February, the death of a policeman at a match in Sicily led the Italian soccer federation to suspend play nationwide.
The sport has also been plagued by the bribing of referees. In 2006, Ancona’s former president was sentenced to jail in a game-fixing scandal that involved several of the country’s top teams.
_ Francis X. Rocca
Case of Praying Football Coach Heads to Court
PHILADELPHIA (RNS) A federal appeals court was asked Wednesday (Oct. 3) to decide whether a New Jersey high school football coach violated the Constitution by taking a knee and bowing his head during pre-game prayers.
Marcus Borden, a longtime coach and Spanish teacher at East Brunswick High School, persuaded a lower court judge last year that his actions did not amount to prayer and did not violate the separation of church and state. Borden, 52, instead described his movements as a secular sign of respect for the team.
The East Brunswick Board of Education appealed the ruling, contending that by taking a knee and bowing his head, Borden was endorsing religion whether he mouthed the words with his players or not.
The appeal has since been taken over by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington-based group that opposes prayer in schools.
“There is no question that Borden was leading the prayer,” Richard Katskee, the group’s assistant legal director, told a three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
With sharp questioning, the judges at times appeared to express doubt about the school board’s position.
“How are you going to enforce this? Are you going to walk around with a ruler?” Judge Maryanne Trump Barry asked in reference to Borden’s bowed head. “What if he has his head bowed, but he says he’s not praying?”
But the panel also took issue with the arguments made on behalf of the coach, who has acknowledged praying with the team in the past.
“Knowing the (coach’s) history, I’m not sure I’d want to say, `No, I don’t want to pray,”’ Judge Theodore McKee said.
McKee said he had “serious concerns” about several aspects of the lower court decision, but he added the school board’s appeal didn’t raise the issues. At one point, he told both sides, “This looks like a mess to me.”
The case has been closely watched around the country, and Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said it is likely to guide schools nationwide in setting policy.
_ Sue Epstein and Mark Mueller
Men Sue Mormons, Scouts Over Alleged Abuse
PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) Six Portland men sued the Mormon church and the Boy Scouts of America on Wednesday (Oct. 3), seeking more than $25 million for alleged sexual abuse by a church teacher and Scout leader more than 20 years ago.
The lawsuit contends that Timur Van Dykes, 51, molested Boy Scouts in Troop 719, which was supervised by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The lawsuit includes two brothers who dropped a previous complaint. It does not name Dykes as a defendant.
Dykes, a registered sex offender, has been convicted of at least 26 sex crimes since 1983. He is one of about 50 Oregon leaders expelled by the Boy Scouts for sex abuse between 1970 and 1990 and more than 5,100 leaders expelled nationally since 1946, according to confidential Boy Scout files and summaries obtained by The Oregonian newspaper.
The number of Boy Scout leaders ejected in Oregon eclipses the number of abusive priests identified statewide in the recent Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal and presents an enormous potential legal liability for both the Mormon Church and the Boy Scouts.
Under Oregon’s flexible statute of limitations, victims of sexual abuse can bring cases once they’ve discovered how the abuse affected them, sometimes decades after the actual crimes.
Kelly Clark, the Portland attorney who filed Wednesday’s complaint and several similar previous lawsuits, said in a statement that he intends to do more than hold the Boy Scouts and Mormon Church accountable for the suffering of his clients.
“We also intend to prove that both the Mormon Church and Boy Scouts were well aware, by at least the 1960s, that they had a serious institution-wide infestation of child abuse, stretching across the country, involving hundreds of predators and thousands of children, and that they failed miserably to take responsible steps to clean up their organizations,” he said.
The lawsuit reserves the option to seek punitive damages against both the Boy Scouts and the Mormon church. Both knew pedophiles were using their organizations to access victims and failed to implement adequate child sex-abuse policies, the lawsuit says.
Officials of the Mormon Church, their Portland attorney, Steve English, and representatives of the Boy Scouts did not return phone calls for comment. Dykes, who left prison in 2005, declined to discuss the lawsuit. “Nothing I say will make any difference,” he said.
_ Peter Zuckerman
Quote of the Day: Acting U.S. Ambassador in Myanmar Shari Villarosa
(RNS) “There is a significantly reduced number of monks on the streets. Where are the monks? What has happened to them?”
_ Acting U.S. Ambassador in Myanmar Shari Villarosa. She was quoted by The Washington Post (Oct. 4).
KRE/LF END RNS
