c. 2007 Religion News Service Mayors’ report says cities are seeing more emergency food requests (RNS) A majority of U.S. cities participating in a recent survey have seen an increase in the number of requests for emergency food assistance, the U.S. Conference of Mayors reports. The Washington-based conference issued its annual Hunger and Homelessness Survey on Monday (Dec. 17), saying that 16 of the 19 cities that responded to questions about hunger saw increases in requests for emergency food aid in the last year. In addition, an average of 17 percent of people seeking food assistance are not receiving it. The report by the conference analyzed homelessness and hunger in 23 of America’s major cities, including Boston, Los Angeles and Miami. Nineteen of those cities said they expect requests for food assistance to increase in 2008. “Although 87 percent of our nation’s wealth is generated in our nation’s cities, hunger and homelessness persists in most of our country’s cities and urban centers,” said Conference President Douglas Palmer, the mayor of Trenton, N.J. The survey found that the lack of affordable housing was the most common cause of homelessness for households with children. Other causes included poverty and domestic violence. For single individuals, mental illness and substance abuse were among the most common causes. Twelve of the cities in the survey _ or 52 percent _ reported that homeless people seeking shelter are turned away some or all of the time. But that number is a marked decrease from 2006, when 77 percent reported that homeless were turned away from emergency shelters. For more than two decades, the conference has documented the extent of homelessness and hunger. The 23 participating cities in the 2007 survey are members of the conference’s task force addressing those issues. Other cities included in the study are Charleston, S.C.; Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago; Cleveland; Denver; Des Moines; Detroit; Kansas City, Mo.; Louisville, Ky.; Nashville, Tenn.; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Portland, Ore.; Providence, R.I.; Salt Lake City; San Francisco; Santa Monica, Calif.; Seattle; St. Paul, Minn.; and Trenton, N.J. _ Adelle M. Banks Lutherans purchase carbon credits to offset frequent flying (RNS) While they can’t cut back on church business, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is hoping that perhaps a little bit of good karma will make up for the heavy environmental cost of their transportation. The Washington, D.C., office of the ELCA decided to start purchasing carbon offsets a few months ago, after implementing more routine changes like printing double-sided, turning off lights and recycling. “(Air travel) was an area of pretty major energy use that we really couldn’t cut back on but which we could try to offset,” said Mary Minette, the director for environmental education and advocacy at the ELCA. Using an online carbon calculator, the office tallied up its yearly air miles and decided to invest in methane energy harvesting through NativeEnergy, a renewable energy company based in Charlotte, Vt. NativeEnergy tabulated the carbon output for a roundtrip flight between New York City and Los Angeles at 1.97 tons, which would necessitate a $24 investment in renewable energy under their plan. “The idea is that it neutralizes what you’ve done,” Minette said. The Lutheran Church has been especially focused on global warming, Minette said, though they have also initiated programs on air and water pollution. “Care for Creation,” the church’s 1993 environmental call to action, highlighted a need for attention to climate change. “It has such implications for our future and our entire creation,” Minette said. “I think it’s something where we have a moral voice to bring to bear.” _ Kat Glass Prayer cures a Briton’s legs, but not a stubborn bureaucracy LONDON (RNS) A British pastor’s wife who claims the power of prayer cured her injuries was told her incapacity benefits could not be stopped because the government’s computers didn’t have a “miracle” button. The result, said June Clarke, of Plymouth, England, was that she received more than $7,000 that she didn’t even want _ and she could not get the government to take it back. The 56-year-old woman spent six years in a wheelchair after she was injured in a fall on a slippery floor while at work. Her hip, pelvis and spine were badly damaged, and she had to give up her job when her condition worsened. But Clarke says she was healed last January after her husband, Stuart Clarke, pastor at the Hooe Baptist Church in Plymouth, prayed every day that God would “bring my wife back.” When she realized four months later that the cure appeared to be permanent,she asked the government to stop the incapacity payments because, she said, “I felt uncomfortable taking benefits when I didn’t need them.” But when she contacted the benefits office, she said, she was told that its computers weren’t programmed to recognize an apparently miraculous recovery and that “we haven’t got a button to push that says `miracle.”’ June Clarke has now managed to get the monthly $1,200-plus benefits checks stopped _ although the government still won’t allow her to return the $7,000-plus that she had already received. “It wasn’t ours to spend,” her husband insisted, and “it can’t be that often that a government gets a complaint about unwanted cash.” She says she’s finally worked out an agreement with the benefits office under which she can work as a care provider to get the money back into government coffers. _ Al Webb Ministers lose job-tax exemption in Kentucky county (RNS) Ministers in a Kentucky county will no longer be granted an occupational tax exemption after a local atheist sued to challenge the practice. Edwin Kagin, national legal director of American Atheists Inc., filed his suit in 2005 to challenge Boone County’s exemption of ministers from the tax despite a state law prohibiting such exemptions. Boone, which lies on the northernmost tip of the state, stopped requiring an occupational tax from ministers and other clerics in 2000. “In my mind this could be viewed as a license fee for someone to preach the Gospel, and I disagree with that idea,” said Gary Moore, Boone’s judge executive. “I am a Christian,” Moore said. “I feel that the First Amendment right of our clergy to preach the Gospel should prevail.” Moore, who holds the highest public office in the county, said that he would have fought the suit had the county’s legal counsel not advised against it. Kagin, an atheist who sued the county jointly with American Atheists Inc., said the exemption was unconstitutional. “Why do they think they ought to be exempt?” Kagin said. “Anyone who has to pay an occupational tax ought to be outraged that the county should let the ministers not pay the tax.” Kentucky passed a law in 2006 prohibiting ministerial tax exemptions. “We chose to not enforce the state law,” Moore said. Boone County ministers and other clerics will again be held to the county’s occupational tax. “Now, this is going to be blamed on `Look what atheists are doing to those ministers,’ instead of `Look what ministers are doing to everyone else,”’ Kagin said. _ Kat Glass Reform Jewish leader calls for more attention to the Sabbath (RNS) The leader of Reform Jews is spearheading a campaign for greater observance of a 24-hour Sabbath, including increased attendance at Saturday morning worship. “In our 24/7 culture, the boundary between work time and leisure time has been swept away, and the results are devastating,” said Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, speaking Saturday (Dec. 15) at the biennial convention of the Union for Reform Judaism in San Diego. “Do we really want to live in a world where we make love in half the time and cook every meal in the microwave?” Yoffie said “stressed-out, sleep-deprived families” can benefit from abstaining from wage-earning work and reflecting on life. “We are asked to put aside those Blackberries and stop gathering information, just as the ancient Israelites stopped gathering wood,” he said. “We are asked to stop running around long enough to see what God is doing.” Yoffie’s proposal includes recommendations that congregations set up task forces to study their own Shabbat morning service and those of other congregations, and then suggest how to enhance their services. Since 1869, Reform Jews have observed a Shabbat Eve service on Friday nights. But Yoffie said this practice did not generally lead, as hoped, to attracting people to a morning service the next day. Instead, Yoffie said, Saturday morning services have become “privatized,” with the focus primarily on families celebrating bar or bat mitzvahs. “If I want to go to temple on Shabbat morning but I won’t presume to do so without an invitation from the bar mitzvah family, the time has come to try new things,” he said. New research conducted for the Union of Reform Judaism found that half those surveyed said they attend most or all Shabbat Eve services, but a only a quarter said they worship Saturday morning in their congregations. The online survey was completed by more than 12,000 people. _ Adelle M. Banks Orthodox Jewish family fights to keep father on life support TORONTO (RNS) A clash between faith and medicine is playing out in a hospital in Winnipeg, Canada, where the family of an Orthodox Jewish man on life support is fighting doctors who say the man likely will never recover. A judge is considering whether to extend a temporary injunction keeping 84-year-old Samuel Golubchuk on life support. His family says it’s a violation of their Orthodox Jewish faith to remove him from life support, and their lawyer argued in court that removal would constitute assault and battery. The family believes it would be murder. Golubchuk was admitted to Winnipeg’s Grace Hospital in October with a pre-existing brain injury. He went on life support Nov. 30. He can’t walk, speak or eat on his own, and needs a ventilator to breathe. Doctors believe he will not recover, and want to remove his breathing apparatus. His son and daughter won a temporary injunction to keep him alive, arguing that Judaism forbids any action that would hasten death. “They believe that an intentional act that will likely result in death is murder,” said their lawyer, Neil Kravetsky. “Orthodox Jewish people are of the view that where there’s life, there’s hope, and you don’t stop treating someone.” The hospital’s lawyer argued that patients do not have the right to demand treatment, nor do they have a right to demand the continuation of treatment. The Canadian Medical Association has warned that an extension of the injunction could set a precedent that would force doctors to provide futile or even potentially harmful medical care when a family demands it. “We don’t want to see physicians making decisions with one eye on the lawyers,” said Jeff Blackmer, the CMA’s executive director of medical ethics. A poll released this week shows Canadians on the side of the Golubchuk family. The Angus Reid poll showed nearly seven in 10 Canadians think family members _ not doctors or judges _ should decide when to remove a vegetative patient from life support. _ Ron Csillag Magi and guiding star are stuff of Christmas legend, Anglican head says LONDON (RNS) Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan WIlliams says elements of the traditional Christmas story, such as the three Magi and the star of Bethlehem, are the stuff of “legend.” In fact, Williams says, biblical accounts of events surrounding the birth of Jesus are vague, and interpretations built up through the centuries are sometimes misleading or even unlikely. The archbishop, spiritual leader of the world’s 77 million Anglicans, particularly cited the tradition of the Magi _ the three wise men who followed the star of Bethlehem to Jesus’ birthplace in a lowly stable. The Gospel of Matthew, Williams told the BBC Wednesday (Dec. 19), says that the Magi “are astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire _ that’s all we are really told.” Matthew “doesn’t tell us there were three of them, doesn’t tell us they were kings, doesn’t tell us where they came from,” Williams said. “It works quite well as legend.” The archbishop stuck strictly to what the Bible says. It doesn’t mention any star guiding the Magi and stopping over a manger in a Bethlehem stable. Stars simply don’t behave like that, Williams said. He also argued that there was little evidence to support the traditional Christmas card views showing the Virgin Mary cradling the baby Jesus amid a milling cluster of wise men, shepherds, oxen and asses _ scenes he described as misleading. Also “very unlikely,” the archbishop said, was the traditional nativity depiction of December snow drifting down on the Bethlehem scene as Jesus was born. In fact, Williams said, there’s no proof that the birth took place in December. That became a part of the story down through the centuries, and “Christmas was when it was because it fitted well with the winter festival.” _ Al Webb Trappist monks to halt egg production after PETA protests (RNS) A Trappist abbey in South Carolina has announced that it will end its egg production business after accusations of animal cruelty by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. “While the monks are sad to give up work that has sustained them for many years … the pressure from PETA has made it difficult for them to live their quiet life of prayer, work and sacred reading,” said the Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner, S.C., in a statement. PETA had accused the monks of mistreating chickens on their egg farm and had sent an investigator, posing as a retreatant at the abbey, who found evidence of “shocking cruelty” to the hens. In February, the abbey said the monks had followed guidelines of the United Egg Producers to ensure the hens were treated well. At that time, a spokeswoman for the group confirmed that an earlier audit found the abbey to be in compliance with the guidelines. The Rev. Stan Gumula, abbot of Mepkin Abbey, said the monks will phase out egg production over the next 18 months and seek a new industry that will aid them in meeting their expenses. The monks follow a tradition of agricultural work as a basic component of monastic life. PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich welcomed the abbey’s decision. “Bravo to the monks at Mepkin Abbey for doing the right thing and agreeing to stop supporting the horrible cruelty of the egg industry,” Friedrich said. “PETA will be the first in line to buy a case of whatever cruelty-free product the abbey decides to sell instead.” _ Adelle M. Banks Left-leaning Roman Catholics issue voter guide for presidential race (RNS) Catholics United, a group of left-leaning lay Roman Catholics, is distributing 30,000 voter guides for the presidential primaries, focusing on early voting states and listing eight issues they say affect human dignity and the “common good.” Major cities in Iowa, which holds bipartisan caucuses Jan. 3, and New Hampshire, home to the nation’s first primaries later that month, will receive most of the guides, according to Catholics United. The group says it independently researched the candidates’ positions on eight issues, which it lists in the following order: the Iraq war, poverty, abortion, the death penalty, health care, immigration, care for the Earth, and foreign relations. Each candidate’s stance is explained in a paragraph. “This guide will be a useful tool because it shows the candidates’ moral convictions as demonstrated by past actions, and it provides an indicator of how they will govern as the next president,” said James Salt of Catholics United. Joseph Wright, a political scientist and Catholics United board member, said Catholics “will play a pivotal role in determining the outcome of the election given their large share of the electorate in Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire and Nevada.” The U.S. Catholic bishops have discouraged Catholics from consulting voting guides not produced by the bishops themselves, or by their state’s Catholic conferences. _ Daniel Burke Quote of the Week: Mormon Leader Elder M. Russell Ballard (RNS) “We cannot stand on the sidelines while others, including our critics, attempt to define what the church teaches.” _ Elder M. Russell Ballard, the senior apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in a speech Saturday (Dec. 15) to graduating students of Brigham Young University-Hawaii. KRE END RNS