c. 2008 Religion News Service

SMU agrees to house Bush library

(RNS) Southern Methodist University has formally agreed to house the George W. Bush presidential library, museum and public policy institute on its Dallas campus, despite objections from liberal United Methodists.

Trustees at the United Methodist-related university voted unanimously to green light an agreement with the Bush Presidential Library Foundation on Feb. 22.

In a letter to SMU President R. Gerald Turner, Bush said, “I look forward to the day when both the general public and scholars come and explore the important and challenging issues our nation has faced during my presidency.”

Bush and his wife, Laura Bush, an SMU graduate, are United Methodists.

Not all Methodists were pleased with SMU’s approval, however.

An online petition protesting the Bush Foundation plans garnered more than 11,000 signatures. Some objected to SMU, which was founded by Methodists in 1911, housing a partisan think tank promoting the Bush administration on campus. Some Bush policies, particularly the war in Iraq, run counter to Methodist beliefs, they said.

The Rev. Andrew Weaver, a United Methodist pastor and psychologist from New York, said he planned to continue to fight the Bush foundation plans.

“SMU has signed something that is totally out of bounds, and it’s only a matter of going to court with them,” he told United Methodist News Service. “It will be David vs. Goliath, but David won the first time.”

However, Bishop Scott Jones, of the UMC’s South Central Jurisdiction, which includes SMU, said the university “has the authority to enter this agreement.”

_ Daniel Burke

Film argues for gentler church approach to divorce

(RNS) Divorced people no longer feel as if they are wearing a scarlet “D” on their chests when they walk into most houses of worship.

The prevalence of divorce has forced even the most conservative church leaders to grapple with the issue and explore ways to welcome people from unsuccessful marriages without giving up the ideal of a lifelong union blessed by God, church observers say.

Yet Christian filmmaker Dave Christiano said there are still times when he gets the sense that churchgoers who have never gone through a divorce look at a divorced person and can barely hide the thought, “What did that guy do wrong?”

In his new film, “Me & You, Us, Forever,” writer-director Christiano, 51, of North Carolina, tells the story of a divorced 47-year-old Christian man who thinks back and reminisces about his first love of 30 years ago.

The semiautobiographical movie, which opened Feb. 22 in 83 U.S. cities, is based on Christiano’s first love with a New York woman; he would not disclose the woman’s name.

“This is a tribute to a lost first love,” he said.

But it also is meant to help Christians, particularly those going through a divorce initiated by a spouse, as Christiano did, to accept that such devastating losses happen in life and cannot always be explained.

“The answer is, God is God. He’s the Lord,” said Christiano, who calls himself a nondenominational, Bible-believing Christian. “The issue is to try to grow and mature and deal with it” without remaining angry and bitter.

The main character in the movie, Dave, is angry at both his ex-wife and God. When a friend says God is not responsible for divorce, Dave responds, “Why not? He’s the one running the show, isn’t he?”

A divorce-recovery group at a church helps Dave deal with his anger and denial.

Pastors need to confront the issue, Christiano said.

“Look out at your congregation, and 90 percent of people have been touched by divorce,” Christiano said. “What I try to do with my film is to offer some help to people.”

_ David Briggs

Chosen few get stadium tickets for papal Mass

NEWARK, N.J. (RNS) Christine Larrabee is grateful there were witnesses. Otherwise the news would have been a tough sell at her Catholic church in Cranford, N.J.

The drama at St. Michael’s, like at most Catholic churches in New Jersey, revolved around who would get tickets to see Pope Benedict XVI celebrate Mass at Yankee Stadium April 20.

Eighty people at St. Michael’s vied for the five tickets given to each parish in the Newark Archdiocese. Larrabee and her husband, Bardsson, each had their names picked, defying long odds that a wife and husband could win.

“I’m glad they did it in a public forum,” said Christine Larrabee, “or no one would have believed it. … I’m fairly active in the parish, so there was definitely going to be a lot of teasing if it wasn’t done the way it was done.”

Of the 60,000 tickets available for the papal Mass, only about 3,500 went to New Jersey. The archdioceses of Boston and Philadelphia received double that number because they are celebrating bicentennials, according to media reports.

The New York Archdiocese is in charge of distributing the tickets for the Yankees Stadium Mass, giving somewhere between a third and half of the total tickets to the 400 churches within its boundaries, said Joseph Zwilling, an archdiocese spokesman.

“Basically our general rule of thumb was, the bicentennial dioceses and then the contiguous dioceses (to New York) _ Newark, Brooklyn and Bridgeport _ would get a little bit larger allotment than would the other dioceses in New York state,” he said.

The ticket distribution has left many Catholics in neighboring New Jersey unsatisfied.

“People of course have wanted to know, `Are there any extras?’ and `What do we have to pay?”’ said James Goodness, a spokesman for Newark Archbishop John J. Myers. “We’ve said there’s no payment for the tickets. … And they’re limited.”

Pastors were able to use their own discretion when handing out tickets. Some pastors held raffles, others awarded the papal Mass tickets to church volunteers or staff. Shugrue gave most of his church’s share to pastoral council members.

The Rev. Stephen Feehan, of Little Flower Parish in Berkeley Heights, N.J., made his available only to church employees.

“I didn’t want to make a big thing about it. … I only had five tickets,” he said. “There was no point in spreading out the invitations when you had very little to give.”

_ Jeff Diamant

Quote of the Day: Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for Catholic bishops

(RNS) “It’s a minor feast. Don’t tell that to the Irish, though.”

_ Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, about St. Patrick’s Day, March 17. U.S. bishops have encouraged Catholics to honor the patron saint of Ireland earlier in March, so as not to interfere with Holy Week, which begins March 16 this year. Walsh was quoted by the Chicago Sun-Times. (Feb. 22)

KRE DS END RNS