c. 2008 Religion News Service

Supreme Court to consider religious monuments case

WASHINGTON (RNS) The Supreme Court decided Monday (March 31) to review the case of a 33-year-old religious organization that wants to have its tenets posted in a Utah municipal park near a monument of the Ten Commandments.

The justices will consider the case of Pleasant Grove City v. Summum after the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the city should erect the church’s “Seven Aphorisms” monument.

In their request for the high court’s consideration, lawyers for the city said the appellate court’s decision could “impose severe practical burdens on government entities” and affect their control of public land.

“The Supreme Court is faced with a dramatic opportunity: preserve sound precedent involving the well-established distinction between government speech and private speech _ or permit a twisted interpretation of the Constitution to create havoc in cities and localities across America,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, and the lawyer representing Pleasant Grove City.

The attorney representing Summum, which is based in Salt Lake City, was not available for comment.

The church was incorporated in 1975. According to its Web site, Moses received the “aphorisms that outlined principles underlying Creation and all of nature” during one trip to Mount Sinai and received the Ten Commandments on a second trip to the mountain.

Summum has called the city’s denial of its request to erect the aphorisms monument a violation of free expression guaranteed by the First Amendment.

In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that religious monuments on public grounds are constitutional, but suggested they need to be displayed with other historical images or documents to avoid an overtly religious message.

Pioneer Park, the city park at the center of the case, includes an artifact from the Mormon Temple in Nauvoo, Ill., a 9/11 monument that was a Boy Scouts project and a Ten Commandments monument that was donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1971.

The American Humanist Association, which has been critical of Ten Commandments monuments on public grounds, said conservative groups who support such monuments must make public space available for all.

“Now they must reap what they have sown,” said AHA president Mel Lipman. “Either they get their monuments at the price of letting all others in, or they give them up _ they can’t have it both ways.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Vatican: Islam has `overtaken’ number of Catholics

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Islam has “overtaken” Catholicism in number of adherents, though Christianity as a whole remains the world’s most widely professed faith, the Vatican’s top statistician said.

“For the first time in history we are no longer at the summit: The Muslims have overtaken us,” said Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, head of the Central Office of Church Statistics, in the Sunday (March 30) edition of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.

Muslims accounted for 19.2 percent of the world’s population in 2006, whereas Catholics made up 17.4 percent, Formenti said, giving the total number of Catholics as 1.13 billion.

All Christian denominations together accounted for 33 percent of the world population, the Vatican official noted.

Formenti suggested that the head count of Catholics was more “scientific” than the Muslim figures. The Vatican collects its data through surveys by Catholic dioceses and parishes, he explained; whereas the number of Muslims is based on information provided by Islamic states, which rely primarily on estimates of population growth.

“While Islamic families continue to beget many children, Christians instead tend to have ever fewer,” he said.

Formenti also noted statistical trends within the church, including a rise in the number of men studying for the priesthood.

“It’s the first time that the trend is positive at such levels,” he said, noting that there were 115,000 men enrolled in seminaries around the world, compared to only 79,000 three decades earlier.

The region of fastest growth for priests is Asia, above all the Philippines, he said, while the least fertile terrain is found in three European countries: France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

_ Francis X. Rocca

Yearbook editor to leave NCC

(RNS) The Rev. Eileen Lindner, the widely respected researcher who has overseen the annual Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches, will leave her post at the National Council of Churches on May 15.

Lindner has edited the Yearbook, which is considered to be the most authoritative source of church membership statistics and trends, for 10 years. She said she doesn’t have the fundraising skills the position now requires.

“The role of fundraiser needs to be focused much more sharply than is possible in my current position,” said Lindner, who survived an NCC staff shakeup to become the NCC’s director of organizational development on Jan. 1.

Lindner, an ordained Presbyterian minister known for her work on children’s issues and church-based health care ministries, said the NCC “needs to feel free to rewrite the position description” and find someone better versed in fundraising.

The Rev. Michael Kinnamon, the NCC’s new general secretary, said, “Eileen will certainly be missed as the NCC moves forward with this transition necessary to serving its best interests.”

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Quote of the Day: Papal nuncio Archbishop Pietro Sambi

(RNS) “He is not a man of blah, blah, blah. He’s a thinker, and before speaking, he thinks.”

_ Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the papal nuncio (Vatican ambassador) to Washington, in an interview with The New York Times about Pope Benedict XVI.

KRE/PH END RNS