c. 2008 Religion News Service
Parents plead not guilty in daughter’s death
OREGON CITY, Ore. _ A couple who tried to heal their dying daughter with prayer walked hand in hand into a crowded courtroom Monday and pleaded not guilty to charges of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment.
Carl Brent Worthington, 28, and Raylene Marie Worthington, 25, are the first parents prosecuted since Oregon cracked down on faith-healing deaths nearly a decade ago. If convicted, they could spend more than six years in prison.
The Worthingtons, members of Oregon City’s Followers of Christ Church, barely spoke a word as Judge Kathie Steele explained the charges. In subdued voices, they answered “yes” and “yes, your honor” to acknowledge they could face prison time, then dodged television cameras as they left the courtroom.
They remain free on $250,000 bonds. A trial is set for mid-June.
Their 15-month-old daughter, Ava Worthington, died at home March 2 from bacterial bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection. Both conditions could have been treated with antibiotics, according to Dr. Christopher Young, a deputy state medical examiner.
Ava’s breathing was further compromised by a benign four-inch cyst on her neck that had never been medically addressed, Young said.
The Followers of Christ, a non-denominational congregation with roots in the 19th-century Pentecostal movement, came under state scrutiny in the late 1990s after several church children died from medically treatable conditions. The deaths prompted state lawmakers to remove religious shield laws for parents who treat gravely ill children solely with prayer.
A spokeswoman for the Christian Science Church, which lobbied for Oregon’s original faith-healing shield laws, acknowledged that the church has been following the Worthington case but declined to comment.
Between 1999, when the new law took effect, and the Worthington case, prosecutors found no incidents of significant medical neglect among Followers of Christ Church members.
A grand jury brought two charges: second-degree manslaughter and second-degree criminal mistreatment. The parents’ “failure to provide medical care caused the death of their daughter; that’s what the grand jury’s charged them with,” explained chief deputy district attorney Greg Horner.
The Worthingtons reportedly also have a young daughter.
On Monday, a pair of defense attorneys representing the Worthingtons said they were waiting to see reports and evidence in the case and wouldn’t comment on the charges.
“They’re presumed innocent at this time, and we ask that no one prejudge them,” said attorney John Neidig, who represents Raylene Worthington. “They have not had the time to breathe properly since this tremendous tragedy, and we hope to provide them with a little privacy and respect.”
_ Jessica Bruder
UpDATE: 4 of 6 ministries submit materials to Grassley
WASHINGTON (RNS) Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Monday (March 31) that the majority of the six prominent ministries he has been investigating are now cooperating with his requests to provide him with financial information.
Bishop Eddie Long’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., has said it will provide information on April 15, Grassley’s staff announced. And a lawyer for Randy and Paula White, who co-pastored Without Walls International Church in Tampa, Fla., told Grassley’s office that materials had been sent to him.
The office had already received materials from Joyce Meyer Ministries in Fenton, Mo., and Benny Hinn Ministries of Grapevine, Texas.
Creflo Dollar Ministries in College Park, Ga., has refused to submit financial records, and Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Newark, Texas, has responded to the request but hasn’t provided sufficient materials.
Dollar’s and Copeland’s ministries each sent letters to members of the Senate Finance Committee in late March expressing concerns about the privacy of their congregants.
Grassley, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, plans to “continue dialogue” with those two ministries, his office said.
Grassley, in a letter co-signed by committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., had requested materials from Copeland, Dollar, Long and the Whites by March 31.
“It’s good to see the majority of the ministries offering information,” said Grassley. “The ministries’ sharing of material with the Senate committee in charge of tax policy shows an interest in accountability for their special tax status.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Diocese Web site gets an April Fool’s makeover
BOSTON (RNS) Drivers of energy-efficient Toyota Priuses awoke Tuesday (April 1) to a grand invitation: Come to the cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts this Saturday (April 5) and have your vehicle blessed by three eco-minded bishops.
But alas, the invitation was a joke. April Fool _ courtesy of unidentified hackers.
Perpetrators of the green humor had hijacked the diocesan Web site. Visitors to the site Tuesday morning found the fake announcement alongside an obviously doctored image of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as they supposedly attended a Prius blessing last year.
SUV drivers were invited to the spoof event, too. Organizers encouraged them to park their gas guzzlers and “run on foot in front of the herd of just-blessed vehicles.”
A Web site manager dashed the prank by replacing its content shortly after 9 a.m., but damage control wasn’t entirely finished. Hackers had also sent e-mail from diocesan spokeswoman Maria Plati to dozens of contacts, inviting them to the blessing. She apologized in an e-mail for the mix up.
“I’m afraid I was taken as part of an April’s fool joke,” Plati wrote. “Ironically, it sounded like something we would do!”
_ G. Jeffrey MacDonald
Quote of the Day: Attorney Brian Barnard of Salt Lake City, Utah
(RNS) “It’s a matter of simple fairness. If you let one private group put up a monument in a public park, you have to let another private group put up a monument. You can’t pick and choose.”
_ Brian Barnard, a Salt Lake City attorney representing followers of the Summum faith who want to erect a monument in a park in Pleasant Grove, Utah. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed March 31 to hear the case. He was quoted by The Salt Lake Tribune.
KRE/RB END RNS
