c. 2008 Religion News Service

Pelosi rejects calls to abstain from Communion

WASHINGTON (RNS) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking Catholic in the U.S. government, on Wednesday (April 16) kissed the pope’s ring at the White House and said she plans to receive Communion at a massive stadium Mass on Thursday.

Pelosi told reporters she is undeterred by requests from some conservative Catholics that she and other Catholic politicians should be denied the sacrament because of their support of abortion rights.

“I think the church can only do what it believes and I respect that,” said Pelosi, D-Calif., “and I can’t do anything other than what I believe.”

At Wednesday’s arrival ceremony for Pope Benedict XVI, Pelosi greeted the pontiff by kissing his ring. She plans to be among an estimated 40,000 people at an open-air papal Mass at Nationals Park in Washington.

“I always take Communion when I go to church, and I go to church regularly,” she said, noting that she received the sacrament on Sunday at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, and indicated that Cardinal Edward Egan made no attempt to stop her.

Pelosi said her biggest disagreement with the Catholic hierarchy is over its ban on artificial contraception, not abortion, but said there are far more areas where she agrees than where she dissents.

“God gave us all a free will and a responsibility to be accountable and to live up to our responsibilities, and that’s how I see it,” she said. “The church sees it another way.”

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told the Washington-based Politico newspaper that “no one is policing” who will receive Communion and who will not at the Washington events.

“I’d hope that (people would) not use Communion, that which brings us all together as Christians, as Catholics, as something that would shatter that union,” Pelosi said.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Supreme Court: Kentucky’s lethal injection constitutional

WASHINGTON (RNS) Kentucky’s process of lethal injection that uses a three-drug cocktail is constitutional, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday (April 16).

The 7-2 ruling, delivered in an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, involved a case in which convicted murderers on death row in Kentucky charged that state’s execution method violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment.”

“Simply because an execution method may result in pain, either by accident or as an inescapable consequence of death, does not establish the sort of `objectively intolerable risk of harm’ that qualifies as cruel and unusual,” Roberts concluded.

The inmates had contended that there were risks that the drugs involved in the process would be improperly administered and they suggested alternatives to the procedure that would reduce “risk of harm.”

“A condemned prisoner cannot successfully challenge a state’s method of execution merely by showing a slightly or marginally safer alternative,” the chief justice wrote.

Thirty-six states and the federal government use lethal injection for capital punishment. At least 30 of the states, including Kentucky, use the same three-drug combination questioned in this case.

Roberts noted that while “reasonable people of good faith disagree on the morality and efficacy of capital punishment,” the high court has ruled that it is constitutional and has always rejected challenges that particular methods for it are cruel and unusual.

Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing in a dissent joined by Associate Justice David Souter, said she thought the question of risk should have been investigated further by the courts.

“Kentucky’s protocol lacks basic safeguards used by other states to confirm that an inmate is unconscious before injection of the second and third drugs,” she said.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Noted ecumenist Krister Stendahl dead at 86

(RNS) Krister Stendahl, a visionary of inclusive Christianity and a proponent of stronger Christian-Jewish relations, died Tuesday (April 15) at the age of 86 in Boston, Harvard Divinity School announced.

Stendahl, who served as the school’s dean from 1968 to 1979, had been in failing health. He was credited with expanding the diversity of the school, especially among women and African-Americans.

Stendahl was the first chaplain of Harvard Divinity School in the late 1980s and became a professor of Christian Studies at Brandeis University, a Jewish-sponsored school in Waltham, Mass., in the 1990s.

A native of Stockholm, Sweden, he was ordained in the (Lutheran) Church of Sweden in 1944. He went on to serve as bishop of Stockholm in the mid-1980s and led reform efforts on women’s ordination and gay rights. He was among the religious leaders who officiated at the 2003 consecration of New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop in the United States.

After retiring from his Brandeis post, Stendahl and his wife, Brita, worked on efforts to build Christian-Jewish relations, including fostering visits by American scholars to the Holy Land. He also served as co-director of a religious pluralism center at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem in 1994.

David Hartman, co-director of the institute, said there is a “profound void” created by Stendahl’s death.

“The passing of Krister Stendahl is a sad moment for all human beings who celebrate diversity and appreciate the significance and dignity of the other,” Hartman said in a statement.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Praying coach is rebuffed by court

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. (RNS) A decision by East Brunswick’s football coach to bow his head and kneel during student-led pre-game prayers represents an endorsement of religious activity at a public school event, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday (April 15).

Marcus Borden, who has coached the Middlesex County team since 1983, found himself in the center of an intense debate about prayer and school athletics in 2005 after parents complained to the district that he prayed with students at pasta dinners on Friday afternoons and in the locker room before games.

Borden quit his coaching job amid the controversy, then rescinded his resignation and vowed to fight new district policies that targeted employees’ involvement in prayer.

On Tuesday, Borden’s lawyer vowed to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case after the three appeals court judges unanimously overturned a lower court ruling in Borden’s favor, but issued three separate reasonings.

“The Supreme Court should hear this case because so far there have been four judges who rendered an opinion that’s different from the others’ decisions,” attorney Ronald Riccio said. “This is primed for the Supreme Court.”

The case began in November 2005 when Borden filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the district’s regulations were overly broad. He won a district court ruling in July 2006 deeming those rules unconstitutional.

But the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals panel overturned that decision and ruled that by bowing his head and going down on one knee while students prayed, Borden, 53, was endorsing religion.

“We find that based on the history of Borden’s conduct with the team’s players, his acts cross the line and constitute an unconstitutional endorsement of religion,” the three-judge panel wrote in the ruling. “Although Borden believes that he must continue to engage in these actions to demonstrate solidarity with his team … we must consider whether a reasonable observer would perceive his actions as endorsing religion, not whether Borden intends to endorse religion.”

The East Brunswick Board of Education had pursued the appeals court ruling, arguing Borden’s decision to kneel and bow his head when students prayed before games constituted an endorsement of religion whether he mouthed the words with his players or not. The school board’s appeal was joined by Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

“East Brunswick Public Schools is very pleased with today’s unanimous ruling … upholding as reasonable the district’s policy against employees participating in prayer,” Superintendent Jo Ann Magistro said in a prepared statement.

_ Chandra M. Hayslett

Quote of the Day: Ron Del Sesto of Providence, R.I.

(RNS) “Each pope brings his own personality. We always cherish the past. … The past pope was A, B, C. (Benedict XVI) is D, E, F.”

_ Ron Del Sesto, of Providence, R.I., contrasting Pope Benedict XVI with his predecessor, the late Pope John Paul II, after hearing Benedict at the White House welcoming ceremony for him on Wednesday (April 16).

KRE END RNS