c. 2008 Religion News Service
Pope’s approval ratings rise after U.S. visit
(RNS) After Pope Benedict XVI’s first papal visit to the U.S. last month, about 60 percent of Americans now report favorable views of the pontiff, a modest bump from pre-trip opinions, according to new polls.
Before his April 15-20 visit to Washington, D.C. and New York, the German-born pope was largely unknown in the U.S. three years after his election.
In March, more than 80 percent of Americans had said they heard little or nothing about him, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
After Benedict met with President Bush, celebrated public Masses before huge crowds and repeatedly spoke of the pain and shame caused by his church’s sexual abuse scandal, his “approval ratings” increased.
Sixty-one percent of Americans now say they hold a favorable or very favorable view of the pope, up from 52 percent before the trip. More than half of Americans now say the pope does an excellent or good job of promoting relations with other faiths, up from 39 percent in March.
Almost 40 percent say Benedict did an excellent or good job of addressing the sex abuse scandal, but there are no pre-visit comparison numbers. Forty-eight percent say the pope did a fair or poor job of addressing the scandal.
Roughly 40 percent of Americans said the most meaningful part of Benedict’s visit for them was his meeting with survivors of clergy sexual abuse, according to a separate poll conducted by Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
Following that, 14 percent picked the pope’s visit to the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York City as most meaningful, according to the poll, which was commissioned by the Knights of Columbus.
The margin of error on the Pew poll was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. For the Marist poll, the margin of error was 3.1 percentage points.
_ Daniel Burke
School employees win case over time clock dispute
(RNS) Two Louisiana public school employees won’t have to use a biometric time clock that the workers claim violates their religious beliefs.
Arbitrator Bruce Ponder of El Paso, Texas, issued a decision on April 29 that said the St. John the Baptist Parish School Board violated the school employees union’s contract when it violated their religious beliefs by requiring the two workers to use the system, which electronically scans employees’ fingerprints when they clock in and out of work.
Ponder also said the board violated the union contract and federal Fair Labor Standards Act by implementing the system without first bargaining with the union, the St. John Association of Educators, about it.
The school district’s administration implemented the system in October 2006.
Bus driver Sandra McCray and the Rev. Herman Clayton Jr., an electrician in the maintenance department, filed grievances in February 2007, saying the clocks violated their belief in the “End Time” doctrine.
Believers in the doctrine, based on the Bible’s book of Revelation, object to fingerprinting and scanning technology.
Clayton, 57, said his victory was “bittersweet.” He has not been allowed to return to work for 15 months while he refused to use the clock, he said.
“We knew in our hearts and spirit that would be the decision he (Ponder) would make. … The bitter part of it is it took this amount of time,” Clayton said.
Part of the delay was because Ponder was ill, school officials said.
As part of the decision, Ponder ordered the board to pay lost wages and benefits to Clayton and McCray, minus anything they may have earned at other jobs during the time they were suspended. He also directed the board, administration and union to reach a new agreement on the use of the time clock system.
Ponder said it would be too expensive and an unfair burden on the board to require it to replace the $85,000 system. School system personnel executive director Ann LaBorde said Friday the board would comply with the arbitration ruling.
_ Sandra Barbier
Presbyterians tap first black seminary president
(RNS) A descendant of slaves has been named the first black head of a predominantly white Presbyterian Church (USA) seminary _ one located in the capital of the Confederacy, according to the church’s news service.
The Rev. Brian K. Blount, 51, was inaugurated as president of Union Theological Seminary & Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Va., on Wednesday (May 7).
A Virginia native and an ordained Presbyterian minister, Blount served as a New Testament professor for 15 years at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is also a noted author and preacher.
Blount assumes the presidency at Union in July. The seminary has 375 students enrolled and campuses in Richmond and Charlotte, N.C.
“I think seminaries should be catalysts for the revitalization of the church,” Blount, a married father of two, said in statement released by Union.
The predominantly white PC(USA) has 2.3 million members and 10 seminaries in the U.S. It is related by covenant with two other seminaries.
_ Daniel Burke
Conservative lawyers launch fight against IRS
WASHINGTON (RNS) A conservative Christian legal group has launched an initiative for pastors to challenge IRS rules that prevent them from discussing political candidates from the pulpit.
The Alliance Defense Fund said Friday (May 9) that its “Pulpit Freedom Sunday,” set for Sept. 28, will challenge use of IRS regulations to “intimidate” pastors from speaking about political candidates.
“Pastors have a right to speak about biblical values from the pulpit without fear of punishment,” said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel of the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based legal organization.
“No one should be able to use the government to intimidate pastors into giving up their constitutional rights.”
The ADF has posted a form on its Web site for interested pastors to register to be considered for the initiative, which will occur on a Sunday less than two months before the general election.
Mike Johnson, another senior legal counsel with the ADF, said about 100 church leaders, many of whom had already known about the initiative, have shown interest. They include evangelical Protestants and some Catholic priests.
Johnson said it is not the initiative’s intent to encourage candidate endorsements _ which are prohibited for tax-exempt organizations _ but he said: “I think we would defend that as a constitutional right to free speech.”
The ADF documents explain that ADF staff will help each “client church” prepare sermons “to ensure maximum effectiveness in challenging the IRS.” If the IRS investigates a church, it could then be an ADF client in a lawsuit against the tax agency.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State called the initiative “deplorable” and said it would be ready to report churches to the IRS.
“This is a truly deplorable scheme,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of the Washington-based watchdog group. “Federal tax law rightly requires churches and other tax-exempt groups to use their resources for religious and charitable purposes, not partisan politics.”
_ Adelle M. Banks
Rabbis’ call to boycott Olympics prompts backlash
(RNS) A rabbinic call for Jews to boycott the Olympic Games in China has spawned a backlash by major American Jewish organizations.
The petition, signed by 194 American rabbis from across the religious spectrum, cited as its basis “China’s support for the genocidal government of Sudan” the nation’s human rights record, its crackdown on Tibet and providing missiles to Iran and Syria. The letter was circulated to media and Jewish activists on April 30, Holocaust Memorial Day.
“Having endured the bitter experience of abandonment by our presumed allies during the Holocaust, we feel a particular obligation to speak out against injustice and persecution today,” the letter stated, citing Nazi Germany’s use of the 1936 Olympics to “distract attention from its persecution of the Jews,” it stated.
“We dare not permit today’s totalitarian regimes to achieve such victories.”
Since then, five American Jewish groups _ three of them Orthodox _ issued statements that called the rabbis’ letter counterproductive and said references to Nazi Germany were inappropriate.
The Anti-Defamation League, for example, stated that “China is a complicated society that is changing and opening up in many ways, and one simply cannot equate the Beijing Olympics with those games in Nazi Germany on the eve of the Holocaust.”
But the letter’s two initiators, Orthodox Rabbis Yitz Greenberg, the former chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, and Haskel Lookstein of New York’s Kehilath Jeshurun, do not plan a counter-response.
Greenberg said the concerns of Jewish groups were valid, and said he’s not equating Nazi Germany with Beijing, although he said China is using the Olympics to spruce up its image, much like Germany did in 1936.
“For an individual Jew to go and enjoy the Olympics while this oppression is going on is unconscionable and wrong,” he said.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, which represents the largest Jewish movement in America, also backed his signature on the letter.
“Genocide is always a Jewish issue,” he said. “Never again means never again. It doesn’t mean never again when it’s convenient.”
_ Rachel Pomerance
Top archbishop suggests ways to deal with abusive priests
NEWARK, N.J. (RNS) A top U.S. archbishop, recently named to the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, said the panel of cardinals and bishops could help resolve a key issue in the clergy sex abuse scandal: how to remove priests from ministry who abused children decades ago.
Under the church’s Code of Canon Law, the statute of limitation for clergy sex abuse of minors expires 10 years after the victim’s 18th birthday. In older cases, a bishop can ask the Vatican to bypass that rule, but Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, N.J., said he wants to explore ways for bishops to act in such matters without asking Rome.
One possibility for these older cases, Myers said, would be a canon law change that treats molestation and sexual abuse of minors more as an illness than as a violation requiring a penalty. That would allow a bishop to more easily deem these priests unfit for ministry, he said.
“We used to think of alcoholism as a moral failure, and now it’s pretty much considered an illness,” said Myers, 66. “I’m not saying that’s what will happen (with clergy sex abuse of minors), but it wouldn’t be impossible for us to move in that direction.
“If we can find a way to work it so we don’t have to apply (for removal) in each instance, but we can make the judgment locally, that would be better,” he said of bishops acting without making requests to the Vatican.
Last month, during Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States, the New York Times reported that Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Vatican’s powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, suggested that church authorities are considering changing canon law on the statute of limitations regarding clergy sex abuse of minors.
David Clohessy, national director for the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, said he favored “anything that speeds up removing a predator from ministry,” but he cautioned that such a reliance on church procedures puts undeserved faith in bishops’ discretion.
What are needed, he said, are stronger civil and criminal statutes of limitation, which now vary from state to state.
_ Jeff Diamant
Pope asks Israel to resolve stalled tax issue
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Asserting that “all peoples have a right to be given equal opportunities to flourish,” Pope Benedict XVI on Monday (May 12) voiced concern for Israel’s dwindling Christian minority, and called for a relaxation of travel restrictions on the country’s Palestinians.
The pope made his remarks on in a meeting with Mordechay Lewy, the new Israeli ambassador to the Holy See.
Benedict also called for a “positive and expeditious resolution” of longstanding tax and legal disputes between Israel and the Vatican.
The two states established diplomatic relations in 1993, at which time Israel promised to regularize the legal status of church activities within its borders.
Two major issues remain unresolved, however: the Vatican’s property claims, and its right to tax exemption in the Holy Land.
In recent years, local and regional governments have begun pressing for back taxes on Catholic hospitals and other properties that are not traditional houses of worship, which are generally tax-exempt.
Negotiations also aim to establish the Holy See’s official status as a major landowner in Israel. At issue is whether Israel will cede jurisdiction over religious properties from the executive branch to the courts.
Yet another issue, which Benedict mentioned specifically on Monday, is the Vatican’s difficulty in obtaining Israeli visas for church personnel, especially those hailing from Arab countries.
Representatives of Israel and the Vatican last met in December in Jerusalem, and adjourned without reporting significant progress in the talks. Negotiators are scheduled to meet again in Rome on May 28.
_ Francis X. Rocca
Vatican astronomer suggests aliens do not need salvation
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Intelligent life may exist on other planets and has no need of redemption through Jesus Christ, the Vatican’s top astronomer said.
The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted in the Wednesday (May 14) edition of the official Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
The interview appeared under the headline: “The extraterrestrial is my brother.”
“Just as a multiplicity of creatures exists on the Earth, so there could be other creatures, even intelligent ones, created by God,” the Argentine Jesuit said. “This does not conflict with our faith, because we cannot set limits on the creative liberty of God.”
According to Funes, such creatures may never have fallen into sin, and so have no need of salvation through Christianity.
“It is not a given that they have need of redemption,” he said. “They may have remained in full friendship with their Creator.”
Asked about the possibility of redemption for sinful extraterrestrials, Funes said he was “sure that even they, in some way, would have the possibility of enjoying the mercy of God.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Funes argued that the “big bang” theory of the universe’s origins does not conflict with the biblical account of creation.
Funes also said that the Catholic Church had “recognized its errors” in its treatment of the 17th-century astronomer Galileo Galilei, who was convicted by the Inquisition for teaching that the earth revolves around the sun.
_ Francis X. Rocca
Archbishop says Kansas governor must decide Communion issue
(RNS) The Catholic archbishop of Kansas City, Kan., said he hopes Gov. Kathleen Sebelius will abide by his request to stop receiving Communion before he has to take further punitive measures because she supports abortion rights.
“There are a number of pastoral alternatives open to me at this time” if Sebelius refuses, including barring the governor from Communion or excommunicating her from the church, Archbishop Joseph Naumann said in an interview late Monday (May 12).
“I’m not sure that’s an action I would take,” Naumann said of excommunication, “but I’m not eliminating any options.”
The archbishop also said he could ask his priests to refuse the sacrament to Sebelius, but “it seems to make more pastoral sense to me to put the responsibility on the politician first.”
Catholic doctrine holds that abortion is “intrinsically evil” _ wrong in all circumstances. A spokeswoman for Sebelius said the governor will respond to Naumann by letter and has no comment at this time.
Naumann asked Sebelius to refrain from receiving Communion in a column in the archdiocesan newspaper, “The Leaven,” saying the governor’s support for abortion rights sends a “spiritually lethal message” to other Catholics.
The archbishop said he has met with Sebelius to discuss their disagreements on abortion at least four times, and privately requested that she not take Communion last August.
Naumann issued the public request, he said Monday, after he learned Sebelius later received Communion at a Kansas parish and the governor vetoed an anti-abortion bill April 21.
“Even if I am not able to help the governor understand the errors of her ways, then my other pastoral concern is to protect other people from being misled,” Naumann said.
Sebelius, who has been governor since 2003, has said she personally opposes abortion and worked to reduce them through adoption incentives, health care services and sex education.
In a 2006 speech to progressive Catholics, she said, “I disagree with the suggestion that criminalizing women and their doctors is an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the number of abortions in our nation.”
Sebelius said she vetoed the April 21 bill _ which would have allowed family members to seek a court order preventing a woman from obtaining an abortion _ because it was “likely unconstitutional” and did not adequately protect women’s health.
Lisa Cahill, a moral theologian at Boston College, said, “I don’t think it’s fair to condemn her because she disagrees on the best way to reduce abortions.”
Naumann said Sebelius “has a responsibility to try to change the laws (on abortion). She, in fact, does that in all sorts of other areas.”
_ Daniel Burke
British Airways pulls meat meals to avoid offending Hindus
LONDON (RNS) British Airways has taken beef, one of the nation’s favorite dishes, off the menu for thousands of economy class passengers on long-haul flights over concerns that it might offend Hindus.
Britain’s flagship airline announced that in-flight choices are now restricted to fish or chicken dishes _ and that beef is no longer an option, at least for this summer.
It said it still had not decided whether to extend the beef ban into the winter season.
The airline explained to journalists that “we can only serve two options, and beef and pork obviously have religious restrictions … (and) we have to try to use two meals which appeal to as many customers as possible.”
British Airways’ second-largest long-haul market is to India, where Hindus, who make up the majority population, shun beef because of their religious beliefs. Economy-class passengers will be given the choice of a fish pie or chicken option.
However, in the airline’s business and first-class cabins, it will be business _ and beef _ as usual.
Britain’s Hindus appeared bemused by the move. “The Hindu community will welcome this decision and the news it has been made partly because Hindus don’t eat beef,” said the Hindu Council UK.
But “that said,” the council added, “Hindus are tolerant of the beliefs of others and do not expect everyone to stop eating a food because they (Hindus) do not eat it.”
_ Al Webb
Quote of the Week: Cheron Brylski of New Orleans
(RNS) “Since Katrina, our government has failed us, our levees have failed us, and now our bishop is failing us.”
_ Cheron Brylski, a parishioner at Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church in New Orleans, which is scheduled to be closed under a post-Katrina downsizing plan. She was quoted by USA Today.
END RNS
