c. 2008 Religion News Service

Vatican: Interfaith dialogue `held hostage by Islam’

VATICAN CITY (RNS) An obsession with Islam threatens to distract the Catholic Church from dialogue with other religions, according to the top Vatican official in charge of interfaith relations.

“In a way we are being held hostage by Islam a little bit,” said Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, in an interview published Tuesday (June 10) on the Catholic Web site Terrasanta.net.

“Islam is very important, but there are also other great Asiatic religious traditions,” he added.

Tauran spoke after the annual plenary meeting of the Vatican body over which he presides, which is preparing a set of guidelines on dialogue with non-Christian faiths. He said that those guidelines would not give special emphasis to Islam.

“People are obsessed with Islam,” Tauran said. “We mustn’t get the impression there are first-class religions and second-class religions.”

Tauran drew complaints from prominent Muslim scholars and critics last October when he told a French newspaper that Muslims’ belief that the Quran is the literal word of God makes theological dialogue with them “difficult.”

A group of Muslim thinkers led by Jordan’s Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal will meet with Pope Benedict XVI and other church leaders at the Vatican this November.

Tensions with Islam have marked Benedict’s pontificate since Sept. 2006, when the pope angered many Muslims with a speech in Regensburg, Germany, in which he quoted a medieval description of the teachings of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad as “evil and inhuman” and “spread by the sword.”

_ Francis X. Rocca

Calif. Episcopal dioceses split on gay marriage

LOS ANGELES (RNS) As California clerks prepare to issue civil marriage licenses to same-sex couples starting June 17, some Episcopal dioceses say they will marry gays and lesbians while others are urging caution.

In San Francisco, Bishop Marc Handley Andrus has asked his flock to serve as deputy marriage commissioners to help handle the expected flood of marriage applications.

“There are over 4,000 civil same-sex marriages planned in a short period of time in the city of San Francisco alone and the city is asking for help in meeting demand,” Andrus wrote in a June 9 pastoral letter. “I intend to volunteer for this at my earliest opportunity. … By city requirement, clergy will not be allowed to wear collars when presiding at secular marriages.”

The Episcopal Church is arguably is the most prominent of the mainline Protestant denominations struggling with gay marriage issues. Like other faiths, it has no official rite for same-sex marriages; some bishops allow clergy to bless same-sex unions.

Los Angeles Bishop Jon Bruno said his diocese approved blessings of same-sex unions in 2003 if pastors determined they are “pastorally necessary.” That policy now will be followed for gay and lesbian couples who have state marriage licenses.

“If it’s a pastoral necessity, they (pastors) can go ahead,” Bruno said in an interview, adding, “I would, really in all honesty, wish that we weren’t in the marriage business, that we blessed unions and the state took care of the legality.”

Sacramento Bishop Barry Beisner told his clergy last month that “this change in civil law does not change our policy or practice in the church … there has been no authorization _ from me or from my predecessors _ for same-sex blessings in this diocese.”

In San Diego, Bishop James Mathes said he supported the court’s decision but added, “I am mindful that our church has not yet made the decision to bless same-sex unions.”

The Monterey-based Diocese of El Camino Real, after seeking guidance from clergy in Massachusetts, decided that priests can bless same-sex unions on a case-by-case basis but cannot recognize them as marriages.

“It’s business as usual,” said the Rev. Brian Nordwick, the diocesan administrator, adding that same-sex couples must obtain a civil marriage “outside of the church and then come to the church and get a blessing for that.”

Meanwhile, the Fresno-based San Joaquin diocese, which severed its ties to the national church last year, alligned itself with a conservative Anglican archbishop in South America and says it will not bless gay unions.

The Rev. Mark Hall, who is helping rebuild a San Joaquin diocese with help from the national church, said, “We’re not authorizing anything either, simply because it is an issue that’s not decided yet,” Hall said. “When the Episcopal church authorizes it, we would probably allow it.”

_ David Finnigan

Two small faith-based groups lose tax-exempt status

WASHINGTON (RNS) The Internal Revenue Service has revoked the tax-exempt status of two small faith-based organizations in Utah and Missouri.

Prayer Works, of Branson, Mo., and America’s Faith Centered Education Foundation, Inc., of Huntsville, Utah, will no longer be listed as non-profit charities, according to a June 2 IRS announcement.

That means donations to the organizations will no longer be tax deductible,among other IRS regulations.

IRS spokesman Robert Marvin said federal law prohibits the tax agency from commenting on tax-payer matters.

Pastor Howard Boyd, an Assemblies of God minister who headed Prayer Works,said his organization will no longer operate and will not fight the IRS ruling.

Working with local banks and real estate agents, Boyd said Prayer Works helped 185 families in southwest Missouri buy homes. A home seller would donate money to Prayer Works to be used a down payment for people needing financial assistance, he said.

Prayer Works received a finder’s fee when a home was sold, Boyd said. Loan officers and banks received a commission as well, he added.

“We were not doing anything illegal, but non-profits have strict guidelines and we violated that,” he said.

A call to America’s Faith Centered Education was not immediately returned. Glenn Kimber, a Utah educator familiar with the company, said it raised funds for students “to be educated in an environment where Judeo-Christian values are integrated into the learning process.”

For instance, the organization arranged trips for students to Israel, said Kimber, of Cedar City, Utah.

_ Daniel Burke

Quote of the Day: Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson

(RNS) “The church is not reducible to the flaws and the futilities and the fragilities of one’s human capacity. We’re all human and fragile.”

_ Rev. Michael Eric Dyson, author and Georgetown University professor, speaking at Asbury United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C., on Sunday (June 8) about why black members don’t leave churches when they disagree with their ministers, and why Catholics didn’t leave their parishes at the height of the sexual abuse scandal.

KRE/CM END RNS