c. 2008 Religion News Service

UpDATE: Inmate reaches accord with prison over eagle feathers

(RNS) An American Indian inmate in Wyoming has reached an agreement with prison officials to allow him and other inmates access to bald eagle feathers for use in sacred ceremonies.

Stephen Pevar, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represented inmate Andrew John Yellowbear, called the decision a “great victory for religious freedom.”

Yellowbear, a North Arapaho tribesman, is serving a life sentence at the Wyoming State Penitentiary. Even after Yellowbear was granted a federal permit to keep 10 feathers for daily prayer, prison officials confiscated the only one he had.

The possession of bald eagle feathers is barred by federal law, with an exception made for American Indian tribes that use them for religious practices.

“It’s the means of communicating with the creator,” Arapaho elder Alonzo Moss Sr. said when the ACLU decided to try the case in mid-July. “It’s hard to explain in English. The only thing I can tell you is that it’s no different from the white man using his cross or his rosary.”

An agreement between Wyoming prison officials and the ACLU was filed as a court order Tuesday (July 29) by a judge at the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming.

All prison officials in Wyoming must now allow American Indian prisoners up to four single feathers and a feather fan for group prayer.

Yellowbear filed his suit in January and “met with a lot of resistance,” Pevar said, but within two weeks of connecting with the ACLU, a compromise was reached. The order affects only prisoners in Wyoming.

The case hinged on the 2000 Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which says officials can bar an inmate’s religious practice only if it poses a threat.

“It’s an important recognition that inmates do not lose all their constitutional rights just because they are behind bars,” said David Hudson Jr., a scholar at the First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tenn. “Under (the federal law), there’s a good chance an inmate will prevail.”

_ Mallika Rao

Vatican giving `serious’ thought to union with small Anglican group

(RNS) A top Vatican official said he is giving “serious attention” to a small group of traditionalist Anglicans who are in talks with Rome about a possible reunification with the Catholic Church.

Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told members of the Australia-based Traditional Anglican Communion that their request is under consideration.

“As Your Grace is undoubtedly aware, the situation within the Anglican Communion in general has become markedly more complex,” Levada wrote to Archbishop John Hepworth on July 5, in a letter that was released July 25.

According to Levada’s letter, Hepworth visited Levada’s offices last October. Levada said his staff is reviewing Hepworth’s proposal for “corporate unity” with “serious attention.”

Hepworth’s group, with a reported 400,000 members worldwide, is not a part of the official Anglican Communion headed by the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

It also does not include any of the major conservative Anglican groups, such as the Pittsburgh-based Anglican Communion Network. The Australian group counts as its U.S. member the Anglican Church in America, which split from the Episcopal Church in the late 1970s.

Yet Levada’s letter comes at a crucial time for the worldwide Communion as more than 600 bishops finish their once-a-decade Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England, amid speculation that conservative Anglicans might try to move en masse to reunite with Rome.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, who heads the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, warned Anglican bishops on Wednesday (July 30) that moves to allow women bishops and increasing acceptance of homosexuality threaten to hamper “full visible communion” between Canterbury and Rome.

It’s unclear whether the Vatican would be willing to carve out an Anglican enclave within Catholicism on the model of the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches, which maintain separate hierarchies and distinct practices, including married priests.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Pope lets Paraguay’s president-elect step down as bishop

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI has taken the rare step of allowing Paraguay’s president-elect, former Bishop Fernando Lugo, to step down as a bishop before he assumes office Aug. 15.

Lugo, who won April’s elections, resigned as a bishop in 2006 when he decided to run for president, saying he felt unable to help the poor as a clergyman.

The Vatican had previously refused to recognize the 57-year-old’s resignation, arguing that he was still a bishop since his ordination was a lifelong sacrament, and demanded that he cease all political activities.

But the decision by the pope to grant the former “bishop of the poor” an unprecedented waiver enables him to revert to being a layman.

“This is the first case within the church in which a bishop receives a dispensation,” Orlando Antonini, the papal nuncio to Paraguay, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

“Yes, there have been many other priests the pope has left in the status of layman, but never a member of the hierarchy until today.”

Without the special dispensation, Lugo risked excommunication since papal rules forbid priests holding political office.

“It’s a great pain for the church to lose a bishop, a priest whom we tried to dissuade from the political option up to the last day of his election campaign,” Antonini said. “But the Holy Father recognized that he was elected by the majority of the people to lead Paraguay for the next five years.”

Lugo began his political career in 2004 while he was bishop of San Pedro, amid widespread uprisings by peasant groups protesting against unequal land distribution and the encroachment of industrial farming.

He soon quit as bishop of the rural area, but maintained his bishop status for two more years.

“I’d like to sincerely thank his holiness Pope Benedict for a decision that hasn’t been easy for the Vatican,” the Associated Press quoted Lugo as telling reporters. “They reconsidered my request (for a dispensation) for the good of the country.”

As a layman, Lugo is now free to marry under civil law. But he has shown no inclination of wanting to do so. His sister, Mercedes, is to serve as first lady.

_ Paul Virgo

Faith groups push minimum wage hike to $10

WASHINGTON (RNS) A nonpartisan coalition of more than 90 faith, community, labor and business organizations has launched an ambitious “$10 in 2010” campaign to raise the federal minimum wage within two years.

The Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign announced the “$10 in 2010” crusade with support from various denominations, including American Baptist Churches USA, the Episcopal Church, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Christian social justice group Sojourners.

The launch of the new “livable wage” campaign came as the federal minimum wage rose 60 cents to $6.55 on July 24, part of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. The hourly minimum will increase again in 2009 to $7.25 per hour.

“As people of faith, we believe there is no better way to urgently address the poverty that afflicts so many low-wage working people and their families than by raising the minimum wage,” said the Rev. Dr. Paul Sherry, founding national coordinator of Let Justice Roll.

The two-day event, “Living Wage Days,” is set to kick off Jan. 10, 2009, featuring worship services and community events across the country.

Opponents argue that an increased minimum wage will lead to more unemployment and layoffs, especially among young and unskilled workers. They also argue businesses will shift excess worker salary costs to consumers.

But Sherry said, “A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it. That conviction is at the very heart of the faith we proclaim.”

_ Ashly McGlone

Quote of the Day: Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

(RNS) “As a Catholic American politician, I know enough about Islam to know that I don’t know enough about Islam _ and when it comes to Islam, American politicians ought to do a lot more listening and maybe a little less talking.”

_ Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., speaking Tuesday (July 29) at an interfaith conference at Yale Divinity School.

KRE/PH END RNS