c. 2008 Religion News Service

Foundation announces $600,000 in “Life Prizes’

(RNS) A Massachusetts foundation has announced the first recipients of $600,000 in “Life Prizes” to honor people and organizations that support anti-abortion causes.

Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, and Kay Coles James, a former director of the Office of Personnel Management in President Bush’s first term, are among the people honored by the Gerard Health Foundation of Natick, Mass.

“The accomplishments of these pro-life heroes are diverse, valiant, and nothing short of inspiring,” said Raymond Ruddy, president of the foundation. “They are the movement’s most successful champions of life and their achievements will inspire future pro-life generations to be bold and brilliant in undertaking the many challenges that lie ahead in spreading a culture of life.”

The other winners include the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists; Margaret “Peggy” Hartshorn, president of Heartbeat International, a network of pregnancy resource centers; Jill Stanek, a prominent anti-abortion blogger; and Lila Rose, founder of Live Action, a student anti-abortion organization. .

The recipients will be awarded their prizes at a Jan. 23 ceremony in Washington.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Alleged church shooter sought anonymity in Ga. town

NEWARK, N.J. (RNS) After gunning down his wife, her cousin and a would-be rescuer in a Clifton, N.J., church, Joseph Pallipurath dumped his pistol, abandoned his Jeep and stepped aboard a bus with the hopes of fading into obscurity, said authorities who nabbed the accused fugitive early Tuesday (Nov. 25).

His destination was Monroe, Ga., in rural Walton County, a sleepy town of about 20,000 residents that boasts a historic downtown and classic Southern antebellum homes.

“He said that this was just a square little town he thought he could get lost in. He knew someone who used to live here, and he got a room down at the Monroe Motor Inn,” Walton County Deputy District Attorney Eric Crawford said. “The fact he ended up in our small town was kind of amazing. We’re not on any main road you would travel.”

Pallipurath had relatives in Atlanta, and one lived in the Walton County area years ago, authorities said. His simple escape plan could have stumped fugitive hunters for a long time, said Passaic County Prosecutor James Avigliano, had authorities not gotten a tip.

“Then it was a matter of regular police work,” he said. “They just canvassed all the hotels and motels in the area, and one of the motel clerks said his picture matched a guy who had checked in.”

Georgia authorities believe Pallipurath, 27, arrived in town Monday afternoon, after taking a bus from New Jersey to Atlanta, where he boarded another bus headed for Savannah _ by way of Monroe. When Monroe police and U.S. marshals went to the door of his motel room, Pallipurath answered and quietly surrendered.

“He was taken without incident,” Crawford said. “And he gave about an hour-and-a- half-long statement, pretty much detailing everything.”

Adding a chilling detail to the tragedy, Crawford said Pallipurath told investigators he would have killed everyone in the church if he’d had a machine gun. He allegedly said he was unhappy church members were blocking his attempts to contact his wife, who had left him three months ago.

The alleged killer had been renting a room for two weeks and plotting his actions, which culminated in the shootings at St. Thomas Syrian Orthodox Knanaya Church just after 11:30 a.m. Sunday.

Avigliano also said Pallipurath, who is being held without bail in the Walton County Detention Center, confessed to the shootings and gave police information about his drive from his home in Sacramento, Calif., to New Jersey to pursue his estranged wife, 24-year-old Reshma James.

James died after being shot in the head at point-blank range, as did Dennis John Malloosseril of Hawthorne. Authorities said Malloosseril, 25, was shot as he tried to intervene in Pallipurath’s attempts to get his wife to leave the church vestibule.

Also shot, and still hospitalized in grave condition, was James’ cousin, 47-year-old Silvy Perincheril of Hawthorne, who also tried to intervene.

The victims and Pallipurath all were part of a close-knit community of immigrant Christians from the southwestern Indian state of Kerala. The immigrant church is associated with a southern Indian diocese of the Syrian Orthodox Christian Church.

Pallipurath has been charged with two counts of homicide.

_ Brian T. Murray

Boys returned to families as abuse investigation continues

ONEONTA, Ala. (RNS) Eleven juveniles who had been at a faith-based home for troubled boys have been returned to their parents and guardians while a probe continues into charges of abuse at the facility.

The boys, who had lived at Reclamation Ranch Ministries’ Lighthouse Academy, were the subject of a court hearing to determine if they should stay in the custody of the Department of Human Resources. The boys, who hailed from places including California, Kentucky and an Amish community in Ohio, were released by the court to parents, relatives or other adults.

Some of the boys said their time at the academy had changed them for the better. But some foster parents said the facility seemed unduly harsh.

According to Reclamation Ranch’s Web site, Lighthouse “is a minimum one-year program that incorporates Bible teaching, character training and respect for family.” The site also calls the abuse allegations “false and misleading.”

The 11 boys, all younger than 18, as well as some 18-year-olds living at the academy, had been placed by state officials in other residential settings after authorities removed them from the academy on Saturday (Nov. 22). Sheriff’s deputies and Alabama Bureau of Investigation agents were acting on a complaint of “severe abuse, beating and torture” of a 17-year-old at the facility, according to the Blount County District Attorney’s Office.

Some former academy residents interviewed after the court hearing had good things to say about their time at Lighthouse.

“They changed my life,” said 18-year-old Roman Lupekah, who said he had spent a year there. “They restored my relationship with my family, with my sister, got me saved, you know.”

But Kenneth and Jean Johnson, local foster parents who had housed three academy boys at the state’s request, said they were troubled by what the youths had told them, which included eating outdated cereal and not receiving contributions that churches and other groups had provided for them.

“They had to have permission to go to the bathroom, had to have permission to get a glass a water,” Kenneth Johnson said. “They had to have permission to go to bed _ you name it. And they would let them call home one time a month and talk for four minutes, and that was it.”

_ Tom Gordon

Quote of the Day: Union Theological Seminary President Serene Jones

(RNS) “The way forward for theological education will be deeply interfaith, or it will fail. The fact is our lives are now interfaith, in bone-deep ways. We live in interfaith families; we eat Middle Eastern food for lunch, kosher for dinner. … We have hymns on our iPods, yoga mats in our backpacks, Torah prayers by our bedsides.”

_ The Rev. Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary in New York, in her inaugural address on Nov. 17.

KRE/DEA END RNS