c. 2004 Religion News Service

Anglican Leaders Consult U.S. Church Leaders on Divisions

(RNS) Anglican leaders met last week (June 14-18) to discuss how to heal divisions surrounding last year’s election and consecration of openly gay Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

The leaders, meeting in North Carolina, are part of the Lambeth Commission headed by Irish Archbishop Robin Eames. The task force was appointed last year by the global leader of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. A final report is expected in October.

Episcopal Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold said in a statement that his delegation tried to give a “full and accurate picture” of the divisions in the church by representing the “breadth of views and the depth of feeling” across factions.

Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh also met with the commission as moderator of the conservative Anglican Communion Network, which opposed Robinson’s election and growing acceptance of same-sex blessings.

Duncan asked that traditional Episcopalians not be “forced to submit to the aggressive and uncompromising innovators” who support greater acceptance for gay and lesbians in the church.

Liberal groups, meanwhile, were dissatisfied. Kevin Jones, editorial director of Every Voice Network, said in an article that pro-gay groups like Claiming the Blessing and Integrity and Via Media have been shut out of the dialogue.

“Though Eames has claimed publicly to be speaking with all parties, that is clearly not what is happening,” Jones said, noting that Robinson and the New Hampshire diocesan committees have also not been able to speak with the commission.

At the same time, splinter groups in the “Anglican diaspora” in North America have pledged to work more closely together in confronting the policies of the Canadian and U.S. churches.

The Anglican Mission in America _ which broke away in 2000 _ joined with Duncan’s Network, the Reformed Episcopal Church, the Anglican Province in America, the American Anglican Council and Forward in Faith North America (which opposes women’s ordination) to work more closely together to heal “scandalous” divisions in the church.

Lionel Deimel, president of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh, said the effort inflates the groups’ membership figures and is “intended to give the appearance of growth within the conservative movement when, in fact, little progress is being made.”

_ Juliana Finucane

English, U.S. Catholic Bishops Warn of Future of Iraq

WASHINGTON (RNS) With the June 30 deadline for the transfer of power in Iraq approaching, Catholic bishops from the United States and Great Britain are urging Catholics to pray “for the people of Iraq, and for a region and world broken by violence and longing for peace.”

“A brutal dictator has been deposed but a year later Iraq does not appear to be a nation clearly on its way to security,” Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Tuesday (June 22).

Gregory said that the United States had incurred a “grave moral responsibility” by pre-emptively invading Iraq, and that the war has raised “fundamental questions about the U.S. role in the world.”

Foremost among those questions, Gregory said, is how to balance America’s prosecution of a “war on terror” with abiding respect for the sanctity of human life.

“Our nation cannot accept a permissive interpretation of international law, the inevitability of civilian casualties or the abuse of human rights, or an over-reliance on military responses to the problem of global terrorism,” Gregory said.

Echoing the concerns of many religious leaders, Gregory evoked the Geneva Convention, the treaty that outlines permissible treatment of prisoners of war. The United States is a signatory to the agreement, but critics say the conduct of U.S. soldiers in an Iraqi prison and documents from the Justice Department suggest that the United States has ignored the treaty’s rules.

“We are deeply concerned … about overly aggressive tactics which can place civilians at risk, ignore important cultural and religious sensitivities, and fuel violence and terrorism,” Gregory said.

Joining Gregory in his concern for a peaceful Iraq are Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, archbishop of Westminster, and Archbishop Patrick Kelly of Liverpool. The British prelates called for a day of vigil and special prayer on Tuesday (June 29), the eve of the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis.

_ Daniel Burke

Ala. Governor Appoints Successor to Ousted Chief Justice

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (RNS) Alabama Gov. Bob Riley appointed state Finance Director Drayton Nabers Jr. as Alabama’s chief justice Tuesday but said he seriously considered returning ousted Chief Justice Roy Moore to the post.

“This is a decision that didn’t come lightly,” Riley said. “I put a tremendous amount of thought into it. I think Drayton Nabers is the right person for this job at this time. I think he brings a unique ability that he has, not only as a successful businessman, but he is truly one of Alabama’s great intellects.”

When Riley swore in his “good friend,” Nabers filled the vacancy created Nov. 13 when Moore was removed from office for defying a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building.

Nabers, 63, will serve the 21/2 years that remain on Moore’s term. Starting salary for chief justice is $153,027 a year.

“This appointment is the highest honor of my life, and I am profoundly thankful,” Nabers said.

Moore took office in January 2001. The Alabama Court of the Judiciary removed him for what it called willful ethics violations, and a special state Supreme Court affirmed the decision April 30.

Tom Parker, a top aide to Moore when he was chief justice, said that if Riley did seriously consider Moore, he didn’t include Moore in any discussions.

“There was no communication between the two. It might have been a thought process, but that was all,” said Parker, a Republican nominee this fall for associate justice on the state Supreme Court.

In a written statement, Moore declined to comment on Nabers’ appointment but said he would ask the U.S. Supreme Court by Aug. 5 to review the legality of his removal from office.

Nabers said he would resign if the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Moore returned to office and wrote to tell Moore that. Moore is waiting to hear whether the high court will consider his case.

_ David White

Program Hopes to Change Minds on Israel in Catholic Schools

LOS ANGELES (RNS) Jewish and Catholic leaders are hoping that a pilot program that sends Catholic school teachers to Israel will help combat negative perceptions about Israel among Catholic high school students.

The program hopes to especially reach the Catholic Hispanic community, which has a higher likelihood of anti-Semitism among first-generation and foreign-born immigrants, according to Anti-Defamation League surveys.

“My sympathy is with the everyday Israelis and the everyday Palestinians,” said Jeanine Di Cesaris, a social studies teacher at the all-girls Pomona Catholic High School in Pomona, Calif., one of five Catholic high schools that sent seven teachers to Israel in March for the Holy Land Democracy Project.

The program for Catholic high schools is co-sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, the Jewish Community Foundation and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

The archdiocese’s Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels hosted an awards ceremony Tuesday (June 22) to honor 13 Catholic high school students with a combined $5,000 in Israel Bonds prize money for essays and art projects inspired by the lessons built around their teachers’ travels.

Costing about $75,000, the project’s 10-day tour took teachers to Jerusalem, Masada and other ancient sites. The federation followed up with six hours of post-trip teacher training and a five-hour classroom course for students.

Unlike other Holocaust, tolerance and interfaith outreach programs in Catholic schools, the Jewish Federation project was designed specifically to make students begin to see Israel as an open, American-style democracy.

The long-term goal, said Elaine Albert of the federation’s Jewish Community Relations Committee, is for young Catholics to gain “a better understanding what Israel really is all about.”

The archdiocese plans to expand the prototype Catholic-Jewish outreach to 10 high schools next year.

At the all-girls Ramona Convent Secondary School in Alhambra, Calif., many of the Hispanic students who were resistant to any pro-Israel perspective came from families with parents who were involved in the 1970s Chicano Power movement, which often allied itself with Palestinian causes.

“They are repeating what they hear at home,” said English teacher Maureen Linehan. Social studies teacher Mike Sifter added, “The kids hate (Palestinian leader Yasser) Arafat, though. They don’t believe that Arafat is fair and this came up several times in discussion.”

_ David Finnigan

Four Black Denominations Plan Historic Meeting

(RNS) Leaders of four of the nation’s historically black denominations plan to hold a joint meeting in January, marking the first time such a gathering has taken place since they started forming separate organizations in the early 1900s.

Tourism officials predict the winter board meeting of the National Baptist Convention USA, National Baptist Convention of America, Progressive National Baptist Convention and National Missionary Baptist Convention of America will bring more than 7,500 people to Nashville, Tenn., Jan. 23-28.

“It will give us an opportunity like we’ve never had before to create for our people an agenda that we all can rally around and work towards for the good of African-Americans and minorities in this country as a whole,” said the Rev. Major L. Jemison, president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, in an interview.

The Rev. Robert Houston, special assistant to the president of the National Missionary Baptist Convention of America, said, “We are looking forward to it because of the historical and spiritual significance of the meeting.”

The National Baptist Convention USA began in 1895. In 1915, the National Baptist Convention of America split away over a dispute about control of a publishing house. In 1961, the Progressive National Baptist Convention split from the NBCUSA because of differences over civil rights and leadership. Finally, in 1988, the National Missionary Baptist Convention of America was formed after additional disputes.

The Rev. Robert M. Franklin, a professor of social ethics at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, said the effort could fill a need for relations across denominations since the Congress of National Black Churches was dissolved last year.

“We’ve really had a vacuum of vigorous ecumenical cooperation in the black church community,” said Franklin, who teaches in Atlanta.

A.G. Miller, associate professor of religion at Oberlin College in Ohio, said the gathering is less likely to prompt a reuniting of now-split groups.

“I don’t see these groups as ever coming back together again into one national body, but I do think the kind of ecumenical cooperation, the potential that’s behind it, is significant,” he said. “These are the four, probably, major organizations within the African-American community.”

_ Adelle M. Banks

Quote of the Day: Former President Bill Clinton

(RNS) “(The priest) asked me if I had ever considered becoming a Jesuit. I laughed and replied, `Don’t I have to become a Catholic first?’ … I told him I was a Baptist and said, only half in jest, that I didn’t think I could keep the vow of celibacy even if I were a Catholic.”

_ Former President Bill Clinton, in an excerpt from his memoirs, “My Life,” recounting an encounter with a Jesuit priest during his college years at Georgetown University.

KRE/PH END RNS