c. 2008 Religion News Service

Pittsburgh Episcopal bishop removed from ministry

(RNS) Episcopal bishops voted late Thursday (Sept. 18) to remove Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh from ministry, saying the leading conservative has renounced and abandoned the Episcopal Church.

The vote, with 88 bishops in favor of removing Duncan, 35 against and four abstaining, came at a special session of the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Duncan is no longer allowed to present himself as a bishop in the Episcopal Church. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said his actions over recent years have constituted “abandonment of the communion of this church.”

The effect of removing Duncan may be limited though, because the Diocese of Pittsburgh is poised to leave the Episcopal Church Oct 4 to join the more conservative Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, based in Argentina. It would be the second diocese to do so, after the Fresno, Calif.-based Diocese of San Joaquin.

Duncan has already been accepted as a bishop in the Southern Cone and the Pittsburgh diocese is expected to re-elect him, the diocese said in a statement.

“This is of course a very painful moment for Pittsburgh Episcopalians,” the Rev. David Wilson, president of the diocese’s standing committee, said in a statement. “While we await the decision of the diocesan convention on realignment to a different province of the Anglican Communion, we will stand firm against further attempts … to intimidate us.”

The charges against Duncan were initiated by Pittsburgh Episcopalians who feared he would lead the diocese into secession and take church property with him.

Duncan “has rejected numerous opportunities and warnings to reconsider and change course,” said the Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh in a statement. “Instead, he has continued to resolutely pursue a course of action designed to remove this diocese and many unwilling Episcopalians from the Episcopal Church.”

Elected bishop of the 20,000-member diocese 11 years ago, Duncan has been a prominent voice for conservative Episcopalians distraught over the liberal drift of the church on biblical interpretation and sexual ethics.

He leads the Anglican Communion Network, a conservative network that claims some 10 dioceses and 900 congregations in North America.

Duncan is the second Episcopal bishop removed from active ministry this year. In January, Fresno Bishop John-David Schofield was deposed for leading San Joaquin to secede.

The Episcopal Church maintains that secessions are illegal under church law and has worked to rebuild the San Joaquin diocese.

_ Daniel Burke

Survey: Four in 10 Americans think clergy should endorse candidates

(RNS) Four in 10 Americans believe that religious leaders should be permitted to endorse political candidates from the pulpit without risking their organization’s tax-exempt status, a new survey by the First Amendment Center shows.

Twenty-two percent of respondents “strongly” agreed and 18 percent “mildly” agreed that religious leaders should be able to make such endorsements, which are currently prohibited by IRS regulations.

In comparison, 39 percent strongly disagreed, 15 percent mildly disagreed and 6 percent didn’t know or refused to answer.

The finding was based on a new question in the Washington-based center’s annual “State of the First Amendment” national survey.

When asked to name specific rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, just 15 percent mentioned religion, the lowest percentage to recall that topic since 2000.

Asked if Americans have too much or too little religious freedom, 6 percent said they had too much, 28 percent said they had too little and 62 percent said they had about the right amount.

Fifty-five percent strongly or mildly agreed that people should be permitted to say things in public that could be offensive to religious groups. Forty-two percent mildly or strongly disagreed.

Asked about freedom of worship, 54 percent said the concept applies to all religious groups regardless of how extreme their beliefs may be. In comparison, 29 percent said it was never meant to apply to religious groups that the majority of people consider to be extreme.

The national telephone survey of 1,005 respondents was conducted this summer has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Catholic scholar Dean Hoge dies at 71

WASHINGTON (RNS) Dean Hoge, a widely respected scholar on American religion and the Catholic priesthood, died Sept. 13 in Baltimore after a long fight with cancer. He was 71.

Hoge, a lay Presbyterian, directed the Life Cycle Institute at Catholic University from 1999 to 2004, where he conducted several studies about broad trends in the Catholic Church, the priesthood and Catholic attitudes.

Before his retirement in 2006, he was the co-author of several well-received books and studies, including “Evolving Visions of the Priesthood” (2003) and “American Catholics Today” (2001).

“His presence and remarkable scholarly work have been a fixture here for over three decades,” said the Very Rev. David O’Connell, president of Catholic University. “Gentle and unassuming, Dean Hoge’s kindness, respect for others and collaborative efforts leave a space that will be hard to fill.”

Hoge graduated from Ohio State University and went on to receive three graduate degrees in religion at Harvard University. He is survived by his wife of 43 years, two children and four grandchildren.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

`Lars and the Real Girl’ shares Humanitas Prize

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (RNS) Hollywood’s annual Humanitas Prizes went to eight spiritually compelling film and TV scripts, with a combined $95,000 given to screenwriters at the Wednesday (Sept. 17) awards luncheon.

Two scripts tied in the feature film category and will split that prize’s $10,000 award: the offbeat “Lars and the Real Girl” and a French film about a paralyzed man, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” The two beat out the Oscar-winning “Juno.”

“Lars”’ is a story about a lonely man who falls in love with a mail-order blow-up doll. Screenwriter Nancy Oliver became emotional when explaining the difficulty in selling a script “about loss and grief and aggravation that’s a comedy.”

African-American screenwriter Paris Qualles won for writing this year’s ABC-TV version of the play “A Raisin of the Sun.” A “Scrubs” episode about death won in the Humanitas 30-minute category, prompting scriptwriter David Tennant to joke that he won “because God likes me better.”

In cable TV, HBO won in the 90-minute script category with its Native American historical drama “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” while the 60-minute script honor went to the first part of the biographical miniseries “John Adams.”

Two Disney Channel shows each won $10,000 script prizes: the animated Winnie the Pooh pre-school show “My Friends Tigger & Pooh” for an episode about depression, and the teen series “Johnny Kapahala” for a show about alcoholism.

The 34-year-old Humanitas Prizes were started by the late Catholic priest and TV producer Ellwood “Bud” Kieser to honor scripts with spiritually uplifting themes. To date Humanitas has awarded at least $2.8 million in prizes to film and TV stories that “affirm the dignity of the human person.”

_ David Finnigan

Quote of the Day: Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa.

(RNS) “It reminds me of the hymn `Oh God, our help in ages past … our shelter from the stormy blast.’ If there was ever a time in our history where a lot of people need shelter from the stormy blast of their lives, we’re living through that time now.”

_ Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., reflecting on the current economic turmoil.

KRE/LF END RNS