c. 2008 Religion News Service
Noted ecumenist Krister Stendahl dead at 86
(RNS) Krister Stendahl, a visionary of inclusive Christianity and a proponent of stronger Christian-Jewish relations, died Tuesday (April 15) at the age of 86 in Boston, Harvard Divinity School announced.
Stendahl, who served as the school’s dean from 1968 to 1979, had been in failing health. He was credited with expanding the diversity of the school, especially among women and African-Americans.
Stendahl was the first chaplain of Harvard Divinity School in the late 1980s and became a professor of Christian Studies at Brandeis University, a Jewish-sponsored school in Waltham, Mass., in the 1990s.
A native of Stockholm, Sweden, he was ordained in the (Lutheran) Church of Sweden in 1944. He went on to serve as bishop of Stockholm in the mid-1980s and led reform efforts on women’s ordination and gay rights. He was among the religious leaders who officiated at the 2003 consecration of New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop in the United States.
After retiring from his Brandeis post, Stendahl and his wife, Brita, worked on efforts to build Christian-Jewish relations, including fostering visits by American scholars to the Holy Land. He also served as co-director of a religious pluralism center at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem in 1994.
David Hartman, co-director of the institute, said there is a “profound void” created by Stendahl’s death.
“The passing of Krister Stendahl is a sad moment for all human beings who celebrate diversity and appreciate the significance and dignity of the other,” Hartman said in a statement.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Praying coach is rebuffed by court
EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. (RNS) A decision by East Brunswick’s football coach to bow his head and kneel during student-led pre-game prayers represents an endorsement of religious activity at a public school event, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday (April 15).
Marcus Borden, who has coached the Middlesex County team since 1983, found himself in the center of an intense debate about prayer and school athletics in 2005 after parents complained to the district that he prayed with students at pasta dinners on Friday afternoons and in the locker room before games.
Borden quit his coaching job amid the controversy, then rescinded his resignation and vowed to fight new district policies that targeted employees’ involvement in prayer.
On Tuesday, Borden’s lawyer vowed to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case after the three appeals court judges unanimously overturned a lower court ruling in Borden’s favor, but issued three separate reasonings.
“The Supreme Court should hear this case because so far there have been four judges who rendered an opinion that’s different from the others’ decisions,” attorney Ronald Riccio said. “This is primed for the Supreme Court.”
The case began in November 2005 when Borden filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the district’s regulations were overly broad. He won a district court ruling in July 2006 deeming those rules unconstitutional.
But the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals panel overturned that decision and ruled that by bowing his head and going down on one knee while students prayed, Borden, 53, was endorsing religion.
“We find that based on the history of Borden’s conduct with the team’s players, his acts cross the line and constitute an unconstitutional endorsement of religion,” the three-judge panel wrote in the ruling. “Although Borden believes that he must continue to engage in these actions to demonstrate solidarity with his team … we must consider whether a reasonable observer would perceive his actions as endorsing religion, not whether Borden intends to endorse religion.”
The East Brunswick Board of Education had pursued the appeals court ruling, arguing Borden’s decision to kneel and bow his head when students prayed before games constituted an endorsement of religion whether he mouthed the words with his players or not. The school board’s appeal was joined by Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
“East Brunswick Public Schools is very pleased with today’s unanimous ruling … upholding as reasonable the district’s policy against employees participating in prayer,” Superintendent Jo Ann Magistro said in a prepared statement.
_ Chandra M. Hayslett
Methodists pull proposed divestment action
WASHINGTON (RNS) The United Methodist Church’s social policy agency has pulled a proposed resolution that would have withdrawn church investments in Caterpillar Inc. because the company supplies bulldozers to Israel.
The Methodists’ General Board of Church and Society had submitted a petition to the church’s upcoming General Conference but withdrew it Thursday (April 17) after Caterpillar agreed to talks with church leaders.
Critics complain that Caterpillar machines are used to raze Palestinian homes and olive groves. The company maintains it opposes “illegal or immoral use of any Caterpillar equipment,” but will not discontinue sales.
About $5 million of the total $17 billion United Methodist investment portfolio is tied to Caterpillar.
Jim Winkler, who directs the Methodists’ Washington office, said a pastor in Peoria, Ill., who counts Caterpillar CEO James Owens as a parishioner set up the talks between the two sides.
“Caterpillar cannot monitor the use of every piece of its equipment around the world,” the company said in a statement. “However, we recognize the responsibility companies have to encourages the constructive use of their products.”
Church delegates will still consider other proposals to divest from companies involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but Wayne Miller, a spokesman for the Washington office, said none of those petitions targets a specific company.
Miller said those remaining petitions “deserve careful consideration by the delegates.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Pope presents chalice to New Orleans Catholics
WASHINGTON (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI ended a prayer service for bishops on Wednesday (April 16) by acknowledging “the immense suffering endured by the people of God in the Archdiocese of New Orleans as a result of Hurricane Katrina.”
He then presented a silver chalice to New Orleans Archbishop Alfred Hughes as “a sign of my prayerful solidarity with the faithful of the Archdiocese and my personal gratitude for the tireless devotion” shown by Hughes and other local Catholic leaders.
Hughes seemed touched with the pope’s presentation, extending his hands to the pope to express his appreciation. It came a week after Hughes announced the merging, downsizing or clustering of 33 parishes by the end of the year, a move he said would cause “a lot of frustration and anger and grieving.”
After receiving the chalice, Hughes said he was thrilled with what he described as unique honor.
He said the chalice would be used at Mass Sunday at St. Louis Cathedral, and that other archdiocese churches could use it during future Masses.
It’s unusual for a pope to single out an archdiocese for recognition. Catholic scholars said the gesture indicates the importance he gives to the continuing rebuilding efforts in New Orleans, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina four months after he assumed the top position in the Roman Catholic Church.
Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Woodstock Theological Center, said the gift of the chalice reflects the pope’s desire to promote the rebuilding of a city that has long had a large, devout Catholic population.
_ Bruce Alpert
Judge rejects man’s religious pot claim
HARRISBURG, Pa. (RNS) Robert George Henry told a Pennsylvania judge Wednesday (April 16) that smoking marijuana is vital to his efforts to connect with God.
“The first thing I do every day is smoke a little bit of cannabis and say my prayers,” said Henry, 48, of Fannettsburg, Pa. “I’ve come to the belief that smoking cannabis helps me commune with my Lord and understand what he wants me to do with my life.”
His argument quickly went up in smoke.
Ten seconds after Henry finished testifying, President Judge Edgar B. Bayley dismissed a motion Henry filed seeking to avoid prosecution on drunken driving and drug possession charges on religious grounds. A full trial is now scheduled for next month.
In that motion by defense attorney George Marros, Henry claimed his drug use is protected by the religious freedom guarantee of the U.S. Constitution.
Henry said that, four months after his October arrest, he joined the Hawaii Cannabis Ministry, which promotes marijuana use for religious enlightenment, and was ordained as a minister of the Universal Life Church.
He said if children can drink wine during Holy Communion, he should be able to smoke pot in his search for God.
Senior Assistant District Attorney Derek Clepper said the law is more stringent than that.
To invoke a constitutional religious protection, a person must show his spiritual beliefs are sincere and prove he has no way to worship other than by breaking the law, Clepper said.
Marros said Henry has no immediate plan to appeal Bayley’s ruling.
State police said Henry was intoxicated and was driving a car loaded with freshly harvested marijuana last October. He also had more than $1,800 in cash, they said.
Henry said he was taking his fall harvest home for personal use when he was stopped. He admitted smoking a pipe of marijuana a half-hour before driving.
He said he began feeling a religious tie to his marijuana use “back in the ’80s” and said he joined the Hawaii Cannabis Ministry in January because founder Roger Christie’s beliefs “are similar to mine.”
_ Matt Miller
Parents charged in daughter’s death fight back
OREGON CITY, Ore. (RNS) Two parents charged in the faith-healing death of their young daughter launched a counteroffensive Thursday (April 17), pledging to defend their constitutional right to religious freedom and unveiling a Web site aimed at rallying nationwide support.
They also plan to create a legal defense fund, their attorneys said.
“Our clients are not wealthy,” defense attorney Mark Cogan said. “We surely anticipate there will be folks who want to help these people.”
Cogan compared the Web site for Raylene and Carl Brent Worthington to those for other high-profile defendants, such as the Duke lacrosse players who were accused and later vindicated in a rape case. He said the Internet was the best way to disseminate accurate information because “we’re getting inquiries from all over the place.”
National advocacy groups and legal scholars are keeping close watch on the Worthington case, which will invoke federal religious protections and test, for the first time, a 1999 state law that struck down religious protections for parents who treat their children solely with prayer.
“Prior to this prosecution of Mr. and Mrs. Worthington, no person in this state has faced charges involving the 1999 legislation,” their attorneys wrote in documents made public Thursday, when the Worthingtons appeared for a bail hearing.
The courtroom was packed with friends, relatives and fellow members of the Followers of Christ Church, whose members believe in healing the sick with prayer rather than medical care.
On March 31, the couple pleaded not guilty to charges of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment in the death of their 15-month-old daughter. Ava Worthington died at home March 2 from bacterial pneumonia and a blood infection, conditions the state medical examiner said were treatable with antibiotics.
Outside the courtroom, defense attorney John Neidig challenged the basis for criminal charges.
Ava Worthington’s medical condition “might have been treatable, but not necessarily curable in conventional medical terms,” Neidig said. He said the Worthingtons had used several faith-healing methods _ “prayer and anointment and the laying on of hands” _ to treat their daughter.
After defense witnesses testified that the Worthingtons posed no flight risk, they were each granted a reduction in bail from $250,000 to $50,000. Since they had already paid the 10 percent _ or $25,000 apiece _ required to be released from jail, each will receive $20,000 back from the court.
_ Jessica Bruder
Former Catholic bishop elected president of Paraguay
(RNS) A former Roman Catholic bishop was elected Sunday (April 20) as the new president of Paraguay after being criticized by his church for running for the office.
Fernando Lugo, 56, defeated the Colorado Party, which had reigned in the country for 62 years, the Associated Press reported. The party was once headed by right-wing strongman Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, who was ousted in 1989. That party’s candidate, Blanca Ovelar, conceded defeat Sunday.
“You have decided what has to be done in Paraguay,” Lugo told thousands cheering his election in the inland South American country. “You have decided to be a free Paraguay.”
The Vatican opposes clergy members holding political office and had demanded that Lugo halt his political pursuits. The man known as the “Bishop of the Poor” said he resigned from the church and no longer must follow its laws.
“Real structural change _ social revindication _ goes through politics, not the church,” he told Religion News Service last year.
While he was bishop of rural San Pedro, Lugo worked with peasants, some of whom had formed groups to protest unequal land distribution.
Lugo will be challenged by the nation’s high poverty and illiteracy rates; of the country’s 6.5 million people, 43 percent live in poverty, according to the Associated Press. Corruption is notorious in the country and 300,000 peasant farmers without land are seeking assistance.
His five-year term begins Aug. 15.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Cardinal who was Vatican’s social voice dies at 72
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, a prominent voice of the Vatican on sexual and medical ethics, died Sunday (April 20) at the Pius XI Clinic in Rome.
He was 72 and died after suffering cardiac arrest, the Associated Press reported. According to Catholic News Service, he had been hospitalized since early April with a respiratory infection.
Pope Benedict XVI will preside at Lopez Trujillo’s funeral in St. Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday (April 23).
As president of the Pontifical Council for the Family since 1990, Lopez Trujillo helped to lead the Catholic Church’s campaigns against abortion, artificial birth control, embryonic stem-cell research and same-sex marriage.
The Colombian-born cardinal provoked controversy in 2003 when he stated that condoms did not offer reliable protection against the transmission of HIV, a claim contested by medical authorities including the World Health Organization.
Outspoken on the political ramifications of church teaching, Lopez Trujillo denounced Spain’s recognition of same-sex marriage in 2005, and called on Spanish officials not to perform such marriages, even if that meant losing their jobs.
On other occasions, the cardinal stated that Catholic politicians who support laws permitting abortion should not receive Communion. Also ineligible to receive Communion, the cardinal said, were Catholics participating in embryonic stem cell research, including women who donated their embryos for experimentation.
Lopez Trujillo was born in Villahermosa, Colombia, on Nov. 8, 1935. He was educated in Colombia and in Rome, where he became a priest in 1960. He became archbishop of Medellin, Colombia’s second-largest city, in 1979, and served in that role until 1991. Pope John Paul II made him a cardinal in 1983.
_ Francis X. Rocca
Leader of breakaway Catholics says no reconciliation yet
VATICAN CITY (RNS) The leader of a breakaway group of conservative Catholics said that the legacy of the church’s modernization in the 1960s prevents traditionalists from reconciling with Rome, despite the Vatican’s recent revival of traditional liturgy.
“Without despairing, without impatience, we see that the time for an agreement has not yet arrived,” wrote Bishop Bernard Fellay, in a letter addressed to “friends and benefactors” of the Society of Saint Pius X.
The letter, dated April 14, was posted Saturday (April 19) on the Web site of the organization’s DICI news service.
Founded in 1970 by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the SSPX has consistently protested the changes wrought by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, including the replacement of the so-called Old Latin Mass with a newer liturgy typically celebrated in local languages.
Lefebvre died in 1991, three years after he was excommunicated by the Vatican. Last July, Pope Benedict XVI lifted restrictions on the Latin Mass, expressing hope that the move would lead to reconciliation with Lefebvre’s followers.
But Fellay’s letter complains that this liturgical change “was not accompanied by logically correlative measures in other domains of the life of the church. All the changes introduced at (Vatican II) and in the post-conciliar reforms which we denounce … have been confirmed.”
Fellay argues in particular that the ecumenical movement encouraged by Vatican II has undermined the doctrine that “outside the church there is no salvation,” and weakened a biblical imperative to convert non-Catholics to the faith.
“These new perspectives have evidently turned relations with other religions upside down,” Fellay writes, asserting that the changes amount to “a new and very profound mutation which is being imposed on the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
_ Francis X. Rocca
Kenneth Copeland seeks IRS review
WASHINGTON (RNS) One of the ministries that has refused to cooperate fully with a financial investigation by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has invited the Internal Revenue Service to conduct an inquiry of its own instead.
Kenneth Copeland Ministries of Newark, Texas, made the request of the IRS on April 7.
“We told the IRS in a letter that we welcome them to come and make inquiry of us and we will provide answers to the IRS regarding questions that Sen. Grassley has,” said John Copeland, the ministry’s CEO. “The church desires to protect its and all other churches’ First Amendment rights, and by this action, we believe we are doing just that.”
Grassley’s office reported March 31 that four of the six ministries he has been investigating are cooperating with requests to provide him with financial information.
Creflo Dollar Ministries in College Park, Ga., has also refused to submit financial records, and sent a letter to the Senate Finance Committee in late March expressing concerns about congregants’ privacy. Grassley, the panel’s top-ranking Republican, and committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., had asked ministries that weren’t cooperating fully to submit materials by March 31.
Jill Gerber, a spokeswoman for the committee, said Tuesday (April 22) that both Copeland’s and Dollar’s ministries continue to decline to send the requested information.
“As for the Copeland request for an audit from the IRS, Sen. Grassley has always said that the IRS enforces existing law, while Congress evaluates the adequacy of existing law,” she said. “The two functions are completely different.”
Rusty Leonard, founder of MinistryWatch.com, a North Carolina-based watchdog organization, called the efforts by Copeland “deceptive and misleading” because any investigation by the IRS would be confidential.
Lawrence Swicegood, director of communications for Kenneth Copeland Ministries, said the ministry has provided 291 pages of information to Grassley.
“While we did not provide 100 percent of what the senator (requested) … we did in fact cooperate to the extent that was appropriate,” he said.
The other ministries under investigation are Joyce Meyer Ministries in Fenton, Mo.; Benny Hinn Ministries in Grapevine, Texas; Randy and Paul White, who co-pastored Without Walls International Church in Tampa, Fla., and Bishop Eddie Long’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Week: Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick
(RNS) “I’m not being whupped by the devil; I am being punished by my God. I know that my disobedience put me in the situation I am in.”
_ Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, speaking at Fellowship Chapel Church in Detroit on Saturday (April 19), quoted by the Associated Press. Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff Christine Beatty face perjury and other charges but have denied having a romance despite text messages that have contradicted their testimony in a whistle-blower trial.
KRE END RNS
