Alan Chambers
Alan Chambers is an author at Religion News Service.
All Stories by Alan Chambers
NEWS FEATURE: Celebrating the ceremonies they missed when young
By Alan Chambers — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service NEW YORK _ Battling a case of nerves as the ballroom of the New York Hilton quieted, Tillie Rice Siegel took her place on a raised platform and read from the Torah scrolls. Then, kissing the fringe of her prayer shawl, the Englewood, N.J., resident made her way to the […]
NEWS FEATURE: A quiet revolution lifts role of women in Catholic Church
By Alan Chambers — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Newhouse News Service EDGEWATER, N.J. _ Most Sundays you can find Ana Lopo at Holy Rosary Church here, reading the Gospel in Spanish as a lector, offering the communion host to parishioners or worshipping in the pews. Lopo, a Cuban immigrant and public relations executive who serves part-time as a volunteer Eucharistic minister, […]
NEWS STORY: Newark’s Episcopal bishop leads uphill fight for gay rights
By Alan Chambers — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service CANTERBURY, England _ Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong of Newark, N.J., the American leading the fight against conservative Anglican bishops seeking to have homosexuality declared a sin and to keep gays from church leadership, concedes he doesn’t have the votes at the church’s Lambeth Conference to enact a gay rights […]
NEWS FEATURE: A quiet revolution lifts role of women in Catholic Church
By Alan Chambers — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service EDGEWATER, N.J. _ Most Sundays you can find Ana Lopo at Holy Rosary Church here, reading the Gospel in Spanish as a lector, offering the communion host to parishioners or worshipping in the pews. Lopo, a Cuban immigrant and public relations executive who serves part-time as a volunteer Eucharistic minister, […]
NEWS FEATURE: New movement within Catholicism inspires some, frightens others
By Alan Chambers — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service NEWARK, N.J. _ The Rev. Luis P. Gonzalez began his long journey of faith as a cynical teenager in Spain. His leanings were Marxist, and he considered the Roman Catholic Church of his parents to be authoritarian, old-fashioned and sexist. His reconciliation with Catholicism came through what is called the […]
NEWS FEATURE: Women priests, bishops generally accepted by Anglicans
By Alan Chambers — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service CANTERBURY, England _ In a university courtyard tucked in among the rolling hills overlooking the historic spires of Canterbury Cathedral, nine women formed a ring last week, held hands and prayed for progress. “Pray for those bishops who cannot yet embrace the ordination of women bishops and women priests,” one […]
NEWS STORY: Volunteer summit almost left out religious groups
By Alan Chambers — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Organizers of the Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future, who have been busy wooing the powerful of the corporate, foundation and political world, almost forgot leaders from volunteerism’s most important sector _ the religious community. In recent weeks, these organizers have been scrambling to increase religious representation at the […]
NEWS FEATURE: Catholic Church unable to reverse trend of fewer confessions
By Alan Chambers — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service UNDATED _ The Rev. Herbert Tillyer, a Roman Catholic priest for nearly three decades, can remember the days when people lined up on Saturdays outside the confessional booth. These days, 15 to 25 people show up from among the 2,200 families who attend the large Catholic church in Parsippany-Troy Hills, […]
NEWS FEATURE: Closing of New Jersey Catholic school mirrors national trend
By Alan Chambers — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service NEWARK, N.J. _ The quiet high-ceilinged classrooms of Our Lady of the Valley Elementary School in Orange, N.J., filled with studious girls in plaid skirts and boys in maroon sweaters, contrast sharply with the surrounding neighborhood, where rows of houses are interrupted occasionally by a burned-out, boarded-up shell. Like many […]
NEWS FEATURE: Group fights anti-Catholic bias
By Alan Chambers — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service NEW YORK _ William A. Donohue, flanked by a breathtaking view of Manhattan’s East Side, smiles gleefully as he recounts the recent victories in his crusade against”Catholic-bashing.” He chuckles as he recalls sending overnight-mail threats of a lawsuit to the homes of Yonkers school board members, who quickly withdrew plans […]
NEWS FEATURE: Dream of uniting Protestants is still a tough sell
By Alan Chambers — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service UNDATED _ The Rev. Daniell C. Hamby may have the toughest job in religion in America. For the past three years, Hamby, general secretary of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU), has been trying to usher in a new way of bringing together the disparate elements of the Protestant church. […]
NEWS FEATURE: Care for elderly nuns becomes major concern
By Alan Chambers — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service WATCHUNG, N.J. _ In the chapel of McAuley Hall, walking canes hang from the wooden pews at noon Mass, and several parishioners sit toward the back in wheelchairs. Sister Mary Anne McVey, still spry just weeks before her 100th birthday, is in church. So is Sister Aloysius Legere, 78, who […]
NEWS FEATURE: Mormons making inroads among Spanish-speaking Catholics
By Alan Chambers — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service WEST NEW YORK, N.J. _ In the small fifth-floor apartment of Cruzita Castro, elders Mike Haugen and Richard Western huddled over Spanish-language versions of the Book of Mormon, following along while Castro slowly read a passage. For years, the 67-year-old woman from the Dominican Republic had resisted the efforts of […]
NEWS FEATURE: After the turnover, Hong Kong religious life continues unfettered
By Alan Chambers — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service HONG KONG _ A light rain was falling outside Hop Yat Church, but the Christians arriving for a Sunday morning service soon filled every pew in the two-story sanctuary. As 500 worshipers, accompanied by a white-robed choir, boomed a Cantonese rendition of “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken,” their voices […]
NEWS FEATURE: After the turnover, Hong Kong religious life continues unfettered
By Alan Chambers — January 1, 1997
c. 1997 Religion News Service HONG KONG _ A light rain was falling outside Hop Yat Church, but the Christians arriving for a Sunday morning service soon filled every pew in the two-story sanctuary. As 500 worshipers, accompanied by a white-robed choir, boomed a Cantonese rendition of “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken,” their voices […]
