Amid the manslaughter trial of an Oregon couple and the neglect charges of a Tennessee woman and her minister for opting for prayer instead of medicine to treat deathly ill children, the Associated Press has moved a story illustrating the difficulty officials face in trying to address faith healing:

Most states have child abuse laws allowing some religious exemptions for parents who shun medicine for their sick children, but a few recent cases highlight thorny legal issues for parents following less-recognized faiths.

Existing laws have gradually accounted for more well-known and established faiths, such as Pentecostalism, Christian Science and Jehovah's Witnesses.

But recent cases in the news have judges and child care advocates dealing with parents who claim adherence to lesser-known faiths, such as the Minnesota family following an Internet-based group's American Indian beliefs, and an independent Oregon church that has been investigated in the past for the deaths of members' sick children.

Legal and religious scholars say it's becoming more difficult for courts to decide when to honor the religious beliefs of parents and when to order conventional medical treatment for extremely sick children.

Read the rest of the story by the Associated Press.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 7:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

Claiming inspiration from President Barack Obama’s address earlier this month in Cairo, the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy group announced plans on Tuesday to give the Quran to 100,000 local, state and national leaders.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations is asking American Muslims to sponsor the distribution of the Qurans to members of Congress, governors and state lawmakers, state attorneys general, local elected and public officials, teachers, law enforcement officials, media professionals, and others “who shape public opinion or determine policy,” according to a release.

“By quoting from the Quran in his Cairo address, President Obama generated renewed interest in what Islam’s revealed text has to say on topics such as the sanctity of human life, justice and diversity,” Nihad Awad, CAIR’s executive director, said in a statement. “This is not an effort to proselytize, but is instead intended to provide an educational resource for those who will shape the future direction of our nation.”

CAIR says its surveys show that only two percent of Americans say they are “very knowledgeable” about Islam, and nearly 60 percent say they are “not very knowledgeable” or “not at all knowledgeable” about the faith.

The organization describes the giveaway as phase two of its “Explore the Quran” campaign, in which tens of thousands of Americans requested and received Qurans. Awad said the campaign’s ultimate goal is “to put one million Qurans in the hands of ordinary Americans of all faiths” over the next decade.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 6:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Baltimore Sun colleague Stephanie Desmon has a nice story in Monday's paper on a Christian doctor who brings a sense of mission to his work in rural Garrett County. Family physician Ken Buczynski is one of just four physicians who deliver babies in the state's largest county by area, which makes for a hamster-wheel existence in the wooded mountains at the tip of the Maryland panhandle.

"I always felt called to this kind of practice," Buczynski, who attends the Faith Evangelical Free Church with his pregnant wife and their three young children, tells Desmon. "And you really need that calling because to go to a recruiting fair and say, come to rural America where everyone will know your car, your business, your house, what kind of chicken you buy at Wal-Mart, and you'll take call 168 hours at a time and there's no mall for an hour and a half. ...

"When you start talking about those things, it's a real detractor to a lot of physicians."

As Desmon describes it, medicine is Buczynski's ministry. He sees "patients as more than just a physical entity," often praying with them and for them.

"I's not a billable procedure, but I like to provide it," he says.

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

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The treatment for terminal cancer that Annapolis resident Mary Ellen Heibel took at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2004 and early 2005 worked beyond anyone's wildest hopes, wiping out malignant tumors in her lungs, liver, stomach and chest. Her doctor did not expect it, nor could he explain it.

Surely the outcome was remarkable, but was it - in the sense applied by the Roman Catholic Church in such cases - a miracle?

In a few weeks, a committee appointed by the Archdiocese of Baltimore will begin exploring that question, examining 11 witnesses, including Heibel, pressing her doctors, nurses and friends in an attempt to understand what happened. The findings gathered at the archdiocese's downtown offices will be shipped to Rome, and ultimately will bear on a campaign to have Francis X. Seelos, the 19th-century Maryland priest to whom Heibel had turned in prayer for help, canonized as a saint.

For only the fifth time in its 200-year history, the archdiocese has launched a test of faith and science to help the Vatican determine whether one of its own was not only exemplary in virtue during life but now has the power in death to intercede with God. In the end, it will be up to the pope to rule on whether Seelos is to join the men and women held up by the church through the centuries as models of holiness.

"Did what happened come about by the intercession of Blessed Seelos? That's what we have to discover," said the Rev. Gilbert J. Seitz, the judicial vicar who heads the committee, emphasizing that its job is not to judge the case but to gather information in a process akin to taking a deposition.

Read the story by Arthur Hirsch in The Baltimore Sun.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 6:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Catholicism
        

A Baltimore County man in his 40s is suing the Archdiocese of Baltimore for an undisclosed amount of money, alleging negligence by the Roman Catholic Church after what he claims were years of sexual molestation by one of its priests.

Brent Jones has written the story at baltimoresun.com.

The lawsuit, filed in Delaware, alleges that Rev. Michael L. Barnes, a co-defendant in the suit, abused the plaintiff while he was a minor at the St. Clare School in the 700 block of Myrth Ave. in Essex. The school and St. Clare Roman Catholic Church also are co-defendants in the case.

The lawsuit says the church was aware of Barnes' history, which it says included several other molestation claims. Barnes, who apparently left the priesthood in 1988 but was employed by the Archdiocese of Washington as lay director of adult faith formation at a Rockville church as recently as January, could not be located on Friday. Spokespersons for the archdioceses of Baltimore and Washington say the archdioceses were unaware of any prior allegations.

According to the lawsuit, the alleged abuse of the Baltimore County man began in 1977, when the victim was 12 years old, and lasted for five years. Court papers say much of the alleged molestation occurred in Rehoboth Beach, Del., and Fenwick Island, Del.

The plaintiff, who could not be reached for comment on Friday, says Barnes gave him alcohol and pornography, engaged in mutual masturbation with him and performed oral sex on him.

A church spokesman said the archdiocese contacted the alleged victim in 2002 amid a general review of internal files for reports of possibly inappropriate relationships involving priests, but the man was adamant that he had not been abused. Spokesman Sean Caine said the archdiocese didn't hear from him again until December 2008, when it received a letter from his attorney alleging the abuse.

Caine said the archdiocese offered to pay for counseling and mediate with a judge on a settlement, but the plaintiff refused. The archdiocese also notified the state's attorney and publicized the allegations in the Catholic Review and church bulletins in the parishes in which Barnes worked, with the request that victims and others with knowledge of any abuse report it to civil authorities and the archdiocese.

Caine said the archdiocese would ask the Delaware court to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that the archdiocese doesn't operate in that state.

The lawsuit was announced by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, which held a press conference Friday outside the Catholic Center in Downtown Baltimore. The plaintiff was not present.

"The victim wants restitution for the things that have happened in his life. He was a good student prior to being abused," SNAP spokesman David Lorenz said.

"His life kind of spiraled down after that. At this point, his life has made somewhat of a recovery," Lorenz said.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 8:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Catholicism
        

Ginger Kolbaba has a message for Jon and Kate Gosselin: “Please don’t do what you’re doing.”

“For too long I’ve watched Christian couples live self-centered lives, pursuing their own desires, talking about following Christ and the principles of our faith, but not actually living them out,” writes Kolbaba, who edits Today’s Christian Woman and Marriage Partnership.

“When life gets difficult — as it does for every couple — they throw in the towel, acting helpless, showing to the world that when the apostle Paul said, ‘We are more than conquerors through Christ,’ he didn’t actually mean it.

“For too long I’ve watched Christians show to those outside our faith that Christianity, in fact, doesn’t strengthen us or make us any different from people who don’t follow Jesus. Instead I hear couples say, ‘The kids will be better off to have calm. It’s not good for them to see us arguing. Everything will be just fine. We’re doing this for the kids. It’s all for the good of the kids.’

“It’s rubbish. Kate (and Jon), who’s in control of the peace and calm of the kids? You are. You have the responsibility to bring calm into your family. But the good news is that God brings the grace and power to help you do that, through his Word, through prayer, through the community of believers, and through good old-fashioned determination.”

The Gosselins, the Christian family at the center of the TLC show Jon and Kate Plus Eight, announced plans this week to divorce after 10 years of marriage. Kolbaba is one of several Evangelicals taking a personal interest in their marriage.

“Outside of adultery or abuse, divorce is a lack of faith in God, a broken promise to Him and one's spouse, and is selfishness between two people especially when children are involved,” Rick Garner writes at jonandkateprayers.com. He says he has never seen the show, but started the Web site to discourage gossip about the Gosselins, encourage prayer for them, and provide resources for strengthening marriages.

“Sadly, the divorce rate among professing Christians is as high as that of unbelievers,” Garner writes. “Why? Because we allow the world to dictate our wants and desires. We listen to gossip and lies. We cave to lust and other distractions. We ignore the promise we made before God and our spouse to always stand by their side.”

Christianity Today blogger Lynn Roush took a similar line weeks ago.

“Our fleshly thinking is actually stubborn, selfish, unkind, merciless, and vengeful,” the Christian counselor wrote at the Christianity Today blog her-meneutics. “With no one to tell us otherwise, we are headed down a path of destruction in our relationships.

“So what’s the answer to these very familiar marital disputes?” Roush asked. “The intervening grace of God’s Word and his redemptive work in our lives. Usually this is only found within the contexts of relationships with other believers who have access to our hearts to help us see where God’s truth intersects with our daily lives. I’m only guessing here, but it seems that Jon and Kate’s marriage is a reflection of where each is spiritually. Could it be that the pressures and stresses of fame and attention have pulled them away from their greatest love: Christ? Perhaps they have dropped church out of their busy schedules, and with that, a group of other Christians who knows them, is aware of their struggles, and helps to keep them accountable? Or has confessing to the TV camera replaced the biblical wisdom of ‘confess[ing] your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.’ “

Her at In Good Faith, the Rev. Jason Poling, who counsels couples in his role as pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville, wrote of the challenge of holding together a marriage while starring in a reality show that draws the scrutiny of millions of viewers – and many more tabloid readers – every week.

“My hope, and indeed my prayer,” Poling wrote after the show's season premiere, ”is that the Gosselins will be able to seek the help they need to work through the challenges they face in their marriage: to own their own failings, to ask and offer forgiveness, to commit together to rebuilding on firm foundations of trust, grace, love, fidelity, acceptance and kindness. Not simply painting over the corroded spots, but doing the hard work of stripping and sanding and patching and priming so that real restoration can take place.”

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (23)
        

Shaukat Malik is a Muslim-American Certified Public Accountant from Potomac. A native of Pakistan, he arrived in the United States in 1980.

Sharia laws are being used by terrorists to violate divine human rights.

Great Britain and France, as colonial powers, must share in the blame for not encouraging or allowing democracy to take root in Muslim countries. This is one reason why Sharia features so prominently in the legal systems of Muslim countries as the only acceptable form of justice. Autocratic rule, out-dated customs and lack of education prevented the judiciary in almost every Muslim country to develop a rule of law in which no one is above the law.

Almost every Muslim country except for Turkey has some form of Sharia incorporated into the constitution. Another reason for this inclusion is the legacy of a natural alliance between the clergy and a dictatorship. Both need each other for legitimacy. Even the Burmese military dictatorship had an understanding with the monks.

Through this alliance a dictatorship can suppress rights and freedoms taken for granted in democratic countries. A suffocating environment that stifles human development takes root, which is avoided by all prospective investors and visitors — unless they have no choice – leading to severe economic decline. Sharia is being enforced in Somalia today and the results are not very good.

Enforcers and supporters of Sharia say that things are economically bad because we are not following Sharia and God is angry. It is interesting to recall that some mullahs blamed the 2005 Earthquake in Pakistan on cable television.

Because of cultural and historic reasons and the absence of any women’s movement like the suffrage movement in Europe and America, the male-dominated societies in Muslim countries have used Sharia to target women’s rights in particular. A woman is a source of evil and must be controlled. Interpretations of Sharia and Hadees (some sayings of the prophet were written almost 100 years after his death) are used by men with a vested interest in controlling women.

Most Muslim countries, including Iran, have adopted an interpretation of Sharia involving restrictions on women movements, multiple marriages, beheading for murder, beatings for adultery and drinking. Even today a woman cannot drive in Saudi Arabia or wander alone outside her house. There is an extraordinary focus on moral issues involving the female population. Any deviation from standards, as determined by the religious police, is immediately punished.

The Taliban and mullahs are a modern version of the priests of the Inquisition.

Sharia is used to scare the average citizen into submission. This is done through publicly staged floggings, stoning and executions of men and women for committing adultery or other sexual acts. There are public be-headings in Saudi Arabia every Friday after afternoon prayers.

Sharia, like the Ten Commandments, is God’s word given to Mohammed by the Angel Gabriel. Sharia covers all aspects of life including marriage, divorce, inheritance, custody, status of women, number of witnesses in rape, etc. It is God’s word in the context of the environment of people living at the time the revelations were being made to the holy prophet. These guidelines are intended to promote a fair and just society. However, the fundamentalist Muslim argues that these laws are the word of God and are written in stone and can never be changed. Most uneducated and orthodox Muslims, including the Taliban, hold this view.

What they are forgetting is that life and circumstances of a woman in 2009 are very different from that of a woman living 1,400 years ago. They conveniently ignore the fact that the world is ever changing. A women living in Arabia when the prophet was alive had a different environment, status, social standing and abilities. Men used to bury their daughters at birth. The woman was totally reliant on the man for support and hence the nature of Sharia relating to women of that time.

Today’s women have equal education, earning power, political and voting rights and are self-reliant and independent. When applying Sharia to today’s women, God would expect us to interpret these laws and adapt them so that we are fair.

We have had great women leaders, like prime ministers Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher and Benazir Bhutto. How can anyone say that they should not go out alone without a male companion. A male companion for a female outside her home may have made sense in the Arabia of 632, but it does not make any sense today.

To take another example, ask any married woman how she would feel about her husband taking on another wife. I think the answer would be a clear, unequivocal, “No.”

The same logic would be applied to laws relating to a man's vote as a witness being equal to that of two women. It would not be considered fair today.

God would expect us to use our intelligence and reason to determine whether a particular Sharia law is just and fair as it applies today. Accordingly, God would expect us to make amendments, as we do to any law when it is no longer suitable or circumstances have changed.
This process is referred to as “Ijtehad,” or reasoning, abandoned by Saudi Wahabbi and Iranian Shiite fundamentalists who have since hijacked Islam.

The Prophet Mohammed was married to Khadijah for 25 years, and she was his only wife during a time when polygamy was widely practiced. It was Khadijah who proposed to the Prophet through her friend Afresh. The holy prophet was married to the same women for over 25 years and remarried only after her death.

His multiple marriages after Khadijah's death took place in the context of his political life and his mission as God’s chosen messenger in an environment where polygamy was openly practiced and accepted. A Muslim living today should follow the model of marrying only one woman. Many prophets in the old and the New Testament had more than one wife but this argument is not used by Jews and Christians to take on more than one wife. Being married to more than one wife is a crime of bigamy, and rightly so.

Muslim men are winners under Sharia law and will strongly support outdated interpretations and traditions for selfish reasons. Having multiple wives and controlling the day-to-day lives of their women is a strong incentive for selfish men to oppose any change to Sharia.

The time has come for the women of the Muslim world and educated Muslim met, who clearly outnumber religious zealots, to confront supporters of Sharia head-on and demand change.
A very simple argument is that Sharia, like the Ten Commandments, was never intended by God to violate human rights. Any interpretation that does so runs contrary to diving human rights given to us by God. Furthermore, the purpose of Sharia is to establish a just and fair society. This would not be possible in a society where women are treated as inferior human beings.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution, in addition to being extraordinary human beings, were God-fearing people. As the saying on the back of every dollar bill confirms: “IN GOD WE TRUST.” As scholars, they studied the Bible and the holy Quran while researching what rights to confer on citizens. Through a stroke of luck or divine intervention they came up with the idea that every human being is endowed with inherent rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This simple statement summarizes what the Bible, the Holy Quran and all other religions on earth are trying to teach us.

By confirming divine human rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the Constitution is in fact embracing Sharia. Today’s world demands that a country establish a system of law that is just and fair and is welcoming to people from different religions and cultures.

In India Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians and communists can live together because of rights afforded to them by the Indian Constitution. The framers of the Indian Constitution borrowed extensively from the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Constitution can be used as a model by any aspiring democracy.

Democracy has its faults but it is the only system that allows you to get rid of bad rulers through elections and reflects the will of the majority for a pre-determined term.

Democratic forces demanding accountability or civil rights are helpless under Sharia laws.

Muslim countries, whether they are presently democratic or not, must review their constitutions and make amendments to remove any rules that violate divine human rights. This is a prerequisite for joining the world body of civilized nations.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (26)
        

Rabbi Gila Ruskin has agreed to stay on as spiritual leader of Temple Adas Shalom/The Harford Jewish Center in Havre de Grace through June 2012, its board of trustees announced Wednesday. Ruskin has been serving in that role on a temporary basis since the fall of 2007.

“Rabbi Ruskin has already brought a renewed energy to the congregation”, congregation President Brad Cogan said in a statement. “In the short time she has been with us, membership is increasing, feedback from our congregants has been overwhelmingly positive, and she has already had a big impact with many of the youth – especially those nearing the age of Bar or Bat Mitzvah.”

Ruskin, who is vice president of the Baltimore Board of Rabbis, has a long history in the city. She was spiritual leader of Chevrei Tzedek for 15 years, and then spent two years as the only Jewish faculty member at St. Frances High School. Her work as an instructor of Bible and Holocaust studies was the subject of a Baltimore Sun story in 2006. That story began:

The Hebrew words echoed through the halls of the Catholic school. Inside a classroom decorated with a crucifix, a rabbi led the African-American students in song.

Rabbi Gila Ruskin had lit the Sabbath candles, recited a blessing over her young charges and passed around a basket of animal crackers. Now, strumming the guitar, she sang: "Shabbat Shalom" -- Sabbath Peace.

Justine Jones double-clapped on the beat. Styinyard Blue stomped his feet. For juniors at St. Frances Academy, virtually all of them Baptist, Catholic or some other stripe of Christian, the weekly celebration of the Jewish Sabbath is a highlight of religious studies class.

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Judaism
        

In recent years, Catholic bishops have won headlines by condemning – and in some cases saying they would deny communion to – Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. Several have said the position held by former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among others, is incompatible with Catholic practice.

Now a New York bishop has added same-sex marriage to the list of deal-breakers.

“While homosexual orientation is a neutral reality on a moral level, homosexual acts are not morally neutral. They are wrong, and they are sinful,” Bishop William Murphy writes in the Long Island Catholic. “Abortion is wrong, and it is sinful. We bishops, the authentic teachers with the pope of the Catholic faithful, have made this abundantly clear. Our teaching is unambiguous, faithful to the Lord and binding on all Catholics. No Catholic is free to ignore or disregard this teaching. “

Murphy, who heads the Diocese of Rockville Centre on Long Island, was responding to Nassau County Executive and former New York gubernatorial candidate Tom Suozzi. In a recent op-ed piece published in The New York Times, Suozzi identified himself as a “practicing Catholic,” and then reversed his previous opposition to come out in favor of same-sex marriage.

“I have listened to many well-reasoned and well-intentioned arguments both for and against same-sex marriage,” he wrote. “And as I talked to gays and lesbians and heard their stories of pain, discrimination and love, my platitudes about civil unions began to ring hollow. I have struggled to find the solution that best serves the common good.

“I now support same-sex marriage. … Under current New York State law, same-sex couples are deprived of access to the employment benefits, life and health insurance and inheritance laws that heterosexual couples have. If the state were to institute civil unions for same-sex couples, that discrimination would end, but we’d still be creating a separate and unequal system.”

Murphy calls Suozzi’s argument “wrongheaded,” “difficult to discern” and “wrong.”

“I am not singling out Mr. Suozzi,” he writes. “I am speaking to all Catholics in our diocese and beyond, reminding them that what we bishops teach is not ‘another opinion’ among many that Catholics may choose or not choose. Instead, such truths are ‘non-negotiable,’ binding on all of us who claim to be ‘practicing Catholics.’ Otherwise we are not faithful to our Lord, to His Church and to the ultimate truths about the human person which alone can bring us freedom, justice, joy and peace.”

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

Christians must show love to all people, even if they don't support their values, evangelical megachurch pastor Rick Warren said Tuesday to breakaway Episcopalians and other Anglicans splitting from their national church over gay clergy and other issues.

"We are to love the people of the world no matter what they believe; we are to not love the value system of the world. And the problem today is lot of Christians are getting that reversed. They love the value system and hate the people," Warren told the crowd of 800 under a large tent on the lawn of St. Vincent's Episcopal Cathedral Church in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Bedford, according to the Associated Press. "God has never met a person he didn't love."

This week's meeting is the first national assembly for the Anglican Church in North America, formed by theological conservatives as a rival to the U.S. Episcopal Church. On Monday, delegates approved a constitution and church law for the new group.

Warren, who opposes gay marriage, sparked a protest by gay-rights supporters after President Barack Obama selected him to deliver a prayer at his January inauguration.

Warren did not mention gay relationships or other issues that caused the conservatives to break away, but he said he "jumped" at the chance to speak to the assembly and called it historic. He encouraged the new group and offered advice on how churches could reach out with ministries.

Read the rest of the story by the Associated Press.

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President Barack Obama will meet with Pope Benedict XVI when he visits Italy next month for a G8 summit, the Catholic News Service is reporting. The July 10 meeting will be the first between the two men, who have spoken by telephone on at least two occasions.

As CNS reports, “discussions between popes and U.S. presidents usually focus on common concerns regarding world events and the church's concerns over issues or policies with special moral relevance. So in addition to discussing ongoing tensions in the Middle East, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the situation in Iraq, Pope Benedict likely will bring up his concerns regarding abortion policy in the United States and renewed government permission for embryonic stem-cell research.”

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The Islamic tradition of generosity toward people fleeing persecution has had more influence on modern international refugee law than any other historical source, according to a study published Tuesday by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

“The international community should value this 14-century-old tradition of generosity and hospitality and recognize its contributions to modern law,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres writes in his forward to “The Right to Asylum Between Islamic Shari’ah and International Refugee Law: A Comparative Study.”

The report was commissioned by UNHCR in cooperation with Saudi Arabia’s Naif Arab University for Security Sciences and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. It was written by Ahmed Abu Al-Wafa, a professor and dean of the law faculty at Cairo University.

“Today, the majority of refugees worldwide are Muslims,” Guterres writes. “This fact occurs at a time when the level of extremism -- ethnic and religious -- is on the rise around the globe, even in the world’s most developed societies. Racism, xenophobia and populist fear-mongering manipulate public opinion and confuse refugees with illegal migrants and even terrorists.

“These attitudes have also contributed to misperceptions about Islam, and Muslim refugees have paid a heavy price. Let us be clear: refugees are not terrorists. They are first and foremost the victims of terrorism. This book reminds us of our duty to counter such attitudes.”

The Organization of the Islamic Conference stipulated every human being fleeing persecution has the right to seek asylum and receive protection in another country in its 1990 Declaration on Human Rights in Islam.

OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, in a separate forward, writes that the book “demonstrates the equitable and tolerant rules Islamic Shari’ah applies to refugees and how it is keenly concerned with their welfare and interests, while confirming human integrity and man’s right to a free, decent life.”

That theme “gains importance in the light of the increase in recent years in the numbers of refugees in Arab and Islamic countries,” Abdul-Aziz bin Saqr al-Ghamedi, president of Naif Arab University, said in a statement.

Ahmad At-Tayyib, president of al-Azhar University in Cairo, said the Arab concept of asylum, or “ijarah,” pre-dated Islam but was enshrined in Shari’ah “because it was one of the established good practices in their traditions and customs, involving noble manners and ethical values such as rescue of people in distress and protection of the oppressed.”

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

Between the criminal trial in France and the new cable and online advertising campaign in the United States, we had been planning to post something here about Scientology. Now comes a remarkable series in the St. Petersburg Times containing explosive allegations against church leader David Miscavige by four formerly top-ranking Scientology officials.

The defectors include former Miscavige lieutenant Marty Rathbun and former church spokesman Mike Rinder. Lawyers and current spokespersons for the church deny any wrongdoing and describe the whistle-blowers as disgruntled former employees who were demoted or removed from their jobs and now are attempting to stage a leadership coup from outside the church.

On Sunday, Times reporters Thomas C. Tobin and Joe Childs alleged a culture of violence promoted among the church leadership by Miscavige, who the defectors allege personally beat underlings who would not fight back. Monday’s installment detailed the last days of Lisa McPherson, a Scientologist who died in 1995 after 17 days in the care of the church.

Tuesday, the reporters describe a bizarre game of musical chairs to determine who among the church leadership was the most committed to the tasks at hand. According to the defectors, Miscavige told the group that all but the winner would be reassigned to Scientology's far-flung outposts – a threat he did not ultimately carry out.

Read the series at the St. Petersburg Times.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (28)
Categories: Scientology
        

Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and others will gather in Washington on Wednesday for what organizers are calling the largest faith-inspired mobilization for health care reform.

Rabbi David Sapperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Sayyid Syeed of the Islamic Society of North America, the Rev. James A. Forbes Jr. of Riverside Church in New York and others will speak at an “interfaith service of witness and prayer” to “express strong unified support for health care reform,” according to press materials. Organizers are predicting a turnout of nearly 2,000 people representing 40 faith organizations.

The event is scheduled for 5 to 7 p.m. at Freedom Plaza, just west of the White House. It will be preceded by a health fair offering free health screenings beginning at 4 p.m.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Gold vestments worn by Cardinal James Gibbons (1834-1921) and Irish poplin vestments given to Archbishop Michael J. Curley (1879-1947) are among the historic garments on display at the Baltimore Basilica through Sept. 27.

Gibbons wore the gold vestments during the historic Third Plenary Council of Baltimore the 1884 gathering at which American bishops decreed all parishes should provide Catholic education. The Basilica museum showcases the matching chalice veil and burse.

Curley’s vestments, which feature hand-stitched Celtic designs, were a gift of the Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise.

The Basilica, located at the corner of Cathedral and Mulberry streets in Mount Vernon, is open for visitation from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. seven days a week. Guided tours are available at 9 and 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Monday through Friday and most Saturdays and noon on Sundays. More information is available at www.baltimorebasilica.org or by calling 410-727-3565.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Catholicism
        

The Rev. Jason Poling is pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville.

As I prepare to celebrate my eighth Father’s Day (as an honoree) I join so many of my colleagues in realizing that I am turning into my father.

It’s the little things: eating food past the sell-by date, cutting dead limbs off of trees, hitting rest stops at the last possible moment. And energy conservation.

Fathers, I think, must have been the first conservationists. No doubt it was somebody’s dad who wondered aloud, and repeatedly, whether the cave needed the fire to be so hot.

And so I tromp about the house turning off lights and yelling at my kids about leaving doors open (Are you trying to air-condition the back yard?) and closing blinds on the east side of the house in the morning and on the west in the afternoon. I admonish my wife to load the dishwasher without rinsing the dishes first so we don’t strain the well. And let’s not get into septic system management.

Growing up I remember looking forward to my grandparents’ visits because the house would be heated above freezing and the fridge would be stocked with real milk instead of the powdered skim stuff my dad mixed up every few days in a harvest gold Tupperware pitcher. Until my dad installed an attic fan that sounded like a jet engine taking off and slammed every open door in the house we sweated the sheets every summer; the window fan in my room was supposedly set on low for respiratory health but I knew it was about the electric bill.

And so each time I walk out into the garage and cuss under my breath at whoever left the lights on (CFL or no, we’re still paying for the juice), and look over at the shovels hanging on the wall because I just can’t justify a snowblower, I think with a seasoned appreciation of my ancestry.

Amidst our environmental challenges many of my colleagues in the clergy are reminding anyone who will listen that the God of the Abrahamic faiths — our Father, as we Christians address him — was the ultimate Dad. He called his creation good from the first, mandated sustainable agricultural methods in his Torah, and inspired his prophets to rail against the environmental depredations inflicted on the land by the wicked.

Yet the picture Scripture paints is not one simply of conservation but of wise stewardship and healthy enjoyment. Time and again we find the poets of the Hebrew Bible singing the praises of good land well watered, of grain and fat lambs and olive oil and wine to gladden the hearts of men. If they lived in Baltimore I’m sure they’d agree that the only thing better than a cold beer after cutting the grass on a hot day is two cold beers.

Oftentimes God is portrayed as a cosmic killjoy, someone who stays up at night worried that someone, somewhere, might be having a good time. This couldn’t be farther from the truth: the God of the Bible is lavish, extravagant, generous beyond reason. And so we Christians retell at every wedding the story of Jesus turning water into wine, because if you weren’t careful, listening to some people you’d think he’d be inclined to do the opposite.

And so the same father who made me turn out the flashlight I used to read under the covers also made me turn on the lights when I was (supposed to be) reading. The very man who watched the family budget like a hawk never balked at the cost of my allergy medicine or good dental care, and he watched that budget so that when it was time for college I could attend the best school I could get into with full confidence that the bill would get sent home and that would be the end of it (for me, at least). It’s in his genes, I guess: at the funeral for my Dad’s Dad, I learned that my grandfather was legendary for the damage he could do to a seafood buffet; he used to take naps on Sunday afternoons lying on the floor of the living room with the air conditioner running full blast. This was a man who worked hard, but knew how to live and rest well too, and was honored by his local Kiwanis Club for a lifetime of generous service because that’s just how he rolled.

The standard Father’s Day caricatures of big steaks, lavish golf outings and professional-grade power tools for small home projects are funny, and familiar, and make it easy on the people who design Father’s Day cards. But they also reflect the reality that fathers are people who’ve always known that there’s a time to conserve and a time to splurge, that life is lived best when we enjoy all things in moderation and to occasional excess, that the aroma of an outsized porterhouse gets better the higher the flames jump.

It’s almost like this was somebody’s idea in the first place.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Christianity, Guest Posts, Holidays, Jason Poling
        

Local Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim congregations are praying for an end to violence this weekend during a citywide Peace Sabbath.

Faith leaders agreed to the first event of its kind last month as part of three-point plant to promote peace in Baltimore this summer. The other points:

• To call on city leaders to keep parks, recreation centers, libraries and polls open during the summer months, when children are not in school and crime typically increases; and
• To encourage churches, synagogues and mosques to designate job sites for the city’s Youth Works program, and to host youth centers other programs to provide safe havens for kids.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore, one of organizations participating in the Peace Sabbath, is asking Catholics to bring a dollar to Mass this weekend to support the city’s Safe Streets initiative. The churches of St. Ann and St. Wenceslaus in East Baltimore and St. Veronica in Cherry Hill currently host Safe Streets programs.

According to the archdiocese, Cherry Hill saw a drop from 14 shootings in the eight months before the program started at St. Veronica to one shooting in the eight months after. Now funding for the program at St. Veronica is running out and additional revenue is needed to keep it going.

Local faith leaders warned last month that planned budget cuts were threatening their hope of a “summer of peace.” As Baltimore Sun colleague Peter Hermann reported, Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien called on Mayor Sheila Dixon to reverse course.

O’Brien said that cutting money to youth programs would “make it very difficult for us to follow through" on initiatives to save lives and save children. His auxiliary, Bishop Denis J. Madden, said, "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that rec centers and pools are going to give kids something to do."

Bishop Douglas I. Miles, co-chairman of Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development and past leader of a coalition of African-American churches in Baltimore, questioned whether the closings are driven by budget cuts. "This is not a matter of the wallet, it is a matter of will,"

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Maryland Board of Regents agreed unanimously Friday to allow Baltimore Hebrew University to become part of Towson University, closing one chapter in the life of the 90-year-old institution of Jewish learning and opening another.

Read the story by Baltimore Sun religion writer Arthur Hirsch at baltimoresun.com.

The vote taken at the board meeting at Frostburg State University means that BHU -- with 55 graduate students, seven instructors and a library of some 70,000 volumes -- will move a few miles northeast from its single building in Park Heights to the suburban campus of more than 21,000 students.

The BHU graduate programs and the Joseph Meyerhoff Library collection will be in place at Towson for the fall. For now officials of both institutions are celebrating the partnership.

"I think it's very, very exciting," said Robert L. Caret, president of Towson University, after the vote was taken. "It's an opportunity that just presented itself."

BHU's interim president, Erika Pardes Schon, said "we are delighted by this decision. The faculty of BHU look forward to introducing a new tier of graduate courses at Towson University in the fall."

Baltimore Hebrew University will close, but its work will live on in three master's degree programs and in the new Baltimore Hebrew Institute to open on the Baltimore County campus. With Schon as director, the institute will carry on BHU's community activities in offering adult continuing education, public lectures and scholarly symposia.

The master of arts degree programs in Jewish studies and Jewish communal services will move to Towson's College of Liberal Arts, while the master's in Jewish education will move to the College of Education.

BHU held its final commencement last month. Those masters and doctoral candidates from BHU who still are working on their degrees now will earn Towson diplomas.

While Towson has only three applied doctoral programs and does not want to expand Ph.D. programs generally, Caret said he's receptive to a proposal to continue the BHU doctoral program in Jewish Studies. The Maryland Higher Education Commission, which approved the partnership earlier this week, granted Towson permission to submit a proposal for the doctoral program, but also barred new students from entering the program for the next six years.

Caret said the approvals have gone smoothly, and his school is ready to welcome the new faculty members.

"It's a really nice marriage," said Raymond P. Lorion, dean of Towson's College of Education, said "the whole university" is going to benefit from the addition of the BHU faculty, whom he called "serious and productive scholars."

Lorion said that while Towson's education students work with both private and public schools in the area, the addition of the Jewish education program will "expand the array of settings for which we prepare people."

Towson in the 19th century and BHU 1919 were founded to train teachers, and Lorion said both retain that "primary commitment to teaching...It's a great fit."

Terry Cooney, dean of Towson's College of Liberal Arts, said that the addition of the BHU faculty will not only add the graduate programs, but "also strengthen the undergraduate offerings" at Towson, which up until now has offered an undergraduate minor concentration in Jewish Studies. Since the Sept. 11 2001 attacks, Cooney said colleges and universities across the country have placed greater emphasis on religion courses, and "we see this as a substantial strengthening in our ability to offer a wider program in religious studies."

Hana Bor, associate professor of Jewish Education at BHU, said "we're excited about the opportunity to be among other colleagues, and to learn and to share" with a large pool of scholars in the field.

Still, she said "we have to find ways to keep our identity and our mission to train teachers for Jewish schools."

BHU's mission has evolved since it was established. It has over the years served as a high school and college, and for about 10 years has operated almost exclusively as a graduate school.

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The American Jewish World Service says the Obama administration is “sending contradictory signals in recognizing the magnitude of what has taken place and continues to occur on the ground in Darfur.”

The organization, long active on Darfur, expressed concern Friday after Gen. J. Scott Gration, the U.S. special envoy to Sudan, referred to conditions there as the “remnants of genocide.”
Earlier, Ambassador Susan Rice, the U.S. representative to the United Nations, had described the current situation in Darfur as “genocide.”

"We believe that when conditions are as deplorable as they are, when millions remain displaced from their homes — many of them victims of rape and assault — lacking sufficient food and drinking water, it is dangerous to disagree in public about whether the genocide continues," AJWS president Ruth Messinger said in a statement.

"What is essential is that we get assurances that the full complement of humanitarian aid has been completely restored and that the Obama administration recognizes that the status quo of the past seven years is unacceptable,” she said. “This is particularly the case when the onset of the rainy season continues to pose the threat that waterborne illness will spread rapidly among the population in the camps. This would cause widespread and rapid loss of life, advancing the concerted effort of the Sudanese government to cause a massive civilian death toll.

Messinger said a conference on the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between North and South Sudan in Washington next week presents an opportunity to bring peace to the region and allow the return of refugees and internally displaced persons to their homes.

“A successful CPA conference could allow the administration to then implement its existing agreements and focus immediately on negotiating, as well, for a viable peace in Darfur,” she said. “Failure to do so will only lead to more death and displacement."

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Pope Benedict XVI has declared Friday the start of a Jubilee Year for Priests. On Thursday, he issued a meditation on the priesthood and its role in the Roman Catholic Church.

Writing what the Vatican describes as a letter “to the priests of the world,” the pontiff expresses “heartfelt gratitude on the immense gift” that he says they represent to the church and to humanity, but also touches on the suffering of “the church herself” caused by what he describes as “infidelity on the part of some of her ministers.”

Benedict writes also “sectors of co-operation which need to be opened ever more fully to the lay faithful:”

Priests and laity together make up the one priestly people and in virtue of their ministry priests live in the midst of the lay faithful, “that they may lead everyone to the unity of charity, ‘loving one another with mutual affection; and outdoing one another in sharing honour.’ ”

Here we ought to recall the Vatican Council II's hearty encouragement to priests “to be sincere in their appreciation and promotion of the dignity of the laity and of the special role they have to play in the Church's mission. ... They should be willing to listen to lay people, give brotherly consideration to their wishes, and acknowledge their experience and competence in the different fields of human activity. In this way they will be able together with them to discern the signs of the times.”

The complete text of the letter follows.

Dear Brother Priests,

On the forthcoming Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Friday 19 June 2009 - a day traditionally devoted to prayer for the sanctification of the clergy - I have decided to inaugurate a "Year for Priests" in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the "dies natalis" of John Mary Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests worldwide. This Year, meant to deepen the commitment of all priests to interior renewal for the sake of a more forceful and incisive witness to the Gospel in today's world, will conclude on the same Solemnity in 2010. "The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus", the saintly Cure of Ars would often say. This touching expression makes us reflect, first of all, with heartfelt gratitude on the immense gift which priests represent, not only for the Church, but also for humanity itself. I think of all those priests who quietly present Christ's words and actions each day to the faithful and to the whole world, striving to be one with the Lord in their thoughts and their will, their sentiments and their style of life. How can I not pay tribute to their apostolic labours, their tireless and hidden service, their universal charity? And how can I not praise the courageous fidelity of so many priests who, even amid difficulties and incomprehension, remain faithful to their vocation as "friends of Christ", whom He has called by name, chosen and sent?

I still treasure the memory of the first parish priest at whose side I exercised my ministry as a young priest: he left me an example of unreserved devotion to his pastoral duties, even to meeting death in the act of bringing viaticum to a gravely ill person. I also recall the countless confreres whom I have met and continue to meet, not least in my pastoral visits to different countries: men generously dedicated to the daily exercise of their priestly ministry. Yet the expression of St. John Mary also makes us think of Christ's pierced Heart and the crown of thorns which surrounds it. I am also led to think, therefore, of the countless situations of suffering endured by many priests, either because they themselves share in the manifold human experience of pain or because they encounter misunderstanding from the very persons to whom they minister. How can we not also think of all those priests who are offended in their dignity, obstructed in their mission and persecuted, even at times to offering the supreme testimony of their own blood?

There are also, sad to say, situations which can never be sufficiently deplored where the Church herself suffers as a consequence of infidelity on the part of some of her ministers. Then it is the world which finds grounds for scandal and rejection. What is most helpful to the Church in such cases is not only a frank and complete acknowledgement of the weaknesses of her ministers, but also a joyful and renewed realisation of the greatness of God's gift, embodied in the splendid example of generous pastors, religious afire with love for God and for souls, and insightful, patient spiritual guides. Here the teaching and example of St. John Mary Vianney can serve as a significant point of reference for us all. The Cure of Ars was quite humble, yet as a priest he was conscious of being an immense gift to his people: "A good shepherd, a pastor after God's heart, is the greatest treasure which the good Lord can grant to a parish, and one of the most precious gifts of divine mercy". He spoke of the priesthood as if incapable of fathoming the grandeur of the gift and task entrusted to a human creature: "O, how great is the priest! ... If he realised what he is, he would die. ... God obeys him: he utters a few words and the Lord descends from heaven at his voice, to be contained within a small host". Explaining to his parishioners the importance of the Sacraments, he would say: "Without the Sacrament of Holy Orders, we would not have the Lord. Who put Him there in that tabernacle? The priest. Who welcomed your soul at the beginning of your life? The priest. Who feeds your soul and gives it strength for its journey? The priest. Who will prepare it to appear before God, bathing it one last time in the blood of Jesus Christ? The priest, always the priest. And if this soul should happen to die [as a result of sin], who will raise it up, who will restore its calm and peace? Again, the priest. ... After God, the priest is everything! ... Only in heaven will he fully realise what he is". These words, welling up from the priestly heart of the holy pastor, might sound excessive. Yet they reveal the high esteem in which he held the Sacrament of the Priesthood. He seemed overwhelmed by a boundless sense of responsibility: "Were we to fully realise what a priest is on earth, we would die: not of fright, but of love. ... Without the priest, the passion and death of our Lord would be of no avail. It is the priest who continues the work of redemption on earth. ... What use would be a house filled with gold, were there no one to open its door? The priest holds the key to the treasures of heaven: it is he who opens the door: he is the steward of the good Lord; the administrator of His goods. ... Leave a parish for twenty years without a priest, and they will end by worshipping the beasts there. ... The priest is not a priest for himself, he is a priest for you".

He arrived in Ars, a village of 230 souls, warned by his bishop beforehand that there he would find religious practice in a sorry state: "There is little love of God in that parish; you will be the one to put it there". As a result, he was deeply aware that he needed to go there to embody Christ's presence and to bear witness to His saving mercy: "[Lord,] grant me the conversion of my parish; I am willing to suffer whatever you wish, for my entire life!". With this prayer he entered upon his mission. The Cure devoted himself completely to his parish's conversion, setting before all else the Christian education of the people in his care. Dear brother priests, let us ask the Lord Jesus for the grace to learn for ourselves something of the pastoral plan of St. John Mary Vianney! The first thing we need to learn is the complete identification of the man with his ministry. In Jesus, person and mission tend to coincide: all Christ's saving activity was, and is, an expression of His "filial consciousness" which from all eternity stands before the Father in an attitude of loving submission to His will. In a humble yet genuine way, every priest must aim for a similar identification. Certainly this is not to forget that the efficacy of the ministry is independent of the holiness of the minister; but neither can we overlook the extraordinary fruitfulness of the encounter between the ministry's objective holiness and the subjective holiness of the minister. The Cure of Ars immediately set about this patient and humble task of harmonising his life as a minister with the holiness of the ministry he had received, by deciding to "live", physically, in his parish church: As his first biographer tells us: "Upon his arrival, he chose the church as his home. He entered the church before dawn and did not leave it until after the evening Angelus. There he was to be sought whenever needed".

The pious excess of his devout biographer should not blind us to the fact that the Cure also knew how to "live" actively within the entire territory of his parish: he regularly visited the sick and families, organised popular missions and patronal feasts, collected and managed funds for his charitable and missionary works, embellished and furnished his parish church, cared for the orphans and teachers of the "Providence" (an institute he founded); provided for the education of children; founded confraternities and enlisted lay persons to work at his side.

His example naturally leads me to point out that there are sectors of co- operation which need to be opened ever more fully to the lay faithful. Priests and laity together make up the one priestly people and in virtue of their ministry priests live in the midst of the lay faithful, "that they may lead everyone to the unity of charity, 'loving one another with mutual affection; and outdoing one another in sharing honour'". Here we ought to recall the Vatican Council II's hearty encouragement to priests "to be sincere in their appreciation and promotion of the dignity of the laity and of the special role they have to play in the Church's mission. ... They should be willing to listen to lay people, give brotherly consideration to their wishes, and acknowledge their experience and competence in the different fields of human activity. In this way they will be able together with them to discern the signs of the times".

St. John Mary Vianney taught his parishioners primarily by the witness of his life. It was from his example that they learned to pray, halting frequently before the tabernacle for a visit to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. "One need not say much to pray well" - the Cure explained to them - "We know that Jesus is there in the tabernacle: let us open our hearts to Him, let us rejoice in His sacred presence. That is the best prayer". And he would urge them: "Come to communion, my brothers and sisters, come to Jesus. Come to live from Him in order to live with Him. ... "Of course you are not worthy of him, but you need him!". This way of educating the faithful to the Eucharistic presence and to communion proved most effective when they saw him celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Those present said that "it was not possible to find a finer example of worship. ... He gazed upon the Host with immense love". "All good works, taken together, do not equal the sacrifice of the Mass" - he would say - "since they are human works, while the Holy Mass is the work of God". He was convinced that the fervour of a priest's life depended entirely upon the Mass: "The reason why a priest is lax is that he does not pay attention to the Mass! My God, how we ought to pity a priest who celebrates as if he were engaged in something routine!". He was accustomed, when celebrating, also to offer his own life in sacrifice: "What a good thing it is for a priest each morning to offer himself to God in sacrifice!"

This deep personal identification with the Sacrifice of the Cross led him - by a sole inward movement - from the altar to the confessional. Priests ought never to be resigned to empty confessionals or the apparent indifference of the faithful to this Sacrament. In France, at the time of the Cure of Ars, confession was no more easy or frequent than in our own day, since the upheaval caused by the revolution had long inhibited the practice of religion. Yet he sought in every way, by his preaching and his powers of persuasion, to help his parishioners to rediscover the meaning and beauty of the Sacrament of Penance, presenting it as an inherent demand of the Eucharistic presence. He thus created a "virtuous" circle. By spending long hours in church before the tabernacle, he inspired the faithful to imitate him by coming to visit Jesus with the knowledge that their parish priest would be there, ready to listen and offer forgiveness. Later, the growing numbers of penitents from all over France would keep him in the confessional for up to sixteen hours a day. It was said that Ars had become "a great hospital of souls". His first biographer relates that "the grace he obtained [for the conversion of sinners] was so powerful that it would pursue them, not leaving them a moment of peace!". The saintly Cure reflected something of the same idea when he said: "It is not the sinner who returns to God to beg his forgiveness, but God Himself who runs after the sinner and makes him return to Him". "This good Saviour is so filled with love that He seeks us everywhere".

We priests should feel that the following words, which he put on the lips of Christ, are meant for each of us personally: "I will charge my ministers to proclaim to sinners that I am ever ready to welcome them, that my mercy is infinite". From St. John Mary Vianney we can learn to put our unfailing trust in the Sacrament of Penance, to set it once more at the centre of our pastoral concerns, and to take up the "dialogue of salvation" which it entails. The Cure of Ars dealt with different penitents in different ways. Those who came to his confessional drawn by a deep and humble longing for God's forgiveness found in him the encouragement to plunge into the "flood of divine mercy" which sweeps everything away by its vehemence. If someone was troubled by the thought of his own frailty and inconstancy, and fearful of sinning again, the Cure would unveil the mystery of God's love in these beautiful and touching words: "The good Lord knows everything. Even before you confess, He already knows that you will sin again, yet He still forgives you. How great is the love of our God: He even forces Himself to forget the future, so that He can grant us His forgiveness!". But to those who made a lukewarm and rather indifferent confession of sin, he clearly demonstrated by his own tears of pain how "abominable" this attitude was: "I weep because you don't weep", he would say. "If only the Lord were not so good! But He is so good! One would have to be a brute to treat so good a Father this way!". He awakened repentance in the hearts of the lukewarm by forcing them to see God's own pain at their sins reflected in the face of the priest who was their confessor. To those who, on the other hand, came to him already desirous of and suited to a deeper spiritual life, he flung open the abyss of God's love, explaining the untold beauty of living in union with Him and dwelling in His presence: "Everything in God's sight, everything with God, everything to please God. ... How beautiful it is!". And he taught them to pray: "My God, grant me the grace to love You as much as I possibly can".

In his time the Cure of Ars was able to transform the hearts and the lives of so many people because he enabled them to experience the Lord's merciful love. Our own time urgently needs a similar proclamation and witness to the truth of Love. Thanks to the Word and the Sacraments of Jesus, John Mary Vianney built up his flock, although he often trembled from a conviction of his personal inadequacy, and desired more than once to withdraw from the responsibilities of the parish ministry out of a sense of his unworthiness. Nonetheless, with exemplary obedience he never abandoned his post, consumed as he was by apostolic zeal for the salvation of souls. He sought to remain completely faithful to his own vocation and mission through the practice of an austere asceticism: "The great misfortune for us parish priests - he lamented - is that our souls grow tepid"; meaning by this that a pastor can grow dangerously inured to the state of sin or of indifference in which so many of his flock are living. He himself kept a tight rein on his body, with vigils and fasts, lest it rebel against his priestly soul. Nor did he avoid self- mortification for the good of the souls in his care and as a help to expiating the many sins he heard in confession. To a priestly confrere he explained: "I will tell you my recipe: I give sinners a small penance and the rest I do in their place". Aside from the actual penances which the Cure of Ars practised, the core of his teaching remains valid for each of us: souls have been won at the price of Jesus' own blood, and a priest cannot devote himself to their salvation if he refuses to share personally in the "precious cost" of redemption.

In today's world, as in the troubled times of the Cure of Ars, the lives and activity of priests need to be distinguished by a forceful witness to the Gospel. As Pope Paul VI rightly noted, "modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses". Lest we experience existential emptiness and the effectiveness of our ministry be compromised, we need to ask ourselves ever anew: "Are we truly pervaded by the Word of God? Is that Word truly the nourishment we live by, even more than bread and the things of this world? Do we really know that Word? Do we love it? Are we deeply engaged with this Word to the point that it really leaves a mark on our lives and shapes our thinking?". Just as Jesus called the Twelve to be with Him, and only later sent them forth to preach, so too in our days priests are called to assimilate that "new style of life" which was inaugurated by the Lord Jesus and taken up by the Apostles.

It was complete commitment to this "new style of life" which marked the priestly ministry of the Cure of Ars. Pope John XXIII, in his Encyclical Letter "Sacerdotii nostri primordia", published in 1959 on the first centenary of the death of St. John Mary Vianney, presented his asceticism with special reference to the "three evangelical counsels" which the Pope considered necessary also for priests: "even though priests are not bound to embrace these evangelical counsels by virtue of the clerical state, these counsels nonetheless offer them, as they do all the faithful, the surest road to the desired goal of Christian perfection". The Cure of Ars lived the "evangelical counsels" in a way suited to his priestly state. His poverty was not the poverty of a religious or a monk, but that proper to a priest: while managing much money (since well-to-do pilgrims naturally took an interest in his charitable works), he realised that everything had been donated to his church, his poor, his orphans, the girls of his "Providence", his families of modest means. Consequently, he "was rich in giving to others and very poor for himself". As he would explain: "My secret is simple: give everything away; hold nothing back". When he lacked money, he would say amiably to the poor who knocked at his door: "Today I'm poor just like you, I'm one of you". At the end of his life, he could say with absolute tranquillity: "I no longer have anything. The good Lord can call me whenever he wants!". His chastity, too, was that demanded of a priest for his ministry. It could be said that it was a chastity suited to one who must daily touch the Eucharist, who contemplates it blissfully and with that same bliss offers it to his flock. It was said of him that "he radiated chastity"; the faithful would see this when he turned and gazed at the tabernacle with loving eyes". Finally, Saint John Mary Vianney's obedience found full embodiment in his conscientious fidelity to the daily demands of his ministry. We know how he was tormented by the thought of his inadequacy for parish ministry and by a desire to flee "in order to bewail his poor life, in solitude". Only obedience and a thirst for souls convinced him to remain at his post. As he explained to himself and his flock: "There are no two good ways of serving God. There is only one: serve him as he desires to be served". He considered this the golden rule for a life of obedience: "Do only what can be offered to the good Lord".

In this context of a spirituality nourished by the practice of the evangelical counsels, I would like to invite all priests, during this Year dedicated to them, to welcome the new springtime which the Spirit is now bringing about in the Church, not least through the ecclesial movements and the new communities. "In his gifts the Spirit is multifaceted. ... He breathes where He wills. He does so unexpectedly, in unexpected places, and in ways previously unheard of, ... but he also shows us that He works with a view to the one body and in the unity of the one body". In this regard, the statement of the Decree "Presbyterorum Ordinis" continues to be timely: "While testing the spirits to discover if they be of God, priests must discover with faith, recognise with joy and foster diligently the many and varied charismatic gifts of the laity, whether these be of a humble or more exalted kind". These gifts, which awaken in many people the desire for a deeper spiritual life, can benefit not only the lay faithful but the clergy as well. The communion between ordained and charismatic ministries can provide "a helpful impulse to a renewed commitment by the Church in proclaiming and bearing witness to the Gospel of hope and charity in every corner of the world". I would also like to add, echoing the Apostolic Exhortation "Pastores Dabo Vobis" of Pope John Paul II, that the ordained ministry has a radical "communitarian form" and can be exercised only in the communion of priests with their bishop. This communion between priests and their bishop, grounded in the Sacrament of Holy Orders and made manifest in Eucharistic concelebration, needs to be translated into various concrete expressions of an effective and affective priestly fraternity. Only thus will priests be able to live fully the gift of celibacy and build thriving Christian communities in which the miracles which accompanied the first preaching of the Gospel can be repeated.

The Pauline Year now coming to its close invites us also to look to the Apostle of the Gentiles, who represents a splendid example of a priest entirely devoted to his ministry. "The love of Christ urges us on" - he wrote - "because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died". And he adds: "He died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for Him Who died and was raised for them". Could a finer programme be proposed to any priest resolved to advance along the path of Christian perfection?
Dear brother priests, the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the death of St. John Mary Vianney (1859) follows upon the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of Lourdes (1858). In 1959 Blessed Pope John XXIII noted that "shortly before the Cure of Ars completed his long and admirable life, the Immaculate Virgin appeared in another part of France to an innocent and humble girl, and entrusted to her a message of prayer and penance which continues, even a century later, to yield immense spiritual fruits. The life of this holy priest whose centenary we are commemorating in a real way anticipated the great supernatural truths taught to the seer of Massabielle. He was greatly devoted to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin; in 1836 he had dedicated his parish church to Our Lady Conceived without Sin and he greeted the dogmatic definition of this truth in 1854 with deep faith and great joy". The Cure would always remind his faithful that "after giving us all he could, Jesus Christ wishes in addition to bequeath us His most precious possession, His Blessed Mother".

To the Most Holy Virgin I entrust this Year for Priests. I ask her to awaken in the heart of every priest a generous and renewed commitment to the ideal of complete self-oblation to Christ and the Church which inspired the thoughts and actions of the saintly Cure of Ars. It was his fervent prayer life and his impassioned love of Christ Crucified that enabled John Mary Vianney to grow daily in his total self-oblation to God and the Church. May his example lead all priests to offer that witness of unity with their bishop, with one another and with the lay faithful, which today, as ever, is so necessary. Despite all the evil present in our world, the words which Christ spoke to His Apostles in the Upper Room continue to inspire us: "In the world you have tribulation; but take courage, I have overcome the world". Our faith in the Divine Master gives us the strength to look to the future with confidence. Dear priests, Christ is counting on you. In the footsteps of the Cure of Ars, let yourselves be enthralled by Him. In this way you too will be, for the world in our time, heralds of hope, reconciliation and peace!

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Catholicism
        

Shaukat Malik is a Muslim-American Certified Public Accountant from Potomac. A native of Pakistan, he arrived in the United States in 1980.

In Pakistan, the religious schools called madrassas were created during the Afghan war as factories for producing future mujahedeen to fight the Soviet infidels. It was a win for all parties involved. They were financed by Middle East money and America’s acquiescence.

Today there are thousands of madrassas scattered all over Pakistan providing lodging and shelter to poor children, who have nowhere else to turn. Each madrassa is like an orphanage run by fascist clerics.

Madrassas today teach hatred of non-Muslims using an orthodox interpretation of the Quran taught by self-serving mullahs lacking formal education. Brainwashed children graduating as clerics are taught to believe that salvation is only possibly by establishing an Islamic kingdom governed under their interpretation of Sharia law.

All actions -- training suicide bombers, storing weapons, harassing local citizens, beheading, whipping and stoning -- are justifiable in this struggle. madrassas share the Taliban’s ideology and are their natural partners and allies.

In 2007, students of madrassas affiliated with Lal Masjid in Islamabad, using Taliban-style intimidation, kidnapped women and openly harassed citizens. Using heavy firepower the students fought with Pakistan army.

Unfortunately, the dictatorship of former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf allowed madrassas to operate unchecked and used them as a scarecrow for the West.

The Taliban running from Swat will find safe houses in these madrassas. The only way to stop them from regrouping is to completely reform madrassas by converting them into regular schools, graduating useful members of society. Also, family planning, ignored by previous governments, must be encouraged nationwide to reduce unwanted births and numbers of children requiring boarding and lodging.

Converting Madrassas to regular schools will quickly root out these hornets’ nests and allow Pakistanis to start breathing again and realize their true long-term potential.

Pakistan government must take immediate action using U.S. aid dollars. This will indeed help root out the cancer of Taliban and put Pakistan back on the right track.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The University of Maryland System Board of Regents is expected to approve the integration of Baltimore Hebrew University with Towson University on Friday, allowing the 90-year-old institution of Jewish learning to move from Park Heights to the campus of the larger public university in time for the start of the fall semester.

Under an agreement negotiation by the two institutions, BHU’s programs, faculty and courses are to be dispersed among different schools and departments at Towson. One floor of Towson's Albert S. Cook Library will be cleared to accommodate BHU's 70,000-volume Joseph Meyerhoff Library, which school officials describe as the largest collection of Judaica in the Mid-Atlantic region, and a new Baltimore Hebrew Institute will offer continuing education and other programs for the community.

The board of regents are expected to approve the merger during its regular meeting Friday at Frostburg State University.

BHU, which was founded in 1919 to train teachers for local Jewish schools, has grown with the community to offer master's degrees and doctorates. A high school that operated from the 1930s through the 1980s graduated thousands of students.

But declining enrollments and rising costs have made it increasingly difficult for the institution to remain independent, school officials say, leading its sole donor, the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Greater Baltimore, to direct administrators to find a new model.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Jubilee Year of the Priest announced by Pope Benedict XVI begins on Friday. At least one group won’t be celebrating.

The Women’s Ordination Conference is denouncing the yearlong commemoration that it says is “intended to strengthen and reinvigorate the male, clerical priesthood.” The conference describes itself as the oldest and largest organization that works solely to ordain women as deacons, priests and bishops.

"While the Holy See prepares for a year-long focus on the priesthood and struggles to reinvigorate a damaged institution, Women's Ordination Conference calls for a celebration of the priesthood of the baptized,” incoming executive director Erin Saiz Hanna said in a statement. “Second Vatican Council documents state that all the baptized share in the ‘priestly, prophetic and kingly office of Christ.’ All people receive gifts of the Holy Spirit and all are called to use these gifts in service to the needs of our world.

“Instead of emphasizing the separation between the hierarchy and the people of God, WOC calls on the Vatican to return the church we love back to the example of Jesus, where all are invited and included.”

The conference says it is celebrating “the countless women and men who make a positive difference in our churches and communities every day.”

“Right now in every diocese, lay ecclesial ministers are working for justice and responding to the spiritual needs in our communities. There are over 31,000 lay ministers in the U.S.A., surpassing the 29,000 diocesan priests in the country. It is important to note that 80 percent of these ministers are women.”

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Catholicism
        

President Barack Obama went to Egypt this month to create common ground between America and Islam. In the process, Morgan State University historian Lawrence A. Peskin says, he whitewashed America's early, troubled history with the Islamic world.

Writing Thursday at baltimoresun.com, Peskin takes issue with Obama’s version of events:

In his speech at Cairo University, the president noted that "Islam has always been a part of America's story." He cited Morocco's early recognition of American independence in 1778. He also reminded his audience of the U.S.-Tripoli treaty of 1796-97, which denied that the United States bore any "enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity" of Muslims.

In so doing, the president created a mythic tale of longstanding friendship and understanding on the part of Americans and Islamic North Africans. Although it may have diplomatic uses, this tale has little historical basis.

President Obama correctly stated that Morocco was the first nation to recognize American independence. However, he omitted the fact that shortly thereafter, Moroccans captured an American ship and its crew to force the United States to sign a pay-for-peace treaty with Morocco's ruler.

The payment did stop Morocco from capturing more Americans, but soon its next-door neighbor, Algeria, began capturing American ships. Ultimately it held more than 100 American crew members for ransom, some for a dozen years. Nor did a similar arrangement with Tripoli stop that country from capturing more Americans.

Read the rest of Peskin's piece at baltimoresun.com.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 4:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The reintegration of a traditionalist order into the Roman Catholic Church, on which Pope Benedict XVI had been seen as more hospitable than his predecessor, is not going as smoothly as the two sides hoped.

Benedict and the Vatican were embarrassed earlier this year when it lifted the two-decade excommunication of four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X, only to learn that one of the four was a Holocaust denier.

Now, Reuters reports, the Vatican has warned the order not to go ahead with plans to ordain new priests this month, saying the move could incur disciplinary action.

It was the ordination of the four bishops without the permission of the Vatican in 1988 that led Pope John Paul II to throw the order out of the church. Relations had been strained dating to the order’s founding in 1970 in opposition to changes in the church wrought by the Second Vatican Council.

In a statement, the Vatican said the planned ordinations of 13 priests in Germany, Switzerland and the United States would be considered “illegitimate,” and warned that disciplinary questions regarding the order “remained open.”

The rector of the order’s seminary in Winona, Minn., told Reuters that the ordination would go ahead in spite of the warning.

“Absolutely. We are doing it,” the Rev. Yves Le Roux said. “This is something the Vatican feels it has to say. It’s a political statement but the reality is totally different.”

The Vatican decision to lift the excommunication of the four bishops restored their standing as Catholics, but did not recognize their ordination as bishops. The move, seen as a concession by the Vatican intended to thaw relations, drew international condemnation when the views of Richard Williamson became known.

Williamson had told an interview that he didn’t believe Jews were killed in gas chambers and that no more than 300,000 Jews died in Nazi concentration camps – far fewer than the 6 million generally accepted.

The episode damaged Catholic-Jewish relations. Benedict condemned Holocaust denial, and the Vatican said it had not known of Williamson’s views prior to lifting the excommunications.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Catholicism
        

Jim Stephens attended a matchmaking ceremony held by what was then the Unification Church 30 years ago, convinced that he could not find a bride on his own. Upon being paired with Hiromi Ishida of Japan, who had recently arrived in the United States and spoke little English, he said that he was ready to get married right away. "Me too," she replied. "But what's your name..."

The Columbia couple, colleague Joe Burris writes in Thursday's Baltimore Sun, were wedded by church founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon three years later, joining 2,075 couples in the church's mass marriage blessing ceremony at New York's Madison Square Garden. Now their son, Miilhan, has followed in their footsteps; he and Sayaka Inokuchi of Japan were among 270 second-generation church couples whose unions were blessed at New York's Manhattan Center in January.

The latest blessing comes amid the 40th anniversary of the first marriages arranged by Moon in the United States. His worldwide church, now called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU), believes in arranging marriages to help create communities that are rooted in its tenets.

The church's approach to matrimony is similar to that of countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. In the United States, it has endured where so-called love marriages are the norm.

The church recently held its ninth annual Parent's Matching Convocation in Barrytown, N.Y., where parents of marriage prospects took part in the matching process. Stephens, who offered presentations and testimonials, said about 170 people attended.

"We believe that this is the original way it should have been done," said Stephens about marriages in the church. "With God's guidance, parents will find a spouse for their children, with their children's cooperation, of course. It's not a forced marriage. It's an arranged marriage."

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

A former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum sees in the shooting there last week evidence of the return of anti-Semitism, after a long period of relative quiet.

“The Holocaust was so massive an orgy of violence — so systematized and so organized by one of the most modern and cultured countries — that anti-Semitism itself became, for the next few decades, a spent force,” Walter Reich, a psychiatrist and professor at George Washington University, writes Thursday in The Baltimore Sun.

“Now, after this vacation of a few decades, anti-Semitism is back,” he writes. “That prejudice, which has been the norm of history, has returned. It's resurgent across Europe and proliferating wildly in the Middle East.”

James von Brunn of Maryland has been charged with two counts of murder in the shooting death last week of Stephen T. Johns, a security guard at the Holocaust museum. An FBI affidavit for a search warrant of his Annapolis apartment describes von Brunn as espousing “hate speech directed specifically toward Jews for an extensive period of time.”

Reich sees a “pressing” need “to stop, or at least minimize, anti-Semitism's deadly consequences.”

“Since anti-Semitic violence has been carried out for so long, most massively just a few decades ago, there's no reason to feel confident that it will simply stop,” he writes. “We don't have a good track record of learning from history. Repeatedly we make ourselves feel better by vowing "never again" about genocide, but somehow we find ourselves watching, or even turning away, as it happens yet again. But history - especially the Holocaust - can teach us some lessons about what has to be done when anti-Semitism morphs, as it so often has, from words to deeds.

“We can learn to take seriously the reality and potential of anti-Semitism when it's expressed. We have to stop those who threaten to wipe out the Jews or the country in which almost half of them live, especially if they have, or are readying, the means to do so. And we must be sure that Jews have a haven within which they can defend themselves.”

Also in Thursday’s Sun, reporters Kelly Brewington and Tim Wheeler find organized hate in Maryland to be a mixed picture, with the connection among individuals, organized groups and occasional acts of vandalism or violence unclear.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Judaism
        

What happened? Used to be you could safely equate communist party membership with atheism because, well, wasn't it always that way? Was that not much of the reason why various various churches during the United State's Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union were famously opposed to communism? Didn't the U.S. put the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance during the Cold War just to show which of the two chief antagonists in that struggle was closer to the Lord? Didn't the movie director and avid anti-communist Cecile B. DeMille help to put up those Ten Commandments monuments in public places as a political statement as well as some nice PR for his movie starring Charlton Heston? And, of course, was it not Karl Marx, co-author of 'The Communist Manifesto' who called reglion the "opium of the people"?

Now comes the Communist Party USA to complicate the matter. According to the Peoples' Weekly World, the party argues that the association of communism and atheism is a misconception, notwithstanding the original Bolsheviks' official atheist position arising from its conflict with the Russian Orthodox Church for its alliance with the tsarist state. Going a step further, the party announces that it has formed a new "Religion Commission"  to "welcome people of faith into the party."

The chairman of the commission, Tim Yeager, identified as a 'Chicago trade unionist and member of the Episcopal Church,' says “We invite questions and responses from people who would like to dialogue with us on matters pertaining to religion, Marxism and the struggle for more peaceful, just and secure world.”

Yeager sidesteps that whole unpleasant "opium" business, and instead closes his remarks by quoting Marx otherwise: “As Marx said, the goal is not merely to explain the world, but to change it. We hope that the new Religion Commission will help build greater unity toward that end...We welcome people from faith communities to join us.”

Posted by Arthur Hirsch at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

The Maryland Higher Education Commission has signed off on the integration of Baltimore Hebrew University into Towson University, bringing the merger within a vote of becoming reality.

The commission issued letters to Towson President Robert L. Caret and BHU President Erika Pardes Schon on Wednesday saying it had approved a merger agreement signed by the two institutions. Approval by the University of Maryland System Board of Regents on Friday would allow the 90-year-old center of Jewish learning to complete the move from Park Heights to the campus of the larger public university in time for the start of the fall semester.

The two schools agreed to the merger earlier this year. With the approval of the regents, BHU programs, faculty and courses will be dispersed among different schools and departments at Towson. One floor of Towson’s Albert S. Cook Library will be cleared to accommodate BHU’s 70,000-volume Joseph Meyerhoff Library, which school officials describe as the largest collection of Judaica in the Mid-Atlantic.

Founded in 1919 to train teachers for local Jewish schools, BHU grew with the community to offer master’s degrees and doctorates. A high school that operated from the 1930s through the 1980s graduated thousands of students.

But declining enrollments and rising costs have made it increasingly difficult for the institution to remain independent, leading its sole donor, the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Greater Baltimore, to direct administrators to find a new model.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 4:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Public Broadcasting Service is banning member stations from adding local church services and religious lectures to their broadcast schedules, but will allow existing programs to remain on the air, the Washington Post reports.

The vote Tuesday by the PBS board represented a compromise from an outright ban against airing religious programs, according to Post reporter Paul Farhi. PBS stations have long been required to present programming that is noncommercial, nonpartisan and nonsectarian, but definitions have been interpreted loosely, and the rule had never been strictly enforced.

PBS began reviewing policy in light of the transition from broadcast to digital television and the practice by many stations of streaming programs over their websites, Farhi writes.

The decision does not appear to affect Maryland Public Television; as we read the MPT schedule, we don’t see programming of the sort to be impacted. But as Farhi writes, the discussion spurred the Archdiocese of Washington to move its longtime “Mass for Shut-Ins” from PBS member WHUT Channel 32 in the District to WDCW Channel 50, a CW affiliate owned by the Baltimore Sun parent Tribune Co.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)
        

Federal terrorism finance laws are interfering with the ability of American Muslims to give to charity as required by their faith, according to a report released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Zakat, or alms giving, is one of the five pillars of Islam. But the ACLU says terrorism finance laws that were expanded after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to stop the flow of U.S. dollars to violent groups have made American Muslims afraid to give to any organization, lest it come under government suspicion and those who support it face criminal prosecution.

“Widespread intimidation of Muslim donors and the arbitrary blacklisting of charitable organizations trample on Muslims’ free exercise of religion through charitable giving and tarnish America’s reputation as a beacon of religious freedom,” said Jennifer Turner, who wrote the 164-page report, entitled “Blocking Faith, Freezing Charity.”

"Post-9/11 policies have created a climate of fear that prevents Muslims from practicing their religion, and unless the Obama administration takes action, this legacy of the Bush administration will persist."

The government has closed seven Muslim charities since Sept. 11, 2001, and two others have shut down after government raids on their offices, according to the Associated Press. In Dallas last month, a federal judge sentenced five members of the now-defunct Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development to prison after they were convicted of funneling money to the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The defendants said they only gave much-needed aid to a volatile region.

Two other high-profile terrorism-financing trials, in Chicago and Florida, ended without convictions on the major counts.

President Barack Obama raised the issue during his speech this month in Cairo.

“Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together,” he said. “We must always examine the ways in which we protect it. For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That's why I'm committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.”

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Revs. Robert Wojtek and Joseph Muth will lead a rally for comprehensive immigration reform Wednesday in Baltimore before leading a pair buses to Washington for an interfaith prayer vigil with members of Congress and faith leaders from throughout the country.

The Baltimore rally is set for noon in front of St. Patrick Church at the intersection of Bank Street and Broadway in Fells Point. Wojtek and Muth will speak on behalf of Archbiship Edwin F. O’Brien and the Archdiocesan Immigration Coalition; the buses will leave for D.C. at 12:30 p.m.

In a 2007 letter, the top bishops of Baltimore, Washington and Wilmington, Del. – the three dioceses that operate in Maryland – urged Catholics “to consider prayerfully the question of immigration, including illegal immigration.”

“The rule of law must be respected,” they wrote. “The discussion, however, cannot end there. Undocumented immigrants are persons with dignity — a reality that obliges us to learn about the immigration system, understand the motivation for migration, and consider the needs of individuals and families. Our American ideals call us to participate in the public debate; our Catholic faith urges us to do so with charity.”

Read more on Catholic teaching on immigration from the Maryland Catholic Conference.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

It’s not an endorsement, but Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien says he is “pleased and grateful” that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is “one of us.”

In a Catholic Review column that focuses primarily on faith identity in parochial education, O’Brien notes that while Sotomayor apparently does not attend Mass regularly, she did spend 12 years in Catholic schools. The nominee graduated from New York’s Cardinal Spellman High School, with which Bronx native O’Brien says he is “very familiar.”

“I know Spellman High to be solidly Catholic in spirit and in consistent fidelity to the Church and its teachings,” he writes. He adds that her sporadic Mass attendance does not mean that her alma mater “somehow failed in its mission.”

“While we can attempt to measure a school’s Catholicity with some success, we cannot and should not seek to judge that school’s Catholicity solely or even primarily on the basis of a graduate’s Mass attendance, desirable as that practice is,” he writes. “Many other factors must be considered such as familial and cultural experiences and attitudes, societal and peer influences, other schooling, negative Church experiences and let’s never forget — divine grace. In the end only the Lord can judge how well any one of us has lived up to the faith given us.”

Much has been made of Sotomayor’s Catholicism, particularly as it might relate to her thinking on abortion and other issues. Her judicial record on abortion is thin, but it includes at least a couple of rulings that should hearten opponents of abortion rights.

In the first, Sotomayor rejected a bid by abortion rights supporters to overturn the so-called “Mexico City policy” implemented most recently by President George W. Bush, which barred organizations that received U.S. finding from performing or promoting the procedure.

In the second, Sotomayor ruled in favor of anti-abortion protesters who claimed that police in West Hartford, Conn., used excessive force against them while dispersing a demonstration.

O’Brien, who objected last month to the invitation extended by Notre Dame to President Barack Obama, a supporter of abortion rights, to receive an honorary degree and speak at commencement exercises, writes that he is “pleased and grateful that Judge Sotomayor is ‘one of us.’

Quoting Pope Benedict XVI, he continues, “We all hope and pray that if appointed, her decisions will reflect a true ‘concern for justice and respect for God’s creation.’ “

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Catholicism, People, Politics
        

Rabbi Yaakov Menken is director of Project Genesis, a Jewish cyber-outreach organization based in Baltimore.

In the wake of the shooting attack at Washington's Holocaust Museum last week, many organizations issued public statements. Most of those were similar to these words from President Obama: "This outrageous act reminds us that we must remain vigilant against anti-Semitism and prejudice in all its forms."

Agudath Israel, the Jewish communal organization representing the interests of traditionally Orthodox Jews, issued a statement as well. Its statement, though, was different -- it consisted solely of an open letter to the young son of the security guard who gave his life defending the visitors to that Museum.

This letter's personal touch reminds us all that this was not only an outrage against the national consciousness, but an acutely personal tragedy as well.

To the Young Son of Stephen Tyrone Johns:

Your name wasn’t mentioned on the ABC-Nightline report where you were briefly interviewed after the tragic death of your father. But what mattered were your words, that your Dad was “a loving father” and your “hero.”

I want you to know that he is a hero to us too.

Your father died protecting people, young and old, of many races and religions, who had come to a very special place: the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. He was the victim of a terrible hatred -- a hatred cut from the same ugly cloth as the hatred that killed my grandparents in Europe, a hatred the museum was designed to warn us about, and to help erase from the world.

May we soon see the day when such irrational hatred in all its forms will be erased from the world. And may you derive comfort, even as you mourn your terrible loss, from the fact that your father was not only a hero in your life but died a hero to the world.

 

Rabbi David Zwiebel

 

Executive Vice President

Agudath Israel of America

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Among the four men to become priests on Saturday, two will be the first Latinos ordained by the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

With a large and growing Latino population and a shortage of American men interested in the priesthood, the archdiocese in recent years has looked to vocation-rich South America for new recruits. Hector Mateus-Ariza and Gonzalo Cadavid-Rivera, both of whom are from Colombia, will be assigned to churches with "significant numbers of Hispanic parishioners," an archdiocesan spokesman said.

"The ordination of the first two Hispanic priests for the Archdiocese represents the commitment the Church has made to providing for the unique pastoral needs of the largest growing segment of our population (in the Church and nationwide)," spokesman Sean Caine said in an e-mail. "It reflects the great diversity and universality of the Catholic faith and it demonstrates the success of the expanded outreach efforts of our Vocations Office to increase vocations in our Archdiocese."

Cadavid-Rivera and Mateus-Ariza will not be the first Latino priests to serve locally, Caine said, but they will be the first ordained by the archdiocese.

Gonzalo Cadavid-Rivera, also 37, earned degrees in civil law and administrative law before coming to the United States in 2004 to become the first Latino seminarian for the archdiocese, studying at Mount St. Mary’s. He will begin his priestly ministry at St. Joseph’s Church in Cockeysville.

Mateus-Ariza, 37, worked in his native Bogota as a professional chef for 10 years and eventually for the president of Colombia and his cabinet, according to the archdiocese. During a 2001 trip to Honduras to perform missionary work, he found his calling to the priesthood. He was invited by a priest-friend to come to the United States and has studied for the priesthood the past seven years at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary. His first priestly assignment will be at St. John Parish in Westminster.

There are currently 426 priests in active ministry serving more than 500,000 Catholics in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, according to the archdiocese. Another 102 priests are retired, though many continue to celebrate public Masses and perform other sacramental duties.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Catholicism
        

Asked about Holocaust museum shooting suspect James von Brunn, Baltimore Jewish Council Executive Director Arthur C. Abramson tells The Baltimore Sun "we are aware of his past, but he's not a name that immediately came to mind."

Sun colleagues Scott Calvert, Brent Jones and Paul West have produced an interesting report examining the 88-year-old von Brunn's history and views. The World War II veteran and commercial artist apparently was well known among hate groups and those who track them.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, von Brunn's "magnum opus" was a self-published anti-Semitic book called Kill the Best Gentiles. He has written many anti-Semitic essays and in recent years maintained an anti-Semitic Web site, holywesternempire.org.

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Judaism
        

We went to the website of the Anti-Defamation League to look for comment on this afternoon's shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. What we found was criticism of a recent Doonesbury comic strip.

In a letter to strip creator Garry Trudeau, the ADL says the installment of May 31 "misquotes the Bible, maligns Judaism, and promotes a Christian heresy, all within eight panels."

At issue in the Sunday strip is an exchange between longtime characters Boopsie, her daughter, Samantha, and the Rev. Scot Sloan, about "the money lenders," whom Samantha describes as the only group against whom Jesus "really snaps."

"What is it about money lenders?" Boopsie asks.

"They do seem to set people off, don't they?" responds a smiling Sloan.

To the ADL, the reference to "money lenders" recalls the stereotype of Shylock, the enduringly controversial character from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. As the ADL notes, it was the money-changers, not money lenders, against whom Jesus rails in the Gospel accounts.

"Doonesbury's Reverend Sloan is guilty of promoting anti-Jewish stereotypes and biblical illiteracy," the ADL says. "He owes both Jews and Christians an apology."

It's interesting that the ADL says it's the character, and not Trudeau, who owes the apology. It may be that the organization detects an inadvertance to what, to many, could be a slur.

If the generally liberal creator of the 40-year-old strip has ever been accused of anti-Semitism, I'm unaware of it. The Sloan character, who dates to the earliest days of Doonesbury, is based partly on the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., the former Yale chaplain who championed interfaith relations and other progressive causes; in the strip, Trudeau has deployed him as a representative of liberal mainline Protestantism.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

The first condemnation of this afternoon's shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to hit our inbox comes from the politically active Council on American-Islamic Relations:

“We condemn this apparent bias-motivated attack and stand with the Jewish community and with Americans of all faiths in repudiating the kind of hatred and intolerance that can lead to such disturbing incidents.”

Law enforcement officials have identified the suspect as 88-year-old James von Brunn, who media are describing as an elderly white supremecist from the Eastern Shore of Maryland. A Nexis search of public records turns up an 88-year-old James von Brunn linked to address in Easton, Hebron and Annapolis.

More on the shooting is available at baltimoresun.com.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 3:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

At least two people were shot Wednesday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, the Associated Press is reporting.

Washington police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said a person walked into the museum about 1 p.m. with a rifle and shot a guard. Hughes said the shooter was also shot. Hughes said the conditions of those shot were not known. Both were being rushed to a hospital.

CNN is reporting that the shooter was an 88-year-old white supremacist.

U.S. Park Police told the Associated Press that three people had been shot. Fire department spokesman Alan Etter told CNN a third person was hurt after being cut by broken glass.

Read the rest of the story at The Baltimore Sun.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Judaism
        

Christopher de Leon was an engineer with a degree from Johns Hopkins and a sports car from Europe. Hamilton Okeke came to the United States after losing his parents in Nigeria. Gregory Rapisarda was an attorney practicing in Bel Air.

All three are now at St. Mary’s Seminary and University, studying for the priesthood. With the Year of the Priest declared by Pope Benedict XVI set to begin next week, the Catholic Review is profiling the three during their formation. The first of a three-part series appears in the current issue.

Particularly interesting is the story of Rapisarda, a former president of the Harford County Chamber of Commerce. A parishioner at St. Margaret Roman Catholic Church in Bel Air, in 2003 he was ordained a permanent deacon, a ministry that enables married men to preach and celebrate the sacraments of the church.

Raipsarda’s son, meanwhile, was studying for the priesthood. Ordained last year, the Rev. John Rapisarda now serves Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Essex.

Following the death of his wife Rapisarda now is following his son into the priesthood. The Catholic Review reports that Carol Rapisarda supported his decision.

Read the rest of the story at the Catholic Review.

Also of interest in the current issue: A story on the four men to be ordained priests by Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien on Saturday at the Cathedral Mary Our Queen, and another on three archdiocesan schools that are closing for good this month.

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Marriage, raising children and homeschooling will be on the agenda at the Catholic Family Expo, set for Friday and Saturday at the Church of the Resurrection in Ellicott City. Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien will open a youth rally on Friday evening.

Philosopher Peter Kreeft of Boston College will discuss St. Paul’s answer to the question: “How can we know contentment and happiness in the midst of global turmoil, creeping socialism and the apparent decline of a faith filled society, and personal lives filled with urgent demands on all sides?”

Andrew Pudewa, director of the Institute for Excellence in Writing, will discuss the “war for the heart of our Christian society, now corrupted by a continuous onslaught of relativism in thought, art, and morality, resulting in a culture of death, debt and despair,” and the “urgent responsibility to raise up an army of ‘culture warriors’ ” who “will be empowered to communicate the truth in a world of liars and lead their clueless peers through the coming crises.”

More information, including a form for registration, is available here.

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Hindus, Mormons and Catholics, are the least likely Americans to marry outside their faiths, while Buddhists and the spiritually unaffiliated are the likeliest to form religiously mixed marriages, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The forum is celebrating wedding season by pulling data about marriage and religion out of its 2007 U.S. Religion Landscape Survey. The chart below should be self-explanatory.

Of

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Culture
        

While the number of anti-Semitic incidents logged by the Anti-Defamation League nationwide declined in 2008 for the fourth consecutive year, Maryland saw an increase in reports of vandalism and harassment targeting Jews.

The ADL counted 27 such incidents in 2008, up from 19 the year before. Of the 2008 events, 17 involved harassment and 10 involved damage to property. In 2007, the ADL counted 5 instances of harassment and 14 of vandalism.

Nationwide, the number of reports fell to 1,352 in 2008 from 1,460 the year before, according to the ADL’s annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, for a drop of nearly 8 percent.

"It is encouraging that the number of anti-Semitic incidents continues to decline, but the sheer volume of incidents reported and the violent nature of many of the physical assaults is a reminder that we cannot be complacent," ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman said in a statement. "Had law enforcement not thwarted the alleged terrorist bombing plot against synagogues in Riverdale, New York, it would have been a horrific anti-Semitic attack."

The ADL counted 37 physical assaults on Jews, 702 instances of vandalism and 613 of harassment. The audit is based on official crime statistics and reports by victims, law enforcement officers and community leaders to the ADL’s regional offices.

Foxman called the annual report “one barometer of anti-Semitism.”

“The explosive expansion of the Internet and social-networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube has become a new frontier for anti-Semitism, and so anti-Jewish expression is hard to quantify in this environment,” he said. “It's here today, gone tomorrow, and back the next day.”

Foxman said the financial crisis has caused an increase in “in rhetoric targeting Jews, with letters in newspapers and on Web sites blaming Jews for the misdeeds of a select few, with Bernard Madoff topping the list. Hate groups and anti-Semites used the global economic downturn to breathe new life into old myths of greedy and money-hungry American Jews, and these took on a life of their own on the Internet and in the real world."

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Categories: Judaism
        

Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien will ordain four men as priests during Mass Saturday at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen.

The class of 2009 includes two candidates from Colombia, the vocation-rich country where the archdiocese has attempted to recruit priests in recent years, to address the ongoing priest shortage in the United States and to minister to Baltimore's large and growing Latino Catholic population.

The archdiocese has released biographical sketches and initial assignments for all four.

Ernest Cibelli, 27, Columbia

Cibelli attended Mount St. Joseph High School before graduating from Mount St. Mary’s University with a degree in Chemistry in 2003. Ernest studied for the priesthood at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary for one year before being assigned to the Pontifical North American College in Rome, where he is currently studying for his second theological degree, a License of Sacred Theology. After a summer of serving at St. Peter the Apostle Church in Oakland, Md., he will return for a fifth year of studies at the North American College.

Marc Lanoue, 43, North Adams, Mass.

The ninth of nine children, Lanoue is a 1988 graduate of Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., where he received a BA in Religion and a minor in Computer Science. Throughout his post-graduate studies, Marc held many positions in the computer field and produced a weekly half-hour public access Catholic TV program. He earned a Master of Arts degree in Theology from the University of Notre Dame and a doctorate in Biblical Studies from Catholic University. He studied for the priesthood at St. Mary’s Seminary, Roland Park. Lanoue's first priestly assignment will be at Sacred Heart Church in Glyndon.

Hector Mateus-Ariza, 37, Bogota, Colombia

Born and raised in South America, Mateus-Ariza worked in his native Bogota as a professional chef for 10 years and eventually for the president of Colombia and his cabinet. During a 2001 trip to Honduras, where he performed missionary work, he found his calling to the priesthood. He was invited by a priest-friend to come to the United States and has studied for the priesthood the past seven years at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary. His first priestly assignment will be at St. John Parish in Westminster.

Gonzalo Cadavid-Rivera, 37, Medellin, Colombia

After earning degrees in Civil Law and Administrative Law in his native Colombia, Cadavid-Rivera moved to the United States in 2004 to become the first Latino seminarian for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, studying at Mount St. Mary’s. He will begin his priestly ministry at St. Joseph’s Church in Cockeysville.

There are currently 426 priests in active ministry in the Archdiocese of Baltimore serving more than 500,000 Catholics, according to the archdiocese. Another 102 priests are retired, though many continue to celebrate public Masses and perform other sacramental duties.

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Categories: Catholicism
        

The president of the Baltimore chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee acknowledges that security guards might have a legitimate reason to ask people to remove facial coverings. But he is also urging respect in the wake of an opinion by Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler that deputy sheriffs can require visitors to remove such coverings before allowing them to enter a courthouse.

“This is really about personal identify and religious freedom,” Bash Pharoan tells Laura Smitherman in today’s Baltimore Sun. “A woman who wears the hijab is obeying the call of God.”

Gansler, responding to a request from the office of Prince George’s County Sheriff Michael Jackson, has opined that deputies could require a visitor to remove a mask, veil or other face covering “without regard to whether the individual claims a religious basis for remaining masked or veiled,” as long as the sheriff’s office has a “neutral and generally applicable policy of requiring removal of face coverings for security purposes.”

The opinion is not binding, but represents the “considered opinion” of the attorney general's office following research and review of the legal issues raised by the question, according to a spokeswoman. Jackson’s office had asked if a deputy sheriff assigned to court security could require an individual to remove a covering, whether it matters if the individual asserts a religious reason for remaining covered, and what procedures would be appropriate to enforce such a requirement while demonstrating respect for religious practice.

Gansler wrote that “it would be useful” if security details included both male and female officers and a private space were available for “those individuals whose religion discourages removal of a head covering in public.”

A spokesman for Jackson’s office told Smitherman that officials were seeking guidance after deputies heard of cases concerning Muslim women in other jurisdictions.

"Nothing happened locally," Sgt. Mario Ellis said. "We were just trying to be proactive and get an answer before this issue comes up here."

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

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Health officials have confirmed five cases of the swine flu at Ner Israel Rabbinical College, the yeshiva in Pikesville, Baltimore Sun reporter Stephanie Desmon writes in Friday's newspaper. None were serious or required hospitalization, officials said.

They bring to 83 the number of confirmed cases of what scientists are calling the H1N1 virus in Maryland since the outbreak began. Officials say everyone is recovering. Nationwide, officials have confirmed 11,000 cases and 17 deaths, though authorities believe the actual number of those sickened is much higher.

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Deputy sheriffs in Maryland may require visitors to remove veils or masks before allowing them to enter a courthouse, Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler has written in an opinion that could affect Muslims and others who wear such garments for religious or cultural reasons.

Responding to a request from the office of Prince George’s County Sheriff Michael Jackson, Gansler opined that deputies could require a visitor to remove a mask, veil or other face covering “without regard to whether the individual claims a religious basis for remaining masked or veiled,” as long as the sheriff’s office has a “neutral and generally applicable policy of requiring removal of face coverings for security purposes.”

The opinion signed last week by Gansler is not binding on any individual or agency, but represents the “considered opinion” of his office following research and review of the legal issues raised by the question. Jackson’s office had asked if a deputy sheriff assigned to court security could require an individual to remove a covering, whether it matters if the individual asserts a religious reason for remaining covered, and what procedures would be appropriate to enforce such a requirement while demonstrating respect for religious practice.

Gansler wrote that “it would be useful” if security details included both male and female officers and a private space were available for “those individuals whose religion discourages removal of a head covering in public.”

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Worshippers at a Severn church on Sunday will walk in the footsteps of the poor as part of a national charity drive intended to provide shoes for the needy.

Grace Pointe Community Church of the Nazarene, which worships in the Kerr Center for the Arts on the upper campus of Annapolis Area Christian School, is one of thousands of congregations across the country participating in “Barefoot Sunday,” according to event organizers.

Church members will be asked to leave the shoes on the altar and walk out of services barefoot. The footwear will be collected by Soles4Souls Inc., which provides new and gently worn shoes to victims of disasters and those living in extreme poverty.

The Nashville-based outfit says it has distributed 4.3 million pairs of shoes in more than 125 countries including the United States.

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Rabbi Amy R. Scheinerman, the spiritual leader of Beth Shalom Congregation in Westminister, has received an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, her alma mater.

Rabbi David Ellenson, president of HUC-JIR, described Scheinerman’s life as "one of dedication.”

“Her devotion to Jewish learning has led to her broad-based involvement in Jewish education,” Ellenson said. “As chaplain, she counsels those incarcerated and gives comfort to the terminally ill; as a columnist, she uses the power of the written word to share Jewish insights with the community at large. Her extensive involvement in the Baltimore Board of Rabbis has brought rabbis of all persuasions together to learn from each other.”

A graduate of Brown University and HUC-JIR, Scheinerman is vice president of the Baltimore Board of Rabbis, a columnist for the Baltimore Jewish Times and the Carroll County Times and a chaplain for the Howard County Police, Carroll County Hospice and Jewish Hospice Network.

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From the Vatican, via Catholic News Service, comes word of the retirement of Cardinal James Francis Stafford, a Baltimore native and former auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese.

As head of the Apostolic Penitentiary since 2003, Stafford has overseen the office that grants indulgences and the court that may absolve sins reserved to the Holy See. He has worked at the Vatican since 1996, when Pope John Paul II asked him preside over the Pontifical Council for the Laity.

A former bishop of Memphis and archbishop of Denver, Stafford told CNS he has had the "enormous grace" of coming to a deep understanding of how central forgiveness is to the message of the Gospel and the mission and life of the church.

Everything the church celebrates and everything it offers the world in terms of education and social service "is dependent on our being freed from the burden of guilty," the cardinal said Tuesday. "I have re-learned and found a more profound understanding of the mystery of Christ's redemption and of the anxiety that is part of the human legacy.”

Consecrated auxiliary bishop of Baltimore in 1976 by Archbishop William Donald Borders, Stafford served in the archdiocese until 1982. But he may be best known around here for comments he made at the Catholic University of America in Washington last fall, days after the election of President Barack Obama.

As reported first by the CUA student newspaper The Tower, Stafford called Obama “aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic“ and said he had run on an “extremist anti-life platform.” He likened the Catholic experience during the Obama term to “Jesus’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane,” where the Gospels say Jesus and his followers prayed the night before his crucifixion.

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Categories: Catholicism, People, Politics
        

Largely drowned out by the tabloid coverage of the Gosselin family, an interesting and thoughtful discussion is going on among Christians about the spiritual challenges facing the stars of the TLC reality show Jon and Kate Plus Eight. For those who haven’t followed the series, it focuses on the lives of a Pennsylvania family raising a set of twins and a set of sextuplets – lives that have grown more complex in recent months amid rumors of marital infidelity by both of the parents.

Members of an Assemblies of God church, the Gosselins have been embraced by Evangelicals, who have celebrated, for example, their decision to carry all of their sextuplets to term.

Lynn Roush, a blogger at Christianity Today, and Diana Butler Bass, a contributor to beliefnet, assessed the apparent state of the Gosselins’ marriage as depicted in the fifth-season premiere of the show last week and came to different conclusions.

Roush, a counselor at Evangelical Presbyterian church in Columbia, Mo., sees the answer in “the intervening grace of God’s Word and his redemptive work in our lives,” which she describes as usually found only “in relationships with other believers who have access to our hearts to help us see where God’s truth interacts with our daily lives.”

“I’m only guessing here, but it seems that Jon and Kate’s marriage is a reflection of where each is spiritually,” Roush writes. “Perhaps they have dropped church out of their busy schedules, and with that, a group of other Christians who knows them, is aware of their struggles, and helps to keep them accountable?”

But Butler Bass, an author and teacher writing for beliefnet’s Progressive Revival blog, sees the church as part of the problem.

“Evangelical gender expectations seem to be the root of their troubles: they reversed the parental roles,” she writes. “After a couple of seasons, Jon decided to stay at home and Kate went on the road to promote the show and their books. The choice made Jon increasingly sullen and Kate happier and began to wear at their relationship."

“For evangelicals,” Butler Bass continues, “this is an unusual arrangement that leaves the husband open to charges of ‘feminization’ and the wife of being difficult. The Gosselin's tensions demonstrate how unsuccessfully conservative religious groups have been dealing with gender – and how when a woman like Kate Gosselin breaks with tradition in order to pursue what she loves -- even when her business is family and motherhood -- she gets both blamed and punished for problems in her relationships.”

In a guest opinion column Monday in Christianity Today, Julie Vermeer Elliott has a different criticism of Evangelicals -- writing as one herself.

We evangelicals tend to be easily impressed. We cheered on Jon and Kate's decision to carry all six babies to term but rarely considered the prior question: Was it right for them to undergo risky fertility treatments in the first place? …

Warned by their doctor during an ultrasound examination that the fertility medication had worked a little too well and that four mature follicles were present, Jon and Kate nonetheless went ahead with the insemination. …

Six babies were growing in a space designed for one, posing great risks to the life of each baby as well as to the life of their mother. Faced with this unintended but preventable situation, Jon and Kate were right to carry all of the babies to term. But this decision is not enough to warrant their status as models of Christian faithfulness. That most evangelicals were satisfied to celebrate the end -- six miraculous lives -- rather than assess the morality of the means whereby those lives were created, betrays the thinness of evangelical reflection on reproductive ethics. Too often our ethics have focused so singularly on the question of abortion that we have given comparatively little attention to the morally-significant issues surrounding infertility, reproductive technology, childbirth, and parenting.

As fellow Christians, we should have reminded the Gosselins that life is a gift to be received in gratitude, not something to be grasped, purchased, or sold. In many ways, the last four seasons of Jon & Kate Plus Eight is the story of a family that seemed to progressively lose sight of this truth. …

When the first few episodes revealed the earning potential of this 'everyday family,' Jon & Kate Plus Eight became a brand name that was packaged and sold. And many Christians were happy to comply by opening up their wallets and their fellowship halls. When the network and the couple were not satisfied with the money generated through high ratings and book sales, the Gosselin home was filled with product placements and the children were filmed for long hours each week. All the while many (though not all) evangelicals watched with undiscerning eyes. Somewhere along the line we, like Jon and Kate, seemed to forget the warnings of 1 Timothy 6:9-10:

‘But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.’

It was not until the recent allegations of sexual impropriety arose that a significant number of Christians began to question whether Jon and Kate were indeed the examples of faithful living that we had imagined. Somehow most of us missed the long trajectory that was, day by day, moving them farther from a life of Christian virtue. Sexual immorality -- whether actual or merely suspected -- caught our attention, but the materialism, narcissism, and exploitation of children that preceded it was largely overlooked.

We are easily seduced by wealth and fame. We are easily contented by the shallow rhetoric of hot-button issues. In short, we are easily deceived by cultural values painted in Christian veneers (or clothed in Isaiah 40:31 T-shirts).

It is time that we look for role models who value self-sacrifice over material gain. It is time that we practice forgiveness and the healing of broken relationships and call fellow Christians to do the same. It is time that we take our own marriage vows seriously and hold our brothers and sisters to be true to their commitments as well. Most importantly, it is time that we develop a view of faith and life that is capable of asking deep questions and courageous enough to embody real answers.

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We noted last week that if she is confirmed by the Senate, Judge Sonia Sotomayor will become the sixth Catholic on the Supreme Court. Martin E. Marty, the great historian of religion at the University of Chicago, has seized the opportunity presented by her nomination to search for evidence of a lingering anti-Catholic bias among mainline Protestants and Evangelicals – and come away mostly empty-handed.

“Mainline Protestants turned ‘ecumenical’ two-score years ago, as they and most Catholics became buddies,” Marty writes in Sightings, the regular e-mail dispatch produced by the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago. “Evangelical Protestants, who decades ago called the Pope the Antichrist foretold in the Book of Revelation, now link with his successors on selected social issues which are in contention.”

He does allow as how he’s seen some anti-Catholic invective in the comments sections that follow blog posts about Sotomayor’s nomination – but he is unimpressed.

“What strikes me is how unrepresentative the self-named angry Christians in the string of commentators are, if measured against the wider church bodies and leadership,” he writes. “Some simple, raw, old-fashioned anti-Catholicism is present, but it has to share space with Catholics who argue how Catholic someone has to be to be Catholic, and all the rest.

“At the end, such blogs give us a license to yawn when the Catholic defense people rise to complain and rage about anti-Catholicism. We have instead important things to discuss. One hopes they can be argued amid the noisy and predictable debate this season.”

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Faith-based groups on both sides of the abortion divide are condemning the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the Wichita physician who was gunned down on Sunday while attending a church service. As medical director of one of the few clinics nationwide that performs late-term abortions, Tiller had been the target of protests and had survived a shooting attack in 1993.

The statements from faith-based groups vary widely in content and tone; following, unedited, are several.

Operation Rescue:

"We are shocked at this morning's disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down. Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning. We pray for Mr. Tiller's family that they will find comfort and healing that can only be found in Jesus Christ."

Randall Terry, founder, Operation Rescue:

"George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder.

"Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches."

Mary Kay Culp, state executive director, Kansans for Life:

"Kansans for Life deplores the murder of Dr. George Tiller, and we wish to express our deep and sincere sympathy to his family and friends.

"We value life, completely deplore violence, and are shocked and very upset by what happened in Wichita today."

Michael O. Jackels, bishop of Wichita:

"The Catholic community extends sympathy to the family of Dr. George Tiller, a victim of violent crime made even more heinous, if that is possible, by being committed in a church as he was preparing for worship.

"It is my prayer that the Tiller family find consolation, that Dr. George Tiller find mercy and the fulfillment of the great hope of Christians, and that all will find peaceful and legal means to resolve differences."

The Rev. Frank Pavone, national director, Priests for Life:

“I am saddened to hear of the killing of George Tiller this morning. At this point, we do not know the motives of this act, or who is behind it, whether an angry post-abortive man or woman, or a misguided activist, or an enemy within the abortion industry, or a political enemy frustrated with the way Tiller has escaped prosecution. We should not jump to conclusions or rush to judgment.

“But whatever the motives, we at Priests for Life continue to insist on a culture in which violence is never seen as the solution to any problem. Every life has to be protected, without regard to their age or views or actions.”

Dr. Alveda C. King, pastoral associate, Priests for Life, niece of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:

“Two years ago, I visited George Tiller’s clinic in hope of telling him that babies desire mercy. I wanted to share with him the harm I experienced from abortion. My prayer was that one day he would join me in repentance. I am deeply sorry that his life was taken before that could happen.

“It’s especially horrifying that Dr. Tiller was shot in church. My grandmother, Alberta King, was killed by a Christian-hating gunman as she played the organ during Sunday services. Just as the womb should be a safe haven, so should church. I condemn this murder in the strongest possible terms.”

Bill Donahue, president, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights:

"The Catholic League unequivocally condemns the killing of serial killer, Dr. George Tiller. As I said on the CBS Evening News, 'We have to get the message out that life means we have to respect all life, including somebody as bad as Dr. Tiller was.' Unfortunately, his death has already occasioned a highly political response from his allies.

"Perhaps the ultimate politicization is the decision by U.S. Attorney Eric Holder ordering federal marshals to protect 'other appropriate people and facilities around the nation.' Thus does Holder feed the frenzy of the pro-abortion industry that what happened to Tiller is the work of the pro-life community. We will closely monitor these developments."

Catholics for Choice:

"Catholics for Choice extends its deepest sympathy to the family and friends of Dr. George Tiller, who was shot and killed as he attended church today. Dr Tiller was a courageous advocate for women. He worked tirelessly to ensure that women's health-care needs were met, even in the most difficult circumstances. Catholics for Choice celebrates his life and work."

Kansas Coalition for Life:

"The Kansas Coalition for Life Unequivocally Condemns the Shooting of Abortionist George Tiller.

"Tiller's death comes at a time when all recent polling data shows that the peaceful proLife message has the support of a majority of American voters. We hope this terrible news does not hurt the steady progress that the proLife movement has made by peaceful legal means over the years."

Kansas Family Policy Council

"The Kansas Family Policy is grieved and shocked at the murder of George Tiller. Violence is never condoned by KFPC or any pro-life organization. We grieve not only for George Tiller but for all those who have prayed for him over the years. Our prayers are with his family and his church."

Sources: Kansas.com, organizations

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Categories: Catholicism, Christianity, Politics
        

The Catholic Review has the story of an Annapolis woman whose campaign to make rosaries for Catholic members of the armed forces has spread in the last six years to 25 parishes nationwide and is nearing its 300,000th set of the prayer beads.

“It’s amazing,” Pat Evans tells reporter George P. Matysek Jr. “This just keeps getting bigger and bigger.”

Made from Army green, Navy blue and black beads strung on parachute cords, the plastic Ranger Rosaries don’t reflect light or rattle. Matysek quotes a chaplain stationed in Iraq on their importance to the soldiers in his Army National Guard unit.

“They especially find it a comfort to carry one when they go on missions outside the wire,” Chaplain Jesse Vega wrote to Evans. “They all know that there is a possibility that they won’t be coming back, and I think it helps them to focus on their faith and gives them a spiritual assurance.”

Evans, a parishioner of St. Mary’s Church in Annapolis, says a shortage of Catholic chaplains means many service members never see a priest.

“The rosary is a bridge or link to their Catholicism,” she said. “Mary wants to be with her children – especially those in harm’s way.”

The Sun wrote about Pat Evans' efforts in 2007. Pictured above are two volunteers then, Elsie Ornburn (left) and Caroline Avery both of Annapolis.

(Photo by The Baltimore Sun)

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