From former Sun religion writer John Rivera, now at Catholic Relief Services, comes this photograph of Our Lady of Perpetual Help chapel in Marikina, Philippines. Note the pew lodged in the rafters during tropical storm Ketsana over the weekend.

Laura Sheahen, the Baltimore-based organization's regional information director for Asia and the Pacific rim, writes:

Pew, that was close

Flood survivors receive aid at a chapel in Marikina, Philippines. When tropical storm Ketsana hit the island, massive flooding drove thousands from their homes. Father Javier Mexicano, shown here standing, was caught in his small parish house during the storm. He and another priest broke through the roof, waited there for the waters to settle, and eventually swam to safety.

A pew is lodged in the rafters of the chapel, where it floated during the flood.

Read Sheahen's blog post on the storm and its aftermath at the CRS Voices blog.

Photo by Laura Sheahen/Catholic Relief Services

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The Vatican has lashed out at criticism over its handling of its pedophilia crisis, saying the Catholic Church was ''busy cleaning its own house'' and that the problems with clerical sex abuse in other churches were as big, if not bigger, The Guardian is reporting.

The British newspaper describes a "defiant and provocative statement" issued after a meeting of the U.N. human rights council in Geneva in which the Holy See says most of the Catholic clergy who committed such acts were not pedophiles but homosexuals attracted to sex with adolescent males:

The statement, read out by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's permanent observer to the United Nations, defended its record by claiming that ''available research'' showed that only 1.5 per cent to 5 per cent of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.

He also quoted statistics from the Christian Science Monitor newspaper to show that most US churches being hit by child sex abuse allegations were Protestant and that sexual abuse within Jewish communities was common.

Speaking after a representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union accused the church of covering up child abuse and violating several articles of the Convention of the Rigts of the Child, The Guardian reports, Tomasi said sexual abuse was far more likely to be committed by family members, babysitters, friends, relatives or neighbors.

The newspaper says representatives of other religions were "dismayed by the Holy See's attempts to distance itself from controversy by pointing the finger at other faiths."

Read the story at theage.com.au.

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With word today that the publication date of the memoir by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been moved up to Nov. 17, now might be the time to look at her collaborator on the project.

For all the attention paid to Palin's faith during the campaign, we don't remember her volunteering much on the subject. But as a co-author, she has chosen an editor with World Magazine, a Christian publication that offers a conservative take on issues and events.

Lynn Vincent has written about prayer in schools, gay marriage and, mostly, abortion for World. She is also co-author of the book “Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime and Corruption in the Democratic Party,” which the ad copy on Amazon.com promises will reveal:

• How corrupt Democrats in Congress outnumber corrupt Republicans by as much as three to one.

• How Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy were elected with the help of the Mob.

• What two eyewitnesses said about JFK's obsession with hookers.

• How union operatives take from working families to deliver millions of dollars to Democrats.

• How Democrats in the 1990's covered up a conspiracy one expert called "the largest incidence of obstruction of justice in American history."

• Why Democrats ignore crime victims and take the side of rapists, robbers, and cop-killers-then stump for the right of felons to vote!

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 4:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (152)
        

Robert Barnes has a story on the cover of Tuesday's Washington Post about a World War I memorial cross on federal land in California's Mojave National Preserve that will give the Superme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. its first major opportunity to interpret the constitutional separation of church and state.

The piece begins:

It would be easy to miss among the yucca and Joshua trees of this vast place -- a small plywood box, set back from a gentle curve in a lonesome desert road. It looks like nothing so much as a miniature billboard without a message.

But inside the box is a 6 1/2 -foot white cross, built to honor the war dead of World War I. And because its perch on a prominent outcropping of rock is on federal land, it has been judged to be an unconstitutional display of government favoritism of one religion over another.

Barnes goes on to describe what's at stake:

If the court reaches the constitutional issues at hand, all sides agree it could provide clarity to the court's blurry rules on church-and-state separations. It could also carry important implications for the fate of war memorials around the country that feature religious imagery -- the Argonne Cross in Arlington National Cemetery, for instance, or the Memorial Peace Cross in Bladensburg.

Defenders of the cross include veterans groups and the federal government. In an effort to protect it, Congress has designated the site as the country's only official memorial to the nation's World War I dead, which, as Barnes points out, elevates it to an exclusive group of national treasures that inlcudes the Washington Monument and Mount Rushmore.

Critics include Jewish and Muslim veterans and the American Civil Liberties Union, which says the congressional action "necessarily will reflect continued government association with the preeminent symbol of Christianity."

Read the story at washingtonpost.com.

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From the address of Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday to officials in Prague.

Associated Press video

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Conservative members of the nation's largest Lutheran denomination will decide in a year whether to remain or form a new denomination after the church voted to affirm gay clergy, the Associated Press reports.

Some 1,200 people attended a meeting of Lutheran CORE over the weekend. The group comprises members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America who are unhappy with the churchwide assembly vote last month to allow gay men and women in committed relationships to serve as clergy.

Lutheran CORE leaders have urged members to withhold financial support for the Chicago-based denomination of 4.7 million members. ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson has warned that such a boycott would devastate the mission of the church.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 3:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Lutheranism
        

Some 3,000 Muslims attended a Juma prayer service on the grounds of the Capitol last week, The Washington Times reports, a gathering that participants called historic.

"Islam is part of America," Amina Haqq said. "It is not a Judeo-Christian society; it is a Judeo-Christian-Muslim society."

Rally organizer Abdul Malik praised American freedom.

"What we've done today, you couldn't do in any Muslim country," the Brooklyn imam said. "If you prayed on the palace lawn there, they'd lock you up."

The Washington Times story refers to "the taunts of Christian evangelists on the surrounding sidewalks" but provides no details; the comments section, though, has plenty.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (26)
        

Several Catholic bishops in the United States have come out in favor of extending some form of health insurance to illegal immigrants. At least one now is linking the issue to abortion.

"If [health care reform] leaves out immigrants, it is doing what some people want it to do in terms of the unborn," Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., told the Catholic News Service.

"How can we say that we're a country of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all who come to our shores if we say, 'except the unborn.' Or, if we say, 'except the handicapped.' Or, if we say, 'except the new person,' asked Murphy, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development. "Then we have not lived up to the high ideal of our country. And we have introduced a sense of injustice into a plan that should be just for all."

As the CNS story notes, most U.S. bishops who have spoken publicly about health care reform "have expressed the opinion that one of the richest countries in the world should find a way to guarantee that everyone within its borders has access to medical care, from conception to natural death."

CNS quotes Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, Calif., on concerns among bishops that even legal immigrants might be left out of the system. Soto told CNS that reform "has to include at a minimum some kind of safety net for the undocumented," particularly if the goal of a nationwide health care reform plan is to improve the overall health of society.

"We realize it's a very contentious issue," Bishop Soto said. "But there has to be some kind of a safety net."

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The Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies has announced what look to be several strong programs in October, including a local appearance by the renowned scholar of early Christianity Dr. Paula Fredrikson.

Fredrikson, the author most recently of “Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism,” will deliver the 2009 Bernard Manekin Lecture at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 15 at Chizuk Amuno Congregation, 8100 Stevenson Road, Baltimore. Her topic: “God Was Not Odd To Choose the Jews: Augustine on the Jewishness of Jesus.” The event is free and open to the public; those interested in attending are asked to call 410-494-7161 to reserve seats.

Beth El Congregation Senior Rabbi Steven Schwartz and Dr. Christopher Leighton, executive director of the Institute of Christian & Jewish Studies, will present “Finding God as Jews and Christians” at 8 p.m. Oct. 8 at Beth El Congregation, 8101 Park Heights Ave., Baltimore. Again, free and open to the public; RSVP to 410-484-0411.

A succession of Jewish, Christian and Muslim clergy will present “Children of Abraham in the 21st Century” at 7 p.m. Wednesdays in October at St. James Episcopal Church, 1020 W. Lafayette Ave., Baltimore. According to the Institute’s Web site, Schwartz, Dr. Rosann M. Catalano and Imam Sulayman Nyang will discuss “what makes us more similar than different.”

Dinner, at a cost of $5, is served at 6 p.m.; lectures begin at 7 p.m. RSVP with the St. James Episcopal Church office at 410-523-4588.

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With the death of Michael Jackson, estranged former confidant Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has revived a long-dormant book project based on 30 hours of interviews with the reclusive pop star, the Associated Press is reporting.

This strikes us as awkward.

The author of such self-help books as “Kosher Sex” and “Shalom in the Home,” the Orthodox Jewish Boteach was introduced to Jackson in 1999 and remained close with him until Jackson’s 2003 arrest on charges of molesting a child.

The interviews date from 2000 and 2001, according to the AP, when Jackson and Boteach agreed a book would help to improve Jackson’s public image. The AP says Boteach soured on the project after Jackson failed to adhere to the recovery programs they had worked out, including waking up at a decent hour and not being alone with children other than Jackson's own three children.

The AP reports that the tapes, on which Jackson talks about being beaten by his father, self-consciousness about his appearance and a desire to disappear rather than grow old, sound at times like therapy sessions.

Their posthumous release by a clergyman doubling as confidant and collaborator seems problematic, or at least potentially so. Jackson apparently submitted to – may have initiated – the interviews in the expectation that they would lead to a book.

But it sounds as if the men dropped the project years before Jackson’s death. Given their fallout, one wonders if Jackson would have wanted the opportunity to invoke clergy-communicant confidentiality before it was picked up again.

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The gay-hating Westboro Baptist Church did not violate the privacy of the family of fallen Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder when members picketed his 2006 funeral in Westminster, a federal court ruled on Thursday.

Church members held signs reading “God hates fags” and “Thank God for dead soldiers” outside the funeral of Snyder, who was killed in Iraq. The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., ruled that the messages were protected speech and reversed a lower court’s $5 million award, Baltimore Sun colleague Nicole Fuller reports.

It’s always tricky reporting on the Westboro Baptist Church, a proudly hateful group that has thrived on the attention it has gained by rejoicing at the funerals of fallen service members. The church, which is made up largely of the members of a single extended family, says the deaths of U.S. service members are God’s way of showing he disapproves of America’s alleged tolerance of homosexuality.

That’s not so different from comments made by some fundamentalists after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But placing the Westboro Baptist Church at the Robertson-Falwell end of the Christian spectrum doesn’t quite get at the nature of the Topeka, Kan.-based outfit, which has taken the antipathy some express for homosexuality to a new level in the very gleefulness with which it pursues its mission.

For years, for example, the church maintained an animation on its Web site, godhatesfags.com, showing Matthew Shepard in flames and counting the days since, according to the church, he entered Hell. The same site has videos entitled “USA=Fag Nation,” “Fag Church” and “Your Pastor Is a Whore;” whoever designed it, meanwhile, is clearly enamored of a diagram showing two stick figures engaging in sex.

We declined to report in June when church members stood outside the Jewish Community Center in Park Heights with signs reading “God hates Jews” and an Israeli flag splattered in fake blood. We won’t be covering the protest they have announced outside a local production of the Laramie Project, which deals with the 1998 death of Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student who was tortured and murdered.

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The leader of the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination warned members that withholding financial support to protest a recent vote to accept gay clergy would be “devastating” to the church, the Associated Press is reporting.

e 4.7 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted last month to allow gay men and women in committed relationships to serve as clergy. The vote at a churchwide assembly has provoked a backlash among some ELCA members, with the conservative group Lutheran CORE urging supporters to direct funding away from the national church.

In a letter to church leaders this week, the AP is reporting, Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson warned that withholding would damage the mission of the Chicago-based denomination.

"Although these actions are promoted as a way to signal opposition to churchwide assembly actions or even to punish the voting members who made them, the result will be wounds that we inflict on ourselves, our shared life, and our mission in Christ," he wrote.

The Rev. Mark Chavez, director of Lutheran CORE, told the AP that the gay clergy vote was the devastating event — "a departure from God's clear word." He called Hanson's letter "an attempt to shift the responsibility of this devastation and crisis within the ELCA away from the people who presided over it and are responsible for it."

Lutheran CORE says 1,200 people have registered for a conference this weekend, which organizers say will start the process of forming an "alternative church fellowship" for traditionalists within the ELCA.

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Representatives of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, scheduled to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday, say they will seek the release of three Americans detained in Iran since July.

Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal and Sarah Shourd apparently strayed into Iran while hiking in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. CAIR has been active in seeking their release.

“We hope that President Ahmadinejad will take this opportunity for a humanitarian gesture to create a more positive atmosphere for constructive dialogue between our two nations by releasing the American detainees,” CAIR National Board Chairman Larry Shaw said in a statement. “As an American organization, we must do what we can to help our nation’s citizens when they are swept up in international events.”

Ahmadinejad already has said he will seek leniency for the hikers, who are in their 20s and 30s.
"What I can ask is that the judiciary expedites the process and gives it its full attention, and to basically look at the case with maximum leniency," he said Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. "The judiciary has its own procedures to follow, but I'm hopeful.”

CAIR said it would give Ahmadinejad a letter from the families of the hikers, and also a letter from the family of former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who has been missing in Iran since 2007.

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The Dalai Lama says his visit to the site where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated was sad but also inspirational, the Associated Press is reporting.

In Memphis on Wednesday to receive the International Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum, the Tibet spiritual leader toured the site with the Rev. Samuel Kyles, who was with King when he was gunned down, and Museum Board Chairman Benjamin L. Hooks.

The Dalai Lama draped a white shawl over a wreath that hangs over the balcony that marks the spot where King was standing when he was shot in 1968.

 Associated Press photos

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With researchers gathered in Baltimore for the World Stem Cell Summit, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien offers a word of warning: “Science divorced from ethics undermines genuine progress.”

“Embryonic stem cell research requires the destruction of human embryos,” the spiritual leader of the archdiocese’s half million Catholics writes in a commentary in The Baltimore Sun on Wednesday.

“It is understandably tempting to pursue this avenue given the stated goal of such research to produce treatments that could relieve the pain of, and perhaps even provide cures for, diseases plaguing countless people. Those burdened by disease or injuries deserve our unequivocal support, and scientific research should undoubtedly be commissioned on their behalf.

“That same science, however, also irrefutably demonstrates that a human embryo is a distinct human being. Its appearance and abilities differ from ours, but its nature is the same.

“To end one human life for the sake of another, even when the former is microscopically small and the latter is someone we know and love, is to play a dangerous game of utilitarianism. We shouldn't end lives to save lives. This practice violates one of the most basic ethical principles: The ends do not justify the means.”

Read the rest of O’Brien’s commentary at baltimoresun.com.

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A Swedish television program airing Wednesday claims that top Vatican officials knew that Bishop Richard Williamson was a Holocaust denier when they lifted his excommunication in January, the Associated Press is reporting.

The report comes on the eve of reconciliation talks between the Vatican and the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, whose leaders were excommunicated in 1988 after they consecrated Williamson and three other priests as bishops in defiance of Pope John Paul II.

Pope Benedict XVI has made a priority of reconciling with the society, whose members seek a return to the church as it was before the Second Vatican Council. But the effort provoked a furor in January when Sweden’s SVT aired an interview taped in November 2008 in which Williamson denied key elements of the Holocaust. The British bishop disputed the commonly cited figure of 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II, saying the actual number was no more than 300,000, and said none were gassed.

Vatican officials have said they were unaware of Williamson’s beliefs when his excommunication was rescinded in January. But SVT says Catholic officials in Sweden knew of his remarks in the interview in November and made a full report to the apostolic nuncio in Stockholm, the representative of the Vatican in Sweden, who passed the information on to Rome.

“Naturally we passed all the information that we had on to the nuncio,” Bishop Anders Arborelius of Stockholm told SVT, according to the AP. “After that I don’t really know how it moved along.”

In a statement Wednesday, the AP reports, the diocese reiterated that it had sent a report about the interview to the Vatican last November. The SVT program says the nuncio, Archbishop Emil Paul Tscherrig, confirmed off-camera that he had contacted several people in the Vatican, including Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, who was then leading the effort to reconcile with the Society of St. Pius X.

The report contradicts the statement of Castrillon Hoyos, who told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in January that no one at the Vatican knew of Williamson’s beliefs until after his excommunication had been lifted.

“We absolutely didn’t know anything about this Williamson,” said Castrillon Hoyos, who stepped down as head of the Pontifical Ecclesia Dei Commission in July after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 80. The reconciliation effort is now being led by Cardinal William Levada, the highest-ranking American at the Vatican.

The SVT program does not say that Pope Benedict XVI knew of Williamson’s beliefs. Benedict repudiated Williamson’s remarks, and Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna said last week that the Society of St. Pius X must respect Jews and members of other faiths if it is to be reinstated to the church.

Williamson eventually apologized for the “harm and hurt” caused by his remarks. But he did not withdraw them or say that he no longer believed them.

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Categories: Catholicism, Interfaith, International, Judaism, People, Politics
        

News of the impending shake-up of the Legion of Christ gives me another reason to wish that the great and gentlemanly journalist Jerry Renner were still with us.

Jerry, a friend and mentor from our time together at The Hartford Courant, had a keen interest in exposing faith leaders who abused the trust of their followers. He was among the first reporters – and certainly the most persistent – to uncover and write about the abuses of the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legion.

Maciel is alleged to have molested generations of seminarians, some of them children. Since his death in 2008, the Legionaries have acknowledged that he fathered at least one child.

Earlier this year, the general director of the Legion expressed sadness and sorrow for Maciel’s actions, and asked forgiveness from God and those affected. Legion officials in the United States have added their regret that their “inability to detect, and thus accept and remedy, Father Maciel’s failings has caused even more suffering.”

Among Maciel’s critics is Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien of Baltimore, who said earlier this year that he could not recommend that anyone join the Legion or Regnum Christi, its lay movement.

“It seems to me and many others that this was a man with an entrepreneurial genius who, by systematic deception and duplicity, used our faith to manipulate others for his own selfish ends,” O’Brien told The Catholic Review in February. “Father Maciel deserves our prayers, as every Christian who dies does, that he’ll be forgiven and we leave the final judgment to God as to what his life and death amounted to.”

Jerry reported the allegations against Maciel more than a decade ago, first in stories in The Courant – the Legionaries have their U.S. headquarters in Connecticut – and later in “Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II,” the book he co-wrote with collaborator Jason Berry.

As The Washington Post noted in Jerry’s obituary, the great religion writer David Gibson called Vows of Silence “the real trigger” that led Pope Benedict XVI to push Maciel to step down and devote himself to “a reserved life of penitence and prayer.” The Vatican has been investigating the Legion, called by some a cult of personality, in which members are directed to model their lives closely on that of Maciel.

Word now is that the Legion is to be dissolved, and possibly re-formed with new leaders and protections against future abuses.

The last time I spoke with Jerry was in 2005, after he had retired from The Courant and shortly before I came to The Sun. I had been hired to write about faith and values, and I wanted the counsel of someone who had done the job so well for so long. I wish he were here now, so he could see the good his work had helped to accomplish, and so I could ask him what he makes of it now.

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The Catholic Church doesn’t support lawbreaking, Cardinal Francis George said over the weekend. But it should encourage respect among neighbors – including those who came to the United States illegally.

George, the archbishop of Chicago, spoke to a Catholic group in Yakima, Wash., where he served as bishop in the 1990s. His comments were reported by the Yakima Herald-Republic.

The church does not encourage illegal immigration, “but we should also say you have to respect the people in front of you,” he said. “If you have neighbors and family members who have been subjected to society financially, socially and religiously for decades, they should be able to live here with security.”

Read the rest of the story at yakima-herald.com.

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We’ve been following with interest the different reactions to the decision of the Yale University Press, now preparing a scholarly work on the Danish cartoon depictions of Muhammad that inspired riots in 2005 and 2006, not to include the pictures themselves in the book. Yale reportedly consulted two dozen experts on the likelihood that their publication would lead to further violence before opting against it.

The decision has aroused concerns – which we share – about the power that it awards to the violent few to deny the free flow of information among the many. But one of the more interesting takes we’ve seen on it approaches the issue from a different angle: What it says about attitudes towards Muslims.

Entitled "Satanic or Silly: Does Yale Press Censorship of Cartoons Insult Muslims?" the piece by Daniel Martin Varisco over at Religion Dispatches reads in part:

The cautious reaction by Yale University Press is understandable, but I find the rationale troubling, as it assumes that Muslims extremists await any new pretext to spur violence and that “moderate” Muslims are at their mercy. Given the ongoing United States military presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan, drone bombings in Pakistan and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, there are far more relevant pretexts available than an Ivy League book that may not even warrant review in major newspapers. The peddlers of Islamophobia in the media, popular trade books, and blogs would have us believe that radical extremists are lurking everywhere just waiting for an excuse to promote violence. To suggest that deadly protest over these images can be rekindled by a book that attempts to explain the whole affair in academic prose is an insult to the vast majority of Muslims, especially those in the United States.

Reaction by Muslims to visual images of the prophet Muhammad is not uniform, nor has it ever been. Predicting how Muslims will respond to images already widely distributed and discussed is not very helpful. Intolerant extremists like the Afghan Taliban banned much more than images of Muhammad, but many earlier Muslims depicted their prophet in drawings out of reverence; Islamic manuscripts before the 17th century did, in fact, portray Muhammad; at times in full and otherwise with his face whited out or veiled. Most Muslim scholars today condemn the illustrating of the physical features of Muhammad, but mainstream interpreters do not call for death threats against those who make such images. Muslims, like members of other faiths, express their displeasure in a number of ways over those who belittle their prophet. In 2008, for example, a petition was circulated online to remove a 17th-century Ottoman manuscript image of Muhammad from the Wikipedia article on the prophet. Despite accumulating over 455,000 signatures and the Wikipedia community’s refusal to remove the illustration, still no violent acts have resulted.

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The current issue of the Baltimore Jewish Times has a nicely observed cover story about the murky future facing the Congregation of Israel, a small shul in the Eastern Shore hamlet of Pocomoke City that decided not to hold High Holiday services this year for the first time in its 130-year history. Managing editor Alan H. Feiler writes:

This evening, as the first faint traces of darkness fall on Pocomoke City — a picturesque but economically depressed town about 40 minutes southeast of Salisbury — Congregation of Israel’s humble, 60-year-old building will remain silent, solemn and empty at the start of Rosh Hashanah. Once a community of 20 to 25 Jewish families and considered the epicenter of Eastern Shore Jewry, Pocomoke City today has, at best, only an estimated handful of Jews.

“It’s really sad,” said Pocomoke City Mayor Michael A. McDermott. “A lot of the families had stores here and in other communities around here, and they organized this synagogue. But a lot of the families relocated or their children moved on, so it dried up. Having the synagogue in the city, even if it was lightly used, was unique. It was slowly ebbing away, but there’s a real sense of loss. We’ve lost a part of our heritage.”

Tammy Green and her family first stumbled upon Congregation of Israel while vacationing in Delaware during the High Holidays in 1972, Feiler reports. They have been back every year since.

“We wanted something intimate and different than our synagogue in Bethesda, and it’s become an important part of our lives,” she says. “Back then, there were three families to make sure that everyone had a home to go to for dinner, like an extended family. But the people started to die off. I don’t know what we’ll do this year for the holidays. [Congregation of Israel] is very close to my heart.”

Read the rest of the story at jewishtimes.com.

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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won the presidential poll at a Washington gathering of largely Christian conservatives over the weekend, far outpacing former Republican vice presidential nominee and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and other potential aspirants to the White House in 2012.

Huckabee took more than 28 percent of the vote in the Value Voters Summit Straw Poll, according to results released by the sponsoring Family Research Council. The next four contenders, each with about 12 percent of the vote, were Romney, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Palin and Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana. Finishing in single digits were former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. All are Republicans.

“[Huckabee] is well-oiled,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins told The Hill. “He came back with a strong message and I don’t think he missed a beat from the presidential campaign last year.”

Also at the event, the Family Research Council said announced a hit list of 16 congressional Democrats it plans to target in 2010, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Rep. John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania.

As a gathering of social conservatives, the Values Voters Summit (the name always makes us wonder: What voter doesn’t vote his or her values?) has become an important step on the way to the Republican presidential nomination. Speakers at this year’s event included Huckabee, Pence, Pawlenty and Romney, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader John Boehner, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, actor Stephen Baldwin and Miss Universe contestant Carrie Prejean.

Politico reports that Romney went over well.

“He speaks with a gravitas, seriousness,” Jack Klenk, an audience member from Lorton, Virginia, told Politico’s Jonathan Martin. “I was really impressed.”

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (63)
        

The planning commission in the affluent Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs is opposing plans to turn a former office building into the Georgia headquarters of the Church of Scientology.

The commission doesn't have the authority to stop the project, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports, but its 3-2 vote against it is to be taken into account when the city council votes next month.

This caught our eye because we reported a story a couple of weeks ago about the difficulty large churches, synagogues and mosques are having winning municipal approvals for major expansions or new building projects. One imagines Scientology, being enduringly controversial, facing additional hurdles.

Federal law makes it illegal to discriminate against building projects over religious affiliations. But church builders say complaints about traffic, aesthetics and other issues are often a cover for hostility toward the faith to be represented.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says 30 opponents attended the planning commission meeting last week. No one is quoted as having a problem with Scientology.

Read more at ajc.com.

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When we launched this blog a few months back, we assembled a list of categories we thought we might fill with posts. We have filled most of them, and over time, we've added new categories. But if you look at the list below and to the right, there remain four original categories that we haven't touched.

This is an invitation to anyone aware of interesting news, developments or trends involving the Baha'i, Mormon, Sikh or Wiccan faiths, particularly with links to Baltimore or Maryland, to let us know about it.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)
        

William Battle III, a spokesman for Christian Science in Maryland, dropped by the office this week to introduce himself, and to talk about a little-understood denomination that he says has 19 churches and about 1,000 members in the state.

He later sent us some information, including a list of frequently asked questions, which struck us as interesting enough to post here, after the jump.

Why is it called Christian Science?

It is Christian because it is based on the teachings of Jesus. It is scientific because it uses the laws of God, and when systematically applied to any situation, brings about expected results. Christian Science is not Scientology.

Is Christian Science a religion?

It is a religion as well as a system of spiritually-based care. It is a religion in the sense that there is a church—the Church of Christ, Scientist—that supports the practice of Christian Science throughout the world, and it is based on the Bible, especially the teachings of Jesus. However, it is also a system of spiritually-based health care that is studied and practiced by people of all backgrounds.

Who is Mary Baker Eddy?

Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) was an influential American author, teacher, and religious leader, noted for her groundbreaking ideas about spirituality and health, which she named Christian Science. She articulated those ideas in her major work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, first published in 1875.

Are Christian Scientists free to seek medical treatment?

Yes. All health care decisions are up to the individual. Having said that, many Christian Scientists have consistently found prayer to be a reliable means of health care.

Is Christian Science faith healing?

No, if by faith healing you mean that the result of prayer, good or bad, is the will of God. Nothing in Christian Science theology says it’s God’s will that anyone suffer or be sick, but rather it is God’s will for each individual to have health and life.

What do Christian Scientists mean when they talk about healing through prayer?

Prayer in Christian Science is rooted in the nature of God as good and in each individual’s relationship to God. It is the progressive understanding of this fact—that one can never be separated from God and God’s love—that brings healing of anything that needs healing, whether it involves one’s physical health, emotional well-being—or, for that matter, one’s community or the world at large. Through Christian Science, millions have learned that no problem is too big—or too small—for God. There are no rituals, formulas, or incantations in Christian Science prayer.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)
Categories: Christian Science, Scientology
        

Pope Benedict XVI has announced a special meeting of bishops next year to discuss Middle East peace efforts and the role of the Catholic Church in the region, the Associated Press is reporting.

We are reminded of the difficulties this pontiff has had with both Muslims (his decision in a 2006 address to quote a 14th century Byzantine emperor critical of Islam inspired riots) and Jews (who are wary of his interest in reinstating elements of the pre-Vatican II church), and wonder how receptive the region is likely to be to the Vatican’s counsel.

From the Associated Press:

Addressing bishops and patriarchs from Eastern rite churches, Benedict said Saturday that the meeting will take place Oct. 10-24, 2010, and will be titled "The Catholic Church in the Middle East: communion and testimony."

The meeting of bishops, called a synod, will gather church leaders from the Middle East and around the world.

The pope and the Vatican have long been active on the Middle East diplomatic front, seeking to protect Christians in the Holy Land and elsewhere in the region while supporting efforts to solve the Israel-Palestinian dispute.

Read the Associated Press story here.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

 In 1966, Time religion editor John T. Elson posed the question that gave the magazine its bestselling issue since World War II, and still reverberates through popular debate more than 40 years later:

Is God Dead?

The Canadian journalist, whom former Time managing editor Jim Kelly described to The New York Times as “catholic with a capital C and a small c in his interests,” has himself died. He was 78.

Elson’s story, in the words of Times obituary writer William Grimes, “remains a signpost of the 1960s, testimony to the wrenching social changes transforming the United States.”

Entitled “Toward a Hidden God,” the story – which was the result, Grimes writes, of a yearlong effort involving 30 correspondents and 300 interviews – begins with the question.

Is God dead? It is a question that tantalizes both believers, who perhaps secretly fear that he is, and atheists, who possibly suspect that the answer is no.

Is God dead? The three words represent a summons to reflect on the meaning of existence. No longer is the question the taunting jest of skeptics for whom unbelief is the test of wisdom and for whom Nietzsche is the prophet who gave the right answer a century ago. Even within Christianity, now confidently renewing itself in spirit as well as form, a small band of radical theologians has seriously argued that the churches must accept the fact of God's death, and get along without him. How does the issue differ from the age-old assertion that God does not and never did exist? Nietzsche's thesis was that striving, self-centered man had killed God, and that settled that. The current death-of-God group* believes that God is indeed absolutely dead, but proposes to carry on and write a theology without theos, without God. Less radical Christian thinkers hold that at the very least God in the image of man, God sitting in heaven, is dead, and—in the central task of religion today—they seek to imagine and define a God who can touch men's emotions and engage men's minds.

If nothing else, the Christian atheists are waking the churches to the brutal reality that the basic premise of faith—the existence of a personal God, who created the world and sustains it with his love—is now subject to profound attack. "What is in question is God himself," warns German Theologian Heinz Zahrnt, "and the churches are fighting a hard defensive battle, fighting for every inch." "The basic theological problem today," says one thinker who has helped define it, Langdon Gilkey of the University of Chicago Divinity School, "is the reality of God."

“For the next six pages,” Grimes writes, “readers were guided through thickets of theological controversy and a shifting religious landscape. Profound changes taking place in the relationship of believers to their faith were often expressed through the words of people, both eminent and ordinary, grappling with the same fundamental problems. Simone de Beauvoir, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Billy Graham William Sloane Coffin were quoted. So were a Tel Aviv streetwalker, a Dutch charwoman and a Hollywood screenwriter.

Read John T. Elson’s “Toward a Hidden God” at time.com.

Read the New York Times obituary of Elson in nytimes.com.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (207)
        

On the eve or Rosh Hashanah, Jewish leaders in the United States are asking rabbis to emphasize the faith's ethical requirements in their sermons in response to recent financial scandals involving its members, the Associated Press is reporting.

Jews have been embarrassed the past year by the arrest of former Wall Street tycoon [Bernie] Madoff, who is serving a 150-year prison sentence for defrauding investors out of billions of dollars, and several rabbis who were arrested in July on money laundering charges, said Richard Joel, president of Yeshiva University in New York.

Widely distributed images showed them being led into the FBI building in Newark in rabbinical garb and handcuffs didn't help.

Locally, Rabbi Jay Kenneth Wagner, the assistant principal at Yeshivat Rambam Maimonides Academy of Baltimore, was indicted this week on charges of stealing more than $13,000 in school checks that he deposited into his own bank account,

"It's troubling," Rabbi Moshe Kletenik, president of the Rabbinical Council of America, which comprises about 1,000 rabbis in the U.S., Canada and Israel, tells AP reporter Victor Epstein. "Ethical living is as significant a part of leading a religious life as ritual law."

Read the rest of the Associated Press story here.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

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

For all the agonizing people do over theoretical ethical quandaries, few of us are likely often to find ourselves in genuine ethical dilemmas. Sure, we find ourselves in dilemmas, but our choice is usually between doing the right (but difficult, painful and/or costly) thing and taking a seemingly easier way out. Many of the dilemmas we encounter are self-inflicted: a husband looks at pornography and then must decide between confessing it to his wife (thus making her feel violated) or not (thus hiding something from her). We’re in a bad spot, but we put ourselves there, and we have ourselves to blame for having to lie in the bed we made.

The truly wrenching dilemmas, though, are the ones that are brought upon us by others. You see the neighbor kid smoking dope: Do you tell her parents? A coworker speaks abusively to you in a meeting: Do you object? A preacher delivers a sermon you know was cribbed from somebody else’s: Do you blow the whistle? In every case there are uncomfortable practical implications to either choice, and you’re aware that whatever path you choose will have negative consequences for you personally, but you have to choose. Even if you want very much to do the right thing, even if you work hard to keep your own interests from coloring your decision, it’s not easy. Beyond the harm inflicted by the bad behavior itself is the moral burden placed on those in a position to respond to it.

And sometimes you don’t have much time to make a choice. The adrenaline is flowing, the atmosphere is charged, the play is to you and you’ve got to make the call. This seems to have been the case for John Pontolillo, the Johns Hopkins student who encountered Donald Rice in his yard in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.

That Mr. Rice was guilty at the very least of trespassing is beyond question; that he was preparing to commit more serious crimes is beyond doubt. “Even burglars,” the Sun editorialized today, “don’t deserve to be killed with a razor-sharp sword.” No, of course not; burglary is not a crime that merits the death penalty in civilized societies. (And in the uncivilized ones I’d still prefer a sharp sword to a dull one, but that’s neither here nor there.)

On the other hand, if Mr. Rice was injured as a result of physically attacking Mr. Portolillo, then the question is not whether burglary merits death but whether a person who attacks another may legitimately expect to escape unharmed. Millennia of ethical reflection among people of various faiths have produced the almost universal consensus that people have the right to defend themselves and their property from others who would prey upon them. (Those of a pacifist bent who believe they themselves must turn the other cheek and suffer wrong rather than defend themselves are still cautious about imposing this ethical standard on others.)

So if Mr. Rice was killed as a result of Mr. Pontolillo acting in self-defense, this is a tragedy rather than a moral wrong. The difference is vitally important, for it is the difference between moral culpability, and thus the fact of guilt, and the simple (however difficult) phenomenon of tragedy unsought and unwanted. It is the difference between remorse and regret, the first of which is only appropriate when one has behaved wrongly. (That a wrongdoer may experience only regret rather than remorse is the result of a scarred conscience.)

The death of Mr. Rice is indeed a tragedy and nothing to celebrate; every human life is precious and whether a life comes to an end through natural causes or by violence death still reminds us that things are not as they ought to be. Mr. Rice, may God have mercy on his soul, bears moral responsibility for the loss of his own life because he put it in danger in the course of a criminal enterprise. Mr. Pontolillo, whom Mr. Rice put in a terrible situation, does not.

I grieve the difficulties Mr. Pontolillo will face as he lives with the knowledge that he took another life, however justified his actions may have been. But these difficulties are only compounded by those who suggest that he bears moral responsibility, that he should feel guilty, for using whatever he had at hand to defend himself from attack. We all sin, St. Paul says, and fall short of the glory of God; the gravity of the errors for which we are truly responsible makes it all the more obscene that anyone would hold us to account for those of others, as the Sun’s editorial suggests.

Rev. Jason Poling is the pastor of New Hope Community Church .

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Culture, Ethics, Evangelicalsm, Guest Posts, Jason Poling, People, Politics
        

To those who live here, Maryland’s Catholic history is well known. Chartered in the 1600s as a New World haven for British Catholics, it would become the seat of the church in the new United States. The Catholic presence remains strong today, with the Archdiocese of Baltimore counting half a million members, making Catholicism the largest denomination in the state.

And yet Maryland ranks among the nation’s leader in abortions. It’s a conundrum Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien takes up in his latest column in the Catholic Review.

... might it be the fact that, since our state has the fourth highest abortion rate per capita in the United States (behind the District of Columbia, New York and New Jersey), that we could all become complacent about the taking of life on such a massive scale? A troubling side-note: Maryland stands to move closer to the top of the list as all three jurisdictions ahead of The Free State in abortions per capita have seen decreases in their abortion rates since 2000; Maryland’s abortion rate increased by eight percent over that same time period.

Why is it that with so many Catholics as members of the dominant political party in our state – a political party that has traditionally upheld the rights of the poor, the immigrant and the marginalized, but a party consistently and solidly pro- abortion – that politics lacks conscience when life in the womb is commonly treated as refuse?

O’Brien’s prescription: Prayer. He calls on believers to join in the 40 Days for Life campaign, which begins Sept. 23.

"Will you join us?" he asks. "Pray the Rosary or the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Attend Mass more regularly. Pray before the Blessed Sacrament. Just as the loaves and fishes were multiplied, our efforts to change hearts and save the unborn are multiplied exponentially by prayer."

O'Brien asks those wishing to pledge an hour of prayer to contact their parish Respect Life Coordinator or e-mail life@archbalt.org. More information about the 40 Days for Life campaign is available here.

The archdiocesan Respect Life Office, meanwhile, is offering a Day of Reflection, “Food for the Journey,” on Sept. 24, at the Shrine of St. Anthony in Ellicott City to begin the campaign. More information is available by e-mailing contact life@archbalt.org.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (50)
        

Rabbi Jay Kenneth Wagner, the assistant principal at Yeshivat Rambam Maimonides Academy of Baltimore, has been indicted on charges of stealing more than $13,000 in school checks that he deposited into his own bank account, Baltimore Sun colleague Julie Bykowicz is reporting.

We are put in mind of a recent guest post by In Good Faith contributor Rabbi Yaakov Menken on the responsibilities of clergy.

Wagner, who worked at the Orthodox Jewish School on Park Heights Avenue until recently, was arrested and released Tuesday after posting a small cash bond, according to court records.

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

The Society of Saint Pius X must respect Judaism, other Christian denominations and other religions before it may be fully reintegrated into the Catholic Church, Reuters is reporting.

On the eve of reconciliation talks with the traditionalist society whose bishops were excommunicated by Pope John Paul II in 1988, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna said these Vatican II reforms were “not negotiable.”

"It's not the case that Rome will let the Lefebvrists off easy for everything," Schoenborn told the German daily Passauer Neue Presse, calling the traditionalists after their founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Reuters is reporting.

The Vatican appears to be treading carefully after the condemnation that followed the decision of Pope Benedict XVI to rescind the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson, a society member who has denied the Holocaust. Benedict later said the Vatican handled the case badly.

Read the rest of the story at reuters.com.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 4:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (29)
        

Interesting feature from Catholic News Service on an Italian woman whose mother was a saint – literally.

When Gianna Beretta Molla was pregnant with her fourth child, doctors discovered that she had a large ovarian tumor, according to CNS. Surgical protocol in 1962 dictated that the uterus be removed, but the 39-year-old woman – a physician herself – insisted that they remove only what was necessary so that her baby might live.

Molla died a week after the birth of her daughter Gianna Emanuela – now also a physician. She was canonized in 2004 by Pope John Paul II, and is known in the church as "the pro-life saint."

The CNS story focuses on Laura Molla, who was three when her mother died. She was in Washington over the weekend to address a Eucharistic congress at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington sponsored by the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious.

"We had to work through the shock of losing our mother to find the joy in knowing she is a mother for all," said Laura Molla, who was three when her mother died.

"She teaches us to truly discern" what our vocation should be, she said, and then to "live that vocation to the fullest."

Read the rest of the story at catholicnews.com.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

The French branch of the Church of Scientology might not be fighting for survival, after all, Reuters is reporting.

French prosecutors had recommended the government dissolve the church, which has been charged with fraud after former members said they gave it huge sums for spiritual classes and “purification packs.” The church denies fraud.

From Reuters:

Whatever the ruling, under a legislative reform passed just before the start of the trial in May, it is no longer possible to punish a fraudulent organisation with dissolution.

The legal snag was discovered by the Inter-ministerial Unit to Monitor and Fight Cults. Georges Fenech, head of the unit, demanded on Monday that the legal power to dissolve an organisation be reinstated.

"Faced with organisations of a sectarian nature, which present a real danger to public order and public health, the law must always have such a measure at its disposal," he said in a statement.

Read the rest of the story at Yahoo! News UK & Ireland.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Scientology
        

Days after the shooting death of anti-abortion activist James Pouillon, some abortion opponents are asking why abortion rights supporters haven’t condemned the slaying.

Harlan Drake has been charged in the deaths of Pouillon, a 63-year-old retired autoworker who was known locally for wielding signs depicting aborted fetuses, and another man Friday in Owosso, Mich. Police say Drake, 33, intended also to kill a third man.

According to the Associated Press, prosecutors say Drake had been irritated by Pouillon’s protests, but police have said little about what might have led Drake to kill, other than that he had a grudge against the men.

President Barack Obama condemned the killing on Sunday. But over at Politics Daily, Jeffrey Weiss finds Obama’s comment to be too little, too late, and wonders about the silence of other supporters of abortion rights.

He compares the relative quiet to the reaction that followed the killing in May of Dr. George Tiller, the Wichita physician long targeted for performing abortions, allegedly by an anti-abortion activist.

The day that Dr. Tiller was killed, I was easily able to cull a series of condemnations from my e-box from individuals and organizations opposed to abortion …

Those who made statements included Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission; the president and board of directors of Catholics for Choice; Interfaith Alliance Board Chair the Rev. Dr. Galen Guengerich; and Operation Rescue.

The suspect in Dr. Tiller's murder has been linked to some more extreme anti-abortion organizations, but not to any of the groups I just cited. Nonetheless, they felt some moral imperative to condemn the killing. And even if you think the statements were pro forma, the statements were quickly made.

Weiss continues:

Let's grant that Dr. Tiller was famous before he was killed and that nobody much outside of Owosso had ever heard of Pouillon a week ago. And let's also grant that nobody has come up with any connections thus far between the suspect in Pouillon's murder and any organization with any stand concerning abortion.

But Pouillon is sure famous now. And two days after his murder, I can find few statements about it, pro forma or otherwise, on any of the websites of any of the prominent organizations that support abortion rights.

Not NARAL. Not NOW. Not Planned Parenthood. Not Catholics for Choice.

Over at beliefnet, however, “Crunchy Con”servative Rod Dreher suggests the expectation that abortion rights supporters should condemn the killing is unfair – as, he says, it is the other way around.

I don't like it when pro-choicers cynically use violence against abortionists as an excuse to condemn all pro-lifers. It's unfair and inaccurate, though perhaps for pro-choicers emotionally satisfying and politically useful. I see no reason to engage in that sort of thing from the pro-life side. The killer is a hateful criminal whose action doesn't tell us much of anything about the pro-choice side -- though I am glad to hear our pro-choice president condemn the shooting.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (34)
        

A week after Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouted “You lie!” at President Barack Obama during Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress, faith leaders will gather in Washington on Tuesday to pray for an “end to hateful rhetoric that creates a toxic environment for immigrant families.”

Participating in the vigil outside the Capitol will be Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, who chairs the Committee on Immigration of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Bishop Prince Singh of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester, N.Y.; Bishop Minerva Carcaño of the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and Dale Schwartz of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

They are to be joined by Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.).

From the release:

On September 15th and 16th, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) – a designated Hate Group by the Southern Poverty Law Center – will be in Washington for their annual lobby day and “radio row,” where an estimated 47 extremist radio talk show hosts will broadcast live from DC. In response to the divisive rhetoric and extreme anti-immigrant agenda of FAIR, leading faith leaders will gather in prayer to recall the humanity and dignity of immigrants, and the need for policies that will uphold our nation’s best values, not its worst instincts.

While we’re on the subject: With his outburst, Wilson was challenging Obama’s assertion that “the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.” Was Wilson correct? According to the nonpartisan fact-checking operation Politifact, no.

When we look at all of this evidence, it seems that health reform leaves in place the status quo on illegal immigration, and certainly does not provide any new benefits particularly for illegal immigrants.

And finally, the Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, a liberal Catholic, had an interesting take on the Wilson affair in Monday’s newspaper:

Obama sandwiched [his assertion that the reforms wouldn’t apply to illegal immigrants] between his knockdowns of two other claims about his health reform plan: the ludicrous charge that it would create those death panels, and the accusation, also false, that it would promote abortions. In fact, the administration is negotiating very hard with pro-lifers to make the bill "neutral" on abortion.

The president included the line about illegal immigrants because he thought, probably correctly, that for many voters, it would be a deal-breaker if they learned that his health proposals would help those who broke the law to come to this country.

Yet it should bother us a lot more than it does that alleged plans to kill off seniors and promote abortion are spoken of in almost the same breath as the matter of delivering health care to fellow human beings, however they arrived on our shores.

Dionne concludes:

… I am not at all at peace with the fact that the one issue about which a member of Congress chose to rise up and accuse our president of being a liar related to the charge that our chief executive wasn't doing enough to build walls between illegal immigrants and health coverage.

How mean-spirited will we allow ourselves to become? How coarsened has our political culture made us? We like to see ourselves as a generous, caring and welcoming nation. Are we losing that part of our character?

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (33)
        

They asked for guns; they got guns. After teaming up with the Catholic Review to get weapons off the streets, St. Gregory the Great Church collected 21 firearms on Saturday, and expects a half-dozen more on Tuesday, organizers say. It was the church’s seventh such buy-back.

“The police have verified that in the past, some of these weapons that have been turned in have been very lethal,” Monsignor Damien G. Nalepa said in a statement before the event. “We appeal to all the citizens of our city to help stop the violence and turn in guns.”

Since the parish began its effort to get guns off the streets, organizers say, more than 100 have been turned in.

Organizers offered $100 for each workable automatic or semi-automatic handgun or assault rifle, and $50 for any other workable gun turned in, no questions asked. The guns were to be turned over to local law enforcement.

The Catholic Review is challenging the community to contribute to a fund so such gun buy-backs may be held more regularly. Tax-deductible contributions may be sent to: The Cathedral Foundation Inc., Attn.: Catholic Review Gun Buy-Back, P.O. Box 777, Baltimore, MD 21203.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Catholicism
        

So concludes Newsweek’s Lisa Miller, after reviewing recent polling data. She’s not referring to immigration or conversion, but ways about thinking of religion:

The Rig Veda, the most ancient Hindu scripture, says this: "Truth is One, but the sages speak of it by many names." A Hindu believes there are many paths to God. Jesus is one way, the Qur'an is another, yoga practice is a third. None is better than any other; all are equal. The most traditional, conservative Christians have not been taught to think like this. They learn in Sunday school that their religion is true, and others are false. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me."

Americans are no longer buying it. According to a 2008 Pew Forum survey, 65 percent of us believe that "many religions can lead to eternal life"—including 37 percent of white evangelicals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone. Also, the number of people who seek spiritual truth outside church is growing. Thirty percent of Americans call themselves "spiritual, not religious," according to a 2009 NEWSWEEK Poll, up from 24 percent in 2005. Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, has long framed the American propensity for "the divine-deli-cafeteria religion" as "very much in the spirit of Hinduism. You're not picking and choosing from different religions, because they're all the same," he says. "It isn't about orthodoxy. It's about whatever works. If going to yoga works, great—and if going to Catholic mass works, great. And if going to Catholic mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist retreat works, that's great, too."

Read more at newsweek.com.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (23)
Categories: Christianity, Culture, Hinduism, Interfaith
        

Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien is calling on Maryland’s representatives in Congress to ensure that health care reform does not lead to taxpayer-funded abortion.

In a column this week in the Catholic Review, the spiritual leader of the area’s 500,000 Catholics writes that “access to basic, life-affirming, quality health care is a universal human right, not a privilege,” and it “should not depend on an individual’s stage in life, where or whether he or his parents work, how much he earns, where he lives, or where he was born.”

O’Brien writes that the church stands ready to be “an active health care reform supporter,” but only if “lawmakers … preserve the tradition of federal laws and policies that have barred federal funding and promotion of abortion in all major health programs for more than three decades.”

“Sadly, the current version of the House reform bill, H.R. 3200, begins to dismantle the ‘abortion neutral’ tradition,” he writes. “Amendments approved just before the summer recess weaken the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal funding of abortion, by allowing federal subsidies to help pay premiums for health benefits that include abortion. In fact, the current House bill goes so far as to require that the “public option” include abortions. This is contrary to the practice of every other federal health program.”

The question of whether tax dollars would be used to fund abortion has been a matter of contention throughout the debate over health care reform. President Barack Obama has said they would not, a statement backed up by the non-partisan Web site Politifact:

While there are several versions of the health care plan floating around Congress, and it seems that full abortion coverage would be permitted in the government-sponsored program, we didn't see anything in them that would put taxpayers on the hook for subsidizing abortions.

Elsewhere on the Catholic Review Web, the Catholic News Agency reports that officials of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Health Association are encouraged by Obama’s pledge this week to continue the ban on the use of federal funds for abortion and to maintain conscience protections for health care workers in any health reform legislation.

O’Brien says he is wary of loopholes in present drafts that he says would allow for abortion at taxpayer expense.

“The attempts of several pro-life democrats in the House of Representatives explicitly to outlaw taxpayer abortions have been roundly defeated by the majority, with seeming tacit approval on the part of the Obama administration,” he writes. “Without a change in this approach, it will be impossible for me to justify Catholic health care organizations supporting the presently proposed legislation.”

He calls on the Maryland delegation to work to reverse “this troubling development,” because “to overturn the longstanding status quo on abortion would be morally wrong and politically unwise, and would risk losing the support of a longstanding ally in the effort to achieve genuine health care reform.”

O’Brien writes also that Congress should maintain coverage for legal immigrants, and ensure that pregnant women, who will be giving birth to U.S. citizens, are eligible along with their unborn children for health care.

“In sum,” he writes, “a truly universal health policy must respect all human life and dignity, from conception to natural death. It must provide access for all, with a special concern for the poor and inclusion of legal immigrants. It should embrace the common good and preserve pluralism, including freedom of conscience and a variety of options. Solutions must be found that restrain costs, and that apply them equitably across the spectrum of payers.”

Read O'Brien's column at catholicreview.org

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

The National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum in New York will display quotations from the hijackers alongside comments from survivors of the deadliest terror attack ever on U.S. soil, Reuters is reporting.

Museum officials on Thursday announced details of the museum, which is expected to open on the World Trade Center site by 2013.

As Reuters notes, previous attempts to present the motivation of the 19 men who hijacked four airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, to crash into prominent buildings have run into emotional opposition from family members and others, and led politicians to cancel earlier plans for an “International Freedom Center” on the site.

But Museum President Joe Daniels told reporters the exhibit would present the facts, focusing on "what happened on that day, why it happened, what does it mean to live in a 9/11 world."

"Let the perpetrators speak for themselves," Reuters quotes Daniels as saying. "That's a powerful and important thing that visitors to this museum need to hear -- bearing witness to the actual testimonials of those who committed the atrocities.”

"No one will come to this museum and leave with a feeling of heroism for the people who committed the crimes that we bear witness to today," he added.

Read the rest of the Reuters story here.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)
        

More than 3 percent of women who attend religious services at least once a month have been the victims of clergy sexual misconduct since turning 18, according to a study produced by Baylor University.

Baylor’s School of Social Work announced the findings from its forthcoming nationwide study of the prevalence of clergy sexual misconduct, which it said had been accepted for publication later this year in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

The numbers suggest that in the average U.S. congregation of 400 adult members, seven women, on average, have been victimized at some point in their adult lives. That number is greater than has been widely known.

"Because many people are familiar with some of the high-profile cases of sexual misconduct, most people assume that it is just a matter of a few charismatic leaders preying on vulnerable followers," Diana Garland, dean of the School of Social Work and lead researcher in the study, said in a statement. "What this research tells us, however, is that Clergy Sexual Misconduct with adults is a widespread problem in congregations of all sizes and occurs across denominations. Now that we have a better understanding of the problem, we can start looking at prevention strategies."

Garland expressed hope that the findings would “prompt congregations to consider adopting policies and procedures designed to protect their members from leaders who abuse their power. Many people -- including the victims themselves -- often label incidences of Clergy Sexual Misconduct with adults as 'affairs'. In reality, they are an abuse of spiritual power by the religious leader."

According to a release, the study is part of a comprehensive effort by Baylor University to identify the prevalence of clergy sexual misconduct with adults and the details commonly associated with its occurrence across religions. Using this data as a foundation, the Baylor team has been working to outline possible initiatives designed to identify and prevent CSM, and draft model legislation to make CSM illegal in the same way that relationships with patients and clients are illegal for other "helping professionals" including doctors, lawyers and mental health practitioners. At present only two states -- Texas and Minnesota -- have legal statutes in place to guard against CSM.

Read the announcement here.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

It isn’t Beatle Day here at In Good Faith – It only seems that way, now that we’ve received word that the great pop group owe their success to a deal that a 20-year-old John Lennon made with the devil.

The truth is revealed in the forthcoming “The Lennon Prophecy,” in which author Joseph Niezgoda describes a pact similar to those made by bluesman Robert Johnson, Pope Sylvester and Dr. Johann Faust.

(We will admit here that we had been under the impression that Faust was a fictional character. But we've checked Wikipedia, and there he is.)

Niezgoda says the release of the Bealtes catalog on remastered compact disc and The Beatles: Rock Band on 09/09/09 is no mere marketing gimmick, but only the latest clue in a 40-year chain of evidence proving the sinister explanation for the group's achievements. Because if you turn your computer monitor upside down, you'll see that the date becomes 666, sort of, which any horror movie or heavy metal fan knows is the mark of the beast.

Rather than paraphrase further, we’re going to pass along the entire press release, after the jump, pausing only to observe that it doesn’t seem to have been much of a deal for Lennon, given that he was murdered by an addled fan shortly after he turned 40. Of course, it wouldn’t have been the first time that a struggling artist agreed to terms that would be viewed in retrospect as unfavorable.

NEW BOOK, THE LENNON PROPHECY, ASKS THE QUESTION – DID JOHN LENNON SELL HIS SOUL TO THE DEVIL?

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Did John Lennon sell his soul to the Devil in exchange for his worldly musical success with The Beatles and beyond? That’s the theory set forth by Joseph Niezgoda in his new book The Lennon Prophecy, A New Examination of the Death Clues of the Beatles.

The Lennon Prophecy ($19.95, New Chapter Press) offers a new interpretation of the hidden messages and symbols that have ornamented Beatles mythology for years and offers the view that Lennon joined historical figures such as Mississippi “Crossroads“ blues guitarist Robert Johnson, Dr. Johann Faust, Pope Slyvester among others who entered into a pact with the devil to exchange their souls for earthly successes.

Niezgoda dissects and examines the Beatles' and Lennon’s recordings and album artwork and follows a fascinating and unique trail of sorcery, mysticism, numerology, backwards masking, anagrams and literary and theological writings to explain his conclusions.

The Lennon Prophecy, due in book stores in December, puts forth the theory that a 20-year-old Lennon, so disillusioned with a life of sadness and disappointment where he was abandoned by his father and stricken with the death of his mother, entered into a deal with the devil to achieve fame and fortune. Niezgoda puts forth that a 20-year pact began in December of 1960, shortly before a night when Beatlemania first struck audiences on December 27, 1960 when the Fab Four played at Town Hall Ballroom in Litherland, England. During that performance, as Niezgoda reports, “The Beatles evoked a response noticeably different from anything in their past.” From there, the Beatles inexplicably shot immediately to global fame never seen before or since. The 20-year pact came to its tragic conclusion on December 8, 1980, when Mark David Chapman, who testified he was possessed by demons, fulfilled the end of the contract by murdering Lennon outside of his apartment at The Dakota in New York City.

Clues foretelling the death of Lennon are revealed in album covers such as Rubber Soul, Yesterday and Today, A Collection of Beatles Oldies, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Yellow Submarine, Magical Mystery Tour, Abbey Road as well as Lennon solo albums Imagine and Walls and Bridges. Songs that also reveal the mysterious prediction of death and connections to the devil include “Tomorrow Never Knows,” “I Am The Walrus,” “Come Together,” “One After 909,” “Let It Be,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and “Revolution No. 9,” which Niezgoda reveals is in itself a step-by-step preview of his actual assassination. The video for the biggest hit off Lennon’s last album “(Just Like) Starting Over” also reveals an intriguing clue that brings the literary world of James Joyce in the myriad of clues.

Lennon’s alleged anti-Christian behavior as well as famous declaration that the Beatles were “Bigger than Jesus” are also presented as evidence of a possible pact. Niezgoda also dispels the “Paul-is-Dead” mythology that theorized that the Beatles inserted clues in their songs how Paul McCartney was killed in a car crash. A life-long Beatles fan, collector, and scholar, Niezgoda has researched John Lennon and the band for more than 25 years. He works in analog and digital music recording with an extensive background in music theory.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Wednesday is a big day for the Beatles and their fans. The greatest and most influential artists of the rock era are rereleasing their entire catalog in newly remastered mono and stereo compact discs. They’re also making a foray into an entirely new medium with The Beatles: Rock Band, which The New York Times said a few days ago “may be the most important video game yet made.”

It is neither of these marketing events, however, but a trip to see a Beatles tribute band that inspires Eric Miller to reflect in Christianity Today on the interplay between modern Western religious practice (spirituality) and the allure of the pagan celebration of the body (materiality).

Miller dismisses the Beatles themselves as “the creepy guys with stringy hair and granny glasses,” and this admirer was irritated at what he takes to be a willful misreading of the John Lennon lyric “Imagine there’s no heaven.” But Miller seems to have enjoyed himself well enough at the tribute show, and concludes that paganism has an important role to play, as a kind of balance to spirituality.

“The calling of Christians is to live at the point of tension between these poles,” he writes, “at the difficult but satisfying place that reveals the pathway to human flourishing and leads others to it.”

Read the rest of the piece at christianitytoday.com.

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An Arizona pastor has drawn the attention of the Secret Service after saying that he prays for the death of President Barack Obama, a Phoenix television station is reporting.

Steven Anderson, pastor of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, shared that bit of information last month in a sermon entitled “Why I hate Barack Obama.”

"If you want to know how I'd like to see Obama die, I'd like him to die of natural causes," Anderson explained to KNXV ABC 15. "I don't want him to be a martyr, we don't need another holiday. I'd like to see him die, like Ted Kennedy, of brain cancer."

One congregant said he moved to the area because he agreed with the message of the church. Christopher Broughton said he listened to Anderson’s sermon the day before bringing at AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle outside an Obama event last month in Phoenix.

I think we'd be better off if God would send [Obama] where he's going now instead of later," Broughton told KNXV. "[Obama] is destroying our country."

When asked if he was advocating violence against Obama, KNXV reports, Broughton wouldn't answer the question directly.

"I don't care how God does it, I'm not going into further detail than that," said Broughton. "It would be better now than later."

Anderson’s comments have drawn protests from a group that calls itself People Against Clergy Who Preach Hate. They have also drawn notice from the Secret Service.

"We are aware of Pastor Anderson's comments and an appropriate follow up will be conducted,” a Secret Service spokesman told KNXV.

Read the rest of the story at abc15.com.

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So we went up to Emmittsburg last week to visit with the Rev. Leo Patalinghug at Mount St. Mary’s University. For several years now, Father Leo has been pushing Grace Before Meals, the ministry he created to encourage family and friends to eat and talk with each other.

We found focusing on food as a vehicle for gathering people together to be an interesting avocation for a priest, given that the Catholic Mass is built around the Eucharist, the reenactment of the Last Supper at which believers are nourished by the body and blood of Christ.

Patalinghug thought he was being filmed for a Food Network feature on his ministry last June when celebrity chef Bobby Flay challenged him to a throwdown – a cook-off featuring, in this case, fajitas.

The episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay airs Wednesday night. Patalinghug, who wouldn’t tell us who won, is hosting a viewing party in the parking lot of Da Mimmo's Italian Restaurant at 217 S. High St. in Little Italy.

We’ve produced a story for Wednesday’s newspaper, but it’s online now at baltimoresun.com.

Jed Kirschbaum/Baltimore Sun

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Businessman Bernard Manekin, a former chairman of both the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore and the Jewish Community Center of Baltimore and a co-founder of the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies, died Saturday. He was 95.

Read the obituary at The Baltimore Jewish Times.

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In March, Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien wrote to Notre Dame President John Jenkins that he was "disappointed and bewildered" that the university had invited President Barack Obama to receive an honorary degree and speak during commencement ceremonies. Obama supports abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research, which the Catholic Church opposes.

On Tuesday, local Catholic schools will tune in to the president's back-to-school address to the nation's children.

From the Archdiocese of Baltimore:

Since news of the address was first reported, the Catholic Center and several Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Baltimore have been contacted by parents, teachers and others expressing a desire that parents be given the opportunity to request that their children be excused from viewing the address.

Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, Archbishop of Baltimore, acknowledges the historic significance of the President’s speech and is fully supportive of the educational messages the White House says the President will deliver. However, he agrees that parents should ultimately have the right to choose whether their child views the address and will ask Catholic schools in the Archdiocese to communicate this to parents.

“We respect the rights of our parents to decide what’s best for their children in this matter and our schools will be asked to make arrangements for children not watching the program in an alternate venue in order to offer an opportunity for discussion about the role and responsibilities of the presidency and the value of education,” the Archbishop said.

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Undaunted by the pummeling it is taking from former members, the Church of Scientology has been stepping up efforts to reach out to African-Americans.

Details appear in an interview with veteran rapper Doug E. Fresh at essence.com.

"Scientology is not a White religion. It is not just for White people," the artist, whose birth name is Douglas E. Davis, tells Terrance Dean. "Scientology is not written with disrespect toward God. It doesn't worship something that is evil. It is scientific, mathematical, and spiritual. The Black community has to check it out and see what's there. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but you have to take a look. You may be amazed at what you get."

The largely favorable piece, which mentions the erratic behavior or Tom Cruise but says nothing of the more troubling allegations against the church, lists several African-American entertainers it says have been associated with it: Chaka Khan, Al Jarreau, MC Lyte, Haywood Nelson (who played Dwayne "Hey HEY Hey" Nelson on the 1970s television show, "What 's Happening!") and Isaac Hayes.

(Which raises a question, at least in my mind: We know of entertainers who are Scientologists. Are there prominent politicians/public officials, academics/scientists/intellectuals, writers/artists or athletes who are Scientologists? That is, are the only well known people involved with Scientology actors or musicians?)

Back to outreach to the African-American community: The Essence piece details Scientology operations in Inglewood, Calif., and Harlem in New York, where the church opened a center in 2001.

"Harlem, from Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and eventually Stevie Wonder and Hip Hop, has been an international cultural beacon," John Carmichael, president of the Church of Scientology of New York. "Besides residents of the neighborhood, the Church of Scientology of Harlem will also provide an especially congenial atmosphere for Scientologists in the Bronx and in Brooklyn, who already make up a large part of the Scientologists of African descent, as well as more recent arrivals from Africa and the Caribbean."

Read more at essence.com.

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One had to be impressed by the life and accomplishments of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien writes in his column in the Catholic Review.

He will go down in history for his legislative accomplishments: the advancement of immigrants, the poor, the elderly and yes, virtually all those mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 25. This seemed to emanate not singly, though surely, from a “liberal agenda,” but from a genuine Christian conviction – if we are to believe those who knew him best – of the dignity of the human person made to God’s image. He was unashamedly Catholic in his self-identity and heritage, a frequent attender of daily Mass.

But then there’s what O’Brien calls “the elephant right smack center in the room:” Kennedy’s staunch support of abortion rights.

What happened, what motivated him and seemingly justified his ability to reconcile his abortion stance with his Catholic Faith? How truly comfortable was he with this “reconciliation?” And how different would our culture and our country be today if this uniquely gifted leader extended his renowned witness to that of a consistent ethic of life? Now it is not for us to judge, but for Another. As members of Christ’s Body soon to face that same Judge, we must pray that Ted Kennedy be rewarded for the vast amount of good he accomplished, forgiven for his shortcomings and, if granted Paradise, that he intercede for an America even more just and inclusive than the one he hoped, worked and prayed for throughout his life and at his death.

Read the column at catholicreview.org.

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 Pope Benedict XVI marked the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II on Sunday by saying religion should promote peace and fight racism and totalitarianism, the Associated Press reports.

The German-born pontiff, who was forced to serve in the Hitler Youth Corps and later the army before he deserted near the end of the war, said the memory of the war should serve as a warning to never repeat such a "barbarity" as the Holocaust and the extermination of millions of innocents, the AP reports.

"The contribution that religion can and must make is particularly important in promoting forgiveness and reconciliation against violence, racism, totalitarianism and extremism, which defile the image of the Creator in man," he said in Viterbo, Italy, during his traditional Sunday blessing.

Read the Associated Press story.

Associated Press photograph

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For attempting to rally employees to boycott a postage stamp that honors a Muslim holiday, the mayor of Clarksville, Tenn., has won: A free Quran.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said on Friday it would send copies of the Muslim text to Mayor John Piper and members of the Clarksville City Council. According to media reports, Piper forwarded an e-mail to friends, colleagues and employees urging “patriotic Americans” to protest the stamp.

From The Leaf Chronicle:

The e-mail asks readers to remember a series of what it calls “Muslim” terrorist attacks. For example, “Remember the MUSLIM bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993!”

After listing a series of similar comments, the e-mail concludes, “To use this stamp would be a slap in the face to all those AMERICANS who died at the hands of those whom this stamp honors.”

"I don't see any reason why it would be inappropriate," Piper told the newspaper, and added that he thought the e-mail was neither anti-Muslim or anti-Islamic.

Snopes.com has a thorough discussion of the e-mail, which has circulated since shortly after the U.S. Postal Service first issued the stamp in 2001. According to The Leaf-Chronicle, the version forwarded by Piper claims erroneously that the stamp was created at the order of President Barack Obama.

Snopes quotes the Postal Service: “The Eid stamp commemorates the two most important festivals — or eids — in the Islamic calendar: Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. On these days, Muslims wish each other ‘Eid mubarak,’ the phrase featured in Islamic calligraphy on the stamp. ‘Eid mubarak’ translates literally as ‘blessed festival,’ and can be paraphrased as ‘May your religious holiday be blessed.’"

CAIR said it would send the Quran to Clarksville as part of its “Share the Quran” initiative, through which it hopes to distribute the scripture to 100,000 local, state and national leaders by the end of the year.

“Mayor Piper obviously has misconceptions about Islam that are best addressed through dialogue and education,” CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said in a statement. “We hope the mayor and the city council will accept the copies of the Quran in the spirit in which they are given and will agree to meet with representatives of the local Muslim community.”

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 4:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (43)
        

Churches and whole dioceses have left the Episcopal Church since the 2003 consecretation of an openly gay bishop brought a lonstanding divide over homosexuality within the nation's sixth-largest Protestant denomination out into the open.

But on Thursday, 10 Episcopal nuns from a Catonsville convent took what scholars say is the unprecedented step of joining the Catholic Church. At a Mass celebrated by Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien, each vowed to continue their tradition of consecrated life, now as a religious institute within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

"We know our beliefs and where we are," Mother Christina Christie, superior of All Saints Sisters of the Poor, told sun colleague Mary Gail Hare. "We were drifting farther apart from the more liberal road the Episcopal Church is traveling. We are now more at home in the Roman Catholic Church."

In a statement, Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland wished them God's blessings.

"Despite the sadness we feel in having to say farewell, our mutual joy is that we remain as one spiritual family of faith, one body in Christ," he said.

Read the story at baltimoresun.com.

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Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, criticized by some conservative Catholics for taking a prominent role in the funeral of abortion rights supporter Edward M. Kennedy, says he disagrees with his critics “in the strongest terms.”

Writing in his blog on Wednesday, O’Malley also says that he told President Barack Obama before the funeral Saturday that Catholic bishops were anxious to support universal health care, “but we will not support a plan that will include a provision for abortion or could open the way to abortions in the future.”

In his post, O’Malley appears to echo recent comments by Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan of Santa Fe, N.M., who questioned the efficacy of the “loud tactics” of his fellow bishops on abortion and other issues. Michael Paulson of the Boston Globe, one of the great religion writers working today, provides a useful summary:

… the most impassioned part of the cardinal’s blog post -- which is at times folksy, at times cerebral, and punctuated by snapshots of the memorial events -- is a de facto plea for greater civility among Catholics when discussing divisive issues. He warned against “harsh judgments’’ and attributing “the worst motives’’ to people with whom Catholics have disagreements, saying “these attitudes and practices do irreparable damage to the communion of the Church.’’

“If any cause is motivated by judgment, anger or vindictiveness,’’ he added, “it will be doomed to marginalization and failure.’’

Paulson describes O’Malley as “as a fierce opponent of abortion [who] has been strongly critical of Obama’s support for abortion rights, and has questioned how Catholics can vote for politicians who support abortion rights.

“But he has also refused to join the handful of bishops who would deny Communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights,” Paulson continues, “and with his statement last night he makes it clear that he believes the tone of the debate needs to change.”

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

President Barack Obama continued his Ramadan-timed Muslim outreach with a White House dinner on Tuesday. But this time, he invited some prominent Israeli and Jewish leaders to join their Muslim counterparts at the fast-breaking meal called Iftar.

The guest list included Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Nathan Diament, director of public affairs of the Orthodox Union, and Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

They joined diplomats from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and other Muslim countries and the chief of mission of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Also on hand were Reps. Keith Ellison and Andre Carson, the first Muslims to serve in Congress, and other prominent American Muslims.

"I want to welcome all the American Muslims from many walks of life who are here," Obama said. "This is just one part of our effort to celebrate Ramadan, and continues a long tradition of hosting iftars here at the White House.

"For well over a billion Muslims, Ramadan is a time of intense devotion and reflection. It's a time of service and support for those in need. And it is also a time for family and friends to come together in a celebration of their faith, their communities, and the common humanity that all of us share. It is in that spirit that I welcome each and every one of you to the White House.

"Tonight's iftar is a ritual that is also being carried out this Ramadan at kitchen tables and mosques in all 50 states. Islam, as we know, is part of America. And like the broader American citizenry, the American Muslim community is one of extraordinary dynamism and diversity -- with families that stretch back generations and more recent immigrants; with Muslims of countless races and ethnicities, and with roots in every corner of the world.

"Indeed, the contribution of Muslims to the United States are too long to catalog because Muslims are so interwoven into the fabric of our communities and our country. American Muslims are successful in business and entertainment; in the arts and athletics; in science and in medicine. Above all, they are successful parents, good neighbors, and active citizens.

"So on this occasion, we celebrate the Holy Month of Ramadan, and we also celebrate how much Muslims have enriched America and its culture -- in ways both large and small."

Following is the White House transcript of Obama's remarks.

THE PRESIDENT: Please, everybody have a seat. Thank you. Well, it is my great pleasure to host all of you here at the White House to mark this special occasion -- Ramadan Kareem.

I want to say that I'm deeply honored to welcome so many members of the diplomatic corps, as well as several members of my administration and distinguished members of Congress, including the first two Muslims to serve in Congress -- Keith Ellison and Andre Carson. Where are they? (Applause.)

Just a few other acknowledgements I want to make. We have Senator Richard Lugar here, who's our Ranking Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Where is Dick Lugar? There he is. (Applause.) Representative John Conyers, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. (Applause.) Representative Rush Holt is here. Thank you, Rush. (Applause.) Have we found you a seat, Rush? (Laughter.)

REPRESENTATIVE HOLT: I’m on my way to the train. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: I got you.

We also have here -- Secretary of Defense Gates is here. Secretary Gates. (Applause.) Our Attorney General, Eric Holder. (Applause.) And Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius is here. (Applause.)

And most of all, I want to welcome all the American Muslims from many walks of life who are here. This is just one part of our effort to celebrate Ramadan, and continues a long tradition of hosting iftars here at the White House.

For well over a billion Muslims, Ramadan is a time of intense devotion and reflection. It's a time of service and support for those in need. And it is also a time for family and friends to come together in a celebration of their faith, their communities, and the common humanity that all of us share. It is in that spirit that I welcome each and every one of you to the White House.

Tonight's iftar is a ritual that is also being carried out this Ramadan at kitchen tables and mosques in all 50 states. Islam, as we know, is part of America. And like the broader American citizenry, the American Muslim community is one of extraordinary dynamism and diversity -- with families that stretch back generations and more recent immigrants; with Muslims of countless races and ethnicities, and with roots in every corner of the world.

Indeed, the contribution of Muslims to the United States are too long to catalog because Muslims are so interwoven into the fabric of our communities and our country. American Muslims are successful in business and entertainment; in the arts and athletics; in science and in medicine. Above all, they are successful parents, good neighbors, and active citizens.

So on this occasion, we celebrate the Holy Month of Ramadan, and we also celebrate how much Muslims have enriched America and its culture -- in ways both large and small. And with us here tonight, we see just a small sample of those contributions. Let me share a few stories with you briefly.

Elsheba Khan's son, Kareem, made the ultimate sacrifice for his country when he lost his life in Iraq. Kareem joined the military as soon as he finished high school. He would go on to win the Purple Heart and Bronze Star, along with the admiration of his fellow soldiers. In describing her son, Elsheba said, "He always wanted to help any way that he could." Tonight, he's buried alongside thousands of heroes in Arlington National Cemetery. A crescent is carved into his grave, just as others bear the Christian cross or the Jewish star. These brave Americans are joined in death as they were in life -- by a common commitment to their country, and the values that we hold dear.

One of those values is the freedom to practice your religion -- a right that is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution. Nashala Hearn, who joins us from Muskogee, Oklahoma, took a stand for that right at an early age. When her school district told her that she couldn't wear the hijab, she protested that it was a part of her religion. The Department of Justice stood behind her, and she won her right to practice her faith. She even traveled to Washington to testify before Congress. Her words spoke to a tolerance that is far greater than mistrust -- when she first wore her headscarf to school, she said, "I received compliments from the other kids."

Another young woman who has thrived in her school is Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir. She's not even 5'5 -- where's Bilqis? Right here. Stand up, Bilqis, just so that we -- (laughter) -- I want everybody to know -- she's got heels on. She's 5'5 -- Bilqis broke Rebecca Lobo's record for the most points scored by any high school basketball player in Massachusetts history. (Applause.) She recently told a reporter, "I'd like to really inspire a lot of young Muslim girls if they want to play basketball. Anything is possible. They can do it, too." As an honor student, as an athlete on her way to Memphis, Bilqis is an inspiration not simply to Muslim girls -- she's an inspiration to all of us.

Of course, we know that when it comes to athletes who have inspired America, any list would include the man known simply as The Greatest. And while Muhammad Ali could not join us tonight, it is worth reflecting upon his remarkable contributions, as he's grown from an unmatched fighter in the ring to a man of quiet dignity and grace who continues to fight for what he believes -- and that includes the notion that people of all faiths holds things in common. I love this quote. A few years ago, he explained this view -- and this is part of why he's The Greatest -- saying, "Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams -- they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do -- they all contain truths."

They all contain truths. Among those truths are the pursuit of peace and the dignity of all human beings. That must always form the basis upon which we find common ground. And that is why I am so pleased that we are joined tonight not only by so many outstanding Muslim Americans and representatives of the diplomatic corps, but people of many faiths -- Christians, Jews, and Hindus -- along with so many prominent Muslims.

Together, we have a responsibility to foster engagement grounded in mutual interest and mutual respect. And that's one of my fundamental commitments as President, both at home and abroad. That is central to the new beginning that I've sought between the United States and Muslims around the world. And that is a commitment that we can renew once again during this holy season.

So tonight, we celebrate a great religion, and its commitment to justice and progress. We honor the contributions of America's Muslims, and the positive example that so many of them set through their own lives. And we rededicate ourselves to the work of building a better and more hopeful world.

So thanks to all of you for taking the time to be here this evening. I wish you all a very blessed Ramadan. And with that, I think we can start a feast. I don't know what's on the menu, but I'm sure it will be good. (Laughter.) Thank you very much, everybody. (Applause.)

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)
        

From London comes news of a new Catholic prayer book that includes a prayer for couples before sex.

“I suppose it is a bit idealistic but it is recognizing that God is at the heart of the marriage relationship between husband and wife,' Bishop Paul Hendricks tells the Daily Mail. “'It is important for the Church to affirm the value of marriage and family life.”

From the Daily Mail:

Roman Catholic couples are being encouraged to pray together before they have sex.

A book published by a prominent Church group invites those setting out on married life to recite the specially-composed Prayer Before Making Love.

It is aimed at 'purifying their intentions' so that the act is not about selfishness or hedonism.

The prayer, which appears in the Prayer Book for Spouses, implores God 'to place within us love that truly gives, tenderness that truly unites, self-offering that tells the truth and does not deceive, forgiveness that truly receives, loving physical union that welcomes'.

It adds: 'Open our hearts to you, to each other and to the goodness of your will.

'Cover our poverty in the richness of your mercy and forgiveness. Clothe us in true dignity and take to yourself our shared aspirations, for your glory, for ever and ever.'

The 64-page book has been published by the London-based Catholic Truth Society.

Read the rest of the story at dailymail.co.uk.

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On an extended stay in Guatemala some while back -- I spent several months studying Spanish in preparation for an assignment in Latin America -- I remember being amused by a billboard campaign with messages supposedly from God. One that has stuck in my head translated as: "Those are commandments, not suggestions."

Cities throughout the world have been targeted by similar efforts. Now comes word of a church in Michigan that has found another spokesbeing to push its message. From the Associated Press:

A Michigan church is enlisting Satan in a bid to drum up attendance at services. Metro South Church in the Detroit suburb of Trenton is posting signs saying the non-denominational Christian congregation "sucks" and "makes me sick." The ads are signed by Satan.

The campaign even has a Web site explaining why Satan hates the church.

Youth Pastor Adam Dorband told WJBK-TV the church is trying to reach out to people and cut through the "noise."

Dorband said Jesus "wants us to be creative and he wants us to ... use whatever it takes to reach people."

South Metro Church explains itself at satanhatesmetro.com.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

A Cincinnati nun who has long called for the Catholic ordination of women has been told by the archbishop of Cincinnati to drop the issue or forfeit her responsibilities within the archdiocese, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

Sister of Charity Louise Akers, 66, says Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk told her during a meeting in August to remove her name and photograph from the Web site of the Women’s Ordination Conference, of which she is an advisory board member, and rescind her support for the ordination of women if she wants to continue making presentations and teaching for credit in archdiocesan institutions.

She has taken the first step, she tells NCR, to defuse the “destructive assaults” against her, but will not take the second.

“To do so would go against my conscience,” she said. “For four decades I have devoted my ministry to advocating on behalf of the marginalized through religious congregations, justice organizations, ecumenical and interfaith groups. Women’s ordination is a justice issue. Its basis is the value, dignity and equality of women. I believe this to my very core. To publicly state otherwise would be a lie and a violation of my conscience. I love, support and cherish the part of Church that upholds the gospel mission and vision of Jesus.”

Reached by NCR, Pilarczyk said, "It is not my custom to offer public comment on personnel matters."

Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati

On Tuesday, Women’s Ordination Conference executive director Erin Saiz Hanna issued a statement in support of Akers:

The Women's Ordination Conference supports Sister Louise Akers in her life and ministry. Sister Louise, a Sister of Charity and advocate for are peace, antiracism and interreligious relations, has dedicated her life in service to social justice. We believe asking Sister Louise to go against her own conscience and denounce her belief in women's full equality in the Church, which includes women's ordination, is a prime example of the way women are often wrongly treated by the hierarchy in the Roman Catholic Church.

We ask that she be reinstated into her teaching position with archdiocesan-related institutions in a timely manner, and that any presentations given by Sister Louise will qualify for full credit.

We oppose the limitations set by Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk. His requirements imposed on Sister Louise will not extinguish the widespread call for women's equality nor intimidate women into accepting marginal status within the Church.

The Vatican's stance on ordination is based on arguments that have been refuted time and again. In 1976, the Vatican's own Pontifical Biblical Commission determined that there is no scriptural reason to prohibit women's ordination. However, the Vatican ignored this finding and in 1994, Pope John Paul II officially forbade discussion of women's ordination. People have been fired from their jobs in Catholic institutions simply for discussing the issue, and this recent development with Sister Louise is one more unfortunate example in an all-too-familiar pattern of the misuse of Church discipline as a way of dealing with differences and dissent.

Sister Louise has the support of over 63% of U.S. Catholics who support women's ordination. WOC activists will continue to work tirelessly until the hearts of the hierarchy, including Archbishop Pilarczyk, are opened and steps are taken to include women as full and equal partners, including ordained ministries. Only then will the Roman Catholic Church be better able to provide a model and a vision for a world in great need of justice, equality and peace.

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

The Rev. Canon Mary D. Glasspool, canon to the bishops of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, is one of six finalists to become bishop suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, according to a release on the diocesan Web site. The Los Angeles diocese will choose two finalists to serve together as bishops suffragan in an election in December.

“I have often said that this is one of the finest diocesan staffs in the Episcopal Church,” the Right Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton, Episcopal bishop of Maryland, said in a statement. “When one of its members is called to other important positions in the church, then all of us are honored. Mary Glasspool is an important and long-serving leader in the Diocese of Maryland. Her work here has prepared her for even greater responsibilities. Our prayers are with Mary through this election, and with the Diocese of Los Angeles as it discerns God’s will.”

As canon to the bishops, Glasspool’s work includes Sunday visitations with parishes, congregational development and pastoral and mission strategy planning. As bishop suffragan in Los Angeles, she would help the bishop diocesan oversee the ministries and administration of the diocese.

Ordained in 1981, Glasspool served in parishes in Philadelphia and Boston and at St. Margaret’s in Annapolis before becoming canon to the bishops in 2001, according to the release. She has served on the diocese’s Standing Committee, the board of Episcopal Community Services of Maryland, and has been elected four times to head the deputation to General Convention four times.

Episcopal Diocese of Maryland

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

Robert Schindler Sr., the father of the late Terri Schiavo, died on Saturday in Florida. He was 71.

“My dad was a man of integrity, character and compassion who was blessed with a close and loving family,” said his son Bobby, http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20090831.htm. “He taught all three of his children to respect and value life and to love our fellow man.

“Even at the height of the battle to save my sister Terri’s life, when his patience and temperance was near exhaustion, he managed to display a gentleness of spirit. Yet it was his unfathomable strength that allowed him to shoulder up his own heartache and lead us through our darkest hour. What greater legacy could a man leave behind?”

Schiavo collapsed in February 1990 for reasons still unclear and spent the rest of her life in what doctors said was a persistent vegetative state. Eventually her husband, Michael Schiavo, sought to have her taken off life support. Schindler and his wife, Mary, objected, and sought the right to make medical decisions for their daughter.

Court-appointed doctors said Terri Schiavo had no real consciousness or chance of recovery, and Michael Schiavo testified that she had told him she would not want to be kept alive artificially. Pinellas-Pasco County Circuit Court Judge George Green sided with Michael Schiavo, and ordered Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube removed.

“Robert Schindler Sr. fought hard to protect and defend his daughter, Terri Schiavo,” Deirdre McQuade, assistant director for policy and communications for the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, said in a statement.

“His witness of self-sacrificial love is a powerful one for us as we seek to love, provide care for and advocate on behalf of our most vulnerable family members. Through his fidelity to Terri - and the foundation established in her honor - may others be spared the ordeal he endured.”

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)