Associated Press correspondent Thomas Watkins reports:

Plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the FBI said Wednesday that the agency's use of a paid informant to infiltrate California mosques has left them and others Muslims with an enduring fear that their phones and e-mails are being screened and their physical whereabouts monitored.

The claims came at a news conference announcing the lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the Los Angeles office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The civil rights groups allege that former FBI informant Craig Monteilh violated Muslims' freedom of religion by conducting indiscriminate surveillance because of their faith.

The former fitness instructor with a criminal past spied on Orange County mosques for the FBI for more than a year from 2006 to 2007, recording conversations and meetings with a device concealed on his key ring and a camera hidden in a shirt button.

"To know that he was targeting me simply because I was a Muslim, it's sad," said Ali Malik, one of three plaintiffs named in the suit. "I live in paranoia. ... I just wish the FBI didn't do this."

Malik, a Pakistani-American, added that his wife had nightmares about him being snatched by agents.

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said she could not comment on pending litigation but emphasized that the FBI does not target religious groups or individuals based on their religion.

"Any investigation would be based on allegations of criminal activity," she said.

Another plaintiff, Yassir Fazaga, who is a religious leader and a therapist, says he no longer feels he can guarantee his clients full confidentiality because he thinks the FBI is listening in.

Monteilh's use as an informant has caused little but headaches for the FBI.

The one-time machine operator has a lengthy rap sheet dating to the 1980s and a history of evictions and bad debts for everything from car payments to rent to credit cards.

After several months of gathering cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses for his handlers, agents asked Monteilh to talk more openly about jihad and his willingness to engage in violence, according to the lawsuit.

Instead of responding approvingly to Monteilh's violent rhetoric, several mosque-goers called the FBI to say they were worried about his statements.

Monteilh himself is suing the FBI over his treatment by the handlers.

He says the FBI failed to protect him from grand theft charges he claims were related to his work for the agency on a drug ring investigation. He eventually served eight months in prison on the felony counts.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Associated Press correspondent Jennifer Dobner reports:

SALT LAKE CITY – Jailed polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs has resumed legal control over his Utah-based church even though he is jailed in Texas and court documents recently revealed that two 12-year-old girls had been taken from Canada to marry him in 2005.

Documents filed with the Utah Department of Commerce show Wendell Loy Nielsen, president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, resigned his post Jan. 28. Jeffs signed the documents retaking control of the church corporation Feb. 10 and filed the papers with the state five days later.

"I, the undersigned, Warren Steed Jeffs, have been called and sustained as the president," Jeffs writes in a cover letter to the Commerce Department.

The 55-year-old resigned the presidency in 2007 after he was convicted in Utah of rape as an accomplice, but he remained the faith's spiritual leader.

The Utah Supreme Court overturned Jeffs' convictions last year. He's now in a Texas jail awaiting trial on aggravated sexual assault and bigamy charges.

Texas prosecutors say information uncovered during a raid on the church's Eldorado, Texas, ranch show Jeffs had sex with two children, one under age 14 and the other under age 17. A court entered not guilty pleas on his behalf.

Last week, new allegations surfaced about two 12-year-old girls who had been married or "sealed" to Jeffs in 2005. The information was in an affidavit in a British Columbia Supreme Court inquiry over whether banning polygamy is a violation of constitutionally protected religious rights.

The affidavit states the girls had been taken from Canada to Utah by their parents and married to Jeffs. They were later taken to Texas by another sect member. It's not clear whether the girls are the same victims whose relationships with Jeffs are the basis for the Texas charges.

Church spokesman Willie Jessop did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Nielsen's Houston-based attorney Kent Schaffer confirmed the resignation but said he did not know if Nielsen had made the move voluntarily or had been pushed out.

Nielsen, 70, has long been a senior church leader, serving as a counselor to both Jeffs and his father, Rulon Jeffs, who led the church from the 1980s until his death in 2002. Nielsen had been the president of the church corporation since January 2010.

It wasn't clear whether Nielsen has retained his ecclesiastical responsibilities to the church in the wake of his resignation.

A successful businessman, Nielsen lives at the faith's Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, Texas. In 2008, he was one of 12 men indicted by Texas authorities after the raid there, which stemmed from an allegation that a teen bride had been physically and sexually abused.

Nielsen is charged with three counts of bigamy alleging that he married three adult women in 2005. Handwritten family records seized by police during the raid showed he may have as many as 21 wives. Nielsen has not entered a plea to the charges, and a trial date is tentatively set for June 6, a Schleicher County court clerk said Wednesday.

Nielsen is living in Utah but will return to Texas for his trial, his lawyer said.

It's not clear how the change in the FLDS presidency may affect a long-running civil case in Utah involving a church-run communal property trust that holds most of the land and homes occupied by church members.

Utah courts seized control of the United Effort Plan Trust in 2005 after state attorneys said Jeffs and other church leaders had fleeced its $100 million in assets for their own use. A state judge revamped the trust to carve out its religious principles and appointed a non-FLDS accountant to manage the assets.

The FLDS rejected state intervention as a part of an effort to dismantle the church and failed to challenge the action until 2008. Since then, members have been grappling with state attorneys and the court-appointed financial manager to regain control of the land and other assets.

Neilsen has sued to gain standing in the case, claiming that the legal documents that formed the trust required the state to turn the property over to the church corporation if it was determined that that the trust could not continue to operate as a religious entity.

Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney who has handled FLDS legal matters for more than 20 years, declined to comment on Nielsen's resignation and the implications it may hold on FLDS efforts to win back the trust.

The FLDS practices polygamy in marriages arranged through church leaders. Some marriages have involved underage girls, although in 2008, Jessop said the faith had halted the practice.

The faith has about 10,000 members. Most live in twin communities along the Utah-Arizona border. In addition to the Texas ranch, the faith has enclaves in South Dakota and Bountiful, British Columbia.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Associated Press reports:

Oregon lawmakers say they will push to end legal protection for parents who rely solely on faith healing to treat their dying children.

A proposed bill targets the Followers of Christ, an Oregon City church with a long history of children dying from treatable medical conditions.

State Rep. Carolyn Tomei, D-Milwaukie, said the deaths of three children of church members in recent years prompted her to introduce the bill.

House Bill 2721 would remove spiritual treatment as a defense for all homicide charges.

Legislators and prosecutors hope the threat of long prison sentences will cause church members to reconsider their tradition of rejecting medical treatment in favor of faith healing.

"It's going to make it easier to hold parents accountable who don't protect their children," said Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote, whose office has prosecuted recent cases involving church members.

The legislation already has wide support from both political parties, prosecutors, medical providers and child-protection groups, and there is no organized opposition.

Followers of Christ Church leaders do not speak to the media and rarely issue statements, and the church did not respond to a request for comment.

The Christian Science Church, which opposed a similar bill that was proposed years ago, changed its position. The continuing deaths "reached a critical mass," said John Clague, Christian Science media and legislative liaison.

"This is not about Christian Science," Clague said. "This is all coming from another denomination. We should never risk the life of a child through the practice of spiritual care."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Associated Press reports:

A junior officer at a Connecticut submarine base has received an honorable discharge after suing the U.S. Navy, saying his religious beliefs prevent him from participating in the military.

Michael Izbicki, an ensign formerly stationed at the Naval Submarine School in Groton, was discharged Feb. 16 as a conscientious objector. The paperwork he filed to drop his lawsuit was approved and signed by U.S. District Court officials in Hartford on Tuesday.

Izbicki, who is Christian, said he plans to use the skills he learned in the Navy to remain in some type of public service outside the military.

The American Civil Liberties Union's Connecticut chapter sued the Navy on Izbicki's behalf last year after he was twice denied an honorable discharge, which he requested based on his religious opposition to all war and the potential that he might be expected to kill others.

"I believe that Jesus Christ calls all men to love each other, under all circumstances. I believe his teaching forbids the use of violence. I take the Sermon on the Mount literally," Izbicki wrote in his application for conscientious objector status.

Izbicki, 25, a native of San Clemente, Calif., has said he was following his family tradition by enlisting in the military and entered the Naval Academy in 2004 with plans of becoming an officer. He began to question his goals after graduating from the academy and beginning submarine training.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in New Haven, which represented the Navy, said they had no comment about the case.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)
        

Associated Press correspondent Nedra Pickler reports:

A federal judge on has thrown out a lawsuit claiming that President Barack Obama's requirement that all Americans have health insurance violates the religious freedom of those who rely on God to protect them.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler in Washington dismissed a lawsuit filed by the American Center for Law and Justice, a Christian legal group founded by evangelist Pat Robertson, on behalf of five Americans who can afford health insurance but have chosen for years not to buy it.

The case was one of several lawsuits filed against Obama's requirement that Americans either buy health insurance or pay a penalty, beginning in 2014. Kessler is the third Democratic-appointed judge to dismiss a challenge, while two Republican-appointed judges have ruled part or all of the law unconstitutional. Kessler wrote that the Supreme Court will need to settle the constitutional issues.

Three of the plaintiffs — Margaret Peggy Lee Mead of Hillsborough, N.C., Charles Edward Lee of San Antonio and Susan Seven-Sky of West Harrison, N.Y. — are Christians who said they want to refuse all medical services for the rest of their lives because they believe God will heal their afflictions. They say being forced to buy insurance would conflict with their faith because they believe doing so would indicate they need "a backup plan and (are) not really sure whether God will, in fact, provide," the lawsuit said.

The two other plaintiffs — Kenneth Ruffo of San Antonio and Gina Rodriguez of Plano, Texas — have a holistic approach to medical care and prefer to pay for their health services out of pocket, in part because insurance often doesn't cover their chosen methods of healing.

The lawsuit argued that Congress does not have the power under the Constitution to require health care purchases and that the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

Kessler rejected both arguments and ruled that Congress has the right to regulate health care spending under the Commerce Clause and that the individual mandate must be viewed not as a stand-alone reform but as an essential part of the law Obama signed 11 months ago aimed at reducing overall costs. She also said that anyone who objects to having health care for religious reasons can choose to pay the penalty instead — as the lawsuit said all five plaintiffs plan to do.

Kessler also expressed doubts that they can really determine whether they will never require health care. "Individuals like plaintiffs who allege now that they will refuse medical services in the future may well find their way into the health care market when they face the reality of illness or injury," she wrote.

Judges George Steeh of Michigan and Norman Moon of Virginia — like Kessler, they were nominated to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton — dismissed suits against the individual mandate last fall. George W. Bush-appointed Henry Hudson in Virginia ruled the insurance purchase requirement unconstitutional in December, while Ronald Reagan appointee Roger Vinson in Florida ruled the entire health care reform act unconstitutional last month.

The Justice Department, which has been defending the law in court, noted that the law has now been upheld more times than not.

"We welcome this ruling, which marks the third time a court has reviewed the Affordable Care Act on the merits and upheld it as constitutional," said spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler. "This court found — as two others have previously — that the minimum coverage provision of the statute was a reasonable measure for Congress to take in reforming our health care system."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 1:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

Associated Press correspondent Michael Gormley reports:

A consultant for the Vatican's high court says he believes New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo shouldn't receive the Catholic sacrament of Holy Communion because he is not married to his live-in girlfriend, Food Network star Sandra Lee.

Edward Peters, who's also a conservative Catholic blogger and seminary professor in Detroit, called the living arrangement "public concubinage" and said that Cuomo taking Communion would be sacrilegious.

But Catholic bishops don't agree. Bishops and priests have allowed the Catholic Democrat to receive Communion for years, including at Christmas last year and at a Mass last month marking his inauguration. The practice appears to conform to church law.

"My religion is a private matter, and that is not something I discuss in the political arena," Cuomo said Wednesday.

The bishop in Albany agreed, saying to pass judgment on others, even those in public life, is inappropriate.

"There are norms of the church governing the sacraments which Catholics are expected to observe," said Albany Diocese Bishop Howard J. Hubbard. "However, it is unfair and imprudent to make a pastoral judgment about a particular situation without knowing all the facts. As a matter of pastoral practice, we should not comment publicly on anything which should be addressed privately, regardless if the person is a public figure or a private citizen."

A Vatican directive states priests and bishops decide who receives Communion. The New York bishops say Peters, who teaches at Sacred Heart Major Seminary of Detroit, speaks for himself.

Cuomo is divorced and supports abortion rights. He has said he lives much of the time with Lee in her house. She refers to Cuomo's daughters from his marriage with Kerry Kennedy as her children.

Bishops also decide independently how to approach the issue of abortion in their own dioceses, and a small but growing minority has said publicly they would deny Communion to Catholic lawmakers who support abortion rights. Other bishops, including New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, a defender of church orthodoxy, believe Catholics should privately engage politicians who diverge from church teaching.

Cuomo is not the first politician — he's not even the first Cuomo — to run afoul of some church positions. Then-Gov. Mario Cuomo angered the church in 1984 when he delivered a speech at the University of Notre Dame in which he voiced support for abortion rights.

And in 2009, the bishop in Rhode Island said then-U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy should be denied Communion because he supported abortion rights.

Peters is a lawyer who practices within church law. He is a consultant for the Vatican's high court, an expert witness for the Vatican in sex abuse cases and a well-known canon lawyer. His blog, where he made the comments about Cuomo last month, is popular among conservative Catholics in the United States who have been pressing American bishops to take a tougher stand with Catholic politicians who defy church teaching on abortion and other key moral issues.

He didn't respond to a request for comment.

The conservative Catholic League wouldn't comment on the issue, first raised in January by the New York Daily News after Cuomo received Communion at a Mass before his inauguration.

"We're not one to pass judgment," the League stated then, a statement reiterated Wednesday.

Peters' opinion may conflict with church law.

The Vatican states Catholics may receive Communion if they confess their sins or intend to confess their sins and that "church custom shows that is necessary for each person to examine himself at depth."

There are 7.3 million Catholics among New York's 19 million residents, but there is no monolithic "Catholic vote," as was perceived decades ago, that would likely hurt Cuomo, said Maurice Carroll of the Quinnipiac University poll. A Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday found Catholic voters support Cuomo, 61 to 13 percent, and he won with a near-record margin in November when his relationship with Lee and his support of abortion rights were already well-established.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani also faced criticism from some conservatives for being divorced and having a girlfriend. He still ran for president and remains a major figure in Republican politics.

But Cuomo may face trouble in more conservative swing states if he embarks on what is expected to be a presidential run.

"If either of them (Bloomberg or Cuomo) at some point decides to run for president, will this play in Ohio and Wisconsin? I tend to think not," Carroll said.

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

Associated Press correspondent Kirsten Grieshaber reports:

In a rare move that needed the pope's approval, a Lutheran convert was ordained Tuesday as a Catholic priest in Germany and is being allowed to remain married to his wife — who has already become a nun.

Harm Klueting, 61, was ordained by Archbishop Joachim Cardinal Meisner in a private ceremony at the city's seminary, the Cologne archdiocese said.

Pope Benedict XVI gave Klueting a special permission to remain married to his wife Edeltraut Klueting, who became a Catholic Carmelite nun in 2004.

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican's chief spokesman, said the exception is rare but there have been similar cases.

"It doesn't happen every day," he said.

Klueting and his wife were Lutherans when they married in 1977 and both served as Lutheran clerics before converting to Catholicism several years ago. They have two grown children.

The Cologne archdiocese said in a statement that the couple would not have to take the traditional vow of celibacy as long as they remain married — a highly unusual move since celibacy is normally a key requirement for Catholic priests.

Klueting and his family could not be reached for comment, and it was not clear whether they still lived together as a couple.

Lombardi said he didn't have any specific information about the Kluetings, including what the pope said about the case.

Klueting is a professor for historical theology at the University of Cologne and teaches Catholic theology at Fribourg University in Switzerland. From now on, he also will provide services as a spiritual counselor for university students.

The archdiocese published pictures of the ordination ceremony showing Klueting with short gray hair and a beard, wearing a simple white priest vestment as he received his blessings from Meisner, who was wearing a festive yellow embroidered robe and a golden cardinal's hat.

In 1950, Pope Pius XII first allowed clergymen who had converted to Catholicism to remain married, the Cologne diocese said in its statement. However, each case has to be approved by the pope himself, the statement said, adding that in the past married priests also had been ordained in the German cities of Hamburg and Regensburg.

Last month, three former Anglican bishops were ordained as Catholic priests in London, becoming the first ex-bishops to take advantage of a new Vatican system designed to make it easier for Anglicans to embrace Roman Catholicism.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 1:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (22)
        

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

This week I read two very different articles in two very different publications that made the same point crystal-clear: Sometimes when you are dealing with a difficult ethical question, a useful short-cut is to figure out what the jerks think and pick the opposing view.

The Jewish Times carried an article describing the conversion of state Sen. Jim Brochin from con to pro on the gay marriage bill that his committee moved out of committee this week. Brochin had opposed same-sex marriage in favor of civil unions, and indeed lost out on an effort to amend the current bill accordingly. Still, he now supports same-sex marriage, and if you take him at his word the credit for his switch goes to the anti-gay marriage activists.

"Ideally," he told the JT's Phil Jacobs, "I support civil unions, not marriage, but I can't side with these people." By "these people," he meant the activists who spoke up at his committee's hearing "calling gay people androids and pedophiles ... saying that gays were beneath us, that they were second-class citizens." However uncomfortable Brochin is with legalizing same-sex marriage -- a position he opposed publicly as recently as two weeks ago -- Brochin was more uncomfortable with "be[ing] on the side on the senate floor demonizing homosexuality." The bottom line for Brochin: "I'm not backing hate and divisiveness."

Public Discourse is a publication of a quite different sort, featuring heady articles that often involve traditional conservatives arguing with one another about topics from philosophy to religion to ethics to aesthetics. I confess that many of its articles sail well above my head, but I always work to understand the pieces written by Hadley Arkes, an esteemed professor of Constitutional law at Amherst College. (That a Williams grad thinks well of an Amherst prof speaks volumes in and of itself.)

Arkes wrote in response to a few recent pieces in Public Discourse arguing that lying is always wrong. Hang on there, Arkes said. If you're not careful with this sort of absolute proscription of telling falsehoods you're going to have to say that the people who hid Jews from the Nazis and lied to the Gestapo were guilty of an immoral act. What's more, you have to say that a moral person could never serve in a position of authority, say, the presidency, that requires complicity with the sort of disingenuousness that enables an agent to infiltrate a terrorist cell.

The fact that your ethical analysis yields such unbearable results, Arkes argues, means that you really need to go back and figure out where you went wrong since you obviously didn't come out with anything resembling what could be considered a right answer. Beyond this, I would note (though Arkes doesn't work this angle in his piece), you make it very, very difficult for people who might be sympathetic to your position to align with you.

On a host of issues, it is undeniable that the way the "Christian Right" has practiced its politics over the years has managed to alienate many people who might otherwise be allies. There's guilt by association, of course, the fear of being seen by others as cozying up to a noxious movement that I encountered on vacation recently when Ravens fans gave themselves extra distance when walking past Steelers fans.

But there's also the fact that people like Jim Brochin, as well as people like you and me who cast votes far less frequently, are from time to time forced to say, "Do I really want to be one of them?" I experienced much the same thing myself several years back, when I found it difficult (given what I know of First Amendment jurisprudence, not to mention American politics) to take seriously the people suggesting hysterically that American pastors would find themselves in danger of being thrown into jail for refusing to officiate same-sex marriages, indeed that this sort of thing was what "the gays" were trying to accomplish.

There is plenty of this nonsense going on on the other side of the aisle, of course, as when teacher's unions want us to believe that anyone who expects a teacher to be either competent or fired is out to destroy public education. In Wisconsin right now the Legislature has been brought to a standstill by people who expect that their fellow citizens will be sympathetic to the notion that public employees shouldn't have to pay for their own retirement and health insurance like the rest of us.

Certainly there are valid reasons to reject the "vote against the jerks" method, not least that being a jerk doesn't always mean you're wrong. But you have to admit it has a powerful attraction, and those who hope to persuade their fellow citizens should perhaps seek first to avoid offending them.

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

The staff at In Good Faith has opened a new Twitter account, @matthewhaybrown, to highlight breaking news and observations on politics and religion in Baltimore, Maryland and beyond.

The Tweets so far have been more politics than religion -- when not posting religion news and opinion here, we're the politics and government editor at The Sun -- but there's often a fair amount of overlap between the two, as in the current debate in Annapolis over whether to make same-sex marriage legal in Maryland.

For those interested: http://twitter.com/#!/matthewhaybrown

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

The Associated Press reports:

The University of California at Davis has eliminated from its website a definition of religious discrimination that offended more than two dozen Christian students.

The wording to which the students objected defined religious discrimination in the United States as "institutionalized oppressions toward those who are not Christian."

It appeared in an online glossary to a "Principles of Community" diversity statement to which students and students groups were asked to pledge their commitment.

The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative legal aid group, says one of its lawyers notified UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi on Wednesday that the language violated the constitutional rights of Christian students.

Campus spokeswoman Julia Ann Easley says the university removed the glossary the same day. The schools Office of Campus Community Relations estimates the definition had been around for six or seven years.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)
        

Associated Press correspondent Cassandra Vinograd reports:

In Britain, gay couples may get a chance to go to the chapel and get married — almost.

The British government on Thursday announced plans to allow gay couples to hold civil partnership ceremonies in houses of worship — a move gay rights activists say is a step in the right direction towards marriage, but falls short of affording full equal rights.

The government stressed, however, that houses of worship can opt out if they wish.

Although marriage and civil partnership are already similar under British law, civil partnership ceremonies are currently not allowed to have religious references, are banned from places of worship, and must take place in a public building overseen by a government registrar.

The new rules, being introduced under British equality laws, will give same-sex couples the chance to hold civil partnership ceremonies in religious buildings — an option that did not exist for Mark Harrison and his partner, who wore traditional tailcoats to their ceremony at a north London town hall in May 2009.

Harrison described himself as not religious "at all," but said its "about having the option" — all couples he knows who've married in churches are straight and not religious.

"It's the tradition and the dream to have a beautiful church wedding," he said. "If straight couples have that opportunity and want to get married in a church despite not being religious then it should be the same for everyone."

In Britain, only heterosexual couples can get married, while civil partnership is available only to same-sex couples. Activists argue both should be open to all couples.

The change is a first step toward making civil partnerships more equal to marriages and there may be further changes to the law in this direction, the Home Office said.

Like several gay rights groups, Harrison questioned why the authorities didn't take things a step further by giving gay marriage the green light.

"Any step closer to equality is always a good thing but I'm unsure as to why they don't go the whole hog."

Activists, such as Peter Tatchell, have welcomed the government's move, but called the government's decision to leave further changes toward marriage rights up for discussion "spineless."

"The government could have taken a bold new initiative to ensure that both straight and gay couples have the option of marriage," said Tatchell, who coordinates the Equal Love campaign — which seeks to end what it calls sexual orientation discrimination in both civil marriage and civil partnership law.

Several religious affiliations, including the Catholic Church and British Muslim groups, have said they are strongly opposed to same sex unions of any kind, and the government stressed that churches can opt out if they wish to.

"No religious group will be forced to host a civil partnership registration, but for those who wish to do so this is an important step forward," said Home Secretary Theresa May.

The Church of England reiterated that it will not bless civil partnerships and said the proposed regulation must make clear "that there is genuine freedom for each religious tradition to resolve these matters in accordance with its own convictions."

But some religious members of the gay community are hoping those convictions keep up with a rapid pace of change in Europe that reversed laws outlawing homosexuality and brought the legalization of gay marriage in some countries in under a century.

Anthony House, a Roman Catholic, said he knows "overcoming 2000 years of doing something one way" won't happen overnight. Still, he called the U.K. move a "wonderful" step in the right direction on a path House hopes will eventually be adopted by his church.

"My faith is an important part of who I am and including that in what is an important steppingstone in my life would be very welcome," House said. He and his partner Andrew Brennan, both American, plan to "marry" in the U.K. in August — a term he considers interchangeable with "civil partnership."

"Obviously the Catholic Church does not change its tune quickly, but the trend is going in one direction," he said. "We'll get there."

Britain's civil partnership law, introduced in 2005, already gives gay couples the same legal protection, adoption and inheritance rights as heterosexual married partners.

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

The Associated Press reports:

The Vatican has named a tiny shrine in a small northeast Wisconsin town as a holy site.

The Catholic Church has recognized the chapel in Champion, near Green Bay, as the location of an official sighting of the Virgin Mary. Milwaukee radio station WTMJ-AM says it is the only site in the country with that distinction.

Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay says the Virgin Mary appeared there three times to Belgium immigrant Adele Brise in 1859. Devotees have since visited the site to pray for miracles.

Ricken started investigating the events and three theological experts soon picked up the work. After two years of poring over letters and documents, experts decided her claims were true. The Vatican validated those results in December.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (39)
        

For the third year in a row, Christianity Today has chosen a Pixar production at its most redeeming film of 2010.

“Our film critics are not on Pixar's payroll,” the evangelical magazine insists. “Nor are they getting any under-the-table perks from the animation studio. There's a much less sinister reason that a Pixar movie — in this case, Toy Story 3 — tops our Most Redeeming Films list for the third consecutive year: We think their movies rock.”

The piece continues (warning — the following describes the ending, in a general way):

“As for what makes Woody and Buzz's final adventure so redeeming, there's plenty: The usual themes of love and loyalty run loud and clear. Toys though they may be, the friends are willing to risk their lives for one another. And their owner, Andy, now college-bound, isn't about to relegate his old playtime buddies to a box in the attic, never to be played with again — or at least for decades. Instead, he takes a selfless step in the end, giving Woody and Buzz and the rest a new lease on life — a rebirth, so to speak.”

Christianity Today named Up the most redeeming film of 2009 and Wall-E the most redeeming film of 2008.

“It's no surprise that many of the creative types at Pixar are Christians, as they churn out soul-stirring stories year after year.”

The entire Top 10 follows, aftert he jump.

1. Toy Story 3
Directed by Lee Unkrich
(Disney / Pixar) | Rated G

2. The King's Speech
Directed by Tom Hooper
(Weinstein) | Rated R

3. Get Low
Directed by Aaron Schneider
(Sony Pictures Classics) | Rated PG-13

4. True Grit
Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
(Paramount) | Rated PG-13

5. Winter's Bone
Directed by Debra Granik
(Roadside Attractions) | Rated R

6. Despicable Me
Directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud
(Universal) | Rated PG

7. Tangled
Directed by Nathan Greno and Byron Howard
(Disney) | Rated PG

8. The Fighter
Directed by David O. Russell
(Paramount) | Rated R

9. Letters to Father Jacob
Directed by Klaus Härö
(Olive Films) | Not Rated

10. Like Dandelion Dust
Directed by Jon Gunn
(Blue Collar Releasing) | Rated PG-13

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

Associated Press correspondent Alison Mutler reports:

There's more bad news in the cards for Romania's beleaguered witches.

A month after Romanian authorities began taxing them for their trade, the country's soothsayers and fortune tellers are cursing a new bill that threatens fines or even prison if their predictions don't come true.

Witches argue they shouldn't be blamed for the failure of their tools.

"They can't condemn witches, they should condemn the cards," Queen witch Bratara Buzea told The Associated Press by telephone.

Superstition is a serious matter in the land of Dracula, and officials have turned to witches to help the recession-hit country collect more money and crack down on tax evasion.

In January, officials changed labor laws to officially recognize the centuries-old practice as a taxable profession, prompting angry witches to dump poisonous mandrake into the Danube in an attempt to put a hex on the government.

The new draft bill passed in the Senate last week. It still must be approved by a financial and labor committee and by Romania's Chamber of Deputies, the other house of Romania's parliament.

Bratara called the proposed bill overblown. "I will fight until my last breath for this not to be passed," she said.

Sometimes, she argued, people don't provide their real identities, dates of birth or other personal details, which could skew a seer's predictions.

"What about when the client gives false details about themselves? We can't be blamed for that," she said.

The bill would also require witches to have a permit, to provide their customers with receipts and bar them from practicing near schools and churches.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)
        

The Associated Press reports:

Authorities say a Florida man is accused of stabbing another man in the neck after learning he was Muslim during a discussion about religion.

According to an arrest affidavit, the man who was stabbed told 52-year-old Bradley Kent Strott that he was Muslim while the two talked on Saturday. Investigators say Strott then grabbed the man by his shirt and stabbed him with a pocket knife.

The man who was stabbed was treated for his wound, though details about his condition were not available.

Strott was charged with aggravated battery. He was released Saturday evening on $15,000 bond.

A message left at a telephone listing for Strott was not immediately returned.

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

Associated Press writer Victor L. Simpson reports:

Pope Benedict XVI has long championed organ transplants, but don't expect an organ donation from him. The Vatican says his body belongs to the whole church.

While the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has possessed an organ donor card since the 1970s when he lived in Germany, it was rendered void when he became pope in 2005, his secretary said.

Monsignor Georg Gaenswein addressed the issue in a letter to a German doctor who has been using the fact that Benedict possessed a donor card to recruit other donors. Vatican Radio reported on the letter in a German language broadcast this week.

Gaenswein sought to put the matter to rest, saying any references to the now invalid document are mistaken.

Polish Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, head of the Vatican's health office, told La Repubblica newspaper that it was understandable that a pope's body remains intact because it belongs to the entire church.

"It is also understandable in view of possible future veneration," he said, referring to future sainthood. "This doesn't take anything away from the validity and the beauty of the gift of organ donation."

In a 2008 speech, Benedict lamented the shortage of organs for transplants, but denounced any selling of organs as immoral.

Until the last century papal organs were removed — not for transplants but to make embalming more durable.

The organs of 22 popes are preserved as relics in the church of Saints Anastasio and Vincent near the Trevi Fountain in Rome. The custom of removing the organs was abolished by Pope Pius X in the early 1900s. The collection includes the liver, spleen and pancreas of the popes.

When Pope John Paul II died in 2005, the Vatican denied that some of his organs would be sent to his native Poland as relics. He is buried at the Vatican.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

Associated Press writer Julie Pace reports:

President Barack Obama said Thursday that his faith has deepened during his two years in the White House, and he urged lawmakers to rely on their own faith to build a spirit of civility in Washington following the shooting of a congresswoman.

Speaking at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Obama said that at a time of bitter partisanship, lawmakers must find a way to be open to the ideas of others, while staying true to their core principles.

"I pray that God will show me and all of us the limits of our understanding and open our ears and our hearts to our brothers and sisters with different points of view, that such reminders of our shared hopes and our shared dreams and our shared limitations as children of God will reveal a way forward that we can travel together," he said.

Obama's remarks Thursday built on his calls for civility in the days after last month's shooting rampage in Arizona, which left six dead. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head, and is recovering at a rehab center in Houston.

Giffords's husband, Mark Kelly, attended Thursday's breakfast and delivered the closing prayer.

"We are with them for the long haul, and God is with them for the long haul," Obama said of Giffords and Kelly.

The president said he also prayed that "a better day will dawn" over Egypt, where violence has erupted between supporters and opponents of President Hosni Mubarak.

"We pray that violence in Egypt will end, and the rights and aspirations of the Egyptian people will be realized," Obama said.

Religion has sometimes been a sensitive subject for Obama: He's faced persistent questions from some conservatives and political opponents who mistakenly believe Obama is a Muslim, not a Christian. In fact, a Pew Research Center poll in August found that 18 percent of people wrongly believe Obama is Muslim — up from 11 percent who said so in March 2009. Just 34 percent said they thought Obama is Christian.

Obama addressed those rumors in direct and personal terms Thursday, saying that his Christian faith has been a "sustaining force" during times when he and his family's religion been questioned.

"We are reminded that ultimately what matters is not what other people say about us, but whether we're being true to our conscience and true to our God," Obama said.

While Obama often speaks of his faith, he prefers to worship in private. He rarely attends church in Washington; the White House says his presence would be too disruptive to the congregation. Obama said Thursday that he starts his day with meditations from Scripture, and has pastors who often come to the Oval Office to pray with him.

The president said he had prayed for God's intervention on any number or occasions — though not always on the weightiest issues of the day.

At one point, the president said he has prayed, "Lord, give me patience as I watch Malia go to her first dance, where there will be boys. Lord, let her skirt get longer as she travels to that place." Twelve-year-old Malia is the older of his two daughters. Sasha is 9.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (37)
        

Police have arrested a 17-year old Pakistani boy for writing an allegedly blasphemous remark in an examination paper, an officer said Tuesday.

Pakistan's blasphemy laws have come under intense scrutiny since the murder last month of a prominent politician who had campaigned to change them. They allow for the death penalty for anyone found guilty of insulting Islam. Critics say they are often used to settle scores and unfairly target the country's non-Muslim minorities.

School authorities lodged a police complaint against the boy, identified as Sami Ullah, in January after reading an examination paper he took in the city of Karachi, said police officer Qudrat Shah Lodhi.

Lodhi said he could not repeat what the boy, who is a Muslim, had written because he would be committing blasphemy if he did. He said the boy told police he wrote the blasphemous material out of frustration when he was not able to answer the exam question.

"He submitted an apology to the examination authorities and feels ashamed and depressed," Lodhi said.

He said Ullah was arrested Jan. 29 and placed in police custody while officers investigated the case.

No one has been put to death for blasphemy, and most times guilty verdicts are overturned on appeal. But there have been several documented cases of mobs killing people accused of blasphemy.

Critics have said the laws either need to be repealed or amended to stop them from being abused or applied frivolously. But Pakistan's powerful clerical class have campaigned against any changes, and portrayed critics as being anti-Islam — a potent charge in this Muslim-majority nation.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)