Associated Press correspondent Jennifer Dobner reports:

Jailed polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs may no longer have control of his southern Utah-based church after a senior leader on Monday moved to replace him.

William E. Jessop filed papers with the Utah Department of Commerce to take over as president of the corporation that is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Jessop, who served as bishop of the twin FLDS border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., said Monday his rise to the presidency is not an attempt to take over the church, but rather the fulfillment of an earlier directive from Jeffs.

"It is an attempt to preserve ... the church," Jessop, 41, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

It remained unclear whether Jeffs would immediately lose all power in the church or share it with Jessop, at least for now.

Jeffs has not filed papers with the state indicating he had plans to resign. However, he would not have to formally step down as the church's president for Jessop to be installed, Commerce Department spokeswoman Jennifer Bolton said Monday.

An attempt to reach Jeffs at the Texas jail where is being held was unsuccessful Monday, and a telephone call to his criminal attorney was not immediately returned. A message left for Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney who represents the church in civil matters, also wasn't returned.

Jeffs, 55, was convicted in Utah in 2007 on two felony counts of rape as an accomplice and was ordered to serve life sentences, but the convictions were later overturned.

Earlier that year, while jailed and awaiting trial, Jeffs tried to cede authority of the church — both as president and spiritual leader — to Jessop in a series of recorded telephone calls to followers and to Jessop, himself.

"I know of your ordination, that you are the key holder, and I have sent a note with my signature so that there is no question," Jeffs told Jessop in a Jan. 24, 2007, telephone call from a Utah jail.

The tapes and a DVD of the conversations were released by the court as part of Jeffs' trial.

Jessop did not respond to the offer at the time, and Jeffs publicly remained spiritual head and president of the church. Other church members speculated the calls from Jeffs were merely a test of their faith.

Four days later, Jeffs attempted suicide by trying to hang himself in the jail.

Then in December 2007, after his Utah conviction, Jeffs resigned as president of the church corporation, believing he could no longer run its day-to-day business from behind bars. But he remained the group's spiritual leader.

Jeffs was later moved to a jail in Texas, where he is awaiting trial on bigamy and aggravated sexual assault charges. Last month, he retook control of the church following the abrupt resignation of his replacement, who was forced out of the church.

Jessop said he is only stepping forward now because he believes he can help provide the church with the leadership it needs while Jeffs is incarcerated.

"We take things at Heavenly Father's pace," said Jessop, who listed a Colorado address on the Commerce Department paperwork.

Jessop's assertion of leadership is largely unprecedented, and it wasn't immediately clear whether the move would fracture or unite the 10,000-strong church with members in Arizona, British Columbia, Colorado, South Dakota, Texas and Utah.

Asked if he is now considered the church's prophet and spiritual leader, Jessop said that will be up to individual church members. In the past, the church president has also been considered its prophet.

Meanwhile, a trial for Jeffs is set for later this year in Texas, where prosecutors allege he had sex with two girls, one under age 14 and one under age 17. A court has entered not guilty pleas on Jeffs' behalf.

Canadian authorities also are investigating allegations that in 2005 Jeffs married two 12-year-old sect girls who were brought from a church enclave in British Columbia to the U.S. It's not clear whether those girls are the same victims whose relationships with Jeffs are the basis for the Texas charges.

Jeffs assumed the role as FLDS prophet and president in September 2002 following the death of his father, Rulon Jeffs, who suffered a series of strokes.

His rise to power has been questioned by former church members who say there was no succession plan in place when the elder Jeffs died because he had preached that the second coming of Jesus Christ was imminent, and therefore no one would need to lead the church in the future.

The FLDS practices polygamy in marriages arranged through church leaders. Historically some unions have involved underage girls, although following a 2008 raid on the church's Eldorado, Texas ranch, a church spokesman said the faith had halted the practice.

The faith's religious roots are tied to the early teachings of Joseph Smith who founded the mainstream Mormon church. Smith's church abandoned the practice of plural marriage in 1890 as a condition of Utah's push for statehood and excommunicates members found practicing it.

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

Associated Press correspondent Kathy Matheson reports:

One of the hottest college campuses in the U.S. for Jewish students is also one of the unlikeliest: a small Lutheran school erected around a soaring stone chapel with a cross on top.

In what is being called a testament to word of mouth in the Jewish community, approximately 34 percent of Muhlenberg College's 2,200 students are Jewish. And the biggest gains have come in the past five years or so.

Perhaps equally noteworthy is how Muhlenberg has responded: offering a kosher menu at the student union, creating a partnership with the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and expanding its Hillel House, a social hub for Jews.

"What makes us stand out is that we actually enjoy our diversity," said Randy Helm, the college's president, an Episcopalian. "Our close-knit community has embraced differences rather than pulling into its shell or fracturing along religious, ethnic or other lines."

Many major universities — including some of the country's most highly selective schools — have large proportions of Jewish students, far bigger than the 2 percent of the U.S. population that is Jewish. But how, one might ask, did this come to pass at Muhlenberg, a liberal arts school little known outside Pennsylvania?

Muhlenberg graduate Ben David, now a rabbi on New York's Long Island, said it is a question worthy of Malcolm Gladwell's best-selling book "The Tipping Point," which analyzes how trends develop.

"Jews are like nothing else in terms of word of mouth," said Patti Mittleman, director of Muhlenberg's Hillel House. "There are so many Jews at Muhlenberg who are having a positive experience at Muhlenberg. That gets talked about in the synagogue and in youth group and in summer camp and in all of those ways that Jews meet each other and talk to each other."

Muhlenberg's Jewish students range from the secular to the Orthodox, and most come from the Northeast Corridor. Allentown is an hour from both Philadelphia and New York.

Founded as a seminary in 1848, Muhlenberg (pronounced MYOOL-in-burg) was renamed nearly 20 years later for Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, a founder of the U.S. Lutheran church. The college is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, though it says it receives only minimal financial support from the denomination. The campus chapel is used to this day for both worship and annual student convocations. But there are no required religion classes, and there is no mandatory church attendance.

Muhlenberg's Lutheran roots are not relevant in an era when universities' religious ties are generally looser than they once were, said Jeff Rubin, a spokesman for the national Hillel organization for Jewish students. He noted strong campus Hillels at Roman Catholic schools like Boston College and Georgetown. And Emory University in Atlanta, which was founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church, is about 30 percent Jewish.

"Any university that goes out of its way to create a Jewish community on its campus is going to enjoy an influx of Jewish students," Rubin said.

While many Lutheran colleges have diverse campuses, Muhlenberg is unique in the size of its Jewish enrollment, said Bill Hamm, president of the Lutheran Educational Conference of North America, which represents 40 such institutions in the U.S. and Canada.

Hamm was at a loss for an explanation. But he said that perhaps the lesson to be learned from Muhlenberg is how "to be a welcoming community for others."

David, the rabbi, said Muhlenberg's welcoming attitude led him to attend the school in the mid-1990s. He half-joked that his choice may have unwittingly given the college the "official stamp of Judaic approval" in the region since his father is also a rabbi in the large Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill, N.J.

"If a rabbi is willing to send his son to this place, then the Jewish experience there must be pretty strong," said David, 34.

Still, many people give one main reason for Muhlenberg's popularity: the sociable Mittleman, who has been at the college for 22 years. In "Tipping Point" terminology, she is the "connector," linking people of all faiths and backgrounds.

A new dining hall at the $47,000-a-year college opened last fall with two kosher food stations, allowing observant Jews to eat with their friends in a common food court instead of in a separate cafeteria. In January, Muhlenberg announced a semester study program at the Jewish Theological Seminary. The school is also considering a major in Jewish studies, currently offered as a minor.

And last month, hundreds attended the opening of an expanded Hillel that now can seat more than 300 for Shabbat dinners and bagel brunches, which students say are popular with Jews and non-Jews alike.

Samantha Blum, a 22-year-old senior, grew up in a Conservative Jewish home in Villanova, Pa., hearing only Hebrew at her synagogue's services. Now she enjoys the English services at Hillel, which also include music.

"I think college is the perfect place where you can experience those differences," she said.

Joel Reitz, a Muhlenberg student government leader and member of the Lutheran Student Association, described Hillel as "a great social environment" for students of any religion.

"It's so integrated into the fabric of the college," said Reitz, a senior from Madison, Conn. "It's just a fun place to be on any day of the week."

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

Associated Press correspondent Molly Davis reports:

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who is scheduled to speak Friday at an annual conference of Mississippi civil rights veterans, is drawing criticism for his past comments about Jews and Roman Catholics — both instrumental groups in the struggle for equality in the 1960s.

Farrakhan leads the Chicago-based Nation of Islam, which published two books last year on what Farrakhan calls the "anti-black behavior" of Jews.

A group of scholars and leaders of local businesses, churches and synagogues signed a statement Tuesday criticizing Farrakhan's past statements on Roman Catholicism, Judaism and homosexuality.

Jewish support was critical to the civil rights movement. Jewish leaders helped found the NAACP and many of the white college students who joined black marchers for civil rights protests were Jewish.

"Minister Farrakhan has spoken out against Catholics for 'subjecting black people to a white-kind of theology,' Jews for having a 'dirty/gutter religion,' and homosexuals, who he recently referred to as 'swine,' according to the letter.

A spokesman for the Nation of Islam wasn't immediately available for comment. Owen Brooks, director of the Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, didn't respond to requests for comment.

Farrakhan is scheduled to speak at the conference on Friday night at Jackson State University. The conference focuses on education and activism, but will include a discussion titled "Islamophobia and Religious Intolerance."

The letter, however, encourages people to attend two other events that day: a speech by Hank Thomas, who participated in the anti-Jim Crow "Freedom Rides of the 1960s," to be held at Millsaps College, and a prayer session at Congregation of Beth Israel in Jackson in collaboration with New Horizon Church, a Christian congregation.

Signing the letter were several members of a local multifaith forum called the Mississippi Religious Leadership Conference, which grew out of opposition to attacks on black churches during the civil rights movement.

The group was founded as the Committee of Concern, developed after a 1969 Christmas Eve sermon by the Most Rev. Joseph Brunini, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Natchez-Jackson.

"It was an effort to try to halt that violence and to bring about racial equality and justice peacefully," said Rockoff, who leads the history department at the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson.

Rabbi Perry Nussbaum, who served at Beth Israel in the 1960s, was also involved with the anti-violence group. The Ku Klux Klan bombed the synagogue and Nussbaum's home in 1967, in part for his support for racial integration.

"Minister Farrakhan has shown a history of repeatedly and unapologetically distorting the facts of history in order to perpetuate very hurtful stereotypes that create division in American society, rather than bring us together," said Rabbi Marshal Klaven, who leads services at the Institute of Southern Jewish Life.

The Nation of Islam has espoused black nationalism since it was founded in the 1930s, though in recent years has included other groups such as Latinos.

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

Sun colleague Tricia Bishop reports:

Advocates for victims of clergy abuse called Thursday for an investigation into its allegations that the Catholic Church purposely funneled problem priests into the chaplain corps of the U.S. military.

Meeting with reporters outside the Downtown headquarters of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests called for congressional hearings to determine “how frequently and why Catholic officials dumped predator priests on military bases.”

And they distributed documents that they said showed that Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien ignored sexual misconduct by chaplains when he headed the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services.

O’Brien’s spokesman called the allegations absurd, groundless and unsupported.

“Archbishop O'Brien is deeply committed to protecting youth in the care of the Church,” spokesman Sean Caine said in a lengthy statement e-mailed to The Baltimore Sun in response to the group’s allegations.

“The Archbishop’s history of providing outreach to victims (he met with victims of clergy sexual abuse beginning with his first day as Archbishop of Baltimore), his removal of priests credibly accused of abuse — even if not charged criminally, and his diligence in enforcing and strengthening the policies that protect children in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, should be the measure of his approach to the scourge of sexual abuse,” Caine wrote.

The Archdiocese for Military Services, which is based in Washington, did not return a message seeking comment Thursday.

The victims’ group, known as SNAP, released a list online Thursday of roughly 100 priests who worked as chaplains in the military or in Veterans Affairs hospitals during the past 50 years and were accused of sexual misconduct either before, during or after their service.

The names were compiled from public court, church and military records with help from BishopAccountability.org, which tracks abuse within the Catholic Church. SNAP Maryland Director Frank Dingle said they represent a sampling of perpetrators.

The personnel files of one Boston priest on the list contain a 1987 notation that he “fools around with kids,” according to newspaper accounts, yet the man was subsequently assigned to a VA hospital in Palo Alto. Calif.

Another Boston priest who was accused of violence and sexual abuse against a preteen boy was later sent to work for the Army, according to personnel records available online.

“It’s a well-known policy,” said SNAP member Jim Moran, a retired Navy chaplain who says he was abused by a priest. “If a priest was a problem … he was sent to a hospital, to the military.”

Caine said no such policy was ever in place and that priests directed to the Military Archdiocese are screened to make sure their placements are appropriate.

“Every single accusation made against a chaplain and reported to the Military Archdiocese is investigated thoroughly,” he wrote. “Whenever a credible accusation is made against a priest-chaplain, his faculties to function as a priest are immediately revoked.”

SNAP sent letters to military leaders Thursday morning, asking them to reach out to “current and former soldiers and their families who may have been abused and encourage them to get help” and to “punish the wrong-doers to the fullest extent of the military and criminal law.”

As evidence of O’Brien’s alleged complicity, Dingle points to a 2004 statement O’Brien made before the Archdiocese for the Military Services, when he was its archbishop. It addressed the pending release of the John Jay Study, an analysis of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy from 1950 through 2002.

O’Brien said in the remarks that “two such cases have come forward where active duty priest chaplains have been found guilty of engaging in immoral acts with minors.” But an Associated Press report from 2002 had already revealed that at least eight military priests were accused in civil or criminal court cases of sexual misconduct since 1977.

Dingle sees the contradiction in figures as a cover-up.

But Caine said the two accounts are “clearly discussing different things.”

“Any suggestion of a ‘cover up’ based solely on statements that were themselves made by the Church and in the public record for at least 7 years is simply absurd,” he wrote.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 6:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (49)
        

Associated Press correspondent Tom Breen reports:

When Chad Holtz lost his old belief in hell, he also lost his job.

The pastor of a rural United Methodist church in North Carolina wrote a note on his Facebook page supporting a new book by Rob Bell, a prominent young evangelical pastor and critic of the traditional view of hell as a place of eternal torment for billions of damned souls.

Two days later, Holtz was told complaints from church members prompted his dismissal from Marrow's Chapel in Henderson.

"I think justice comes and judgment will happen, but I don't think that means an eternity of torment," Holtz said. "But I can understand why people in my church aren't ready to leave that behind. It's something I'm still grappling with myself."

The debate over Bell's new book "Love Wins" has quickly spread across the evangelical precincts of the Internet, in part because of an eye-catching promotional video posted on YouTube.

Bell, the pastor of the 10,000-member Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., lays out the premise of his book while the video cuts away to an artist's hand mixing oil paints and pastels and applying them to a blank canvas.

He describes going to a Christian art show where one of the pieces featured a quote by Mohandas Gandhi. Someone attached a note saying: "Reality check: He's in hell."

"Gandhi's in hell? He is? And someone knows this for sure?" Bell asks in the video.

In the book, Bell criticizes the belief that a select number of Christians will spend eternity in the bliss of heaven while everyone else is tormented forever in hell.

"This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear," he writes in the book.

For many traditional Christians, though, Bell's new book sounds a lot like the old theological position of universalism — a heresy for many churches, teaching that everyone, regardless of religious belief, will ultimately be saved by God. And that, they argue, dangerously misleads people about the reality of the Christian faith.

"I just felt like on every page he's trying to say 'It's OK,'" said Southern Baptist Seminary President Albert Mohler at a forum last week on Bell's book held at the Louisville institution. "And there's a sense in which we desperately want to say that. But the question becomes, on what basis can we say that?"

Bell argues that hell has assumed an outsize importance in Christian teaching, considering the word itself only appears in the New Testament about 12 times, by his count.

"For a 1st-century Jewish rabbi, where you go when you die wasn't the most pressing question," Bell told The Associated Press. "The question was how can you enter into the shalom and peace of God right now, this day."

Bell denies he's a universalist, and his exact beliefs on what happens to people after death are hard to pin down, but he argues that such speculation distracts people from an urgent point. In his telling, hell is something freely chosen that already exists on earth, in everything from war to abusive relationships.

The near-relish with which some Christians stress the torments of hell, Bell argues, keep many believers needlessly afraid of a loving God, and repel potential Christians who might otherwise be curious about the faith's teachings.

"The heart of the Christian story is that God is love," he said. "But when you hear the word 'Christian,' you don't necessarily think 'Oh, sure, those are the people who don't stop talking about God's love.' Some other things would come to mind."

About the only thing everyone agrees on is that this is not a new debate in Christianity. It stretches to antiquity, when Christianity was a persecuted sect in the Roman Empire, and the third century theologian Origen developed a theory that contemporary critics charged would mean that everyone, even the devil himself, would ultimately be saved. Church leaders eventually condemned ideas they attributed to Origen, but he has had a lasting influence across the Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions.

Those traditions often disagree, even internally, on what awaits souls after death. The Catholic Church, which has a formal process for identifying souls in heaven through canonization, pointedly refrains from saying that anyone is without a doubt in hell. Protestants reject the concept of purgatory, in which sins can be atoned for after death, but disagree on other questions. The lack of consensus is enabled partly by ambiguities in the Bible.

Evangelical opposition to Bell is exemplified in a succinct tweet from prominent evangelical pastor John Piper: "Farewell, Rob Bell."

Page Brooks, a professor at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, thinks Bell errs in a conception of a loving God that leaves out the divine attributes of justice and holiness.

"It's love, but it's a just love," Brooks said. "God is love, but you have to understand you're a sinner and the only way to get around that is through Christ's sacrifice on the cross."

Making his new belief public is both liberating and a little frightening for Holtz, even though his doubts about traditional doctrines on damnation began long before he heard about Rob Bell's book.

A married Navy veteran with five children, Holtz spent years trying to reconcile his belief that Jesus Christ's death on the cross redeemed the entire world with the idea that millions of people — including millions who had never even heard of Jesus — were suffering forever in hell.

"We do these somersaults to justify the monster god we believe in," he said. "But confronting my own sinfulness, that's when things started to topple for me. Am I really going to be saved just because I believe something, when all these good people in the world aren't?"

Gray Southern, United Methodist district superintendent for the part of North Carolina that includes Henderson, declined to discuss Holtz's departure in detail, but said there was more to it than the online post about Rob Bell's book.

"That's between the church and him," Southern said.

Church members had also been unhappy with Internet posts about subjects like gay marriage and the mix of religion and patriotism, Holtz said, and the hell post was probably the last straw. Holtz and his family plan to move back to Tennessee, where he'll start a job and maybe plant a church.

"So long as we believe there's a dividing point in eternity, we're going to think in terms of us and them," he said. "But when you believe God has saved everyone, the point is, you're saved. Live like it."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

Associated Press correspondent Shawn Pogatchnik reports:

Northern Ireland's police force will stop being required to hire Catholic applicants over Protestants following a decade of change that has bolstered Catholic support for law and order, the British government announced Tuesday.

Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson said the affirmative action policy in force since 2001 can no longer be justified because today's Police Service of Northern Ireland has risen to 29.76 percent Catholic. That contrasts with the 8.3 percent Catholic composition of the police force it replaced, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, in 2001.

Paterson said a decade-old policy — requiring at least half of all job-winning applicants to be Catholic — was "always intended to be temporary."

He said the practice of recruiting new officers from both sides of the community was "fully embedded" and police staffing now could be permitted to "develop naturally." He said the affirmative-action rules would be allowed to lapse as of Monday, March 28.

Reform of Northern Ireland's overwhelmingly Protestant police force was a central goal of the U.S.-brokered Good Friday peace accord of 1998. That landmark pact sought to build on mid-1990s cease-fires by the Irish Republican Army and outlawed Protestant paramilitary groups responsible for the bulk of bloodshed and more than 3,600 killings.

In particular, the Good Friday pact sought to address deeply ingrained Catholic alienation with Northern Ireland, a Protestant-majority territory that remained within the United Kingdom when the predominantly Catholic rest of Ireland won independence from Britain in 1922.

As part of reconciliation, the IRA renounced violence in 2005 and the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party in 2007 accepted the lawful authority of the Northern Ireland police for the first time. Protestant leaders responded by forming a unity government with Sinn Fein as the Good Friday pact intended.

Last year, crucially, their coalition received control from Britain of the Northern Ireland justice system, further boosting Catholic involvement in the police.

Northern Ireland's justice minister, David Ford, welcomed Britain's decision and said he was confident that the police would "continue to attract excellent applicants from all sections of our community without the use of the temporary provisions."

Northern Ireland's 1.7 million people are roughly 40 percent Irish Catholic, 55 percent British Protestant and 5 percent from immigrant and other groups that don't fit into the local sectarian divide. Ford said the police should increasingly recruit to ensure representation from those minority groups, including immigrants from Asia and Eastern Europe.

The IRA, rooted in the most impoverished Catholic districts, killed nearly 300 police officers from 1970 to 1997 when it called a lasting cease-fire. It made life particularly dangerous for the relatively few Catholic officers, who couldn't live safely in Catholic areas and risked ambush if they visited relatives there.

IRA dissident groups today continue to try to kill police officers and have issued particular threats against Catholic recruits and police-reform officials. In 2009 the dissidents killed their first member of the Police Service of Northern Ireland: Constable Stephen Carroll, a 48-year-old Catholic from England.

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

Associated Press correspondent Mike Glover reports:

Republican presidential candidates take note: the clout of social and religious conservatives is growing in politically crucial Iowa. And these activists are driving the debate here toward cultural issues — and away from the economy — just as the GOP sets out to find an opponent for President Barack Obama.

"They've gotten more involved in the party," said Norm Pawlewski, a lobbyist for the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition. "I've seen a change in the kind of people who are volunteering — and not only volunteering but working."

With Obama's re-election race looming next year, this constituency — made up heavily of evangelical Christians — is intent on playing a major role in choosing the winner of next year's Iowa GOP caucuses. It's seeking a repeat of 2008 when it coalesced around the underfunded former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to give the Southern Baptist minister a surprise first place finish.

Since then, social and religious conservatives have stepped up their organization efforts, including hosting a series of forums for presidential candidates. Two are this week alone.

"They've harnessed the new technology and new methods to organize and activate their members," said veteran Republican strategist Bob Haus. "They are professionally run and they are a top-notch organization."

Maybe a force to be reckoned with, too.

As Drake University political science professor Dennis Goldford put it: "They have essentially the best organization of the various Republican constituencies."

The increased activity by this crop of conservatives has been driven in part by a huge fight in the state last year over gay marriage. Voters ousted three Supreme Court justices because of their role in a decision striking down a ban on same-sex marriage. Activists also were energized by huge GOP gains in the state last fall, including ousting a Democratic governor.

Also, Steve Scheffler, who heads the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said part of the energy surging through social and religious conservatives comes from antipathy to the Obama administration.

"Pure and simple, what's driven that is an administration that few of us would have dreamed would be so bad," said Scheffler.

The increasing dominance of Iowa's social and religious conservatives presents challenges to GOP presidential candidates as they start trooping in earnest to the state whose precinct caucuses traditionally launch the presidential nominating season.

Unlike at the national level where social issues are taking a backseat to the economy, there's no sign that Iowa Republicans are moving away from discussing topics like gay marriage and abortion.

Thus, the state could be fertile ground for likely contenders who play up their opposition to those issues and others that the right detests. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty are among those who aren't shying away from those topics.

Conversely, the state landscape also could pose hurdles to GOP hopefuls who are downplaying cultural issues.

All-but-declared candidates like Mitt Romney and Haley Barbour have made it clear their campaigns will be focused on the economy. And Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who also is weighing a bid, has suggested the party call "a truce" on fighting over social issues while the economy is in such trouble.

Social and religious conservatives here blanch.

"What would a truce look like?" asked Danny Carroll, who is with the conservative group the Family Leader, which led the charge against the judges. "To those true believers, other things just don't get them out of bed in the morning. If you called a truce, people would just say 'I'll stay home and do something else.'"

Chuck Hurley, who heads the conservative Iowa Family Policy Center, has nothing but disdain for those seeking to downplay social issues.

"Anybody who calls a truce when the abortion clinics are running 24/7 is not a true pro-lifer," said Hurley. "That's giving up the battle."

Steve Roberts, a former member of the Republican National Committee before he was ousted by a religious conservative activist, said those who want social issues to go away are dreaming.

"It's not going to happen in Iowa," said Roberts, who said social and religious conservatives virtually run the show in Iowa. As for moderates, he said: "You can find them occasionally in a large phone booth."

Social and religious conservatives showed their might earlier this month, when 1,500 of them gathered in a suburban Des Moines church to hear a pitch from five potential presidential candidates — and remind them not to stray too far from their religious base.

"If you turn your backs on the pro-family, pro-life constituency you will be consigned to permanent minority status," veteran religious activist Ralph Reed told the cheering throng at the gathering.

Starting this week, there's certain to be even more focus on such issues.

Home school advocates, largely evangelicals, plan a mass rally at the Statehouse on Wednesday, and at least three potential presidential candidates are to attend. And over the weekend, U.S. Rep. Steve King is hosting a forum where five potential candidates are to appear.

Kim Pearson, who won her seat in the Iowa House with opposition to abortion as a key issue, said she expects to hear that same message from White House hopefuls. Said Pearson: "They are going to have to address the social issues" — whether they like it or not.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

Associated Press correspondent Dave Collins reports:

A federal prosecutor told a jury Monday that a man and two friends were racists so upset when Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 that they burned down a predominantly African-American church just hours after the voting ended.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Smyth gave his opening argument on the first day of the trial of Michael Jacques, 26, in U.S. District Court.

"We are here today because of racism," Smyth told the 16 jurors, including four alternates. "We are here today because of the depth of their intolerance."

Jacques and two co-defendants, Benjamin Haskell and Thomas Gleason, were charged with using gasoline to set the Macedonia Church of God in Christ in Springfield on fire in the early morning hours of Nov. 5, 2008. The building was under construction at the time. A few firefighters were injured, but recovered.

Authorities say all three men, who are white, confessed to setting the fire. Haskell, 24, of Springfield, pleaded guilty to civil rights charges and was sentenced in November to nine years in prison. Gleason, 23, who lives on the same street as the church, pleaded guilty last year, awaits sentencing and will be testifying against Jacques.

Smyth told jurors that all three men confessed during videotaped interviews and there is also incriminating audio recordings.

Jacques lawyer, Lori Levinson, told the jury that there is no physical evidence against her client and that authorities coerced him into confessing during a grueling seven-hour interrogation during which he suffered withdrawal from addictions to Percocet and cigarettes.

"You will learn that getting his next dose of his drug of addiction is what became the most important thing in the world ... and he would say anything," Levinson said.

Levinson and Smyth showed the jury parts of the videotaped confession, during which Jacques foot is shaking and he's twiddling his thumbs as a state police investigator interviews him.

Levinson described Haskell as a bragger who made up stories to make himself look tough. She also said Haskell also was pressured by authorities into confessing.

Levinson noted that Gleason pleaded guilty and will testify against Jacques. She asked the jury to consider what kind of deal Gleason made with prosecutors in exchange for his testimony.

Smyth said Jacques and his friends frequently used racial epithets to describe blacks. The prosecutor said Jacques and Haskell trained a dog to "get" black people, and Jacques was upset that his sister was having a baby with her African-American boyfriend and didn't want a black child in his house.

Levinson told jurors that they will hear bad things about Jacques, but that doesn't mean he set the fire.

"You're going to hear a lot of things about him that you're not going to like," she said. "You've got to keep in mind that Michael Jacques is charged with the crime of arson, basically. He's not charged with being an all-around bad person."

Levinson also said, "The film footage of that fire ... was really horrifying and you wouldn't be human if you weren't outraged by it and very, very angry at whoever did that to that church. But it wasn't Michael Jacques."

Jacques could face up to 60 years in prison if convicted of conspiracy against civil rights, damage to religious property and other charges.

The church launched a rebuilding effort after the fire and the new building is about 90 percent complete, the church's head pastor, Bishop Bryant Robinson Jr., testified Monday.

Robinson testified about how he and others across the country were excited about Obama being elected as the country's first black president. But then he got a phone call from his brother at about 3:30 the next morning saying the church was on fire.

Robinson said he spent the next several hours at the church watching it burn to the ground.

"I'm trying to fathom what happened, what went wrong," he said.

He said he and his congregation decided quickly that they were going to rebuild.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Associated Press reports:

In the old translation of the world's most popular Bible, John the Evangelist declares: "If anyone says, 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar."

Make that "brother or sister" in a new translation that includes more gender-neutral language and is drawing criticism from some conservatives who argue the changes can alter the theological message.

The 2011 translation of the New International Version Bible, or NIV, does not change pronouns referring to God, who remains "He" and "the Father." But it does aim to avoid using "he" or "him" as the default reference to an unspecified person.

The NIV Bible is used by many of the largest Protestant faiths. The translation comes from an independent group of biblical scholars that has been meeting yearly since 1965 to discuss advances in biblical scholarship and changes in English usage.

Before the new translation even hit stores, it drew opposition from the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, an organization that believes women should submit to their husbands in the home and only men can hold some leadership roles in the church.

The council decided it would not endorse the new version because the changes alter "the theological direction and meaning of the text," according to a statement. Similar concerns led the Southern Baptist Convention to reject the NIV's previous translation in 2005.

At issue is how to translate pronouns that apply to both genders in the ancient Greek and Hebrew texts but have traditionally been translated using masculine forms in English.

An example from the translator's notes for Mark 4:25 to show how the NIV's translation of these words has evolved over the past quarter-century.

The widely distributed 1984 version of the NIV quotes Jesus: "Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him."

The more recent incarnation of the NIV from 2005, called Today's New International Version, changed that to: "Those who have will be given more; as for those who do not have, even what they have will be taken from them."

The CBMW had complained in 2005 that making the subject of a verse plural to convey that it could refer equally to a man or a woman "potentially obscured an important aspect of biblical thought — that of the personal relationship between an individual and God."

The NIV 2011 seems to have taken that criticism into account and come up with a compromise: "Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them."

While the translators' former grammar teachers may not like it, the translators offer a strong justification for their choice of "they" (instead of the clunky "he or she") and "them" (instead of "him or her") to refer back to the singular "whoever."

They commissioned an extensive study of the way modern English writers and speakers convey gender inclusiveness. According to the translators' notes on the Committee on Bible Translation's website, "The gender-neutral pronoun 'they' ('them'/'their') is by far the most common way that English-language speakers and writers today refer back to singular antecedents such as 'whoever,' 'anyone,' 'somebody,' 'a person,' 'no one,' and the like."

Randy Stinson, president of the CBMW and dean of the School of Church Ministries at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the changes are especially important to evangelicals.

"Evangelicals believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of scripture. We believe every word is inspired by God, not just the broad thought," he said.

So if the original text reads "brothers" — even if that word in the original language is known to mean "brothers and sisters" (such as the Hebrew "achim" or Spanish word "hermanos") — many evangelicals believe the English translation should read "brothers."

Stinson said a notes section would be the best place to point out that the original word could be read to include men and women.

It's not yet known if the Southern Baptist Convention will reject the new translation the way it did the 2005 version. The nation's largest Protestant denomination still sells the 1984 translation in its stores. If it chooses to condemn the new version, that would happen at its national convention in June.

The publisher says the NIV 2011 will replace both the 1984 and 2005 versions.

Even while panning the new translation, the CBMW thanked the Committee on Bible Translation for being open about the process they used to develop it. That included taking comments from all sides of the gender debate.

And the new version doesn't always use gender neutral language. It takes reader sensibility into account by not using inclusive terms for some of the most familiar verses where that might sound jarring. For instance, Matthew 4:4 is rendered, "'Man shall not live on bread alone."

That's a change from the TNIV, where the same phase read, "People do not live on bread alone."

"I think that clause has entered into standard English," translator Douglas Moo explained of the move back to the more traditional "man." "People know it who don't know the Bible."

Moo said the translators hope that the phrasing of the new NIV is so natural that the average reader won't be aware of any of the gender language concerns that are debated by biblical scholars and linguists.

The group's website says its goal is "to articulate God's unchanging Word in the way the original authors might have said it if they had been speaking in English to the global English-speaking audience today."

While the change to the generic "man" in verses like Matthew 4:4 is applauded by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, linguist Joel M. Hoffman, author of "And God Said — How Translations Conceal the Bible's Original Meaning," said it is simply incorrect.

"'Anthropos' (the Greek word in the original text) means 'person,' plain and simple," he said. "It's as much a mistake as translating 'parent' as 'father.'"

He doesn't buy the argument that "man" is understood in English to refer to men and women.

"If you walk into a church on Sunday morning and say, 'Will every man stand up?' I would be shocked if the women stood up, too."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (44)
        

The Associated Press reports:

Pilots on an Alaska Airlines flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles locked down the cockpit and alerted authorities Sunday when a flight crew grew alarmed at the behavior of three men who turned out to be conducting an Orthodox Jewish prayer ritual, officials said.

The men, all Mexican nationals, began the ritual that involves tying leather straps and small wooden boxes to the body, and the crew of Flight 241 alerted the cockpit, airline spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said.

"Shortly after takeoff, a flight attendant saw what she believed was unusual behavior from three passengers on board," Egan said in a statement. "The three passengers were praying aloud in Hebrew and were wearing what appeared to be leather straps on their foreheads and arms."

The cockpit was placed on a security lockdown for the rest of the flight — meaning the door couldn't be opened even for pilots to leave briefly. Normal protocol calls for the cockpit to be locked, but on longer flights the pilots will leave and return from the flight deck.

FBI and customs agents along with police and a full assignment of fire trucks met the plane at the gate at Los Angeles International Airport, and the men were escorted off.

After questioning from the FBI, the men were released without being arrested. They continued in their travel which took them overseas, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller told City News Service. Eimiller said she could release no further information because the men were not charged with anything.

Egan said airline officials later learned from law enforcement the men were performing the ritual known as tefillin.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)
        

A 9.0-magnitude earthquake has shaken Japan, killing at least hundreds, igniting fires and sending waves across the Pacific Ocean. Following are links to organizations that are accepting donations for relief of the people of Japan.

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee

American Red Cross

Caritas

Catholic Relief Services

Doctors Without Borders

Episcopal Relief and Development

International Rescue Committee

IMA World Health

Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief

Jewish Federations of North America

Mercy Corps

Oxfam America

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance

Salvation Army

World Relief

World Vision

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 4:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

The Vatican has accepted the resignation of Bishop John H. Ricard, who served 13 years in the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore and chaired Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services for five.

Ricard, 71, suffered a stroke in December 2009 and has undergone several surgeries since. He submitted his resignation to the Vatican last month.

Bishops ordinarily serve until they turn 75, but are asked to resign if they are unable to function effectively.

Ricard was a popular auxiliary bishop in Baltimore from 1984 until 1997, when he was tapped by Pope John Paul II to head the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee in Florida. The Baton Rouge, La., native was ordained a Josephite father in 1968.

Catholic Relief Services President Ken Hackett said the organization will be praying for his health and happiness.”

“Bishop Ricard was a visionary leader for CRS at a time when the agency was going through expansion and many changes,” Hackett said in a statement. “I was privileged to visit CRS programs on many occasions with Bishop Ricard and witness firsthand his understanding and compassion for people in some of the poorest places in our world.”

Hackett recounted Ricard’s travels to Somalia, Liberia, Darfur and North Korea.

“Wherever he went, he always brought an eagerness to learn and experience the challenges facing those less fortunate than ourselves that resonated with everyone he met.”

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Associated Press correspondent Nicole Winfield reports:

Pope Benedict XVI rejects the idea of Jesus as a political revolutionary and insists that violent revolution must never be carried out in God's name in a new book being released Thursday amid great fanfare at the start of Lent.

"Jesus of Nazareth - Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection," is the second installment of Benedict's planned trilogy on Jesus. Part I, which covered Jesus' early ministry, shot to the top of the best-seller lists in Italy when it was published in 2007.

Already, 1.2 million copies of Part II have been printed in seven languages, and reprints of 100,000 more are planned for the Italian editions and 50,000 in German.

In the book, Benedict exonerates the Jews as a people for Christ's death. He also insists that Jesus never advocated violent revolution, as some liberation theologians have suggested, saying violence was not His way no matter how valid the motivation.

Benedict has spoken out frequently to denounce religiously motivated violence against Christians in the Middle East, Pakistan and elsewhere. "The cruel consequences of religiously motivated violence are only too evident to us all," he noted in the book.

"Violence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be," Benedict wrote. "It serves, not humanity, but inhumanity."

The Vatican and its foreign-language publishers have gone to remarkable lengths to promote the new book, coordinating the release of excerpts, scheduling prime-time press conferences and releasing the 362-page text to coincide with the run-up to Holy Week, when the faithful commemorate Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.

In the book, Benedict concludes that the Jews as a people weren't responsible for Jesus' death, but only a few Jewish leaders and their supporters, affirming that the centuries of mistrust of Christians toward Jews was deeply misplaced.

While the Catholic Church has been teaching that for nearly 50 years, the fact that the pope said it so authoritatively prompted praise from major Jewish groups and a thank you note from Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu.

"I commend you for forcefully rejecting in your recent book a false charge that has been a foundation for the hatred of the Jewish people for many centuries," Netanyahu wrote the pope after excerpts of the book were released last week.

In the book, Benedict also asserts that the Catholic Church shouldn't concern itself now with trying to convert Jews, though he stresses the need for all Christians to "visibly" unite — a veiled call for other Christians to convert to Catholicism.

The acknowledgment that Jews are in a special category as far as conversion goes is significant given that Benedict in 2007 irked some Jewish leaders when he allowed for a prayer for the conversion of Jews to be celebrated more widely in some traditional Good Friday services.

Jacob Neusner, a prominent Jewish expert on Judaism and Christianity who has had a 25-year correspondence with Benedict on the figure of Jesus, praised the book for blending theology and history and for its "courageous" exoneration of the Jews.

"He has accomplished something that no one else has achieved in the modern study of Scripture," Neusner told a conference call Wednesday organized by the book's U.S. publishers.

Brant Pitre, a Catholic professor of scripture at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, said the book was unprecedented, given that the pope, who turns 84 next month, is fairly busy running the 1 billion-strong Catholic Church and administering the Holy See.

"Never before in the history of the church have we had a reigning pope write a full length study of the life of Jesus," Pitre said. "Just on that level this is truly a historic publication."

In the book, Benedict gives a chronological account of Jesus' final days, citing Gospel accounts and scholarly commentaries. He said his aim wasn't to make a purely historical or faith-based analysis, but rather a combination that would allow for the reader to experience a "personal relationship with Jesus."

"Even if there will always be details that remain open for discussion, I still hope that I have been granted an insight into the figure of our Lord that can be helpful to all readers who seek to encounter Jesus and to believe in him," Benedict wrote.

That said, biblical experts agreed the book isn't for everyone. It's dense and academic, in Benedict's scholarly, theological style.

"My guess would be that this book is specifically user-friendly for entry-level seminary students, educated lay people with a lot of theological acumen, obviously clergy of various kinds," said Ben Witherington III, an evangelical Biblical scholar at the Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky.

But Craig Evans, a Protestant bible expert, said Protestants of many stripes would be surprised at how Protestant the book reads, and that he wouldn't hesitate to put it on his syllabus for his conservative, Baptist seminary students.

"If it didn't say Pope Benedict on the cover, they might not even be sure they were reading a Catholic book," he said.

Benedict said that he plans to write the third and final installment of the trilogy, on Jesus' infancy, "if I am given the strength."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Associated Press correspondent Hamza Hendawi reports:

Clashes that broke out when a Muslim mob attacked thousands of Christians protesting the burning of a Cairo church killed at least 13 people and wounded about 140, officials said Wednesday.

The Muslims torched the church amid an escalation of tensions over a love affair between a Muslim and a Christian that set off a violent feud between the couple's families.

The officials said all 13 fatalities died of gunshot wounds.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The clashes late Tuesday night added to a sense of ongoing chaos in Egypt after the momentous 18-day democracy uprising that toppled longtime leader Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11. The uprising left a security vacuum after police pulled out of Cairo and several other cities three days into the uprising.

The police have yet to fully take back the streets, leaving space for a wave of violent crime and lawlessness in some parts of the nation.

In a separate incident, at least two people were wounded when rival crowds threw rocks at Cairo's central Tahrir Square, the uprising's epicenter, according to an Associated Press Television News cameraman at the scene. He said the violence pitted youths camping out at the square to press their demand for a complete break with the ousted regime and another group opposed to their continued presence. Later, army soldiers forcefully removed the protesters and their tents, scuffling with some and making several arrests.

The Christian protesters on Tuesday blocked a vital highway, burning tires and pelting cars with rocks. An angry crowd of Muslims set upon the Christians and the two sides fought pitched battles for about four hours.

Mubarak handed power to the military when he stepped down, but the military does not have enough troops to patrol every street in Cairo, a sprawling city of some 18 million people that is chaotic at the best of times.

Even before the uprising unleashed a torrent of discontent, tensions had been growing between Christians and Muslims in this country of 80 million. Christians account for about 10 percent of the population.

On New Year's Day, a suicide bombing outside a Coptic church in the port city of Alexandria killed 21 people, setting off days of protests. Barely a week later, an off-duty policeman boarded a train and shot dead a 71-year-old Christian man and wounding his wife and four others.

Egypt's ruling generals have pledged last week to rebuild the torched church and the country's new prime minister, Essam Sharaf, has met the protesters outside the TV building in downtown Cairo to reassure them that his interim government would not discriminate against them.

But the Christians were not appeased. At least 2,000 of them protested on the highway on Tuesday night and a separate crowd of several hundred has been camping out outside the TV building for days to voice their anger at what they perceive to be official discrimination against them.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 3:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

President Barack Obama has released a statement to mark Ash Wednesday:

"Michelle and I join with millions of Christians here and across the world to mark Ash Wednesday. As we observe the season of Lent, we receive with thanksgiving this opportunity for grace and repentance, recommit ourselves to our faith, and remember our obligations to one another."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)
        

UPDATE: NPR President and CEO Vivian (no relation) Schiller has resigned. And I’ve renewed my WYPR membership.

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

James O’Keefe has struck again. The guerrilla filmmaker, famous for posing as a pimp seeking tax advice from the Baltimore chapter of ACORN, managed to catch NPR’s top fundraiser Ron Schiller on tape expressing his contempt for vast swaths of America. NPR is no doubt relieved that Schiller had already left NPR for the Aspen Institute when the story broke.

NPR claims to be “appalled” by Schiller’s comments, describing them as “contrary to what NPR stands for.” As a longtime NPR listener and sometime (I was about to renew when Juan Williams got fired) member of my local station, I think this statement is patently absurd. There’s a reason you don’t see a lot of NPR tote bags at Tea Party rallies, just like there’s a reason you don’t see a lot of Fox News bumper stickers on Priuses. I do believe that NPR strives to be accurate and evenhanded, and that for the most part it succeeds. But it is also the case that its business model depends on the voluntary financial support of a demographic that by and large sympathizes with the sentiments Schiller expressed on tape.

What caught my attention about the story was Schiller’s description of the Tea Party as “fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and very fundamentalist Christian – I wouldn’t even call it Christian, it’s this weird evangelical kind of move.” If Schiller had listened to his own network’s coverage of the Tea Party, he’d have learned that the significant differences between its core libertarian impulses and the social conservatism of traditional Republican constituencies presented a tension that was more managed than resolved during the last election cycle. That such disparate factions are seen as similar by a person in such a senior position in such an influential media organ is troubling to me, but what is more troubling is the suggestion that evangelicalism is Christian fundamentalism gone wild.

If anything it’s the opposite, and perhaps Schiller just had his labels mixed up. For those of you just tuning in, evangelicalism as we know it today started in the aftermath of World War II when fundamentalists decided they wanted to follow Jesus without being a jerk about it. They held onto their high view of Scripture, their orthodox Christian theology, their belief that Jesus is good news worth telling and their commitment to follow him in every aspect of their lives. But they left behind the anti-intellectualism, the closed-mindedness, the insularity, the paranoia, the parochialism and the overall backwardness that they believed would consign fundamentalist Christianity to the ash heap of religious history. It used to be you could tell the difference between a fundamentalist and an evangelical by asking what he thought of Billy Graham: The evangelical loved that he was bringing people to Jesus, and the fundamentalist thought he’d gone apostate because he’d welcome the local Methodist (or Catholic!) bishop on stage with him.

You wouldn’t have expected it at the time, but Graham and his colleagues turned out to be right. Evangelicalism has become the largest strain of American Protestantism, and in many ways is its healthiest (its many faults notwithstanding). Fundamentalism is still strong in some circles, and it remains true that there are more fundamentalists than Episcopalians in our country — even if fundamentalists are some 10% of conservative Protestants, defined broadly, that’s still a decent-sized slice of a pretty big pie. But fundamentalism continues its decline in numbers and influence.

You can find plenty of weirdness among evangelicals, but for the most part we’re really not so nutty as all that. It’s a pity that many of the people who ought to know better still don’t. A few years ago I noted to the chair of the religion department at my alma mater that none of their course offerings dealt with the most important religious phenomenon of the latter 20th century (i.e., evangelicalism). Oh yes, she said, we have a professor who teaches a class about apocalyptic movements and the Left Behind books. That a Harvard Ph.D. teaching religion at one of the country’s top liberal arts colleges couldn’t tell the difference between John Hagee and Rick Warren is, again, troubling. Not a little offensive, really. But I suppose she’s in some pretty good company.

It’s ironic that this tape came out just after the wonderful interview NPR did with Eugene Peterson this weekend. Peterson is a leading evangelical pastoral theologian, now retired, who served for nearly 30 years as the pastor of a Presbyterian church in Bel Air. He will be back in Baltimore in May, in fact, to speak at the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Roland Park. NPR’s Guy Raz spoke with Peterson for nearly 10 minutes about his new memoir The Pastor, with the kind of gracious and appreciative tone that represents NPR’s best interactions with its guests.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
        

Associated Press correspondent Joann Loviglio reports:

The Philadelphia archdiocese suspended 21 Roman Catholic priests Tuesday who were named as child molestation suspects in a scathing grand jury report released last month. The priests have been removed from ministry while their cases are reviewed, Cardinal Justin Rigali said. The names of the priests were not being released, a spokesman for the archdiocese said.

"These have been difficult weeks since the release of the grand jury report," Rigali said in a statement. "Difficult most of all for victims of sexual abuse but also for all Catholics and for everyone in our community."

The two-year grand jury investigation into priest abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia resulted in charges against two priests, a former priest and a Catholic school teacher who are accused of raping young boys. And in an unprecedented move in the U.S., a former high-ranking church official was accused of transferring problem priests to new parishes without warning anyone of prior sex-abuse complaints.

Since 2002, when the national abuse crisis erupted in the Archdiocese of Boston, American dioceses have barred hundreds of accused clergy from public church work or removed the men permanently from the priesthood. The actions of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia stand out because they come more than eight years after the U.S. bishops reformed their national child protection policies and pledged swift action to keep potential abusers away from young people.

The grand jury named 37 priests who remained in active ministry despite credible allegations of sexual abuse. After the release of the report, the second such investigation in the city in six years, Rigali vowed to take its calls for further reforms seriously.

In addition to the 21 priests placed on leave Tuesday, three others named by the grand jury were suspended a week after the report's release in February. There were five other priests who would have been suspended: one who was already on leave, two who are "incapacitated and have not been in active ministry," and two who no longer are priests in the archdiocese but are now members of another religious order that was not identified.

"The archdiocese has notified the superiors of their religious orders and the bishops of the dioceses where they are residing," the cardinal said.

The remaining eight priests of the 37 in the report were not being put on leave because the latest examination of their cases "found no further investigation is warranted," Rigali said.

"I know that for many people their trust in the church has been shaken," Rigali stated. "I pray that the efforts of the archdiocese to address these cases of concern and to re-evaluate our way of handling allegations will help rebuild that trust."

While the archdiocese formed a panel to handle abuse complaints after the 2005 report, the 2011 grand jury found it mostly worked to protect the church, not the victims. Rigali responded by retaining former city child-abuse prosecutor Gina Maisto Smith to re-examine complaints made against the active-duty priests that internal church investigators previously said they could not substantiate.

"Cardinal Rigali's actions are as commendable as they are unprecedented, and they reflect his concern for the physical and spiritual well-being of those in his care," District Attorney Seth Williams said in a statement. "We appreciate that the Archdiocese has acknowledged the value of the report, and seen fit to take some of the steps called for by the grand jury."

The suspensions came on the eve of Lent, the Christian period for penance leading up to Easter.

Peter Isely of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said Rigali should have suspended the priests much sooner.

"There's a simple reason that dozens of credibly accused child molesters have recklessly been kept in unsuspecting parishes for years, instead of being promptly suspended. It's because Rigali and his top aides want it that way," he said. "They have taken and still take steps to protect, above all else, themselves, their secrets and their staff, instead of their flock. That's what two separate Philadelphia grand juries, working with two prosecutors, after two long investigations, found over the last six years."

Rigali's move to suspend the priests "was forced on him by the Philadelphia grand jury report, and is an act of desperation, not transparency," Terence McKiernan of BishopAccountability.org said.

"In Philadelphia, a Catholic official had to be indicted before the archdiocese finally began to comply with its own policies," he said. "We have no reason to believe that Philadelphia is unusual — in other U.S. dioceses, credibly accused priests are no doubt still in ministry, and review boards are protecting priests instead of protecting children."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Associated Press corrrespondent Lien Hoang reports:

The daily stroll had become routine for two elderly Sikh men in a Sacramento suburb, as well as for neighbors and friends accustomed to seeing the men walk by with their long beards and turbans.

But the traditional headwear might have singled them out late last week when they were gunned down, one fatally, in what police are investigating as a suspected hate crime. On Monday, local religious leaders pleaded for the community to come forward with leads but also said they will not be deterred by violence.

"Our community will continue to wear our turbans proudly," said Navi Kaur (NA'vee Kar), the granddaughter of Surinder Singh, 65, who died from his wounds.

His friend, 78-year-old Gurmej Atwal, remains in critical condition.

They were walking through their neighborhood in Elk Grove, just south of the capital, Friday afternoon when someone in what witnesses described as a pickup truck opened fire. Police said they have no suspects nor evidence the shooting was a hate crime, but said the turbans could have made the elderly men a target of extremists.

During a news conference Monday at a Sikh temple, a spokesman said the recent violence has scared some temple-goers into concealing any indicators of their religion.

Sikhs often are mistaken for Muslims and have been the subject of occasional violence across the country since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"The enemies of the United States don't wear turbans in the United States," said Amar Shergill, a Sikh leader and attorney. "They don't want to be singled out. The result is that Sikh Americans since 9-11 have borne the brunt of violent hate crimes."

Sikhs draw particular attention because of their traditional beards and turbans, which are mistakenly associated with Islamic terrorists.

Shergill said Monday also marked the start of a trial involving a confirmed hate crime against a Sikh.

He is the attorney for a Sikh cab driver beaten four months ago by passengers who shouted anti-Islamic slurs at him in West Sacramento, which sits across the Sacramento River from the state capital. The two defendants pleaded no contest Monday to felony assault.

As the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks approaches, several people at Monday's news conference drew links between the Sacramento-area crimes and national and international developments. From unrest in North Africa to congressional hearings on radicalization of Muslims in the U.S., speakers warned of an increasingly hostile climate.

"It is getting ugly," said Basim Elkarra, executive director of the Sacramento Valley chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "And like I said, who suffers the most is the Sikh community because of unfortunately people's ignorance."

The Elk Grove police department said last week's shooting would be the first targeting Sikhs in the city if it turns out to be a hate crime. Police also said they would meet with FBI officials, a routine move when a hate crime is suspected.

On Monday, they said they are looking for a tan or beige Ford F150 pickup truck made between 1999 and 2003. Meanwhile, a dozen groups have collected nearly $30,000 in reward money for information about the shooting.

Singh, a truck driver, had worked in India and Libya before moving to the United States about five years ago, The Sacramento Bee reported. Atwal, the other victim, is a retired civil servant who worked in the revenue department of northwest India's Punjab state before moving to the U.S. in 2001.

The two were neighbors who became friends when Singh moved to Elk Grove three years ago. They would have tea in the morning, set out for a walk, return for lunch, and then go out again. They knew just enough English to say, "Hi," to passersby and met other retired Sikhs at a nearby park.

"They were total gentlemen," said Lakhvinder Singh, a family friend.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

The Associated Press reports:

The Supreme Court won't hear an atheist's latest challenge to the U.S. government's references to God.

The court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from Michael Newdow, who says government references to God are unconstitutional and infringe on his religious beliefs.

This appeal dealt with the inscription of the national motto "In God We Trust" on U.S. coins and currency. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco says the phrase is ceremonial and patriotic and "has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion."

The court refused to hear Newdow's appeal of that decision.

"In God We Trust" was first put on U.S. coins in the 1860s and on paper currency in the 1950s.

The case is Newdow v. Lefevre, 10-893.

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

Associated Press correspondents Gillian Flaccus and John Mone report:

VENTURA, Calif. – Carl Sutphin was a problem priest who left ministry in the Roman Catholic church just before being charged nearly a decade ago with 14 counts of molestation for sexually abusing six children.

He was never convicted of the charges, and he now lives in a doublewide mobile home in a quiet neighborhood within two miles of a youth sports complex, a library, two day care centers and at least two elementary schools. Sutphin admits he molested children as a priest, but his name doesn't show up in a sex offender database because the charges were dismissed because too much time had elapsed.

"I don't remember the numbers. I won't say I deny it. I do not deny it, no," Sutphin, who has been accused of abuse by 18 people, told The Associated Press. "The church could have acted quicker, I think, and sometimes reports were not made right away. In my case, some of the cases didn't come forward until 15 or 20 years later. ... So the church didn't do anything about it, they couldn't do anything about it."

Sutphin is one of dozens of former and current priests and religious brothers accused of childhood sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles who now live unmonitored by civil authorities in communities across the state and nation. For many, the statute of limitations had expired by the time the abuse was reported, making it impossible for prosecutors to land convictions and subject the priests to sex offender databases and monitoring.

Plaintiffs' attorneys have worked with private investigators since October to compile a list of the priests' addresses, the most comprehensive accounting of the whereabouts of the 233 clergy accused of abuse in civil lawsuits in the Los Angeles archdiocese. They hope to use it Thursday to persuade a judge to recommend the release of all church files for every priest or religious brother ever accused of sexual abuse in the sweeping litigation.

Those confidential files are at the center of a heated dispute between the church and plaintiffs' lawyers since the nation's largest archdiocese reached a record-breaking $660 million settlement nearly four years ago. Plaintiffs want the files — which could include internal correspondence, previous complaints and therapy records — released, saying it's a matter of public safety. The church is pushing for a more limited release of information.

The list of addresses, obtained by The Associated Press, contains nearly 50 former priests who live unmonitored in California, and another 15 in cities and towns from Maryland to Texas to Montana. More than 80 more cannot be located despite an exhaustive search by plaintiffs' attorneys. Four are believed to have fled to Mexico or South America. About 80 are dead.

Lead plaintiff lawyer Raymond Boucher says it's the only time anyone has put together a list of priest addresses in any other diocese or archdiocese nationwide. Lawyers hope to eventually make the names and locations of abusive priests available to the public, similar to Megan's Law databases that exist nationwide.

"Many of these priests would be in prison but for the fact that the archdiocese essentially created immunity for them by hiding them and keeping the secrets. It's essential that these documents come out because we know one thing: there is no cure for priests or anybody that sexually abuses a child," said Boucher.

"Many of them are within a mile of multiple schools, day care centers and parks and they are a time bomb waiting to go off. The only way the public can ever protect itself is to have a full, complete knowledge about them."

Tod Tamberg, the spokesman for the archdiocese, referred questions to archdiocese attorney Michael Hennigan.

The church is willing to release a significant number of documents from priest files and has already made public the names of priests who were credibly accused or whose names were listed in civil lawsuits, Hennigan said. The archdiocese believes, however, that many of the priests whose addresses appear on the list were wrongfully accused. The archdiocese included those clergy in the $660 million payout without admitting wrongdoing, simply to settle the claims, Hennigan said.

The allegations of sexual abuse have ruined those priests' reputations, he said.

"These are people who have been accused, these are not people who have been convicted," said Hennigan. "We have great sympathy for victims of childhood sexual abuse ... but to suggest that there's a compelling interest in producing these documents wholesale is a stretch. Many of these people deny it and many of these people credibly deny it. It haunts them."

The archdiocese in 2004 released the names of more than 200 accused priests — including Sutphin's — in a report to parishioners. The list did not include the men's whereabouts.

About 30 of the individual priests, including Sutphin, are also fighting the release of files.

They argue that the settlement, which contained provisions for the release of documents, was an agreement between the archdiocese and the plaintiffs without their consent. Most of the priests themselves are not named as parties to the lawsuits and obtaining their records violates the Fourth Amendment, the protection against unreasonable search and seizure, said Donald Steier, their attorney.

"Even though people don't like these guys, the rules still apply," he said. "It's easy to evaporate their rights but when you evaporate their rights, you erode all of our rights. Everybody needs to play by the same set of rules."

Many of the priests named in sex abuse lawsuits have been defrocked, removed from ministry or placed on leave by the church since being accused. Most appear to have rebuilt their lives outside the church and live quietly and anonymously, unnoticed in their new neighborhoods, which span 37 California cities from Berkeley to Oxnard to Oceanside.

In Gardena, for example, a former priest who pleaded no contest in 1987 to misdemeanors of soliciting lewd acts and battery now manages a mobile home park wedged in a gritty industrial stretch 15 miles south of Los Angeles. He lives in a double-wide trailer with a statue of Jesus on the porch, not far from a sign advising drivers to watch for children at play.

The former priest, Gerald Fessard, saw his conviction expunged after he completed three years' probation, according to news reports. He was accused by eight people overall, according to the archdiocese. He is not listed on the state's Megan's Law website.

Fessard, 64, declined to comment to the AP when contacted outside his home Sunday.

His neighbor, Celia Fuhr, said Fessard collects rent from residents and maintains the trailer park, but largely keeps to himself and dotes on his cats.

"I don't know nothing about him," Fuhr said, upon learning of Fessard's past. "Oh my God. Oh no, don't tell me that."

Less than an hour's drive away, in the working-class city of Rowland Heights, retired priest Stephen Hernandez lives in a large two-story house across the street from a family with a 6-year-old child and within two miles of three playgrounds and four elementary schools.

The 77-year-old Hernandez was arrested seven years ago and charged with molesting a 14-year-old boy while serving as a counselor at a Los Angeles area juvenile hall. The clergyman had faced up to 10 years in prison if convicted of all charges, but eventually pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to probation.

He is not listed on the state's Megan's Law website. He declined to comment to The Associated Press when contacted at his home Saturday.

Chitira and Delfino Zuno have lived across the street from Hernandez for years and said they were surprised to learn the elderly priest they call Father Steve has a criminal past.

Still, the couple said they supported him and weren't concerned for the safety of their grandson, who's lived with them since he was an infant. Hernandez is ill and never crosses the street to their home, said Chitira Zuno.

"He's right now old, sick. He only needs compassion," said Zuno, who described herself as a devout Catholic who hosts a religious program on public access TV.

"A priest is a priest. If we can think about faith, we can see that we are all human and we can all do mistakes. I know some priests that have been accused and maybe he's done a mistake once in his life and this is going to be after him all his life."

That's a reaction that is difficult for some alleged victims to accept, including one man whose allegations against Sutphin led to the charges against him that were eventually dismissed because of a 2003 Supreme Court ruling involving the statute of limitations. The man and his brother also sued the archdiocese and received a settlement. The Associated Press does not identify victims of sexual abuse.

The 44-year-old told the AP that Sutphin molested first his brother and then him while they spent the night at the priest's mother's house in Ventura before a planned fishing trip. The priest took the man's sibling into another room first and then returned for him and began tickling him and trying to undress him, he recalled. The priest also questioned him about his genitals.

Sutphin gave up after a struggle, but the memory has scarred the man for life and created tension between the brothers, who never fully discussed what happened 35 years ago.

"The guy's a predator. I feel sorry for whoever has to live around him," he said. "Where do we draw the fine line in the sand? Is there a little kid that's seven years old living across the street from him and next thing you know, is he going to want to take him out fishing? Do people really know what this guy's all about?"

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien is urging Catholics to contact the lawmakers following a committee vote in Annapolis Friday to send same-sex marriage legislation to the full House of Delegates.

O'Brien's statement:

"The Judiciary Committee's disputed decision to advance legislation that would redefine marriage in Maryland is both regrettable and irresponsible. Instead of strengthening and protecting marriage, our State has moved one step closer to dismantling it altogether, a move that would threaten the stability of society and families for current and future generations.

"It is only the relationship of a man to a woman, a father to a mother that can bring a child into the world, and it is this relationship that government, people of faith and all of society should be encouraging. Every child has the right to be loved and nurtured by his true father and mother, not only for his benefit but the benefit of our wider human family. How can this possibly be lost on people of good will today?

"I encourage every Catholic in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, and all who value marriage and family, to immediately contact their elected officials in the House of Delegates to ensure that the voices of reason, faith and love of family are not lost in the ensuing debate."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (103)
        

Maryland's House Judiciary Committee has voted 12-10 to pass the same-sex marriage bill, sending it to the full House of Delegates. The 141-member chamber is expected take up debate as early as next week.

Del. Tiffany Alston, who had signed on to the bill as a sponsor but wavered and walked out on a planned vote earlier this week, voted against it. Committee Chairman Joseph F. Vallario Jr., a Democrat who does not support same-sex marriage, saved the legislation by voting to send it to the full House.

Before the final vote, Alston, a Prince George's County Democrat, attemped to amend the bill to establish civil unions instead of same-sex marriage. The effort drew praise from Republicans on the committee, but cricitism from her fellow Democrats. It failed.

Del. Jill Carter, the other holdout earlier this week, voted for the bill. The Baltimore Democrat supports same-sex marriage, but said she wanted to draw attention to education funding in Baltimore and her own legislation on child custody in divorce cases.

The bill's ride through the House already has been rockier than its passage in the Senate last week, raising new questions about its prospects in the full chamber. The House is expected to take up the debate next week, potentially the entire week.

Gov. Martin O'Malley has said he will sign the legislation if it reaches his desk.

Thanks to Julie Bykowicz, reporting from Annapolis.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Sun colleague Tricia Bishop reports:

In a dispute that began at a Marine's funeral in Westminster, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the First Amendment allows the Westboro Baptist Church to peaceably picket military funerals with its hate-filled, anti-gay messages.

"Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and — as it did here — inflict great pain," Chief Justice John G. Robert Jr. wrote in the opinion of the court.

"On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker," he continued. "As a Nation we have chosen a different course — to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate."

The ruling, issued a day before the anniversary of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder's death, was a bitter disappointment for the Marine's father, Albert Snyder, who sued the Topeka, Kansas, church for picketing his son's 2006 funeral, claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress. But it was expected by free speech advocates, who found themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to align with a group that protests against gays, Catholics, Jews and others.

Read more on the Westboro Baptist Church decision at baltimoresun.com.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

Associated Press correspondent Nicole Winfield reports:

Pope Benedict XVI has made a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ, tackling one of the most controversial issues in Christianity in a new book.

In "Jesus of Nazareth-Part II" excerpts released Wednesday, Benedict explains biblically and theologically why there is no basis in Scripture for the argument that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus' death.

Interpretations to the contrary have been used for centuries to justify the persecution of Jews.

While the Catholic Church has for five decades taught that Jews weren't collectively responsible, Jewish scholars said Wednesday the argument laid out by the German-born pontiff, who has had his share of mishaps with Jews, was a landmark statement from a pope that would help fight anti-Semitism today.

"Holocaust survivors know only too well how the centuries-long charge of 'Christ killer' against the Jews created a poisonous climate of hate that was the foundation of anti-Semitic persecution whose ultimate expression was realized in the Holocaust," said Elan Steinberg of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants.

The pope's book, he said, not only confirms church teaching refuting the deicide charge "but seals it for a new generation of Catholics."

The Catholic Church issued its most authoritative teaching on the issue in its 1965 Second Vatican Council document "Nostra Aetate," which revolutionized the church's relations with Jews by saying Christ's death could not be attributed to Jews as a whole at the time or today.

Benedict comes to the same conclusion, but he explains how with a thorough, Gospel-by-Gospel analysis that leaves little doubt that he deeply and personally believes it to be the case: That only a few Temple leaders and a small group of supporters were primarily responsible for Christ's crucifixion.

The book is the second installment to Benedict's 2007 "Jesus of Nazareth," his first book as pope, which offered a very personal meditation on the early years of Christ's life and teachings. This second book, set to be released March 10, concerns the final part of Christ's life, his death and resurrection.

The Vatican's publishers provided a few excerpts Wednesday.

In the book, Benedict re-enacts Jesus' final hours, including his death sentence for blasphemy, then analyzes each Gospel account to explain why Jews as a whole cannot be blamed for it. Rather, Benedict concludes, it was the "Temple aristocracy" and a few supporters of the figure Barabbas who were responsible.

"How could the whole people have been present at this moment to clamor for Jesus' death?" Benedict asks.

He deconstructs one particular biblical account which has the crowd saying, "His blood be on us and on our children" — a phrase frequently cited as evidence of the collective guilt Jews bore and the curse that they carried as a result.

The phrase, from the Gospel of Matthew, has been so incendiary that director Mel Gibson was reportedly forced to drop it from the subtitles of his 2004 film "The Passion of the Christ," although it remained in the spoken Aramaic.

But Benedict said Jesus' death wasn't about punishment, but rather salvation. Jesus' blood, he said, "does not cry out for vengeance and punishment, it brings reconciliation. It is not poured out against anyone, it is poured out for many, for all."

Benedict, who was forced to join the Hitler Youth as a child in Nazi Germany, has made improving relations with Jews a priority of his pontificate. He has visited the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Poland and Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

But he also has had a few missteps that have drawn the ire of Jewish groups, most notably when in 2009 he lifted the excommunication of a traditionalist Catholic bishop who had denied the extent of the Holocaust by saying no Jews were gassed during World War II.

Benedict has said that had he known Bishop Richard Williamson's views about Jews he never would have lifted the excommunication, which was imposed in 1988 because Williamson was consecrated without papal consent. Williamson is a member of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, which has rejected many Vatican II teachings, including the outreach to Jews contained in Nostra Aetate.

Separately, Jewish groups have been outraged that Benedict is moving Pope Pius XII closer to beatification, the first main hurdle to possible sainthood. Some Jews and historians have argued the World War II-era pope should have done more to prevent the Holocaust.

The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit who writes frequently about spirituality, said the pope's new book was a "ringing reaffirmation" of Nostra Aetate, which was passed during the Second Vatican Council, with the pope putting his "personal stamp on it in a way that's irrefutable."

"A Vatican Council is the highest teaching authority of the church," Martin said. "Now that you have the pope's reflections underlining it, I don't know how much more authoritative you can get."

Rabbi David Rosen, head of interreligious affairs at the American Jewish Committee and a leader of Vatican-Jewish dialogue, said the pope's book may make a bigger, more lasting mark than Nostra Aetate because the faithful tend to read Scripture and commentary more than church documents, particularly old church documents.

"It may be an obvious thing for Jews to present texts with commentaries, but normally with church magisterium, they present a document," he said. "This is a pedagogical tool that he's providing, so people will be able to interpret the text in keeping with orthodox Vatican teaching."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

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

Saturday saw the funerals of two men who took their own lives earlier this month. One was famous, the other known only among his family, friends and coworkers. I may well be the only person in the country to have known both, and I knew neither of them well enough.

I met Dave Duerson while in New Orleans for a conference in mid-November of 2009. Finding a cigar bar a few blocks down from my hotel, I settled in with a Romeo y Julieta. The TV was replaying the New England-Indianapolis game from Sunday night, the one where Belicheck went for it on 4th and 2 and lost. I made a comment or two to the mustachioed African-American gentleman next to men, but he was busy with his smart phone and didn't seem too sociable. But as we watched a crucial play, cigars smoldering, he suddenly broke out with the kind of analysis I'd heard only from the guys on TV.

"You really know your stuff," I said. He replied with practiced humility, "I used to play the game." Two minutes later I learned that I had been coughing up my very amateur opinions on a big game in the presence of an All-Pro safety elected to the Pro Bowl four years in a row, a member of the legendary "Super Bowl Shuffle" 1985 Chicago Bears squad.

Dave talked with pride about his children, and with sorrow about the failure of his marriage. He had come from a long line of Baptist pastors but converted to Catholicism to marry his wife Alicia, and between that and his success as a captain (and, later, trustee) at Notre Dame he spoke with profound affection about his Catholic identity even as he affirmed the spiritual force of his Baptist forebears. "I tell you what," he said as he ordered another Hennessy, "if I had it to do over again I'd go to Pope school. Those priests at Notre Dame, they drank more Chateau Lafite than I do, and I drank a lot of it." We exchanged a couple of emails the following week, and though from time to time I thought about dropping him a note I never did get around to it.

As a member of the commission evaluating retired players' claims for long-term mental health benefits, Dave knew about the problems associated with the brain damage football players can suffer over the course of a career. So his two final actions on the 17th were to text his family telling them to donate his brain to the NFL, and to shoot himself in the heart to make sure the researchers had a clean sample to work with.

Justin Nusz was my neighbor. He lived across the street from me on my court in Reisterstown, a cozy little street with only seven houses in which my family was only the second to buy from an original owner, some 25 years after the first houses went in. Justin took his own life in the woods around Liberty Reservoir a day before Dave Duerson took his.

Justin and I often saw each other as one of us was coming or going, waving and exchanging a friendly greeting but not much more than that. He came over when some friends and I were playing cards one night, and he helped make a path on the hill behind his house for my kids when last winter's snows were too deep for little ones to manage. One of the few photographs of him that we have features the snowball fight on our lawn that he instigated after he came home from work one evening. Justin used to give my younger daughter a quarter when she rode by on her scooter, which explains why every time she saw him come home she made a beeline for the garage. He was a helpful neighbor and great with the kids; everybody loved him, and I heard at the service celebrating his life about how he'd had the same impact in other circles of influence.

I couldn't help noticing that Justin's car was amassing an impressive collection of dents, but I didn't know he had been struggling with addiction again. Truth be told, I didn't know he ever was; a gifted athlete, Justin always looked healthy to me, and I never saw any signs of impairment. Then again, you don't need to be sober to wave.

I was struck this week by the fact that even though I lived across the street from Justin for over seven years, I didn't know him as well as I knew some guy I'd met at a bar in another state. Of course, a cigar and a brandy are usually more conducive to intimate conversation than a handful of mail and an empty garbage can. But I still wonder what kind of neighbor I am, if this kind of suffering is going on right across the street and I'm completely oblivious to it.

I had the privilege of leading Justin's memorial service on Saturday, and I was glad to see that it brought some closure to his friends and family as they work through their grief. It helped me, too, to know that whatever my shortcomings as a neighbor, however much my busted knee won't let me shovel my own driveway let alone anybody else's, I was able to do what I could to honor Justin's life.

I only wish I could have honored it better while he was still living it.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)