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."

Continue reading "Lutheran college hot among Jewish students" »

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The Associated Press reports:

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

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

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

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

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

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The Associated Press reports:

The Air Force Academy superintendent's choice of speaker for a prayer luncheon in February has come under fire from a frequent foe of religious practices at the school.

Military Religious Freedom Foundation founder Mikey Weinstein says the choice of Marine 1st Lt. Clebe McClary shows superintendent Lt. Gen. Mike Gould is tilted toward evangelical Christianity and tolerates an environment where proselytizing is accepted.

McClary is a wounded Vietnam veteran who says he's in the "Lord's Army" and that the Marine initials USMC stand for "U.S. Marine for Christ." The school defends Gould's decision saying the luncheon is optional and that McClary is part of a broad spectrum of religious views.

Weinstein is calling for Gould's ouster over the choice.

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In spite of the slow economic recovery, and a national downturn in charitable giving, the Archdiocese of Baltimore raised a record amount for ministries and programs in 2010, the archdiocese said Tuesday.

More than 40,000 people donated more than $8.7 million to the Archbishop's Annual Appeal, up more than 67 percent since 2006.

“Ironically, the Appeal has seen its greatest growth since the downturn in the economy -- a clear indication not only of the efforts of the Archbishop and pastors and pastoral life directors who promoted the appeal as a way of helping people in need, but also the extraordinary generosity of Catholics and others in the Archdiocese of Baltimore,” said Patrick Madden, the archdiocesan director of development.

According to the archdiocese, 46 percent of the money raised in 2010 was returned to parishes to fund church operations and programs, 23 percent went to Catholic Charities, and 31 percent is funding ministries and outreach programs such as AIDS ministry, prison ministry and the Interfaith Housing Alliance in Western Maryland.

“The reach of the Appeal is enormous," Madden said. "In fact, many of the programs the Appeal supports could not continue to operate without funding from the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal."

Continue reading "Archbishop's appeal nets record haul" »

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The Associated Press reports:

Editorials in a Catholic prep school's student newspaper about same-sex marriage and gay teenagers are sparking debate about free speech in Minnesota.

Student-written opinion pieces in the newspaper at Benilde-St. Margaret in St. Louis Park, Minn., defended gay teenagers and criticized a DVD by Minnesota's Catholic bishops that denounced same-sex marriage.

The editorials and the nearly 100 comments they generated were deleted from the newspaper's website over the weekend. The principal says they created confusion about church teaching and an intensity that made an unsafe environment for students.

Some comments praised a gay student's courage for writing about his experience. Others said the editorials shouldn't have been published at a Catholic school.

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Associated Press correspondent Shelia Byrd reports:

The lesbian who successfully challenged a rural Mississippi school district's ban on same-sex prom dates says she wept when she read about the recent spate of gay teen suicides linked to harassment.

Constance McMillen, who was recently named one of Glamour magazine's "Women of the Year 2010," told The Associated Press that she became a bullying victim after she challenged the Itawamba School District over a policy that prohibited her from bringing her girlfriend to the prom and wearing a tuxedo.

McMillen, 18, said she became emotional after reading about the suicides of 13-year-old Seth Walsh, of California, who hanged himself outside his home after enduring taunts from classmates, and of Tyler Clementi, an 18-year-old Rutgers University freshman who killed himself after his sexual encounter was secretly streamed online.

"I read it on Facebook. I was so upset about this that I could not sleep," McMillen said. "I knew it had to be terrible for them to choose death as a way to escape what they were living in."

McMillen said she has had her own suicidal thoughts.

"But I never really considered it to the point where I almost did it," she said. "Everybody thinks about it when times get hard."

Continue reading "Miss. teen talks about anti-gay bullies" »

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April Castro of the Associated Press reports:

Social conservatives are seeking to curtail references to Islam in Texas textbooks, warning of what they describe as a creeping Middle Eastern influence in the nation's publishing industry.

The State Board of Education plans to vote Friday on a one-page resolution calling on textbook publishers to limit what they print about Islam in world history books.

Critics say it's another example of the ideological board trying to politicize public education in the Lone Star State.

"It's just more of the same Islamaphobic, xenophobic attitude we've been seeing around the country," said Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Council of American Islamic Relations of Texas. "It's not like Muslims are not part of the country. This kind of attitude is not healthy, it's not even American."

Future boards that will choose the state's next generation of social studies texts would not be bound by the resolution.

The resolution cites world history books no longer used in Texas schools that it says devoted more lines of text to Islamic beliefs and practices than Christian beliefs and practices.

"Diverse reviewers have repeatedly documented gross pro-Islamic, anti-Christian distortions in social studies texts," reads a preliminary draft of the resolution.

Continue reading "Texas school board mulls limiting Islam references" »

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The University of California, Irvine has upheld its decision to suspend a campus Muslim group after some of its members disrupted a speech by the Israeli ambassador at a campus event, the Associated Press reports.

However, the university said last week it would lift the suspension of the Muslim Student Union on Dec. 31 instead of enforcing it for a full year.

In addition, the group will be on probation for two years instead of one, and members must complete 100 hours of community service.

Eleven students were arrested in February for disrupting Michael Oren's speech.

Hadeer Soliman, the group's interim vice president, says the punishment will affect hundreds of Muslims who regularly attend prayer meetings and socialize together.

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Amare Stoudemire already knows some Hebrew phrases and sports a Star of David tattoo. Now he's gone to Israel to explore what might be his Jewish heritage, the Associated Press reports.

The five-time NBA All-Star who recently signed with the New York Knicks is on a weeklong visit to learn about Israel, its language and religions. He believes he has "Hebrew roots" through his mother, Carrie.

"She studied the scriptures and history and she believes she is a Hebrew," he told The Associated Press on Friday in Jerusalem. "I grew up in a very spiritual home. It's not about religion, it's about spirituality for me."

Stoudemire said he was "soaking up the culture," with his girlfriend and a few other friends from home.

He has long suspected his Jewish lineage — Judaism is passed down through the mother's side. Stoudemire's agent, Happy Walters, said his client is a "student of history" and is "exploring religions in general." He added that Soudemire may turn to a genealogist when he returns to New York to dig deeper.

The 6-foot-10 forward signed a five-year, $100 million contract with the Knicks three weeks ago. He will now be playing in the city with the largest Jewish population in the United States.

The NBA features two Jewish players: Israeli Omri Casspi of the Sacramento Kings and Jordan Farmar of the New Jersey Nets. When Farmar joined the Los Angeles Lakers in 2006, he became the NBA's first Jewish player since Danny Schayes — son of Hall of Famer Dolph Schayes — retired in 1999.

Continue reading "NBA star Stoudemire in Israel to trace Jewish roots" »

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An Owings Mills contractor who has offered the Archdiocese of Baltimore $700,000 to help pay transportation costs for children displaced by the closing of 12 Catholic elementary schools has taken to the airwaves, encouraging families to take advantage of his offer.

Area radio listeners are growing familiar with the voice of Danny Schuster, Baltimore Sun colleague Mary Gail Hare reports: Schuster, who owns a concrete company, took to the airwiaves earlier this year to protest the school closings.

He has taken a different tack this time, hoping to boost enrollment by helping students get to schools, including Holy Angels, an elementary the archdiocese is opening this fall on the campus of Seton Keough High School. There had been some concern that there would not be enough transferring students to fill the school.

"The archbishop and I have worked out a transportation plan," Schuster tells Hare. "Our goal is to get as many of these kids to take advantage of the offer and to continue their Catholic education."

Read more about Danny Schuster's help for Catholic School students at baltimoresun.com.

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The Mississippi school district that canceled a high school prom rather than allow a senior to bring her girlfriend has reached a settlement with the student, her attorneys said Tuesday.

The Itawamba County School District has agreed to pay 18-year-old Constance McMillen $35,000 plus attorneys fees, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. The district also agreed to implement a policy banning discrimination or harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity – the first such policy in Mississippi – according to the ACLU.

"I'm so glad this is all over,” McMillen, a student at Itawamba Agricultural High School in in Jackson, Miss., said in a statement distributed by the ACLU. “I won't ever get my prom back, but it's worth it if it changes things at my school.”

According to the ACLU, McMillen suffered such harassment at IAHS that she transferred to another school to complete her senior year. The ACLU has accused district officials of staging a sham prom for McMillen while classmates attended a separate event elsewhere.

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Categories: Culture, Education, Law and Courts, People, Politics, Sexuality
        

A European ruling banning crucifixes in Italian schools should be overturned, nine European governments said in an appeal Wednesday, the Associated Press reports.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled that crucifixes in Italian public schools violate religious and education freedoms last November. The case, part of a larger debate over the role of religious symbols in public places, has sharpened divisions between secular and religious advocacy groups.

Italian courts have previously ruled that the display of crucifixes is part of Italian national identity and not an attempt at conversion, an argument expanded by New York University legal scholar Joseph Weiler on behalf of the governments of Italy, Armenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, San Marino, Romania and Russia, who are appealing the ruling.

The decisions of the court — an arm of the Council of Europe, the continent's premier human rights watchdog — are binding on the council's 47 member states and therefore have an impact far beyond Italy.

"The democratic cohesion of society is dependent on the ability to uphold national symbols around which all society can coalesce," Weiler said. "It would be a strange (if Italy) had to abandon national symbols, and strip from its cultural identikit, any symbol which also had a religious significance."

Continue reading "Ban on crucifixes in Italian schools appealed" »

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An ideologically split Supreme Court ruled Monday that a law school can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that won't let gays join, with one justice saying that the First Amendment does not require a public university to validate or support the group's "discriminatory practices," the Associated Press reports.

The court turned away an appeal from the Christian Legal Society, which sued to get funding and recognition from the University of California's Hastings College of the Law. The CLS requires that voting members sign a statement of faith and regards "unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle" as being inconsistent with that faith.

But Hastings, which is in San Francisco, said no recognized campus groups may exclude people due to religious belief or sexual orientation.

The court on a 5-4 judgment upheld the lower court rulings saying the Christian group's First Amendment rights of association, free speech and free exercise were not violated by the college's nondiscrimination policy.

"In requiring CLS — in common with all other student organizations — to choose between welcoming all students and forgoing the benefits of official recognition, we hold, Hastings did not transgress constitutional limitations," said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the 5-4 majority opinion for the court's liberals and moderate Anthony Kennedy. "CLS, it bears emphasis, seeks not parity with other organizations, but a preferential exemption from Hastings' policy."

Justice Samuel Alito wrote a strong dissent for the court's conservatives, saying the opinion was "a serious setback for freedom of expression in this country."

Continue reading "Court: School can deny $$$ to group that bars gays" »

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A Baptist minister who toured the country to talk about his conversion from Islam to Christianity is no longer the dean of Liberty University's theological seminary following allegations he fabricated or embellished facts about his past, the Associated Press reports.

The university founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell said that a board of trustees committee concluded Ergun Caner made contradictory statements. Although it didn't find evidence that he was not a Muslim who converted as a teenager, it did discover problems with dates, names and places he says he lived, a statement said.

Caner will remain on the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary faculty, but won't be dean when his term expires on June 30.

"Caner has cooperated with the board committee and has apologized for the discrepancies and misstatements that led to this review," the school said.

Continue reading "Convert loses deanship at Falwell's university" »

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From time to time, we post an item that might not deal directly with religion, but airs a conflict between competing values that we believe might interest our readers. This report from the Associated Press is one such item.

A Rhode Island boy whose school banned a hat he made because the toy soldiers on it carried tiny guns was awarded a medal on Friday for his patriotic efforts, the Associated Press reports.

Lt. Gen. Reginald Centracchio, the retired head of the Rhode Island National Guard, gave 8-year-old David Morales a medal called a challenge coin during an appearance on WPRO-AM's John DePetro show.

Centracchio said the second-grader should be thanked for recognizing veterans and soldiers.

"You did nothing wrong, and you did an outstanding job," he said. "We can only hope that kids of your caliber will continue to defend this country."

Centracchio also gave David a certificate that allows him to call himself a brigadier general.

David was assigned to make a hat last week for a project at the Tiogue School in Coventry. He chose a patriotic theme and glued plastic Army figures to a camouflage baseball cap. But school officials said the hat ran afoul of their no-weapons policy because the Army men held tiny guns.

The school has said David was offered the chance to wear the hat if he replaced the toy soldiers holding weapons with ones that didn't have any. Centracchio said that didn't make sense because soldiers are armed, and met with school administrators Thursday to share his concerns.

David said he felt great and called it an honor.

"I think it's really special," he said. "I'm going to definitely enjoy this day for a long time."

Also Friday, the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said it sent a letter to Coventry Superintendent Kenneth DiPietro saying the school's policy was an unconstitutional violation of students' free speech. It called on the district to revise the policy.

DiPietro did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

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Tens of thousands of black-clad ultra-Orthodox Jews staged mass demonstrations on Thursday to protest a Supreme Court ruling forcing the integration of a religious girls' school, the Associated Press reports.

Protesters snarled traffic in Jerusalem and another large religious enclave, crowded onto balconies in crowded city squares, and waved posters decrying the court's decision and proclaiming the supremacy of religious law. There were no reports of violence.

The showdown shined a spotlight on a wide array of social issues Israel has been grappling with for years, including discrimination inside the Jewish community, the disproportionate clout of the country's ultra-Orthodox minority and the precarious state of the country's education system.

Parents of European, or Ashkenazi, descent at a girls' school in the West Bank settlement of Emanuel don't want their children to study with schoolgirls of Mideast and North African descent, known as Sephardim.

The Ashkenazi parents insist they aren't racist, but want to keep the classrooms segregated, as they have been for years, arguing that the families of the Sephardi girls aren't religious enough.

Continue reading "Ultra-Orthodox Jews protest school integration" »

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A University of California, Irvine, disciplinary committee ruled that a Muslim student group should be suspended for at least a year because of a protest that disrupted a talk by Israel's ambassador and led to the arrest of 11 students, according to documents released Monday.

The letter from a student affairs disciplinary committee to Muslim Student Union leaders said the group was guilty of disorderly conduct, obstructing university activities, furnishing false information and other violations of campus policy, the Associated Press reports.

University spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon said the committee's decision will be a binding recommendation to the campus' office of student affairs if a planned appeal by the group does not succeed.

MSU attorney Reem Salahi said the committee relied on evidence relied that was "inadequate and problematic" but declined to outline the group's challenge in detail. She said the decision, if sustained, would leave Muslim students without an organization representing their interests.

"It really does have very lasting constitutional implications," she said. "It's a chilling effect for Muslims on campus and their right to associate."

Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren was repeatedly interrupted and called "murderer" and "war criminal" by pro-Palestinian students as he was giving a talk on the Middle East peace process in February.

Eleven students were cited on charges of disrupting a public event after they were requested to refrain from heckling but did not.

Continue reading "Muslim group faces suspension for Israel protest" »

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A federal appeals court has decided not to immediately hear the case of a Connecticut school district that wants to hold high school graduations inside a megachurch, the Associated Press reports.

In denying the town of Enfield's request Monday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals noted that the school board had already decided to hold the 2010 graduations on school grounds even if the appeal succeeded.

The town wanted the court to overturn a temporary injunction issued by U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall. The judge found that holding the June 23 and 24 graduations at the 3,000-seat First Cathedral Baptist Church would amount to an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion.

Hall is expected to hear the full lawsuit before next year's graduation plans are set.

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The Russian Orthodox Church called Wednesday for an end to the "monopoly of Darwinism" in Russian schools, saying religious explanations of creation should be taught alongside evolution, Reuters reports.

The British news agency says Russian liberals have vowed to fight efforts to include religious teaching in schools. Russia's dominant church has experienced a revival in recent years, worrying rights groups who say its power is undermining the country's secular constitution.

The report continues:

"The time has come for the monopoly of Darwinism and the deceptive idea that science in general contradicts religion. These ideas should be left in the past," senior Russian Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion said at a lecture in Moscow.

"Darwin's theory remains a theory. This means it should be taught to children as one of several theories, but children should know of other theories too."

Read the rest of the Reuters story.

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A federal judge on Monday ruled that Enfield High School and Enrico Fermi High School will not be able to hold their graduations at First Cathedral, culminating a months-long debate over whether it is unconstitutional to host students' ceremonies at the megachurch, Baltimore Sun sister paper (and this blogger's first employer) The Hartford Courant reports.

The Enfield school system plans to appeal the judge's decision, Courant reporter Jenna Carlesso writes. Her report continues:

U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall last week heard closing arguments in a legal challenge that five Enfield residents — two high school seniors and three parents — filed to block the town from renting the 3,000-seat Christian church in nearby Bloomfield. The graduations are scheduled for June 23 and 24.

In her ruling Monday, Hall wrote that the school system's decision to hold graduations at First Cathedral violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

"By choosing to hold graduations at First Cathedral, Enfield schools sends the message that it is closely linked with First Cathedral and its religious mission, that it favors the religious over the irreligious and that it prefers Christians over those that subscribe to other faiths, or no faith at all," Hall wrote. "In addition to the character of the forum, the history and context of the decision to hold the graduations at First Cathedral also support the conclusion that, in doing so, Enfield Public Schools has endorsed religion."

Continue reading "Judge blocks public school graduation in church" »

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Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley on Wednesday defended a priest who denied admission to a parish school to a gay couple's child, calling it a pastoral decision and saying the priest had his "full confidence and support," the Associated Press reports.

O'Malley's comments on his blog were his first public remarks about the decision earlier this month by St. Paul Elementary School in Hingham to rescind the boy's acceptance because his parents are lesbians.

A parent of the boy said the Rev. James Rafferty, the parish priest at St. Paul's, said her relationship was "in discord" with church teachings, which sees marriage as only between a man and a woman. She said the principal told her teachers wouldn't be prepared to handle the boy's questions when he realized the church's view of family conflicted with what he saw at home. The parent spoke to The Associated Press but asked not to be named to protect the welfare of the child.

The decision prompted calls for O'Malley to intervene. The Catholic Schools Foundation, which O'Malley chairs, said the decision was at odds with Gospel teaching, and it wouldn't fund schools that made similar decisions.

The archdiocese's head of education later called the parent, apologized and offered to help the 8-year-old enroll in another Catholic school.

O'Malley said Rafferty had come under "undue criticism" for the decision.

"He made a decision about the admission of the child to St. Paul School based on his pastoral concern for the child," O'Malley wrote. "I can attest personally that Father Rafferty would never exclude a child to sanction the child's parents."

Continue reading "Boston cardinal: Catholic schools open to all" »

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The head of education for the Boston Archdiocese offered Thursday to help find a different Catholic school for a boy denied acceptance at a Hingham Catholic school because his parents are gay, the Associated Press reports.

In a statement, superintendent Mary Grassa O'Neill said she spoke with a parent of the 8-year-old boy and "offered to help enroll her child in another Catholic school in the archdiocese."

"We believe that every parent who wishes to send their child to a Catholic school should have the opportunity to pursue that dream," O'Neill said.

The parent, who has remained anonymous to protect her child from publicity, called the archdiocese's response "compassionate" and said O'Neill apologized. But the woman said she was uncertain she would enroll her son in another Catholic school because she needed to learn more about their educational programs.

She added: "I will be a little bit more guarded in my questioning so I'll be able to have a real clear picture where they stand."

The boy was to enter third grade at St. Paul Elementary School in the fall. But the woman said the parish priest, the Rev. James Rafferty, began asking questions about her relationship during a meeting last week.

Continue reading "Church to help find school for lesbians' son" »

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The Archdiocese of Baltimore's first new elementary school in more than 60 years will be called Holy Angels Catholic School, the archdiocese announced Tuesday.

“We are delighted to have this much anticipated name for our new school," said Father Charles Hall Catholic Elementary School Principal Kathleen Filipelli, who will head Holy Angels in the fall. "Bravo to the Catholic school parents, students, and teachers who allowed the angels to guide them. Holy Angels Catholic School will be a positive and happy learning community."

The school is set to open for 2010-11 on the grounds of Seton Keough High School as part of the school reorganization announced last month by Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien. It is expected to attract students from Ascension School, St. Bernardine Catholic School, Father Charles Hall Catholic Elementary School, St. Rose of Lima School and St. William of York School, all of which the archdiocese plans to close at the end of the current school year.

If funding and enrollment permit, O'Brien said, the archdiocese eventually will build a new facility for the school.

The name Holy Angels finished first among five options in an online survey last week with 42 percent of the vote. Students were also allowed to write in choices.

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Facing financial difficulties, Yeshivat Rambam is trying to sell its Park Heights Avenue campus, Baltimore Sun colleague Robbie Whelan reports.

Officials at the Orthodox Jewish day school said Thursday the school would remain open through the end of the academic year, helped in part by short-term financing from the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore. After this year, however, the school will have to relocate.

In a letter to parents this week, officials referred to "perennial rumors of insolvency" and said the sale of the campus at 6300 Park Heights Ave. was inevitable.

The school's "debt made cash flow very tight and negatively impacted mission execution," they wrote. "Much time and many resources were being diverted from building Rambam's future and were, instead, being used to finance past debt."

Read the story at baltimoresun.com.

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The Archdiocese of Baltimore will open an English-Spanish immersion program next fall at the Archbishop Borders School in Highlandtown, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien announced Monday.

“Beginning this program in kindergarten and first grade will allow our students a longer sequence of instruction and gives them the best path for emerging from 8th grade fluent in both languages,” Cathy Marshall, Principal of Archbishop Borders School, said in a statement. “Younger children have the ability to develop language skills because they have better mental flexibly and improved listening and memory and listening skills.”

The announcement follows news this month that the archdiocese will close 13 of its 64 schools at the end of the academic year, part of a school consolidation that officials say is necessary to keep the system viable in the face of falling enrollments and rising costs.

At Archbishop Borders, English and Spanish are to be taught in kindergarten and first grade before expanding in future years to the entire school. The goal of the program is to produce graduates who are fluent in both languages.

Continue reading "Archdiocese to establish English-Spanish school" »

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Lawmakers in Florida have voted to advance legislation to allow organized prayer at school-sponsored events. Josh Hafenbrack, a statehouse reporter for Baltimore Sun sister paper the Sun-Sentinel, has the story:

Students could lead prayers at school functions such as football games and the senior prom, under a controversial bill advanced by a Florida House committee Wednesday.

Despite objections from Democrats and civil liberties groups who called the effort "patently unconstitutional," the House PreK-12 Education Committee approved the prayer bill (HB11) on a largely party line, 10-3 vote.

Students would be allowed to initiate and lead prayers at assemblies and extracurricular events. The bill bans teachers, administrators and school boards from "discouraging or inhibiting the delivery of an inspirational message," which includes a "prayer or invocation."

Opponents said the prayer-in-school bill would subject students from minority religions, such as Jewish and Muslim students, to majority Christian views.

"When we start breaking down the First Amendment, it is the breaking of our fabric," said Rep. Kevin Rader, D-Delray Beach. Rader, who is Jewish, recalled sitting uncomfortably during team prayers while he was a high school student-athlete. "I remember it like it was yesterday."

Supporters, however, cast the bill as a free-speech issue for students who want to pray at school functions.

"That's the reason we have to have this bill – to protect people's First Amendment rights," said Rep. Greg Evers, R-Baker. "This is not necessarily a prayer bill. It's a rights bill."

Continue reading "Florida lawmakers advance school prayer bill" »

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Brent Childers is executive director of Faith In America, a national nonprofit organization founded "to educate Americans about the harm caused when religious teaching is misused to justify prejudice, discrimination and violence against people based solely on their sexual orientation."

If the Texas State Board of Education moves to include mention of Phyllis Schlafly and Jerry Falwell in school textbooks, Faith In America hopes they will document how harmful their anti-gay actions have been to millions of gay and lesbian youth.

The Texas State Board of Education in a 10-5 party line vote approved some controversial alterations to what most students in the state and other areas of the country will be studying as history. After a public comment period, the board will vote on final recommendations in May.

According to an Associated Press story, it would mean not only increased favorable mentions of anti-gay activist Phyllis Schlafly but also more discussion about the anti-gay Moral Majority and Heritage Foundation.

The bigotry, prejudice and violence that has been justified and promoted by these so-called conservative groups has inflicted a horrific toll on the lives of gay and lesbian individuals, especially youth. It's unimaginable that millions of kids across this nation may now be taught that people who espouse and promote religion-based bigotry are to be looked upon as favorable.

History, time and time again, has judged such religion-based bigotry as harmful and unacceptable, whether such bigotry and prejudice was perpetrated toward American Natives, women or African-Americans. Apologies have been issued by the church and others for their role in promoting religion-based bigotry toward a minority group.

I recall how his own past bigotry and prejudice toward gay Americans was fostered and reinforced by Falwell and other anti-gay figures who for years used the religious and political arenas to promote the attitude that it's OK to be prejudiced and hostile toward gay and lesbian individuals.

Continue reading "Guest post: Document harm of anti-gay actions" »

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Baltimore Sun staff writer Arthur Hirsch contributes a report:

With the meter running on decisions about choosing another Catholic school, more than 100 Cardinals Gibbons School parents and students streamed through a suite of rooms upstairs in the Fine Arts Building Monday evening to check out their options.

Representatives of 10 high schools from as far away as Annapolis and as close as a couple miles away had set up tables at the southwest Baltimore campus to dispense information and answer questions. With Gibbons scheduled to close in June as part of the Archdiocese of Baltimore's plan to reshape its school system, there were lots of questions, many concerning money in one way or another. Would their child's Gibbons scholarship continue? Would the archdiocese cover the difference between the Gibbons tuition and the new school?

"You'd think they have funds to offset this difference in the tuition," said Shawn Blum, of Halethorpe. His son, Riley, was on a full scholarship in his junior year at Gibbons and is now thinking about transferring to Mt. St. Joseph, the next nearest Catholic school, but at more than $11,000 in tuition, $1,000 more that at Gibbons. That could work, Blum said, but it might depend on the scholarship. In in the end it could mean Riley completes a senior year at Landsdowne High School, a nearby public school.

"A lot of students are really upset," Blum said. "Their parents had paid to go to Catholic school, then they have to finish it up at a public school."

More than 2,100 students in 13 schools are being displaced, and the archdiocese has promised each one a seat in a Catholic school, either among the 52 remaining archdiocesan schools or independent institutions. Applications are due on March 29, with admissions offices scheduled to mail out their decision letters on April 13.

"The Catholic schools stood up tonight and said 'We're here for you,' " said Mark D. Pacione, the archdiocesan associate director for Catholic schools planning.

Parents had come to gather information this time, not vent their anger as they had a week before as a standing-room crowd of some 1,000 packed the school auditorium to face archdiocesan officials. But it was clear that the wounds were still fresh, and there was still talk of ulterior motives in closing the boys' school, and of giving Gibbons another chance independent of the archdiocese.

Continue reading "After school closings, shopping for new options" »

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The decision by a Rome high school to install condom vending machines has set off a storm in Italy, with the Catholic Church charging the move will encourage young people to have sex and Rome's mayor saying it sends the wrong message, the Associated Press reports.

But the Keplero high school vowed Thursday to go ahead with its experiment, billed as the first in the capital. While it's a relative novelty for Italy, schools in several other European countries have installed the machines in hopes of curbing teen pregnancy and HIV.

"This is not about stimulating the use condoms or intercourse," Antonio Panaccione, the school headmaster, told The Associated Press. "On the contrary, it's about prevention and education."

The school plans to install six vending machines as part of educating students about sexuality and HIV protection. The price: euro2 (US$2.70) for a pack of three, lower than market prices.

Cardinal Agostino Vallini, the pope's vicar for Rome, said the decision trivialized sex. He said it "cannot be approved by Rome's ecclesiastical community or by Christian families who are seriously concerned with the education of their children."

The newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference said Thursday that sex was being reduced to "mere physical exercise." The newspaper, L'Avvenire, lamented that young people these days have no spiritual guidance on sexuality, and that educators are more concerned with "the health and hygiene consequences of sex" than its moral implications.

Read the Associated Press story.

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Supporters of the Cardinal Gibbons School are asking the Archdiocese of Baltimore if they can rent the property and coninue operating the landmark institution as an independent Catholic high school. But the day after an auxiliary bishop said Monday that church officials would consider all options, the archdiocese splashed cold water on the idea.

Cardinal Gibbons is the only high school among the 13 schools the archdiocese is planning to close at the end of the academic year.

"The thought that the existing school community could raise the kind of money necessary to run the school is not realistic and not being considered," archdiocesan spokesman Sean Caine said Tuesday. To suggest that the archdiocese is taking that idea seriously "would just be giving people false hope. And that's not fair."

Alumnus Tom Grace said Bishop Denis J. Madden sent a different signal on Monday.

"We don't care what Sean Caine says," he said. "Bishop Madden has clearly left the door open. He has told us he will talk again with the archbishop and get back to us. We are taking the man at his word."

Asked at a meeting packed with hundreds of students, parents and alumni Monday if the archdiocese would allow Gibbons to "go independent and rent the buildings at a minimal cost to the Archdiocese of Baltimore," Madden said that "all kinds of options are being considered." The response drew a standing ovation from the crowd.

"The bishop gave us a glimmer of hope," David Brown, the school's principal, said Tuesday. "With that glimmer out there, several of our most prominent alumni are working on the idea of Cardinal Gibbons operating as an independent Catholic school. I think there is growing support for the idea."

Read more at baltimoresun.com.

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A Catholic school in Colorado is drawing criticism for its refusal to readmit the young children of a lesbian couple.

The school of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Boulder has informed the couple that the older of the two children may attend kindergarten next year, but may not advance to the first grade; the younger child may complete preschool, but may not advance to kindergarten.

News of the exclusions drew some two dozen protesters outside Mass on Sunday, Denver station KMGH-TV reports.

"God and Jesus would not allow discrimination in that way," Joellen Raderstorf told the ABC affiliate. At least one parishioner appeared to agree.

"I just feel the Catholic Church is a church that should be teaching acceptance and tolerance,” Juli Aderman-Hagerty said as she was leaving Mass. “I just don't think this is an example of that.”

Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput called it a “painful situation.”

“The Church never looks for reasons to turn anyone away from a Catholic education,” he wrote in a column for the Denver Catholic Register. “But the Church can’t change her moral beliefs without undermining her mission and failing to serve the many families who believe in that mission.”

Chaput drew attention during the 2004 presidential campaign when he told The New York Times that voting for a candidate such as John Kerry, a supporter of abortion rights, would be a sin, and Catholics who did so would be required to confess before they could take communion.

More recently, he decried a “spirit of adulation bordering on servility" among some Catholic supporters of President Barack Obama. “In democracies,” he said, “we elect public servants, not messiahs."

In his column, Chaput writes that the church does not claim that people of homosexual orientation are “bad,” or that their children are less loved by God.

“Quite the opposite,” he writes. “But what the Church does teach is that sexual intimacy by anyone outside marriage is wrong; that marriage is a sacramental covenant; and that marriage can only occur between a man and a woman. These beliefs are central to a Catholic understanding of human nature, family and happiness, and the organization of society. The Church cannot change these teachings because, in the faith of Catholics, they are the teachings of Jesus Christ.”

He writes that the policies of the Catholic schools exists to protect all parties, including homosexual couples and their children.

“Our schools are meant to be ‘partners in faith’ with parents,” he writes. “If parents don’t respect the beliefs of the Church, or live in a manner that openly rejects those beliefs, then partnering with those parents becomes very difficult, if not impossible. It also places unfair stress on the children, who find themselves caught in the middle, and on their teachers, who have an obligation to teach the authentic faith of the Church. …

“Most parents who send their children to Catholic schools want an environment where the Catholic faith is fully taught and practiced. That simply can’t be done if teachers need to worry about wounding the feelings of their students or about alienating students from their parents. … Persons who have an understanding of marriage and family life sharply different from Catholic belief are often people of sincerity and good will. They have other, excellent options for education and should see in them the better course for their children.”

The LGBT group Boulder Pride says on its Web site that it “extends its support to the family and stands in solidarity with the teachers at Sacred Heart who disagree with the Archdiocese's decision and with members of the community who are concerned that the Archdiocese has ignored the fullness of Catholic understanding of welcome and love, and instead is using a child to make a political point and not a theological one. All schools, private and public, should provide safe, welcoming learning environments to all students. A child should never be singled out to make a political statement.”

Continue reading "Catholic school excluding children of gay couple" »

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The pope's brother said in a newspaper interview published Tuesday that he slapped pupils as punishment after he took over a renowned German boys' choir in the 1960s, the Associated Press reports. He also said he was aware of allegations of physical abuse at an elementary school linked to the choir but did nothing about it.

The Rev. Georg Ratzinger, 86, said he was completely unaware of allegations of sexual abuse at the Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir, part of a string of charges of sex abuse by church employees across Europe in recent days, the AP reports.

Responding to accusations that its policies encouraged silence about the problem, the Vatican said that the sexual abuse scandals in Germany and other countries were cause for anguish but its response has been prompt and transparent

The scandal sweeping church institutions in many European countries kept widening Tuesday.

In Austria, the head of a Benedictine monastery in Salzburg admitted to sexually abusing a child decades ago and resigned. Dutch Catholic bishops announced an independent inquiry into more than 200 allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests at church schools and apologized to victims.

The German abuse allegations are particularly sensitive because Germany is the homeland of Pope Benedict XVI and because the scandals involve the prestigious choir that was led by Georg Ratzinger from 1964 till 1994.

Continue reading "Pope's brother aware of physical, not sexual abuse" »

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After nearly a week of saying that its decision to close 13 of its 64 schools at the end of the academic year was not reversible, the Archdiocese of Baltimore offered a glimmer of hope to students, parents and alumni at the Cardinal Gibbons School.

Facing a sea of red Monday night in the school auditorium, Bishop Denis J. Madden entertained a parent's question about whether the archdiocese would lease the property to the Cardinal Gibbons community and allow it to continue as an independent Catholic school.

"All kinds of options are being considered," Madden told the standing-room-only crowd, to thunderous applause.

"He really opened a door there," said local broadcaster Keith Mills, whose son, Nicholas, is president of the National Honor Society at the high school.

The meeting was one of three held simultaneously on Monday, the first opportunity for families from the affected schools to confront archdiocesan officials since the closings were announced last week. Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien did not attend any of the meetings; a spokesman cited a scheduling conflict.

Read more at baltimoresun.com.

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Facing rising costs and falling enrollments, the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore will close 13 of its 64 schools at the end of the academic year, officials have told employees and families, displacing 2,152 students and 325 teachers, staff and administrators. Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien says all displaced students will be given a spot in a different school. It is not clear how many employees will lose their jobs.

The Baltimore Sun has produced a package on the school reorganization:

13 Catholic schools to shut in June

Gibbons community stunned by closing

Neighborhood wonders what will happen

For one Baltimore school, sighs of relief

Public schools expect to be able to take in students

Letter to parents from Achbishop Edwin F. O'Brien

What they're saying about closings

School reorganization map

Histories of schools to close

Photo gallery: Catholic schools to close

Photo gallery: Prominent Cardinal Gibbons alumni

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The conflict that led to hundreds of demonstrators to walk out of Mass at a Dutch church on Sunday appears to have come to an end.

Dutch gay rights groups have called for a halt to protests against a Catholic church southwest of Amsterdam after it said it would no longer seek to bar homosexuals from taking communion, the Associated Press reports.

The Sint-Jan church in Den Bosch -- also called 's-Hertogenbosch -- says it will leave it up to believers to decide whether they are ready to receive communion, according to the AP.

Activists staged the walkout to protest a priest’s refusal to give communion to a practicing homosexual. Having foreseen the protest, the church had decided not give communion to anyone.

The dispute began in February, when a priest in nearby Reusel refused communion to the openly gay carnival prince of that nearby town, the BBC reports. Same-sex marriage is legal in the Netherlands, but the Catholic Church teaches homosexual acts are sinful.

Thanks to BankStreet for sending us a heads-up.

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The Archdiocese of Baltimore will close 13 schools at the end of the academic year, officials told employees and parents Wednesday.

They include one high school, the Cardinal Gibbons School in Morrell Park, and 12 K-8 schools. While the archdiocese extends from Baltimore and surrounding counties to Western Maryland, all of the schools to close are in Baltimore or Baltimore County.

The city will lose 9 of its 30 Catholic schools. They are St. Bernadine Catholic School, Fr. Charles Hall Catholic Elementary and Middle School, St. Katharine School and Queen of Peace Cluster, Mother Mary Lange Catholic School, Our Lady of Fatima School, St. Rose of Lima School, Shrine of the Sacred Heart School, St. William of York School and Cardinal Gibbons.

The county will lose four of its 27 schools. They are Ascension School in Halethorpe, St. Clare School in Essex, Holy Family School in Randallstown and Sacred Heart of Mary School in Dundalk.

The reorganization will displace 2,152 of the system's 22,700 students. Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien has promised a spot at a different school to every student displaced by a school closing.

The reorganization will also displace 325 teachers, administrators and staff. It is not clear how many will lose their jobs in the system.

Read more at baltimoresun.com.

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The Cardinal Gibbons School, an academic and athletic powerhouse in Baltimore for decades, will close at the end of the academic year, according to an announcement on a Facebook page devoted to the school.

"At the end of this academic year, the Cardinal Gibbons School will close it's [sic] doors," the posting read. "As part of the consolidation of the Catholic School System, the Archdiocese of Baltimore has chosen CG as one of the schools to close. James Cardinal Gibbons, pray for us. Live Jesus in our hearts, forever."

Archdiocesan officials met with principals Wednesday morning to detail a reorganization plan expected to include several school closings. Students are being sent home with letters describing the fates of their schools.

Gibbons, which opened in 1962, has been suffering declining enrollments and increasing costs for much of the past decade. It was built on the former site of St. Mary's Industrial School, which Babe Ruth attended.

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An atheist group asked students at the University of Texas, San Antonio, to trade in their Bibles for pornography.

KENS-TV in San Antonio reports that the activists set up a table on campus with a sign advertising "Trade in Holy Text 4 Porn" -- a deal they described as "Smut for Smut."

Some students gathered nearby to pray, KENS-TV reports.

After the event, the atheist group posted on their Twitter page, "Too often are we ignored this seems to get people to actually talk to us instead of ignore us."

The atheist group told KENS-TV it would donate its Bibles to local libraries.

http://www.kens5.com/news/local/Smut-for-smut-Bibles-for-porn-offer-draws-protesters-at-UTSA-85857462.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter.

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Longtime advocates of a tax credit for businesses that make donations to schools are hoping that the school closings to be announced this week by the Archdiocese of Baltimore will help build support for their cause, Baltimore Sun colleague Arthur Hirsch writes.

On Wednesday, the day the archdiocese of Baltimore gives details of its school reorganization plan to principals, teachers, parents and students, supporters of this year’s bill will rally in Annapolis. In past sessions, the Senate has passed the tax credit but it has died in the House.

Mary Ellen Russell, executive director of the Maryland Catholic Conference, was optimistic that news of the school closings – which was the most viewed story on the Sun Web site for much of Sunday -- would have “a tremendous impact on the General Assembly. ... It's demonstrating what we've been saying for years about the need for this legislation."

Sen. James E. DeGrange Sr. and Del. James E. Proctor Jr., both Democrats, have sponsored companion bills that would give Maryland businesses a 75 percent state tax credit for donations to organizations supporting scholarships and school programs.

Six states -- Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Rhode Island -- have enacted similar legislation. But the effort has drawn consistent opposition from the Maryland State Education Association, the state's largest teachers' union with 71,000 members, which says a tax credit would divert public money from public schools.

Facing rising costs and declining enrollment, the archdiocese is expected to close several schools at the end of the academic year. Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien is expected to announce details on Thursday.

Read the story at baltimoresun.com.

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Political liberalism, atheism and sexual exclusivity among males may be reflections of intelligence, according to a study of Americans by an evolutionary pyschologist at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

CNN reports that the study by Satoshi Kanazawa correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings are to be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.

From the CNN report:

The IQ differences, while statistically significant, are not stunning -- on the order of 6 to 11 points -- and the data should not be used to stereotype or make assumptions about people, experts say. But they show how certain patterns of identifying with particular ideologies develop, and how some people's behaviors come to be.

The reasoning is that sexual exclusivity in men, liberalism and atheism all go against what would be expected given humans' evolutionary past. In other words, none of these traits would have benefited our early human ancestors, but higher intelligence may be associated with them.

"The adoption of some evolutionarily novel ideas makes some sense in terms of moving the species forward," said George Washington University leadership professor James Bailey, who was not involved in the study. "It also makes perfect sense that more intelligent people -- people with, sort of, more intellectual firepower -- are likely to be the ones to do that."

Bailey also said that these preferences may stem from a desire to show superiority or elitism, which also has to do with IQ. In fact, aligning oneself with "unconventional" philosophies such as liberalism or atheism may be "ways to communicate to everyone that you're pretty smart," he said.

Read the story at cnn.com.

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On Wednesday, the Archdiocese of Baltimore will tell principals and parents which of its 64 schools it plans to close at the end of the academic year.

Baltimore Sun colleague Arthur Hirsch has a story about the forces that are reshaping Catholic education in the traditional strongholds of the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, and what the Baltimore reorganization will mean for the system's 22,700 students.

Over the past decade, Principal Pamela K. Sanders has watched as enrollment at St. Ambrose Catholic School has fallen by more than half. Now she wonders if she'll soon have no school at all.

On Wednesday, the Archdiocese of Baltimore will tell principals, teachers, parents and students about plans to close many of its 64 schools at the end of the academic year and reorganize the system of 22,700 students.

Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien is taking the steps in the face of rising costs and falling enrollments, problems affecting many of the oldest and largest Catholic school systems in the country.

"We've been praying, the parish has been praying," said Sanders, who has seen the kindergarten to eighth grade at St. Ambrose drop from 330 students when she arrived in 2000 to 160 today. On Wednesday, she said, "at least the uncertainty will be over. So much anxiety comes from the uncertainty."

If the school on Park Heights Avenue, in a neighborhood of boarded-up homes and empty lots, is an extreme case of distress, it still reflects the broader challenges confronting Catholic schools in the traditional urban strongholds of the Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic and New England. The faithful have fled the cities for the suburbs, teaching sisters available to provide instruction at little cost have dwindled in number, and families have been less willing or able to pay rising tuitions.

In Baltimore, archdiocesan officials are attempting to address these problems - which mainly affect the elementary and middle schools - on two fronts. On Wednesday, O'Brien is to detail the plan to close some schools and merge others. He has pledged to offer a space at a new school to every student now enrolled at a school slated to close.

In June, a committee of local education, business and community leaders that O'Brien established a year ago will suggest ways to improve marketing and fundraising, along with other steps meant to keep the system going while sustaining its Catholic character.

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

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An Israeli archaeologist said Monday that ancient fortifications recently excavated in Jerusalem date back 3,000 years to the time of King Solomon and support the biblical narrative about the era, the Associated Press reports.

If the age of the wall is correct, the finding would be an indication that Jerusalem was home to a strong central government that had the resources and manpower needed to build massive fortifications in the 10th century B.C.

That's a key point of dispute among scholars, because it would match the Bible's account that the Hebrew kings David and Solomon ruled from Jerusalem around that time.

While some Holy Land archaeologists support that version of history — including the archaeologist behind the dig, Eilat Mazar — others posit that David's monarchy was largely mythical and that there was no strong government to speak of in that era.

Speaking to reporters at the site Monday, Mazar, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, called her find "the most significant construction we have from First Temple days in Israel."

"It means that at that time, the 10th century, in Jerusalem there was a regime capable of carrying out such construction," she said.

Read the Associated Press story.

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Bash Pharoan brings his campaign for recognition of Muslim holidays in the Baltimore County Public Schools to a meeting Monday of the school board’s calendar committee.

The president of the Baltimore chapter of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee issued an action alert over the weekend inviting supporters to the meeting:

The road towards recognition in a democracy is paved with hard work, persistence and community support. This is the 7th consecutive year that ADC Baltimore appeals the BCPS board of education for inclusion of the two Islamic holidays as school closing days, equal to the Jewish holidays. The school system closes on the Jewish holidays for religious reason and not a secular one. The calendar committee this year is the first stop in the making of school calendar. The committee members are educators and school supporters. They are members of the community and do respond to citizens requests. The school system needs to know that discrimination based on religious belief or national origin is wrong and is illegal. Your appearance Monday evening in support of granting the Islamic holidays as school closure days will be vital in the process of recognition.

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Christians in India are outraged after a picture showing Jesus Christ holding a beer can and a cigarette was discovered in primary school textbooks, Agence France-Presse reports.

The French news agency reports that the image was used in a handwriting book for children in church-run schools in the Christian-majority Indian state of Meghalaya, where it was used to illustrate the letter "I" for the word "Idol."

"We are deeply shocked and hurt at the objectionable portrayal of Jesus Christ in the school book. We condemn the total lack of respect for religions by the publisher," Shillong diocese Archbishop Dominic Jala told AFP.

Police now are looking for the owner of the New Delhi-based publisher, Skyline Publications, who faces charges of offending religious sentiment, police superintendent A.R. Mawthoh told AFP.

The Roman Catholic Church in India has banned all textbooks by Skyline, while Protestant leaders called for a public apology, AFP reports. The state government also denounced the publication.

Read the Agence France-Presse story.

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The Air Force Academy, the subject in recent years of complaints of religious proselytizing by Evangelical Christians, is planning to add a worship area for Wiccans, Druids and followers of other Earth-centered religions.

With plans for a dedication in March, the hilltop circle is to be the latest addition to a collection of worship areas that includes Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist sacred spaces, according to an academy release.

Tech. Sgt. Brandon Longcrier, NCO in charge of the Academy's Astronautics laboratories, worked with the academy chapel to create the official worship area for both cadets and other servicemembers in the Colorado Springs area, according to the release.

"Feel free to check the site out, but treat it as you would any other religious structure," said Longcrier, who became a Pagan shortly after arriving at the academy. He says academy chaplains have backed the effort.

"There really haven't been any obstacles for the new circle," he said. "The chaplain's office has been 100-percent supportive."

"Every servicemember is charged with defending freedom for all Americans, and that includes freedom to practice our religion of choice or, for that matter, not to practice any faith at all," said Lt. Col. William Ziegler, Cadet Wing chaplain. "Being in the military isn't just a job -- it's a calling. We all take an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and that means we've all sworn to protect one another's religious liberties. We all put on our uniforms the same way; we're all Airmen first."

Longcrier says the climate at the academy for practitioners of Earth-centered religions “has improved dramatically” since his arrival.

"When I first arrived here, Earth-centered cadets didn't have anywhere to call home," he said. "Now, they meet every Monday night, they get to go on retreats, and they have a stone circle. ... We have representation on the Cadet Interfaith Council, and I even meet with the Chaplains at Peterson Air Force Base once a year to discuss religious climate."

Continue reading "AF Academy embraces Wiccans, Pagans, Druids" »

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The American Astronomical Society this week honored Baltimore native George V. Coyne, the retired former director of the Vatican Observatory and a Jesuit priest, for his work in establishing a summer school for young astronomers and promoting discussions on faith and science, Catholic News Service reports.

Coyne, 76, received the George Van Biesbroeck Prize at the opening of the society’s 215th general meeting Monday in Washington. As The Catholic Review notes, Coyne graduated from Loyola High School in 1951 and was ordained at the now-defunct Woodstock College, then located in Howard County.

In presenting the honor, Catholic News Service reports society president John Huchra cited Father Coyne’s work with the Vatican Observatory Summer School, which brings 25 graduate students to the observatory’s headquarters in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, every two years for a month of intensive research.

“The prize means a lot to me personally,” Father Coyne told Catholic News Service. “It recognizes the Vatican Observatory as a research institute.”

Read the rest of the Catholic News Service story at catholicreview.org.

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In no particular order, as selected by the brain trust at In Good Faith world headquarters, and barring any unforeseen developments in the hours that remain. Comments?

Jewish Community Center opens on Saturdays, over objections of Orthodox community

Maryland priest becomes first lesbian Episcopal Bishop

Baltimore Hebrew University closes; reopens at Towson University

Muslims meet in Baltimore, denounce terror

Episcopal nuns join Catholic Church en masse

Catholic Diocese of Wilmington declares Bankruptcy

Death of Rabbi Mark Loeb

Towson Catholic High School closure surprises students, parents

Ecumenical Patriarch, head of Orthodox Christianity, visits Maryland

City Council passes first-in-nation regulations on faith-based crisis pregnancy centers

Atheists target Baltimore, ask: Are you good without God?

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It survived Hitler, Stalin, the decision to make Hebrew the official language of the State of Israel and the adoption of English by immigrants to the United States.

Now Yiddish, for 1,000 years the everyday language of European Jews, is facing another threat: budget cuts.

We have a story in Monday's Baltimore Sun about the dim future for Yiddish at the University of Maryland, one of the few schools in the nation that has consistently offered intruction in the Germanic tongue (Harvard, Columbia, Michigan and UCLA are others.)

The recent announcement that the Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies would be dropping it in the fall shocked area Yiddishists. The center now has cobbled together the money to pay its longtime instructor through the next academic year. But after that, director Hayim Lapin says, it is unlikely to continue funding a full-time faculty member dedicated to the language.

"This is not about Yiddish," says Lapin, whose parents spoke and taught the language. "What this is about is responding to the budget crisis and actually cutting back on just about all of our visiting faculty and programming, So we have less Bible than we had. We have less history than we had. We have less or no Yiddish."

Professor Miriam Isaacs, who has taught elementary and intermediate Yiddish at Maryland for 15 years, worries about a future without the language.

"It's not just at Maryland that I'm concerned," says Isaacs, born in postwar Germany, where Yiddish was her first language.

"We're at a critical point in that the generation of Holocaust survivors, my parents, they're not around anymore," she says. "Or if they're around, they can't do a lot of translating. So if nobody learns it, you know, the Holocaust Museum archive is full of Yiddish materials. The University of Maryland has been acquiring Yiddish books galore. Who is going to read them? Who is going to be able to have access to them?"

Read the story at baltimoresun.com.

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In the months since we started In Good Faith, we've attracted readers and commenters from all over the world. Ties to the Baltimore area will be helpful in spotting some familiar faces in the video above (the list appears at the end).

I wanted to take a moment to say a sincere thank you to all who have stopped by, and particularly to those who have joined in the spirited debate taking shape on these pages. During this holiday season, we wish the very best to everyone of every faith, and no faith at all.

I expect to be posting only lightly over the next few days as I take time off to spend with my family. As my father would say: Talk amongst yourselves.

Best,
Matt

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A Massachusetts school district late Tuesday denied a father's claims that his son was suspended for drawing a stick figure of Jesus on a cross, the Associated Press is reporting.

The Taunton School District said in a written statement that the second-grade student was never suspended over the sketch and that a drawing circulated to reporters by the boy's father, Chester Johnson, is not the same one that was discovered by the teacher earlier this month, the AP reports.

The district also denied the father's claims that the boy and his classmates were assigned by a teacher to draw something that reminded them of the holiday season.

Johnson did not return multiple phone messages from The Associated Press on Tuesday night about the school district's statements.

The original post follows:

An 8-year-old Massachusetts boy was sent home from school and ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation after he was asked to make a Christmas drawing and sketched what appeared to be a stick figure of Jesus on a cross, the Associated Press is reporting.

Chester Johnson of Taunton, Mass., said his son made the drawing on Dec. 2 after his second-grade teacher asked children to sketch something that reminded them of the holiday, according to the AP. The assignment came just days after the family had visited the holiday lights display at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Attleboro, Mass., where Johnson said his son seemed taken with the religious statues he saw there.

"When he seen the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross, that's what he drew," Johnson told the AP. "He liked that. That drew his eye."

Johnson, who works at the school as a janitor on a per diem basis, said administrators were concerned the boy drew Xs for Jesus' eyes, and particularly worried when his son said he'd drawn himself on the cross after officials pressed him about who he'd drawn.

Johnson said his son might have been worried about getting in trouble if he said he drew Jesus. "If he said it was him, it was more like a cartoon," Johnson said.

Superintendent Julie Hackett said she could not discuss an individual student and did not address the drawing specifically or the teacher's reaction to it, but did say the school has safety protocols in place that were followed.

Hackett did not return multiple calls from The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Read the rest of the Associated Press story.

AP photo

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The Vatican and the world’s largest particle physics laboratory are planning to collaborate on studies concerning the origin of the universe, Catholic News Service reports.

Ugo Amaldi, a professor of medical physics who works closely with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), said the Geneva-based laboratory would like to invite an astronomer from the Vatican Observatory to join in the research, CNS reports.

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, “is an international and European [facility], and to have the Vatican Observatory send some or one of its young scientists will be something that is extremely important,” Amaldi told reporters at the Vatican this week, CNS reports.

The head of the Vatican Observatory, the Rev. Jose Funes, said he hopes Gabriele Gionti, a young Vatican astronomer who will be ordained in June, will be involved, CNS reports. Gionti has a doctorate in physics and specializes in quantum gravity, CNS reports, and is finishing his theology studies at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley, Calif.

Father Funes told CNS that scientists at CERN are interested in “astroparticles – the first particles in the universe. And at the moment we don’t have anyone on our staff prepared to follow these studies. So maybe Gabriele Gionti has the background and the interest in collaborating on these topics.”

Amaldi told CNS that even though CERN scientists study subatomic particles and Vatican astronomers study large celestial objects and enormous galaxies, “there are theoretical similarities” in their research on the origin of the universe, stars and planets.

He told CNS that a Vatican collaborator ideally would stay a year to work closely with scientists conducting experiments with CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, which is used in experiments aimed at increasing understanding of what happened immediately after the Big Bang.

Read the rest of the story at catholicreview.org.

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Author Robert Greene, whose books on power and strategy have found an audience in the hip hop community, will be a featured guest at 9:15 a.m. Sunday at Bethel AME Church at 1300 Druid Hills Ave., Baltimore.

Greene's works include "The Art of Seduction," "The 33 Strategies of War," and "The 48 Laws of Power." His latest book, "The 50th Law," co-written with the rapper 50 Cent, is a favorite of the Rev. Dr. Frank M. Reid III, senior pastor at Bethel, who has been passing it out to church members and friends.

Greene will speak to the congregation and sign copies of the book.

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Monsignor F. Dennis Tinder, the pastor who made the controversial decision last summer to close Towson Catholic High School shortly before the start of the school year, has died, the Archdiocese of Baltimore announced on Saturday.

The 67-year-old priest had retired only last month, citing a neuromuscular disorder that affected his strength and motion. He spend his last nine years as pastor of Immaculate Conception in Towson, his childhood parish.

“We get so tied to this world with its shifting that we forget that we were made to go home,” he told The Catholic Review. “The God who made us is holding us and carrying us home.”

Tinder died late Friday, according to the archdiocese. In a statement, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien called his death “a devastating blow to the Immaculate Conception community and an immeasurable loss for our entire Archdiocese.

“At all four parishes where he served, as well as in his various administrative positions, Monsignor Tinder served always with a joyful heart and with great love for the Lord and those he served,” O’ Brien said.

"Let us give thanks to the Lord for the priestly ministry of His servant, Dennis, and pray in these days of Advent that He will welcome him into the Kingdom for which he labored so generously."

The decision to close Towson Catholic in the face of declining enrollments and rising costs drew protests from students and parents and a lawsuit that was unsuccessful.

Tinder told us in July that if he had to do it over, he would have closed the school earlier, to give students and their families more time to make alternate plans for the fall.

Continue reading "Monsignor Tinder dies" »

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Dr. Chris A. Brammer is pastor of Hampstead Baptist Church.

In the 1960’s there was a young school boy who refused to read the Bible in a classroom in a Baltimore public school. Rather than taking his turn to read the Bible, he threw the Bible out the window. Later in life, this self-proclaimed atheist had a change of mind and a change of heart. We had him speak at our church in 1993 to an overflow crowd.

Having personal knowledge of this man’s experience, I am not alarmed at the “new” atheism that is promoted by men such as Victor Stenger in his book, "The New Atheism," or Christopher Hitchens in "God Is Not Great." However, I am concerned about the promotion as to how it will damage young people who are seriously looking for answers and direction regarding life and eternity.

If the Baltimore Coalition of Reason wishes to have an affirmative answer to their question they will need to rephrase their thesis. Their question that is literally put before us is, “Are you good without God? Millions are.”

I would first need to ask, does anyone really know a million people, let alone know them all well enough to know that they are good people? We are not saying that they don’t do good things, but are they good people without God? Many good things have been done for selfish, self-serving, self-centered motives. These motives would certainly discredit any person’s good deeds from contributing to a reputation of being a good person; actually this person could be considered wicked -- for the religious or non-religious thinking person.

The question they should ask is, “Can you be good without believing in God?” The answer to that is an obvious yes. However, that does not mean that a person is good without God. This simply states that the good person doesn’t believe in God.

Continue reading "Guest post: Goodness without God?" »

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The Baltimore Hebrew Institute, the successor to Baltimore Hebrew University established this year at Towson University, is introducing itself to the greater community on Sunday with a lecture on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Lawrence H. Schiffman, chairman of the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, will present “Decoding Early Judaism: Reflections on the Contributions of Dr. Joseph Baumgarten” at 4 p.m. Sunday in Room 4110 of the new liberal arts building atTowson. The event is free and open to the public.

Baumgarten, a scholar at Baltimore Hebrew College and rabbi at Bnai Jacob Congregation, wrote extensively on the Dead Sea Scrolls. More than 800 texts were found in caves on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea during the 1940s and ’50s. Dating from the second century B.C. through the first century A.D., the scrolls include the oldest known remnants of the Old Testament, along with previously unknown psalms, commentaries and other writings.

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The Catholic Review has a story about a pair of unusual recent events at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg.

The first was a double rainbow. The second as the archdiocesan newspaper puts it, was the pot of gold.

A worker at the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes discovered two bags containing gold and silver coins. Shrine director Bill Tronolone, who has been trying to raise money to build a pilgrim center, thought his prayers had been answered.

Alas, it was not to be. The discovery of the coins, which The Catholic Review says were valued at more than $40,000, was reported to the Frederick County’s Sherriff’s department. The owner has since come forward to claim the coins.

“The owner just wanted a safe place to keep her life savings while she left town and in her thinking, what better place than the Grotto, right next to the statue of Mary,” Tronolone told The Catholic Review.

Read the story at catholicreview.org.

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Categories: Catholicism, Education
        

Could the U.S. bishops rescind the right of the University of Notre Dame to call itself Catholic?

Months after the nation's flagship Catholic university ignited a firestorm within church circles by inviting President Barack Obama to give a commencement speech and receive in honorary degree, the nation's Catholic bishops met behind closed doors today to discuss increasing oversight of the nation's Catholic colleges and universities.

Obama supports abortion rights; the church opposes abortion. The bishops are holding their fall general assembly this week at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront.

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told the Associated Press that he had formed a task force charged with reviewing relations between the bishops and the nation's more than 200 Catholic colleges and universities.

In most cases, the bishops excercise no formal authority over the institutions, which, with few exceptions, operate independently of their local dioceses.

"Can bishops just pull the plug on us? It's not that simple," Richard Yanikoski, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, told the AP.

"If those relationships — which don't mean control, they mean relationship — are now weakened, then we have to think of ways to enter discussion in order to strengthen them, and to redefine perhaps what are the criteria for a university or any other organization to consider itself Catholic," George told the AP.

Read the Associated Press story.

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The nation's Catholic bishops had a busy day Tuesday, approving a pastoral letter on marriage, a document on reproductive technologies and a revision to an existing document on healthcare for the dying and chronically ill.

The bishops are holding their fall general assembly at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront.

"Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan" breaks no new ground, but bishops said it would provide a foundation for the church’s campaign to promote marriage as the union of one man and one woman going forward.

"Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology" reiterates Catholic teaching against in vitro fertilization, egg, sperm and embryo donation, surrogates and cloning. For infertile couples, the church counsels hormonal treatment and other medications, surgery to repair reproductive organs, and other means.

The revision to “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” underscores what the church says is the moral obligation to provide nutrition and hydration to patients in a persistent vegetative state.

The bishops also approved new English translations of the Roman Missal.

Read more at baltimoresun.com.

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Monsignor F. Dennis Tinder, the pastor who made the controversial decision last summer to close Towson Catholic High School shortly before the start of the school year, has retired due to health concerns, The Catholic Review reports.

The 67-year-old priest, who has spent the last nine years as pastor of Immaculate Conception in Towson, his childhood parish, cites a neuromuscular disorder that affects his strength and motion.

“We get so tied to this world with its shifting that we forget that we were made to go home,” Tinder tells The Catholic Review. “The God who made us is holding us and carrying us home.”

The parish will hold a reception for him in December.

“We’ll all cry,” parishioner Jo Miller tells the Catholic Review. “It’s going to be very hard. It’s very hard to thank someone adequately for all they’ve done for you.”

The decision to close Towson Catholic in the face of declining enrollments and rising costs drew protests from students and parents and a lawsuit that was unsuccessful.

Tinder told us in July that if he had to do it over, he would have closed the school earlier, to give students and their families more time to make alternate plans for the fall.

"If there's a regret, it is that we tried too hard to keep the school open and went too long," he said. "I think we would have faced the same difficulty had we done it earlier. But it is my regret that we waited as long as we did in a failed attempt to keep it open."

Read the rest of the story at catholicreview.org.

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The American Civil Liberties Union, known as a watchdog for the separation of church and state, wants to make sure that prisoners have access to religious material.

In a letter sent last week to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Information and Privacy, the ACLU demanded that the federal Bureau of Prisons release records related to alleged attempts by prison officials to purge religious material from prison chapel libraries.

The demand follows what the ACLU says was an inadequate response by prison officials to a Freedom of Information Act request by a California graduate student writing a thesis on the censorship of religious materials in federal prisons.

According to the ACLU Joshua C. Harris, a master’s degree candidate in religion at Claremont Graduate University, is writing a thesis on the 2007 implementation of the Standardized Chapel Library Project, which authorized BOP officials to purge from prison chapel libraries any material that was not on a list of “acceptable” publications that the libraries could maintain. Among those titles banned at the time, the ACLU says, was Maimonides’ “Code of Jewish Law.”

“The refusal of prison officials to provide a full accounting of their rationale for banning religious material is just the latest example of an ongoing effort to secretly and unconstitutionally censor material they consider to be unacceptable,” David Shapiro, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project, said in a statement. “To deny prisoners their constitutional right to access religious materials is bad enough. But to attempt to do so in a way that skirts transparency and prevents the public from knowing what they are doing is entirely unacceptable.”

Harris filed a FOIA request in April asking for “any/all documents that detail the reasoning behind, and implementation of” the Standardized Chapel Library Project, according to the ACLU. The prison bureau gave him four documents.

Continue reading "ACLU demands prison records" »

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Categories: Church and State, Education, Judaism
        

Attorney, author and professor David Neipert, a senior Fulbright scholar in law, is a former associate professor of international business at Belmont Abbey College.

It has been nearly two years since we asked EEOC to review Belmont Abbey College's policy on contraception and EEOC still has not issued a ruling on the matter. I considered responding to Rabbi Menken's last post but I would prefer to just wait and see how the matter resolves with EEOC.

I received an email critical of the Catholic church from a former student and have been reflecting on the overall picture and my decision to leave Belmont Abbey. I no longer want to be a part of that College but harbor no ill will towards the faith. There are enlightened Catholics who sponsored the voyages that discovered the world, made great breakthroughs in science (Gregor Mendel for example), and operate wonderful charities. For most of its history BAC was striving to be in that category and we were very proud to be part of it.

There is also an intolerant minority of Catholics who concentrate on rigid dogma rather than Christian behavior and smear any critic of the church. BAC seemed to be moving in that direction and so I quit.

Yet I cannot generalize. I once taught at the National University in Macedonia and lived only a few blocks from where Mother Teresa was born. Studying her life I have been inspired. Her example exists everywhere in the world where Catholics are. You can find the very best of Catholicism right across the highway from Belmont Abbey College. There the Catholic Sisters of Mercy have a hospital where they work with the horribly deformed children that almost nobody wants. They don't noisily claim to be "authentic" or conduct a nationwide publicity campaign; they just do god's work as best they can quietly every day. They have contraceptives in the health plan for their employees who want them and don't try to force their practices on anyone. They don't try to raise money by claiming to be defending religious freedom though they surely could use some funding. I suppose by Belmont Abbey College's definition of what is a proper Catholic the sisters are all bound straight for Hell because they pay for birth control pills, but I doubt that.

Continue reading "Guest post: Return to Belmont Abbey" »

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The New York Times has an interesting story this week about the apparently growing belief in creationism across the Muslim world. Kenneth Chang writes:

For many Muslims, even evolution and the notion that life flourished without the intervening hand of Allah is largely compatible with their religion. What many find unacceptable is human evolution, the idea that humans evolved from primitive primates. The Koran states that Allah created Adam, the first man, separately out of clay.

Pervez A. Hoodbhoy, a prominent atomic physicist at Quaid-e-Azam University in Pakistan, said that when he gave lectures covering the sweep of cosmological history from the Big Bang to the evolution of life on Earth, the audience listened without objection to most of it. “Everything is O.K. until the apes stand up,” Dr. Hoodbhoy said.

Mentioning human evolution led to near riots, and he had to be escorted out. “That’s the one thing that will never be possible to bridge,” he said. “Your lineage is what determines your worth.”

Participants in a conference last month at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., said the rejection of evolution appears to be growing.

Chang quotes Truman State Univesity physicist Taner Edis as saying that he never encountered creationist undertones when he was growing up in Turkey in the 1970s: “I first noticed creationism when I came to America for graduate school,” he said.

Continue reading "Academics see rise of Muslim creationism" »

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American Jews who have participated in a 10-year-old program that provides a free trip to Israel have a strengthened connection to the Jewish state, a greater sense of belonging to the Jewish people and an increased interest in building Jewish families, according to a study at Brandeis University.

The study released on Monday by the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis sought to document the impact on participants of the Taglit-Birthright Israel experience, which has granted a free, 10-day trip to 220,000 Jews aged 18 to 26 since 2000. It was co-sponsored by Taglit-Birthright Israel.

“In ten short years, Taglit-Birthright Israel has inspired a generation of young Jews to reconnect with Israel and the Jewish community,” said Gidi Mark, CEO of Taglit-Birthright Israel. “With tens of thousands on our waiting list, we are well on our way to establishing an educational trip to Israel as a rite of passage in the Jewish life cycle. That’s going to be the story of our second decade.”

Among key findings:

● Forty-five percent of participants felt the trip was “very much” and 28 percent "somewhat" a life-changing experience

● Participants were 23 percent more likely than non-participants to report feeling “very much” connected to Israel.

● Participants were 24 percent more likely than non-participants to “strongly agree” with the statement, “I have a strong sense of connection to the Jewish people.”

● Married, non-Orthodox participants were 57 percent more likely to be married to a Jew than non-Orthodox non-participants.

● Participants were 30 percent more likely than non-participants to view raising Jewish children as “very important.”

Read the study at brandeis.edu.

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A multi-year study hosted by the University of Maryland and including several area groups concludes that faith-based organizations can better weather an economic downturn by building stronger ties with the ministries the congregations that support them.

From a release issued on Thursday:

Particularly during an economic downturn, faith-based organizations tied only to one or two congregations, especially if those were not thriving congregations, had the most trouble raising resources and some shut down. While single-congregation support of a program might be considered more authentic, faith-based organizations supported by a wider umbrella or an interfaith base fared better.

“We compared everything from small food pantries directly connected to a congregation to national hospital systems and their local affiliated hospitals,” said Maryland Associate Professor Jo Anne Schneider, who led the project. “Congregation-focused models work well for mainline Protestants, Quakers and African American churches, but only if several congregations provide support or the sponsoring congregation is sufficiently active with enough resources to support the nonprofit. Jewish and Catholic systems rely on their communities as a whole with the Jewish Federation, Archdiocese, or Order providing centralized support. Some thriving evangelical organizations rely on networks with no formal connections to congregations.”

Other key findings of the report, entitled “Faith and Organization Project: Maintaining Vital Between Faith Communities and their Organizations:”

* A new breed of evangelical organizations has emerged with a different understanding about how to develop an organization to do a specific mission that is firmly based in a particular set of beliefs but that focuses on personal relationships to provide services rather than sharing their faith as a means to improve the lives of those served.

Continue reading "UMD study stresses ties for faith-based ministries" »

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The Rev. John I. Jenkins, the Notre Dame president who sparked controversy last spring when he invited President Barack Obama to speak and receive an honorary degree last spring during commencement, has been re-elected to a second five-year term as president of the nation’s most prominent Catholic university.

Archbishop Edwin O’Brien of Baltimore was among the first of dozens of American bishops to criticize Jenkins’ decision to honor Obama, who supports abortion rights.

But the trustees of Notre Dame passed a resolution last week expressing their “respect and full confidence” in Jenkins, saying he has nurtured an environment in which “the Catholic faith and intellectual tradition are celebrated and lived,” the Associated Press reports.

Jenkins has announced plans to travel to Washington in January to take part in an annual anti-abortion march.

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The United Nations' refugee agency is planning to include the Holocaust in a new human-rights curriculum for pupils in its Gaza secondary schools despite strident opposition to the idea from within Hamas, The Independent reports.

The director of operations in Gaza for The U.N. Relief and Works Agency told the British newspaper that he was "confident and determined" that the Holocaust would feature for the first time in a wide-ranging curriculum now being drafted.

"No human-rights curriculum is complete without the inclusion of the facts of the Holocaust, and its lessons," said John Ging, described as a "passionate advocate" for Palestinian civilians. More from the story:

The draft, to be completed within weeks and then put out for consultation with parents and the public, is built on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was agreed by the UN General Assembly in 1948 in the shadow of what it called the "barbarous acts" committed by the Nazis during the Second World War.

The one-time Irish Army officer has long been an outspoken critic of Israeli policy towards Gaza, including the conduct of last winter's lethal military offensive and what he described more than once in his interview as the "illegal siege".

Mr Ging said the curriculum would explain the genesis, and "inculcate the values" of the Universal Declaration which stipulates that "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person". He pointed out that the UN General Assembly in 2005 unanimously urged "all countries to teach the lessons of the Holocaust to children so that we learn from history, so that we don't repeat history".

The Independent quotes religious leader Yunis al Astal, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, as saying that including the Holocaust in the curriculum would be "marketing a lie" and a "war crime."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading "Study: 1 in 33 churchgoing women victimized" »

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This just in: Reality show villainess Omarosa Manigault Stallworth, late of The Apprentice, Celebrity Apprentice and The Surreal Life, has entered the seminary in Dayton, Ohio. She plans to study for a doctorate in ministry.

On her first day this week, the Dayton Daily News reports, United Theological Seminary President Wendy Deichmann offered her the gift of a mustard seed – an allusion to the Biblical passage in which Jesus likens the tiny seed to the Kingdom of God.

"Very few people have faith in my transformation, so this is a wonderful gift," the newspaper quoted her as saying. The News reports that she is taking classes in the Old and New testaments and the History of Christianity, and will be required to minister to the sick and dying at hospitals.

A classmate, meanwhile, told the News that he supports Manigault Stallworth’s effort. "People need to know that she is as sincere and as authentic as anyone I've known who's taken this journey," said classmate F. Willis Johnson Jr.

 Photo: AP/Dayton Daily News

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Updated, with comment from Lenny's Owner Alan Smith

The Jewish Museum of Maryland and the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore have finalized their purchase of the Lenny’s Delicatessen property on Corned Beef Row, but the landmark restaurant will continue on the site for at least a while yet.

Lenny's Owner Alan Smith has told Sun colleague Elizabeth Large that he has signed a five-year lease to continue at the East Lombard Street property, and when the time comes to leave, he plans to stay "on or around Corned Beef Row." (Note: In a press release on Thursday, the Jewish Museum of Maryland said it was a three-year lease.)

Ultimately, the Jewish Museum of Maryland hopes to have raised the money necessary to build a new wing on the parcel, museum spokeswoman Simone Ellin said.

Lenny’s opened in Owings Mills in 1985 and added the East Lombard Street location in 1991, according to a history posted on its Web site.

The $1.5 million purchase was funded by a grant from the Herbert Bearman Foundation. The Jewish Museum of Maryland is dedicated to the interpretation of the Jewish experience in America with special attention to the collection, preservation, and study of Jewish life in Maryland.

“The Associated is excited about our purchase of the property adjacent to the Jewish Museum,” Associated President Marc B. Terrill said. “This is an opportunity to increase The Associated and the Museum’s presence in downtown Baltimore and to expand programs and services to our constituents living in the area.”

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Organizers are looking for alumni of Father Kolbe and St. Casimir schools in advance of a reunion scheduled for next month – part of an effort to bolster the century-old program amid news of Catholic school cutbacks and closings elsewhere.

Father Kolbe School in Canton officially became St. Casimir Catholic School in July. The Archdiocese of Baltimore has returned the management of the K-8 program back to the Faith Community of St. Casimir.

From a release sent our way by the Rev. Ross Syracuse:

Plans are in full swing for the St. Casimir/Fr. Kolbe School 2nd Annual Alumni Reunion scheduled for Sunday, September 20, 2009. The celebration revolves around Catechetical Sunday which is a kind of official kick-off of the educational programs for many parishes.

The day begins with Mass at 10:00 AM at St. Casimir. This will be followed by an Open House at St. Casimir Catholic School. The attendees will then move on to Della Rose's Restaurant (Clinton Street) for an Outdoor Barbeque from 12:00 to 2:00 PM.

Plans are to make the reunion an annual event. The newly formed school board is asking alumni to contact the parish office at 410-276-1981 or the school at 410-342-2681 to update their contact information and/or pass along contact information for classmates.

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We're just back from the Baltimore County Courthouse, where a cicruit court judge has rejected an effort that would have forced the Archdiocese of Baltimore to keep Towson Catholic High School open for another year.

Judge Ruth Jakubowski Friday denied a request of parents Lois Windsor and Judy Messina for a temporary restraining order after hearing arguments behind closed doors. Windsor and Messina filed a lawsuit last week seeking an injunction that would have required the Archdiocese of Baltimore to reopen the school next month, as originally scheduled.

The sides are due back in court on Aug. 5, when Jakubowski will hear arguments on a motion by the archdiocese to have the parents' lawsuit dismissed.

The surprise closing, which was announced earlier this month, has left families scrambling to make alternate plans for their children this fall.

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A Baltimore County judge is expected to rule Friday on an injunction that would force Towson Catholic High School to open in the fall.

Students, parents and alumni continue to protest the surprise closing of the school, which has left families scrambling to make alternate plans for their children. The request for an injunction comes from two families who filed a lawsuit last week in Baltimore County Circuit Court to block the closing.

Judge Ruth Jakubowski will hear arguments behind closed doors beginning at 2 p.m. Towson Catholic supporters were planning to rally outside the courthouse beginning at 1:30 p.m.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Catholicism, Education
        

With the sudden closure of Towson Catholic High School, families are scrambling to find schools that will take their students in the fall. Over the last few days, we have collected the stories of several.

Some of the 163 students will be heading to Baltimore Lutheran School, other Catholic schools and some public high schools. Others haven't figured it out yet. Jenavieve Kohler (right), 17, and her parents are considering homeschooling.

Another 17-year-old student, Carla Baressi, is scouting out schools now:

Continue reading "Towson Catholic families scramble to find schools" »

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In the week since the decision to close Towson Catholic High School was announced, students, parents and alumni have focused their anger on a single man.

Monsignor F. Dennis Tinder has been accused of planning to shut down the school since he came to Immaculate Conception Church nine years ago, of turning down fundraising ideas and of speaking insensitively in referring to the student body as "a whole different community."

Tinder, in his first interview since announcing the closing, described the anger directed at him as "poignant." If he had it to do over, he said Wednesday, he would have closed the financially troubled high school earlier, to give students and their families more time to make alternate plans for the fall.

"I think we probably erred on the side of trying to keep the school going," said Tinder, who is responsible for the church, the high school and Immaculate Conception School, which serves children from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.

"If there's a regret, it is that we tried too hard to keep the school open and went too long," he said. "I think we would have faced the same difficulty had we done it earlier. But it is my regret that we waited as long as we did in a failed attempt to keep it open."

Facing the loss of several dozen students and a deficit of hundreds of thousands of dollars, Tinder announced plans last week to close the 87-year-old high school immediately. The decision had been recommended by the school's board and was supported by Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien, but it was Tinder's to make.

Tinder said he had no choice. School officials had seen enrollment decline from 240 to 163 for September, as deficit projections rose to $650,000.

"We realized that if we continued on and were not able to rectify these two elements, we would be opening a school where we couldn't pay the teachers and couldn't educate the children," he said. "At that juncture, we faced a real moral question. The determination to keep the school open has to be trumped by being concerned about teachers and students."

Algerina Perna / Baltimore Sun photo

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The fight over the fate of Towson Catholic High School escalated Tuesday when the alumni association filed suit against the school's parish and its pastor over the abrupt closing of the school, Baltimore Sun colleague Mary Gail Hare reports. The group is seeking an injunction to keep the school open at least another year.

"This closing is a slap in the face to the alumni and to anyone who ever loved this school. We were ready to remedy this through various options, but we could not get the archdiocese to the table," said alumni association president Paul Mecinski, who announced the lawsuit at a rally last night.

He added, "If students want to come here, we want to keep this place open."

The suit was filed Tuesday in Baltimore County Circuit Court by the alumni association's lawyer, Richard Grason VI of the law offices of T. Bruce Hanley. Attempts to reach Grason were unsuccessful last night.

Mecinski said the parish broke its contract with the students because parents had already paid tuition for the coming school year.

Sean Caine, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, said he had not seen the suit and only learned of it at the rally.

"Keeping this school open is not an option at all," he said. "Even if money is raised, that would not address the question of decreasing enrollment."

Mark Graber, professor of law and government at the University of Maryland School of Law, has said an injunction might be difficult but is possible, given that many parents had paid their deposits and begun making tuition payments for the new school year.

"If they have put down money, the parents have fulfilled their part of the contract with the school, in the understanding that there is going to be a school," Graber said.

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

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Students, parents and alumni at Towson Catholic have taken their campaign to save the school online.

Their new Web site went live at noon on Tuesday. The introduction:

The "Save Towson Catholic" campaign is gaining momentum!

With the intentions of addressing the $650,000 budget shortfall that the Church of the Immaculate Conception is claiming as the key issue in the decision to close Towson Catholic High School, a grass roots pledge drive began over the weekend to help close the gap. This drive was pulled together on Saturday night by a single TC alum, and was pushed forward in its first day as a simple pen and clipboard campaign.

Despite the campaign's early lack of resources, publicity, or manpower, more than $15,000 was pledged within the first 24 hours.

As this pledge drive gains momentum and publicity through media outlets and the internet, as well as with help collecting pledged donations by Towson Catholic students, parents, and alumni, we expect those pledge totals to increase at an accelerated pace.

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The decision to close Towson Catholic High School and the resulting outcry from students, parents and alumni has revealed a long-brewing disconnect between the school and the parish that has been its home since 1922.

Only 17 of the 163 students who were enrolled for the fall are parishioners at Immaculate Conception Church; 86 percent live outside Towson. With the school facing a $650,000 deficit that included $160,000 in unpaid tuition from last year, parish officials announced last week that they would close what some described as a money-losing ministry that they could no longer afford to subsidize.

"It was an outreach ministry into the city that brought many kids ... from the northern part of Baltimore City, and they came out to Towson and got a great education by all accounts," said Dan Cahill, a member of the parish council who reviews Immaculate's finances quarterly. "But we didn't see long-term those kids coming out of the school and then becoming active alumni and giving back."

Vocal parents and alumni are continuing their opposition to the closing with a 7 p.m. rally at the school Tuesday, the third such event in less than a week. The protest will occur as parents attend a school fair inside the building with representatives from 15 area parochial schools in hopes of finding a place for their children in September.

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

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Towson Catholic High School alumni are vowing to fight the abrupt closing of their alma mater with rallies, an awareness campaign and even a possible lawsuit, Baltimore Sun colleague Mary Gail Hare reports in Friday's newspaper.

Organizers are planning a peaceful demonstration at 8:30 a.m. Sunday at Immaculate Conception Church. Alumni, parents and students are also being urged to gather at the school at 7 p.m. Tuesday for the third demonstration since the closing was announced this week.

"At first, we called it a vigil to say goodbye and show our lasting love for the school, but it has become a rally to show support," said Mike Boehm, a 1997 graduate. "We are not letting this school close without trying to do something."

Wendy Gelhaus, Class of 2007, has started a "Revive TC" blog campaign that seeks signatures for a petition to stop the closing of the school and is also meeting with area businesses to ask for their support. She and her grandmother, Joan Slater, who recently celebrated her 50th TC reunion, plan to attend the vigil Tuesday.

Gelhaus said she has found an attorney willing to file an injunction blocking the closing.

"It is an uphill battle, but he sees the passion we have," she said.

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

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Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien has issued a statement on the decision to close Towson Catholic High School. At least 100 students and parents rallied at the school Wednesday, a day after they were notified of the closure.

O'Brien's statement:

I am deeply saddened by the closure of Towson Catholic and troubled by the circumstances that seemed to have left the parish and school board with no other choice. The closing of this beloved institution is a source of pain for students, teachers, alumni and the parish. Every effort is being made to ensure the smoothest transition possible for our students and faculty and several representatives of the Archdiocese are working day and night with the parish and school toward that end. My heart goes out especially to those seniors who were preparing to begin their final year at TC and we are exploring every available option to provide for their unique and special circumstance.

Equally deserving of our support is the pastor, [Monsignor F. Dennis] Tinder, as well as the board and administration of the school. They expended great energy and countless hours to save the school from this fate. I am grateful for their commitment to Towson Catholic and to the students and faculty.

Unfortunately, their best efforts, among them the hiring of a strategic consultant earlier this year to help reposition the school in an effort to increase enrollment, were not enough to avoid the impact of the financial crisis which forced so many of our families to make the painful decision not to enroll their children for the coming school year.

My prayers are with the Towson Catholic family today and will be for the days ahead, and I offer my assurance that everything possible will be done to meet the needs of every student, teacher and staff member impacted by this painful but necessary decision.

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At least 100 parents and students of Towson Catholic High School attended a rally Wednesday morning protesting the closure of the 86-year-old school in the fall.

Mary Gail Hare has the story for The Baltimore Sun.

Faced with rapidly declining enrollment and mounting debt, the co-educational school notified parents and its 20-member faculty by letter and e-mail on Tuesday that it will not open for classes in September. It becomes the archdiocese's first high school to close in many years.

Judy Messina, vice president of the PTA and the mother of a rising senior who attended the rally, said, "We're still in shock. If they knew this was coming, why did they wait until six weeks before the new school year [to announce the closure]?"

Many families have already given their deposits and started making their tuition payments.

Messina said she is very disappointed in the pastor, Monsignor F. Dennis Tinder. "He has never been available to any of us. Not the faculty, not the children. We just never see him."

The rally was attended by students who were wearing their uniforms and carrying signs. Alumni returned to their alma mater wearing their senior year T-shirts.

(Photograph by The Baltimore Sun)

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading "It's official: BHU, Towson to merge" »

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading "Guest Post: How to defeat the Taliban" »

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading "A look at three Catholic seminarians" »

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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What is the nature of God? Is it possible to force a postponement of death? How is true piety manifested? What is the power of sin and repentance? What happens to souls in the afterlife?

Rabbi David Greenspoon of Beth El Congregation concludes his five-month exploration of the Zohar, called “the most important literary work” of Jewish mysticism, with a "Lunch & Learn" session at noon Tuesday at Baltimore’s Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies.

“Come and join us as we delve into the mystical world of the Kabbalists,” invites the institute, located at 956 Dulaney Valley Road. Those interested are asked to bring a brown-bag dairy lunch; all texts are to be provided in translation. RSVP to info@icjs.org; more information is available here.

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Colleague Liz Bowie had a story this week that touched on the challenge the Archdiocese of Baltimore is facing in funding some of its schools.

St. Mary of the Assumption School in Govans, with declining enrollments and $1 million in debt, will be the second school in Baltimore and the third in Maryland to shut down at the end of the school year. The Catholic Community School in Federal Hill and St. Michael School in Frostburg also are closing their doors.

"To us, it speaks to a much larger issue," archdiocese spokesman Sean Caine told Bowie. "No matter what, we have to find additional revenue to support these schools."

There appear to be no easy answers for schools that often provide a low-tuition alternative to the public system for low-income families. The schools currently receive $3.6 million in public money, Bowie writes; the archdiocese has asked the General Assembly for additional tax dollars to keep the schools operating but has not persuaded legislators to support the idea.

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

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Megan Goldsmith is approaching her graduation from Baltimore Hebrew University with mixed emotions.

The 25-year-old Pikesville woman talks about the joy of completing her master's degree in Jewish communal service, the honor of having been selected by her classmates to deliver the student commencement address, and the anticipation of her new career.

But she speaks also of nostalgia. With state officials expected to approve the integration of Baltimore Hebrew into Towson University next month, she and 14 fellow degree recipients Thursday night are likely to be the final class to graduate from an institution long at the center of local Jewish cultural and intellectual life.

"There's been so many different people that have gone through that building," says Goldsmith, who was inspired to apply to the school in part by a series of mentors who held BHU degrees. "It's really sad that it's ending. I mean, it's been around for 90 years."

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

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It’s looking as if the 15 men and women set to receive degrees at Baltimore Hebrew University this week will be the last graduates of the 90-year-old institution.

After months of negotiations, BHU administrators have signed a memorandum of understanding to integrate the school into Towson University. The Maryland Higher Education Commission and the University System of Maryland Board of Regents are expected to approve the merger next month, with the new Baltimore Hebrew Institute opening this fall on the Towson campus.

BHU's imminent demise has lent a valedictory air to commencement week. The school is planning a dinner Wednesday to honor the memory of Louis L. Kaplan, its president from 1930 to 1970; to give its distinguished leadership award to board member Lowell R. Glazer, who helped to shepherd the merger negotiations; and to grant an honorary doctorate to Marc Terrill, president of the Associated, the city’s most prominent Jewish organization.

Commencement is Thursday.

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While church fathers continue to come out against the University of Notre Dame for inviting President Barack Obama to commencement, ordinary Catholics support the university’s decision by a margin of nearly 2-1, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Obama’s support for abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research put him at odds with Catholic teaching. Nonetheless, Notre Dame has invited the president to speak and receive an honorary degree during commencement exercises Sunday.

The web site LifeSiteNews.com has counted 76 American bishops who have spoken out against Notre Dame since the invitation was announced. Baltimore Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien was among the first, writing to Notre Dame President John Jenkins in March that he was “disappointed and bewildered” by the invitation.

Locally, the controversy recalls the outcry that greeted the decision of Loyola College of Maryland to invite former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, another abortion rights supporter, to participate in commencement there in 2005.

Continue reading "Lay Catholics support Notre Dame honor for Obama" »

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