The last time our friend Christopher J. Doucot spoke at an Episcopal church was in 2004. He had just returned from Iraq, and gave what he describes as a “somewhat forceful sermon” critical of the U.S.-led invasion there.

A graduate of Yale Divinity School, a founding member of the Hartford Catholic Worker, and an instructor in sociology at Central Connecticut State University, Chris was told to keep it upbeat on Sunday -- All Saints' Day -- when he is scheduled to speak at St. James Episcopal Church in West Hartford, Conn.

When I was a kid, my understanding of the saints was that they were something like the cartoon superheroes I watched on Saturday mornings. They could fly, endure great suffering, go years without eating and heal people by praying over them. They were not real people.

As I got older, I began to see various athletes from Boston's professional sports teams as saintly – if not saints in the making. Carl Yaztremski of the Red Sox was the patron of the lost cause who never gave up. Terry O'Reilly of the Boston Bruins was the defender of the meek. He spent hours in the penalty box for busting the noses of any player from the opposing team who got in Wayne Cashman's way. Unfortunately, O'Reilly didn't confine his bellicosity to the ice. Once, in 1979, he climbed into the stands of Madison Square Garden to beat a New York Ragners fan with his own shoe.

Continue reading "Guest post: The vision of the saints" »

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The Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, Del., which includes Maryland's Eastern Shore, filed for federal bankruptcy protection on Sunday night, on the eve of a civil trial in a high-profile sex abuse case against the diocese and a former priest, the Associated Press is reporting.

The bankruptcy filing automatically delays the case in Kent County Superior Court, the first of eight consecutive abuse trials scheduled in Delaware, according to the AP. The diocese becomes the seventh in the nation to seek bankruptcy protection in the face of abuse claims.

"This is a painful decision, one that I had hoped and prayed I would never have to make," Bishop W. Francis Maloody said in a statement on the diocesan Web site. "However, after careful consideration and after consultation with my close advisors and counselors, I believe we have no other choice, and that filing for Chapter 11 offers the best opportunity, given finite resources, to provide the fairest possible treatment of all victims of sexual abuse by priests of our Diocese. Our hope is that Chapter 11 proceedings will enable us to fairly compensate all victims through a single process established by the Bankruptcy Court."

Malooly said the moved was "in no way intended to dodge responsibility for past criminal misconduct by clergy – or for mistakes made by Diocesan authorities. Nor does the bankruptcy process enable the Diocese to avoid or minimize its responsibility to victims of abuse. ... The Diocese of Wilmington is committed to pursuing the truth because truth heals."

Thomas Neuberger, an attorney representing 88 alleged victims, described the bankruptcy filing as a "desperate effort to hide the truth from the public and conceal the thousands of pages of scandalous documents" from being made public in court, according to the AP.

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Sun colleague Nick Madigan reveals new allegations against Rabbi Jacob A. Max in Sunday's newspaper. The allegations come from five women who spoke to Madigan after Max was convicted earlier this year of sexually molesting a younger woman at a Reisterstown funeral home.

As Madigan describes it:

The hushed accusations of Max's penchant for groping and fondling - which some women say he accompanied with a smirk and an excuse about his being a "bad rabbi" - appear to have been tolerated without inquiry for decades because of his standing and authority in the tightly knit religious community. Girls who complained to their mothers about his conduct say they were ignored. ...

News of the conviction prompted five other women to share with The Baltimore Sun their own allegations of improper advances by the rabbi. Three contacted a reporter and the remaining two were referred by others. The women said news of the conviction impelled them to come forward because they believe their charges about Max's behavior deserve to be disclosed, no matter how long ago the events occurred. ...

None of the five women had spoken publicly before the criminal case, because, they say, it was understood that members of the modern Orthodox Jewish community - especially young ones - did not divulge errors by its leaders, let alone accuse them of impropriety.

Max's attorney did not make his client available to comment. Attorney David B. Irwin denied any wrongdoing by Max:

"If anyone took a friendly gesture the wrong way, as far as he's concerned, he's sorry," Irwin said. "But he never intentionally molested or inappropriately touched anyone."

Read the rest of the story at baltimoresun.com.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the story at theage.com.au.

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

This strikes us as awkward.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the Associated Press story here.

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading "Guest post: Facing a dilemma, sword in hand" »

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading "Why the silence on Pouillon killing?" »

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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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Associated Press photo

Ian Shapira has an interesting story in the Washington Post about the differing reactions to the release of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi by two relatives of victims in the 1988 attack.

Megrahi was released Thursday by Scottish authorities on humanitarian grounds. He was diagnosed last year with advanced prostate cancer; he recently was given months to live.

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said the release was motivated by Scottish values to show mercy.

"Some hurts can never heal, some scars can never fade," MacAskill said, according to the Associated Press. "Those who have been bereaved cannot be expected to forget, let alone forgive ... However, Mr. al-Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power."

Megrahi, the only suspect convicted in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, continues to protest his innocence. As the AP describes it, his 2001 conviction was based largely on the testimony of a shopkeeper who identified him as having bought a man's shirt in his store in Malta; Scraps of the garment were later found wrapped around a timing device discovered in the wreckage of the airliner. Critics of the conviction question the reliability of the store owner's evidence; to many in Libya and some in the West, Megrahi is an innocent scapegoat.

"I say in the clearest possible terms, which I hope every person in every land will hear — all of this I have had to endure for something that I did not do," he said in a statement on his release. "To those victims' relatives who can bear to hear me say this, they continue to have my sincere sympathy for the unimaginable loss that they have suffered."

Nonetheless, U.S. officials urged their Scottish counterparts against the release, and President Obama called it "a mistake."

The Post story includes comment from Anastasios Vrenios, 68, a singing teacher in Northwest Washington, and Stephanie Bernstein, 58, a Bethesda rabbi. Shapira writes that Vrenios, whose son Nicholas was a passenger on Flight 103, is "unbothered" by Megrahi's releaase.

Continue reading "Mercy and the Lockerbie bomber" »

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

Yesterday found me at the District Court of Maryland, Traffic Division, to fight a parking ticket. We had received a "Warning Notice" for failure to respond to a citation that we had never received, for our van being parked in a Transit Zone, in one of those neighborhoods in which you might be ill-advised to park in the most legal of spaces -- especially after dark, which, according to the time on the notice, it was. Mistakes happen, and the most likely explanation is that the wrong license plate number was transcribed from the citation onto the notice. Besides a compliment from the judge for having a "mean" hat (like many Orthodox Jewish men, I wear a black fedora, which he didn't want me to forget on the bench), he also gave me the Not Guilty verdict I was looking for (benefit of the doubt).

The experience was notable for a few reasons. First and foremost, the judge was (as the previous comments might indicate), very friendly and down to earth, very unpretentious. He was handling "non-incarcerable offenses" (his translation: "the only way you can go to jail is by doing something really dumb in this courtroom"), and was happy to show the friendlier side of the court system. Everyone appealing a ticket seemed to have some justification, and he was happy to give a Not Guilty to, for example, the obviously handicapped woman who was driving the wrong car on the day she was ticketed for using a handicapped spot. "Justice, justice shall you pursue..." but tempered with mercy. I was impressed.

He also told the following story, which happened to take place in the same neighborhood in which we were charged with parking illegally. He walks, he says, through all of Baltimore's neighborhoods, and on a Sunday morning a young man approached him on the otherwise-deserted street corner. "Hey man," he said, "want some weed?"

Continue reading "Guest Post: My day in court" »

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