RNS
Digest
©2010 Religion News Service
Bishops defend opposition
to health care reform, urge changes
By Kevin Eckstrom
WASHINGTON (RNS) — Saying their opposition to health care reform
was “misinterpreted, misunderstood and misused,” US
Catholic bishops want Congress to address the law’s “defects”
but signalled they do not favour total repeal.
In a lengthy statement hoping to “set the record straight,”
leading members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on May 21
defended their opposition to the law that Catholic nuns and hospitals
supported.
“We will never conclude that we must accept what is intrinsically
evil so that some other good may be achieved,” said the statement
released by the chairmen of the bishops’ pro-life, domestic policy
and immigration committees.
The bishops initially supported a health care reform package as long
as it maintained existing curbs on abortion, included conscience protection
language for medical personnel and did not restrict health care access
for immigrants. The bishops were largely satisfied with the version
passed by the House.
But the bishops pronounced the Senate’s version — which
ultimately became law — as “profoundly flawed” because
of its abortion provisions. The Catholic Health Association supported
it, as did an umbrella group of Catholic nuns.
In their statement, the bishops said the division among Catholics resulted
in “confusion and a wound to Catholic unity,” and argued
that supporters of the bill had overstepped their authority.
“Making such moral judgments, and providing guidance to Catholics
on whether an action by government is moral or immoral, is first of
all the task of the bishops, not of any other group or individual,”
they said.
With the health reform law now a reality, the bishops said the provisions
that prompted their opposition must now be addressed. “The defects
can be judged soberly in their own right, and solutions can be advanced
in Congress while retaining what is good in the new law.”
But the bishops signalled that they do not support efforts by some conservatives
to scrap the law wholesale. Without fixing the provisions on abortion,
conscience protection and access for immigrants, the bishops said the
status quo would be “ammunition” for those seeking its repeal.
“We do not need agreement ... that the problems are serious enough
to oppose the legislation — we only need agreement that the problems
are real and deserve to be addressed,” they said.
Evangelicals push Theology of Sex, abortion reduction
By Adelle M. Banks
(RNS) — The National Association of Evangelicals on May 20 launched
an initiative to reduce abortions by promoting a Theology of Sex for
churches and pledging to find common ground with opponents on abortion.
“There’s a sense that, whatever our laws are, abortion is
a problem because of the underlying issues of how we treat sex,”
said Galen Carey, director of government affairs for the Washington-based
umbrella organization.
NAE leaders have concluded that churches are not doing a “good
job” of teaching about sex and marriage and should better address
the high percentage of cohabiting unmarried young adults, including
many evangelicals.
“Addressing that subject
will do a lot, we think, to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies
and the number of abortions,” Carey said.
A Gallup poll commissioned by the NAE found that 90 per cent of evangelicals
consider “hormonal contraceptives” to be morally acceptable,
and three-quarters consider abortion and unmarried sex to be morally
wrong. Less than a third — 30 per cent — think national
religious leaders are doing a good or very good job at addressing the
issue of abortion.
NAE officials have planned
nationwide forums to promote dialogue about abortion reduction. Carey
hopes they will include academics, counsellors, teachers and representatives
of pregnancy resource centres.
“These conversations
should build on our shared concerns for human dignity, protecting children
and promoting healthy families and communities,” the NAE said
in a resolution.
Its new 24-page Theology
of Sex booklet declares “Yes, sex is good!” within the context
of heterosexual marriage and says that “God is forming a new life
in his image” in both planned and unplanned pregnancies.
“Sex is a responsible act only in a relationship in which the couple is willing to care for any children that can come from that union,” it states.
After banning Facebook,
Pakistan bans YouTube
By Achal Narayanan
CHENNAI, India (RNS) —
For the second time in two days, Pakistani officials have restricted
access to a popular Internet site that it deems offensive to the country’s
majority Muslim population.
The government May 20 blocked
access to YouTube because of what it considers sacrilegious content
on the video-sharing website. The country’s Telecommunications
Authority did not specify which YouTube videos prompted the move, citing
only “growing sacrilegious contents.”
On Wednesday, Pakistan had
ordered Internet service providers to block access to Facebook because
of a page that invited users to submit drawings of Prophet Muhammad,
which is forbidden in traditional Islam.
In both cases, the government took action after it failed to persuade
the websites to remove the “derogatory material” voluntarily,
the agency said in a statement. It encouraged the two websites to contact
the Pakistan government to resolve the dispute in a way that ensured
“religious harmony and respect.”
The government blocked Facebook
after a group of Muslim lawyers won an order from the provincial High
Court in Lahore requiring officials to restrict access to the site until
May 31.
The Facebook page at the
centre of the dispute — “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!”
— asked users to post images of the prophet on May 20 to protest
threats made by a US-based Muslim group against the creators of South
Park for depicting Muhammad in a bear suit during an episode earlier
this year.
In Pakistan’s southern
port city of Karachi, some 2,000 female students rallied, demanding
that Facebook be banned. Several dozen male students held a rally nearby,
with some holding signs that urged an Islamic “holy war”
against those who blaspheme Muhammad.
O’Malley supports pastor in gay parents school dispute
By Ankita Rao
(RNS) — Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley said the pastor who
turned a boy away from Catholic school because he has two lesbian mothers
has “my full confidence and support.”
In his first public comments
on the controversy, O’Malley said Catholic schools exist for the
“good of the children,” and confirmed his support for the
Rev. James Rafferty, who denied admission to the 8-year-old boy at St.
Paul School in Hingham, Mass.
“I can attest personally
that Father Rafferty would never exclude a child to sanction the child’s
parents,” he wrote on his personal blog.
The archdiocese’s schools
office had earlier offered to help the boy find a new school to attend.
“We believe that every parent who wishes to send their child to
a Catholic school should have the opportunity to pursue that dream,”
said Superintendent of Catholic Schools Mary Grassa O’Neill.
But gay rights groups chided
O’Malley for his defence of the pastor’s decision.
“If this blog was intended
to be pastoral, it has failed on a number of accounts and further muddies
the waters,” said Harry Knox, the director of the religion and
faith program at the country’s largest gay rights group, the Human
Rights Campaign.
Knox said that Rafferty was
no longer invested in the best interest of the child when the priest
singled the boy out because of his parents’ sexuality. He said
O’Malley’s opening paragraph — an anecdote about a
brothel owner’s child who attended Catholic school — was
insulting the gay community by likening prostitution to homosexuality.
O’Malley also referenced
a similar dispute in the Archdiocese of Denver and said the Denver policy
that frowns on the admission of children from gay families should be
considered as Boston develops long-term policies.
“But we recognize that,
regardless of the circumstances involved, we maintain our responsibility
to teach the truths of our faith, including those concerning sexual
morality and marriage,” O’Malley wrote.
Opposition to gay
marriage shows slight decrease
By Adelle M. Banks
WASHINGTON (RNS) — A slight majority of Americans continue to
oppose same-sex marriage, but their opposition has decreased slightly
in recent years, according to a new Gallup Poll.
Fifty-three per cent of Americans
polled oppose legalizing same-sex marriage, compared to 44 per cent
who favour it. But the opposition tied with the lowest rate ever measured
by Gallup, from 2007.
In 1996, when Gallup first
asked about the legality of gay marriage, 68 per cent of Americans were
opposed and 27 per cent supported it.
In the most recent poll,
Americans who said religion is “very important” in their
lives opposed legal same sex marriage by 70 per cent to 27 per cent.
Americans who said religion was not important supported gay marriage
by a similar margin, 71 per cent to 27 per cent.
The latest national telephone
poll of 1,029 adults had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage
points.
German Protestant churches investigate abuse claims
By Stephen Brown
GENEVA (RNS/ENInews) In the wake of sexual abuse allegations in Germany’s
Catholic Church, two regional Protestant churches say they are investigating
abuse allegations filed against pastors or church workers.
The Evangelical Lutheran
Church of Hanover reported five new cases of the sexual abuse of minors
dating back several decades, the German Protestant news agency EPD reported
on May 19.
“We want to deal with
this as openly and as transparently as possible,” acting Hanover
Bishop Hans-Hermann Jantzen said, according to ENInews. “Any case
is one too many.”
The North Elbian Evangelical
Lutheran Church said it is investigating allegations of sexual abuse
by a pastor, who is now retired. The man is alleged to have sexually
abused several young people in a congregation in Ahrensburg.
The allegations come during
a scandal of sexual abuse by clergy that has hit the Catholic Church
in Germany. A recent ecumenical church convention in Munich heard calls
for reform and greater transparency in the Catholic Church to deal with
what has been called a crisis of confidence.
Protestant leaders, however,
have acknowledged their churches are also caught up in the scandal.
“The credibility that
we as churches owe other people, and which is rightly expected of us,
has for the time being evaporated,” Protestant Bishop Martin Hein
of Kassel told the conference. “What was done to people within
the Church is gradually coming to light. Gradually, often after decades,
the curtain behind which everything was hidden is being pulled away.”
With almost 3 million members,
the Hanover church is the largest regional Protestant church in Germany.
The North Elbian church has about 2 million members. Germany’s
Catholics and Protestants each make up about 30 per cent of the country’s
population of 82 million.
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