RNSbriefs_06_13

RNS News Briefs

Franciscan friars back American nuns in Vatican spat

By DANIEL BURKE

c. 2012 Religion News Service

(RNS) — The brothers have come to the sisters’ defence.
Leaders from the seven Franciscan provinces in the U.S. publicly backed a group of American nuns on Thursday (June 7), calling a Vatican crackdown on the women “excessive.”

The Franciscan friars are believed to be the first Catholic religious order to voice support for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious since the Vatican announced a full-scale makeover of the group in April.
The Vatican said the LCWR, which represents most of the nation’s 57,000 nuns, does not adequately advocate against gay marriage, abortion and women’s ordination.

The Vatican’s “doctrinal assessment” also faulted the sisters for sponsoring conferences that featured “a prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

Noting that many members of LCWR belong to female Franciscan orders, the friars pledged solidarity with the sisters and called the Vatican assessment “excessive, given the evidence raised.”

The sisters have been wrestling with complex contemporary issues, the Franciscans said, and those deliberations should not be equated with disobedience to Catholic doctrine.

“The efforts of LCWR to facilitate honest and faithful dialogue on critical issues of our times must not result in a level of ecclesial oversight that could, in effect, quash all further discernment,” the Franciscans said.

Catholics since the Middle Ages have disagreed about how to apply church doctrine to public policy, the friars argued, and seldom were those disputes deemed “equivalent to questioning the authority of the Church’s magisterium.”

Many church observers suspect the Vatican crackdown was at least partially a response to prominent Catholic sisters’ support for President Obama’s health care overhaul, despite bishops’ objections.

“Rather than excessive oversight of LCWR, perhaps a better service to the people of God might be a renewed effort to articulate the nuances of our complex moral tradition,” the friars said.

The LCWR itself has called the Vatican’s assessment “unsubstantiated” and a source of “scandal and pain.”

LCWR leaders will meet on June 12 in Rome with Cardinal William Levada, the former archbishop of San Francisco who now heads the Vatican’s doctrine office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Conservative Jews’ gay wedding rules mostly met with a shrug

By LAUREN MARKOE
c. 2012 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS) — The Conservative Jewish movement established guidelines recently for the marriage of gay and lesbian couples. The reaction so far? Hard to find.

Asked if there had been any pushback, Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice-president of the movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, said “just the opposite.”

“There is a tremendous sense of appreciation, of celebration,” said Schonfeld. “The guidance is considered thoughtful and helpful to do what it was intended to do ... to bring sanctity between people who want to build a Jewish home.”

Conservative Judaism, which sits between the more liberal Reform and the more traditional Orthodox, lifted the ban on the ordination of gay rabbis in 2006.

As for same-sex marriages, it has been 12 years since the Reform movement of Judaism — the largest within the United States — gave rabbis the right to perform same-sex marriages. For years, though, some Conservative rabbis have also been performing these marriages.

The new guidelines outline two possible marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples, which clergy are free to adapt. The guidelines passed the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards by a 13-0 vote, with one abstention.

Schonfeld said there are rabbis within the Conservative movement who do not want to perform same-sex marriages. It should be clear, she said, that they don’t have to.

“We are a big-tent movement,” she said. “There remain people for whom this is not what they understand Jewish law to dictate. They don’t have an obligation.”

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, leader of the Reform movement in the U.S. and Canada, applauded the Conservatives’ move.

“We have been there for quite a while,” he said of the approval of same-sex marriage rites. “We think it’s great for the Jewish people, and it’s a hugely important move for everyone in non-Orthodox Judaism.”

Cleveland bishop seeks to heal breach with priests

By MICHAEL O’MALLEY
c. 2012 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND (RNS) — The Catholic bishop of Cleveland has sent a conciliatory letter to the priests in his diocese, acknowledging that his relationship with many of them has deteriorated.

In a May 21 letter obtained by The Plain Dealer, Bishop Richard Lennon said, “I have become aware of a growing disconnect between many of the priests who serve faithfully in this diocese and myself.”

“It saddens me to hear reports,” the bishop continued, “that a number of our priests feel anxious and uncomfortable in my presence and that rather than being co-workers with me, a number of priests feel left out of consultation.”

The bishop’s letter did not offer a reason for the rift he described. But it said he was writing “to assure you of my desire to remedy this situation.”

Lennon has pleaded for “peace and unity” in the diocese following a three-year battle over closed parishes. The Vatican recently overturned Lennon’s decision to close 11 parishes and ordered them reopened.

Lennon has said he hopes to have that process completed by August.
The bishop has asked all priests to attend at least one of nine meetings he has scheduled at various parishes throughout the eight-county diocese to discuss the matter.

“My own heart calls me to listen carefully, reflect, correct and change what needs to be changed as we move forward,” the bishop wrote. “I would ask and urge you to be present at one of these meetings.”

Diocese spokesperson Robert Tayek said in an email, “We do not wish to go much beyond the statements in the bishop’s letter.”

“Know I am entering this process willingly and open to change,” Lennon wrote. “Please join me in this sincere effort to improve the spirit, communication and trust in our relationship.”

(Michael O’Malley writes for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland.)

Pope’s butler faces trial, and eyes turn to Vatican judicial system

By ALESSANDRO SPECIALE
c. 2012 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI’s former butler is facing up to eight years in jail for allegedly stealing confidential documents from the pope’s own desk. But according to a Vatican judge, Paolo Gabriele won’t be serving any time in the world’s smallest state.

Paolo Papanti Pelletier, a law professor at Rome’s Tor Vergata University who also serves as one of the Vatican court’s judges, told journalists on Tuesday (June 5) that people who are sentenced to a jail term in the Vatican City State are routinely sent to an Italian prison because the Vatican doesn’t have its own jail system.

Paolo Gabriele, who served as Benedict’s “assistente di camera” until his arrest two weeks ago, appeared on Tuesday for a hearing with the Vatican investigating judge, Piero Antonio Bonnet, in the presence of his two lawyers and Nicola Picardi, the Vatican prosecutor.

Bonnet will decide whether Gabriele will have to stand trial or be acquitted.

The pope’s former butler is now in custody in one of the Vatican’s four “safe rooms” — 12 feet by 12 feet rooms with a bed, a desk, a window, a bathroom and a crucifix, Papanti Pelletier said.

Gabriele, he stressed, is treated with the “utmost respect” and, when he attended Mass on Sunday in a “Vatican church,” he was escorted by two Vatican police officers but was not handcuffed.

Gabriele is accused of “aggravated theft,” a crime that carries a prison sentence of one to six years, which could be extended to eight years if more than one “aggravating factor” is found. Additional charges such as “revealing state secrets” may carry maximum sentences of up to five years.

Vatican criminal law, according to Papanti Pelletier, envisions “very mild” sentences: “In Italy, prison sentences are much harsher,” he said.
In the Vatican’s three-tiered court system, if the pope’s butler is to stand trial he will first be judged by the three-man tribunal of which Papanti Pelletier is a member. While the current investigation is secret, the trial would be public, he said.

The tribunal’s sentence can be referred to an appeals court and, ultimately, to a supreme court manned by three cardinals, presided by American Cardinal Raymond L. Burke. This is the only Vatican tribunal that can try other cardinals, should one of the “princes of the church” be found to be involved in the Vatileaks case.

In a TV interview on June 4, the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, described the leaks as “carefully aimed, and sometimes also ferocious, destructive and organized.”

Pope Benedict XVI has the power to pardon Gabriele at any moment but, according to Papanti Pelletier, it’s expected that he would wait for the trial to be over before deciding how or if to intervene.