RNSbriefs_06_20

RNS News Briefs

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 last week 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.”

Vatican offers special solution for conservative splinter group, SSPX

By ALESSANDRO SPECIALE
c. 2012 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — In a bid to end a decades-long split in the Catholic Church, the Vatican offered a conservative breakaway group a special status enjoyed only by the Opus Dei movement.

The offer came during a meeting on June 13 between the head of the Vatican doctrinal office, Cardinal William Levada, and Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). It was announced on June 14.

The status, known as a "personal prelature," would allow the SSPX to operate directly under the pope's authority, without territorial boundaries.

The SSPX rejects the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), including church acceptance of ecumenism and its rejection of anti-Semitism. The group officially split from the Catholic Church in 1988, when its founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, ordained four bishops without papal consent.

Ever since his election in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI has tried to reconcile with the SSPX. In 2009, he lifted the excommunication of the four traditionalist bishops and started doctrinal talks with the group.

Jewish groups were outraged after one of the bishops, Richard Williamson, turned out to be a vocal denier of the Holocaust.

According to the Vatican chief spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi, before the SSPX can be granted a status within the church, it must sign a doctrinal agreement with the Vatican whose text has been under discussion since last September.

During Wednesday's meeting, Levada submitted to Fellay the final draft of the agreement, and he is expected to respond "within a reasonable lapse of time," according to a Vatican statement. "The ball is in their court now," said Lombardi.

But the SSPX on Thursday hinted that a "new phase" of talks may be needed.

Divisions over a potential reconciliation with Rome have been growing within the SSPX in recent months, and will probably be addressed during the group's general assembly in early July.