Unveiled on the final day of a “Towards Healing and Renewal” conference sponsored by the Vatican, the new online forum will provide training and certificate programs in four languages.
The center will cost 1.2 million euros ($1.92 million) for the first three years, partly funded by the U.S.-based Papal Foundation charity. The Rev. Hans Zollner, one of the conference organizers, stressed that all the foundation’s expenditures are expressly approved by Pope Benedict XVI.
The conference also highlighted the global scope of the child abuse crisis. Bishops from Asia, South America and Asia admitted that sexual abuse is not just a “Western problem,” even if the numbers of reported cases outside Europe and North America remain small.
The Rev. Edenio Valle of Brazil said bishops there had “no idea of what could or should be done.” Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila, Philippines, said Asia’s “culture of shame” may be responsible for victims’ silence.
Even in the U.S., “many victims of sexual assault never report” the violence, warned Michael Bemi and Patricia Neal, who helped craft the “Protecting God’s Children” program that’s used in 115 U.S. dioceses.
Though a church-sponsored independent study identified at least 15,000 abuse victims from 1950-2009, others estimate the total number could be as high as 100,000 as some victims remain silent.
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Founded by breakaway Episcopal priests who left their former denomination because they felt it was too liberal, the Anglican Mission is now in the middle of another ugly church feud.
Last time the fight was over sex and salvation. Now the fight is over money and power, between the Anglican Mission’s U.S. leaders and the overseas Anglican group that adopted them.
“It’s like my mom and dad just told me they are getting a divorce,” said the Rev. Brian Hardin, pastor of the Four Winds Mission in Spring Hill, Tenn., which is a member of the Anglican Mission.
The troubles between the Anglican Mission and its patrons in Rwanda started last year, after former Anglican Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda retired. Kolini had been a friend of American Bishop Chuck Murphy, the head of the Anglican Mission, and had taken a hands-off approach.
In return, the Anglican Mission donated millions to the Rwanda church.
But Archbishop Onesphore Rwaje, the new Rwandan leader, and Murphy did not see eye to eye.
Rwandan bishops asked for detailed accounts of how the Anglican Mission was spending its money. And Rwaje also disagreed with a plan to change the Anglican Mission — also known by the acronym AMIA — into a missionary society instead of being part of the Rwandan church.
“There was a change in vision in how the House of Bishops in Rwanda wanted to deal with AMIA,” said Bishop Philip Jones, an AMIA spokesman, and pastor of All Saints Church in Dallas.
Eventually, Murphy was asked to step down, said Jones.
In a letter to Rwaje that accompanied his resignation letter, Murphy compared himself to Moses leading his people out of Egypt in search of the Promised Land. When Murphy quit, Jones and seven other bishops followed.
“I didn’t think we had any other choice,” Jones said.
But not all of their Anglican Mission colleagues agree. Mark Galli, senior managing editor of Christianity Today magazine and a member of an AMIA congregation, said Murphy has caused a schism in the church.
“This is troubling, first, because it contradicts Jesus’ expressed prayer for the unity of the church,” he wrote on his blog. “Second, it threatens to make a lie of AMIA’s posture when we first left the Episcopal Church.”
Bishop Terrell Glen, a former AMIA leader who remains part of the Church of Rwanda, said Murphy and other American bishops did the wrong thing by bolting. They had taken a vow of obedience to their bishop, he said, and broke it by quitting.
“I don’t believe the archbishop was requiring anything of anyone that we could not submit to,” he said.
For years, leaders of the Anglican Mission and other breakaway Episcopal groups have tried to get the Anglican Communion to recognize them as a legitimate alternative to the Episcopal Church. This latest split shows how difficult that will be, said Jim Naughton, editor of Episcopalcafe.com and a former spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C.
“We don’t know how much staying power they have,” said Naughton.
Naughton also said that the split shows the problem that money plays in the relationship between U.S. church leaders and their African sponsors. Americans have most of the money and they use that money to promote their theological views. That’s the case for both conservatives and liberals, said Naughton.
Dealing with the imbalance of money and power will remain a problem in the future, said the Rev. John McDonald, director of the Stanway Institute for World Mission and Evangelism at the Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pa.
“It cannot simply be that Western churches provide funds and African churches then provide the seal of legitimacy or the protective covering of an Anglican province in return,” McDonald said. “It has to be seen as a true partnership.”
Before the break, the Anglican Mission had 152 affiliate churches and another 100 congregations in development. About 20 have decided to leave the group already, said the Rev. Cynthia Brust, an AMIA spokeswoman, and observers say more may follow.
One option is joining the fledgling Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), which was founded in 2009 by former Episcopalians and now has about 1,000 churches. ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan, the former Episcopal bishop of Pittsburgh, said he’s been in contact with Anglican Mission churches about their future plans and would welcome them into his fold.
He noted that AMIA leaders have excelled at starting new churches and attracting new people to the Christian faith, but sometimes have trouble following rules.
“They are folks who often color outside the lines,” he said. “Among Anglicans, both truth and order matter. They have not been so good about accountability and the unity of the church.”
]]>The new approach effectively removes faith-based organizations from any involvement in providing contraceptive coverage or even telling employees how to find such coverage. It also maintains Obama’s pledge to ensure that almost all women with health insurance will not have to pay for it.
“These religious institutions will not have to offer it [contraception coverage] to their employees and do not have to pay for it,” said a senior administration official about an hour before the president was to make the official announcement, which was expected at 12:15 pm.
Initial indications were that, against all odds, the administration may have found a solution that satisfies both sides in a debate that seemed destined to dog the president throughout the campaign season and to wind up alienating either women or Catholic voters – both key demographics in his bid for reelection.
Religious leaders like Sr. Carol Keehan, head the Catholic Health Association – the umbrella group for more than 600 Catholic hospitals and a key player in the health care debate – said Friday she is “very pleased with the White House announcement that a resolution has been reached that protects the religious liberty and conscience rights of Catholic institutions.”
Keehan was a key supporter of the president’s health care reform law — going against the wishes of the U.S. hierarchy — but she voiced strong criticism of the initial contraception regulations.
At the same time, Friday’s decision was also welcomed by Cecile Richards, head of Planned Parenthood, who had been working hard with pro-choice Democrats to keep the administration from providing any relief from the mandate to religious institutions.
“We believe the compliance mechanism does not compromise a woman’s ability to access these critical birth control benefits,” Richards said.
The solution proposed by the White House is surprising in that it is fairly straightforward and appears to effectively address most religious concerns, or at least blunt the harshest criticisms that Obama was trampling on religious freedom by forcing some faith-based organizations to subsidize something that runs counter to their beliefs.
The furor over the contraception mandate appeared to catch the White House off guard since Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the final regulations on Jan. 20, and did not broaden the exemption for religious groups as had been widely expected.
The administration struggled to frame the regulations as a way to ensure that women with health insurance would receive free birth control coverage – a position that is broadly popular among Americans, and especially women.
But religious leaders, chiefly the Catholic bishops and conservative evangelicals, were successful in framing the issue as one of religious freedom, not birth control, and they argued that the federal government was violating their conscience with the mandate.
These conservatives were also backed by numerous Catholic liberals and other supporters of the administration who felt that Obama had “thrown them under the bus,” as some put it, by not granting the broader religious exemption as they also wanted. In recent days it became clear that the administration had to do something, and quickly, and the solution announced Friday seemed to win back many of his allies.
“The unity of Catholic organizations in addressing this concern was a sign of its importance,” said Keehan.
But whether that unity will extend to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops was unclear.
]]>“We implore forgiveness for those who have abused in various ways,” Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, said during the rite at the Church of St. Ignatius.
“This evil is within us and severely tarnishes our testimony,” he admitted, and said church leaders have at times “become an instrument of evil” toward those they were charged to protect.
The ceremony was organized as part of a Vatican-sponsored conference at Rome’s Gregorian University to help bishops meet a May deadline to craft voluntary “guidelines” to improve the church’s handling of abuse cases.
Representatives of six groups who were in various ways involved in sexual abuse — including the head of a religious order, a teacher and a priest — apologized to Mary Collins, an abuse victim from Ireland who served as a representative of all abuse victims.
At the end of the service, Collins asked God for the “strength” to forgive, so that the church “may be healed.”
The vigil started with 15 minutes of silence as the church was shrouded in darkness, and ended with the lighting of candles held by the participants. Earlier in the day, Collins told conference participants of her personal experience of abuse.
“Those fingers that would abuse my body the night before were the next morning holding and offering me the sacred host,” she said of the priest who abused her when she was 13.
She also recalled the “collapse” of her confidence in church authorities, as the archbishop she had confided her story to focused on trying to protect the “good name” of the priest, and refused to suspend him from ministry.
During the conference, Monsignor Stephen J. Rossetti, a professor at Catholic University of America and the former director of a Maryland treatment center for troubled priests, told bishops that predator priests usually lie when confronted with an accusation.
By contrast, he said, abuse victims usually tell the truth when they recount their ordeal. Rossetti also warned that abuser priests are not easily cured and need constant monitoring, and that returning them to ministry is almost impossible.
“Once a priest has sexually molested a minor,” he said, “he forever loses his privilege of ministering as a priest.”
]]>Prop 8 supporters immediately announced plans to appeal Tuesday’s (Feb. 7) 2-1 ruling to a larger panel of the 9th Circuit and, ultimately, to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“No court should presume to redefine marriage. No court should undercut the democratic process by taking the power to preserve marriage out of the hands of the people,” said Brian Raum, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing an umbrella group of Prop 8 supporters known as ProtectMarriage.com.
The appeals court’s decision upheld a 2010 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker, saying that “although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently.
“There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted.”
The Prop 8 amendment to the state Constitution was approved by 52 percent of California voters in 2008, just five months after the state Supreme Court ruled that a state ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. An estimated 18,000 same-sex couples tied the knot before Prop 8 was passed.
The court also found no evidence that Walker was biased in his initial ruling because he was gay and in a committed relationship. The court did, however, side with Walker in maintaining a stay on all same-sex marriage ceremonies until the case is decided.
Prop 8 supporters, led by the National Organization for Marriage, immediately tried to use the decision as a plea for fresh funding.
“This sets up an all-or-nothing showdown at the United States Supreme Court,” NOM said in an email blast just minutes after the decision was announced.
“But the costs of litigating a Supreme Court case will run into the millions of dollars over the next year. We must have the resources to put on the best possible defense.”
Prop 8 opponents, however, including the Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said “no American’s right to marry should be subjected to a veto from aggressive and well-funded religious groups. Our nation is a democracy, not a theocracy.”
]]>Cardinal William J. Levada, a former archbishop of San Francisco who now heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with jurisdiction over abuse cases, stopped short, however, of requiring bishops to report abuse cases to prosecutors or police.
Speaking to a Vatican-sponsored conference on the church’s response to the scandal at Rome’s Gregorian University, Levada admitted that the church’s relations with civil authorities “may be different from one nation to another,” but stressed that this must not affect the basic principle of cooperation.
He also urged bishops to be “more proactive” in their response to the crisis, rather than wait for the scandal to erupt in the media.
Last May, the Vatican gave all bishops conferences around the world one year to draft voluntary “guidelines” on preventing abuse, caring for victims, disciplining abusive priests, and reporting suspected abuse to local police.
An estimated 4,000 cases of sexual abuse by clergy have been reported to Levada’s Vatican department during the last 10 years, he said.
Levada also highlighted the importance of listening to victims’ grievances, accompanying them “on the often long path of healing,” and encouraging them to follow the example of Pope Benedict XVI in meeting with victims.
In a message sent to the conference participants, Benedict wrote that victims healing must be of “paramount concern” for the church. The Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests dismissed the conference as “window dressing” that will not result in real reform.
]]>A statement issued on Saturday (Feb. 4) by the current and past leaders of the Vatican’s Governorate, which oversees the management of Vatican City, has dismissed claims made by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano as “erroneous,” “unfounded” and “based on groundless fears.”
Vigano, who had been secretary general of the Governorate from 2009 until his appointment as papal nuncio to Washington last October, expressed his worries directly to Pope Benedict XVI in two letters unearthed by an Italian TV program in January.
Vigano told the pope that Vatican City’s management was “disastrous,” and asked Benedict to not transfer him to Washington. The move, he said, would cause “disarray and discouragement” among those who worked against “numerous situations of corruption and waste.”
The Vatican’s top spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, had initially threatened to sue the TV program that revealed the letters and dismissed its coverage as “biased.” Lombardi also reaffirmed the pope’s “unquestionable respect and trust” towards Vigano.
Saturday’s statement strikes a different chord, however, saying that Vigano’s assertions portray the Vatican’s Governorate as an “untrustworthy entity, controlled by dark forces.”
The statement was signed by Vigano’s former superior, Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, and by Giovanni’s deputy, Bishop Giorgio Corbellini, and by the Governorate’s current president and secretary general.
]]>Now those deviations have led to his resignation in an incident that may be tied to global changes to the Catholic liturgy.
On Jan. 29, instead of saying “Lord our God that we may honor you with all our mind and love everyone in truth of heart,” during the opening prayer, he altered the phrasing to better reflect the day’s Gospel message, in which Jesus heals a man with a troubled spirit.
“We thank you, God, for giving us Jesus who helped us to be healed in mind and heart and proclaim his love to others,” the 72-year-old priest prayed instead.
Three days later, Rowe received a letter from Bishop Edward Braxton of Belleville, Ill., accepting his resignation.
“The problem is that when I pray at Mass, I tend to change the words that are written in the book to match what I was talking about, or what a song is about,” Rowe said in an interview.
The book in question is the Roman Missal, a book of prayers, chants and responses used during the Mass. Rowe has been saying some of those prayers in his own words for years.
But last December, the Vatican-mandated adoption of a new English-language translation of the missal may have given bishops an opportunity to rein in freewheeling priests who have been praying in their own words for decades.
“Since December when the new translation came out, no one has said what would happen to you if you changed stuff,” said the Rev. John Foley, director of the Center for Liturgy at St. Louis University.
“But I find it hard to believe a priest in Illinois would be forced to resign because he wasn’t using the exact words from the translation. It’s not a strong enough offense for that.”
In the wake of sweeping changes in the church as a result of the Second Vatican Council, some priests in the 1970s began using their own words and phrasing in place of the verbatim translations of the original Latin liturgy in the missal, Foley said. He said there has never been an established penalty for improvising nonalterable prayers, and bishops have traditionally looked past an individual priest’s extemporizing.
Monsignor Kevin Irwin, professor of liturgical studies at the Catholic University of America, said there are some prayers said by a priest at Mass in which he is “beholden to the structure, not to the words.”
But there are also prayers that priests are “duty-bound to say,” said the Rev. John Baldovin, professor of historical and liturgical theology at Boston College. Most of the prayers in the missal, in fact, are not optional, he said.
Rowe said his previous bishop, Wilton Gregory, had discussed his off-the-cuff prayer habit with him, referring to the practice as “pushing the envelope.” He said five years ago, Braxton also discussed the matter with him, and asked him to read directly from the missal.
“I told him I couldn’t do that,” Rowe said. “That’s how I pray.”
Last summer, Rowe said, the bishop made it clear to his priests that “no priest may deviate from any wording in the official missal.”
Braxton did not respond to a request for an interview with the Post-Dispatch.
In October, two months ahead of the introduction of the new missal translation, Braxton said he couldn’t permit Rowe to continue improvising, according to Rowe. The priest offered his resignation but didn’t receive a response.
On Monday, Braxton wrote Rowe a letter informing him that he’d accepted his resignation.
The action did not sit well with the nearly 500 families at St. Mary’s.
“The ways Father changed the Mass ritual with his words have only made it more meaningful to us as opposed to distancing us from the church,” said Alice Wirth, principal at St. Mary’s School.
“Everything he does is based on our faith; it’s not just a whim. There’s a reason for every word he prays.”
(Tim Townsend writes for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in St. Louis.)
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The conference, “Towards Healing and Renewal,” will be held on Feb. 6-9 and is organized by the Jesuit-run Gregorian University in Rome.
The Vatican’s top spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told reporters on Friday (Feb. 3) that the summit enjoys the “full support and participation” of the Vatican’s highest offices, but Pope Benedict XVI is not expected to attend.
Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s chief abuse prosecutor, said the protection of children must become “a permanent principle and concern” in every decision of the church.
“There cannot be a distinction between the good of the church and the protection of youth,” he said Friday.
Last May, the Vatican gave all bishops conferences around the world one year to draft voluntary “guidelines” on preventing abuse, caring for victims, disciplining abusive priests, and reporting suspected abuse to local police.
Next week’s summit will bring together representatives from 110 bishops conferences, the heads of 30 religious orders and officials from most Vatican departments. Workshops will focus on a bishop’s responsibility to protect children and the psychological effects of abuse.
Bishop R. Daniel Conlon on Joliet, Ill., chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is the official representative of the U.S. church.
The bishops and other delegates will hear the story of a sex abuse victim and participate in a “penitential vigil,” where representatives of seven groups who have been responsible of sex abuse or failed to prevent it will ask for forgiveness.
Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, will preside over the vigil while Cardinal William Levada, whose Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has jurisdiction over all abuse cases, will give the opening address.
Victims’ advocates have criticized the Vatican’s response to the scandal, accusing church officials of not disciplining bishops who failed to punish and report predator priests. Mary Collins, an Irish sex abuse victim, told journalists that she had been unsure whether to accept the Vatican’s invitation to address the conference, but had finally accepted in order to help protect as many children as possible.
“The church can become a leader in child protection,” she said, adding that she hoped Benedict would personally and publicly ask for forgiveness. “It would be the most wonderful thing for victims and for the church.”
Lombardi said Benedict would send the conference participants a message through his Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.
]]>Several Baptist leaders said Luter becomes the prohibitive favorite for the post, to be filled in a potentially historic election at the Southern Baptists’ annual meeting here in June.
SBC Today, a Baptist-focused news website, carried the announcement on Wednesday (Feb. 1). Youth pastor Fred “Chip” Luter III separately confirmed Luter’s announcement to his church on Sunday.
Luter appears to be the first candidate to declare for the post, which will become vacant this summer when the Rev. Bryant Wright of Marietta, Ga., finishes his second one-year term.
Many began openly promoting Luter for the top job last summer, moments after he was elected the convention’s first African-American first vice president.
“If he runs, he’ll get elected overwhelmingly. He may be unopposed,” said Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.
No other candidates have announced so far. Akin said other potential candidates were judging their chances on whether Luter decided to run.
“I’d be very surprised if there were any other substantial candidates,” said Russell Moore of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
The Southern Baptist president has no authority over the denomination’s 51,000 autonomous churches and missions, but the president exerts influence by appointing the most important committees in Baptist organizational life. The denomination’s turn toward theological conservatism in the 1980s was triggered by the election of a succession of conservative presidents.
Akin, Moore and others say they are eager to elect Luter, both for his leadership gifts and to demonstrate Southern Baptist acceptance of the changing face of their work.
Luter is widely known around the convention, having preached in hundreds of pulpits.
Moreover, supporters said he is widely admired as a pastor in his own right. Luter built Franklin Avenue Baptist Church into a major success, then led his congregation in rebuilding after it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
Akin said several Baptist congregations around the country tried to recruit Luter as a pastor or co-pastor, believing he might be available after Katrina. “He was like Peyton Manning as a free agent.”
Akin said Luter’s stature grew in his decision to remain in New Orleans. “You have to have unbelievable respect for a man who made that kind of commitment,” Akin said. “My God, look at what he did.”
Growth in traditional white congregations in the 16-million-member Southern Baptist Convention has plateaued. In recent years the denomination has actively sought to reach out to nonwhites, typically Hispanics, African-Americans and Asians.
In 1990, 95 percent of Southern Baptist congregations were white; now the figure is 80 percent, said Scott McConnell of LifeWay Research, a church-related institute.
“Some critic said of us that the Southern Baptist Convention is as white as a tractor pull,” Moore said. “If that remains the case, the Southern Baptist Convention has no future. I think Fred Luter’s election will be pioneering; I pray it will not be an anomaly.”
Meeting in Phoenix last summer, Baptists adopted a plan requiring its organizations to nourish minority leadership for the future.
That’s a turnabout for a convention that was formed in 1845 by Southern slaveholding Baptists who broke away from anti-slavery Baptists in the North.
For much of the 20th century, Southern Baptist pastors and rank-and-file church members across the South supported white supremacy and resisted the civil rights movement.
But in 1995, the convention formally apo
logized for its past and committed itself to racial reconciliation.
“We need to live up to what we said in 1995,” said David Dockery, president of Union University in Jackson, Tenn. “This would be a positive step, but only a first one.”
Luter’s church was a once a predominantly white Southern Baptist congregation dying on the vine after its neighborhood became increasingly black in the 1970s.
Luter, a black street-corner preacher with no previous pastoral experience, took over in 1986. The church kept its Southern Baptist affiliation while Luter built it into the predominantly black powerhouse it is today.
(Bruce Nolan writes for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans.)