The year 2011 through 2022

The year 2011.


• 1/1/2011 Christian homes targeted by bombers by AP.
      Baghdad - The latest bloody attack on Iraq's Christians was brutal in its simplicity.    Militants left a bomb on the doorstep of an elderly Christian couple's home and rang the bell.    When they answered the doorbell the bomb exploded, killing them and three people passing by were wounded.    The bombing was among a string of seemingly coordinated attacks targeting at least seven Christian homes in various parts of Baghdad that hurt at least 13 other people, a week after al-Qaida-linked militants renewed their threats to attack Iraq's Christians.
  
• 1/2/2011 Christians, police clash after Egypt bombing - Blast at church kills at least 21 by Maggie Michael and Lee Keath, AP.
      Alexandria, Egypt - Christians clashed with Egyptian police in the northern city of Alexandria, furious over an apparent suicide bombing against 1,000 worshippers leaving a New Year's Mass at Saints Church that killed at least 21 people, injured 97 and mangled cars on the street.    It was the worst violence agaisnt the country's Christian minority in a decade.    The Interior Ministry blamed "foreign elements," and the Alexandria governor accused al-Qaida, pointing to the terror network's branch in Iraq, which has carried out a string of attacks on Christians there and has threatened Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Christian community as well.    The bombing stoked tensions that have grown in recent years between Christians and the Muslim majority.    So in todays case the Christians has lashed out at government instead of Muslims outside the church rioters beat Muslim passers-by and threw stones and bottles, and police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse them.
      Christians, mainly Orthodox Copts, are believed to make up about 10 percent of Egypt's mainly Muslim population and have become vocal in complaints about discrimination.
  
• 1/10/2011 Christian-Muslim riots, roadblocks plague city by AP.
      Jos, Nigeria - Rioters set homes ablaze and angry youths armed with machetes set up roadblocks throughout Jos, a central city plagued by violence between Christians and Muslims, witnesses said.
  The latest rioting comes after 11 people died from religious violence and political rally gone awry.
  [Comment: Are the articles above really Christians?    Jesus would not do violence, he would pray to his Father for help.]
  
• 1/18/2011 Bishops weren't to report abuse - Vatican sent order to Irish officials in '97 by Shawn Pogatchnik, AP.
      A 1997 letter from the Vatican warned Ireland's Catholic bishops not to report all suspected child abuse cases to police - a disclosure that victims' groups described as a "smoking gun" needed to show that the church enforced a worldwide culture of covering up crimes by pedophile priests.
      The letter, obtained by Irish broadcasters RTE and provided to The Associated Press, documents the Vatican's rejection of a 1996 Irish church initiative to begin helping police identify pedophile priests following Ireland's first wave of public disclosed lawsuits.
      The letter undermines persistent Vatican claims that Rome never instructed local bishops to withhold evidence or suspicion of crimes from police.    It instead emphasizes the church's right to handle all child abuse allegations and determine punishments itself.
      Signed by the late Archbishop Luciano Storero, Pope John Paul II's diplomat to Ireland, the letter instructs Irish bishops that their new policy of making the reporting of suspected crimes mandatory "gives rise to serious reservations of both moral and canonical nature."
      Storero wrote that canon law, which required abuse allegations and punishments to be handled with the church, "must be meticulously followed."    No comment on the letter from Catholic officials in Ireland and the Vatican recieved from an Irish bishop.
      In his 2010 pastoral letter to Ireland Catholics condemning pedophiles in the ranks, Pope Benedict XVI faulted bishops for failing to follow canon law and offered no admittance of Vatican role in covering up the truth.
      On the 26th from Vatican City - Vatican says 1997 letter 'misunderstood'.    In a new spate of damage control, the Vatican insisted that a 1997 letter warning Irish bishops against reporting priests suspected of sex abuse to police had been "deeply misunderstood."    The Vatican is seeking to defend itself in U.S. lawsuits, that it never told bishops not to cooperate with police.
  
• 1/19/2011 UK, astronomer settle federal suit on beliefs - Evolution, religion issues in hiring case by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal.
      An astronomer and the University of Kentucky have settled his federal lawsuit alleging religious discrimination over his failure to get a job for which he had been the leading candidate until his views on Christianity and science came to light.    UK agreed to pay $125,000 to Martin Gaskell in the settlement, while not admitting to any wrongdoing.    Gaskell had applied in 2007 to be the founding director of a new observatory on the Lexington campus until his writings on evolution stirred debate among UK's science professors.    He alleged he lost the job over his religious beliefs - with one search committee member describing him as "fascinating" but "potentially evangelical" while UK asserted that it was concerned about his commitment to science.
      Gaskell's lectures said he actually had no problem reconciling the Bible with the theory of evolution - and that the view that God created the Earth just a few thousand years ago "actually hinders some scientists."    Gaskell also said the theory of evolution had significant flaws.    He recommended students read the writings of critics of evolution in the intelligent-design movement, which says life is too complicated to have evolved on its own and which critics call a sophisticated form of creationism.
      The UK professors were concerned about Gaskell's "casual blending of religion and science," and considered he would be poorly suited for a job that involved educating the public about science.
      [Comment: So an education today is only one point of view without any optional theories.    That is sad.]
  
• 1/22/2011 New Age views vary by denomination - survey finds that evangelicals are less likely to believe in ESP and astrology by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal.
      Approximately one-third of Catholics and mainline Protestants and a quarter of evangelicals believe in extrasensory perception (ESP).    Fifteen percent of mainline Protestants and 13 percent of Catholics believe in astrology - that the positions of stars and planets influence our lives - campared with 2 percent evangelicals.
      About 10 percent of all three groups believe extraterrestrials have visited Earth in spaceships.    And 10 percent of mainline Protestants and Catholics believe in reincarnation, compared with 5 percent of evangelicals.
      The U.S. Congregational Life Survey took random sample of congregations to fill out survey forms in 2008 and 2009.
      None of these beliefs and practices have any backing in traditional Christianity, which shows an edging away from orthodoxy.    Evangelicals preach against New Age beliefs and practices
• 1/24/2011 Al-Qaida-linked group blamed in church attack by AP.
      Cairo - The Egyptian government announced that it had "conclusive proof" that an al-Qaida-linked Palestinian militant group orchestrated the NewYear's Day bombing outside a Coptic Christian church that killed 25 worshipers and exacerbated sectarian tensions across Egypt.    Interior Minister Habib Adly blamed the attack on the Army of Islam, an extremist organization based in the Gaza Strip.    The Army of Islam recruited Egyptians in planning the bombing in Alexandria.
  
• 2/1/2011 Baptists announce cuts in jobs and salary freeze by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal.
      The Kentucky Baptist Convention announce cuts of five full-time and 19 part-time positions, along with a salary freeze for those remaining.    The cuts, to take effect in September, follow a November vote by church representatives to send more money directly to causes in the Southern Baptist Convention, the state group's national affiliate.
      The cuts mark a historic shift in Kentucky's largest religious body and result from state and national studies urging greater allocation of funds for missionary work outside traditional Southern Baptist strongholds in the Bible Belt.    Some shifted funds also will go to other national programs, such as seminary education.
      The shifts reflect the denomination's growing concern about declining rates of conversions and missionary funding.    The cuts to ministries at Kentucky college campuses will affect efforts to reach young adults, a generation that the graying denomination is anxious to reach.
      At issue is a unified budget known as the Cooperative Program, which funds various state and natural causes.    In its current budget, the Kentucky Baptist Convention allocated 62 percent of funds collected from its churches through the Cooperative Program for statewide ministries, with 38 percent going to the Southern Baptist Convention.    The vote in November to bring that balance to 50-50 in the next decade, with the bulk of the state cuts taking place this year.
      The job cuts and salary freeze will save $486,000 and eventually reduce its budget by 20 percent.
  
• 2/4/2011 Sex-abuse settlement may get diocese out of Chapter 11 by AP.
      Wilmington, Del. - Lawyers for the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington and alleged victims of priest sexual abuse told a bankruptcy judge they've made a tentative deal that may allow the diocese to leave Chapter 11 protection.    The diocese, which filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2009 before a series of trials in sex-abuse lawsuits, agreed to a $77 million settlement with nearly 150 alleged victims.    In return, the diocese would be released from all legal claims related to church sex abuse.
  
• 2/5/2011 European theologians urge Vatican to let priests marry by Stefan Kruse, McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
      Berlin - In an open letter, 144 German-speaking Catholic theologians called on the Vatican to let priests marry.    About one-third of the scholars teaching theology at Catholic seminaries and public universities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland signed the appeal for change in the church, which requires preist to be celibate.
      The scholars also called for the church to let women be ordained as priests.    The open letter said the church was running short of priests because of the doctrinal restriction.    They also called for more lay participation in the election of Catholic bishops.
      Referring to the scandal of the past year in Germany over clergy sex abuse of children, the group said that "a lull must not follow the storm," they must also allow more freedom of conscience on sexual ethics, and stated that it was wrong to reject homosexuals who lived together in a responsible, loving way.
  
• 2/5/2011 References to God can be posted at Capitol by Roger Alford, AP.
      Frankfort, Ky. - Gov. Steve Beshear's office intervened in a dispute that had prevented a legislative chaplain from posting excerpts from historical documents in a Capitol walkway because they reference God.    Chaplain Lee Watts wants to display the phrases from the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Pledge of Allegiance when hundreds of Christian ministers come to the Capitol to pray for lawmakers and hold a rally.    State curator David Buchta denied the request, which was overridden because it is displaying statements about God that are in our founding documents and on some of our national monuments.
  
• 2/5/2011 2 clashing views on homosexuality - University, Osteen on opposite sides by AP.
      When they were faced with challenges over homosexuality, two evangelical Christian institutions made opposite responses last week.    Belmont University, a historically Baptist school in Nashville, Tenn., announced it would not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, drawing dismay from officials in its former Southern Baptist affiliates and cheers from gay-rights advocates.
      Meanwhile, Houston preacher Joel Osteen - a one-man institution with vast media reach - told CNN host Piers Morgan that he believes homosexuality is a sin, drawing strong reactions of his own.    Morgan pressed Osteen in an interview for his views on homosexuality, which was an uncomfortable topic since he focuses more on positive attitudes that doctrine or sexual ethics.    His opinion influences 7 to 8 million viewers every Sunday thus teaching believers that homosexuality is a sin, but does he speak for all Christians?
      Among those identifying with evangelical churches, 39 percent of adults under 30 says homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared with 24 percent of those 30 and older, according to a 2010 report by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.    This promotes that many have walked away from their Christian heritage and roots.
      God sent two angels in Genesis 19:5 "And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them."    6 "And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him."    .... 8 "Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof."
      [Comment: As seen in Sodom And Gomorrah sexual immorality was rampant, and lot knew that and was willing to give up his own daughters than deny his beliefs.    It starts in Genesis where the word Sodomy comes from and goes all the way to Revelation.]
  
• 2/6/2011 Pope challenges China with bishop's ordination by Nicole Winfield, AP.
      Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI insisted on his right to ordain bishops as he consecrated a Chinese prelate, implicitly challenging attempts by China's official church to ordain bishops without his approval.    Monsignor Savio Hon Tai-Fai, a 60-year-old Hong Kong prelate recently named to the No. 2 spot in the Vatican's missionary office, was one of five bishops Benedict ordained in St. Peter's Basilica.
      Hon's elevation comes amid a new low point in relations between the Holy See and Beijing over the Chinese state-backed church's ordination of bishops without papal consent, to ensure apostolic succession (uninterupted chain of communion with the apostles).    He stated, "You know that the Lord entrusted St. Peter and his successors to be the center of this communion, the guarantors of being in the totality of the apostolic communion and the faith."    He added, "Only through communion with the successors of the apostles are we in contact with God incarnate."
      The Chinese maintains that Rome's position amounts to interference in its internal affairs, whereas the Vatican condemns this as a violation of religious freedom and human rights.
  
• 2/12/2011 Sluggish offerings take toll on area churches - Protestant pastor study says 34% report decline by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal.
      When the Kentucky Baptist Convention announced staff cuts last week, it attributed them mainly to a policy shift among Southern Baptists seeking to shift state convention budgets in the Bible Belt to national programs.    But it also cited a slowdown in offerings because of a sluggish economy they were 9 percent behind the pace needed to reach the $23.5 million budget.    They are not alone in feeling the delayed effects of the recession in 2010, according to a survey of 1,000 Protestant pastors.
  
• 2/21/2011 Bible class in public schools questioned - Legislation calls for creating curriculum by William Croyle, The Kentucky Enquirer.
      Several reports in recent weeks have said Senate Bill 56 would allow Kentucky public schools to teach the Bible as an elective social studies course.    Actually, no law prevents districts from doing that now.    What the bill says is that a curriculum would be developed for a course that public schools could use if they wish to offer it as an elective.    The bill has passed the Senate.    Whether it will make it past the House Education Committee remains to be seen.
      Proponents say the bill is not meant to indoctrinate students with religion, where opponents claim it is too difficult to teach such a course with doing that.
      The curriculum would provide students knowledge of biblical content, characters, poetry, and narratives that are prerequisites to understanding contemporary society and culture, including literature, art, music, mores, oratory and public policy.    This book has had greater influence on our society than any other publication ever brought forward, and to understand the Bible is to understand how we got where we are today, the bill's sponsor, Sen. Joe Bowen, R-Owensboro said from a social studies context, and not a religious context.    [Comment: I have not attended a class teaching evolution.    I hope they refrain from claiming that humans came from apes, since they have never found a missing link.    But the whole foundation of evolution is based on that issue because of dinosaur/mammal bones.]
  
• 2/23/2011 High court rejects Ten Commandments case - 11-year battle over courthouse displays ends in McCreary, Pulaski counties by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal.
      Final answer: Thous shalt not.    More than 11 years after the case started, the U.S. Supreme Court put an end to a series of efforts by two southeastern Kentucky counties to post courthouse displays that include the Ten Commandments.
  [Comment: It just does not make sense to ban the Law given to us by God, by the highest law source in this country.    It kind of reminds you of Jesus calling the Pharisees' "generation of vipers" in John 9:16, 22, he condemned their theology and life of legalism.    Jesus taught God's free salvation by grace through his own death and resuurrection.    In Matthew 23:27, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocties!    You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean."    This is a definite that as the Bible says, "the lawless one" will come.]
      Without comment, the high court denied a request by McCreary and Pulaski counties to hear their appeal of lower-court rulings denying them permission to post the exhibits, which put the commandments alongside various English and American historical documents.    The counties now face the prospect of paying at least $400,000 of the other side's legal fees, from David Howe, a Mcreary County resident one of the plaintiffs.
  
• 2/24/2011 U.S. dropping its defense of anti-gay marriage law - Right groups cheer Obama; Congressional GOP critical by AP.
      Washington - President Barack Obama ordered his administration to stop defending the constitutionality of a federal law that bans recognition of gay marriage, a policy reversal that may have major implications for the rights and benefits of gay couples and reignite an emotional debate for the 2012 presidential campaign.
      Obama still is "grappling" with his personal views on whether gays should be allowed to marry but has long opposed the federal law as unnecessary and unfair.    The president concluded that the 15-year-old Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, was legally indefensible.    The gay rights organizations welcomed the decision and the otherside villified it.    They justify it in that the legal and social landscape has changed since 15 years ago and they based this on a poll where 52 percent of Americans said the federal government should give legal recognition to marriages between couples of the same sex, so Obama has a political agenda for re-election on his mind in this case.
      On the 25th in New York, angered conservatives vow to make same-sex marriage a front-burner 2012 election issue, nationally and in the states, after Obama's decision to no longer to defend the marriage act and put it on equal footing with the economy.
  
• 2/25/2011 Ky. court weighs security law citing God - Group says state taking position by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal.
      Frankfort, Ky. - According to the lawyers on opposing sides, the decision should be as easy as either affirming what everybody learns in grade school or dismissing a profession of faith.    A three-judge panel of the Kentucky Court of Appeals heard oral arguments over whether Kentucky law can mandate that the state's Office of Homeland Security declare its reliance upon "Almighty God" for its safety and security.
  
• 2/26/2011 Three faiths post steep declines in membership - Inconsistent updating clouds overall church trends by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal.
      Three church organizations from widely different parts of the religious landscape reached the same conclusion - that they aren't nearly as large as they had said previously.    In fact, each of them reduced their estimated number of adherents by about 1 million.    Data published by the National Council of Churches on church membership: Following are the largest religious bodies listed in 2011 of American and Canadian Churches.
  
  • Roman Catholic Church, 68.5 million, up 0.6%.
  • Southern Baptist Convention, 16.2 million, down 0.4%.
  • United Methodist Church, 7.8 million, down 1%.
  • Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6.1 million, up 1.4%.
  • Church of God in Christ, 5.5 mullion, no update reported.
  • National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc., 5 million, no update reported.
  • Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 4.5 million, down 2%.
  • National Baptist Convention fo America Inc., 3.5 million, no update reported.
  • Assemblies of God, 2.9 million, up 0.5 percent.
  • Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2.8 million (counted differently from statistics released by the denomination), down 2.6%.
  • African Methodist Episcopal Church, 2.5 million, no update reported.
  • National Missionary Baptist Convention of America, 2.5 million, no update reported.
  • The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, 2.3 million, down 1.08%.
  • The Episcopal Church, 2 million, down 2.5%.
  • Churches of Christ, 1.6 million, no update reported.
  • Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, 1.5 million, no update reported.
  • Pentecostal Assemblies of the World Inc., 1.5 million, no update reported.
  • The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, 1.4 million, no update reported.
  • American Baptist Churches (USA), 1.3 million, down 1.6%.
  • Jehovah's Witnesses, 1.2 million, up 4.4%.
  • United Church of Christ, 1.1 million, down 2.8%.
  • Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.), 1.1 million, up 0.4%.
  • Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, 1.1 million, no update reported.
  • Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 1 million, up 4.3%.
  • Progressive National Baptist convention, 1 million, down 60%.
    A historically black denomination switched from estimating its membership to conducting a more rigourous census and came up with 1.01 million, less than half the 2.5 million estimate it gave in 1995, when the convention was founded by supporters of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that split from another denomination, mainly over civilrights strategies.
  • The Orthodox Church in America, with roots in Russian Orthodoxy claimed 1.06 million members in 2004, but has weathered financial scandal, reported 131,000 members at this time, an 88% drop.
  • The Baptist Bible Fellowship International, a network of independent, fundamentalist, historically white Baptist churches reported membership of 115,000, or about one-tenth its previous estimate of 1.2 million from 1997.
  • Total church membership in the U.S. declined by 3.3 million a net decline that matches those that disappeared from the three groups that revised thier figures.    Total church membership came in at 160 million, the lowest since 2001.
• 3/1/2011 OK to ordain gays is nearer - Presbyterians vote through midyear by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal.
      After years of defeats, advocates for ordaining noncelibate gays and lesbians are making their most successful campaign yet in the Louisville-based Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).    So far, 55 regional governing bodies, known as presbyteries, have approved an amendment to the church constitution that would allow gays to be ordained as ministers, elders or deacons.    The amendment was endorsed by a 373-323 vote at the Presbyterian General Assembly in Minneapolis in July 2010.    Only 40 of 41 presbyteries have voted to uphold current policy according to results.    The amendment would require approval by a total of 87 presbyteries - a majority of its 173 - to become part of the church constitution.
  
• 3/9/2011 Pa. abuse probe sees 21 priests suspended by Joann Loviglio, AP.
      Philadelphia - The Philadelphia archdiocese suspended 21 Roman Catholic priests who were name as child molestation suspects in a scathing grand jury report released last month.    The priests have been removed from ministry while their cases are reviewed, Cardinal Justin Rigali said.    The two-year investigation into priest abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia resulted in charges against two priests, a former priest and a Catholic school teacher who are accused of raping young boys.    In an unprecedented move in the U.S., a former high-ranking church official was accused of transferring problem priests to new parishes without warning anyone of prior sexual-abuse complaints.
  
• 3/26/2011 Abuse to cost Jesuits $166 million - Order in Northwest settles with victims by Janet I. Tu, The Seattle Times.
      Seattle - In one of the largest payouts nationwide in the Roman Catholic Church's sexual abuse crisis, and the largest one by a religious order, the Jesuit order in the Northwest has agreed to pay $166.1 million to about 500 abuse victims as part of its bankruptcy settlement.    The settlement between the victims and the order's Oregon Province, the Northwest chapter of the Jesuits, also asks the order to provide a written apology to the victims and to share documents with them such as their personal medical records.    Many of the abuses involved American Indian or Alaska Native children.    Some were living in remote Alaskan villages when they were abused, others on reservations or in Christian boarding schools into which the federal government placed them in an attempt to assimilate them into the dominant culture.    The order was accused of regarding the villages and reservations as dumping grounds for problem priests.
  
• 3/31/2011 Parliament wants panel to handle clergy-abuse cases by AP.
      Brussels - Belgium's parliament called for an independent arbitration committee to deal with years of child abuse by Roman Catholic clergy and possible compensation for victims.    A special parliamentary committee unanimously approved a report, which also urges to extend the time for victims to come forward with their complaints to 15 years after adulthood.    The present limit is 10 years.    The church has acknowledged widespread sexual abuse over half a centruy and pleaded for time to set up a system to punish abusers and provide closure for victims.
  
• 4/17/2011 Filmmaker: Nails may be from Jesus' crucifixion by Alisa Odenheimer, Bloomberg News.
      Jerusalem - Two ancient nails discovered in a Jerusalem archaeological excavation 20 years ago may have been those used to crucify Jesus, filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici says.    The nails, discovered in an excavation fo a first century Jewish tomb in 1990, have divided historical opinion.    Jacobovici's view is set out in a documentary that will be aired on television in both the U.S. and Israel.    A number of ossuaries were found in the tomb, which belonge3d to the Caiaphas family, according to inscriptions on two of the bone boxes, Jacobovici says.    Caiaphas was he name of the Jewish high priest at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus, according to the New Testament.    He is not 100 percent sure that these are the nails of the crucifixion, but he wants to tell the story, although nails are commonly found in ancient burial caves used for chiseling the name of the deceased on the sarcophagus.
  
• 4/25/2011 In Easter message, pope urges diplomacy in Libya by AP.
      Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI offered an Easter prayer for diplomacy to prevail in Libya and for citizens of the Middle East to build a new society based on respect.    During the traditional "Urbi et Orbi" message from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, he also called on Europeans to welcome refugees from North Africa.    "In the current conflict in Libya, may diplomacy and dialogue replace arms, and may those who suffer as a result of the conflict be gioven access to humanitarian aid," he said.
  
• 4/29/2011 Marines get training on accepting gays by Elliot Spagat, AP.
      San Diego - If a Marine spots two men in his battalion kissing off-duty at a shopping mall, he should react as if he were seeing a man and woman.
      If he - or she - turns on the TV to see a fellow Marine dressed as a civilian and marching in a gay rights parade, he should accept it as a free right of expression.
      Prescriptions for those possible scenarios are being played out at Marine bases as the military prepares to allow gays to openly serve, ending the policy "don't ask, don't tell."    The repeal goes into effect 60 days after the president, defense secretary and chairman fo the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify that lifting the ban won't hurt the military's ability to fight.
  [Comment: That is what they do to you when you join the service, they tear you down and rebuild you, and reprogram you to follow policy orders, not what you believe.    I don't think they can do that to civilians or true Christians.    We will not be fooled by those Pavlov's dog brainwashing orders.]
  
• 5/1/2011 Catholic diocese opposes civil union compromise by AP.
      Providence, R. I. - The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence is urging Rhode Island lawmakers to reject a compromise proposal establishing civil unions for gay couples, calling them a "steppingstone" to gay marriage.
  
  

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      As of May 6, 2011, I have stopped typing from news articles and began using the Electronic Edition of the Courier-Journal newspaper so from this point on the articles are from those pages and may be shortened in some cases for highlights and space considerations.
  

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• 5/7/2011
  
  Group says Judgment Day will be this month - Billboard campaign - Family Radio ministry sparks mainly negative reaction by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal
      While you’re marking Derby Day, here’s something to consider if you have plans for Preakness Day: Several billboards around Louisville — and the nation and world — are warning of an impending Day of Judgment on a date certain: May 21, 2011. That’s when believers would be raptured to heaven.    The complete end of the world, we “must realize,” would come five months later on Oct. 21, according to the proponent’s website.
      It’s part of a worldwide publicity blitz by a broadcast ministry called Family Radio, based in Oakland, Calif.    The short version: Founder Harold Camping believes that through a complex set of numerological calculations, one can date the creation of the world, Noah’s flood and other events described in the Bible, then extrapolate when the Bible “guarantees” the world will end.
      The argument goes something like this: One verse in the New Testament book of 2 Peter says that a thousand years are as a day in the eyes of God.
      Camping contends that God warned Noah that global judgment would occur in seven days.    From that he concludes that this refers not only to the Genesis account of the flood but also another day of judgment seven “days” (millennia) later.    And to top it off, he concludes that this decree can be dated back exactly 7,000 years from May 21 (based on the Hebrew calendar).
      “The Bible has given us absolute proof that the year 2011 is the end of the world during the Day of Judgment, which will come on the last day of the Day of Judgment,” said his website.
      It should be noted that there is a long history of people predicting the end of the world unsuccessfully — Camping himself in 1994, which he attributed to a miscalculation.
      One medieval sect confidently expected the world’s end in 1260.    Then there was the “Great Disappointment” when people in the early Adventist movement expected the Second Coming on specific dates in the 1840s and were not obliged.
      Some doomsday sects have arisen in recent years, citing biblical or other religious sources.    Camping’s May 21, 2011, date has to share space on the doomsday calendar with others’ predictions of a 2012 apocalypse, based on some calculations involving the Mayan calendar.
      Family Radio spokesman Michael Garcia acknowledged in an interview that reaction to his group’s media blitz has been largely negative.    “The majority are a bit upset,” he said.    But he contended that people should react with repentance the way that the people of ancient Nineveh did in a biblical story in which the prophet Jonah predicted doom in 40 days.
      “Their attitude wasn’t ‘Come on, (what will you do on) the 41st day and the 42nd day, when you’re wrong?’ ” he said.    What about the Bible verse in which Jesus says that no one will know the day and hour of his second coming?    Even most of those who believe the Bible predicts the end in detail won’t predict a specific date.
      Camping’s website, however, says the few that are saved can discern the end through special divine insight.    The majority in spiritual darkness can’t, he argues, and he includes those in churches in that indictment.
      I had some questions about another number — the amount of dollars the group paid for the ads, and where it got its money.    “That’s not going to be information I’ll be able to release to the public,” Garcia said.
      He said the group has put up 35 or 40 billboards in the Louisville area, 1,200 billboards nationwide and 2,000 more in dozens of foreign countries, in addition to other media and people passing out the information by hand.    A Boston Herald report estimates the billboard campaign costs at least $3 million.    Did Family Radio pay in advance?    Yes, Garcia said.    To expect to be raptured up and leave behind an open account “would be kind of deceiving,” he said.    “We want to be honest and want to live honestly.”    Christians across the theological spectrum see little merit in the prediction.
      “Harold Camping has already taken us through this before,” said Russell Moore, a dean at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
      “From a standpoint of Christian orthodoxy the claim is ridiculous,” he added.    “If Jesus claims not to know the time of his coming, I find it odd that Harold Camping would know.    Rather than speculating about particular days or seasons, we should be always ready for the coming of Christ.”
      Susan Garrett, professor of New Testament at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, said Camping’s complex numerology comes from a “pick-and-choose reading of the Scriptures” rather than seeing each biblical book in its own context.
      She argued that many numbers in prophetic books are “entirely symbolic” rather than codes for fu-ture events.
      “There are plenty of Christians who don’t really concern themselves with such predictions, who affirm that Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead, but don’t claim to know how and when,” she added.    “Their emphasis is more on living in readiness.”
  
  
• 5/11/2011
  
  Presbyterians OK gay clergy - Minnesota gives amendment majority by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal
      Non-celibate gays and lesbians will be eligible for ordination in the Louisville-based Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) under a constitutional amendment ratified Tuesday night that reverses decades of official policy.
      The long-debated change came when a Minnesota presbytery, or regional governing body, voted 205-56 to ratify the amendment to lift an effective ban on gay ordination in the church constitution.
      The vote by the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area brought to 87 the number of presbyteries approving the change — the majority needed to amend the constitution.    The change, set in motion in 2010 by the denomination’s General Assembly, came on the fourth attempt since the late 1990s to overturn a policy that once had solid grassroots support.
      But support for the ban had waned in the most recent round of voting in 2008 and 2009. And numerous presbyteries flipped their votes from opposition to support in the current voting.    “I didn’t actually expect to see this for many more years,” said the Rev. Ann Deibert, a co-pastor at Central Presbyterian Church in Louisville, which has long supported the change.    The denomination “has talked about, prayed about, worked, dis-cussed, discerned for 35 years,” she said.    “It feels like an enormous gift and a breath of the Spirit.    What it means is we are recognizing the gifts and graces of God in more and more people.”
      But Presbyterians for Renewal, a Louisville-based coalition of evangelical churches, lamented “this un-faithful action” in a statement.    “In a lot of presbyteries, evangelical folks didn’t show up in enough numbers that it swung some votes,” said its executive director, the Rev. Paul Detterman.    “People really are just weary of this debate. … How opposing sides can work together without compromising their core identities under the same denominational canopy is the question of the day.”
      Earlier Tuesday, elders and ministers in the Presbytery of Western Kentucky gathered in the historic red-brick sanctuary of Franklin Presbyterian Church in Simpson County and voted against the amendment.    Virtually everyone knew its national approval was imminent, but one by one, members rose from the wooden pews and spoke in measured but earnest voices, restating arguments in the long-running debate.    Some said the church must follow biblical prohibitions on homosexuality.
      “I have searched my heart, I have prayed, I have searched the biblical tradition,” said the Rev. James Stahr of Central Presbyterian Church in Princeton, Ky.    “ … There is no scintilla of evidence to support a change in these standards.”    Others said sexuality is part of a person’s core identity, rather than a lifestyle choice, and that the church should follow in its tradition of being “inclusive” of all races and genders.
      The Rev. Kara Hildebrandt, of the Presbyterian Church of Bowling Green, said the change would encourage presbyteries, which ordain ministers, and congregations, who ordain elders and deacons, to be more thorough in examining candidates for ordination.
      “Because we are only concerned with who they are sleeping with (at present), we overlook the gifts” that candidates may or may not have, she said.    Opponents, however, pledged to remain united — and afterward members of both sides sat together in the church fellowship hall for a lunch of homemade vegetable soup, sandwiches and cookies.    “It’s given me hope, that we can sit down and break bread,” Stahr said.
      The denomination is the latest of a cluster of more liberal Protestant denominations to approve gay ordination, following such groups as the United Church of Christ, Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.    In the late 1970s, the denominations that later merged to form the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) approved formal policies that said “self-affirming, practicing homosexual” could not be ordained.
      In 1996, the Presbyterian General Assembly voted to put that ban into its constitution, requiring ministers, elders and deacons to “live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in single-ness.’’
      Presbyteries ratified that measure and rebuffed three subsequent efforts to overturn it.     The new policy says ordination policy should reflect “the church’s desire to submit joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ” and that ordaining bodies should examine candidates for their “calling, gifts, preparation, and suitability.”
      The amendment takes effect July 10.    The switch follows the defection of dozens of conservative congregations — some with large memberships and leaders active in resisting changes to ordination stan-dards.    Their defection worsened already chronic losses in a denomination whose membership of 2.1 million — including approximately 23,000 in Kentucky and 42,000 in Indiana — is less than half its peak in the 1960s.
      Leaders of other conservative congregations are floating proposals for reorganizing denominations, such as organizing presbyteries along theological rather than regional lines.    That “might stop the wholesale defections of conservatives,” said Beau Weston, a Centre College sociologist and Presbyterian elder who tracks trends in the denomination.    “Short of that, though, I think massive losses are likely.”
      He attributed the vote to shifts among the “moderate majority” of Presbyterians amid a growing ac-ceptance of homosexuality in society.    While they may share the conservative opposition to homosexu-ality, they are “shifting on whether it is so bad that rejecting it is essential or not.”
      Denominational polling found that while vast majorities of Presbyterians supported the ban in past decades, in recent years a majority of pastors began supporting gay ordination, with elders and members still opposed, according to Presbyterian Research Services.
      The Rev. Betty Meadows, general presbyter for Mid-Kentucky, called for a “season of prayer” among those disagreeing on the issue.    “There’ll be a majority of our presbytery who believe this is a faithful response to Jesus Christ,” she said.    “However, not everybody in Mid-Kentucky is in agreement, so this vote will cause pain in some people who believe it’s not.”
  
  Change in constitution
      Here are excerpts of the changes in the Presbyterian Church Book of Order, part of its constitution: Old language: Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church.    Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman … or chastity in singleness.    Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers if the Word and Sacrament.
      New language: Standards for ordained service reflect the church’s desire to submit joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of life. …The governing body responsible for ordination and/or installation… shall examine each candidate’s calling, gifts, preparation, and suitability for the responsibilities of office. … Governing bodies shall be guided by Scripture and the confessions in applying standards to individual candidates.
  
  
• 5/12/2011
  
  Suit says Vatican covered up sex abuse by Associated Press
      CHICAGO — The Vatican was named Wednesday in a lawsuit that claims the Holy See ultimately was responsible for covering up child sexual abuse by a now-imprisoned Chicago priest when church officials overlooked complaints about abuse and kept him in a position to continue molesting children.
      The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago on behalf of a woman whose son was molested by Father Daniel McCormack, is an attempt to “hold those most responsible for the global problem and the problem in this community to account in a way they have never been,” said Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul, Minn. based attorney.
      McCormack pleaded guilty in 2007 to abusing five children while he was priest at St. Agatha Catholic Church and a teacher at a Catholic school and was sentenced to five years in prison.    In 2008, the Archdiocese of Chicago agreed to pay $12.6 million to 16 victims of sexual abuse by priests, including McCormack.    As part of that settlement, Cardinal Francis George also agreed to release a lengthy deposition and apologize to the public and each victim.    A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese would not comment because it was not named in the suit.
  
  Vatican to issue guidelines
      The Vatican on Monday will issue a new document designed to help bishops around the world craft guidelines to deal with clerical sex abuse cases, the latest effort by the Holy See to show it is trying to get tough with pedophiles in the clergy.    It’s not clear if the letter from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will contain any binding instructions for the bishops themselves or will merely be a set of recommendations for them to consider following.    It is being issued at a time when even the most stringent guidelines in force, the sex abuse norms of the U.S. bishops, have been put into question amid a new scandal in the Philadelphia archdiocese.
  
  
• 5/12/2011
  
  Presbyterians on gays
      In recent years, those who view equality for gays and lesbians as an important struggle in the nation’s quest to be a more perfect union, for all, have been heartened by progress on many fronts: gay marriage legalized in some states, the repeal of the don’t ask, don’t tell policy by the military, the Justice Department’s abandonment of the Defense of Marriage Act — and, this week, the decision by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to allow non-celibate gays and lesbians to be eligible for ordination.
      The milestone came Tuesday, after decades of debate and discussion about the issue.    A Minnesota presbytery became the 87th such regional governing body to ratify amending the church’s constitution, providing the majority needed to make the change.    The amendment removes obstacles that prevented gays from being ordained, even as it reaffirms autonomy of presbyteries to determine candidate suitability.
      While supporters of the change expressed joy that it had finally happened, they also were conscious that many others in their flock did not share their views or their feelings.    “It seems we have been debating ordination standards for a lifetime, and for some of our younger members and pastors it has been a lifetime,” Cynthia Bol-bach, moderator of the PCUSA’s 219th General Assembly, said in a YouTube message.    “The ongoing struggle reflects that we are not of one mind on whether persons in same gender relationships should be candidates for ordained office.    We have been and we remain divided on this issue.”
      She urged those who were aggrieved by the decision “to live into what the amendment does and does not require” and to determine whether the change does “impact your integrity in proclaiming the gospel.”    To those who welcomed the change, she urged them to “understand, respect and where possible reach out to those troubled by the passage.”    She asked that Presbyterians be mindful of their upcoming conference theme: “the big tent.”    Sound advice to Presbyterians assimilating a long coming and welcome change, and to all Americans, who are still working on living into that theme, too.
  
  
• 5/14/2011
  
  Decision on gay ordination surprised many - Varied factors helped contribute to Presbyterian Church reversal by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal
      Paging Malcolm Gladwell.    Was it just coincidence that I was listening to a recording of Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” while driving to an assignment on the day that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) lifted its ban on gay clergy?    The book’s subtitle — “How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference” — raised the question in my mind: What made such a difference in the Louisville based denomination that, in just a few years, reversed seemingly solid grassroots opposition to ordaining noncelibate gays and lesbians?
      On Tuesday, a Minnesota presbytery cast the deciding vote among regional governing bodies to amend the church constitution to allow presbyteries and congregations the option — but not requirement — to ordain openly gay pastors, elders and deacons.
      We can point to long-term trends — growing tolerance of homosexuality among the general population, particularly among the young, and the defection of some conservative congregations to denominations such as the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.    But Gladwell — a journalist who delves into sociological studies that reveal surprising things about human behavior — argues that long-term demographic trends don’t always explain sudden shifts.
      His book focuses on the triggers that cause dramatic changes — a single charismatic personality (“connector”) such as Paul Revere rousing the New England countryside, or a minor change in the environment — such as community-policing techniques in New York City, where strict enforcement of laws against petty crimes like graffiti and vandalism was followed by steep declines in violent crime.
      For a long time among Presbyterians, there was a familiar pattern: the denomination’s General Assembly attracted a generally more liberal and activist group that repeatedly — three times between the late 1990s and 2008 — voted to repeal the church’s constitutional ban on ordaining gays as pastors, elders and deacons.    And just as many times, regional presbyteries rejected the change, seeming to reflect the opposition to gay ordination in the pews.
      But in the previous round of voting, after the 2008 assembly, a net total of 32 presbyteries — 18 percent of total regional governing bodies — flipped from opposing to supporting gay clergy.    In the current round, an additional 19 (or 10 percent) of them have reversed course so far, enough to create a majority of presbyteries supporting the change, and voting hasn’t finished.
      The voting follows a long-term trend toward more tolerance of homosexuality in the denomination, according to the denomination’s Research Services.    But even the Research Services coordinator, Jack Marcum, didn’t see it coming as fast as it did.
      From the 1970s through 2005, a solid majority of Presbyterian clergy, elders and members opposed gay ordination, although the margins dropped over time.    By the last survey in 2008, ministers supported it 50 percent to 42 percent.    Opposition remained, however, among elders (59 percent) and members (53 percent).
      Younger Presbyterians were showing more tolerance of such ordinations.    Still, “the voting results surprised me,” Marcum said.    “After more than three decades of disagreements over homosexuality and ordination, I hadn’t seen any trends suggesting that 2011 would be the decisive year.”
      Only elders and pastors vote in presbytery meetings, which would seem to set up close votes because of the split in views between pastors and elders.    But even pastors who favor ordaining gays and lesbians would have to answer to a membership that, as a whole, opposes it (although opinions within individual congregations would vary).
      So what tipped the balance?    Dozens of conservative congregations have left the denomination in recent years, citing liberal trends in theology and homosexuality.    That’s a fraction of the Presbyterians’ more than 10,000 churches, even if some of them are quite large.    But people who take the dramatic step of leaving their denomination are generally activists — the type of dynamic personalities that Gladwell writes about.    Maybe conservatives suffered from a shortage of leadership by activists who had departed.
      And pastors themselves, almost by definition, are influential personalities.    If they’re increasingly tolerant of gays, it’s not surprising that they led the denomination in the same direction.    A survey by the Public Religion Research Institute confirms Presbyterian polling that a majority of the denomination’s pastors sup-port ordaining gays.    The institute also found that Protestant ministers supporting such ordinations tend to be more “modernist” than “traditionalist” in theology.
      Also, they are far more likely to support such things as gay marriage if they have a friend, relative or church member who is gay.    “The data shows that relationships are a slightly more powerful independent predictor, holding all other things equal, than other factors including an approach to the Bible,” said the institute’s Robert Jones.    “From a theological perspective, the question is whether this is an appropriate way to form moral beliefs or not.”
      James Wellman Jr., a Presbyterian minister who has studied Protestant trends, said he sensed that evangelicals themselves are less willing to fight over the issue.
      “Behind closed doors, evangelicals know this is a losing issue; it makes (them) look intolerant,” he said.
      These have been decisive times in other ways.    General public support for giving gays access to marriage and military service has grown significantly.    In recent years other denominations, such as the Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, have expanded their access to ordination.
      “Change within the Presbyterian Church did not occur in a vacuum,” said Michael Adee, executive director of the group More Light Presbyterians and a longtime advocate for gay ordination.    “… Being part of the larger welcoming church movement is a key factor.”
      But those denominations, like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), are steadily losing numbers.    Wellman, a professor of comparative religion at the University of Washington in Seattle, said he supports opening ordination to gays but wondered if it’s a “pyrrhic victory” for Presbyterians.    He said larger churches, which tend to be more conservative, focus on the “felt needs” of families, who are “relatively indifferent” to gay rights compared with their immediate concerns about “keeping kids out of jail and off drugs.”
      He said he interviewed numerous Protestant liberals in his research who make gay rights one of their defining issues and believe “it’s the right thing to do even if it destroys the denomination.    Frankly, they’re coming out of the 1960s civil-rights movement, and I’ve sympathy for that, but you wonder, what about the health of the institution in the long run?”
      Twenty-four former moderators of the denomination’s General Assembly issued a more hopeful joint statement in a call for unity after the Minnesota vote — one based on a faith that goes beyond any sociological analysis: “We affirm that Jesus Christ is Head of the Church, and continues to guide and direct it.”
      “The voting results surprised me. ...I hadn’t seen any trends suggesting that 2011 would be the decisive year.” JACK MARCUM, Presbyterian Research Services coordinator .
  
  
• 5/15/2011
  
  Christian protesters attacked; 65 hurt
      Cairo - A mob attacked a group of mainly Christian protesters demanding drastic measures to heal religious tension amid a spike in violence, leaving 65 people injured, officials said today.    The Christian protesters have been holding a sit-in outside the state television building for nearly a week following Christian-Muslim clashes that left 15 people dead.
      More than 100 people rushed into the sit-in area, lobbing rocks and fire bombs from an overpass.    Vehicles were set on fire.    A security official said the attackers had returned to avenge a scuffle with protesters who prevented a motorist from going through the area.
  
  
• 5/17/2011
  
  Guidelines for bishops in sex abuse cases attacked
      Vatican City - The Vatican told bishops around the world Monday that it is important to cooperate with police in reporting priests who molest children and asked them to develop guidelines for preventing sex abuse by next May.    But the letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith made no provision to ensure the bishops actually follow the guidelines, and victims groups immediately denounced the recommendations as “dangerously flawed” because they stress the exclusive authority of bishops to determine the credibility of abuse allegations.    The letter is significant in that it marks a universal directive to bishops to establish “clear and coordinated procedures” with superiors of religious orders to deal with pedophiles and care for their victims.
  
  
• 5/19/2011
  
  Priest sex abuse blamed on 1960s - Critics slam study; celibacy, homosexuality addressed by Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times
      LOS ANGELES — Sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in the United States is a “historical problem” that has largely been resolved, and it never had any significant correlation with either celibacy or homosexuality, according to an independent report commissioned by Catholic bishops — and subjected to fierce attack even before its release Wednesday.
      The report blamed the sexual revolution for a rise in sexual abuse by priests, saying that Catholic clerics were swept up by a tide of “deviant” behavior that became more socially acceptable in the 1960s and ’70s.    As that subsided, and as the church instituted reforms in the 1990s and 2000s, the problem of priests acting as sexual predators sharply declined, according to the study by John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York .
      “The abuse is a result of a complex interaction of factors,” said Karen Terry, a John Jay criminal justice professor who led the research team.    One major factor, she said at a news conference in Washington, was social turmoil in the 1960s and ’70s that led some priests “who had some vulnerabilities” to commit child sexual abuse.    She said Catholic seminaries had done a poor job of preparing priests “to live a life of chaste celibacy,” as their vows demanded.
      The report found no evidence, however, that celibacy itself contributed to sexual abuse.    “Given the continuous requirement of priestly celibacy over time, it is not clear why the commitment to or state of celibate chastity should be seen as a cause for the steady rise in incidence of sexual abuse between 1950 and 1980,” it said.    It also found no evidence that homosexuality was to blame.    While more boys than girls have been abused, the report said, that is probably because priests had greater access to boys.    In fact, it said, the incidence of sexual abuse by priests began declining not long after a rise in the number of gay men entering Catholic seminaries in the 1970s.
      News of the report’s findings leaked out late Tuesday with an account by Religion News Service, and reaction from critics was swift and harsh.    Advocates for victims of child sexual abuse expressed outrage that the report stressed social factors, which they saw as an attempt to shift blame.
      A conservative Catholic group objected to the report’s exoneration of homosexuality as a cause of the abuse.    Bill Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League, noted on the group’s website that the report found that 81 percent of abuse victims were male and 78 percent were beyond puberty.    “Since 100 percent of the abusers were male, that’s called homosexuality, not pedophilia or heterosexuality,” he said.
      Anne Barrett Doyle, cofounder of the website BishopAccountability. org, which chronicles abuse cases and acts as an advocate for victims, said the report failed to take the church hierarchy to task for the abuse crisis.    She said it seemed intended “to decriminalize the bishops’ response to child molesta-tion.”
      “But I guess what is surprising me,” she said, “is the fact that they’re also chalking up the rape and abuse of tens of thousands of children to a vulnerable priesthood responding to social turmoil.”
      Speakers at the Washington news conference, held by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, insisted that church leaders did not try to shape the research, and said the report did not let anyone off the hook.    “None of what is included in this report should be interpreted as making excuses for the terrible acts that occurred,” said Diane Knight, a Milwaukee social worker who chairs the bishops’ National Review Board.    There are no excuses.
      “There is much that the church has to learn from this report, and much of it is dif-ficult.    The bottom line is that the church was wrong not to put children first for all those years, all those decades,” she said.
      David Finkelhor, a sociologist who directs the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, said he briefly reviewed the report Wednesday morning and was largely impressed by the breadth and depth of research.     However, he said. “I do think they are unfortunately going to get lambasted on some things, and it may be more of a question of tone and emphasis than actual substance.”
      Chief among those, he said, is the lack of emphasis on “the terrible mishandling of this whole phenomenon by the bishops and the church hierarchy.”
      Finkelhor said he accepted the report’s finding that child sexual abuse by priests had dramatically declined in recent years.    Some U.S. dioceses have done a good job of instituting programs to safeguard children, and society as a whole has gotten better at dealing with sexual abuse, he said.
      While critics argue that the abuse being committed today simply hasn’t been reported yet, and might not be for decades, Finkelhor said he thought that was much less likely than in the past.    “I think frankly we’re much better now at flushing out abuse early on,” he said.    “I think young people feel much more comfortable coming out and talking about it.”    “None of what is included in this report should be interpreted as making excuses for the terrible acts that occurredd.”    DIANE KNIGHT, a social worker who chairs the bishops’ National Review Board.
  
  APOCALYPSE NOW? - Some await The End as others party by Tom Breen, Associated Press
      For some, it’s Judgment Day.    For others, it’s party time.    A loosely organized Christian movement has spread the word around the globe that Jesus Christ will return to earth Saturday to gather the faithful into heaven — an event known as the Rapture.    The Christian mainstream isn’t buying it, and many skeptics are milking it.
      A Facebook page titled “Post rapture looting” offers this invitation: “When everyone is gone and god’s not looking, we need to pick up some sweet stereo equipment and maybe some new furniture for the mansion we’re going to squat in.”    By Wednesday afternoon, more than 175,000 people indicated they would be “attending the public event.”    The prediction is also being mocked in the comic strip “Doonesbury” and has inspired “Rapture parties” to celebrate what hosts expect will be the failure of the world to come to an end.
      In Fayetteville, N.C., the local chapter of the American Humanist Association has planned a Saturday night party followed by a day-after concert.    “It’s not meant to be insulting, but come on,” said organizer Geri Weaver.    “Christians are openly scoffing at this.”
      The prediction originates with Harold Camping, 89, a retired civil engineer from Oakland, Calif., who founded Family Radio Worldwide, an independent ministry that has broadcast his prediction around the world.    The Rapture is a relatively new notion compared to Christianity itself, and most Christians don’t believe in it.    And even believers rarely try to set a date.
      Camping’s prophecy comes from numerological calculations based on his reading of the Bible.    He has been derided for an apocalyptic prediction in 1994, but his followers say that merely referred to the end of “the church age,” a time when humans in Christian churches could be saved.    Now, they say, only those outside what they regard as irredeemably corrupt churches can expect to ascend to heaven.
      Camping is not hedging this time: “Beyond the shadow of a doubt, May 21 will be the date of the Rapture and the day of judgment,” he said in January.
      Such predictions are nothing new, but Camping’s latest has been publicized with exceptional vigor — not just by Family Radio but through like-minded groups.    They’ve spread the word using radio, satellite TV, daily website updates, billboards, subway ads and missionaries scattered around the world.    “These kinds of prophecies are constantly going on at a low level, and every once in a while one of them gets traction,” said Richard Landes, a Boston University history professor who has studied such beliefs for more than 20 years.
      The prediction has been publicized in almost every country, said Chris McCann, who works with eBible Fellowship, one of the groups spreading the message.    “The only countries I don’t feel too good about are the ‘stans’ — you know, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, those countries in Central Asia,” he said.
  
  Condom fight heads to Philippine Congress
      Manila, Philippines - President Benigno Aquino III says he is ready to face excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church for advocating free condoms.    The issue pits a powerful and conservative Catholic establishment, which says contraceptives are as sinful as abortions, against reformers who seek more openness on condoms and other birth control in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation to slow population growth and help prevent disease.    A reproductive health bill in the House of Representatives would require the government to provide information on family planning, make free contraceptives available and bring reproductive health and sexuality classes to schools.
  
  
• 5/20/2011
  
  Muslim, Christians clash anew at reopened Egyptian church by Sarah El Deeb, Associated Press
      CAIRO — Muslims and Christians pelted each other with stones in a Cairo suburb Thursday over the re-opening of a church the former regime closed years ago.    The church is one of three to be reopened as part of the Egyptian authorities’ plan to try to defuse recent religious tensions.    They’ve promised to reopen almost 50 churches across Egypt in an effort to appease Christian protesters who’ve been holding a sit-in for more than a week along the Nile.
      The protesters are also demanding the prosecution of those behind recent attacks on at least three churches in Cairo after the popular uprising that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11.    Thursday’s clashes began when police accompanied a group of Christians to reopen the Church of the Virgin in the suburb of Ain Shams.    More than 1,000 Muslims, including dozens of ultraconservative Salafi Muslims, tried to block the way, and the sides pelted each other with stones, a security official said.
      Police detained a number of those involved and the scuffle was quickly contained, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.    No injuries were re-ported.
      The Christians then entered the church while a smaller protest continued outside, the official said.    Meanwhile, hundreds of Christians who have been camping out along the Nile River outside the TV building decided not to break up their protest camp in anger at the harassment.    “It was a farce,” said Girgis Atef, a protest organizer.    About10 percent of Egyptians are Christians.    Earlier this month, mobs of Muslims, apparently urged on by the Salafi sect of Islam, stormed the Virgin Mary Church in the Cairo neighborhood of Imbaba and set it ablaze.
      The attack was sparked by a rumor that a Christian woman planned to marry a Muslim, which some reli-gious purists consider to be forbidden; 15 people were killed and more than 200 were injured in the clashes.
      Meanwhile, Egypt’s military rulers said parliamentary elections will be held no later than Sept. 30, as stipu-lated by the constitutional declaration that’s replaced Egypt’s suspended constitution.
      The rulers announced a new law to regulate the voting in the upcoming elections, saying it allowed for Egyptians living abroad to vote, a right long denied to millions of them.
      However, Maj. Gen. Mamdouh Shaheen said the logistics of organizing a vote by expatriates have not been worked out, indicating the decision is not final.
  
  
• 5/22/2011
  
  APOCALYPSE … NOT! - Believers take lack of Rapture in stride; skeptics just carried on as usual anyway by Garance Burke, Associated Press
      OAKLAND, Calif. — They spent months warning the world of the apocalypse, some giving away earthly belongings or draining their savings accounts.    So they waited, vigilantly, on Saturday for the appointed hour to arrive.    When 6 p.m. came and went at various spots around the globe and no extraordinary cataclysm occurred, Keith Bauer — who hopped in his minivan in Maryland and drove his family 3,000 miles to California for the Rapture — took it in stride.    “I had some skepticism but I was trying to push the skepticism away because I believe in God,” he said in the bright sun outside the gated Oakland headquarters of Family Radio International, whose founder, Harold Camping, has broadcast the apocalyptic prediction for years.    “I was hoping for it because I think heaven would be a lot better than this Earth.”    But, he added, “It’s God who leads you, not Harold Camping.”
      Bauer, a tractor-trailer driver, began the trip west last week, figuring that if he “worked last week, I wouldn’t have gotten paid anyway, if the Rapture did happen.”
      After seeing the nonprofit ministry’s home base, he planned to make a day trip to the Pacific Ocean, then start the cross-country drive back home today with his wife, young son and another relative.
      The May 21 doomsday message was sent far and wide via broadcasts and websites by Camping, 89, a retired civil engineer who has built a multi-million-dollar Christian media empire that publicizes his apocalyptic prediction.    According to him, the destruction was to begin its worldwide march as it became 6 p.m. in the various time zones, although believers said Saturday the timing was never exact.
      Many followers said though the sun rose Saturday without the earthquakes, plagues and other foretold calamities, the delay was a further test from God to persevere in their faith.    “It’s still May 21 and God’s going to bring it,” said Family Radio’s special projects coordinator Michael Garcia, who spent Saturday morning praying and drinking two last cups of coffee with his wife at home in Alameda.
      “When you say something and it doesn’t happen, your pride is what’s hurt. But who needs pride?    God said he resists the proud and gives grace to the humble,” he said.    At Chicago’s Millennium Park, hours before 6 p.m., people continued to take photographs as they do every Saturday — and poked fun at the Judgment Day prophecy.    “I guess the whole school thing was a waste of time,” said Sarah Eaton, a 19-year-old college student visiting from St. Paul, Minn.
      The New Orleans Secular Humanist Association planned to hold a Left Behind balloon release and costume party rather than their usual monthly gathering to hear a speaker.    The Internet also was alive with discussion, humorous and not, on the end of the world and its apparent failure to occur on cue.    The top trends on Twitter at midday included, at No. 1, “end of world confessions,” followed by “my rapture playlist.”
      Camping’s radio stations, TV channels, satellite broadcasts and website are controlled from a modest building sandwiched between an auto shop and a palm reader’s business.    Family Radio International’s message has been broadcast in 61 languages.
      Camping has said his 1994 apocalyptic prediction didn’t come true because of a mathematical error.    “I’m not embarrassed about it. It was just the fact that it was premature,” he said last month.    But this time, he said, “there is … no possibility that it will not happen.”
  
  
• 5/24/2011
  
  Preacher now says apocalypse coming Oct. 21
      Oakland, Calif. - Preacher Harold Camping said Monday his prophecy that the world would end was off by five months because Judgment Day actually will come Oct. 21.    Camping, who had predicted that 200 million Christians would be taken to heaven Saturday before the Earth was destroyed, said he felt so terrible when his doomsday prediction did not come true that he left home and took refuge in a motel.    Camping said he’s now realized the apocalypse will come Oct. 21.    He originally said that was when the globe would be consumed by a fireball.    Saturday was “an invisible judgment day,” he said.
  
  
• 5/29/2011
  
  Crystal Cathedral files bankruptcy plan
      Garden Grove, Calif. - The Southern California megachurch founded by one of the nation’s pioneering televangelists, the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, on Friday filed a bankruptcy plan that would pull the Crystal Cathedral out of debt by selling its campus and glass-spired sanctuary to a real estate investment group for $47 million.
      The church would lease back most of its core buildings under the plan, which must be approved by a bankruptcy judge.    The church’s “Hour of Power” broadcasts would also continue, the church said.
  
  
• 6/4/2011
  
  Texas court lifts ban against public prayer at graduation by Associated Press
      SAN ANTONIO — Public prayer will be allowed at a Texas high school graduation after a federal appeals court Friday reversed a ban won by an agnostic family, who claimed that watching their son receive a diploma would amount to forced religious participation because of school traditions.
      The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency appeal filed by the Medina Valley Indepen-dent School District.
      Its San Antonio-area high school had been ordered by a federal judge this week to forbid the students at today’s graduation ceremony from asking audience members to join in prayer or bow their heads.
      Texas Gov. Rick Perry and various conservative groups, which rallied to the defense of the school, hailed Friday’s ruling by the three judge panel in New Orleans.    “It should not be illegal for students to say a prayer at a graduation ceremony,” said Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who filed a brief in support of the school.    “Now, the federal court of appeals agrees,” The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Christa and Danny Schultz, whose son is graduating.    The Castroville parents claimed that traditions at graduation, including the invocation and benediction, excluded their beliefs.    Their lawsuit was backed by the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State.    Ayesha Khan, attorney for the organization, said the group was “deeply” disappointed in the ruling.    “Students should be able to attend their graduation ceremonies without being pressured to participate in worship,” she said.    Khan said she would continue with the lawsuit.
  
  
• 6/11/2011
  
  Evangelicals aim for positive debate of genes and Genesis - Science, faith again in play
      Can evangelical Christians legitimately interpret the book of Genesis as talking about Adam and Eve as representing a group of early humans, rather than two distinct individuals?
      Christianity Today magazine airs the question in its June cover story, titled “The Search for the Histori-cal Adam.”    One might think the flagship journal of evangelicalism would reject the question out of hand, given its statement of belief declaring the Bible “free from error.”    Yet it presents the issue as a matter of legitimate debate for a “family meeting” among evangelicals.
      That alone is a remarkable display of the ferment over this issue, which the magazine compares to earlier and still-running debates over creation and evolution more generally and over the search for the historical Jesus.    In an editorial, the publication insists on the formula, “No Adam, No Eve, No Gospel.”    It reaffirms its belief in the creation of Adam and Eve, with the corollaries that humanity suffers from the sin of its first parents and the redemption by what the apostle Paul calls the “second Adam,” Jesus.
      But were Adam and Eve two people, or many?     The magazine acknowledges the work of some scientists who trace the human genetic code to a group of about 10,000 ancestors who diverged from their biolog-ical cousins perhaps 100,000 years ago.    (That alone is farther back in time than a literal reading of the Genesis account would seem to allow, not even getting into the matter of the billions of years that scientists say it took the universe to develop.)    The magazine notes that other individual characters in the Bible also stand for larger people groups, such as Israel (aka Jacob) and Canaan.
      In the same way, perhaps Adam and Eve embody that first select group of humans, or were their king and queen, some Christian writers speculate.
      “At this juncture, we counsel patience,” Christianity Today’s editorial says.    “We don’t need another fundamentalist reaction against science.    We need instead a positive interdisci-plinary engagement that recognizes the good will of all involved and that creative thinking takes time.”
      The main article focuses mostly on debates between theistic evolutionists — those who believe God used evolution to create humanity — and those who insist on there being a single Adam and Eve, even if they allow for a symbolic interpretation of Genesis in such matters as the age of the universe.
      The article talks about the growing role of the Bio-Logos website in advocating for Christians to embrace evolution and that believers shouldn’t have to choose between science and faith.    A key founder is Francis Collins, an evangelical Christian and human-genome pioneer who now heads the National Institutes of Health.
      And the article notes that some scholars have faced tensions with their academic institutions, such as Re-formed Theological Seminary, which has campuses in multiple states, and Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., over whether their work strays from orthodoxy.    The article spends relatively little time on those who insist on interpreting Genesis literally, such as Creation Museum leader Ken Ham, who says Adam was a “real man” and to “say otherwise is to undermine Scripture.”
      Given that about 40 percent of Americans say God created humans within the past 10,000 years in their present form, according to a recent Gallup poll, such views shouldn’t be underestimated.    Overall, the article offers a solid introduction to a debate with major theological ramifications for evangelicals.
  
  
• 6/13/2011
  
  Detroit Mass defies Catholic archbishop by Detroit Free Press
      DETROIT — Defying the Roman Catholic archbishop of Detroit, a priest led a Mass Sunday organized by the American Catholic Council, a controversial umbrella group of liberal Catholics.    And dozens of Catholic priests and deacons from the Detroit diocese attended the Mass, said organizers.
      They participated despite a letter from Archbishop Allen Vigneron ordering priests and deacons to not take part in the Mass because it was led by groups the Catholic Church deems heretical and could violate church law.    He warned in a letter that clergy could be punished and defrocked for participating.
      The Rev. Robert Wurm, 78, a retired priest, presided over the Mass for about1,500 assembled at Cobo Center.    He said later he was aware that Vigneron had explicitly warned priests and deacons to not participate.    But he said he’s not worried being punished.    “I don’t see that happening,” Wurm said.
      A spokesman for Vigneron could not be reached for comment.
  
  
• 6/18/2011
  
  U.N. backs gay rights for first time - Close vote follows tense meeting by Frank Jordans, Associated Press
      GENEVA — The United Nations endorsed the rights of gay, lesbian and transgender people for the first time Friday, passing a resolution hailed as historic by the U.S. and other backers and decried by some African and Muslim countries.
      The declaration was cautiously worded, expressing “grave concern” about abuses because of sexual orientation.    It also commissioned a global report on discrimination against gays.
      But activists called it an important shift on an issue that has divided the global body for decades, and they credited the Obama administration’s push for gay rights at home and abroad.
      “This represents a historic moment to highlight the human rights abuses and violations that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people face around the world based solely on who they are and whom they love,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement.    Following tense negotiations, members of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council narrowly voted in favor of the declaration put forward by South Africa, with 23 votes in favor and 19 against.
      Backers included the U.S., the European Union, Brazil and other Latin American countries.    Those against included Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Pakistan.
      China, Burkina Faso and Zambia abstained; Kyrgyzstan didn’t vote; and Libya was suspended from the rights body earlier.
      The resolution expressed “grave concern at acts of violence and discrimination, in all regions of the world, committed against individuals because of their sexual orientation and gender identity.”
      More important, activists said, it also established a formal U.N. process to document human rights abuses against gays, including discriminatory laws and acts of violence.    According to Amnesty International, consensual same-sex relations are illegal in 76 countries, while harassment and discrimination are common in many more.
      “Today’s resolution breaks the silence that has been maintained for far too long,” said John Fisher of the gay rights advocacy group ARC International.
      The resolution calls for a panel discussion next spring with “constructive, informed and transparent dialogue on the issue of discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against” gays, lesbians and transgender people.
      The prospect of having their laws scrutinized in this way went too far for many of the council’s 47-member states.    “We are seriously concerned at the attempt to introduce to the United Nations some notions that have no legal foundation,” said Zamir Akram, Pakistan’s envoy to the U.N. in Geneva, speaking on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.    Nigeria claimed the proposal went against the wishes of most Africans.    A diplomat from the northwest African state of Mauritania called the resolution “an attempt to replace the natural rights of a human being with an unnatural right.”
      Boris Dittrich of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights program at Human Rights Watch said it was important for the U.S. and Western Europe to persuade South Africa to take the lead on the resolution so that other non-Western countries would be less able to claim the West was imposing its values.
      At the same time, he noted that the U.N. has no enforcement mechanism to back up the resolution.    “It’s up to civil society to name and shame those governments that continue abuses,” Dittrich said.    The Obama administration has been pushing for gay rights both domestically and internationally.
  
  
• 6/25/2011
  
  New York lawmakers vote to allow gay marriages - Religious groups get stronger exemption by Michael Gormley, Associated Press
      ALBANY, N.Y. — New York lawmakers narrowly voted to legalize same-sex marriage Friday, handing activists a breakthrough victory in the state where the gay rights movement was born.    New York will become the sixth state where gay couples can wed and the biggest by far.
      Gay-rights advocates are hoping the vote will galvanize the movement around the country and help it regain momentum after an almost identical bill was defeated here in 2009 and similar measures failed in 2010 in New Jersey and this year in Maryland and Rhode Island.
      Though New York is a relative latecomer in allowing gay marriage, it is considered an important prize for advocates, given the state’s size and New York City’s international stature and its role as the birthplace of the gay-rights movement, which is considered to have started with the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village in 1969.    The New York bill cleared the Republican-controlled state Senate on a 33-29 vote.    The Democrat- led Assembly, which passed a different version last week, is expected to pass the new version with stronger religious exemp-tions.    Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who campaigned on the issue last year, has promised to sign it.    Same-sex couples can begin marrying 30 days after that.    The passage of New York’s legislation was made possible by two Republican senators who had been undecided.
      Sen. Stephen Saland voted against a similar bill in 2009, helping kill the measure.    “While I understand that my vote will disappoint many, I also know my vote is a vote of conscience,” Saland said in a statement to The Associated Press before the vote.    “I am doing the right thing in voting to support marriage equality.”
      Gay couples in the gallery wept during his speech.    Sen. Mark Grisanti, a GOP freshman from Buffalo, also said he would vote for the bill. Grisanti said he could not deny anyone what he called basic rights.
      The sticking point over the past few days had been Republican demands for stronger legal protections for religious groups that fear discrimination lawsuits if they refuse to allow their facilities to be used for gay weddings.    The Senate approved such protections Friday.    New York will join Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington, D.C., in allowing same-sex couples to wed.
  
  
• 6/26/2011
  
  National impact seen from N.Y. - gay vote - 6 states have approved same-sex marriages by David Crary, Associated Press
      NEW YORK — Many obstacles still lie ahead for supporters of same-sex marriage, and eventually they will need Congress or the Supreme Court to embrace their goal. For now, though, they are jubilantly channeling the lyrics of “New York, New York.”
      “Now that we’ve made it here, we’ll make it everywhere,” said prominent activist Evan Wolfson, who took up the cause of marriage equality as a law student three decades ago.    With a historic vote by its Legislature late Friday, New York became the sixth — and by far the most populous — state to legalize same-sex marriage since Massachusetts led the way, under court order, in 2004.
      With the new law, which takes effect after 30 days, the number of Americans in same sex marriage states more than doubles.    New York’s population of 19 million surpasses the combined total of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Iowa, plus the District of Columbia.
      The outcome — a product of intensive lobbying by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo — will have nationwide repercussions.    Activists hope the New York vote will help convince judges and politicians across the country, including a hesitant President Barack Obama, that support of same-sex marriage is now a mainstream viewpoint.
      “New York sends the message that marriage equality across the country is a question of ‘when,’ not ‘if,’ ” said Fred Sainz, a vice president of the Human Rights Campaign.    Wolfson, president of the advocacy group Freedom to Marry, said the goal is attainable by 2020, or sooner, “if we do the work and keep making the case.”    The New York bill cleared the Republican- controlled Senate by a 33-29 margin.
  
  
• 7/5/2011
  
  Church continues to lose members - Presbyterians had 3 percent decline by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal
      The Louisville-based Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) lost 3 percent of its members in 2010, including those in 26 congregations that left for other denominations.    The decline is the latest in nearly a half-century of steady membership losses in one of the nation’s most historic religious denominations. It mirrors similar losses in several other Protestant denominations.    Membership is now 2,016,091, down 61,047 from 2009. The denomination has lost about 3 percent of its members for each of four years in a row.
      “These numbers are not what anyone wants to see,” acknowledged the Rev. Gradye Parsons, stated clerk of the denomination, in a statement.    “While it appears that we lost fewer people in the category of ‘other’ than the previous three years, it is still where our largest number of losses occur.”    That category includes those who did not die or transfer to another congregation but apparently dropped out of church life.
      Some explain the church’s losses by citing low birth rates and an aging of the predominantly non-Hispanic, white membership.    The median age of Presbyterians is above 60.    Several largely white Protestant denominations are seeing similar demographic trends.
      Others charge that liberal trends in theology, sexuality and politics are driving the decline of the Presbyterians and Episcopal, Lutheran, United Church of Christ and other denominations.    More conservative denominations, however, such as the Southern Baptist Convention, have also seen smaller but steady losses in re-cent years.
  
  
• 7/14/2011
  
  Irish diocese hid child abuse reports - Vatican encouraged action, report finds by Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press
      DUBLIN — A new investigation into the Catholic Church’s cover-up of child abuse found Wednesday that the County Cork diocese of Cloyne and its bishop ignored Irish church rules requiring all suspected molestation cases to be reported to police.
      The report also said the Vatican encouraged the concealment.    The government, which ordered the inquiry into 1996-2009 cover-ups, warned that parishes across Ireland could pose a continuing danger to children’s welfare given Cloyne’s claims to be following church child-protection policy while actually ignoring it.
      The Cloyne report is the fourth on how church leaders for decades protected their own reputation — and pedophile staff members — at the expense of Irish children.    The report, by an independent commission led by a judge, found that former Cloyne Bishop John Magee and senior aides failed to tell police about most abuse reports and withheld basic information in all but one.    Magee, who before becoming Cloyne bishop in 1987 was a private secretary to three popes, resigned last year after a church-appointed commission made similar findings against him.    Wednesday’s document detailed the church’s suppression of information on 19 priests suspected of child abuse.
      It said that Magee set up a bogus committee for reviewing abuse cases that never met after 1995, and that it produced widely differing written records on one priest’s case — one for diocesan officials omitting the priest’s admission of child abuse, the other with more details for Vatican eyes only.    A confidential letter from the Vatican’s diplomat in Ireland to the Irish bishops in 1997 warned them that the Irish church’s child-protection policies were invalid under Catholic canon law, and that any accused priests were likely to have any punishments successfully appealed in Rome.
  
  Baptist group may boot Ky. church supporting gays by Associated Press
      OWENSBORO, Ky. — A Baptist association committee in Western Kentucky has recommended removing a church from the organization because of its support of a group called Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
      Member churches of the Daviess-McLean Baptist Association will meet next month to vote on whether to remove Journey Fellowship, the Messenger-Inquirer reported.    Pastor Bob Coons said Baptist churches have autonomy at every level, so there would be no further ramifications for the church.    He called it “a bump along the way” and said the church won’t change its focus.    In a written statement, the committee said the church should be removed because its beliefs are in opposition to the group’s.
  
  
• 7/15/2011
  
  Calif. schools required to teach gay history - Law is first of its kind in the U.S. by Judy Lin, Associated Press
      SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill making California the first state in the nation to add lessons about gays and lesbians to social studies classes in public schools.
      Brown, a Democrat, signed the landmark bill requiring public schools to include the contributions of people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender in the social studies curriculum.    The Democratic-majority Legislature had passed the bill last week on a largely party-line vote.
      “History should be honest,” Brown said in a statement Thursday.    “This bill revises existing laws that prohibit discrimination in education and ensures that the important contributions of Americans from all backgrounds and walks of life are included in our history books.”
      Brown signed the bill Wednesday, but announced on Thursday that he had done so.    The bill has drawn criticism from some churches and conservative groups that argue such instruction would expose students to a subject some parents find objectionable.    GOP lawmakers who opposed the bill had called it well-inten-tioned but ill-conceived. Some raised concerns that it would indoctrinate children to accept homosexuality.
      State Sen. Mark Leno, a Democrat from San Francisco and the bill’s author, hailed its signing as a step toward teaching tolerance.    Supporters say the bill will teach students to be more accepting of gays and lesbians in light of the bullying that happens to gay students.    “Today we are making history in California by ensuring that our textbooks and instructional materials no longer exclude the contributions of LGBT Americans,” Leno said in a statement.
      California law already requires schools to teach about women, African Americans, Mexican Americans, entrepreneurs, Asian Americans, European Americans, American Indians and labor.    The Legislature over the years also has prescribed specific lessons about the Irish potato famine and the Holocaust, among other topics.
      The new law requires the California Board of Education and local school districts to adopt textbooks and other teaching materials that cover the contributions and roles of sexual minorities, as soon as the 2013-14 school year.    Local school boards will decide how to implement the requirement.    The law does not specify a grade level for instruction to begin.
  
  U.S. requests halt to court order on don’t ask, don’t tell
      San Francisco - The federal government is asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its order last week demanding an immediate halt to the enforcement of the ban on openly gay troops in the military.
      The Obama administration filed an emergency motion late Thursday in response to the appeals court’s decision last week to lift its stay of a lower court’s ruling last year that found the ban, known as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” unconstitutional.
      Department of Justice lawyers said in the motion that ending the ban now would pre-empt the “orderly process” for rolling back the 17-year-old policy as outlined in the law passed and signed by the president in De-cember.    They asked the 9th Circuit to issue a decision by the end of the day today.
  
  Irish summon Vatican envoy over abuse cover-up by Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press
      DUBLIN — Ireland’s government demanded answers from the Vatican’s ambassador Thursday after a fact-finding report concluded that Rome secretly discouraged Irish bishops from reporting pedophile priests to police.
      Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore summoned Pope Benedict XVI’s representative in Ireland a day after a judge-led investigation found that the Vatican encouraged bishops in 1997 to reject the Irish church’s tough new child-protection rules.
      Gilmore and Prime Minister Enda Kenny accused the Vatican of violating Ireland’s sovereignty by in-structing bishops in the letter that they should place the church’s laws above the nation’s.    The letter warned bishops that the 1996 policy — requiring all suspected pedophiles in the priesthood to be reported to police — would undermine the church’s canon law.
      “There’s one law in this country.    Everybody is going to have to learn to comply with it.    The Vatican will have to comply with the laws of this country,” Gilmore said after his face-to-face grilling of the ambassador, a rare experience for the pope’s diplomats anywhere, let alone long-deferential Ireland.
      Gilmore said he wouldn’t let the Vatican repeat previous denials of responsibility.    That happened following Ireland’s 2009 publications of reports into three decades of Dublin Archdiocese cover- ups and six decades of abuse in church-run residential schools.    Irish taxpayers already have funded more than $1.4 billion in payouts to 13,000 people over the latter scandal.    “We’re not going to let it rest. … We want a response from the Vatican to this report,” Gilmore said.
      Ever since Ireland’s first Catholic child-abuse scandal triggered a government’s collapse in 1994, the Vatican has emphasize that it was a solely local, Irish problem that Rome-based officials regretted but had no role in promoting.    The pope’s ambassador to Ireland, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, declined to take reporters’ questions outside the foreign minister’s office.
      Head bowed, he read a short statement saying he wanted to emphasize “the total commitment of the Holy See for its part in taking all the necessary measures to ensure the protection of children.”
  
  
• 7/16/2011
  
  Replacing reference to God as ‘Father’ sparks criticism - United Church of Christ seeks to be inclusive
      The United Church of Christ’s main legislative body was taking care of a largely bureaucratic matter earlier this month when it endorsed merging five national boards into one.
      But in the process of revamping its decades old constitution, the Protestant denomination’s General Synod endorsed an eye-catching change: It deleted the term “Heavenly Father,” replacing it with “triune God.”
      The decision by the General Synod — pending regional ratification — prompted alarm among a conservative activist group in the predominantly liberal denomination.
      “Rejecting God as Father in an age of fatherlessness is unthinkable,” said David Runnion-Bareford, executive director of Biblical Witness Fellowship.
      Denominational officials say that’s an overstatement.    First, they note, the same synod voted separately to reaffirm the traditional language used in baptizing new Christians in the name of the “Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”    That came in a historic agreement, already approved by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, for the Catholic Church and various Protestant denominations to recognize each others’ baptisms.
      But the constitutional change does reflect a long-term seismic shift in some Protestant (and some Cath-olic) circles, particularly with the influence of feminist theology, toward seeking ways of talking about God beyond traditional masculine imagery.
      “Inclusive language has been a long-term project in the UCC for at least three decades,” said the Rev. Greg Bain, pastor of Grace-Immanuel United Church of Christ in Louisville, who just completed a term on the denomination’s national executive council.    The synod “decided it was a broader definition to say the triune God,” he said.
      Nearly 20 percent of United Church of Christ congregations were using alternative language for “the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” for the baptismal formula, according to the denomination’s research.    But Bain said the new agreement intends that such terms only be used in addition to, not instead of, the traditional formula.
      For many conservative denominations, the issue isn’t even on the table — although the popularity among some evangelicals of “The Shack,” a novel that presents God the Father as primarily a mother, shows an opening there.
      A 1992 Southern Baptist Convention resolution called for “unapologetic” use of “Father.”
      “We state clearly the scriptural witness that God is Spirit, beyond any human gender, and that He is transcendent, beyond the limitations of any human word; but confess that He has uniquely and explicitly revealed Himself to us as Father, by His sovereign and perfect will,” the resolution read.
      But in more liberal churches, one can hear sermons and prayers in which pronouns like “He” are al-most never used for the first person of the Trinity, traditionally referred to as God the Father.    So, for example, John 3:16 might begin, “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only son.” (The issue of Jesus being born a man is not debated.)     Survey results published in 2000 by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) showed that seminary professors and ordained ministers, particularly women, were far more in favor of using gender- inclusive language about God than church members or elders.
      The issue affects such things as Bible translations, hymnal selections and liturgy revisions.    Such discussions are “always done with one eye to theological concerns but another eye to the basics of how to talk about God on Sunday morning,” said Amy Plantinga Pauw, professor of doctrinal theology at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
      She served on a commission that in 2006 presented a paper to the Louisville based Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), affirming traditional language for the Trinity while also alternative formulas such as “rock, cornerstone and temple” or “compassionate mother, beloved child and life-giving womb.”
      She said the use of “Father” in the New Testament was similar to other ways ancient Jews spoke of God without directly using the divine name, which was “too holy to be pronounced.”    The paper noted that both Hebrew prophets and Jesus used images comparing God’s care to that of a mother.
      She said it’s proper to speak of God as Father but not to limit the image to that.    “The church is at a hard point right now,” she said.    “We don’t really have a good alternative.    But more and more Christians are sensitive to the fact that the unreflective use of exclusively male images for God is a problem.”
      Yet so is making changes.    “It can feel to people as if their faith is being attacked, and particularly because the language for God is the language of prayer,” Pauw said.    “If you’re used to praying to God in a particular way, to all of a sudden have that language become suspect or hear alternatives you’ve never heard before used, that can be very unsettling.    I don’t think being unsettled is a bad thing in the life of faith … but there has to be real pastoral sensitivity around this issue.”
      The United Church of Christ’s regional synods will now vote on whether to ratify the constitutional changes.    The denomination recorded 1.08 million members last year, down nearly 3 percent from the previous year and down by about half since its peak in the 1960s.
      It was formed by a merger of the Evangelical and Reformed Church — itself formed by a merger of two historically German Protestant groups, with several congregations in the Louisville area — and the Congregational Christian Churches, whose organizational ancestors included the Puritans.
  
  Ky. tax breaks landed ark park - $40 million in incentives cited by Roger Alford, Associated Press
      FRANKFORT, Ky. — Originators of a proposed biblical theme park that would include a full-size replica of Noah’s Ark had considered sites in Indiana, Missouri and Ohio but chose to build in Kentucky because of the state’s generous package of tax incentives, one of the developers said.
      Mike Zovath, co-founder of the Answers in Genesis ministry that built the Creation Museum in Kentucky, told The Associated Press that the state’s offer of more than $40 million in tax incentives was too good for the newly created Ark Encounters LLC to pass up.
      “We weren’t sure where we were going to build until the state of Kentucky approved the incentives,” Zovath said.    “Until then, it was still up in the air.”    The Kentucky Tourism Development Finance Authority approved the incentives in May for the $172 million project that’s being fi-nanced by a group of unidentified private investors.    “That incentive package was by far the most enticing of any anywhere east of the Mississippi,” Zovath said.
      He said developers had hoped to build reasonably near the Creation Museum just south of Cincinnati be-cause they believed the two sites would be mutually beneficial in drawing tourists.    A replica of the Tower of Babel, a first-century village, theaters, lecture halls, retail shops, restaurants, a petting zoo and live animal shows featuring giraffes and elephants are planned for the biblical theme park.
      Gov. Steve Beshear said he’s pleased the developers chose Kentucky because of the hundreds of jobs the park would create.    “I knew that they were looking at several locations at that time, but they sat down and talked to our tourism people and learned what all Kentucky could do.    I felt like we were very competitive,” he said.
      Rob Hunden, a consultant who reviewed the proposal for the Tourism Development and Finance Au-thority, said the project is expected to draw nearly 1.4 million visitors a year.
      The theme park is projected to create 600 to 700 full-time jobs and have an economic impact of more than $250 million in its first year of operation.    Providing government tax incentives for a project with a religious theme was opposed on grounds of church-state separation.    Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, criticized the state’s decision, saying it “should not be promoting the spread of fundamentalist Christianity or any other religious viewpoint.”
      With environmental and archaeological reviews nearing completion, groundbreaking has been tentatively scheduled for next month.    “We’re moving along at a good pace,” Zovath said.    “We haven’t run into any obstacles with the site.”
      “That incentive package was by far the most enticing of any anywhere east of the Mississippi.”    MIKE ZOVATH, co-founder, the Answers in Genesis ministry
  
  
• 7/21/2011
  
  Ireland blasts Vatican’s abuse cover-ups by Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press
      DUBLIN — The Vatican encouraged Catholic bishops not to tell police about suspected pedophile priests and flouted Irish law, Ireland’s lawmakers declared Wednesday in an unprecedented denunciation of the Holy See’s in-fluence in this predominantly Catholic country.
      The government and all opposition parties unanimously backed a motion accusing the Vatican of sabotaging the Irish bishops’ 1996 decision to begin reporting suspected cases of child abuse to police.
      “This is not Rome.    This is the Republic of Ireland 2011, a republic of laws,” Prime Minister Enda Kenny told lawmakers.
      In a direct challenge to the Vatican, Kenny denounced what he called “the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism — and the narcissism — that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.”    He said the church’s leaders repeatedly sought to defend their institutions at children’s expense.
      Wednesday marked the first time that Ireland’s parliament has lambasted the Vatican, rather than local church leaders, in the past 17 years of pedophile-priest scandals in Ireland.    Those revelations have eroded Catholic authority in a nation where the church still owns most schools and several hospitals, and state broadcasters still toll a twice-daily call to Catholic prayer.    Tensions have flared this month between Ireland and the Vatican over the latter’s refusal to cooperate with a decade of government ordered investigations into the church’s chronic concealment of child abuse by its employees.    The latest report, published last week, pointed an official finger of blame at the Vatican.
      A confidential 1997 Vatican letter — originally published by The Associated Press in January — in-structed Irish bishops to handle child-abuse cases strictly under terms of canon law.    It warned bishops that their 1996 child-protection policy, particularly its emphasis on the need to start reporting all suspected crimes to police, violated canon law.
  
  
• 7/23/2011
  
  Obama ends gay troops ban - ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ expires in 60 days by Lolita C. Baldor and Erica Werner , Associated Press
      WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama formally signed off Friday on ending the ban on gays serving openly in the U.S. military, making good on his 2008 campaign promise to the gay community.
      The president joined Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Adm. Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military officer, in signing a notice and sending it to Congress certifying that military readiness would not be hurt by repealing the 17-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.    That means that 60 days from now, the ban will be lifted.
      “As commander in chief, I have always been confident that our dedicated men and women in uniform would transition to a new policy in an orderly manner that preserves unit cohesion, recruitment, retention and military effective-ness,” Obama said in a statement.    “ … As of September 20th, service members will no longer be forced to hide who they are in order to serve our country.”
      Friday’s move was expected under the repeal law Congress passed in December.    Before “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the military did not allow gays to serve.    But in 1993 President Bill Clinton said gays would be discharged only if their sexual orientation became known.
      Repeal has drawn strong opposition from some in Congress, and there was initial reluctance from military leaders who worried it could cause a backlash and erode troop cohesion on the battlefield.
      But two weeks ago, the chiefs of the military services told Panetta that ending the ban would not affect military readiness.    Advocacy groups that fought for the change called the decision Friday long-overdue, while opponents said it’s a political payoff to left-leaning gay and lesbian activists.    In most cases, the guidelines require that gays and lesbians be treated like any other member of the military.
      There will be differences, however.    Same-sex partners will not get the same housing and other benefits as married couples.    Instead, they are more likely to be treated like unmarried couples.
      Once the repeal is final, service members cannot be discharged for openly acknowledging they are gay.    That is the key change.    And those who have been discharged previously based solely on the gay ban may apply to re-enter the force.    Service members may also designate their same-sex partners as beneficiaries for insurance and other benefits.
  
  
• 7/26/2011
  
  Vatican recalls envoy after sabotage claims in Ireland
      Vatican City - The Vatican recalled its ambassador to Ireland on Monday following accusations that the Holy See sabotaged efforts by Catholic bishops to report clerical sex abuse cases to police.
      A Vatican spokesman said Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza was recalled to help prepare a response to Irish complaints.
      The crisis follows a July 13 report that the Irish diocese of Cloyne failed to act on complaints against 19 priests from 1996 to 2009.    It further alleged the Vatican encouraged bishops to ignore child-protection guidelines, including the requirement that abuse claims be reported to civil authorities.
  
  
• 8/3/2011
  
  Presbyterian court acts in ordination cases of gays
      The top court of the Louisville based Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has denied most of the legal challeng-es pending against two openly gay candidates for ministry.
      The rulings — issued Tuesday by the Permanent Judicial Commission of the denomination’s General As-sembly — come a month after the enactment of a change in the church constitution, removing a ban on ordination of noncelibate gays and lesbians.
      Because of that change, the entire case against one of the candidates for ministry, Scott Anderson of Wisconsin, became moot, according to the commission.    It upheld the 2010 decision by Anderson’s presbytery to ordain him, even though he was in a committed, sexual relationship with a man.
      The commission also dismissed as moot most of the case against Lisa Larges of California, whose presbytery approved her application for ordination in 2009.    She, like Anderson, had declared an objection to the church requirement that ministers remain celibate unless they were in a heterosexual marriage.
      The church members who challenged her ordination did so largely on the basis of that requirement, and the court dismissed those claims now that it is no longer part of the constitution.    But it ordered the appeals court of the regional Synod of the Pacific to weigh other claims in the appeal — that homosexuality violates Scripture and the church’s historic confessions, not just the now-repealed part of the constitution.
      Those challenging Anderson’s ordination did not raise those issues, which is why his case was dismissed entirely, according to the court.
  
  
• 8/5/2011
  
  Polygamist leader Jeffs guilty of child sex abuse
      San Angelo, Texas - A jury has convicted polygamist leader Warren Jeffs on child sexual assault charges in a case stemming from two girls he took as brides in what his church calls “spiritual marriages.”
      The head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints stood stone-faced as the verdict was read.    The charges came after a massive 2008 raid of the church’s remote West Texas ranch. Jeffs, 55, faces up to life in prison.
      A forensic analyst testified that Jeffs was an almost certain DNA match to the child of a 15year-old mother.    He also was accused of assaulting a 12-year-old girl. Jeffs acted as his own attorney and claimed he was a victim of religious persecution.
  
  
• 8/10/2011
  
  Polygamist gets life in prison - Jeffs sentenced for two sexual assaults by Paul J. Weber, Associated Press
      SAN ANGELO, Texas — Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old follower he took as a bride in what his church deemed a “spiritual marriage.”
      The head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints also received a 20-year sentence for the sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl.    He will not be eligible for parole until he is at least 100 years old — he must serve at least 35 years of the life sentence, and at least 10 years on the other.
      Jeffs, 55, stood quietly as the decision of the Texas jury was read; it gave him the maximum sentence on both counts. They are to be served consecutively.
      Prosecutors had asked the jury for the life sentence after presenting their sometimes graphic case, and they rejected Jeffs’ contention that he was being persecuted for his religious beliefs.    “The evidence in this case shows that this isn’t a prosecution of a people,” prosecutor Eric Nichols said in his closing argument.    “This is a prosecution to protect people.”
      During the trial, prosecutors used DNA evidence to show Jeffs fathered a child with the 15-year-old and played an audio recording of what they said was him sexually assaulting the 12-year-old.
      Jeffs, who had insisted on acting as his own attorney during the earlier part of the trial, was convicted Thursday. Jurors deliberated less than half an hour.
      During the trial, prosecutors played other tapes in which Jeffs was heard instructing as many as a dozen of his young wives on how to please him sexually — and thus, he told them, please God.
      Jeffs claimed his religious rights were being violated. Representing himself after burning through seven attorneys, he routinely interrupted the proceedings and chose to stand silently in front of jurors for nearly half an hour during his closing arguments.    He called just one defense witness, a church elder who read from Mormon scrip-ture.
      The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a radical offshoot of mainstream Mormonism that believes polygamy brings exaltation in heaven, has more than 10,000 followers who consider Jeffs to be God’s spokesman on Earth.    He spent years evading arrest — crisscrossing the country as a fugitive who eventually made the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list before his capture in 2006, Nichols said.
  
  
• 8/12/2011
  
  Williamstown grants property tax break to Noah’s Ark park by Associated Press
      WILLIAMSTOWN, Ky. — A Northern Kentucky city has agreed to give a huge property tax break to a planned biblical theme park that will include a wooden replica of Noah’s Ark.    Williamstown, in Grant County, has offered a 75 percent property tax break to The Ark Encounter over the next 30 years.
      The theme park is being built by a group that includes Answers in Genesis, the founder of the biblically based Creation Museum in Boone County.        The property tax agreement means The Ark Encounter would pay 25 percent of the local taxes due on the 800 acres where the $150 million theme park will be built.
      Mayor Rick Skinner told the Lexington Herald-Leader that the reduced property taxes on the park will generate far more revenue than unoccupied land.    The project is expected to break ground in the next few months.
      The tax deal is in addition to nearly $200,000 from Grant County’s economic development arm, given as an enticement to keep the project there, along with 100 acres of reduced-price land.    The state of Kentucky also has promised $40 million in sales tax rebates and perhaps $11 million in improvements to the nearby interstate highway, financed by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.
      City Council member Glenn Caldwell, a former mayor, said he’s still evaluating the numbers of the prop-erty tax deal.    “I’m trying to be cautious in representing our city,” he said, “making sure people will not be burdened with additional costs because of this project.”
      The Ark Encounter is projected to create 900 full and part-time jobs and draw 1.4 million visitors in its first year.    Mike Zovath, senior vice president of Ark Encounters LLC, said the project has already raised 75 percent to 80 percent of the expected $150 million cost from private investors.    So far, the group has spent about $2 million on the project.    Plans call for the park to include the ark, a Tower of Babel and a village built to look like cities described in the Bible.
  
  
• 8/17/2011
  
  Former altar boys settle abuse case
      Trenton, N.J. - Five former altar boys who say a priest sexually abused them in the 1970s and 1980s have reached a settlement with the Catholic Church for more than $1 million, their lawyers announced.
      In confirming the settlement, the Diocese of Trenton said it found allegations against the priest to be credible and called for other victims to speak out — a reflection of the church’s resolve to avoid the appearance of trying to cover up abuse and a reminder that the child sex abuse scandal that has rocked the church for three decades is ongoing.
      The five victims, who are now in middle age, say they were molested from ages 11 to 16 by the Rev. Ronald Becker, who died in 2009.    The boys, one of whom was molested about 150 times, were servers at Incarnation Church in Ewing, N.J.
  
  
• 8/18//2011
  
  Vatican releases response - Unusual publishing of sexual abuse case by Nicole Winfield, Associated Press
      VATICAN CITY — The Vatican, reeling from unprecedented criticism over its handling of sexual abuse cases in Ireland, took a pre-emptive strike Wednesday and published some internal files about a priest accused of molesting youngsters in Ireland and the U.S.
      The files published on the website of Vatican Radio represent a small, selective part of the documentation the Holy See must turn over to U.S. lawyers representing a man who says he was abused by the late Rev. An-drew Ronan.    The man, known in court papers as John V. Doe, is seeking to hold the Vatican liable for the abuse.
      A federal judge in Portland, Ore., ordered the Vatican to respond to certain requests for information from Doe’s lawyers by Friday, the first time the Holy See has been forced to turn over documentation in a sex abuse case.    The partial documentation released Wednesday includes the 1966 case file with Ronan’s request to be laicized, or removed from the clerical state, after his superiors learned of accusations that he had molested minors in Ireland.
      The Vatican said the files, a few dozen pages, some handwritten and culled from its internal books, represented the full, known documentation held in the Vatican specifically about Ronan.    It said they prove that the Vatican only learned of Ronan’s crimes in 1966 when his order sent Ronan’s personnel files to Rome and asked the pope to remove him from the priesthood, a year after the abuse against Doe occurred.
      More documentation is expected to be handed over to Doe’s lawyers by Friday since the judge’s discovery order also requires the Vatican to provide information about its general policies handling sex abuse cases and how it trains, educates, selects and removes priests. Much of it is expected to be in Latin.
      The Vatican’s decision to publish the Ronan discovery documentation online marked an unusual attempt at some transparency, particularly given the sensitivity surrounding internal personnel files of accused priests.    Victims groups have long denounced the secrecy with which the Vatican handles abuse cases and demanded the files of known abusers be released.    Thousands of people in Europe and elsewhere reported they were raped and molested.
  
  
• 8/24/2011
  
  Priest told archdiocese about his sex addiction - Records: Man ousted later after allegations by Jason Riley, THE COURIER-JOURNAL
      A Roman Catholic priest charged with sexually abusing two boys in the 1970s told the Archdiocese of Louisville in1985 that he was a sexual addict, but church officials put him in treatment instead of removing him because they believed he was involved with men, not boys, according to court records released Tuesday.
      In addition, the Rev. James R. Schook admitted to church officials in the mid-1990s that he had given a man money in exchange for sex before his treatment, according to the records.
      Schook was removed from the ministry last year by the archdiocese after several men complained that they he abused them when they were teenagers in the 1970s.
      He now faces three counts of sodomy in the second degree and four counts of sodomy in the third degree in Jefferson Circuit Court. Six of the charges involve incidents with a boy from 1971 to 1974.    The seventh involves an incident with a second boy between 1974 to 1975.
      He has pleaded not guilty, and his attorney, David Lambertus, declined to comment.    He remains a priest but has been forbidden to do public ministry or present himself as a priest.    Brian Reynolds, chancellor and chief administrative officer of the archdiocese, said Tuesday that Schook’s confession three decades ago about his sexual addiction was not enough to remove him from ministry then because there were no claims of illegal activity.
      He also said there had been no complaints about sexual abuse of children nor any other allegations after Schook finished his treatment — until 2009.
      Schook’s sexual encounters with men became known after he had two car wrecks in late 1985 and later entered a residential treatment program at Our Lady of Peace, according to the archdiocese records.    Reynolds told police in a 2009 interview that Schook received counseling and treatment that included a 12-step sexual addiction program.
      According to court records, a former Trinity student said he told a counselor at the high school in 1985 that Schook abused him while on a camping trip.    The former student also said he told the counselor, who is not named in the records, about other teens who were abused.
      That same former student contacted Reynolds in June 2009 to ask why Schook remained an active pastor even though the abuse had been reported.    But Reynolds said the archdiocese has no record of the allegation.
      “We don’t know who was told what,” he said.    “We have no record of that.    I don't want to say that it didn’t occur, but we have no record of that.”
      In 2009, when confronted about the accusation, Schook “neither admitted nor denied” it had hap-pened and was encouraged to seek legal counsel, according to court records.
      “I am surprised this surfaced,” the notes from the archdiocese quote Schook as saying when asked about the former student’s allegation.    Schook has not been charged in relation to the allegation.    The court records also contain a letter written to the Rev. Joseph Hart in May 1986 regarding Schook by the then-director of clergy personnel, the Rev. William Fichteman, saying Fichteman was aware of a “sexual-acting out problem that came to my attention a few months ago.”    “Thus it would seem that sexual adjustment should be one of the issues to be dealt with at the House of Affirmation” in Massachusetts, Fichteman wrote, also noting that Schook had an issue with alcohol and had had two wrecks, one of which ended with his car totaled.
      Then-Archbishop Thomas Kelly approved Schook’s treatment.    A memo from Kelly placed in Schook’s file in April 1987 said Schook had accepted his sexual addiction, and his re-entry would take place in a few months.    Schook was ordained in 1975 and became a pastor in 1988, working with the deaf community.    “We had no complaints of any nature after that,” Reynolds said in an interview.
      Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz temporarily removed Schook from ministry in July 2009 — when he was pastor of St. Ignatius Martyr Church on Rangeland Road — after the archdiocese received the first in a series of complaints alleging that Schook sexually abused boys in the 1970s and 1980s.    The archdiocese announced in March 2010 that Schook's suspension from ministry became permanent after its Sexual Abuse Review Board concluded that allegations against him were valid.    In July 2009, Reynolds said he called the Jefferson County commonwealth’s attorney’s office but was referred to Powell County, because one of the first abuse complaints allegedly occurred while on a trip to that area.    But Reynolds told police he never received a response.
      Authorities in Louisville became involved after a complaint involving allegations in Jefferson County, Reynolds said.    In his interview with police, Reynolds said one of the victims in the case demanded money, refused to meet with them and threatened to go to the press and police.    Reynolds said he told the victim they would not pay him any money.    In an interview on Tuesday, Reynolds said the victim asked for money and was instructed the proper step was to notify the police.
      According to court records, the victim told police Schook became close to his family when he was a teenager, about 14, and had oral sex with him, took pictures of him and sexually abused him.    The other victim was 13 when the abuse began, the records say.    Schook was a seminary student when the abuse began at the boy’s home while his parents were away, the records say.    Schook is the sixth current or former priest in the Archdiocese of Louisville to face criminal charges related to sexual abuse.    All five previous cases led to convictions.
  
  
• 8/27/2011
  
  Presbyterian stand on gays leads to breach
      Mexico - Presbyterians in Mexico are breaking ties with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) because of differences over homosexuality.    The theologically conservative National Presbyterian Church of Mexico voted to stop working with the U.S. denomination.    U.S. Presbyterians voted last May to remove barriers for ordaining people in same sex relationships.    The churches share a 139-year history and a network of social service ministries that spans the Mexican-U.S. border.
      Presbyterian leaders in the U.S. said Wednesday they hope to find a way they can continue helping the needy in Mexico and along the border.
  
  
• 9/4/2011
  
  Vatican rejects Irish criticism on sex abuse by Nicole Winfield, Associated Press
      VATICAN CITY — The Vatican vigorously rejected claims it sabotaged efforts by Irish bishops to report priests who sexually abused children to police and accused the Irish prime minister Saturday of making an “unfounded” attack against the Holy See.
      Irish officials defended their claims that the Vatican exacerbated the abuse crisis and criticized the Holy See for offering an overly “legalistic” justification of its actions in dealing with priests who rape and molest children.    The Vatican issued a 24page response to the Irish government after Prime Minister Enda Kenny’s unprecedented July 20 denunciation of the Vatican’s handling of abuse; a speech that cheered abuse-weary Irish Catholics but stunned the Vatican and prompted it to recall its ambassador.
      Kenny’s speech was inspired by publication of a government-mandated independent report into the County Cork diocese of Cloyne in southwest Ireland, which found that the Vatican had undermined efforts by Irish bishops to protect children by suggesting that their policy requiring abuse to be reported to police might violate church law.
      The Cloyne document was the fourth report since 2005 on the colossal scale of priestly sex abuse and cover- up in Ireland, a once staunchly Catholic country that’s seen the church’s influence wither in light of the scandal.    But it was the first to squarely find the Vatican culpable in promoting a culture of secrecy and cover-ups that kept abusers in ministry to prey on more children.
      The Vatican has long rejected accusations — in lawsuits and public opinion — that it was responsible for the abuse scandal, which erupted in Ireland in the 1990s, the U.S. in 2002 and in mainland Europe and beyond last year.    Thousands of people have come forward with accusations that priests molested them as children, bishops covered up the crimes and the Vatican turned a blind eye — or in the case of Cloyne actively interfered when bishops tried to bring the priests to justice.
      The Cloyne report based much of its accusations against the Holy See on a 1997 letter from the Vatican’s ambassador to Ireland to the nation’s bishops expressing “serious reservations” about their policy requiring bishops to report abusers to police.
      A committee of Irish bishops adopted the policy in 1996 under mounting public pressure as the first cover-ups came to light, a year after a former altar boy became the first abuse victim in Ireland to go public with a lawsuit against the church.
      The Cloyne report charged the Vatican’s 1997 letter “effectively gave individual Irish bishops the freedom to ignore the procedures which they had agreed and gave comfort and support to those who … dissented from the stated official church policy.”
  
  
• 9/8/2011
  
  Church vs. state issue in merger? - Constitutional question raised over University Hospital plan by Patrick Howington, The Courier-Journal
      University Hospital’s plan to follow Catholic health care directives under a pending merger could violate the U.S. Constitution’s provision to keep state and religious matters separate, some legal advocates and constitutional scholars say.
      That issue arises from the hospital’s roles as Louisville’s main provider of indigent care and as the main teaching hospital for the University of Louisville, a state school.    The state’s control of the real estate where the hospital stands is also a factor.
      If those facts make University Hospital a public institution — which many elected leaders say it is, but which U of L disputes — it could be unconstitutional for the hospital to adopt Catholic policies, law professors and watchdog groups say.
      “We certainly have very serious reservations about the legality of the merger” because of the church-state issue and others, said William Sharp, staff attorney for ACLU of Kentucky.    The national ACLU has gone to court over mergers of Catholic and public hospitals in other states, resulting in two being canceled by partners in the early 2000s.    Sharp would not say if ACLU of Kentucky is considering a legal challenge of the University Hospital deal, but said “we’ve been concerned about the proposed merger for some time.”
      The Constitution “prohibits a hospital from imposing religious restrictions on land or in a facility that is owned by a government entity,” officials of the National Women’s Law Center and the Merger-Watch Project, which monitor hospital mergers, asserted in a recent letter to Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway.    The merger would combine University and two other Kentucky health care systems to form a statewide organization controlled by Denver-based Catholic Health Initiatives.    The participating hospitals, including Jewish Hospital in Louisville, have agreed to follow Catholic care policies.    That means University Hospital no longer would provide tubal ligations, a common form of female sterilization, or dispense birth control, among other potential changes of practice.
      The third merger partner, St. Joseph Health System of Lexington, is owned by Catholic Health Initiatives and already follows the church directives.    The merger must be approved by Gov. Steve Beshear before taking effect and also by the bishops of Louisville and Lexington, because CHI is considered a Catholic ministry.
  
  Clause is cited
      Several church-and state experts at law schools outside Louisville said University’s inclusion in the merger raises a constitutional issue because of the so-called Establishment Clause forbidding government from favoring a reli-gion.
      The clause, part of the First Amendment, reads “Congress shall make no law respecting an estab-lishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”    The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on a church-versus-state case involving a hospital merger, those experts said.    But in cases that didn’t involve hospitals, the court has said “it is a violation of the Establishment Clause for a public institution to revise its policies to adhere to a specific religious doctrine,” said Steven K. Green, director of the Center for Religion, Law & Democracy at Willamette University.    “The fact that this hospital may previously have been engaged in certain types of (medical) procedures, and the only reason it’s changing is to adhere to Catholic doctrine — that’s potentially problematic,” he said.    Leslie C. Griffin, constitutional law professor at the University of Houston, said a state institution should not be able to adopt a theology-based set of rules, “just as a state can’t pass legislation saying, ‘We adopt the teaching of the Methodist Church doctrine on this,’ or ‘We adopt biblical teaching on creation science.’ ”    And Richard W. Garnett, law professor at the University of Notre Dame, said: “We could have what the court has called ‘excessive entanglement’ between religious and governmental authority.”
      However, Garnett and other scholars said there would be no constitutional problem with the merger if University Hospital is determined to be a private rather than a public entity.
  
  Public or private?
      Since the merger was announced months ago, U of L has maintained that the downtown hospital bearing its name is private because it is operated by University Medical Center Inc., a nonprofit corporation, under a state contract.    For that reason, Jennifer Elliott, an attorney for University Hospital, said there is no church-state issue with the merger.    Elliott said that federal judges in Louisville have determined UMC is not a “state actor,” meaning an extension of government or an entity created for a state purpose, and cited a ruling to that effect last year in an employee’s wrongful-firing suit.
      But the ACLU’s Sharp said that ruling and others were based on the particular evidence presented in those cases and don’t amount to a definitive finding that University is private.
      Beyond operating a state-owned property, University Medical Center has several ties binding it to U of L.    The corporation turns over much of its annual profit to the university, its board chairman must be either the U of L president or his designee, and its affiliation agreement with the university calls for it to “sustain and enhance (U of L’s medical) education and research.”
      Numerous Louisville and Kentucky government officials have stressed they believe University Hospital is a public institution.    They include state Auditor Crit Luallen, who was secretary of the state’s Finance and Administration Cabinet when it authorized UMC to begin operating the hospital in 1996.    “The state owns and has (had) control of the public asset of the University Hospital for all these years,” she said.    “Even though others have been given permission to manage and operate the hospital, that has been granted to them by virtue of power of the governor and the finance cabinet.”    Luallen added that the main reason University is public is not the building’s ownership but its public mission, including the indigent care funded by the state there for nearly 40 years.
      Last year alone, the hospital received $68 million from state and local government toward care for the poor.    However, that in itself may not be a constitutional problem because the Supreme Court has ruled that giving public funds to a religious hospital is legal because a hospital’s business is mainly secular.
      Conway, who is reviewing the merger’s legality with Luallen’s help, has said “the hospital building and the right to operate it are public assets paid for and owned by taxpayers.”    And Rep. Tom Burch, a Louisville Democrat who is chairman of the House Health and Welfare Committee, told The Courier-Journal recently that “most people in Louisville believe University Hospital belongs to us.”
      Some constitutional scholars also said University could be found a public institution if the church state issue went before a judge.    “I think there is an awfully good argument that that this remains sufficiently a public facility that the Constitution would still apply to its health care policies,” said Ira Lupu, law professor at George Washington University and an authority on religion and the Constitution.
      That would mean that a change in health care policy that was “driven by Catholic religious doctrine would not be acceptable,” Lupu said.
      “If this is the place where the state has been taking care of indigent people for a long time, that should be a pretty good argument that (University Hospital is) a state actor,” said Griffin, who has written textbooks on religion law.    But Francis J. Manion of New Hope, Ky., senior counsel with the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, said the argument that the merger could violate the Constitution is “baloney.”
      Manion cited a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case involving the display of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Texas capitol, which said that “simply ... promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the Establishment Clause.”
  
  Other cases
      Americans United for Separation of Church and State — which, like the ACLU, typically comes down on the other side of the issue from Manion’s organization — believes the merger would be unconstitutional, said senior litigation counsel Alex Luchenitser.
      Americans United, like the ACLU and the National Women’s Law Center, has sometimes intervened in hospital merger cases that include religious and public partners.
      The organization was among those that in 2000 challenged the inclusion of a city-owned hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla., in a new system that included two Catholic hospitals.    After the deal was completed, the city filed suit, saying it had not been aware its hospital’s operator had agreed to follow Catholic health care directives and arguing the restrictions violated the Constitution.    After a period of litigation, the new health care system released the city owned hospital, making the suit moot.    In a similar case in Newport, Ore., a proposed deal for a Catholic system to begin operating a municipal hospital was canceled after community concerns led to a lawsuit in 2000, according to a summary of the case by the National Women’s Law Center.
      A state judge heard testimony for a week on whether the deal would create excessive government entanglement in religion — one of the tests of whether such deals are constitutional — but the Catholic partner withdrew from the venture before a decision was rendered.
      The Florida and Oregon cases show that raising the church-state issue in court can undo Catholic mergers that involve public hospitals, said Jill Morrison, senior counsel with the National Women’s Law Center, which like the ACLU has monitored the Kentucky merger.
      U of L officials say the merger is misunderstood and too much attention has been focused on possible problems rather than the deal’s many benefits, including improving the state’s health and dramatically expanding medical teaching programs at U of L as a result of investment by CHI.
      The company has agreed to provide $320 million immediately for the new venture, and U of L has been promised $200 million later to improve its academic medical center.    The merger would extend U of L medical expertise across the state and help train more doctors to ease Kentucky’s shortage, officials say.
      “The naysayers have thrown out a number of issues,” Dr. David Dunn, U of L executive vice president for health affairs, said at a press conference last week.    “But the real focus should be on the improved health and improved expansion of health care services for the citizens of the commonwealth.”
  
  
• 9/10/2011
  
  Service group founder admits molesting kids
      Salt Lake City - A former Mormon bishop and co-founder of a nonprofit group that helps women and children in poor villages abroad will be sentenced in November for sexually abusing children.
      The Associated Press isn’t naming the 69-year-old man from Heber City, Utah, to protect the identity of his victims.    He pleaded guilty this week to three counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child.    Each count involves a different victim, and carries a sentence of five years to life.    The victims were among six children the man and his wife adopted from Ethiopia, where the couple helped establish an orphanage.
  
  Court lets man drop appeal of lawsuit,
      The Kentucky Court of Appeals on Friday granted the request of a California man to drop his appeal of a lawsuit against the Louisville- based Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) alleging sexual abuse at an African mission boardinghouse in 1988.    Jefferson Circuit Judge Irv Maze had dismissed the lawsuit earlier this year, saying Sean Coppedge would have needed to sue by 1993 — or within a year after he turned 18 — under the Kentucky statute of limitations for personal-injury lawsuits.
      Coppedge initially appealed but chose to withdraw the case rather than risk the decision becoming Kentucky case law “to be used against other survivors of childhood sexual abuse,” said his lawyer, Ann Oldfather of Louisville.
      The appeals court published its dismissal of the case on Friday.    The suit alleged Coppedge was abused at age 14 at a mission boardinghouse in the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo by an older teenager whom church officials knew was a sexual predator.
      The allegations closely mirror what the denomination itself acknowledged in a report released in 2010.
  
  
• 9/14/2011
  
  Amish men pass first night in Graves jail - Defy law for safety triangles on buggies by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal
      MAYFIELD, Ky. — For Jacob Gingerich, a lifelong farmer, this was a first: waking up where he couldn’t see the sunrise.
      But after his first night in the Graves County Jail, Gingerich said he and seven other Amish men were standing by their decision to go to jail rather than pay fines for refusing to put bright safety triangles on their horse drawn buggies.    They believe the law requiring the emblems on slow-moving vehicles violates their religious modesty code, which forbids using bright colors or trusting in manmade symbols for their safety.
      “I feel like I’m in a place where I don’t need to be,” the 39-year-old father of 12 children said Tues-day. nbsp;   But “we’re going to stand up for what we believe.”
      He spoke in an interview at the jail’s visiting center the morning after the eight Amish men and two other inmates spent the night sleeping on mats on the floor of a windowless common room.
      Gingerich said the men spent the night resting and in silent prayer.    He was wearing a baggy gray jumpsuit — special ordered by jail officials in anticipation of their incarceration and in deference to the men’s religious objection to wearing the standard- issue bright orange jumpsuits.
      Gingerich and the other men had unsuccessfully requested that they be allowed to wear their usual clothing — blue, gray and black work clothes — but he said he was grateful to jail officials for their accommodation on the mat-ter of color.
      Gingerich said his seven- day incarceration is setting back his harvest of tobacco, which he grows on five of his 60 acres near Fancy Farm.    His two oldest sons can help, he said, but the rest are in school or too young to work.    “I’ve got tobacco that needs to be cut pretty bad, but I ain’t there,” he said. As soon as that’s done, he said, “I’ve got corn that needs harvesting as quick as we can get to it.”    The men entered the jail Monday night on orders of District Judge Deborah Hawkins Crooks.    She said it was time to move on with cases, which had been on the docket for as long as three years while the Amish men unsuccessfully appealed to Graves Circuit Court and the Kentucky Court of Appeals.
      Both courts upheld their misdemeanor convictions for refusing to use the triangles, ruling that state law is for safety and applies to everyone.    The Amish proposed using lanterns and pale reflective tape to outline the rear of their buggies, but courts have said it wouldn’t be effective in daytime.    The sentences range from 3 to 10 days, depending on the amount of fines and court costs the men were assessed based on one or more convictions.    The assessments ranged from $148 to more than $600 per person.    A ninth man also was sentenced, but a friend paid his fine so he could be with his disabled son.    The men belong to an especially strict sect of Amish known as the Old Order Swartzentruber.    Other Amish groups — including another that also lives in this Western Kentucky county — do comply with the safety requirement.
      Horse-drawn buggies — and signs cautioning auto drivers of their presence on the road — are a com-mon sight here.    Attorney William Sharp of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky had argued that the state constitution requires the state to make accommodations for the Amish because their religious beliefs prevent them from obeying the traffic law.
      The Kentucky Supreme Court has not yet ruled on whether it will hear their appeal.    Amish are a separatist Christian community generally known for their pacifism, tightly disciplined communities, modest dress and refusal to drive automobiles or use certain other modern technologies.    Many live in farming communities, although some work in carpentry or other trades.    Gingerich faces a Dec. 12 hearing on more charges of failing to use the triangle, and other Amish men face similar charges in hearings later this year.    “We ain’t going to pay nothing,” he said.    “We’re just going to sit it out.”
  
  
• 9/17/2011
  
  Vatican’s outreach to group questioned
      Vatican city - Some Jewish groups voiced concern Friday that the Vatican might be calling into question more than 40 years of progress in Catholic-Jewish relations by reaching out to a group of breakaway traditionalist Catholics that includes a Holocaust-denying bishop.    The Vatican has been working for years to bring the breakaway Society of St. Pius X back into its fold, and this week told its members they must accept some core church teachings if they want to be fully reintegrated into the church.    But the Holy See said some expressions contained in documents from the Second Vatican Council could be left open for “legitimate discussion.”
      The Swiss-based Society of St. Pius X was formed in 1969, opposed to many of Vatican II’s re-forms.
  
  
• 9/26/2011
  
  Pope calls for spiritual renewal for Germans
      Freiburg, Germany - Pope Benedict XVI issued a strong call for spiritual renewal among Germans on Sunday as he wrapped up a visit to his homeland in which he addressed parliament and met with victims of clerical abuse.    The pope drew hundreds of thousands of German faithful to services held on stops during his trip, including a final one that attracted about 100,000 people to an airfield beside Freiburg’s airport.
  
  
• 9/28/2011
  
  131,729 gay couples say they are married by Hope Yen, Associated Press
      WASHINGTON — The number of gay Americans telling the U.S. census they’re living with same sex partners nearly doubled in the past decade to about 650,000, and more than 130,000 of them recorded themselves as husband or wife.
      Census figures released Tuesday provide a rare snapshot of married and unmarried same-sex couples in the U.S. based on the government count conducted last year, when gay marriage was legal in five states and the District of Columbia.    It comes at a time when public opposition to gay marriage is easing and advocacy groups are seeking a state-by-state push for broader legal rights.    Some 131,729 same-sex couples checked “husband” or “wife” boxes on their decennial census forms, the first time people could do so, after gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts starting in 2004.    That 2010 tally of married gay couples is higher than the actual number of legal marriages, civil unions and domestic partnerships in the U.S. Even after New York legalized gay marriage in June, a Census Bureau consultant, Gary Gates of UCLA, put the actual number of legally recognized gay partnerships at 100,000.
      “There’s no dispute the same-sex population increases from 2000 and 2010,” said Martin O’Con-nell, chief of the fertility and family statistics branch at the Census Bureau.    In cases of couples who reported they were living in a marriage relationship, “they basically responded that way because that is truly how they felt they were living.”
      The total of 646,464 gay couples in the U.S. was a downward revision of the Census Bureau’s count of 901,997 released last month.    The bureau said Tuesday that it had to make the adjustment after deter-mining that coding errors resulted in an exaggerated count for the initial number.
      Researchers believe the new estimate could be as much as 15 percent lower than the actual number of gay couples in the U.S. because of social stigma, discrimination or other confidentiality concerns.
  
  
• 9/29/2011
  
  Priest gets more time to prepare his defense
      A Jefferson Circuit Court judge has given a Roman Catholic priest at least two more months to prepare his defense against charges that he sexually abused two boys in the 1970s.
      The lawyer for the Rev. James Schook said at a hearing Wednesday that it has taken time to prepare his client’s defense against charges from nearly four decades ago.    Schook faces seven counts of sodomy based on allegations that he sexually abused two boys between 1971 and 1975.    He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
      Prosecutors in August released hundreds of pages of the Archdiocese of Louisville’s personnel file on Schook.    The documents indicated that he had been treated for a sex addiction in the 1980s but that church officials believed at the time that he had been sexually involved with male adults, not minors.    Attorney David Lambertus, representing Schook, said that he is still seeking some records related to the case and that the personnel file is “voluminous.”    Circuit Judge Mitch Perry scheduled a pre-trial hearing for Nov. 30.
  
  
• 10/1/2011
  
  Religious leaders unite on court case - Faith-based groups seek exemption from laws on firing their workers by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal
      Unity among religious leaders is rare, but a pending U.S. Supreme Court case is drawing together a group beyond the boldest dreams of any interfaith parliament.
      Leaders of Roman Catholics, Mormons, Presbyterians, United Methodists, Seventh-day Adventists, Hindus, United Sikhs, Muslims, Episcopalians, Reform Jews and Orthodox Jews are united.
      So are the conservative National Association of Evangelicals and its liberal counterpart, the National Council of Churches.    So are devotees of Santeria, Yoruba and other religions you may not know.
      Even the various Baptist denominations are all on the same side.    They all support the right of religious groups to hire and fire teachers who could be construed as “ministers” on grounds that would be otherwise discriminatory, whether because of race, gender and disability or other reasons.    The case could affect hundreds of thousands of teachers and other employees in faith-based schools and organizations.    Dozens of organizations, religious and otherwise, are choosing sides by filing friend-of-the-court briefs.    Only one religious denomination — the Unitarian Universalist Association — supports the right of employees to sue organizations such as itself.
      The high court is scheduled to hear arguments next week over a Michigan Lutheran school’s firing of a teacher who alleges discrimination because she has a disability.    The school’s lawyers argue that courts can’t review the claim because she was essentially a minister. (The school has since closed, but its denominational owners are defendants.)    The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that she wasn’t a minister because her “primary duties” were to teach secular subjects.
      At issue is the doctrine of the “ministerial exception.”    “The basic rationale underlying the doctrine seems straightforward,” wrote Howard Friedman, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Toledo, in the magazine Liberty.    “For a religious institution to thrive, it must be free from government constraint in selecting who will ‘preach its values, teach its message, and interpret its doctrines both to its own membership and to the world at large,’ ” Friedman wrote, quoting federal case law.
      “Laws against religious discrimination in employment should not permit the government to tell a Pres-byterian church, for example, that it must hire a rabbi,” he wrote.    But the question has gotten murkier in recent court cases in which religious groups claim that other workers besides the most obvious — clergy — are ministers and don’t have the right to challenge their dismissals.    That includes teachers, in the case of the Lutheran school.    It also includes:
  
  • Administrative assistants, as in a North Carolina case.    The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has been trying to fend off a race-discrimination claim by a former administrative aide by claiming she was essentially a minis-ter.
    
  • Professors, as in a case involving Lexington Theological Seminary in Kentucky.    The seminary persuaded Fayette Circuit Court judges that two professors it dismissed in a recent restructuring were ministers who had no right to sue over alleged breach of contract.    Their case is now before the Kentucky Court of Appeals.    “I am glad that I, apparently, inspired some of my students, but that makes me a good teacher, not a minister,” argued one of the plaintiffs, Laurence Kant, who also said his designation of minister at a Christian seminary is wrong because he’s Jewish.    The seminary argued that professors were always required to be “models for ministry.”
    
      In the Supreme Court case, those supporting the former Michigan teacher include the federal government and proponents of strict church-state separation.    They also include various atheist groups and a coalition of advocates for victims of sexual abuse by clergy who don’t want this case to extend legal protections to perpetrators’ em-ployers.
      The arguments in the Supreme Court case vary, but following are a few samples.    “Any given religious community is a mere generation away from extinction,” said a brief filed jointly by the National Council of Churches, the National Association of Evangelicals and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.
      “Teachers in religious schools are commonly on the front line of conveying the faith,” the group wrote, arguing that government and courts need to stay out of their hiring and firing.
      But a coalition of religion and law professors, supporting the teacher, opposed a “breathtaking” expansion of the definition of ministers: “One irony and injustice in the ministerial rule is that women employees of denominations that do not ordain women suddenly become ministers at the moment they file a lawsuit,” the coalition wrote.
      It continued: “Although some Roman Catholic, Muslim and Orthodox Jewish women may not become priests, imams or rabbis, ... the courts and churches confer ministerial status upon them just long enough to keep their lawsuits out of court.”
      The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America filed a joint argument supporting the Lutheran school.
      Even though the former teacher taught secular subjects, they wrote, she also taught religion and led stu-dents in prayer three times a day.    “The church must have the right, free from state interference, to select those engaged in church governance, worship, teaching or other related functions, regardless of whether they have other duties as well,” the group wrote.
      The former teacher is getting support from Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union.    Some “courts have ... converted the ministerial exception into a shield for all forms of discrimination and retaliation, regardless of motivation,” they argued in a brief filed with the Unitarian Universalists, the National Council of Jewish Women and the Sikh Council on Religion and Education.    “And they have prevented judicial redress of even the most flagrant racial or sexual harassment.”
      Defending the school is a coalition of small and sometimes-obscure religious groups.    They include the Muslim- American Public Affairs Council, United Sikhs, Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, International Society for Krishna Consciousness, O Centro Beneficente Uniao Do Vegetal and Templo Yoruba Omo Orisha.
      “Minority religions whose faith traditions are often foreign to judges and jurors and who lack political and financial clout to defend against misconceptions are particularly susceptible to having their religious freedoms in-fringed,” the group wrote.    In his commentary, Friedman wrote that the Supreme Court could affect many workers.
      “The cook in the kosher cafeteria of a Jewish day school, the school nurse in a Catholic middle school, or the recess monitor in a Christian elementary school arguably all have a role in spreading religious values,” Friedman wrote.    A religious institution “must be free from government constraint in selecting who will ‘preach its values.’ ” HOWARD FRIEDMAN
  
  
• 10/3/2011
  
  New law bars local bans on circumcision
      Sacramento, Calif. - Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill that that will prevent local governments from banning male circumcision.
      His office announced Sunday that the Democrat signed a bill written in response to a ballot measure proposed in San Francisco.    Backers of a ban collected more than 7,700 signatures to put a measure on the November ballot there to outlaw the circumcision of most male children.
      They had argued that circumcision is an unnecessary surgery that can lead to sexual and health problems later in life.    Those against the ban say it is an important religious practice for many Jews and Muslims, and that it can reduce the risk of cancer and sexually transmitted diseases.
  
  
• 10/6/2011
  
  Church issue heard by justices - Can government sue over decision to fire ill teacher? by Jesse J. Holland, Associated Press
      WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a case testing how far the government can intrude in the employment practices of churches and religious groups.
      It’s an issue closely watched by religious institutions concerned about their independence.
      The issue in the dispute between the Hosanna- Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School of Redford, Mich., and former teacher Cheryl Perich is whether a government agency can sue the school on her behalf for firing her after she complained of discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act.    Perich was promoted from a temporary lay teacher to a “called” teacher in 2000 at the school by a vote of the church’s congregation and was hired as a commissioned minister.    She taught secular classes, as well as a religious class four days a week.    She also occasionally led chapel service.    She got sick in 2004, then tried to return to work from disability leave despite being diagnosed with narcolepsy.    The school said she couldn’t return because it had hired a substitute for that year.    It fired her after she showed up and threatened to sue to get her job back.
      Perich complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which sued the church for violations under the disabilities act.
      A federal judge threw out the lawsuit, saying that Perich fell under the ADA’s ministerial exception, which keeps the government from interfering with church affairs.    But the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the lawsuit, saying Perich’s “primary function was teaching secular subjects,” so the exception didn’t apply.
      “There was no difference in what she was doing” at the school before she was commissioned and after, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said during the oral arguments.    And when a church employee is performing a function that deals with the public such as education, argued lawyer Walter Dellinger, they “ought to be governed by the same rules” as other employers.
      The church’s lawyer, Douglas Laycock, argued that since Perich was a minister as well as a teacher, the government could not get involved in the church’s hiring and firing decisions.    “If you teach the doctrines of the faith, you are a minister,” Laycock said.
  
  
• 10/9/2011
  
  State’s highest court might take religious billboard case by Associated Press
      ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. — Jimmy Harston believes posting religious billboards along Interstate 65 is his calling but the future of his endeavor rests with the Kentucky Supreme Court.    His attorney, Patrick Ross of Horse Cave, told The News-Enterprise that if the high court declines to get involved, it may be the end of the road for the real estate developer and his billboards.
      Harston owns three billboards in LaRue, Hart and Warren counties with messages that include “Hell is Real” and “Jesus Saves.”
      He is challenging two lower court rulings in favor of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet requiring him to remove the billboards because he didn’t have a permit to erect them.
  
  
• 10/11/2011
  
  Attacks on Christians get church’s rebuke
      Cairo - Egypt’s Coptic church blasted authorities Monday for allowing repeated attacks on Christians with impunity as the death toll from a night of rioting rose to 26, most of them Christians who were trying to stage a peaceful protest in Cairo over an attack on a church.    The spiritual leader of the Coptic Christian minority, Pope Shenouda III, declared three days of mourning, praying and fasting for the victims and also presided over funerals for some of the Christians killed.    Sunday’s sectarian violence was the worst in Egypt since the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in February.
      The clashes Sunday night raged over a large section of downtown Cairo and drew in Christians, Muslims and security forces.    Protesters said they were attacked by “thugs” with sticks and the violence then spiraled out of control after a military vehicle jumped onto a sidewalk and rammed into some of the Christians.
  
  Two more Amish men are convicted by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal
      Two Western Kentucky Amish men could face several days in jail next year after being convicted Monday of refusing to use state-mandated safety emblems on their horse drawn buggies.    Theirs are the latest in a series of Graves District Court cases in recent weeks that have already seen eight men serve jail time.    The Amish men say state law violates their religious liberty by requiring them to post garish safety emblems in violation of their strict modesty codes.    Judge Deborah Hawkins Crooks found Levi Hostetler and Joe Stutzman guilty of the misdemeanor charges in bench trials.    Hostetler was assessed $341 in fines and court costs for two incidents — one of which resulted from a 2008 accident in which he and the driver of a motor vehicle were treated for minor injuries.    Hostetler was charged in both incidents with failing to use an orange-red triangle mandated by state law on slow-moving vehicles.
      In one incident, he also was charged with failure to comply with requirements for the lighting of motorless vehicles.
      Joe Stutzman was found guilty of two incidents of failing to use the safety triangle and assessed $173 in fines and costs.    According to the court clerk’s office, both men refused to pay the fines Mon-day.    Crooks gave them until Jan. 12 to comply or face jail. One person has already inquired about pay-ing one man’s fine, according to the clerk’s office.
      Crooks on Monday also postponed by one month the scheduled trials of two other men, Emanuel Yoder and Levi Zook, to accommodate their lawyer’s schedule.    Eight Amish men — including Hostetler and Yoder — served between three to five days in jail in September for refusing to use the safety triangles and then refusing to pay the fines, which they said would amount to observing an unjust law.    A ninth man, Zook, was also con-victed but avoided jail when a friend paid his fine.
  
  
• 10/12/2011
  
  Attack on Egyptian Christians fuels rage by Maggie Michael, Associated Press
      CAIRO — Videos of armored vehicles plowing through Christian protesters and images of their flattened bodies are fueling rage against the ruling army generals, even beyond Egypt’s Christian community.    Activists accuse the military of fomenting sectarian hatred to end protests and silence critics.    Anger was also turning on state television, blamed for inciting attacks on Christians as the military crushed a Christian protest late Sunday, leaving 26 dead.    Finance Minister Hazem El-Beblawi resigned Tuesday over the government’s handling of Sunday’s protest.
      Christians vented their fury at the overnight funeral at the Coptic Christian Cathedral for 17 of at least 21 Christians killed in the army attack.    Prayers were interrupted by chants of “Down with military rule” and “The people want to topple the field marshal” — a reference to Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, who heads the ruling military council.    No state or military official attended the funeral.
      Egypt’s Christians, about 10 percent of the 85 million people in the Muslim- majority nation, have long complained that they are second-class citizens.    Violence against Christians has risen since the fall of Hosni Mubarak as state control has loosened. Bahy Eldeen Hassan, head of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, said the military may have counted on sentiment against Christians to let it crush the protest and signal it will no longer tolerate civil unrest.
      On Sunday, a state TV presenter urged “honest Egyptians” to protect the army, saying troops were under attack from the Christian protesters.
  
  
• 10/22/2011
  
  Passion for churches declines FAITH AND WORKS by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal
      Bleak and bleaker.    That’s the assessment of a new report on the state of American religious congregations.
      Many “Oldline Protestant” churches are showing little spiritual vitality, and their small, aging con-gregations are showing little of the openness to the kinds of changes that might turn things around.
      Many Evangelical Protestant churches, which once seemed to be bucking these trends, are stalling out as well.    Yes, of course, there are vital and growing congregations, says the report’s author, David Roozen of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.
      But the overall trend is clear, Roozen said of the 2010 survey of more than 10,000 congregations — Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Baha’i.    It compares results with a similar survey a decade ago and smaller ones in between.
      By several measures, the report said, religious congregations’ health is declining.    That, Roozen said, fits with other research showing a rising number of people who claim no religion or to be spiritual but not religious.    “Despite bursts of innovation and pockets of vitality, the first decade of the twenty-first century witnessed a slow, overall erosion of the strength of America’s congregations,” begins the report, “A Decade of Change in American Congregations: 2000-2010.”    The report reflects a continuing survey project called Faith Community Today, which measured congregations in 27 denominations or other religious categories.    Attendance is down, money is down, conflict is high and, even by their own measure, congregations have less spiritual vitality than they used to.    The worst news, Roozen wrote, is for what traditionally is called Mainline Protestantism because of its onetime cultural prominence, including the nation’s largest Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian and Lutheran denominations.
      Roozen calls them “Oldline Protestants,” and he said the stark demographic reality is that their overwhelmingly aging members cannot be expected to live much longer.    Their congregations can’t be feeling so good themselves, to paraphrase the late columnist Lewis Gizzard’s reaction to Elvis’ death.    “What’s interesting is how old the Oldine really is,” Roozen said in a statement.    “Half of the congregations could lose one third of their members in 15 years.”    Sixty-three percent of Oldline congregations report a weekly attendance of 100 or less, compared with 56 percent a decade ago.    But evangelical churches are also experiencing a decline in attendance.    Their percentage of low-attendance churches is rising, from 33 percent to 47 percent.    That bucks older conventional wisdom that con-servative equals growth.    In recent years, conservative denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention, the Christian Reformed Church and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod have reported plateaus or losses.
      “Many denominations in evangelical Protestantism are beginning to have the same dynamic as in the Roman Catholic Church,” Roozen said.    “The white constituency is eroding.    To the extent they’ve got a growing segment, it’s their racial/ethnic” minority population.
      As might be expected in a country with steady immigration and high minority birth rates, congregations with mostly racial or ethnic minorities are on the rise, going from 23 percent to 30 percent of the total in the past decade.
      It also shows that minorities aren’t flocking to mostly white, non-Hispanic churches.    First Church of Springfield is less likely to be revived by an influx of immigrants than it is to be replaced by La Primera Iglesia.
      And while the number of megachurches “roughly doubled during the decade, they still only constitute about a half of one percent of all congregations in the U.S.,” the report said.    “And while it appears ... they are attracting an ever bigger slice of the religious attender pie, it is a bigger slice of a shrinking pie.”
      What are the odds of reviving the Oldline churches?
      Long, given that more than half have at least a third of their membership in the 65-and-older category.    Willingness to change is associated with both youth and growth, according to the survey numbers.
      Jewish groups are also struggling for some of the same reasons as the Oldlines, such as aging mem-berships, and unique challenges, such as intermarriage.
      Mosques are growing, mainly because of immigration and higher birth rates among Muslims.    Which kinds of congregations are thriving?
      There’s no one attribute, but congregations with innovative worship styles, particularly contemporary, are more likely to see growth.    So were those with strong beliefs and purpose, mission outreaches and new suburban locations.
      Many of these are successful routes that evangelicals have taken in the past. But Roozen said current young adults are less prone than their parents to be open to organized religion, especially since they’re coming of age at a time when it’s associated with everything from political rancor to sexual-abuse cover-ups to terrorism.
      Overall, asked to assess their own spiritual vitality, only 28 percent of congregations reported it to be “high,” down from 43 percent in 2005.    Who’s most vital?
      Fifty percent of “very liberal” congregations describe themselves as having high spiritual vitality.    Second-most: “very conservative” congregations, at 33 percent.    The more moderate the church, the less so.    And where are the “very liberal” congregations most likely to be found?
  
  Among Oldline Protestants
  .     The only problem, Roozen said, is that this accounts for only about 5 percent of Oldline Protestant congregations.    “It feels to me like we’re in a very transitional time,” Roozen said.    “When you’re in the middle of that, you don’t know where it’s going.”
      Maybe, he said, religious groups will successfully tap into new technologies, as they are trying to do.    “Twenty-five years from now there may be a whole different thing engaging the aging gen-Xers in a way nobody would have guessed,” he said.    “But it feels like the old habits aren’t working for the most part, and it’s not self-evident what the new habits will be.”
  
  
• 10/29/2011
  
  Court: State can credit God - Law says security based on Almighty by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal
      The state can continue giving official credit for its homeland security to Almighty God, the Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled Friday in a decision overturning a lower-court ruling.
      A three-judge panel, in a split decision, rejected the 2009 ruling of Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate, who declared legislation requiring credit to the Almighty to have “created an official government position on God.”
      At issue were two related laws passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.    A group of plaintiffs filed suit to challenge the legislation in 2008, saying the laws creating the state’s Office of Homeland Security violated the Kentucky and U.S constitutions’ bans on state sponsored religion.
      Virtually every state legislator, the attorney general and both major-party candidates for governor had weighed in on the case, backing the law with legal briefs or public statements of support.
      Judge Laurance B. VanMeter wrote in his majority opinion that the appeals court disagrees with Wingate’s “assertion that the legislation seeks to place an affirmative duty upon the Commonwealth’s citizenry to rely on ‘Almighty God’ for protection of the Commonwealth.”
      “The legislation merely pays lip service to a commonly held belief in the puissance (power) of God,” VanMeter said in an opinion joined by Judge Thomas Wine.    “The legislation complained of here does not seek to advance religion, nor does it have the effect of advancing religion, but instead seeks to recognize the historical reliance on God for protection.”
      Such a reference couldn’t be unconstitutional, the opinion added, because “that rationale would place this section at odds with the (Kentucky) Constitution’s Preamble,” which itself thanks “Almighty God” for the welfare and freedom of the commonwealth.
      A 2002 “legislative finding” said the “safety and security of the commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.”
      And a 2006 act creating the state’s Office of Homeland Security requires its executive director to pub-licize this “dependence on Almighty God” in agency training and educational materials and through a plaque at the entrance to its emergency operations center.
      Senior Judge Ann O’Malley Shake dissented from her colleagues, saying that Wingate was correct in saying the legislation has an “impermissible effect of endorsing religion because it was enacted for a predominantly religious purpose and conveyed a message of mandatory religious belief.”
      The majority compared the case to that of an Ohio law, upheld by a federal appeals court in 2001, estab-lishing a state motto, “With God, All Things Are Possible.”    That ruling, the Kentucky appeals court said, harmonized with a long history of “all three government branches recognizing the role of religion in American life.”    But Shake said the Ohio motto is a “passive aphorism that places a duty upon no one,” while the Kentucky legislation requires the Homeland Security director to be “stressing to the public that dependence upon Almighty God is vital.”    The laws, she said, are a “direct affront” to religious freedom. Edwin Kagin, who represented the plaintiffs and is national legal director of the group American Atheists, said he expected to ask the Kentucky Supreme Court to review the ruling.    “I’m a little stunned by the move toward a theocra-cy,” said Kagin, of Union, Ky.    “The reasoning of Judge Shake was so accurate and so compelling.”
      He said he suspected that friend-of-the-court briefs filed by virtually all Kentucky legislators “played some role in this.”    “The legislature has no business to tell the court that their actions are con-stitutional,” he contended.
      The office of Attorney General Jack Conway had defended the law, with the support of Gov. Steve Be-shear, a fellow Democrat.
      “We’re obviously pleased with the court’s ruling,” Conway’s office said in a statement.    “As this matter may be appealed, it would be inappropriate for us to comment further.”
      Senate President David Williams, the Republican candidate for governor in the Nov. 8 election, was among 35 of 38 senators who put their names on a friend-of-the-court brief defending the law.
      It was prepared by lawyers including former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was removed from office in 2003 for defying a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from Alabama’s judicial build-ing.
      The brief called on the Kentucky court essentially to ignore U.S. Supreme Court precedents in church-state case law and instead interpret the First Amendment narrowly to prohibit a “state-sponsored church or denomina-tion,” not a declaration of reliance on God.    And 96 of the state’s 100 state representatives asserted, in their own friend-of- the-court brief, that the laws are in keeping with historic U.S. Supreme Court cases describing America as a “Christian nation.”    Also at issue in the appeal was whether American Atheists, as an organization, had standing to join the lawsuit as a plaintiff.    Wingate had ruled it did not, and the appeals court unanimously upheld that ruling.    “The legislation complained of here does not seek to advance religion ...but instead seeks to recognize the historical reliance on God for protection,” JUDGE LAURANCE B. VANMETER.
  
  
• 10/30/2011
  
  Boy Scout officials covered up molesters
      LOS ANGELES - Confidential records show Boy Scout officials in the U.S. and Canada not only failed to stop an admitted child molester in its ranks, but sometimes helped cover his tracks.
      A Los Angeles Times and Canadian Broadcasting Corp. investigation finds scout leader Rick Turley molested at least 15 children, most of whom he met through American and Canadian Scouting beginning in the 1970s.
      Records show Boy Scouts of America officials didn’t call police after he admitted molesting three boys.    Turley then returned to his home country of Canada, where he signed on with Scouts Canada and continued his abuses for at least a decade. Now 58, Turley says he is surprised at how often he got away with it.
      Turley is one of more than 5,000 suspected child molesters named in confidential files kept by the Boy Scouts of America.
  
  
• 10/31/2011
  
  Amish charged in third Ky. county over refusal to use traffic emblem by Associated Press
      BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Members of the Amish community who have refused to put slow-moving emblems on their horsedrawn buggies are facing charges in a third county.    Four people have been cited by the Auburn Police Department in Logan County, according to the Daily News of Bowling Green.    A hearing in the matter is being held today at Auburn City Hall.    The Amish are part of a conservative sect that avoids bright colors and appearances of modernity and have refused to use the bright red-orange triangle.
      Members of the Amish community have also been cited in Graves and Grayson counties.    The Amish in Graves County have challenged the law and are asking the Kentucky Supreme Court to hear their appeal.
  
  
• 11/1/2011
  
  Vatican-trained exorcist: Evil is real - But possession isn’t like movies by Abbott Koloff, (Morris County, N.J.) Daily Record
      MADISON, N.J. — The Rev. Vincent Lampert knows Hollywood has created an image of his profession, a dark figure in a hat looking up at a window, preparing to cast out demons.    He says most exorcisms aren’t as dramatic as they appear in movies, but some come close.
      There was the time in Italy when a woman shook violently and Lampert said he saw her levitate above a chair.    “If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Lampert, 48, a Roman Catholic priest and designated exorcist for the Diocese of Indianapolis, said in a recent telephone interview.    “There was nothing between her and the chair.    My jaw must have been open.”
      When speaking to groups, Lampert typically talks about the relevancy of exorcism in modern times and a moral crisis of people moving away from God that, he says, has led to a rise of secularism and superstition.
      He said he’s one of just 36 Vatican-trained exorcists in the United States, a number that’s tripled in the past 10 years as the Catholic Church reportedly tries to stem a movement of people seeking answers in the occult.    “People were turning elsewhere for help to figure out what’s going on,” Lampert said.
      It’s not clear how many priests perform exorcisms in this country, and how many are performed.    Lampert said every bishop is authorized to perform the Rite of Exorcism and may bestow the authority to perform that rite on priests.
      Officials with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson, N.J., say they have a designated exorcist, a priest who has performed at least two exorcisms in the past couple of years.
      That priest’s identity is kept secret from the public, said Ken Mullaney, the diocese attorney, because church officials don’t want him to be inundated by exorcism requests.    No exorcism is allowed to proceed without the approval of Paterson, Diocese Bishop Arthur Serratelli, Mullaney said.    The diocese also has another requirement implemented by Mullaney two years ago: subjects must sign a waiver form.    “I’ve been told that an exorcism can get pretty physical,” Mullaney said.    “I wanted to protect priests and the church from anyone making claims against them.    They don’t teach you this in law school.”
      Lampert said exorcisms are rare, and that he’s performed just three since completing his training in Rome in 2006, even though he said he has counseled hundreds of people who believed they might be possessed.
      All prospective subjects go through counseling with a psychologist, he said.
      He said a small portion have something going on that can’t be explained by mental health professionals.    He said they typically exhibit extraordinary strength, respond to Latin even though they don’t know the language, and have an aversion to places and objects considered sacred, such as Holy Water.    Lampert said he prefers to be out in the open, rather than keeping his identity a secret, because that makes him more accessible.    He said he receives about six calls a week from people seeking exorcism services.
  
  Three months with mentor in Rome
      He was pegged by the Indianapolis archbishop to become an exorcist after another priest designated to perform that service died in 2005.    He said he was sent to Rome with this advice from the archbishop: “I don’t know what I’m asking you to do. Go and find out.”
      He spent three months in Rome, where he was mentored by the Rev. Carmine De Filippis.
      Another student there was the Rev. Gary Thomas, a California priest whose experiences became part of a book by author Matt Baglio called “The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist,” which became the basis of a fictionalized movie.
      Lampert’s experiences, and the levitation he said he witnessed, are included in the book.
      De Filippis simply pushed the woman back down in a matter-of-fact way that almost ignored the presence of evil, according to Lampert, who added that he didn’t experience any fear during the exorcism.
      He said demons don’t jump from one person to another, that possession is not a communicable disease, and he tells people evil is not contagious the way it’s sometimes portrayed by Hollywood.
      He said he witnessed about 40 exorcisms while in Rome and most were not all that exciting.
      He said not everyone believes him when he determines they are not possessed, and he won’t perform an exorcism unless he’s sure the subject is possessed.    “If I did that, it would solidify in the person’s mind that they are possessed,” he said.    “Then I’d have done more harm than good.”
  
  
• 11/7/2011
  
  THE CHURCH of MORMON
      The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was formally organized in 1830 in upstate New York, 10 years after Joseph Smith reported a divine revelation to restore the ancient Christian church.    Smith and his followers moved around the Midwest before his murder in 1844 in Illinois.
      Surviving members migrated to Utah in 1847 under new leader Brigham Young.
  
  KEY BELIEFS, PRACTICES
  • Humans lived previously as spirit children of God the Father and a Heavenly Mother.    Humans’ purpose in this physical life is to “gain experience and prove themselves worthy to return to live with God forever.”
  • Couples married by the church and their families stay together in eternity.
  • People are saved through the suffering of Jesus, God’s first-born spirit child, and through obedience to the Gospel.
  • The church considers itself the restoration of the original church and rejects the fourth-century Nicene Creed’s definition of the Trinity, embraced by most churches.    The Latterday Saints do not recognize other churches’ baptisms; Roman Catholic, United Methodist and many other churches do not recognize Mormon baptisms.
  • Sacred texts include the Bible, “The Book of Mormon,” which describes a visit to the ancient American continent by the resurrected Jesus; “The Pearl of Great Price”; and “Doctrine and Covenants.”
  • Mormons are expected to participate actively in their congregations; donate tithes; and abstain from alcohol, tobacco and caffeine.
  • Congregations are headed by unpaid lay leaders.    Many Mormons, mainly young adults, work two years as missionaries.
  • Splinter groups include the Community of Christ, which rejected polygamy and Brigham Young’s leadership, and various polygamous sects.
  
  
  SURVEY RESULTS
  • Twenty-five percent of Americans, 34 percent of evangelical Christians and 41 percent of liberal Democrats say they’d be less likely to vote for a presidential candidate who was Mormon.
  • Large, almost equal majorities of Mormons and white evangelicals identify as Republicans and conservatives and oppose abortion and same-sex marriage.
  
  
• 11/9/2011
  
  Insurance mandate upheld - D.C. appeals panel splits on health care law by Nedra Pickler, Associated Press
      WASHINGTON — A conservative- leaning appeals court panel on Tuesday upheld the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s health care law, as the Supreme Court prepares to consider this week whether to resolve conflicting rulings over the law’s requirement that all Americans buy health care insurance.
      A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a split opinion upholding the lower court’s ruling that found Congress did not overstep its authority in requiring people to have insurance or pay a penalty on their taxes, beginning in 2014.    The requirement is the most controversial requirement of Obama’s signature domestic legislative achievement and the focus of conflicting opinions from judges across the country.    The Supreme Court could decide as early as Thursday during a closed meeting of the justices whether to accept appeals from some of those earlier rulings.
      The suit in Washington was brought by the American Center for Law and Justice, a legal group founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson. It claimed that the insurance mandate is unconstitutional because it forces Americans to buy a product for the rest of their lives and that it violates the religious freedom of those who choose not to have insurance because they rely on God to protect them from harm.    But the court ruled that Congress had the power to pass the requirement to ensure that all Americans can have health care coverage, even if it infringes on individual liberty.
      “That a direct requirement for most Americans to purchase any product or service seems an intrusive exercise of legislative power surely explains why Congress has not used this authority before — but that seems to us a political judgment rather than a recognition of constitutional limitations,” Judge Laurence Silberman, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, wrote in the court’s opinion.    Silberman was joined by Judge Harry Edwards, a Carter appointee.    But, they added, “The right to be free from federal regulation is not absolute and yields to the imperative that Congress be free to forge national solutions to national problems.”
      Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a former aide to President George W. Bush who appointed him to the bench, disagreed with the conclusion without taking a position on the merits of the law.    He wrote a lengthy opinion arguing the court doesn’t have jurisdiction to review the health care mandate until after it takes effect in 2014.
      The federal appeals court in Cincinnati also upheld the law.    The federal appeals court in Atlanta struck down the core requirement that Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty.
  
  
• 11/14/2011
  
  Catholics look to fight back - Government, public seen as less tolerant by Rachel Zoll, Associated Press
      The mood among many U.S. Roman Catholic bishops was captured in a recent speech by Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia.    His talk, called “Catholics in the Next America,” painted a bleak picture of a nation increasingly intolerant of Christianity.
      “The America emerging in the next several decades is likely to be much less friendly to Christian faith than anything in our country’s past,” Chaput told students last week at Assumption College, an Augustinian school in Worcester, Mass.    “It’s not a question of when or if it might happen.    It’s happening today.”
      The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops gathers today in Baltimore for its national meeting feeling under siege: from a broader culture moving toward accepting gay marriage; a White House they often condemn as hostile to Catholic teaching; and state legislatures that church leaders say are chipping away at religious liberty.
      The bishops see themselves as more and more on the losing side of these disagreements, and they are taking steps they hope will protect the church.    In September, the conference formed a new committee on religious liberty that will meet for the first time this week.    Anthony Picarello, general counsel for the conference, will oversee that work, which will include hiring a lobbyist.
      Among the bishops’ top concerns are religious exemptions in states that legalize same-sex marriage.    In Illinois, government officials stopped working with Catholic Charities on adoptions and foster-care placements after 40 years because the agency refused to recognize a new civil union law. Illinois bishops are suing the state.
      In New York, the bishops, along with Orthodox Jewish leaders and others, have complained that the religious exception in this year’s law allowing gay marriage is too weak to be effective.
      On health care, the bishops have been pressing the Health and Human Services Department during its public comment period for a broader religious exception to the provision in Obama’s health care overhaul that mandates that private insurers pay for contraception.
      The conference is also battling HHS on another front: The department recently decided not to renew a contract held since 2006 by the bishops’ refugee services office to help victims of human trafficking.    The American Civil Liberties Union is suing to stop the agency from making grants to groups that “impose religiously based restrictions on reproductive health services” for human trafficking victims.    The women are often raped and forced into prostitution by their captors.
      Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the bishops, has called the decision discriminatory and a case of “ABC,” meaning anyone but Catholics.    Agency officials vehemently deny any bias and say the sole criterion for evaluating potential grantees was which group could best serve the victims.    Administration officials note that the vast network of Catholic social service nonprofits receives hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding, and it has increased in recent years.
  
  
• 11/15/2011
  
  2 more Amish may go to jail - Men convicted over buggy emblem issue by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal
      Two more Western Kentucky Amish men were convicted Monday for refusing to put slow-moving- vehicle emblems on their buggies and could face jail time for refusing to pay their fines and court costs.    Their convictions came at bench trials Monday in Graves District Court.    Their cases are the latest in a series to come before courts in Graves and other Western Kentucky counties.
      The men belong to the strict Old Order Swartzentruber Amish sect.    They refuse to use the bright orange-red triangle that state law requires on buggies and certain other slow-moving vehicles.    Many other Amish groups do use the triangles without religious objection.
      John Hostetler, 26, one of two men convicted Monday, presented a statement from his community stating its objections to the symbol. It said the “loud, flashy color” violates the community’s rules requiring the use of modest colors.
      It also cited objections to relying on a man-made symbol for protection.    It described the triangle as an ancient symbol of the Christian Trinity and said that using it would violate the biblical prohibition against making a graven image of God.
      Hostetler was convicted of two counts of the misdemeanor charge of failing to use the symbol and assessed $321 in fines and court costs, according to the District Court clerk’s office.    Levi Zook, 32, was assessed $153 for his conviction on one count.
      Both indicated they would not pay, according to the clerk’s office.    Judge Deborah Hawkins Crooks gave them until Jan. 12 to pay their fines or be jailed for contempt of court.
      In September, eight men served between three and five days in the Graves County Jail for refusing to pay similar fines, and a Grayson County man was briefly booked into that county’s jail before someone else paid his fine.
  
  Divorce rate of Baby Boomers likely to rise by Kim Hone-McMahan, Akron Beacon Journal
      When Olivia Newton-John sang “Hopelessly Devoted to You” in the 1978 movie “Grease,” baby boomers were deeply in love and headed for the altar.    But now that they’re older, many are saying to heck with ‘til death do us part.
      While studies have determined that the overall divorce rate has held steady or declined since the 1980s, it’s not so for those older than 50.
      The National Center for Family & Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University found that the divorce rate for boomers and older couples has more than doubled over the past three decades, and it’s expected to increase.
      More than one in four people who divorce today are older than 50.    Of course, some of those have exchanged vows on more than one occasion.    In fact, the center found that roughly half of those who divorce are in short-term remarriages.
      The dynamics of couples have changed significantly over the decades, said Loralea Allen, a clinical counselor with Counseling for Wellness in Kent, Ohio.
      “Traditional views and expectations of marriage and family have changed, due in large part to more education and employment opportunities for women,” said Allen.
      Those changes, Allen explained, have allowed couples to end a marriage when a relationship has deteriorated.    Previously, social expectations often forced them to remain together.
      Psychologist Donald A. Lichi, with EMERGE Ministries in Akron, Ohio, thinks the trend is the result of a society that no longer looks negatively on someone who is divorced. And someone who is 50 today likely has a much different lifestyle than someone the same age in decades past.
      “Ours is a youth culture and people are exercising, Botoxing, tucking — to appear younger,” Lichi said.    “The mind-set is: ‘I’ve done my duty, stayed married, raised the kids, and if I’m not in a happy marriage, I can find someone who will make me happy.’    The avenues that closed for many in the past after high school, college and early career of finding a mate have also dramatically changed,” he added.
      “With the onset of the Internet and numerous social-relationship platforms, it’s just as easy to meet more eligible people across the country as it is across the street.”    For baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964), empty nest syndrome can wreak havoc on holy matrimony.    But if a couple’s marriage was built on a strong foundation, then chances are the relationship will remain solid, Allen said.    “Lack of interest and participation in activities, other than that of their children, often creates a large void for the couple when their children leave the household,” she added.    “Communication is always key to a successful rela-tionship.”
      Though parents most often worry about how divorce will affect younger children, what about the big kids?    It’s only natural to think they are better equipped to handle the news.    However, “adult children are sometimes shocked when they discover that their parents, who have always been together, are ‘suddenly’ ending their relationship,” Allen said.
      If Mom and Pop had a decent marriage, they probably told you that marriage takes work.    Typically, couples face difficult situations during their lives together.    But the foundation their relationship was built on is key to its long-term success.    So does that mean a shaky relationship is doomed ?
      “No,” Allen said.    “A couple can learn the appropriate coping skills and communication techniques that will allow them to develop this foundation.”
  
  
• 11/20/2011
  
  Pope urges Africa to work for peace - Catholics, priests of Voodoo listen by Rukmini Callimachi, Associated Press
      OUIDAH, Benin — In a basilica built in the heartland of Africa’s Voodoo religion, Pope Benedict XVI unveiled a treatise Saturday outlining the role of the Roman Catholic Church on the continent, explaining how the faith can help address Africa’s chronic wars and interact with indigenous practices.
      The immediate backdrop for the release of the 87-page guide for the faithful in Africa was the soaring basilica in Benin, a symbol of the church’s roots on the continent.    But just 100 yards from the nave where Benedict was introducing the papal text, Voodoo priests in flowing robes sat inside their own temple, carefully listening to his words as they wafted outside, across the basilica’s sound system.
      Among the messages contained in the pope’s road map for Africa is an attempt to show how Catho-licism has evolved from the rigid religion that missionaries first brought to Ouidah, considered the cradle of Voodoo, a state re-ligion in Benin alongside Christianity and Islam.
      Catholics need to cultivate respect both for Islam and for traditional practices, the pope said in the document.
      He also encourages the study of indigenous beliefs to determine what aspects are helpful to the human condition.    But he told bishops they must nevertheless discern which traditional practices clash with church doctrine so they can “separate the good seed from the weeds.”
      “The church is open to cooperation with all the components of society, particularly with the repre-sentatives of the churches and ecclesial communities not yet in full communion with the Catholic church,” the pope said as African priests and nuns held up camera phones in the pews of the packed basilica to record his message.    “As well as with the representatives of the non-Christian religions, above all those of traditional religions.”
      As he signed the papal treatise, several dozen Voodoo practitioners sat in plastic chairs in the Temple of the Pythons located at the opposite end of the basilica’s square.    The high priest, who sat with his foot on a bottle of gin, a traditional Voodoo spirit offering, said they listened carefully as the pope’s message was projected outside through massive speakers mounted on the basilica.
      “This is a positive message which will bring peace to Africa,” said Houkpon II Houawamenod.    “I am a baptized Catholic, but I can’t turn my back on where I come from.    When I was a child, if I attended a Voodoo ceremony, I used to get flogged at school the next day.”    Like many in Benin practice a combination of Voodoo and Catholicism, he said, “We are simply taking a different road to get to the same place.”
      The 84-year-old pope’s three-day trip is his second to Africa, the most rapidly growing region for the Ro-man Catholic Church.    While congregations are graying in Europe and religious orders are struggling to recruit future priests, there are not enough spots in seminaries in Africa to accommodate all those wishing to pursue a religious life.
      “Africae munus,” Latin for “Africa’s Commitment,” is the pope’s attempt to tailor the faith to the needs of a continent shattered by war and crippled by corruption.    The pope proposes a reconciliation that draws on the church’s doctrine of forgiveness to stem the cycle of retribution at the core of many of the region’s most recent conflicts.    Among the ideas he suggested is surveying local ceremonies used to resolve conflicts in Africa, though he made clear that these cannot take the place of the church’s sacrament of penance.
      Earlier on Saturday at the country’s largest seminary a few miles from the basilica, the pope addressed the aspiring priests and explained how they can become an instrument for changing Africa.    “Dear priests, the responsibility for promoting peace, justice and reconciliation falls in a special way to you,” he said.    “As crystal does not retain the light but rather reflects it and passes it on, in the same manner the priest must make transparent what he celebrates.”
      The Rev. Gabriel Dobade, a priest from Chad, a nation that has seen repeated coups and wars, said the Biblical principle of turning the other cheek is a perfect instrument for resolving Africa’s cycle of violence.    “Africa needs to stop fighting.    We need to assume responsibility for peace,” he said.    “The pope’s message is a strong one. And it should be heard throughout Africa.”
      In “Africa’s Commitment,” Benedict says there is potential for Africa to become a resource for the rest of the world, acting as “a spiritual lung for humanity.”    Among the traits he praised in Africans is their love of family and their deeply felt faith, regardless of whether it is in the context of Christianity.    “However, if it is to stand erect with dignity, Africa needs to hear the voice of Christ who today proclaims love of neighbor, love even of one’s enemies,” the pope wrote.
  
  Amish teenager dies after SUV hits buggy by Bruce Schreiner, Associated Press
      CUB RUN, Ky. — An Amish teenager was killed when the horse-drawn buggy he was driving was struck from behind by a sport-utility vehicle in south-central Kentucky.
      State police said the buggy was not displaying a slow-moving sign or reflectors.
      Aaron Byler, 18, of Cub Run in Hart County, was thrown from the buggy late Thursday afternoon and died while being flown to a hospital.    Dozens of Amish were at the Byler family’s farm Friday in Hart County to pay their respects.    There were about 16 buggies parked at the farm, and all had reflective orange safety triangles.
      Byler was not driving a traditional buggy, but a two-wheeled cart that was low to the ground, said a neighbor who was visiting the family Friday afternoon and wished to only be identified with his last name as “Mr. Miller.”    Many Amish decline to identify themselves to reporters and reject outward signs of pride or self-publicity.
      Miller said Byler had stopped on the road less than a mile from his farm to give his younger brother a ride when the SUV hit the cart.
      Miller said the Amish in the area commonly display the reflective slow-moving vehicle signs on their bug-gies.    “The law requires it for the safety of the people,” Miller said.
      He said he didn’t know why Byler’s cart didn’t have a sign.    “Like boys do, he didn’t have it on,” he said.
      The farm is on a narrow winding state highway in a hilly section of south-central Kentucky.    Nearby Munfordville is home to one of the state’s largest Amish settlements.    Michael Riggs, the driver of the 1992 Chevrolet Blazer that struck Byler’s buggy, was taken to a local hospital Thursday, where he was treated and released.
      Police say the crash remains under investigation. James Craddock of neighboring Edmonson County was dropping off a half-dozen Amish at the Byler home Friday.    The retired construction worker said Byler’s death “hits the whole community.    It’s such a tragedy and such a loss to lose a young one.”    Craddock said that the road where the accident occurred handles a lot of Amish buggy traffic, and many buggies are fitted with signs, flashing lights, headlights and even turn signals.    “They are safety conscious,” he said.
      Some counties have been stepping up enforcement of Amish buggy drivers who don’t use the orange triangle reflectors.    Police have said the reflective symbols help motorists see the dark buggies on the road — even in the daytime.
      Amish men in at least three Western Kentucky counties have been cited for refusing to use the reflective triangles on their buggies.    Nine Amish men in Graves County were ordered to jail in September for refusing to pay court fines.    The men, who belong to a sect called Old Order Swartzentruber, said they oppose using the triangles for religious reasons.    John Hostetler, one of the Graves County men cited for not using the signs, filed a paper in court on Monday listing reasons why he and others reject the slow-moving vehicle signs.    He said the triangle is the symbol of the Christian (Holy) Trinity, and they consider the orange color too “flashy.”
  
  
• 11/21/2011
  
  Pope asks Africans to stop cycle of violence
      COTONOU, BENIN - Pope Benedict XVI wrapped up a pilgrimage to Africa where he laid out his spiritual vision for the continent and told tens of thousands during an open air Mass that “true royalty does not consist in a show of power,” comments that Africans interpreted as a jab at the continent’s corrupt rulers.
      The pastoral guide includes advice on everything from treating AIDS, to the respect that should be shown toward indigenous beliefs.    The core of his message was aimed at the individual and called on Africans to forgive those that have trespassed against them in order to halt the cycle of violence plaguing the continent.
  
  
• 11/22/2011
  
  9 die in latest round of clashes
      JOS, NIGERIA - Muslim and Christian groups say nine people are dead after communal clashes in central Nigeria, a region often violently divided by faith.    The fighting occurred Monday around villages near the city of Jos, which has seen hundreds killed in recent years in disturbances.    Advocacy groups said the fighting happened in different areas.
  
  
• 12/13/2011
  
  Pope to visit Cuba, Mexico by Associated Press
      VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI plans to travel to Cuba and Mexico before Easter, saying he hopes his visit will strengthen the faith. Benedict confirmed his plans Monday during a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica honoring Mexico’s Virgin of Guadalupe.    The late Pope John Paul II became the first pope to visit Mexico when he landed in 1979 on his first foreign trip, and he made a groundbreaking tour of communist Cuba in 1998.
      Benedict, 84, has limited his travels mostly to Europe, to both spare him from long trips and to focus on a continent where Christianity has fallen by the wayside.    His trip to Latin America shows the Vatican’s concern about cementing the faith in a region that claims about half of the world’s Catholics, but where evangelical Pentecostal movements are making major inroads.
  
  
• 12/17/11
  
  Dutch Catholic church mishandled abuse - Inquiry details errors in sex cases by Mike Corder, Associated Press
      THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Thousands of children suffered sexual abuse in Dutch Catholic institutions over the past 65 years, and church officials knew about the abuse but failed to stop it or help victims because they feared sparking scandals, according to a long-awaited report released Friday.    The report also estimated that one in 10 Dutch children suffered some form of sexual abuse more broadly in society.
      The findings detailed some of the most widespread abuse yet linked to the Catholic church, which has been under fire for years over abuse allegations in multiple nations including the U.S.    The Dutch probe prompted the archbishop of Utrecht to apologize to victims on behalf of the entire Dutch Catholic organization, saying the re-port “fills us with shame and sorrow.”    Abuse ranged from “unwanted sexual advances ” to rape, the report said.    Abusers numbered in the hundreds, at least, and included priests, brothers, pastors and lay people who worked in religious orders and congregations.    The number of victims who spent some of their youth in church institutions is likely somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000, according to the inquiry, which went back as far as 1945.
      The commission behind the investigation was set up last year under the leadership of former government minister Wim Deetman, who said there could be no doubt church leaders knew of the problem.    “The idea that people did not know there was a risk … is untenable,” he said.    Deetman said abuse continued in part because the Catholic church in the Netherlands was splintered, so bishops and religious orders sometimes worked autonomously to deal with abuse and “did not hang out their dirty laundry.”    However, he said the commission concluded that “it is wrong to talk of a culture of silence” by the church as a whole.
      Similar investigations and reports in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Belgium and other nations also have documented widespread cases of children suffering at the hands of Catholic clergy and others working at church institutions.
      In Ireland alone, judge led investigations produced four mammoth reports since 2005 documenting how bishops shuttled known pedophiles through Ireland and to unwitting parishes in the U.S. and Australia.    They detailed how tens of thousands of children suffered numerous abuses in workhouse style residential schools, and how leaders of the largest diocese in Dublin didn’t tell police of any crimes until forced by the weight of lawsuits in the mid-1990s.
      In September, abuse victims upset that no high-ranking Roman Catholic leaders have been prosecuted for sheltering guilty priests called on the International Criminal Court to investigate the pope and top Vatican cardinals for possible crimes against humanity.    The Vatican called the move a “ludicrous publicity stunt.”
      The Dutch inquiry followed allegations of repeated incidents of abuse at one cloister that spread to claims from Catholic institutions nationwide.
      The investigating commission got some 1,800 complaints of abuse at Catholic schools, seminaries and orphanages. It then conducted a broader survey of the general population for a more comprehensive analysis of the scale and nature of sexual abuse of minors in the church and elsewhere.    Based on a survey of more than 34,000 people, it estimated that one in 10 Dutch children suffered some form of abuse broadly in society.    The number doubled to 20 percent of children who spent part of their youth in institutions like orphanages or boarding schools — whether Catholic or not.
      Bert Smeets, an abuse victim, said the report did not go far enough in investigating and outlining in precise detail exactly what happened.    “What was happening was sexual abuse, violence, spiritual terror, and that should have been investigated,” he said.    “It remains vague.    All sorts of things happened, but nobody knows exactly what or by whom.    This way they avoid responsibility.”
      Archbishop Wim Eijk said victims would be compensated by a commission the Dutch church set up last month, which has a scale starting at $6,500 and rising to a maximum of $130,000, depending on the nature of the abuse.    The Dutch Conference of Religious Orders also apologized, calling the abuse “a dark chapter in the history of religious life.”
  
  
• 12/18/2011
  
  State Supreme Court to hear Amish appeals by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal
      The Kentucky Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeals of nine Amish men who were convicted in Graves County for refusing on religious grounds to use a bright orange-red safety triangle on their horse-drawn buggies.
      The decision to hear the case comes after eight of the men already served jail time for refusing to pay their fines in the cases.    But with more cases pending against Amish in three Kentucky counties — including five Graves County convictions on Monday — they have persisted with the appeals in hopes of preventing future prosecutions.
      And the decision comes as a Louisville legislator has filed a bill calling for a change in state law allowing the Amish to use reflective tape and lanterns as an alternative to the triangles and flashing lights required on slow moving vehicles.
      The nine Amish men were convicted during 2008 trials in Graves District Court on misdemeanor charges for refusing to use the triangles, which state law requires on buggies using public roads.    They had lost appeals to Graves Circuit Court and, in June 2010, to the Court of Appeals.
      The Court of Appeals said that as long as the law is applied to everyone and isn’t singling out a religious group, it doesn’t amount to a violation of religious liberty.
      Graves District Court Judge Deborah Crooks ordered the men in September to pay the fines or face jail, noting it would be unusual for the Supreme Court to grant a third layer of appeal.
      The eight men spent between three and five days in jail in September, with the ninth spared incarceration after a non-Amish friend paid his fine.
      The Supreme Court entered an order on Wednesday granting the request for another review and ordering lawyers for the Amish and the state to prepare written briefs early in 2012.
      The Amish men — represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky — say the Kentucky Constitution grants broader freedom of religion than the federal constitution and should allow alternatives to laws that burden religious groups.
      “We’re pleased that the court has agreed to hear this important case,” said ACLU lawyer William Sharp.    “We are hopeful that the court will agree that the Kentucky Constitution properly limits govern-ment from imposing unnecessary restrictions on individuals’ religious liberty when there are reasonable alternatives that do not substantially burden religious freedom.”    Attorney General Jack Conway’s office declined to comment.
      Most Amish groups are willing to use the triangles, but those challenging the law belong to the strict Old Order Swartzentruber movement, which opposes their use.    They propose instead using lanterns and white or gray reflective tape.    More cases are pending in Graves, Grayson and Logan counties.    Five men were convicted Monday in Graves County and assessed fines and court costs of between $153 and $627.    Crooks gave them until Jan. 12 to pay, but the men said they would refuse to do so and are poised to serve jail time.    They say the law requires them to put their faith in a man-made sym-bol — the triangle.    They also say the triangle’s bright colors violate their religion’s modesty code, which requires them to wear muted colors.    Rep. Ron Crimm, R-Louisville, prefiled a bill that would allow lanterns and white or silver reflective tape to be used instead of the triangle and flashing lights.    Crimm said the Amish need to obey the law, but a compromise would be reasonable.
      “I don’t think these are bad people you put in jail,” Crimm said in an interview.    “Do we keep bringing in five more (to trial) every week?”
  
  
• 12/21/2011
  
  Bishop apologizes for having child porn
      OTTAWA, ONTARIO - A Canadian Roman Catholic bishop charged with importing child pornography apologized in court Tuesday to the church and to victims of child pornography.    Bishop Raymond Lahey told the court that his addiction to Internet porn went against his moral principles.    “I am truly sorry for what I have done,” said Lahey.    “I know that I’ve done wrong.”    Lahey was arrested in 2009 after border agents examined his laptop computer and a hand-held device at an Ontario airport and found close to 600 photos depicting mostly young teen boys.    The court has heard that Lahey’s collection included photos of young boys wearing crucifixes and rosary beads, as well as images of bondage and torture.
  
  
• 12/26/2011
  
  Pope urges world peace, end to Syrian strife by Nicole Winfield, Associated Press
      VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI called for an end to the bloodshed in Syria and the resumption of Israeli- Palestinian peace talks in his Christmas message Sunday, an appeal for peace that was challenged by deadly attacks on Nigerian churches.    Benedict delivered his “Urbi et Orbi” speech (Latin for “to the city and to the world”) from the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica overlooking a sun-drenched piazza below, before thousands of jubilant tourists and pilgrims, and hundreds of colorful Swiss Guards and Italian military bands.
      The 84-year-old pope, fresh off a late-night Christmas Eve Mass, said he prayed that the birth of Jesus, which Christmas celebrates, would send a message to all who need to be saved from hardships.
      He cited refugees from the Horn of Africa and flood victims in Thailand, among others, and called for greater political dialogue in Myanmar, and stability in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa’s Great Lakes region.    He said he prayed that God would help the Israelis and the Palestinians resume talks.    “May he bring an end to the violence in Syria, where so much blood has already been shed,” he said.    The pope didn’t mention the deadly blasts at churches in Nigeria, but the Vatican issued a statement denouncing the attacks as a sign of “cruelty and absurd, blind hatred” that shows no respect for human life.    Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said the Catholic church was praying for all Nigerians confronting “this terrorist violence in these days that should be filled with peace and joy.”    After his speech, Benedict delivered Christmas greetings in 65 different languages, from Mongolian to Maori, Aramaic to Albanian, Tamil to Thai.    He finished the list with Guarani and Latin, as the bells tolled from St. Peter’s enormous bell towers.    In the West Bank, hundreds of Christian faithful, defying lashing rains and wind, celebrated Christmas Mass at Jesus’ traditional birthplace of Bethleham on Sunday, spirits high despite the gloomy weather.
      Worshippers dressed in their holiday best rushed under cover of umbrellas into St. Catherine’s Church on Manger Square.    Inside, supplicants, some dressed in the traditional attire of foreign lands, raised their voices in prayer, kissed a plaster statue of a baby Jesus and took communion.    St. Catherine’s is attached to the smaller Church of the Nativity, which is built over a grotto where devout Christians believe Jesus was born.    “Lots of pilgrims from around the world are coming to be here on Christmas,” said Don Moore, 41, a psychology professor from Berkeley, Calif., who came to Bethlehem with his family.    “We wanted to be part of the action.    This is the place, this is where it all started.”    With turnout at its highest in more than a decade, proud Palestinian officials said they were praying the celebrations would bring them closer to their dream of independence.
  
  
• 12/31/2011
  
  Views differ on year’s top religion stories by Peter Smith, The Courier-Journal
      I joined my colleagues at the Religion Newswriters Association in picking the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. commandos as the top religion story of the year.    Otherwise, my choices differed quite a bit from the association’s Top 10 list.
      Members vote from an online ballot, and the bin Laden item spoke of the bin Laden raid as spurring “discussions among people of faith on issues of forgiveness, peace, justice and retribution.”    This is true, but I’d add that this was a religion story not only because of the religious reflections it produced but because bin Laden himself was a self-styled Islamic religious leader who inspired followers to kill many in the name of God.
  
  
  I agreed with some of the other items on the association’s Top 10 list — including:
  • The Louisville-based Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) votes to begin ordaining openly gay ministers after decades of debate.    The first such ministers are ordained, even as some conservative congregations mobilize to cut or loosen ties with the shrinking denomination.
  • The Roman Catholic Church introduces the biggest changes to its English language liturgy in decades in November, and lo-cal congregations spent months preparing.    Advocates and critics agree that the new version comes closer to the traditional Latin liturgy but disagree over whether this makes it more reverent and poetic or more obscure and irrele-vant.
  • Radio evangelist Harold Camping leads a small but well-funded and virally publicized campaign to proclaim the imminent end of the world.    We’re still here.
  • Michigan pastor Rob Bell’s book, “Love Wins,” stirs debate among evangelicals over his questioning whether a Christian needs to believe Gandhi or other non-Christians are in hell.    But the ballot didn’t include some stories that would have been among my top ones:
  • The Arab Spring has numerous religious reverberations. Some Muslims are seeking nonviolent, democratic alternatives to hard-line secular or religious governments, while others are seeking to fill the void with Islamist regimes.    Occurring alongside the revolutions are attacks on minority Christians and the stoking of Shia-Sunni tensions in some areas.
  • Religion takes a persistent front-and-center role in the Republican presidential campaign.    There’s the relative unpopularity of Mitt Romney’s Mormonism despite his social conservatism and model family life.    There are the assertions of Christian-based foreign policy by Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann.    And there are the debates and allegations over the morals of Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain.
  • The ferment continues over Islam in America.    Muslims are getting more involved in civic and charitable activities, but opposition to mosques and to legal recognition of shariah continues.    There are arrests of homegrown Muslim terror suspects, including two in Bowling Green.    There are congressional hearings over Islamic extremism and crimes against Muslims.    Lowe’s pulls ads from a TV show, “All-American Muslim.”
  • Debate also continues over illegal immigration, including the enactment of Alabama’s law and the unsuccessful attempt at similar legislation in Kentucky.    The legislation has spurred debate among religious groups and others over the ethics of such legislation — with socially conservative Southern Baptists calling for a path to legal status for some here illegally — and churning the lives of congregations’ Hispanic members.
  
  
  Among major stories in Kentuckiana:
  • Religion takes center stage in the final days of the Kentucky gubernatorial campaign when Senate President David Williams denounces Gov. Steve Beshear for his role in a Hindu ceremony blessing the Elizabethtown site of a new plant built by an Indianbased company. Williams called out Beshear for participating after having touted his Christian roots. Williams’ expressed wish that Hindus convert to Christianity brought calls from Hindus for an apology.    Beshear went on to an expected landslide victory over Williams, with little evidence voters were swayed by any religious issues.
  • The proposed merger of University Hospital, Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s HealthCare and St. Joseph Health System in Lex-ington under majority-Catholic ownership spurs debate over church-state separation, particularly over whether a publicly af-filiated hospital, University, could abide by religious prohibitions against procedures such as sterilizations.
  • Eight Amish men from Graves County serve between three and five days in jail in September, and others have pending cases in three counties, after the state Court of Appeals rejected their religious- based defiance of a law requiring them to use bright, slow-moving-vehicle emblems on their buggies.    Pending legislation and a Supreme Court of Kentucky appeal call for the state to allow them to use alternative measures.
  • Four children from another Amish group in Graves County are killed in February when a flash flood sweeps away the buggy in which they were riding, bringing an outpouring of sympathy and support from the surrounding community and the world.
  • Catholics and others mourn the December death of Archbishop Thomas C. Kelly, who led Louisville area Catholics from 1982 to 2007.    Kelly won praise for his simplicity, preaching, renewal efforts and interfaith relations but drew criticism for having kept sexually abusive priests in the ministry.
  • In other passings, mourners lament the deaths of the Rev. Matthew Kelty, a longtime monk and author at the Abbey of Gethsemani; Ned Rosenbaum, a Nelson County author whose interfaith marriage with wife Mary was literally an open book for others seeking guidance in their own marriages; and Willie Grunberger, a Holocaust survivor whose Adath Jeshurun congrega-tion had rescued him from neglect in his final years.
  • In major leadership transitions, the Rev. Charles Thompson, pastor of Holy Trinity Church in Louisville, is ordained Roman Catholic bishop of Evansville, Ind.; ailing Indianapolis Archbishop Daniel Buechlein retires; and Paul Chitwood succeeds long-time executive director Bill Mackey at the Kentucky Baptist Convention.
  • The Kentucky Court of Appeals rules in October that state can continue giving official credit for its homeland security to Al-mighty God, overturning a 2009 Franklin Circuit Court ruling that declared as unconstitutional legislation that “created an offi-cial government position on God.”
  • The Berea City Council votes in September to create a Commission on Human Rights but not to include bans on discrimina-tion based on sexual orientation or gender identity.    That followed months of debate by citizens fre-quently citing religious reasons for why the Madison County city should become the only one outside of the state’s urban triangle to have such a fairness ordinance.
  
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This file created on October 12, 2011, updated on October 28, 2011 and December 31. 2011.