Religion (general)

World Net Daily September 19, 2005

Applicants with ‘gay’ tendencies won’t be admitted to seminaries

Pope Benedict XVI has given his approval to a new Vatican policy document that bans men with homosexual tendencies from being ordained as priests, reports Catholic World News.

The policy statement is a direct result of the pope’s concern about the pedophilia scandal in the church – especially in the U.S.

The new document, prepared by the Congregation for Catholic Education in response to a request made by the late Pope John Paul II in 1994, will be published soon. It will take the form of an “Instruction,” signed by the prefect and secretary of the congregation: Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski and Archbishop Michael Miller, according to the report.
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ABC News

Who would possibly take this seriously?

LYON, France Jul 2, 2005 — A French woman defied a threat of excommunication by the Roman Catholic Church and held a ceremony proclaiming herself a priest on Saturday.

In a small ceremony on a boat, Genevieve Beney was joined by other women from around the world who have taken similar dramatic action to draw attention to the church’s policy against women priests.

“This is not a rupture with the Roman Catholic Church,” Beney said in a statement read aloud before she boarded the boat. “If there is a rupture on my part, it is with a situation that I consider to be obsolete and unjust to women.”

2005.06.22 Times Online June 22, 2005 Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

THE Anglican Church of the US gave the first justification yesterday of its decision to consecrate an openly homosexual man to the episcopate, arguing that same-sex unions can be open “to God’s blessing and holy purposes” in the same manner as marriage.

At a meeting in Nottingham of Anglican leaders from around the world, delegates from the US said the blessing of same-sex unions constitutes a “new reality, a sacred union”.

The consecration of Gene Robinson, a divorced father of two who has a male partner, as Bishop of New Hampshire, and the authorisation of same-sex blessings by the New Westminster diocese in Canada, has brought the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion to the brink of schism.

The Church is split between liberals in Britain and North America and orthodox conservatives in the so-called Global South churches of Africa, Asia and the West Indies.
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2005.06.23 Times Online June 23, 2005 Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

THE Anglican Church moved closer to schism yesterday when members of its central administrative council formally asked the Churches of Canada and the US to go.

Unconvinced by the justifications offered by both Churches on Tuesday for their actions in ordaining an openly homo- sexual bishop and authorising same-sex blessings, members of the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Nottingham asked them to leave the council and its central finance and standing committees.

Although the motion invites the Churches to withdraw voluntarily, it amounts in effect to a punishing expulsion. The debate was held behind closed doors at Nottingham University yesterday, and the motion was passed 30 to 28 by secret ballot, with four abstentions.
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Wall Street Journal Online BY ALI AL-AHMED Friday, May 20, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

Muslims should show some respect to others’ religions.

With the revelation that a copy of the Quran may have been desecrated by U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay, Muslims and their governments–including that of Saudi Arabia–reacted angrily. This anger would have been understandable if the U.S. government’s adopted policy was to desecrate our Quran. But even before the Newsweek report was discredited, that was never part of the allegations.

As a Muslim, I am able to purchase copies of the Quran in any bookstore in any American city, and study its contents in countless American universities. American museums spend millions to exhibit and celebrate Muslim arts and heritage. On the other hand, my Christian and other non-Muslim brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia–where I come from–are not even allowed to own a copy of their holy books. Indeed, the Saudi government desecrates and burns Bibles that its security forces confiscate at immigration points into the kingdom or during raids on Christian expatriates worshiping privately.

By KEVIN HELLIKER, Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The number of Americans who attend religious services at least once a week jumped nearly three points to 27.5% during the two years ended in 2004, according to statistics to be released this week by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center.

This leap could be good news for the nation’s health. A growing body of scientific evidence shows that Americans who attend religious services at least once a week enjoy better-than-average health and lower rates of illness, including depression. Perhaps most important, the studies show that weekly attendance confers a significant reduction in mortality risk over a given period of time.
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LewRockwell.com Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)

[This is a homily that was delivered on 26 November 1981 in the course of a service for Catholic members of the Bundestag in the church of St. Wynfrith (Boniface) in Bonn. The readings provided for the day by the lectionary were 1 Peter 1:3-7 and John 14:1-6. At first sight they seemed to be out of keeping with the subject, but on closer inspection they showed themselves to be unexpectedly fruitful.]

The epistle and gospel that we have just listened to have their origin in a situation in which Christians were not citizens of a state who were able to shape their own lives but the persecuted victims of a cruel dictatorship. They could not share in responsibility for their state but simply had to endure it. It was not granted to them to shape it as a Christian state; instead their task was to live as Christians despite it. The names of two emperors in whose reigns tradition dates these two passages are enough to cast light on the situation: they were Nero and Domitian. Thus the first letter of Peter describes Christians as strangers within this state (1:1) and the state itself as Babylon (5:13). By doing so it indicates very impressively the political position that Christians were in; it corresponded more or less to that of the Jews living in exile in Babylon who were not responsible citizens of that state but subjects without any rights, and who thus had to learn how they might survive in it, not how they could build it up. Thus the political background of today’s readings is fundamentally different from ours. Nevertheless they contain three important statements which are significant for political activity among Christians.