VATICAN CITY – The Vatican declared Tuesday that the traditional family has never been so threatened as in today's world and lashed out against contraception, abortion, in vitro fertilization and same-sex marriage.
The 57-page document was issued by the Pontifical Council for the Family, whose head, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, opposes the use of condoms under any circumstances.
Gay activists in Italy quickly condemned the paper as an “attack against modern life, freedom and social redemption.”
The Vatican's document did not break new ground, but summarized traditional Roman Catholic Church positions in the first sweeping comment on the issues during Pope Benedict XVI's papacy.
“Man of modern times has radicalized the tendency to take the place of God and substitute him,” it said. “Never before in history has human procreation, and therefore the family, which is its natural place, been so threatened as in today's culture.”
The document did not mention the current debate within the Vatican on whether the church should permit condoms to battle AIDS in a particular circumstance – when one partner in a marriage has the virus.
Associated Press
First U.S. woman rabbi set to retire
TINTON FALLS, N.J. – Sally J. Priesand, the first U.S. woman rabbi, arrived at Jewish seminary nearly 40 years ago determined to fulfill her dream to become a teacher of her faith. Many people thought she came for a different reason.
“I think at first they thought I came to marry a rabbi rather than be one,” Priesand said, chuckling as she sat in her synagogue office, a space decorated with awards she's received since her 1972 ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. “So they didn't take me all that seriously.”
Now as she prepares to retire more than three decades later, Priesand (pronounced PREE-sand) is widely seen as a role model who's helped change contemporary Judaism. Since she was ordained in the Reform movement, nearly 1,000 women have become rabbis. The Reconstructionist movement ordained its first female rabbi in 1974, and the Conservative movement followed in 1985. The Orthodox movement does not have female rabbis.
Priesand, 59, downplays her accomplishment, saying she didn't intend to be a pioneer. But Rabbi David Ellenson, the president of the Reform seminary, which has U.S. campuses in Cincinnati, New York and Los Angeles, called her “a genuine innovator in American Jewish life and in Jewish history. Her decision to study for the rabbinate paved the way for the inclusion of half the Jewish population.”
Associated Press
Brits told to bolster Christianity
LONDON – A senior Church of England bishop said Britain should assert its Christian identity rather than become a “multifaith mishmash.”
Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester also said Prince Charles was misguided in saying he wanted to be “defender of faiths” rather than “defender of the faith” when he is king.
In the coronation service, the monarch “takes oaths to defend the Christian faith,” the bishop told BBC radio.
“If by saying that he meant that he wanted to uphold the freedom of people of every faith, then I have no quarrel with that,” the bishop said. “But you can't defend every faith because there are very serious differences among them.”
Nazir-Ali said respect for Christian roots doesn't mean “we don't welcome other people.”
Meanwhile, the chairman of one of London's biggest mosques, Muhammad Abdul Bari, chosen Sunday to head the Muslim Council of Britain, said that organization's duty “is to reassure British Muslims they can live lives in Britain as good British citizens and as devout Muslims.”
Associated Press
ACLU backs student's song choice
FRENCHTOWN, N.J. – The American Civil Liberties Union this week filed a legal brief supporting an elementary school student's right to express her religion by singing a pop Christian song at a school talent show.
Maryann and Robert Turton sued the district last year after the school officials said the their daughter, Olivia, then in second grade, could not sing the song “Awesome God” at the evening talent show because it was too religious for a school setting.
In court documents, the school board said the song was not appropriate for several reasons, including “violent imagery,” and cited lyrics that read, “There is thunder in his footsteps and lightning in his fists” and “It wasn't for no reason that He shed his blood.”
Religion News Service
Presbyterian membership falls again
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Membership in the Presbyterian Church (USA) decreased by more than 2 percent in 2005, the largest decline since 1975, according to the denomination's research office.
Membership in the largest Presbyterian body in the country fell by 48,474 to 2,313,662 in 2005. The church has been losing members since 1966.
Despite the drop, total giving at the church increased more than 5 percent to $3.07 billion.
The denomination is holding its 217th General Assembly in Birmingham, Ala., June 15-22.
Religion News Service
Episcopalians face critical decisions
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Episcopal Church, which has been deeply divided by the issue of homosexuality and an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire, will meet June 13-21 in Columbus, Ohio, for what is expected to be a landmark convention.
Besides electing a new presiding bishop to a nine-year term, the 2.2-million-member church will attempt to stay together and avoid greater isolation from the worldwide Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch of the Anglican network.
Resolutions proposed for the 75th General Convention call for the church not to elect any more gay bishops or conduct same-sex unions. Conservatives say they may be forced to leave unless the church corrects its leftward drift.
Religion News Service
Wall between worshippers removed
SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco's largest mosque – a Tenderloin refuge for more than 400 Muslims – has taken the revolutionary step of removing the 8-foot-high wall separating male and female worshippers.
No other San Francisco Bay Area immigrant mosque has torn down such a barrier, several Muslim leaders said, and the move is rare in the United States. But leaders at the Islamic Society of San Francisco, citing the opinions of scholars, say Islam provides no justification for the partitions that separate men and women in most immigrant mosques around the country.
In San Diego, some mosques have an upstairs area for women while others house men and women in the same room for prayers, separated by several feet of space.
Staff and news service reports
