Religion News in Brief

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WASHINGTON - Efforts to remove religion's influence from the public square will fail, in large part because faith plays such a major role in most Americans' lives, the recently appointed Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington said.

Archbishop Donald Wuerl's comments came at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast on April 13. President Bush was the headline speaker.

Wuerl said the church's moral theology has helped frame debates over the Iraq war, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, physician-assisted suicide and immigration. Religious faith, Wuerl said, continues to play a significant role in both promoting social justice issues as well as "defending all innocent human life."

In his address, Wuerl echoed Pope Benedict XVI's frequent warnings about the threat of secularism.

"The dramatic shift that would substitute a secular vision of life for the traditional, faith-inclusive one disconnects us from our history," Wuerl said. "The assertion that the secular model of society is the only acceptable way of addressing public policy issues causes us to look again at the place of religion and Gospel values in our efforts to build the common good."

Wuerl's predecessor in Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, led a committee of U.S. bishops that crafted guidelines on the role of Catholics in public life. The guidelines left it to individual bishops to decide whether to withhold Holy Communion from Catholic politicians who take positions in conflict with the church.

The prayer breakfast has not been without controversy. A liberal Catholic group, Catholics United for the Common Good, called it a partisan event organized by a board of directors supportive of Republicans.

http://www.adw.org/

'Stagnant' church giving threatens programs

NEW YORK (AP) _ Donations to 65 Christian denominations rose slightly in 2005, but not enough to outpace inflation, while giving to church relief efforts was flat, according to a report by the National Council of Churches USA.

More than $34 billion in total church giving was reported to the denominations, a 2.7 percent increase from the previous year, according to findings published last month in the Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches.

Individual congregants gave an average of $713 to their churches in 2005. Some donors, meanwhile, are contributing to parishes with declining memberships, causing even greater financial challenges, the yearbook said.

Benevolence giving _ or contributions to church programs such as relief efforts and feeding or housing the homeless _ remained flat at 15 percent.

"This level of giving for benevolence will be the source of sober reflection," the report concludes. The giving trends could lead to "less support for church-sponsored day care, fewer soup-kitchen meals, less emergency help to persons with medical problems, or reduced transportation to the elderly."

http://www.ncccusa.org/

Growing Pentecostal denomination elects new leader

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) _ Bishop Charles E. Blake, an influential Southern California pastor, has been named presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ Inc., the world's largest predominantly black Pentecostal denomination.

Blake, pastor of West Angeles Church of God in Christ in Los Angeles, replaces Presiding Bishop G.E. Patterson, who died in March at 67 of heart failure. The Memphis-based church body claims 6.5 million members worldwide, mostly in the United States.

Blake's church has a history of involvement in the local community and in global outreach programs, and he said he planned to continue that tradition.

"In addition to pursuing the basic principles of service to God and our ministry to the community in spiritual areas, my focus has always been on community development and global involvement," Blake said after his appointment, which came at the church's general assembly this month. "I certainly intend both to preserve those things and to do them on a higher level now, if we can."

The church Blake has led since 1969 is the denomination's largest congregation, with a membership of about 24,000. It has long been a key stop for California's Democratic politicians.

Blake also is founder and chief executive of Save Africa's Children, an organization that supports programs for orphans in countries throughout Africa. Actor Denzel Washington and singer Kanye West have been among its more prominent supporters.

http://www.cogic.com/

St. Paul schools sued over religious flier ban

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) _ An evangelical Christian group is suing the city's public school district in a bid to overturn its ban on religious fliers, contending that the First Amendment gives it the same right as Boy Scout troops and Little League teams that distribute recruitment material at schools.

While administrators acknowledge the district's ban on materials of a sectarian nature, a school lawyer said the district's opposition to the St. Paul Area Evangelicals' flier is that it asks parents to take their children out of class each week.

The evangelical group runs Crossroads Ministries, which for 50 years has offered Bible classes to students. It relies on a Minnesota law that allows parents to release their children from school up to three hours a week for religious education. Some schools in the district had allowed distribution in past years, according to the lawsuit, but the district now restricts access completely.

Jordan Lorence, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian civil rights group representing the churches, said if the district has a problem allowing students to use in-school time for religious education, it should take up the issue with the state Legislature.

Jeff Lalla, attorney for the school district, said groups like the Boy Scouts or sports leagues are allowed to advertise on school grounds because their programs aren't held during school hours. Just because state law allows students to miss school for religious instruction programs, "that doesn't mean we have to advertise that they're available," Lalla said.

Jesuits closing Boston church that serves many gays

BOSTON (AP) _ A Roman Catholic religious order is closing a Boston church with a largely gay congregation, citing cost pressures.

The Jesuit Urban Center in the city's South End will close at the end of July, said the Rev. Thomas Regan, the superior of the New England Jesuits.

The sexual orientation of many in the congregation did not play a role in the decision, and there was no pressure from the Vatican or the Boston Archdiocese to shutter the church, Regan said.

The order has become financially reliant on salaries paid to members who teach at Boston College, College of the Holy Cross, and Fairfield University _ all Jesuit schools _ but as they retire or die, the order is being forced to cut back on its activities, he said.

About one-third of the order's 342 priests in New England are retired.

"A lot of people are still in the church because of the Jesuits," Regan said. "We do not want to abandon these people. ... There's a spirit among this group, and I think that's going to be lost, and that's very sad."

The Jesuit Urban Center costs the order about $350,000 a year to support, and its only significant remaining activity is a weekly Mass attended by 150 to 200 people who generate weekly collections of about $2,400, Regan said. The building, the Church of the Immaculate Conception, was dedicated in 1861 and needs $4 million to $8 million in renovations, he said.

Jesuits will continue to welcome gays and lesbians to worship at St. Ignatius of Loyola, a parish they oversee adjacent to Boston College, Regan said.

http://www.jesuit.org/

A service of the Associated Press(AP)