News Briefs

W. German Lawmaker: No Tax Break if Church Bans Women's Ordination

BERLIN (RNS) — In an action that could have implications for the Roman Catholic Church in West Germany, a member of parliament there has moved to deny a traditional tax benefit to a small Lutheran denomination that bans ordination of women.

The challenge involves the Lutheran Church of Schaumberg-Lippe in Lower Saxony, the smallest of the 17 regional Protestant churches in West Germany, but the issues are the same for the Catholic Church, to which 27 million West Germans belong, more than all the Protestant churches combined.

Edith Niehuis, a Social Democratic member of the Parliament (Bundestag), argues that denial of ordination to women by the Schaumberg-Lippe church violates a provision of the West German constitution which bans discrimination based on a person's sex.

The Schaumberg-Lippe church, with only 70,000 of West Germany's 25 million Protestants, is the only one of the 17 regional churches which still denies ordination to women.

The system was instituted after the disestablishment of German churches at the end of the First World war. The church tax provides for a piggy back tax equal to 9 percent of the state income tax, paid only by church members but mandatory for them.

The tax is collected at the source by employers before church members see their money and forwarded through the state finance office to the church headquarters. The churches then decide on distribution for common tasks and to local churches.

New Jersey Removes Religious Reference from Law Licenses

(RNS) — The New Jersey Supreme Court has removed the phrase "in the year of our Lord" from law licenses after three lawyers complained about the religious reference.

In a letter of protest, Adam Jacobs, Charles Novins and Ann Sorrell—who described themselves as an agnostic, an atheist and a secular humanist respectively—said they "are personally offended that the certificate indicates the date of conferral by making reference to and exalting (through capitalization of the word 'Lord'), a deity in which we do not believe."

The lawyers said they "find it particularly objectionable that a direct reference to a deity is made on a document conferred by a judicial body, since the judiciary, among all other legal institutions, should be the most sensitive to maintaining religious neutrality on documents served in its name."

N.J. Township Discontinues Worship in Municipal Building

(RNS) — Religious organizations may no longer use the Municipal Building in Lacey Township, N.J. for worship services.

For eight years, the city had allowed three or four religious organizations to use the facility on weekends. But when a group of traditionalist Catholics asked to use the building once a month, they were granted permission only one time and then turned down for future requests.

The Rev. Paul A. Wickens, leader of the group called Traditional Catholics of Ocean County, said he believed the city caved in to demands from mainstream Catholic clergy in refusing permission for future use of the building.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State protested the decision, telling the Lacey Township officials they were not allowed to favor one religious group over another. In response, the city has told religious groups that none of them may use the Municipal Building for worship.

Orthodox Priests Cautious in Viewing Religious Liberty in U.S.S.R.

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Two Russian Orthodox priests, visiting the United States without their government's permission, said Aug. 4 that the Soviet Union's halting steps toward greater religious freedom are jeopardized by the country's political ferment.

The Revs. Gleb Yakunin and the Rev. Georgi Edelshtein, at a breakfast news conference held by the Institute on Religion and Democracy here, said the "situation for religious liberties" in the Soviet Union is "slowly getting better," largely because of the reform campaigns initiated by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

But the two priests also said that a well-entrenched, middle-level Soviet bureaucracy remains deeply hostile toward organized religion and that the KGB, the Soviet secret police, still threatens and dominates the country's official religious life. The sometimes pessimistic outlook of the two priests contrasted sharply at times with the buoyant assessments of other clergy from the Soviet Union and visitors from the West who have spoken with great optimism about the new religious tolerance.

The hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, like that of most other religious groups in the Soviet Union, "is still highly compromised by the KGB," observed Father Yakunin. "No one would fight against the KGB."

Father Edelshtein said the official attitude of the state toward religion has not changed. "It is not only a secular state, it is not even an atheistic state—it is a deeply anti-religious state and will be for a long time to come," said the 57-year-old priest.

Pope's Remarks on God's Covenant Stirs New Flap with Jews

NEW YORK (RNS) — Remarks made by Pope John Paul II during an Aug. 2 general audience at the Vatican have stirred a new controversy in Catholic-Jewish relations, which already were in turmoil over the continuing presence of a Carmelite convent at the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.

An English-language text of the pope's comments released by the Vatican Press Office quoted John Paul as saying that "the history of the Old Testament shows many instances of Israel's infidelity to God. Hence God sent the prophets as his messengers to call the people to conversion, to warn them of their hardness of heart and to foretell a new covenant still to come. The new covenant foretold by the prophets was established through Christ's redemptive sacrifice and through the power of the Holy Spirit."

The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith expressed concern that the pope was implying that the Jewish covenant with God has been superceded by the Christian covenant as the only everlasting one. Such an interpretation, the Jewish agency said, would fly in the face of the Second Vatican Council's document "Nostra Aetate" and previous statements made by John Paul himself affirming that God has an irrevocable covenant with the Jewish people.

Highlights of Pope John Paul II's Relations with Jews

(RNS)  — Following are some of the highlights of Pope John Paul II's relations with Jews during the 11 years of his pontificate:

Research on American Catholic Church Raises New Questions

(RNS)  — After supporting research into several areas of American Catholic Church life in the past 15 years, the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment has found that the results raise new questions and problems.

In the last issue of Progressions, its occasional publication, Lilly presents journalistic summaries of the findings of several studies for which it has made research grants in the past decade and a half. Among other things, these projects have found that:

In a summary of the study projects, Fordham University sociologist James R. Kelly writes that "every question answered through this research has, it seems, raised paradoxes and other questions."

As examples, Dr. Kelly asks, "why do contemporary seminarians rate seminaries more favorably than in the past, even though the number of seminarians is declining? Why, in the face of that decline, has morale among priests reportedly increased since the mid-1970's? And why, while the ranks of seminarians decrease, do the data reflect favorable views of contemporary parish life and the clergy?"

According to the sociologist, examples like these "remind us how little is securely known about complex issues facing the church."

Writer Jane Redmont, who is working on a book on Catholic women in the United States, describes proposals for future Lilly research projects in the special issue of Progressions, for which she was general editor. She says the endowment is currently accepting such proposals in four areas:

Seminary opening in Lithuania

A second Roman Catholic seminary will be opening this fall in Soviet-occupied Lithuania, according to the New York-based Lithuanian Information Center.

The Rev. Petras Kimbrys, one of the editors of Catholic World, told Vatican Radio that the seminary at Telsiai, Lithuania, is being reestablished after more than four decades, with the blessing of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Lithuania.

Telsiai was the site of one of four Catholic seminaries in pre-World War II Lithuania. It was forced to close in 1946.

Father Kimbrys said the decision to reopen the seminary comes at a time when the region is facing a critical shortage of clergy. Some 70 parishes, nearly half the total of the region, are without priests, he said.

Father Kimbrys reported that 30 young men have already applied for admission to the seminary.

Catholics, Though Still a Small Minority, Growing in the South

RICHMOND, KY. (RNS) — The Roman Catholic Church has been growing in the South, but it still represents a small minority of the population, according to figures cited by Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin of Chicago at a conference on evangelizing the South held here at Eastern Kentucky University.

The cardinal, a native of South Carolina, said that during the last two decades, the number of Catholics in Georgia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Virginia increased by 425,000, or 59 percent. But the growth only meant that Catholics went from making up 2.7 percent of the population to 3.3 percent in 1989, he noted.

The Rev. Peter Dora, director of evangelization for the Archdiocese of Atlanta, said the growth came from migration of Catholics from other parts of the country, children born into Catholic families and adult converts to Catholicism.

"I know what this minority status means from my personal experience," Cardinal Bernardin said. "When I was growing up in Columbia, S.C., my sister, my two cousins and I were the only Catholics in our neighborhood and in the school we attended. While I have pleasant memories of that period in my life, being a Catholic in the South frequently meant having to stand up and be counted."

Witches in Rhode Island Granted Tax Exemption as Religious Group

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (RNS) — A coven of witches, with the help of testimony from a Unitarian minister, has convinced state officials here that it is a legitimate religious group entitled to tax-exempt status.

The state Division of Taxation July 28 reversed one of its own rulings and issued a sales tax exemption to the Rosegate Coven, also known as Our Lady of the Roses Wiccan Church.

"Yes, I think the decision gives us legitimacy," declared the coven's high priestess, Lady Genevieve, known to most people outside the coven as Joyce Siegrist, 45. "With this ruling, we witches will definitely be able to come out of the closet and take our place in our society."

Ms. Siegrist, who is employed by Blue Cross of Rhode Island, said her initial training for becoming a Wiccan priestess occurred during six years of study under Cassandra Salim, a high priestess in New Orleans. The Rhode Island group, she said, are the initiates, while the 11 coven members constitute the core group. Generally, she said, the coven meets as a "circle" about three times a month, depending on the phase of the moon, in a grange hall in Cranston, R.I., where the rituals are performed.

At the heart of Wiccan worship is a belief in a deity with male and female attributes, god and goddess in one. While witches believe a Wiccan can tap into a deity's psychic energy and use it for good or ill, those involved say no witch would try to use those forces for destructive purposes because they also believe that good or evil deeds return to them three-fold.

Ms. Siegrist recently has led a Wiccan Anti-Defamation League campaign against stories and letters linking witchcraft with devil worship or otherwise putting witches in a bad light.