For U.S. Protestants, a turning point on gay issues
It's possible that someday mainline U.S. Protestants will look back upon mid-March 2001 as a turning point in their seemingly insoluble dispute over homosexuality.
Earlier this month at a strictly guarded secret conclave near Hendersonville, N.C., 34 world leaders of Anglican Christianity agreed to utter no complaint and take no steps to block increasing tolerance in America's Episcopal Church. That appeared to remove the last obstacle to U.S. dioceses that ordain actively gay clergy and allow blessing rituals for same-sex couples.
Then on March 14, liberals in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) won a parallel triumph, defeating a ban on same-sex blessings. They will now work to repeal a 4-year-old prohibition on actively homosexual clergy and lay officers in June at the nationwide church assembly.
German cardinal gets nod
A German cardinal has replaced an Australian as head of the Vatican council working to promote unity among Christians.
The Vatican said Cardinal Walter Kasper, 67, was picked by the pontiff to be the new president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the Unity of Christians. Kasper, who previously served in the council's No. 2 spot, was elevated to cardinal last month.
Pope John Paul II has made ecumenism, or closer relations among Christians, a major goal of the Catholic church in Christianity's third millennium. In particular, John Paul has been trying to close the distance between Catholics and Orthodox believers.
Cardinal Edward I. Cassidy, who had labored for years to help foster the pontiff's dream for closer unity among Christians, retired due to age. Cassidy is 76.
College bans 'cultlike' church
The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., has banned an international church from meeting, organizing and recruiting members on campus, calling it cultlike in its recruitment tactics.
Katherine M. McElaney, director of college chaplains, said that at least one Holy Cross student is a member of the church, which is known variously as the International Churches of Christ, the Boston Church of Christ or the Worcester Church of Christ. The International Churches of Christ is separate from the United Church of Christ.
Recruiters for the church group, she said, use tactics commonly associated with cults, including heavy proselytizing and religious harassment for the sake of gaining converts, mandatory tithing and psychological and spiritual abuse.
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