Prayers lines helping people connect with God

Nashville, Tenn. Out of a job, “Snooky” from Maryland turns to a 1-800 number.

It’s not an employment service, though. It’s a 24-hour prayer line.

The call reaches the home of an 89-year-old woman one of a legion of volunteers who writes down the woman’s prayer request and asks God to help.

“Be with her right now, Lord, and help her shut her eyes and see you,” the volunteer prays. “Let her open her ears and hear what you have to say just to her.”

The Nashville-based Upper Room Living Prayer Center, an ecumenical ministry funded by United Methodist Men, receives more than 25,000 telephone prayer requests each month and an additional 5,000 by e-mail, fax and regular mail.

It is one of many telephone lines and Web sites across the nation trying to connect people with God.

Margie Smith, above, offers prayers from her kitchen to a caller.

Catholic church lawyers form task force on abuse

Cincinnati Experts in church law have formed a task force to study how they can help America’s Roman Catholic bishops implement their new disciplinary policy for priests who sexually abuse children.

The Canon Law Society of America, which ended its annual meeting Oct. 10 in Cincinnati, will give the panel three months to produce a report on the bishops’ plan. Critics, including some church lawyers, say the policy violates clergy due-process rights and Catholic teaching on redemption.

Pastor campaigns against gay festival

New Orleans A Jefferson Parish pastor is gathering the support of conservative churches and political candidates in his campaign to ban an annual gay festival in New Orleans.

The Rev. Grant E. Storms has circulated a videotape of men having sex publicly at the Southern Decadence Festival, arguing that police and city officials ignore lewdness at the gathering. Storms bought an advertisement in The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune on Oct. 9 and began a radio campaign urging city leaders to ban the event.

Storms’ supporters include officials from a number of small evangelical churches in the New Orleans area.