A year of challenges and achievements

01:00 AM EST on Saturday, January 1, 2005

BY RICHARD C. DUJARDIN
Journal Religion Writer

It was a year when many gay couples in Massachusetts rejoiced, being able to marry legally for the first time.

A year that saw mounting casualties in Iraq, and moral debate on whether Americans should have engaged in a preemptive war.

But it seemed those who felt they had the most reason to feel joyous were the religious conservatives, whose clout and influence were felt from box office to ballot box.

At a time when one of the biggest political divides seemed to be between those who go to church at least once a week and those who go infrequently, the "faithful" not only helped to send a once-beleagured president back to the White House, they also helped make a film about Jesus' crucifixion one of the year's top grossing films.

Although much has been made of the role played by evangelicals in the presidential campaign, some political strategists, including Bush's adviser Karl Rove, say it would be a mistake to overlook the significant shift toward Bush among Catholics; 52 percent voted for Bush this year, up from 44 percent in 2000.

The final returns and exit polls seemed to suggest that for more than a few Catholics, any reservations they may have had about a preemptive war that seemed to flout the church's "just war" teaching was trumped by their discomfort over Democrat John F. Kerry's stance on what many Catholics refer to as the "culture of life" issues. Kerry, a Catholic, is an advocate of abortion rights, and because of that, some Catholic bishops said publicly they believed he should not be allowed to receive Communion.

ON THE ENTERTAINMENT front, predictions that Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, a graphic depiction of Jesus' final hours, would ignite new fires of anti-Semitism did not deter large numbers of Christians from going to see the film, either out of curiosity, or for use as a tool for Lenten meditation and reflection.

The film's box office success helped to restore Gibson, a traditional Catholic who favors a return of the Latin Mass, as one of the most powerful men in Hollywood. A poll taken months after The Passion was released suggested that 1 in 6 people who had seen the film felt that it had caused them to change their religious beliefs or behavior -- largely making them more prayerful or considerate of others.

The movie also became a tool for dialogue. Even before the film opened, a committee to promote interfaith understanding in Rhode Island used it to examine the New Testament accounts of the crucifixion and sources of anti-Semitism at an all-day forum. Later, after the film received an endorsement from Roman Catholic Bishop Robert E. Mulvee, Providence College offered a forum as well, featuring a rabbi and scriptural scholars who held differing views.

AMONG THE YEAR'S other major developments in religion, the Lambeth Commission issued a long-awaited report on the future of the Anglican Communion in the wake of the ordination of openly gay V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire. The report, released in October, called on the U.S. Episcopal Church to express its regret for the damage it had caused to the unity of the worldwide communion by going forward with the ordination despite the opposition of other Anglican prelates.

But its call for a moratorium on such ordinations, along with its criticism of bishops from outside the United States who had been offering pastoral support to dissenting parishes without the consent of local bishops, did not please either side.

Last spring, Episcopalians from several local parishes, citing what they saw as a state of confusion in the church as a result of Robinson's ordination, came together as the newly formed Concerned Episcopalians of Rhode Island. In October, they and other like-minded Episcopalians from across New England gathered at the Rhode Island Convention Center for the first regional convocation of the Anglican Communion Network. Members said they will be looking closely at a meeting of the world's Anglican prelates later this month for clues as to whether the Episcopal Church will remain in the Communion or end up out.

LOCALLY, EPISCOPAL clergy and laity were also pondering and debating a report by an outside consultant who found through questionnaires and interviews that a serious rift had developed between Bishop Geralyn Wolf and many of her clergy -- largely over her leadership style.

A Bridge Builders task force has been asked to come up with recommendations to bring about "healing." In November, the task force announced it had not yet finished its work, but said that its report should be completed by early this year.

Among other top events:

As part of a celebration of 350 years of Jewish life in America, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined in the annual reading of George Washington's letter to members of Touro Synaogue in Newport, whose own history goes back 347 years.

Members of the United Church of Christ, both in Rhode Island and elsewhere, expressed dismay at the NBC and CBS television networks' refusal to air a 30-second advertisement promoting the denomination as one that is open to all. The ad, featuring two burly men dressed as bouncers turning people away from a church, was rejected as too controversial, because it implied support for gay rights.

Bishop Robert J. McManus, who was the Catholic Diocese of Providence's auxiliary bishop for five years, became the new bishop of Worcester, replacing Bishop Daniel P. Reilly. In the Archdiocese of Boston, parishioners in eight churches staged round-the-clock vigils to protest an effort by Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley to close the churches, as part of a wider plan to shut down 83 parishes.

The Islamic School of Rhode Island officially opened its doors in the former Sacred Heart parochial school in West Warwick, becoming the state's first full-time school for Muslim children, starting with pre-kindergarten.

The first national audit to see how well Catholic bishops are implementing the Catholic Church's new policy on preventing sex abuse by clergy gave the Diocese of Providence high marks for its "progressive outreach policy." The diocese, for the first time, estimated that 56 priests -- 4 percent of the 1,200 who served in Rhode Island during the last half century -- had been accused of sexually abusing children. The price tag for all those for which there had been settlements: $15.6 million plus $764,000 for therapy.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the words "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance on technical grounds, and announced it will hear two cases involving Ten Commandments monuments on public property. In Providence, the Fraternal Order of Eagles removed, at the city's request, an 8-foot-tall monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments that had been on display in Roger Williams Park for the last 41 years.

Hopes for a peace between Israelis and Palestinians begin to grow again in the aftermath of the death of Yasser Arafat and a willingness on the part of some Israeli settlers to leave their settlements in the Gaza Strip.

Two lesbian preachers were tried in the United Methodist Church for violating the church's rules which do not support active homosexuals in the ministry. In Washington State, Karen Dammann was acquitted, and in Pennsylvania Beth Stroud was found guilty, reflecting the divisions within the church. Elsewhere, with the help of religious conservatives, 11 states banned same-sex marriages.

The Rev. John L. Kelley of the Curtis Corner Baptist Church in Wakefield was killed by gunmen on a road outside Baghdad, where he had gone to found another Baptist church.