German schools angry over church abuse scandal

(Munich) German educators sharply criticized Catholic church officials for their handling of a spiraling child abuse scandal even as more alledged victims came forward Thursday, including a former member of the all-boys choir led by the pope’s brother.

The uproar came a day before Germany’s highest bishop was to meet Pope …

Gay incident reopens Salt Lake City’s Main Street plaza wounds

It’s the wound that won’t heal. The rift that won’t close. And earlier this month, two gay lovers’ purportedly innocuous late-night kiss — though LDS Church officials insist it was far more amorous than that — ripped it wide open.

Utah’s simmering religious divide boiled over — once again — at the geographical and philosophical intersection of church and state: the Main Street Plaza in downtown Salt Lake City.

“It is a scab that will continue to be peeled away — and may never heal,” says Dani Eyer, the former ACLU director who fought to preserve First Amendment rights on the plaza.

Matt Aune and Derek Jones say they held hands, kissed and then squabbled with security guards on the LDS Church-owned square. Salt Lake City police issued a ticket for trespassing. In protest, supporters of the couple staged a “kiss-in” last Sunday outside the plaza and plan another such demonstration today.

The LDS Church — a faith to which 60 percent of Utahns belong — defended its right to regulate “inappropriate behavior” on the plaza.

“What we’re seeing now is a manifestation of what should have been obvious from the very beginning,” says former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. “This block of Main Street never should have been conveyed to the LDS Church. It was a recipe for ongoing resentments between the LDS Church and those who are not members.”

The church bought the strip of Main — from North Temple to South Temple — in 1999 after then-Mayor Deedee Corradini and the City Council, with the only two non-LDS members dissenting, signed off on the $8.1 million deal. But the controversy burned for five more years as federal courts were asked to settle the prickly issue of whether the church could govern expression on the plaza and whether the city could retain a public right of way (as outlined in the original deal).

“It was meant to be for everybody,” Eyer says. “Where people come and go their constitutional rights go with them.”

After a 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in 2002, First Amendment activities returned to the plaza. But demonstrations by anti-Mormon protesters — including cries of “whore” and “harlot” hurled at newlywed brides — “sustained divisions” that “reached to the point of hatred” between Mormons and non-Mormons, Anderson says.

In the end, he agreed to trade the public easement for cash and LDS land to build a west-side community center.

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What they wanted to hide? Mormon church lists more Proposition 8 expenses

Mormon church officials say they spent $190,000 more supporting the Proposition 8 gay marriage ban than they previously reported.

They previously listed just $2,078 to support the ban.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is being investigated by the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

See Mormon church lists more Proposition 8 expenses San Jose Mercury News

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Episcopal Diocese of LA officially condones the blessing of gay unions

The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has announced that church leaders can bless the unions of same-sex couples as a matter of policy.

The Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, whose diocese encompasses Los Angeles County and five other Southern California counties, made the announcement Friday during a diocesan convention in Riverside.

Bruno acted just days after hundreds of conservative Episcopal congregations in North America formed a breakaway church amid a rift that began with the ordination of a gay bishop in New Hampshire five years ago.

Bruno’s declaration is not expected to have a major effect on Episcopal churches in Southern California. Many have been blessing gay unions for years. But he has now made it official.

“The practice has not changed. The policy has. . . . It’s sort of like ‘coming out,’ ” said the Rev. Susan Russell, a lesbian priest at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. Russell also is president of Integrity USA, a group representing the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in the Episcopal Church.

The rite endorsed by Bruno also allows the blessing of other relationships, such as those between two senior citizens who do not wish to legally marry because they might lose health insurance or Social Security benefits.

Church officials also noted that, unlike communion, the rite is not mandatory. Clergy may choose not to perform it.

Diocese representatives also passed a resolution at their convention calling on the Episcopal Church to let gays and lesbians become bishops.

See Episcopal Diocese of LA officially condones the blessing of gay unions
Los Angeles Times