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2001-10

News Briefs

Roman Catholic dioceses set up web sites to attract men to the priesthood

     (ENS) As the Roman Catholic Church faces a shortage of priests in the 
coming decades, at least 25 dioceses across the United States have set up web 
sites to attract young men to the priesthood.

     "It sounds like a business, but we're in competition for the best and 
the brightest with medical schools and law schools," says Father John Acrea, 
recruitment coordinator at the Des Moines, Iowa Catholic diocese, where 84 
priests serve a congregation of about 100,000 people. "The Internet is the 
way young people find information, so we have to be there and get the word 
out."

     Statistics compiled by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate 
at Georgetown University show a sharp decline of graduate-level seminary 
students over the past three and a half decades, from 8,325 enrolled in 1965 
to 3,474 last year. In the same time period, the number of Catholics in the 
United States has risen over 30%, from around 45 million in 1965 to about 60 
million today.

     Acrea said that in Des Moines, more traditional avenues of finding 
priests, such as a well-known presence at Catholic schools and local 
churches, have dried up over the years--a trend he attributes to an 
increasingly mobile society. Families relocating to a new town or state can 
cut short relationships that form between churchgoers and their clergy.

     To keep up with the changing times and the dwindling reserves, the Des 
Moines diocese launched www.dmdiocese.org, of which part has been dedicated 
to recruiting men to the priesthood. This helped spawn a separate site 
dedicated solely to recruitment efforts for full-time or part-time priests, 
nuns, and Catholics in general. Vocationsonline.com lists e-mail addresses 
and phone numbers where Father Acrea can be reached. Since their inception, 
Acrea said the sites have registered more than 14,000 visits and at least 80 
e-mails from men interested in the priesthood.

     The diocese of Rochester, New York, debuted its web site this month and 
hopes it will garner a similar response.

Not all British consider themselves Church of England

     (ENS) A survey into British social attitudes has found only a quarter of 
people now consider themselves to be "Church of England."

     A poll of more than 3,000 people in the UK for the National Centre for 
Social Research (NCSR) concludes that the proportion of people saying they 
are members of the state religion has fallen from 40% in 1983 to 27% in 1999.

     It also found that 48% of people claim to belong to a religion, compared 
with 86% of people in the U.S. and 92% of Italians. And 44% of the UK now say 
they belong to no religion, compared with 31% in 1983.

     But the decline in religious belief is higher among the younger 
generation, than the older.

     A spokesman for the Church of England said, "This is hardly surprising--
100 years ago many, many more people would have said they were Church of 
England. In the past, people were much more likely to automatically say they 
were C of E because it was the state religion--people are less likely to do 
that now. And many more people now belong to different religions such as 
Islam. It is not about a fall in the number of people who worship but the way 
worship has changed over the years."

     

Pastors support Washington lobbyists

     (ENS) Research released from a Princeton University study of mainline 
Protestants shows overwhelming support for denominational lobbying in 
Washington, even though most pastors have little or no contact with their 
church's capital offices.

     The survey, released in 2000, is a look at all aspects of mainline 
churches. Laura Olson, a researcher at Clemson University, profiled the 
political role of Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal and American Baptist 
churches, among others.

     According to Olson's study, 84% of mainline pastors support their 
denominations' Washington offices, 8% feared losing their voice in 
Washington.

     "The fact is that these offices do fulfill a vital role for their 
denominations," she said. "They undertake the national political work that 
many clergy cannot or will not do."

     Despite a lower profile than the religious right, Olson said mainline 
lobbyists are a much-needed voice on social justice issues such as poverty, 
human rights and the environment.

     "There is much work to be done in the local public arena, and clergy 
find plenty of opportunity and incentive to do it," Olson said. "But there is 
also a need for a national political voice since many political issues have 
strong national and international components."

     However, conservative and evangelical factions--particularly within the 
United Methodist Church--have accused the Washington offices of promoting 
progressive, liberal causes. Conservative Methodists repeatedly point to the 
church's General Board of Church and Society in Washington, which got into 
trouble last year when it sought to raise money to fund lawyers for Elian 
Gonzalez's father.

     Tom Hart, the director of the Episcopal Church's Washington office, said 
his staff seeks to give a voice in a practical way to positions taken by the 
church at its triennial General Convention meetings.

     "Our work in Washington brings actual work behind the positions and 
words that the church has taken," Hart said. "Otherwise the statements would 
remain words on a page."

     

British Army says adultery is a disciplinary offense

     (ENS) In a move attempting to improve moral standards, the British army 
has for the first time explicitly warned its soldiers that adultery is a 
disciplinary offense.

     In the past soldiers committing adultery have sometimes been charged 
with unsuitable conduct or bringing the service into disrepute.

     The pamphlet, "Values and Standards of the British Army," now says that 
soldiers cannot afford the individualism and self-obsession of modern 
civilian life when combat effectiveness and survival depend on the 
maintenance of tightly disciplined groups. Anything that could break the group's 
unity, such as one member sleeping with another's wife, had therefore to be 
prevented. Soldiers are also told not to be belittle comrades' spouses and to 
abstain from public drunkenness.

     Brigadier Sebastian Roberts, the army's director of corporate communication, 
said, "We felt we had to give our soldiers much clearer and more explicit direction 
over the moral standards to which they must all adhere."

     The issue of adultery was brought into focus by the 1998 court-martial of 
Lieutenant-Colonel Keith Pople, accused of scandalous conduct with a young 
female naval officer. Although Pople was cleared, he resigned his commission. 

Some argued the incident had made the army look out-of-date. However, they 
were in a minority and traditionalists won the day over enforcing new guidelines.