Got news? Pedophile Priest? Did Jefferts Schori Know?

July 5, 2011 By

A story that has been hotly discussed among my Episcopal and Anglican friends has received, near as I can tell, almost no mainstream media coverage. And I have no idea why. But it’s been going on long enough that it certainly deserves a “Got news?” post.

It all begins with a sad story in the Kansas City Star by Judy Thomas.

It seems that a former Roman Catholic monk, a Benedictine, who directed a boys choir in Missouri admitted he’d had “inappropriate” sexual relations with members of the group. I’m not really sure what would make for appropriate sexual relations, but there you go. One of the “five or six” members of the choir that Bede Parry admitted being involved with filed a lawsuit against Conception Abbey, alleging that the abbey knew that Parry had abused others but covered it up. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

Parry, not a target of the lawsuit, copped immediately and said he feels bad but that most of the “inappropriate sexual contact” was with adult males over 18 and only two were with males aged 16-18.

The twist is that Parry became an Episcopal priest in 2004 and has worked for the past 11 years at All Saints Episcopal Church in … Las Vegas. That’s a strong news hook because that would be in Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s old bishopric.

And so this story is not just about how the Catholic Church handles sex abusers in its midst but the Episcopal Church as well.

Parry resigned from his parish and is in the process of attempting to resign from the priesthood. The story in the Star, for what it’s worth, did a great job of explaining that distinction. Here’s an interesting section:

After the plaintiff reported the abuse in 1987, Parry was sent for three months of treatment at Servants of the Paraclete in New Mexico. Then he stayed in the Southwest, working at Lutheran and Catholic parishes.

In 2000, the lawsuit says, Parry underwent psychological testing because he was considering entering another Catholic monastery.

“The results of this testing revealed that Fr. Parry was a sexual abuser who had the proclivity to reoffend with minors,” the lawsuit says.

The results were provided to Conception Abbey, the Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas and the Episcopal bishop for the Diocese of Nevada, the lawsuit says. Yet from 2000 until Thursday, Parry was employed by All Saints Episcopal Church in Las Vegas.

So the lawsuit claims that “the Episcopal bishop for the Diocese of Nevada” was given information that Parry was a “sexual abuser who had the proclivity to reoffend with minors.” Parry tells the reporter he talked with Jefferts Schori about an incident of sexual misconduct he was engaged in. He says she told him “she’d have to check the canons, and she did.”

The reporter called up Jefferts Schori’s office but was told that her staff members wouldn’t comment on lawsuits or allegations.

I’ll say it again, this is a very solid and thorough initial report. However, it’s really surprising to me that the story hasn’t spread beyond the Kansas City Star, given the personal involvement of the head of a church that the media normally love reporting on. (Here’s another interesting story from a few weeks ago about how she lacked precision, shall we say, in her resume.)

Rest assured, however, that Episcopalians and Anglicans are discussing this case, though, and there’s even a bishop in Pennsylvania who says this is just the tip of the iceberg and that Jefferts Schori threatens bishops not to reveal multiple sexual abuse cover-ups. For those interested in that angle, there’s more on him here.

Meanwhile, there are other interesting news angles that have been unexplored outside of the blogosphere, too. Here someone explores how new disciplinary canons would come into play:

Today, July 1, the changes to ECUSA’s disciplinary canons (Title IV) go into effect at the national level. (The text of the new Title IV may be downloaded as a .pdf file.) Let us take the example of the violation of the ordination canons apparently committed by the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori as the Bishop of Nevada in 2004, and use that as a test case to see how the new process would work at the highest level.

So help me out here. What prevents this from being a mainstream news story? Why aren’t the major media outlets interested in this story about the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church’s role in a sex abuse scandal? Isn’t the Episcopal Church based in New York City?

That second picture is from Virtue Online and shows Parry (on the far right) taking part in a Mass after being received into the priesthood of the Episcopal Church by Jefferts Schori.

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Filed Under: Anglicanism, Catholicism, Got news?, Journalism, Sex

Got news? Adios to God the Father?

July 1, 2011 By

Gentle readers, you would be amazed at the amount of public relations materials that, day after day, people send via email to your GetReligionistas. Almost all of this stuff comes from people who clearly have never even looked at this website or paid any attention to what we do here.

For example, publicists and writers constantly offer to send us religious-market books so that we can review them for our readers.

OK, raise your hand if you have ever read a book review on this weblog, a review written by a GetReligion scribe (let alone a book full of, let’s say, Bible commentaries or born-again testimonies).

There should be no hands up at this stage, because we don’t write book reviews. We have — I could probably count them on one hand — written a few posts about reviews of books that have been published in mainstream news publications. We do this if we think these books and reviews would be of interest to professional journalists who cover news linked to religion.

We also get waves of PR emails about denominational events and the activities — left and right — of groups that blend faith and political activism.

One of the most active public-relations groups in this field, on the religious right, holds itself up as a kind of religion-news agency — Christian Newswire. Many of these PR releases simply promote the views of this or that author of church leader, with the hopes that journalists will call them up and get a quotation or what not.

It seems that I spike about 100 emails from this group a day, most of them unopened.

However, one arrived today that caught my eye because — gasp — it contained a real, live news hook worth of mainstream coverage. The release proclaimed:

Meeting at General Synod 28 in Tampa, Florida this weekend — July 1-5, 2011 — the historic United Church of Christ will vote on an amendment to eliminate God the Father from Article 5, lines 9-10 of its constitution (pdf).

The Constitution of the denomination has remained unchanged in its theological core since the United Church of Christ’s founding in 1957, and remains the covenant connection with the basic truths of Christianity that keeps many churches affiliated who are otherwise alienated by the denominations very liberal agenda.

At this point, the organization behind this public-relations effort becomes perfectly clear:

According to renewal leader David Runnion-Bareford, “Rejecting God as Father in an age of fatherlessness is unthinkable. God acted toward us in amazing grace when He offered to be our Father through the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus Christ who offers us life in his name. This is not something we as humans made up in some other time. Rejecting our Father is act of arrogant rebellion in the name of cultural conformity that only further alienates members, churches, but more importantly God himself. We call the delegates to reject the change for God’s sake.”

You get the picture. This is a small, vocal conservative group that continues to struggle inside the boundaries of the super Congregationalist and freewheeling United Church of Christ, the small, declining, yet vocal denomination that represents the left edge of the old mainline Protestant world.

So is this a mainstream news story? I would say that it is, since editing the ancient Christian creeds is a highly symbolic act — even for flocks as hyper-Protestant as the UCC. Of course, this denomination also serves as the home base for a very articulate and important layperson — President Barack Obama.

But is this a mainstream news story? We will have to see if the event draws coverage. The proposed change has not, as I write these lines, been noted in an advance story of any kind in publications that show up in Google News. The denomination also is not calling attention to this debate (at least not that I can find) on its news website.

However, the Christian Wire release did contain a URL to the document and its proposed change at the heart of the Holy Trinity. It reads:

ARTICLE V. LOCAL CHURCHES

9 The basic unit of the life and organization of the United Church of Christ is the Local Church.

10 A Local Church is composed of persons who, believing in the triune God as heavenly Father, and accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and depending on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, are organized for Christian worship, for the furtherance of Christian fellowship, and for the ongoing work of Christian witness.

11 In accordance with the custom and usage of a Local Church, persons become members by (a) baptism and either confirmation or profession of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior; (b) reaffirmation or re-profession of faith; or (c) letter of transfer or certification from other Christian churches.

So we ask, “Got news?” Is this a mainstream news story?

If the UCC matters, this is a major news story. We will see.

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Filed Under: Godbeat, Got news?, Mainline, Worship

Got news? Abbottabad priest holds breath

May 5, 2011 By

First let me note that, even as we justifiably debate some questions about the life, death and burial of Osama bin Laden, I am one of those guys who think that mainstream press coverage of the religious elements of this story has actually been quite solid — in some cases pushing past the early answers from the White House and into unexplored territory.

So, not perfect. Interesting. Solid. Better than expected. Journalistic?

With that in mind, let me move on to note an interesting report from a religious-news source that spotlights a potential source for news and commentary that the mainstream press often misses, during big, global news stories of this kind.

Flash back with me, if you will, about 20-plus years to the pre-Internet newsroom of the Rocky Mountain News (memory eternal). The editors had empowered some reporters and copy editors to start doing hard reporting on international news stories in an attempt to augment the wire copy. This was a trend in that era, even before the Web made it much easier to do that kind of work.

On several occasions I remember editors from the international news desk coming over to ask if I had any suggestions on how to make telephone contact with English-speaking people who were living in regions in which major news events were taking place. We’re talking Middle East, Africa, parts of Asia, etc. The goal was to call a voice or two in these locales to discuss what was happening, especially if the people had ties to the Rocky Mountain West or organizations with ties in the region.

If never took me long to get them some names and some numbers. Why? Religious groups and organizations are all over the place and, well, blessed be the ties that bind. In some cases missionaries of case workers could not speak on the record, but they almost always had good tips for sources of info, other unique voices, photography, etc. Some of the Southern Baptists had even been training in basic newswriting skills by Baptist Press.

That leads me to this short news report from an independent Catholic news agency on Asia, drawing on information and commentary from a perfectly logical source in Abbattabad, Pakistan. The lede?

The small Catholic parish in this northern city says it has limited its activities after the death of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks killed by US special forces here.

“I couldn’t conduct pastoral visits to homes yesterday after security increased,” Father Akram Javed Gill told ucanews.com. ”A healing prayer service scheduled today and upcoming Church feasts were cancelled. Also the four policemen posted guard for the church have been put on high alert.”

The priest has been in charge of the Saint Peter Canisius Catholic church since 2007 in Abbotabbad, the gateway city to the northern mountainous region. … Association of Churches of Hazara Division, a body of about five Churches including the Catholic Church, has called a meeting to formulate a future strategy in the area.

“It is crucial to maintain peace for the scattered minority communities in the area. We alter the venue at the last moment to avoid leaking the information about the gathering in a tense atmosphere,” said Father Javed.

So, on one level this is simply a story about human rights for minority faiths in Pakistan. Note, however, that this subject is already in the news due to a series of headline-making and, tragically, blood soaked events.

In other words, this is a real story that should be covered (if journalists are concerned about the safety and rights of religious minorities in Pakistan and elsewhere).

Oh, and what about the actual events linked to Osama?

The priest described the events as they unfolded during the raid.

“We never saw helicopters flying so low. Nobody knew what was going on and we thought it was a military exercise at first,” said the priest who also oversees the only Catholic school, St Peter’s, in the city. About 200 students, most of them Muslims, study there.

The priest faces difficulties in his work in Abbottabad, which is home to a large military establishment. He had to build higher walls to the church compound in 2009 after Muslims objected to the “open display” of the statue of Mary in a grotto in the grounds.

Go ahead. Read it. It’s another logical source of information about a big story — from the only Catholic source in Abbottabad.

Religion? It’s everywhere.

PHOTO: Saint Peter Canisius Catholic Church, as seen at the “Our Beautiful Abbottabad” website.

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Filed Under: Catholicism, Got news?, Islam, Journalism, World, World Religions, Worship

Got news? Coptic monasteries under attack

February 27, 2011 By

As I have stated before, human-rights activists have long viewed the safety of Egypt’s ancient Coptic churches as a highly symbolic issue — the canary in the coal mine that is that complex land.

This is especially important right now, as the fragile coalition that currently leads Egypt tries to find its way along the tricky road from what was to what is and on to what will be. Many people are overjoyed and elated. Others are being cautious and quiet — with good cause.

However, I think anyone who knows anything about Egypt would have to say that journalists should be keeping their eyes on the actions of the military.

After all, the army is in charge right now.

With that fact in mind, the following Assyrian International News Agency report is troubling, to say the least:

For the second time in as many days, Egyptian armed force stormed the 5th century old St. Bishoy monastery in Wadi el-Natroun, 110 kilometers from Cairo. Live ammunition was fired, wounding two monks and six Coptic monastery workers. Several sources confirmed the army’s use of RPG ammunition. Four people have been arrested including three monks and a Coptic lawyer who was at the monastery investigating yesterday’s army attack.

Monk Aksios Ava Bishoy told activist Nader Shoukry of Freecopts the armed forces stormed the main entrance gate to the monastery in the morning using five tanks, armored vehicles and a bulldozer to demolish the fence built by the monastery last month to protect themselves and the monastery from the lawlessness which prevailed in Egypt during the January 25 Uprising.

“When we tried to address them, the army fired live bullets, wounding Father Feltaows in the leg and Father Barnabas in the abdomen,” said Monk Ava Bishoy. “Six Coptic workers in the monastery were also injured, some with serious injuries to the chest.” …

Father Hemanot Ava Bishoy said the army fired live ammunition and RPGs continuously for 30 minutes, which hit part of the ancient fence inside the monastery. “The army was shocked to see the monks standing there praying ‘Lord have mercy’ without running away. This is what really upset them,” he said. “As the soldiers were demolishing the gate and the fence they were chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and ‘Victory, Victory’.”

These are inflammatory and disturbing images, to say the least. The story includes similar reports from other monasteries, including more injuries from live ammunition and monks being beaten with batons by soldiers.

It is crucial, at this stage, to realize that there have been high-profile demonstrations in recent weeks in which many Muslims and Copts have stood together in calling for reform and for peace and cooperation between the vast majority of the nation that is Muslim and the 10 percent of the population that is Coptic, as well as members of Egypt’s other minority religions.

As always, however, it’s crucial to remember that there is no one Islam in this scene, including in the leadership of the nation’s army. That is a fact that is worthy of news coverage. Period.

One would hope that mainstream journalists would realize the intense symbolism of Egyptian soldiers attacking ancient monasteries that contain some of the land’s most treasured Christian icons, altars, relics and texts. Live ammunition used on monks who have attempted to guard the perimeter of their sanctuary? If there is another side to this report — and their might well be — journalists need to find it.

But here is the key: Let me know if you see a single mainstream news report that follows up on these attacks. Got news?

Alas, once again, these attacks seem to be material worthy of “Christian” or even “conservative” news, while mainstream journalists have not tuned in the reports. Here is a typical Google News search. Search around.

Well, there is this Associated Press report:

The deputy to Osama bin Laden issued al-Qaida’s second message since the Egyptian uprising, accusing the nation’s Christian leadership of inciting interfaith tensions and denying that the terror network was behind last month’s bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria that killed 21 and sparked protests.

The message Friday from Ayman al-Zawahri, the No. 2 leader of the terror network, comes amid renewed Muslim-Christian tension over the slaying of a Coptic priest and a dispute involving a monastery.

As with his first message, delivered Feb. 18, al-Zawahri in his new, 35-minute videotape makes no mention of the protests or Hosni Mubarak’s fall from power. Al-Qaida had advocated for the destruction of Mubarak’s regime — and al-Zawahri, an Egyptian doctor, was part of a failed militant uprising against the former president in the 1990s.

But the pro-democracy tone of the protests, led by secular liberals, contrasted greatly with the Islamic state al-Qaida envisions. In the latest video, al-Zawahri devoted much of the time to the Muslim-Christian divide. But he denied that his group was behind the Alexandria bombing, according to a transcript by the SITE Intel group, a U.S. group that monitors militant messages.

Ahead of the bombing, extremist Islamic websites affiliated with al-Qaida circulated lists of Coptic churches in Egypt and Europe — including one that was hit on New Year’s — along with instructions on how to attack them.

Egypt is a complex and dangerous place at the moment, even as the celebrations continue. Journalists attempting to find their way deeper into this coal mind might want to keep an eye on the canaries.

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Filed Under: Got news?, Middle East, Orthodoxy, Politics, World, World Religions

Got News? Persecuted Christian edition

February 20, 2011 By

Sometimes I think back to August and September when most mainstream media outlets were obsessed about the construction of an Islamic Center near Ground Zero and/or the planned (but never realized) burning of a Koran by a leader of a small church in Florida. Everywhere the media looked, they saw Islamophobia and it became the overarching narrative adopted by many figures in the media.

It’s interesting to observe the media engaged in pack-like behavior and worth considering its causes and effects. Sometimes I wonder why the media just stopped covering the mosque in lower downtown Manhattan. Did it go away? No, but the media did.

In any case, there’s another story out there that is worthy of much more coverage. For some reason, almost all of the mainstream media have avoided it. I first learned of the plight of Said Musa, who is about to be killed by the Afghan government for converting to Christianity from Islam, from Paul Marshall’s post at National Review “America Quiet on the Execution of Afghan Christian Said Musa“:

Musa was one of about 25 Christians arrested on May 31, 2010, after a May 27 Noorin TV program showed video of a worship service held by indigenous Afghan Christians; he was arrested as he attempted to seek asylum at the German embassy. He converted to Christianity eight years ago, is the father of six young children, had a leg amputated after he stepped on a landmine while serving in the Afghan Army, and now has a prosthetic leg. His oldest child is eight and one is disabled (she cannot speak). He worked for the Red Cross/Red Crescent as an adviser to other amputees.

He was forced to appear before a judge without any legal counsel and without knowledge of the charges against him. “Nobody [wanted to be my] defender before the court. When I said ‘I am a Christian man,’ he [a potential lawyer] immediately spat on me and abused me and mocked me. . . . I am alone between 400 [people with] terrible values in the jail, like a sheep.” He has been beaten, mocked, and subjected to sleep deprivation and sexual abuse while in prison. No Afghan lawyer will defend him and authorities denied him access to a foreign lawyer.

While Marshall himself links to earlier attempts to draw attention to the matter, he notes that media coverage has been bizarre:

Newspapers in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe have reported the story, but with, the exception of the Wall Street Journal and, of course, NRO, American outlets have not found it worthy of attention.

You can read Said Musa’s plea for help (pictured above) from Christians worldwide, “President Brother Barak Obama President of the United States,” and the head of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan here. It is heartbreaking. (Other info here and here.)

The Wall Street Journal piece mentioned earlier was written in January and does a good job of laying out the fundamental issues. It tells about Said Musa as well as Shoaib Assadullah Musawi, who was arrested for giving a copy of a New Testament to his friend. The friend turned him in. The article explains the difficulties of being a Christian in Afghanistan and how the government, which has received so much funding and other aid from U.S. taxpayers, adopts similar or same policies to the Taliban. It explains why Hamid Karzai and his government support killing Christians, too:

Afghan officials have been unapologetic. “The sentence for a convert is death and there is no exception,” said Jamal Khan, chief of staff at the Ministry of Justice. “They must be sentenced to death to serve as a lesson for others.” Apostasy is a capital crime in Afghanistan, where the constitution is based on Shariah, or Islamic law.

That’s the way to write it out — just explain the positions of the various sides. One side thinks it’s wrong to imprison, abuse, torture and kill people for the free and peaceful expression of their faith. Another side views apostasy as a capital crime. Of course, we also need to know about the views in between. And I’m not just talking about those reform-minded Muslims who disagree with what Islam has to say about apostasy. Their voices, and the reasoning behind what they have to say, also should be included in these stories.

It also would be helpful to understand the variance on the other side of the equation. If you do a news search, you see that the people who seem to care about this situation are Christian news outlets and conservative media sites.

The same media outlets that obsessed over Terry Jones and his plans to burn a Koran don’t care about the destruction of a human life. If, as Marshall notes, the planned burning of a Koran led to a widespread media binge and a Presidential statement, certainly the destruction of a human life merits at least a little media coverage, right? What does it say that these stories have received such disparate coverage? It’s not like we can pretend that Americans aren’t interested — financially, politically and otherwise — in the lives of Afghans. Billions of dollars and 1,500 lives would indicate otherwise.

Maybe the media is too busy mocking folks from Oklahoma for their views on Sharia, I don’t know. But no matter the cause, the disparity in coverage of this situation and other recent stories is illuminating.

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Filed Under: Got news?, Islam, Journalism, Politics, World

Got news? Illegal Communion

February 18, 2011 By

As I have said many times here at GetReligion, I cannot think of a topic in my work for the Scripps Howard News Service that draws a higher rate of response from readers than columns I about changes in how believers worship — especially changes affecting the Church of Rome.

This leads me to the names of two men — Father Agustin Escobar and the Rev. Steve Whitney. If you put the names of these two clergymen into Google News you get precisely one Catholic media reference. If you do this again, with an ordinary Google search, you find lots of links, but they all lead you back into the world of Catholic media.

For me, this is curious.

You ask, “Why”?

“Good question,” saith this GetReligionista.

I am surprised that the controversial event that brought these two men together has not received coverage — any coverage — in the mainstream press. I am also surprised that it has not received any coverage in what you might call the “ecumenical press,” by which I mean news services linked to the National Council of Churches and the press agencies of Protestantism’s old guard churches, the “seven sisters” of oldline Christianity in America.

So what is the story? In terms of issues in Catholic tradition, we are dealing with a bizarre event, a high crime of liturgy. So here is the story in the California Catholic Daily.

Let us attend:

Some parishioners at St. Norbert’s Church in Orange describe themselves as “shocked and appalled” after a priest there allowed a Presbyterian minister to concelebrate a Mass and receive Holy Communion. …

Sources from the parish told California Catholic Daily that Fr. Agustin Escobar introduced Pastor Steve Whitney of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Sacramento at St. Norbert’s 9 a.m. Sunday Mass. The sources said Rev. Whitney concelebrated the Mass with Fr. Escobar, took Communion, and was allowed to distribute Communion to parishioners.

The parish’s pastor, Fr. Pat Rudolph, was away at the time and did not participate. Parishioners who tried to contact him about the situation were told he would not be back at St. Norbert’s until March. But, said sources at the parish, Fr. Escobar admitted he did not have the pastor’s permission to invite the Protestant minister to concelebrate Mass and receive Communion.

One parishioner fired off an angry email to Bishop Brown and other high-ranking diocesan officials, calling the occurrence at St. Norbert’s “a travesty.”

A shocked parishioner said that the priest was angry when confronted after the Mass, telling one woman that she wasn’t a “true Christian because Jesus would love everyone.”

Canon law is clear on the subject, making it clear that those who are not in full Communion with Rome are not to receive the consecrated bread and wine in the Mass. It goes without saying that clergy in these churches are not supposed to serve as priests in the rite, seeing as how they are not, well, Catholic priests.

The headline in this story is a classic example of understatement:

“Bishop Brown is disturbed by this”

Priest may be in hot water after allowing Protestant minister to concelebrate Mass, receive Communion at Orange County parish

“May be”? Say what?

Now, I realize that this seems rather “inside baseball.” Why do we need mainstream coverage?

Would the story get covered if Catholic officials, acting under orders of Pope Benedict XVI shut down a service of this kind? Of course. Will it be news if Rome tells the bishop to restrict the ministry of this priest? Of course. What if it turns out, oh, that this Presbyterian pastor is an activist linked to same-sex marriage rites? Will raise this event to the status of mainstream news? Of course.

Will it be a story if the bishop ignores this all together, seeking to calm the waters and save face? Uh, that’s kind of my point.

For practicing Catholics this is an interesting story, at the very least. For traditional Catholics it is an outright scandal. But here is the question that haunts me: What was going on here? What were these two pastors doing? What did they think they were doing? In other words, what’s the story here?

Bizarre. Interesting. Poignant. Plain old weird.

News? Apparently not.

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Filed Under: Catholicism, Got news?, Mainline, Worship

Got news? Islamic games rating system

November 30, 2010 By

Occasionally we’ll see stories where video games and religion collide, where a game might feature religion or a country might ban certain games if deemed religiously offensive.

For instance, one of my favorite stories includes one from last year about how a company hired a group to protest Dante’s Inferno, paying them to hold signs such as “Hell is not a Video Game” and “Trade in Your PlayStation for a PrayStation.” Believable, right?

Now we have a case where a group is trying to rate games for an entire religious body. Kotaku, a video game blog in the Gawker network, posts this interesting tidbit about how a group in the Middle East has launched a ratings system for games based on the tenets of the Islamic faith.

This makes it a world first, a system aimed at transcending national borders and laws and appealing directly to the parents and guardians of Muslims all over the world, regardless of which country they live in or which laws they live under.

The ratings body is called the Entertainment Software Rating Association, and “rates the content of…games based on parameters such as violence, promoting tobacco or drugs, sexual diversity [and] nudity”, according to a release issued by the group. As a result, “the rating system is designed based on the culture, society and the special values of Islam”.

What’s unclear is how these ratings will differ from the Entertainment Software Rating Board. For instance, when I look at the back of Mass Effect 2, it says that it’s rated Mature for blood, drug reference, sexual content, strong language and violence. The post’s author Luke Plunkett notes this and explains how it might differ.

“The approach of Islam is based on Human being innateness “Al Fitra”, and the most important innate trends are truth, virtue, benevolence, excellence tendency, innovation and creativity” he told attendants at the Dubai World Game Expo yesterday. “That’s why we made sure that ESRA team are proficient in these areas; Religion, Psychopathology, Educational psychology, Social psychology, Sociology of the family, Family Sociology, Emotional Psychology, Family therapy and Educational technology.”

As a freshly-launched initiative, there’s little other information on ESRA, though you’d imagine that it will mainly operate as an online reference for Muslim parents. That said, if ESRA ratings can be printed off on stickers and handed out to retailers in the relevant regions, there’s no reason it couldn’t also be used on game boxes not just in Islamic countries, but in any area there would be enough Muslim customers to make it worth their while.

The National, a government-owned newspaper in Abu Dhabi, published a report with a few examples of how it will assess the minimum age for each game: 6, 12, 15, 18 or 25.

Several games have fallen foul of regional moral standards in recent years. The Grand Theft Auto series, for example, was banned because it depicted prostitution, gambling and alcohol.

Dr Minaei said there were games that depicted Muslims as terrorists, while others were frightening for younger players.

He said the top age bracket was necessary because “there is a difference between an 18-year-old Muslim and a 25-year-old”. The latter, he said, “is more than likely married and some games are more suitable towards married people”.

After a little searching, it appears that the Entertainment Software Rating Association has been around for a few years now as the governmental rating system used in Iran. So is this group trying to branch out beyond Iran and become the definitive ratings system for all of Islam? Perhaps other reporters might do a little digging and find out whether this might have any impact on the gaming industry.

Cultures are sensitive to games, so occasionally you might see a game altered for a specific context. For instance, the use of the name “brahmin” was banned in India from Fallout 3. A few years ago, millions of copies of a game called Little Big Planet were withdrawn from warehouses after portions of the Koran were found in the accompanying music. As tmatt previously noted, “It does appear that ideas, yes, and beliefs, often have consequences–even in the digital world of virtual reality.”

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Filed Under: Got news?, Islam, Web/Tech, World Religions

Rubio’s church life? It’s complicated

November 29, 2010 By

Three weeks ago, we enjoyed an interesting “Got news?” discussion concerning Florida Sen.-elect Marco Rubio’s religious affiliation.

That post delved into questions concerning a Roman Catholic politician who attends — and contributes tens of thousands of dollars to — a megachurch affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Regular GetReligion reader and Tennessean religion writer Bob Smietana earned “Quip of the Month” honors (or should have) with this response to that post:

This is the perfect American religion story. Here’s a candidate who says he’s Catholic but goes to a Baptist church which doesn’t have Baptist in its name.

After the GetReligion post, religion reporter David Gibson wrote a compelling piece for Politics Daily. Still, it surprised me that none of the major dead-tree news organizations picked up the story, especially given Rubio’s high-profile status as a freshman senator-elect already mentioned as a potential presidential candidate.

Over the weekend, though, New York Times religion writer Mark Oppenheimer stepped into the fray with a “Beliefs” column headlined “Marco Rubio: Catholic or Protestant?” In terms of the key question itself, Oppenheimer’s column fails to deliver a definitive answer, instead relying — out of necessity — on the now-standard response from Rubio’s spokesman:

Marco Rubio, the charismatic senator-elect from Florida, is in many ways similar to other Cuban-American politicians from his home state: conservative, Republican and a “practicing and devout Roman Catholic,” in the words of his spokesman, one who “regularly attends Catholic Mass” and “was baptized, confirmed and married in the Roman Catholic Church.”

But while Mr. Rubio, 39, presented himself on his Florida Statehouse Web site and in interviews as a Roman Catholic, bloggers and journalists have noted since his election that he regularly worships at an evangelical megachurch whose theology is plainly at odds with Catholic teaching.

While the Times offers no new insight on how Rubio himself views his dual Catholic/Protestant allegiances, the piece does an excellent job of explaining why the distinction is important — and why it isn’t.

Why is it important? Oppenheimer highlights precise reasons and lists specific unanswered questions:

Christ Fellowship, which has five campuses and draws about 6,000 worshipers on a typical weekend, is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, and its beliefs include several that are alien to Catholicism.

Southern Baptists practice adult rather than infant baptism, for example. They do not recognize the authority of the pope. And the Christ Fellowship statement of beliefs says the bread and wine of communion are merely “symbolic,” thus do not become Christ’s body and blood, as Catholics believe.

As for Mr. Rubio’s involvement with Catholicism, his spokesman did not respond to questions about whether the senator-elect gives money to the Archdiocese of Miami; whether he agrees with Catholic teachings that suggest Protestants are in error; and whether he belongs to a Catholic parish, as most observant Catholics would.

Why isn’t it important? Again, Oppenheimer offers relevant analysis (and for copyright reasons, I’ll refrain from copying and pasting all of it, but do be sure to read the whole thing):

Fernand Amandi, whose Florida firm, Bendixen & Amandi, specializes in Hispanic opinion polling, says that among the population, few seem to care that Mr. Rubio is partaking of two religious identities.

“I don’t think there is any such consciousness of it at all,” Mr. Amandi said. “If he came out as an atheist, there would probably be a huge backlash,” but within Christianity “the Hispanic community is respectful enough of diversity that I don’t think this matters.”

A 2008 study by Trinity College, in Hartford, found that from 1990 to 2008 the proportion of American Hispanics identifying as Catholic fell substantially, to 60 percent from 66 percent. The study also found that the longer a Hispanic has lived in the United States, the less likely he or she is to be Catholic. And the non-Catholics are more likely to identify as Republicans.

Oppenheimer packs a bunch of facts and context into a relatively short space (an 850-word column). Short of the Times snagging an interview with Rubio himself on his faith and religious beliefs, this is a nice step forward in the (until now, scant) mainstream media narrative.

My only qualm with the Times piece: In the final paragraph, Oppenheimer wraps up the issue in an easy little package and ties a bow on it:

It may never be clear whether Mr. Rubio is more Catholic or Protestant. The question itself reduces a complex experience, human religiosity, to simple terms. What may be clear from this story — call it The Case of the First Catholic Protestant Senator — is that in America, religious distinctions matter less all the time.

It’s a column, so Oppenheimer is entitled to his point of view. But this statement struck me: In America, religious distinctions matter less all the time.

A fair statement? Or wishful thinking? What say ye, GetReligion readers?

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