Reprinted with permission 

WASHINGTON (RNS) For the first time, the federal government has issued written guidelines for houses of worship that are confronted with a homicidal gunman.

Vice President Joe Biden released the new rules on Tuesday (June 18), six months after the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., that left 26 dead, including 20 children.

Pryor Creek Community Church is one of a few dozen churches around the country that are offering concealed carry certification classes as a way to reach out to non-Christians or to attract new members. RNS photo courtesy iStockPhoto.This image available for Web and print publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

Beyond seeking shelter and waiting for police to arrive, as many Newtown victims did, the new rules also advise adults in congregations to fight back — as a last resort — in a bid to stop the shooter. The new federal doctrine is “run, hide or fight.”

After Congress failed to pass a slew of gun safety measures in April, Biden said the executive branch is doing what it can, promising to put gun control legislation back in lawmakers’ hands, and pointing to 21 executive actions to beef up gun safety taken by the administration since Newtown.

He also unveiled three new federal guidebooks to keep institutions safe: one for schools, one for colleges and one for houses of worship.

Though shootings at churches and other houses of worship remain relatively rare, they can make inviting targets for shooters — particularly disturbed individuals — who are looking for a highly visible target to settle a grudge or make a political statement.

Last year a gunman killed six people inside a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis. In 2008, a gunman killed two congregants inside a Unitarian church in Knoxville, Tenn. In 2007, a gunman killed two people inside the New Life megachurch in Colorado Springs, Colo., before being shot and killed by an armed volunteer.

As federal officials worked with education officials in crafting new school safety rules, they also consulted clergy, Biden told a White House auditorium filled with federal officials who have worked on the issue.

“The faith leaders not only want us to talk about making schools safer,” Biden said. “They’re worried that their congregations are at risk. So they wanted to know, what should they be thinking about when someone stands up in the middle of the congregation and decides to do something similar as we saw in the schools.”

In response to their concerns, Biden said, “we gave concrete direction.”

The guidelines’ basic run-hide-fight advice is similar to that given to schools faced with active shooters: Congregants should first try to flee the scene, taking people with them but not waiting for those who refuse to leave. If flight is not possible, hide – the guidelines describe some of the best hiding places. Fighting back is a last resort.

According to the new rules, gathered in a 38-page document called “Guide for Developing High-Quality Emergency Operations Plans for Houses of Worship,” fighting back is advised for “adults in immediate danger,” who should:

“Consider trying to disrupt or incapacitate the shooter by using aggressive force and items in their environment, such as fire extinguishers or chairs. In a study of 41 active shooter events that ended before law enforcement arrived, the potential victims stopped the attacker themselves in 16 instances. In 13 of those cases, they physically subdued the attacker.”

The question of how best to subdue a gunman is likely to rekindle a debate within many churches, particularly in parts of the country where it is common to carry weapons: Should congregants bring guns to church?

“Each house of worship should determine, as part of its planning process, policies on the control and presence of weapons, as permitted by law,” the guidelines say.

It also says that individuals must make their own decisions about how best to respond when confronted by an active shooter.

Though the booklet was unveiled at an event on gun violence, it focuses on emergency preparedness in general, whether for a shooter, an arsonist or a hurricane. A special section focuses on “active shooter situations.”

Announced during the Emancipation Proclamation anniversary commemoration at St. Luke A.M.E. Zion Church in January, the Wilmington Historic Preservation Commission, city officials and area historians have spent the past six months revising drafts of a "Guide to Wilmington's African American Heritage." 

Maggie O'Connor, the city's historic preservation planner, said the document should be released to the public by the end of August. It is the first updated black history city brochure in about a decade, according to city officials.

"We didn't have a really good and recent African-American history tour brochure, and we wanted to honor the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 50th anniversary of the commission," she said, adding that the commission is making final corrections to the booklet that also includes a map of historic sites and markers. 

The booklet includes a forward from John Haley, professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, highlighting the importance of Wilmington to the history of Emancipation:

"In 1829, David Walker, a pioneer African-American abolitionist and Wilmington native, published Walker's Appeal in Four Articles, which called for the immediate and uncompensated emancipation of slaves. Subsequent abolitionist arguments denounced slavery on a variety of religious, moral and patriotic grounds."

Gareth Evans, executive director of the Bellamy Mansion Museum of History and Design Arts, said the commission hopes to print about 2,000 copies. 

"We’ve showed it around, and people were happy to see it. It’s a nice, accessible way of looking at African-American history," he added. "I imagine it will lead to a much greater appreciation for African-American input into this city’s history."

The guide includes important black religious, cultural and educational sites in downtown Wilmington and extends to sites in the Seabreeze community near Carolina Beach. It even includes the more recent 1898 Monument and Memorial Park opened oon North Third Street in 2008.

Important churches in the black community in the brochure include Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church, the state's oldest African-American Presbyterian church, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, St. Thomas Preservation Hall (formerly St. Thomas Catholic Church), St. Stephen A.M.E. Church,  which was built by its members and included a library, underground pool and doctor's office, Central Baptist Church, St. Luke A.M.E. Zion Church and Gregory Congregational Church. 

Cultural places highlighted include the Bellamy Mansion Slave Quarters, Thalian Hall, Wilmington National Cemetery, Shaw Funeral Home and African-American newspapers - the Wilmington Journal and the Wilmington Daily Record. 

The Rev. Wayne Johnson, pastor of St. Stephen A.M.E. Church, said he had seen an early draft of the brochure and was anxious to see its final version.

A few months ago, the commission led an invitation-only walking tour of some of the downtown sites to try out the brochure.

Evans said the success of the trial walking tour shows the need for more education about the role African-Americans have played in Wilmington's history.

"There was a black middle class and businesses and newspapers in the mid-1800s, and Wilmington was as much more racially cosmopolitan city until 1898 (during the Wilmington Race Riots), and it all reverted for a while after that," he said. "There’s lots of history in the churches and even the funeral homes here."

Sam Wazan speaking in April about his experiences growing up in Lebanon. Photo courtesy of Sam Wazan.

Charlotte resident Sam Wazan, author of "The Last Moderate Muslim," will speak about radicalization in Islam at 7 p.m. on Thursday (June 20) to a book club on Figure Eight Island in Wilmington. 

Email for directions for the talk to Sam Wazan, author@samwazan.com.

-- Amanda Greene

With a more active hurricane season predicted for 2013 and up to 20 named storms, St. Paul's Episcopal Church is getting prepared with prayer.

St. Paul's and NC Interfaith Power and Light, a subsidiary to the NC Council of Churches, are inviting the community to an evening of prayer for creation, an Earth Sabbath, at 7 p.m. on Saturday (June 22) at 16 N. 16th St. Invited guests knowledgeable about emergency management will be present to answer questions and deliver packages of evacuation route materials in the event of a hurricane.

The Earth Sabbath is part of a series of Green Team events the church is hosting to increase awareness of ways Cape Fear area congregations can get involved in creation care issues, said Ed Ablard, the event's organizer. The NCIPL hosts Earth Sabbaths in congregations across the state.

Members of other denominations and faiths will give prayers from their faith traditions, and a leader from NCIPL, Penny Hooper, a former a biology professor at Carteret Community College, will be the moderator. 

Details: Call Ed Ablard 703-980-4654.

We are pleased to welcome Roger Hamrick as a contributor to Wilmington Faith & Values. He'll be writing about the Baha'i faith.

Roger E. Hamrick grew up in the foothills of the North Carolina mountains where he and his two brothers and a sister learned to play checkers at the fireside of his father’s parents.

Pop and Granny lived just around the bend in the road, and many Friday nights in the winter time were spent at their house.  (One fireplace heated the house and lots of blankets were needed to stay warm in bed!)

When the family went to Raleigh to visit with his mother’s parents, the kids all slept on piles of blankets on the living room floor.  We couldn’t wait to eat Grandma Hardy’s cooking and go fishing with Grandpa Hardy!

A lifelong Tar Heel fan, Roger graduated from East Rutherford High School, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (B.A., Education), and later the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (M.Ed., Special Education).  He is a National Board Certified Teacher, and spent most of his 36 ½ years in education teaching children in need of intensive behavior support.  He retired from the New Hanover County Schools in July 2012.

Roger is married to Cathy, who practiced nursing for 15 years, and they have two sons, Richard and Robert, and one cat, Sadie.  Only Sadie still lives at home.  Richard lives in Fairfax, Virginia, and works in the national office of the Peace Corps in facilities management.  Robert lives in Greensboro, NC, and is a student at Guilford Technical Community College.

A member of the Bahá’í Faith since 1974, Roger enjoys traveling, reading, gardening, walking, biking, and listening to music from around the world.  To date he has traveled to Peru and Israel, but has been no further west in the United States than Chicago!

As a treasured student said many years ago, “Mr. Hamrick, you need to get out more!”

Welcome, Roger!

"It just offends so many that I would somehow look at that and say, ‘It’s useless, it’s meaningless, there is something more important. Because for most persons, success and money and fame are the things that really make life worthwhile, and so you don’t just dismiss that [and become a nun]."

Dolores Hart, Benedictine Nun; Mother Dolores Hart, from kissing Elis to joining the convent

Reprinted with permission 

(RNS) Gay Americans are much less religious than the general U.S. population, and about three in 10 of them say they have felt unwelcome in a house of worship, a new study shows.

The Pew Research Center’s study, released Thursday (June 13), details how gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans view many of the country’s prominent faiths: in a word, unfriendly.

The vast majority said Islam (84 percent); the Mormon church (83 percent); the Roman Catholic Church (79 percent); and evangelical churches (73 percent) were unfriendly. Jews and nonevangelical Protestants drew a more mixed reaction, with more than 40 percent considering them either unfriendly or neutral about gays and lesbians.

Ross Murray – Director of Religion, Faith & Values at GLAAD. Photo courtesy Ross Murray This image available for Web publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

Ross Murray, director of news and faith initiatives for the gay rights group GLAAD, said relations between the religious and gay communities have warmed in recent years, but before the last decade they were “pretty painful.”

He thinks the sense of unfriendliness comes in part from the loudest voices of faith speaking through an anti-gay frame. Religious groups that support gays and lesbians, as a GLAAD study found last year, get far less media attention.

“The leading anti-gay voices always put it in religious terms, which taints how people view religion,” Murray said.

While Pew researchers found that U.S. gays noted increased social acceptance, 29 percent of those surveyed said they personally have felt unaccepted in a house of worship. That compares to 39 percent who say they’ve been rejected by a close friend or family member, and 21 percent who say they’ve been treated unfairly by an employer.

Almost 50 percent of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender adults say they have no religious affiliation, compared to 20 percent of the general population. One-third of religiously affiliated gay and lesbian adults say there is a conflict between their faith beliefs and their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Although many gay Americans seem to eschew faith, the majority of those who are religiously affiliated are Christian – 42 percent. Two percent are Jewish and 8 percent belong to another non-Christian faith.

Just like the general public, younger gays and lesbians are less likely to have religious ties. But while nearly one-third of 18- to 29-year-olds in the general public are not affiliated with a religion, almost double that share – 60 percent – of gays and lesbians in that age group are unaffiliated.

The Pew survey was based on interviews from April 11-29 with 1,197 self-identified gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender adults and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

KRE/SPB END BANKS

Technology world FAVS stock photo by Evan Townsend

The Wall Street Journal recently invited Yeshiva College philosopher James Otteson to comment on the morality of the NSA's phone record snooping. 

Edward Snowden, who leaked the NSA operation to the Washington Post, couched his reasoning for coming forward in ethical terms, saying: "I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things… I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under."

Or is our security hinged on giving up some of our rights? Officials have said similar NSA surveillance has prevented attacks on the New York subway system and the New York Stock Exchange. In PBS interviews this week, President Obama called the NSA operation "transparent."

What do you think? Is government surveillance of its citizens against morality?

At age 24, Dolores Hart decided to leave behind a Hollywood life where she made 10 movies and even kissed Elvis, deciding to enter a convent. She's recently written a book about her decision 50 years ago.

Have you felt a call to go into ministry?

Did you follow it?

Did you decide against it?

Share your story with us.

Hampstead resident Tom Spencer captured this photo of a home's remains while working with NC Baptist Men to help clean up after a massive tornado struck Moore, Ok. in late May 2013. Photo by Tom Spencer

Hampstead resident Tom Spencer captured this photo of a home's remains while working with NC Baptist Men to help clean up after a massive tornado struck Moore, Ok., in late May 2013.

Hampstead resident Tom Spencer captured this photo of a home's remains while working with NC Baptist Men to help clean up after a massive tornado struck Moore, Ok., in late May 2013.

“Parents often imagine their kids to be nonsexual until their wedding night. The truth of the matter is that we're sexual from day one. What are you going to communicate to your kids about this, knowing that they are sexual creatures today?” asks the introduction of this book. 

Book cover of "A Chicken's Guide to Talking Turkey with Your Kids about Sex." Photo courtesy Zondervan.

The authors come to this research from experience. Psychologist, Dr. Kevin Leman, has written more than 30 books on family relationship topics.  Kathy Flores Bell is cofounder of an abstinence sexuality education program called, Carondelet Health Network’s Youth Sexuality Program.

What I love about this book is that it is balanced.  It perfectly brews psychology and Christian ethics.  It is warm and full of real issues kids are facing in today’s society (including masturbation and oral sex).  The authors realize adolescents are dealing with more knowledge of sex than ever.  It’s important you help them process this knowledge and be open and relaxed when the questions arise.

I read a negative review that claimed it was full of shame-based repression.  In my opinion, this is absolutely not true.  It is respect-based.  It’s full of good common sense. 

It is full of tools to equip parents who can, in turn, equip their children.  Children are empowered with self-respect through feelings of being cherished.  Children are empowered with self-discipline through lovingly taught life skills.  It does not teach controlling your children through repression, but molding your children.  You are given ways to nurture these in the most influential way.  “Seize the day, not the reins.”

This book mentors parents to not just "cross their fingers and hope for the best in regards to children’s sexual choices."  Sexuality isn’t a compartmentalized topic.  It has to do with body image and respect and feelings of being accepted. 

How you approach these topics could influence generations.  You are the parenting manual your kids are reading for their future parenting skills.

The Chicken’s Guide clearly shows how sexuality weaves through the entirety of our lives.  You’ll be given ideas how to keep the conversations flowing without feeling embarrassed or weird.  It shows how parents must be the main guide through this territory of puberty and sexuality.  Scared of this responsibility?

Fear not, after reading this book parents will be energized, encouraged, confident and knowledgeable about the broad spectrum that is adolescent sexuality.  No matter what your personal path of sexuality has been, you’ll be comforted in knowing YOU are the perfect professor for this undertaking.

Chapters topics include: "Why Parents Don’t Talk About Sex," "Creating a Home Environment That Will Grow Sexually Healthy Children," "First Base, Second Base, Third Base," and "What to do if your child is already sexually active?"

Here are six questions from the Home Plate chapter that this book will help you prepare for: 

“What does sex feel like?”
“Is it wrong to have sex?”
“Do people like to have sex?”
“What is an orgasm”
“Have you had sex?”
“Were you a virgin?”

Rarely do I find a book that I heartily endorse!  I was so inspired that I purchased numerous copies.  I’m handing them out like Christmas candy.  Whether you are parent, grandparent, aunt, teacher or just have kids in your neighborhood, please read this book!

Reprinted with permission

WASHINGTON (RNS) The way fans reacted to Dolores Hart’s decision to become a cloistered nun, you might have thought the movie star had announced her intention to kill herself.

Dolores Hart and Elvis Presley in “Loving You.” Photo courtesy of Globe Photos.

Even close friends and family could not fathom why this Grace Kelly look-alike, who gave Elvis his first on-screen kiss and had her pick of acting jobs, would stow herself away in a nunnery for the rest of her life.

As if to test her resolve in those weeks before she left Hollywood, Universal Studios offered her a role opposite Marlon Brando, a role she turned down shortly after she broke off her engagement to Don Robinson, a kind and handsome businessman who loved her intensely.

“Even my best friend, who was a priest, Father Doody, said, ‘You’re crazy. This is absolutely insane to do this,’” Mother Delores Hart remembered in a recent interview, conducted 50 years after she entered the Order of St. Benedict.

To try to explain her decision to a world that’s perhaps even more enamored of celebrity than it was a half century ago, Hart, 74, has written “The Ear of the Heart,” a memoir of her life on screen and behind the convent walls.

Even though she wasn’t raised Catholic, 9-year-old Dolores decided to convert when she found meaning and comfort in the rituals of her Catholic school. At 24, she quit Hollywood to answer a call she heard from God. “I left the world I knew in order to reenter it on a more profound level,” she writes.

But others took the abandonment of her career as an almost personal affront.

“It just offends so many that I would somehow look at that and say, ‘It’s useless, it’s meaningless, there is something more important. Because for most persons, success and money and fame are the things that really make life worthwhile, and so you don’t just dismiss that,’” she said.

“Even my beloved aunt, who was a sister of St. Joseph, she was livid,” Hart continued. “Because she loved having a niece who was famous.”

Hart’s book tour will take her across the country, and away from the place she has rarely left since she abandoned her movie star dream life, and where she is now prioress. The Abbey of Regina Laudis is 450 acres of farmland, barns and chapels in rural Connecticut, 100 miles north of New York City — an abbey that, not coincidentally, includes a working theater.

Founded by Hart and the late actress Patricia Neal, the open-air theater seats 300 and stages both dramas and musicals at reasonable prices for people who could not otherwise enjoy live theater. And yes, they have produced “The Sound of Music,” Hart confirmed without having to be asked.

Hart made 10 Hollywood movies from 1957 to 1963, including two with Elvis, and “Where The Boys Are,” the blockbuster 1960 comedy in which she stars as a college girl looking for spring break fun — and perhaps premarital sex.

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Dolores Hart as a young woman (left) and Mother Dolores Hart (right). Photo courtesy Ignatius Press This image available for Web and print publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

She is most proud of her supporting role in the 1959 Broadway comedy, “The Pleasure of His Company,” for which she received a Tony Award nomination, and the film “Lisa,” (1962) in which she stars as a Jewish woman tortured in a Nazi concentration camp.

To prepare for the role, she wanted to talk to a survivor who had actually lived through the Holocaust.

Suzanne Zada, a young Jewish woman who had survived Auschwitz and immigrated to Los Angeles, hated to be an object of curiosity for those impressed by her wartime trauma. But she agreed to meet Hart at a restaurant on the Sunset Strip, and remembers how disarmed she was by the first thing the young actress ever said to her:

“Before I sit down, may I tell you, on my way here I was considering myself a real pig for wanting you to remember your suffering, just so I can do a better acting job.”

Hart was nominated for a Golden Globe for her portrayal of “Lisa.” Today, Hart is the only nun who is a voting member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Oscars).

Maria Cooper Janis, the daughter of screen idol Gary Cooper and one of Hart’s best friends, said Hart found a way “to keep a foot in Hollywood” while fully embracing Benedictine life, which keeps the nuns mostly isolated, and on a strict schedule of prayer, study and manual labor.

A painful neurological disease, peripheral neuropathy, now limits her physical activity, but for decades, Hart worked in the abbey laundry and in the wood shop, building coffins.

She also carefully tended her friendships from her movie star days, and made Regina Laudis a welcoming place for those who needed a spiritual break — or those who just missed her and her borderline naughty sense of humor.

“Built like a brick shipyard,” is how Hart admiringly describes her friend, the retired actress Valerie Allen, and makes herself laugh when she remembers Allen’s questions about Catholicism:

“Once we were talking about heaven and Valerie said, ‘I’m not Catholic, so what does it mean, when you go to heaven, that you’re going to get your body back? And I said, ‘That’s what the Lord says.’ And Valerie said, ‘When I go I’m going to ask him for my boobs when I was 18, my waist when I was 33 and my ass when I was 36.’ And I said, ‘Valerie, if that’s what you want, ask for it. Faith teaches you to ask for whatever you need.’”

It was Janis who had introduced Hart to Patricia Neal, when the Oscar-winning actress was struggling with weighty personal problems. The two developed a strong bond. Neal, one of many in show business to seek rest and counsel with Hart at Regina Laudis, is the only one to become a Catholic on her deathbed at the abbey, and to have been buried there.

Janis — along with Hart’s devoutly Catholic fiance — was one of Hart’s friends who did not argue when told that she was leaving for the convent. Janis said she did not assume, as many others had, that her best friend was “running way from men, or Hollywood or running away from life.”

“I knew this was absolutely what she had to do,” said Janis, who is Catholic, but said she is moved more by the spirit of her religion than its doctrine. “You don’t stand in the middle of the tracks of a speeding train coming at you.”

Zada, the Holocaust survivor who became fast friends with Hart, did try to talk her friend out of monastic life.

“I was very upset and actually for a couple of years I was still writing her angry notes about throwing her life away,” said Zada, who still travels from Los Angeles to visit Hart at the abbey.

“If you heard what I hear,” Hart once told Zada, “you would come, too.”

Zada said she came to realize that even though she would never understand what compelled her friend to give up one life for another, Hart did understand, and that was all that mattered.

“Everything comes from her heart,” Zada said. “As corny as it sounds.”

KRE/AMB END MARKOE

Glenn Davis Photo courtesy of Glenn Davis

Please welcome Glenn Davis to the growing community of Wilmington Faith & Values contributors.

Glenn Davis lives in Wilmington, North Carolina, is active in St. Paul's Episcopal Church, and works as an oncology nurse.  He received his Bachelor of Arts from Campbell University in 1994 where he majored in Religion/Philosophy.

He also blogs about life as he sees it at Observations from Oblivion.

And he'll be writing about science, religion and the problem of suffering for Wilmington Faith & Values.

Welcome, Glenn!

Today at church was filled with goodbyes as our rector, the Rev. Randy Green, was leaving and heading into his retirement to Boone. Randy is the only rector I’ve known since starting to worship at St. Paul’s Episcopal.

The Rev. Randy Green administering ashes during a 2012 Ash Wednesday service. Photo by Amanda Greene

After a time of not going to church due to experiencing what one would describe as a “dark night of the soul,” I decided to try out the Episcopal Church. Having been reared as a Baptist, but studying liturgy in college and being what some would refer to as an extreme Anglophile, I was drawn to the way in which the Episcopal Church worshipped.

Ironically, my first introductions to Saint Paul’s were also the beginnings of Randy's ministry there. Through the last three years, I have seen ups and downs as well as twists and turns that have taken me by surprise. Randy has been there through all of them, supporting me with his friendship and prayers, his guidance and his love.

He has helped me in numerous ways, helping me to grow closer to God after taking some time to reevaluate what my relationship to God is and was. So to say goodbye to him and his wife, Nancy, was going to be incredibly hard. As I sat listening to his last sermon, I was overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude and thankfulness for his leadership and the support he has shown to me, as well as to my church as a whole.

I decided this week that I would refuse to say goodbye. Why, you might ask? To be honest, I don’t really believe this is goodbye. While I realize that Randy and Nancy will be leaving to start a new chapter of their lives, I believe that their friendship and love for all of us at Saint Paul’s transcends the boundaries of distance, just as I believe that the friendship of love the church has for them transcends those same boundaries.

Rather, I choose to believe that the same friendship still exists, only there are a few more miles between us. With such things as email, Facebook, phones, texts, it definitely makes it easier to keep in contact with those we love.

So today, instead of feeling like we are at a journey's end, I feel more like it’s just a stop along the way to rest while we are on an even greater journey together. I do hope both Randy and Nancy know how much love and respect I have for them as friends, as well as in their roles within the church.

I think it would be appropriate to end this little homage with the Prayer of Thanksgiving we used today at the end of our service.

“Almighty God, we thank you for feeding us with the holy food of the Body and Blood of your Son, and for uniting us through him in the fellowship of your Holy Spirit. We thank you for raising up among us faithful servants of your Word and Sacraments. We thank you especially for the work of Fr. Randy among us, and the presence of his wife Nancy here. Grant that both they and we may serve you in the days ahead, and always rejoice in your glory, and come at length into your heavenly kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Reprinted with permission

(RNS) The death of liberal Catholicism has been proclaimed so often in recent decades that few even bother to check to see if the body still has a pulse.

Father Ernie Davis blesses the communion during Catholic mass at St. Therese Little Flower parish in Kansas City, Mo. RNS file photo by Sally Morrow. This image available for Web and print publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

But a fledgling organization of priests believes the obituaries are premature, and as the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests gathers this month to discuss an agenda for church reform, its leaders are pointing to support from the laity as well as inspiration from the top: Pope Francis.

“For me, his papacy so far has been a lifesaver,” said the Rev. Dave Cooper, a priest from Milwaukee who is head of the AUSCP, which will hold its second annual assembly at Seattle University from June 24-27.

Not that Francis is a starry-eyed liberal who is about to ordain women priests or turn the church into a representative democracy. He’s not. Rather, it is the new pope’s repeated exhortations for the church to engage the world, to be humble and open to dialogue, and above all to show people – including Catholics – a welcoming face that has buoyed Cooper and others in the AUSCP.

“The pastoral style is most encouraging to me personally,” Cooper said. “I hope it will grow and deepen and continue.”

The AUSCP was started in August 2011 by about two dozen priests from 11 states who met at a seminary near Chicago with the goal of trying “to keep the best of Vatican II alive,” referring to the landmark church council of the 1960s that opened Catholicism to the modern world.

Like similar groups of reform-minded clergy in Ireland, Austria and elsewhere, these priests were, as one put it, “more than mildly distressed by the ecclesial turn of events” in the past 30 years that has seen the Vatican and local bishops take strong measures to enforce orthodoxy and curb anything that smacks of dissent.

From that modest start two years ago, the AUSCP has grown to nearly 1,000 members from about 120 of the 195 dioceses in the country.

This month’s meeting is expected to draw about 250 of those priests, who will listen to church experts and debate 15 proposals that focus on promoting collaboration and transparency in the church. Proposals include a call for lay people and priests to have a say in selecting bishops, who are now chosen solely by the pope through a secret process.

But one proposal bumps up against the third rail of orthodoxy by calling for a study of ordaining women and married men to the priesthood. Just raising the ordination topic publicly raises the hackles of conservatives — especially younger clergy who entered the priesthood under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI and tend to be more orthodox.

One of the critics is the Rev. Martin Fox, who wrote a long blog post ripping the AUSCP as the “swan song” of aging liberal Catholics who were enamored with a “spirit of Vatican II” that has been quashed by a younger, more tradition-minded generation of clergy and laity. “Utterly pointless,” Fox said of the AUSCP’s agenda.

What’s telling is that Fox is not just any priest, but heads the Office of Priestly Formation for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. After a few of his fellow clerics objected to the broadside, Fox later apologized for some of his remarks and amended his original post.

But the thrust of his objections – which have been standard fare among church leaders for years – remained, and underscored a division that may not be overcome anytime soon. “If we keep inviting them, that’s all we can do,” Cooper said of his conservative brethren.

Another AUSCP leader, the Rev. Bob Bonnot of Youngstown, Ohio, rejected the idea that the association is a rallying point for disaffected older priests. “There is no question of dissent,” Bonnot said. “These are open questions in the life of the church and various priests want us, as priests, to discuss them.”

What’s more, he said, almost all of the proposals – the calls for collegiality, ordaining women as deacons, and allowing use of the previous translations of the Mass – are ones that have been debated and sometimes supported by top church leaders.

“Are all the cardinals dissenters because they discuss these items?” he added.

Bonnot noted that the “vast majority” of his members are workaday parish priests rather than clerics who work in academia or church bureaucracies, and their proposals reflect the concerns of parishioners that they serve.

“Regardless of the ages of the priests that might be involved, the issues are enduring issues that are very much in play,” he said.

And discussing those issues openly is vital to the future of the church, said Cooper.

“The Catholic Church is a living organism and all living organisms change and adapt. As the Catholic Church continues to grow and expand, the genius of Vatican II would say that it must take root and grow among the people,” he said.

“We have to be where the people are. That is our passion.”

Reprinted with permission 

A card for the “No Father’s Day” campaign showing a father sitting beside an empty child’s bed. Courtesy PICO, National Network’s Lifelines to Healing Campaign.

(RNS) Each Father’s Day, Neil Heslin and his son, Jesse Lewis, used to go to a car show.

But that tradition died when six-year-old Jesse was shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

This Father’s Day, Heslin, who has been active with other Sandy Hook parents in pushing for gun control legislation, is giving his support to the No Father’s Day (www.NoFathersDay.org) campaign.

Speaking at a media teleconference to launch the campaign, Heslin said, “Jesse was my only child, my only immediate family. I don’t have a father to share Father’s Day with.”

Initiated by PICO National Network’s Lifelines to Healing Campaign, the campaign asks participants to send e-cards to Congress, urging passage of legislation to create universal background checks and end gun trafficking.

The campaign features four different cards, each a scene of someone who no longer can celebrate Father’s Day. One, for example, depicts a father holding a book as he sits on a child’s empty bed. Another shows a bride, her arm extended, but there is no father to walk her down the aisle.

“Don’t let another family miss out on the joy of celebrating Father’s Day because gun violence has taken a loved one away from them,” the cards read.

“These cards tell the story very powerfully that there are many fathers who will not be able to celebrate Father’s Day because their children have been taken by gun violence,” said the Rev. Michael McBride, director of Lifelines to Healing.

“The faith community’s role and passion about this issue will not dissipate,” he said. “We expect and we demand that this issue come back before this legislative session ends and give the Congress the opportunity to do the right thing.”

Heslin was among the Sandy Hook families that met with lawmakers who had voted down gun control legislation earlier this year.

While he doesn’t think the same legislation will come before Congress, “I’m certain another bill may come up on the universal background checks,” he said. “What happened in December in Sandy Hook clearly touched everybody,” he said.

PICO — People Improving Communities Through Organizing — is an interfaith network with 65 chapters representing 2,000 congregations nationwide. As of Thursday morning, the No Father’s Day campaign had drawn the support of 50 congregations, according to McBride. “We’re anticipating an outpouring of support.”

"One who says “What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours”…this is the character of Sodom. “What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine,” this is an ignorant person. “What is mine is yours, and what is yours is yours,” this is a righteous person “What is mine is mine, and what is yours is mine,” this is an evil person."

Pirkei Avot Chapter 5 Verse 10; Fighting the "sin of Sodom" in the North Carolina Legislature

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The choir at Grace United Methodist Church on Father's Day 2013. Photo by Zeinab Savage

This Sunday (June 16) at Grace United Methodist Church on the corner of Fourth and Grace streets in downtown Wilmington, the cries of babies echoed throughout the high oval-shaped church competing with  the loud, bellowing note of the organ.

It was Father's Day, but it was also the day for children’s confirmations.

As Sunday’s service began, the choir walked through the aisles and sat facing the congregation.

Courtney Hickman, director of the youth programs led the sermon in honor of the newly proclaimed Christian members. She described Christians as "resident aliens." Hickman uses this phrase from a book called the “Resident Aliens” written by Duke Divinity School theologians Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon. It explains how Christians feel as though they live in this world but are not of this world.

This makes Confirmation all the more important, she added.

The children who were being confirmed at Grace United Methodist Church on Father's Day with their families. Photo by Zeinab Savage

Hickman explained that in order for a Christian to live in this world, they must be given a set of instructions.

She used the words written by Paul in the Bible, explaining that the simplest words in the passage is also the hardest to abide by.

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

Hickman then concluded her sermon by welcoming the "newest little aliens."

The Rev. Scott Dodson speaks at the Father's Day service. Photo by Zeinab Savage

Children ages 6-14 and their families were then called to the front of the church by the Rev. Scott Dodson, pastor at Grace.

All the attention was on them which warranted their bashful “I do’s” as Dodson asked “Do you believe in the God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth?”

Some of the children present were not baptized at birth and needed baptism in order to be confirmed, the pastor explained.

The difference between a confirmation and being baptized, he said, is that families typically baptize their children at birth. It is not until they are older that they profess their love for Jesus Christ and are considered to be practicing Christians.

After Dodson placed the blessed water onto their foreheads "in the name of father and the son and the Holy Spirit," the confirmation was now ready to proceed. The blessed water was then exchanged for oil. Dodson then went down the line of the nine children, placing dots of oil onto their foreheads.

Then the typically quiet church clapped for their newest members. 

Proud parents and family members smiled and received congratulations from church members on this momentous day.

For the families of the children who were confirmed, it was a day for them to profess their love for Christ.

Jim Ussury, whose daughter was confirmed this Father's Day, hoped his daughter's new belief would allow her to be more involved in Christian youth programs. He said it would give her a place to go when she is unsure of her faith and provide answers for her questions, especially later in life.

After almost two months of protesting the Moral Monday participants have been called many things – radicals, “loony liberals,” old hippies - but these terms do not properly describe many of those who have been arrested for the cause.

Temple Beth Or religious school students and teacher Max Socol in Raleigh. Photo courtesy of Max Socol

Max Socol is one of those people.

Socol is the principal of the Temple Beth Or religious school in Raleigh. Since he moved to Raleigh last year, the 27-year-old has worked with about 300 students who attend the school twice a week for supplemental religious education. Socol teaches the 11th and 12th grade class and is also the youth director at the temple.

“We teach them to feel comfortable being Jewish, about their heritage and instill a sense of social responsibility,” Socol said. “The Reform movement is very vocal about political issues like marriage equality and immigration.”

Because of his position as a community leader for the children, Socol believes it is important for him to practice what he preaches.

“I try to set a personal example for them and live that example,” Socol said. 

For Socol, setting this example meant being arrested for participating in a Moral Monday protest inside the legislature on June 3.

Socol explained that there are specific Jewish teachings that everyone has a social responsibility to help those in need. For him, this responsibility also translated to speaking against legislation the North Carolina government passes which affects the poor, mentally ill and anyone who cannot care for themselves.

Socol cited the story of Sodom and Gomorrah to show this point. In conservative Christian traditions, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is thought of as sins of sexual depravity but in the Jewish interpretation it is the sin of selfishness.

In Ezekiel 16:49 (NIV) it reads, “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”

This verse is explained by Jewish commentary in the Pirkei Avot, a compilation found in the Mishnah, one of the primary commentaries on the Hebrew Bible which makes up one of the main components of the Jewish Talmud which is the basis of traditional Jewish law.  It states in the Pirkei Avot in Chapter 5 Verse 10,

"There are four [character] types:
One who says “What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours”…this is the character of Sodom.
“What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine,” this is an ignorant person.
“What is mine is yours, and what is yours is yours,” this is a righteous person
“What is mine is mine, and what is yours is mine,” this is an evil person."

Socol said this idea of “What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours” is the understanding protestors are fighting against in their rallies as well as intrinsic differences between political parties.

Rabbi Lucy Dinner, senior rabbi of Temple Beth Or, said she believes it is the responsibility of the state to equally support all citizens.

“They have a moral responsibility not just to the majority – the lower middle class and above- but a responsibility for those who can’t speak for themselves," she said. "They have a role to play that others cannot play – they have the infrastructure and they are abusing that infrastructure." 

Rabbi Lucy Dinner of Temple Beth Or in Raleigh stands with Carolina Jews for Justice, protesting during the June 3 Moral Monday in Raleigh. Photo by Lilly Knoepp

While she is happy to see members of her congregation and other carrying out their convictions in the demonstration, the rabbi said she is not participating in getting arrested because she does not want to lose her rights to protest. 

“Once you are arrested you are not allowed back on the property therefore taking away our rights as citizens to speak to our representatives,” Dinner said. As a condition of a person's release from jail after a Moral Mondays protest, you are not allowed to enter the legislative building until those arrest charges are resolved, according to the NC NAACP office.

Though Dinner wishes to retain this right to speak to her representative, but that hasn't happened yet.

“Unfortunately most of them have closed their doors – the representatives aren’t making themselves available as well as the governor,” Dinner said. She has protests outside the legislature and signed a letter along with six other rabbis in support of Moral Mondays.  

The letter states: “Many of us have previously attempted to reach out to Assembly leaders for dialogue, and we have been ignored,” the rabbis said. “We therefore endorse the use of nonviolent civil disobedience to draw attention to the reckless and heartless policies currently passing into law in Raleigh. ... We recognize the need for solidarity at this time in North Carolina. The Jewish vision of social justice is broadly shared by all people of faith who are mobilizing this Monday, and now is the time to speak out.”

""The fact that [Sen. Thom Goolsby] rejects the views of his own constituents, using insulting language, demonstrates why Moral Monday protesters feel that civil disobedience is necessary to make their voices heard," "

New Hanover County Democratic Party Chairman Richard Poole

Part of the work the NC Baptist Men did in Oklahoma after the May tornadoes was sorting debris to help homeowners find their valuables and important papers. Photo by Tom Spencer

A guitar that was part of a memorial in Moore, OK. Photo by Tom Spencer

One scene at a home in Moore, OK, where the NC Baptist Men were helping to clear home plots. Photo by Tom Spencer

House debris from Moore tornado. Photo by Tom Spencer

Storm clouds were still gathering before another Oklahoma City tornado when NC Baptist Men were helping clear debris in Moore, OK the week of May 31. Photo by Tom Spencer

The rubble of Briarwood Elementary School in Moore, OK. Photo by Tom Spencer

On May 31, another tornado came to Oklahoma City and passed near a church where the NC Baptist Men were hiding in Moore during their work there. Photo by Tom Spencer

NC Baptist Men workers from Mud Creek Baptist Church in Hendersonville, NC help comb debris for homeowners in Moore, OK after the tornadoes there. Photo by Tom Spencer

Southern Hills Baptist Church where the NC Baptist Men stayed during the debris clean-up had a Vacation Bible School to help children in Moore, OK begin to continue their lives after tornadoes leveled the town. Photo by Tom Spencer

On May 31, as a F5 tornado steamed toward Oklahoma City, a team of North Carolina Baptist Men relief workers huddled together in a hallway of Southern Hills Baptist Church in nearby Moore, OK. That tornado passed Moore by.

But the team had been working May 27-June 4 to sift through storm debris in Moore from the mid-May tornado there and moving what they couldn't sift with Bobcat miniature bulldozers to clear the 17 miles of twisted metal, wood, schools and homes that used to be a town.

The damage to Moore, OK, was the most extensive storm damage Hampstead resident Tom Spencer had seen in his years working with NC Baptist Men.

"Just devastation. When you’re talking about 17 miles long and half a mile wide, the force is just unimaginable," Spencer said. "Buildings with 2x4 splinters stuck in them –it’s amazing that only 26 people were killed. I was there eight days later. It was a rewarding trip for me in terms of getting out there in middle America. I was looking for people to help putting tarps on homes and clean up their yards. But they had already done all that and gone back to work. People said we help each other out here. They were not sitting on the curb waiting on a handout."

Spencer said the first team of NC Baptist Men at the disaster site acted on work orders through Oklahoma Baptist Men.

The church that hosted the North Carolina team Southern Hills Baptist Church were still planning to hold their annual Vacation Bible School in early June so " that Sunday, we went to church and prayed for electricity because it was so important to keep some kind of semblance of normalcy for the kids. And the next week 600 kids came."

The team didn't witness any looting of the debris then, Spencer added. Though police in Moore have since arrested people for looting metals from home sites.

"The initial idea was we were there to help people find their things. We picked out photo albums, pictures, anything that might have been of value to the homeowner," he said. "In one house, they found a guys wallet, credit cards, checkbooks. But people were starting to get shell shock and up to this point survival instincts had kicked in. We insist the family member be there to help us go through the debris. There’s nothing left where the tornado touched down."

Want to help? Details: 800.395.5102 ext. 5599

READ our story on charities helping Oklahoma tornado survivors. 

Reprinted with permission 

VATICAN CITY (RNS) When Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world in February in becoming the first pope to resign in 600 years, he left behind a Roman Catholic Church weakened by scandals, beset by infighting and suffering from a general sense of isolation from the modern world.

Three months after the election of Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis, much of the gloom seems to have lifted.

Pope Francis waves from the pope-mobile during his inauguration Mass at St. Peter’s Square on Tuesday (March 19) at the Vatican. World leaders flew in for Pope Francis’ inauguration Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Tuesday where Latin America’s first pontiff will receive the formal symbols of papal power. RNS photo by Andrea Sabbadini This image available for Web and print publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

St. Peter’s Square is again a magnet for legions of pilgrims, and the communications problems that dogged Benedict’s papacy have receded. Francis’ simpler, direct style, together with his focus on the poor and the marginalized, has captivated the world.

The first pope from Latin America has now amassed more Twitter followers in Spanish than any other language.

As Francis prepares to mark his first 100 days in office next week (June 20) — an admittedly arbitrary measure for a 2,000-year-old institution that thinks in centuries — here’s what we’ve learned so far about this most unconventional of popes:

Style is substance

For the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a Jesuit and editor of the Vatican-sanctioned magazine La Civiltà Cattolica, the most important change Francis brought to the papacy is his knack for “significant gestures that immediately convey very powerful messages.”

Francis started changing the tune of the papacy straight from day one, when – to the shock of his Vatican handlers – he insisted on personally settling his tab at the clerics’ residence where he stayed during the conclave that elected him.

The Argentine soon made it clear that he had no appetite for the creeping traditionalism and pomp of church power that had begun under his predecessor. He abandoned Benedict’s signature red cape, shoes and hats, preferring a simple white cassock and the plain iron cross he wore in Buenos Aires.

Francis says he’ll stay at the Vatican this summer rather than escape to the papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo. In a world so steeped in tradition and choreographed rituals as the Vatican, a change in style really is a matter of substance.

“He took up this new mission with great enthusiasm and warmth,” said the Rev. Miguel Yanez, an old friend and former student of the new pope.

Avoiding isolation

The break with the past culminated with Francis’ decision to shun the ornate papal apartments for a small suite at the Domus Santa Marta, the modern Vatican guesthouse for visiting cardinals and priests.

He did so, Francis explained in a letter to a priest friend, in order to avoid becoming “isolated.”

It’s a telling indicator of how Francis envisions both himself and his new job, especially after the Vatileaks scandal in which Benedict’s personal butler — arrested for leaking personal documents — described the scholarly pope as out of touch with the world and his own staff.

At Santa Marta, Francis started celebrating a daily Mass with different groups of Vatican employees. The colorful, provocative and off-the-cuff homilies he delivers have become one of the distinctive features of his pontificate.

Nevertheless, Francis’ informal sermons have puzzled Vatican officials, who still aren’t sure what to make of his candid denunciations of the church’s “triumphalism,” careerism and pride. For months, they didn’t even appear on the Vatican page where all the pope’s activities and speeches are listed.

A poor church

Newly elected Pope Francis appears on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday (March 13) in Vatican City. Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as the 266th pontiff and will lead the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics. RNS photo by Andrea Sabbadini This image available for Web and print publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

Francis has used his daily homilies to focus time and again on what is emerging as the central theme of his pontificate: building a “poor church, for the poor,” as he put it in his meeting with the world media a few days after being elected.

The focus on “the poorest, the weakest, the least important” has dominated Francis’ public outings since his inaugural Mass on March 19. Almost on a weekly basis, Francis has urged his fellow churchmen leave their comfort zone and reach out to those who live at the margins of society.

It was most visible during Holy Week, when Francis washed the feet of 12 juvenile inmates, including two girls, during a visit to a Rome prison. In a Vatican still struggling to reform its scandal-ridden bank, Francis more than once remarked that neither St. Peter nor St. Paul had any bank accounts.

“When (St. Peter) had to pay taxes, the Lord sent him to the sea to catch fish and find the money in the fish, to pay,” he said on Tuesday (June 11).

Francis has repeatedly denounced consumerism and what he called the “culture of waste” of modern economies, and making it clear that environmental protection will be a priority for the church.

Francis’ condemnation of runaway capitalism and an exclusive focus on profit are ideologically in line with his predecessor – but the vigor and frequency with which he strikes these chords are definitely new.

A different kind of culture war

While Francis minced no words in highlighting the “social gospel,” he has been less eager to engage in the culture wars over abortion or gay marriage cherished by his predecessors.

If Benedict warned of the “dictatorship of relativism,” Francis, in a speech to a group of ambassadors from tax havens such as Luxembourg and Antigua, berated the “dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.”

Money, he said, must “serve” man, not “rule” over him.

No one doubts the new pope’s anti-abortion credentials, but the fact that he has condemned abortion isn’t the same as making it a touchstone issue of his pontificate.

And even as France’s Catholic Church was engaged in a very visible fight against the legalization of gay marriage, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets, Francis only seldom referred to it.

Rather than blaming the media, the pope has constantly reminded Catholics that the devil is a Catholic’s true enemy, arguing that they are engaged in a spiritual fight for renewal and salvation that overshadows petty politics and partisan interests.

Unfinished business

Even with the successful charm offensive, the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics are still wondering whether the jovial 76-year-old Jesuit will be able to deliver real reform to the Vatican’s centuries-old bureaucracy.

One month after his election, he appointed a group of eight cardinals to draw up a plan to reform the Curia. Their first meeting, though, isn’t scheduled until October.

In the Vatican, all of Benedict’s aides and appointees – including the gaffe-prone Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone – remain in office, at least provisionally.

For Spadaro, Francis is still in a “listening phase,” as he gets to know the people around him and evaluates the issues facing the church.

So, even if Francis came to the papacy surrounded by great expectations for change, “it wouldn’t be right to pass judgment on his capacity for reform just now,” he said.

Francis’ record as a Jesuit leader and an archbishop shows that he can take hard decisions. “But he won’t do it abruptly, he will do it deliberately and after long consideration.”

Fred Rogers hosted “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” on PBS from 1968 to 2001. RNS photo courtesy Walt Seng/PBS. This image available for Web and print publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

c.Religion News Service 2013

Reprinted with permission

PITTSBURGH, Pa. (RNS) Fred Rogers, the man behind the long-running “Mister Rogers Neighborhood” children’s show, died 10 years ago, but his influence is still felt deeply here, the city he called home.

This past week, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary devoted its summer leadership conference to insights from his life and work.

The conference drew an eclectic mix of participants, including psychologists and social workers, educators, clergy and laity.

It also functioned as a reunion of various cast members and staffers from the show, which ran on the Public Broadcasting Station from 1968 to 2001.

Two films about Rogers were screened, alongside panels on Rogers’ ability to handle life transitions creatively.

Rogers’ widow, Joanne, wearing a Neighborhood Trolley pin, spoke briefly as well.

Rogers earned a degree in children’s ministry from the seminary and later was ordained a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). He never led a church, but saw his career in broadcasting, including 33 years as writer and star of the Pittsburgh-based children’s program, as a ministry.

His show taught children how to respond to challenges, fears, and life transitions. And while it was never overtly religious, it cultivated the virtues: neighborliness, hospitality and respect for others.

Children’s spirituality “is not an add-on to children’s lives but part and parcel of who they are,” said Patricia Crawford, associate professor of education at the University of Pittsburgh. She said the conference helped her understand that children’s sense of “caring and kindness” needs to be nurtured.

Retired Pittsburgh pediatrician Dr. Jane Breck came to the conference to pay tribute to Rogers, who earlier in her career had asked for her help in explaining physical check-ups to children.

She remembered the show’s producers visiting her practice in 1993. They wanted to replicate the feel of a real pediatrician’s office to demonstrate the experience of having a physical exam. Breck recalled the producers took with them tongue depressors and otoscopes to inspect ears. Then she was asked to find two children who might be comfortable having a full physical exam on camera.

Now a part-time student at the seminary, Breck recalled how Rogers was attuned to what made children anxious.

She’ll never forget the question he asked her: “When you look in my ears, can you see through to my brain?”

“He really was the way he played himself on TV,” she said. “Spending time with Fred Rogers left an indelible mark on everyone’s soul and psyche.”

Judith A. Rubin, the “art lady” on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for three seasons, screened a documentary on Rogers. She recalled the freedom he gave her on the set to help children and parents explore their creativity.

Her movie examined Rogers’ early days on the “The Children’s Corner” a live puppet show produced by WQED from 1953 to 1961. It also looked at some of the experts Rogers came in contact with — psychologists Erik Erikson, Anna Freud and Margaret McFarland, as well as pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock.

Adult audience members sang along as the movie played clips from the children’s television show.

James Davison, director of Continuing Education at the seminary, spoke of the Christian principles he glimpsed in the show, suggesting that the parable of the Good Samaritan formed the basis for the show’s central question, “Who is my neighbor?”

Davison believes what was unique about Rogers was his “ideas of how to treat others from his biblical religious background,” deepened by Rogers’ studies of psychology.

That neighborliness was never just a TV construct. Margaret Eisen Fischer, a Pittsburgh resident, recalled that her son’s preschool was out walking one morning on a Pittsburgh street when Fred Rogers saw the group and told them: “I’m glad to know you’re my neighbors.”

Wilmington LGBT gospel band Micah's Rule has been named one of the "Top Reasons for Pride 2013" by The Advocate magazine for the international publication's June/July issue. The St. Jude Metropolitan Community Church band also has been invited to perform at the opening of the MCC General Conference in early July in Chicago alongside MCC founder Troy Perry. 

To raise money for the band's trip to Chicago, Micah's Rule will perform at 6 p.m. June 23 at St. Jude MCC, 19 N. 26th St.

Details: 910-762-5833.