MORRISTOWN, N.J. (RNS) After more than an hour of dramatic testimony from those who knew and loved a longtime Catholic priest, a judge on Friday ordered that troubled church janitor Jose Feliciano, 66, spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole in the priest’s murder.

Judith Ann Conk, who knew the Rev. Edward Hinds for 40 years, found no solace in the life sentence.

“Who will share our sorrows, triumphs and tragedies?” Conk said, addressing the court. “This terrible loss will not go away.”

Feliciano worked at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Chatham, N.J., for 20 years. He admitted to stabbing the priest 44 times inside the St. Patrick rectory Oct. 22, 2009, shortly after the priest fired him.

Prosecutors said the 61-year-old pastor had discovered Feliciano had an arrest warrant in Philadelphia from the 1980s for sexually touching a child and had used aliases and fake identification over the years to hide his past.

Feliciano claimed the killing was provoked, alleging that Hinds had been blackmailing him for four years by forcing him to perform sex acts in exchange for keeping the criminal charges quiet.

In December, after just five hours of deliberation, a jury rejected that defense, convicting Feliciano of murder, felony murder, robbery, hindering and weapons charges.

Superior Court Judge Thomas Manahan told Feliciano he was required to impose life without parole because of the jury’s verdict, but that it gave him no pause.

“It has nothing to do with the fact Father Hinds was a Catholic priest,” the judge said. “This crime was heinous. His conduct deceitful. The court would most certainly have sentenced him the same.”

(Alexi Friedman writes for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.)

SPOKANE, Wash. (RNS) After nearly 700 people tried to push Gonzaga University to rescind its commencement speaker’s invitation to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, supporters of the anti-apartheid hero responded with 11,000 signatures of their own.

Opponents claim the Jesuit school had lost sight of its Catholic values by inviting the former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, to speak at next month’s commencement and receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

Now a second petition is circulating, this one protesting the anti-Tutu petition.

Desmond Tutu at One Young World.

“For some time now the religious right, and Catholic right in particular, has been succeeding in creating these ridiculous controversies around who speaks on Catholic college campuses,” said Michael Sherrard, director of Faithful America, an online community sponsored by Faith in Public Life.

The original petition, spearheaded by Spokane attorney Patrick Kirby, called Tutu an inappropriate choice because he supports abortion rights, has made offensive statements toward Jews, and supports contraception and the ordination of gay clergy.

In response, Faithful America launched its own petition urging Gonzaga administrators not to back down. Within 48 hours, the petition gained 11,000 signatures.

Gonzaga President Thayne McCulloh said the university would continue with commencement as planned.

“We are very much looking forward to having him,” he said. “I really believe that this is very consistent with what both the church and Jesuits want for its institutions; and of course in any community people will have different points of view around that. But we believe what’s most important here is celebrating the achievements of our graduates and faculty.”

McCulloh said the archbishop is an example to all Christians, particularly for his work fighting apartheid. “We’re not just simply choosing somebody who people know,” McCulloh said.

(Tracy Simmons is the editor of SpokaneFAVS.com)

(RNS) Belief in God is slowly declining in most countries around the world, according to a new poll, but the truest of the true believers can still be found in developing countries and Catholic societies.

The “Beliefs about God Across Time and Countries” report, released Wednesday  by researchers at the University of Chicago, found the Philippines to be the country with the highest belief, where 94 percent of Filipinos said they were strong believers who had always believed.

At the opposite end, at just 13 percent, was the former East Germany.

“The Philippines is both developing and Catholic,” said Tom W. Smith, who directs the General Social Survey of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. “Religion, which is mainly Catholic, is very emotionally strong there.”

The report covered data from 30 countries that participated in at least two surveys in 1991, 1998 or 2008.

In 29 of the 30 countries surveyed in 2008, belief increased with age: Belief in God was highest for those ages 68 or older (43 percent), compared to 23 percent of those younger than 28.

While overall belief in God has decreased in most parts of the world, three countries — Israel, Russia and Slovenia — saw increases. The report said religious belief had “slowly eroded” since the 1950s in most countries of the world.

Atheism and unbelief was most prominent in northwest Europe and some former Soviet states, with the exception of majority-Catholic Poland (just 3.3 percent).

The United States (60.6 percent) was ranked in the top five countries for people who said they knew God existed and had no doubts. Besides the Philippines, the other countries were Chile (79.4 percent), Israel (65.5 percent) and Poland (62 percent).

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI turned 85 today amid renewed speculation about his declining health and possible resignation.

The German-born pope has appeared tired and fatigued in recent months and admitted at a morning Mass to being in “the final leg of the path of my life.” But on Sunday, he signaled his resolve to carry on with his duties as leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, asking the faithful to pray that he have the “strength” to “fulfill his mission.”

Pope Benedict XVI leaves Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Dec. 24.
RNS photo by Paul Haring/Catholic News Service

This week will mark a double milestone for Benedict, with Thursday being the seventh anniversary of his election as pope.

Last October, Benedict started using a movable platform to carry him down the central aisle in St. Peter’s Basilica, and he leaned on a cane before boarding the plane for a recent weeklong trip to Cuba and Mexico. He his now the sixth-oldest pope since at least the 1400s; the oldest, Pope Leo XIII, died in 1903 at age 93.

Talk of possible resignation has been swirling around the pope ever since his 2010 book, “Light of the World,” in which he said that if a pope felt “no longer physically, psychologically, and spiritually capable of carrying out the duties of his office,” he would have “the right, and in some circumstances the obligation, to resign.”

Last month, prominent Italian journalists who are considered Benedict loyalists openly suggested that the pope might resign in the near future, adding new fuel to the rumor mill.

Still, despite sounding hoarse during the intense liturgical schedule of Holy Week, the pope has not canceled any appointments.

Celebrating Mass with a delegation from his native Bavaria on Monday, an emotional Benedict said he was sure God would help him “proceed safely” despite having entered “the final leg of the path of my life.”

“I don’t know what the future holds for me but I know that … God’s good is stronger than all the evil in this world,” he confided.

He later attended a small Bavarian-style festival in the Vatican. Benedict joined bishops and leaders from his native region in singing the Bavarian national hymn and watched as children performed a traditional dance. Benedict was joined by his older brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, who flew in last weekend from Germany.

Benedict’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II, died in 2005 at age 84 after years of failing health. After his death, it was revealed John Paul considered resigning twice, on his 75th and 80th birthdays, but decided to continue serving “as long as (Jesus), in the mysterious designs of his providence, will want.”

HARRISBURG, Pa. (RNS)  Nothing is sacred about your religion when it comes to getting a state identification card without a photo.

An Amish man at a farm in Nickel Mines, Pa. Religion News Service photo by Christine Baker/The Patriot-News

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation offers ID cards for those with religious objections to being photographed, including the Amish and certain Mennonite groups.

But in order to get a nonphoto ID for religious reasons, applicants must answer a series of 18 questions that delve deeply into their faiths and other personal information.

Now that Pennsylvania has passed one of the nation’s toughest voter ID laws to prevent voter fraud, the scope of the questions is drawing criticism.

The first item on PennDOT’s form asks applicants to “describe your religion.” It is followed by more questions that devout followers might struggle to answer, and some that inquire about the lives of family members:

How many members are there of your religion?

How many congregations?

What’s the process by which you came to the religion?

What religious practices do you observe?

Do other family members hold the same religious beliefs?

Submitting that form, once notarized, is not enough. Applicants must fill out another form. And if they lack proof of identification, yet another form must be completed before a nonphoto ID is issued.

Going through this process is essential if those who hold religious objections to being photographed want to vote; anyone who wants to vote must show identification in the November election.

Two Republican state senators, both of whom supported the voter ID law, have expressed concerns about what it takes to get a nonphoto ID. State Sen. Mike Folmer said the questions seem intrusive, and he wonders why all that information is needed.

“They are going to be keeping them from the polls, keeping American citizens from the polls,” Folmer said. “That’s what I’m concerned about.”

“That form is an overreach in my opinion,” added state Sen. Mike Brubaker. “I don’t want persons for religious reasons not to have a photo taken, to go through a process that is any more cumbersome than absolutely necessary to get the proper identification to be able to vote.”

Mary Catherine Roper, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said some of the questions on the affidavit are relevant to determine if the applicant’s beliefs are sincere. But, “I have no idea what the purpose would be of some of the other questions they have here.”

PennDOT indicates it has issued nearly 4,000 nonphoto IDs that are currently valid to people with religious objections. Pennsylvania is home to 61,000 Amish.

PennDOT spokeswoman Jan McKnight said the questions on the affidavit were created by the agency’s lawyers based on federal and state case law.

“It can’t be too simple because we are talking about a legal ID,” McKnight said. “We are not here to stand in the way of them getting their ID, but we’re just recognizing the fact that this is of such importance to them that they don’t want to have their picture taken.”

The answers are reviewed by PennDOT personnel and not shared with any other agency, a requirement of the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, she said.

Not answering all the questions on the affidavit form is reason for denying the issuance of a nonphoto ID, PennDOT spokesman Craig Yetter said. And there have been denials.

In the past, the Amish have submitted a letter from their bishop affirming their membership instead of completing the affidavit to get the ID card. Those Amish seeking simply to renew a photo ID card once every four years can still rely on a letter from their bishop.

Going forward, new Amish applicants must fill out the PennDOT forms and questions to get an ID. Looking over the questions asked on the affidavit, McKnight agreed that some might seem a bit personal.

“It’s hard not to get personal when you are talking about matters of religion,” McKnight said.

Donald Kraybill, a senior fellow at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College, said the Amish objection to being photographed is grounded in their beliefs.

The Amish view it as following the Second Commandment “of not making graven images (idolatry) … focusing on the individual, calling attention to individual, rather than community.”

Asking Amish people to fill out an 18-question survey reflecting their religious views will be problematic for them, Kraybill said.

“‘Describe your religion’ would be difficult for many people, let alone ones with an eighth-grade education,” he said.

G. Terry Madonna, a political scientist at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, said a lot of Amish and Mennonites don’t vote. When they do, they tend to vote Republican.

Democrats voiced most of the opposition to the voter ID law, saying it could hurt turnout among minority groups and those in cities who don’t drive. When the GOP-backed voter ID legislation was being debated, Madonna said at the time that it would be filled with unintended consequences.

“That’s what we’re seeing here,” he said.

Some questions and requirements on the application for a nonphoto ID for religious reasons:

• Does it have sacred texts or commandments? If so, please describe or provide them.
• Does it have ceremonies or meetings?
• Describe three significant requirements or prohibitions of your religion.
• Describe the ways in which your religion affects your daily life.

(Jan Murphy writes for The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa.)

WASHINGTON (RNS) Americans feel the “Christian faith” has a positive impact on help for the poor and raising children with good morals, according to a new poll, but it gets a bad rap on its impact on sexuality in society.

In a new study conducted by Grey Matter Research, more than 1,000 American adults were asked if the Christian faith had a positive, negative, or no real impact on 16 different areas of society, such as crime, poverty and the role of women in society.

Strong majorities (72 percent) said Christianity is good for helping the poor and for raising children with good morals. Around half (52 percent) said Christianity helps keep the U.S. as a “strong nation,” and nearly as many (49 percent) said the faith had a positive impact on the role of women in society.

Although Christianity has been criticized for its traditional views on abortion, contraception and gender roles, “Americans aren’t buying into it,” said Ron Sellers, president of the Arizona-based Grey Matter Research.

Sellers said he wasn’t surprised that Americans hold their most negative perception for how Christianity impacts sexuality: 37 percent felt there was a negative impact, compared to only 26 percent who felt it was positive.

In six of the 16 areas, sizable numbers of Americans said Christianity had little or no impact, including the environment, business ethics, civility and substance abuse. Americans were roughly split, at about one-third each, on Christianity’s impact on racism.

“What’s real concerning to me, from the perspective of a religious leader,” Sellers said, “is when people say, `Eh, it hasn’t had a real impact.’”

The total sample of 1,011 adults selected at random from all 50 states had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

(RNS) A coalition of 11 Christian student groups at Vanderbilt University are insisting their leaders should be chosen based on shared faith — the newest front in a growing battle over “religious freedom.”

The campus groups, who call themselves Vanderbilt Solidarity, joined together to oppose the university’s “all-comers” policy, which says student groups must be open to all students, including in leadership, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or religion.

The religious groups say they cannot be led by students who do not share or profess their group’s faith.

Vanderbilt University entrance. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

“Until recently, Vanderbilt explicitly protected the freedom of all student organizations to select members and leaders who shared and supported the group’s purpose, including — for religious groups — its faith,” the Solidarity groups said in a statement on Monday (April 9).

Claiming the policy violates “the central tenets of our faith,” the faith-based groups applied for registered status on campus, but included their own constitutions containing faith-based requirements for leadership positions. If the school does not recognize the constitutions, the groups would be considered unregistered next year.

Solidarity’s decision comes two weeks after another campus group, Vanderbilt Catholic, decided not to register as an official student organization because of the school’s policy.

“All registered student groups at Vanderbilt must be open to all students, and members in good standing must have the opportunity to seek leadership positions,” said Beth Fortune, vice chancellor for public affairs. “This debate is about nondiscrimination, not religious freedom, and we stand behind our policy.”

The group of 11 urged the university to respect their religious freedom as they continue to share their beliefs on campus.

“Even while taking this action, we — the religious students and ministries represented by Solidarity — continue to pray that our much beloved University will change course.”

(RNS) Is it okay to ask God to do harm to another person? The theology of such “imprecatory prayer” may be a matter of debate, but a Dallas judge has ruled it is legal, at least as long as no one is actually threatened or harmed.

District Court Judge Martin Hoffman on Monday (April 2) dismissed a lawsuit brought by Mikey Weinstein against a former Navy chaplain who he said used “curse” prayers like those in Psalm 109 to incite others to harm the Jewish agnostic and founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and his family.

Hoffman said there was no evidence that the prayers by Gordon Klingenschmitt, who had been endorsed for the Navy chaplaincy by the Dallas-based Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches, were connected to threats made against Weinstein and his family or damage done to his property.

According to the lawsuit, Klingenschmitt posted a prayer on his website urging followers to pray for the downfall of MRFF.

Former Navy Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt has used imprecatory prayer against his critics. Religion News Service file photo courtesy of Lt. Gordon James Klingenschmitt.

“I praise God for religious freedom because the judge declared it’s OK to pray imprecatory prayers and quote Psalm 109,” Klingenschmitt said after the ruling, according to The Dallas Morning News. Psalm 109 calls for the death of an opponent and curses on his widow and children, among other things.

Hoffman’s ruling did not actually turn on constitutional questions as much as it did on Weinstein’s claims that the prayers incited the threats and vandalism. 

Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, has had grafitti sprayed on his house, dead animals left on his lawn and shots fired through his window. Critics’ prayers against him, he said, are the least of his worries. Religion News Service file photo.

Weinstein, a former Air Force lawyer who started the foundation to battle what he sees as undue religious influence in the armed forces, said Friday (April 6) that “a very aggressive appeal is highly likely.” He said he has received numerous death threats, had swastikas painted on his house, and that his windows have been shot out and animal carcasses left on his doorstep as a result of his activism.

“We are disappointed in the ruling because we believe the judge made a mistake in not understanding that imprecatory prayers are code words for trolling for assassins for the Weinstein family,” Weinstein said. “I don’t think the judge understood that these are not regular prayers,” he added, comparing imprecatory prayer to a radical Islamic fatwa.

Imprecatory prayers have a long if complicated history in religious traditions. But this type of prayer, and Psalm 109 in particular, has become a hot topic since President Obama’s election as a number of religious conservatives have invoked it against him.

In the most recent case, the Speaker of the House of Representatives in Kansas, Mike O’Neal, sparked an outcry in January when he sent Psalm 109 to Republican colleagues, writing, “At last – I can honestly voice a biblical prayer for our president!”

“Thankfully, the district court recognized that if people are forced to stop offering imprecatory prayers, half the churches, synagogues and mosques in this country will have to be shut down,” said John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, a legal advocacy group that helped defend the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches.

DSB/KRE END GIBSON

Less than 24 hours after pro-life groups, including Operation Rescue and CEC for Life, publicly called for the Alabama Department of Public Health to close the troubled New Women All Women  abortion clinic, the ADPH issued a press release today stating that the clinic has been ordered to surrender its license on or before May 18, 2012.

“This is such great news on this Good Friday and goes to show what men and women of faith can accomplish when they work together toward a common goal. We congratulate CEC for Life, which worked long and hard to bring an end to the abortion abuses at that notoriously dangerous abortion clinic,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation.

“This victory represents a major defeat for the abortion cartel. We know lives of women and their babies will be saved because of this.”

The ADPH stated that the agency “performed a comprehensive investigation of New Woman All Women Health Care in Birmingham in response to a complaint received in January 2012. This investigation revealed significant failures in maintaining compliance with the Rules of the Alabama State Board of Health for the safe and effective provision of care.”

The complaint was filed by a pro-life activist in response to an incident on January 21, 2012, where two women were photographed being hand-carried from NWAW past a broken safety rail to awaiting ambulances parked in a trash-strewn alley.

Recordings of two 911 calls were obtained through open record requests that showed the emergency calls were placed by clinic owner Diane Derzis, who indicated that two women had been overdosed on the drug Vasopressin.

The ADPH inspected the clinic and discovered 76 pages of deficiencies in nine categories, then took action to revoke NWAW’s operating license. Under threat of revocation and fines, the clinic reached an agreement to surrender their license next month.

Standing With Hope president, Peter Rosenberger observing Ghana Health Services’ senior prosthetic technician, James Annang making adjustments to a patient’s new limb. Standing With Hope Field director, Daniel J.M. Kodi standing by and observing, as well.

He’d grown up Methodist but dropped out of church after high school. A bad marriage in his early 20s ended in divorce, leaving Doyle afraid that he’s spend most of his life alone.

His main goal was to save enough money from serving in the Army to go to college and become a corporate lawyer. “I wanted to make as much money as possible,” said Doyle, 39.

But the Iraq War changed all that.

In 2003, Doyle was in Saddam Hussein’s palace in Tikrit when a stone from one of the walls fell on him, crushing his left leg. Doctors had no choice but to amputate it below the knee.

A few months later, Doyle was fitted with his first artificial leg. Along the way he rediscovered his faith and found a new calling as a prosthetist — a medical professional who fits amputees with new limbs.

This summer, he’ll spend a week in Ghana with Nashville-based Standing with Hope, a nonprofit that helps provide high quality limbs for people of the West African nation.

“I just want to help people walk again,” said Doyle.

Seven years ago, when they founded Standing with Hope, Gracie and Peter Rosenberger had the same goal.

The couple met in college at Belmont University in Nashville, where Gracie was an aspiring Christian singer who hoped to someday be a missionary.

A week before Thanksgiving in 1983, Gracie, then 17, fell asleep while driving in rural Tennessee. She endured dozens of surgeries, hoping doctors could repair her shattered legs. The recovery was excruciating.

Doctors weren’t able to save her legs and both were amputated. That left her with a fearful and uncertain future, until Gracie got her first prosthetic legs. She was able to recover enough to walk and play basketball in the driveway with her two boys, and to realize her dream of becoming a singer.  A highlight of her career was singing for President George W. Bush in 2004 at an event in Nashville.

She’s also visited wounded soldiers at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Without those new legs, she said, none of that would have been possible.

“They gave me my life back,” she said. “I had no idea what I was capable of. I want to offer people the same hope that’s been offered to me.”

The Rosenbergers founded Standing with Hope in 2003 and starting working in Ghana two years later.

The nonprofit ships the parts and supplies needed to build legs to the National Prosthetics and Orthotics Center run by Ghana’s National Health Service in the capital city of Accra. Most of the parts are recycled from old prosthetic limbs that have been donated to Standing with Hope.

Technicians trained by Standing with Hope then use those recycled parts to assemble and fit the new limbs on amputees.

Jim McElhiney, a Spring Hill, Tenn.-based prosthetist who’s a longtime friend of the Rosenberger’s, helped design the training program. Initially, he was skeptical, saying the program wouldn’t work if it relied too heavily on Americans to build and fit artificial limbs.

“I didn’t want to do it at first,” he said. “Look, if I go over there for weeks once a year — how many legs can I make? The need is so much bigger than I –  even if I had a team of 50 prosthetists — could handle.”

With the help of Standing with Hope, technicians at the clinic in Accra can now build custom limbs to fit amputees as well as provide follow-up care.

“We put hundreds and hundreds of legs on people but each person needs adjustment over the years. If the patient is young, they might need new legs as they grow. It is a lifelong commitment to each patient.”

Last fall, Standing with Hope started a new program they hope will expand the number of prosthetics they can provide in Ghana. Inmates at a Nashville prison now disassemble donated limbs and sort the parts for shipping to Africa.

The charity’s biggest need is for more donated limbs, said Rosenberger. At the clinic, each patient also gets a bag with cleaning supplies and tools needed to care for their new limb. The bag also includes an explanation of the charity’s Christian mission.

Peter Rosenberger, who will be making his 10th trip to Ghana this summer, said that he and other volunteers don’t push their faith. But if the patients are interested, he shared with them how faith in Jesus motivates the charity’s work.

He recalls telling one patient about how Christianity gave his wife, Gracie, hope after she lost her legs. “I told him, ‘You are literally standing on her belief,’” he said. “She trusted on that belief and every step you take you are standing on that faith.”‘

Doyle said  he rediscovered his faith while in the Army, and it was strengthened while he recovered from his injury in Iraq. He now attends a Southern Baptist congregation in Texas. Doyle also remarried and now is the father of four, with three young children from his second marriage and an older daughter from his first.

He graduated from University of Texas Southwestern with a degree in prosthetics and orthotics and is currently working for a prosthetist in Texas. He hopes to finish his final licensing exam in June.

During his training he worked at a Veterans Administration facility in Texas, helping other veterans who are amputees.

“It is wonderful to see a guy walking again for the first time after he was amputated, and you helped them to do that,” he said.

And his new life is better than his old dream of being a wealthy lawyer.

“I look at my injury as a blessing,” he said, “rather than a curse.”