(RNS) Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput announced Friday (May 4) that five priests accused of sexually abusing children last year would be barred from ministry and could be defrocked, while three others were cleared by a church-led investigation and could return to pastoral work.

The eight were among more than two dozen priests who were suspended from ministry as a result of accusations made in a scathing February 2011 grand jury report on the sexual abuse of minors by clergy in the archdiocese.

Lord himself, is a miracle worker.”

One of the 27 suspended priests is Monsignor William J. Lynn, who was not accused of direct abuse but of covering up for clergy molesters while overseeing personnel matters for the archdiocese from 1992 to 2004. Lynn is currently on trial in Philadelphia on charges of child endangerment, the only church official ever to go before a jury for allowing abusers to prey on minors.

The district attorney is still reviewing six of the cases for possible criminal referral. But the statute of limitations on most of the accusations has expired, leaving law enforcement with little power to sanction any alleged abusers.

The archdiocese set up a blue-ribbon investigative panel to determine which of the priests was guilty of a credible accusation. Punishments would be levied under the church’s canon law and could range from defrocking, or “laicization,” to an order to live a life of prayer and penance under supervision and away from children. The five priests named Friday by Chaput can also appeal their removal to the Vatican.

One of the 27 accused priests died before a determination of his guilt could be made; the fate of the remaining accused priests is still awaiting a decision by an archdiocesan review board. Chaput said that decision would come in a “matter of weeks.”

“I’ve been in Philadelphia for less than a year, and I’ve tried as quickly as possible to understand all of the many issues facing our local church,” said Chaput, who was transferred from Denver to succeed Cardinal Justin Rigali, who was tainted by the grand jury findings that church officials ignored “credible” allegations of sexual misconduct by priests.

“During that time, dealing with sexual abuse and protecting children has been – and will remain – a top priority for me and for this archdiocese,” Chaput said. “Our actions, including these outcomes and the steps we have taken to improve our policies and procedures, show that we have learned from the past. No lesson from the sexual abuse scandal is more important than the understanding that the people who suffer most are the victims.”

Victims advocates were unconvinced. Barbara Blaine, head of SNAP, the leading advocacy group for victims of clergy sexual abuse, said she was “shocked” that only eight cases had been resolved after more than a year.

“Parishioners and the public should continue to be highly skeptical of these secretive internal church processes and redouble their efforts to get victims and witness to contact police and prosecutors,” she said.

Terence McKiernan, head of BishopAccountability.org, a lay-led church reform group, said Chaput “missed a crucial opportunity” because he “could have made Philadelphia the bellwether for nationwide reform of a system that has never delivered on its promise. He has not done so.”

KAREN STATE, Burma, May 4 (CDN) — Amid global euphoria over reforms in Burman-majority parts of Burma, life has changed little for more than 3 million Christians and other minorities left to suffer from one of the world’s longest running civil wars.

Headlines around the world hailed the induction on Wednesday (May 2) of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi into parliament as the beginning of a new era in Burma, officially known as Myanmar. But for the 150,000 Internally Displaced People (IDP) living in eastern Karen state’s 4,000 IDP camps, life is still about landmine blasts, gun and mortar attacks, and the possibility of a final war between armed insurgents and the Burma army.

Burmese President Thein Sein, a former military general, has introduced political reforms – the release of hundreds of political prisoners, new laws allowing labor unions and strikes and a gradual easing of media restrictions – and has reportedly ordered troops to stop offensive in ethnic areas, but senior military officials have not heeded his orders.

As part of its reform initiatives, the Burmese government is trying to ink ceasefire agreements with armed ethnic groups, including the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). Karen rebels, however, believe the talks are a government strategy to buy time and prepare for a showdown.

“We have seen similar efforts by the government in 1949, 1963, 1996 and 2004, but each time talks broke down,” said Saw Htee Ler, a rebel leader with the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the KNU, which has been fighting for autonomy for more than five decades.

The government strategy, he added, is to engage the KNU in peace talks so that the military can bring supplies – arms, ammunition and food – into KNU-controlled areas without clashes.

“They have been able to freely bring in supplies in huge quantities without our men attacking them due to the tentative peace agreement reached in January,” Ler said. “They seem to be getting ready for major military operations against us in the near future.”

Aw John Nay Moo, a Karen commando from the KNLA’s “Special Force,” said the KNLA was still recruiting and training people.

“Peace talks do not mean our struggle is over,” he said. “We need to be ready all the time for a possible clash.”

Christian Civilians Targeted
Most of Burma’s Christians are from the ethnic minority groups of Karen, Karenni, Kachin and Chin and are predominantly Baptist. It is estimated that roughly 1.4 million Karens and Karenni, 1.1 million Chins and 900,000 Kachins are Christian.

While it is largely a struggle for self-determination in all ethnic states and all civilians suffer in the crossfire, the Burman-Buddhist dominated Burmese troops are often accused of being harsher on Christian civilians than on their Buddhist counterparts.

Ler, who was guarding a base on a hill about 30 minutes from an IDP camp, said military personnel target civilians because they are seen as the strength of the KNU.

“And Christians are targeted simply because their [government troops’] religion is Buddhist,” he said.

Ler said he had seen pictures of burned churches and received reports of such incidents.

Moo, the KNLA commando, agreed that Christian civilians were attacked more than Buddhist civilians. He cited a 2007 incident in Pekey Der village in Papu District under the KNLA Brigade 5 area, where troops burned down a church and “defecated on the Bible.” Moo said he learned of the incident from the church pastor.

Ler and Moo, who said they are Christians, said that they joined the KNLA to protect their land and people.

Saw Tu Tu, head of the Karen Refugee Committee, said that while all civilians face attacks, troops will not kill a Buddhist monk. “Military personnel usually take shelter in Buddhist temples,” he added.

Some churches, however, are attacked out of misunderstanding, he said.

“KNLA soldiers run to hilltops – that’s where churches are normally built – to take a strategic position when military personnel launch attacks on them,” Tu said. “And troops think the bullets are being fired from the church, and they retaliate.”

Naw K’nyaw Paw, an executive member of the Karen Women Organization who just returned from a trip to several Karen villages, said many Christians install Buddhist statues and keep Buddhist pictures in their homes to prevent attacks.

“A Christian-majority village under the KNU Brigade 1 area has turned into a Buddhist village, and the church there has been converted into a Buddhist temple, just so that government troops will not attack them,” Paw said.

In “White” and “Brown Zones,” where the government has full or partial control respectively, the medium of instruction is Burmese and not the Karen language, she added.

“They don’t even teach Karen history,” Paw said. “The government is clearly seeking cultural uniformity. We fear that we will be assimilated into the Burman culture if we give up our struggle.”

Women suffer more, she said, noting that government soldiers force local people, including women, to work as their porters, and women are often harassed sexually.

Some cases of extortion by KNLA soldiers have also come to light, but most Karen people believe these are isolated cases and maintain that KNU’s policies strictly prohibit unethical practices.

The religious dimension of the conflict can also be seen in the origin of the KNU. On Christmas Eve of 1948, Burmese forces launched a mortar-and-gun attack on a church in Mergui in southern Tenasserim Division, author Ashley South writes in his book, “Ethnic Politics in Burma: States of Conflict.” Over 80 Karens were killed and several injured. This was followed by deployment of Burmese troops in Karen state in January 1949. The KNU was then formed, followed by the KNLA.

In 1961, then-Prime Minister U Nu’s government passed the State Religion Bill in a joint session of parliament, making Buddhism the state religion. This deepened the conviction of the ethnic minorities that the Union government was being used as a tool for Burmanization and “occupation” of their areas. This followed the formation of the KIO, comprising mainly Christians, and its armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Kachin state, bordering China.

In predominantly Christian Kachin state, government troops have attacked KIA soldiers and civilians since a 17-year ceasefire broke down in June last year. The fighting has displaced over 75,000 people since then, according to the Kachin Development Networking Group.

Most recently, Burmese troops fired mortar shells between Bhamo area and the city of Laiza on April 26 despite ongoing peace talks. The shelling killed two children and injured two civilian adults in Kone Law village, Kachin News Group reported. The same day, heavy fighting was reported near the northern town of Laiza, KIO’s main base, as rebels sought to block attempts by the Burma army to deliver reinforcements and supplies to a strategic army position.

Around 3,000 government forces have moved into locations around Laiza, according to Agence France-Presse.

“They are preparing to attack the KIA base in Laiza … they have reinforced a lot of troops and sent a lot of artillery but have not attacked yet,” an anonymous official was quoted as saying.

Some, however, are still hopeful of a peaceful resolution in ethnic states.

Nyo Ohn Myint, a senior member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, who is helping the government to establish peace with ethnic armed groups, said there was a deep-rooted mistrust between the two sides that was hindering peace talks. He hoped for a change in the relationship between the two sides by around 2020.
Little or No Change
Amid conflicting media reports on how reforms have impacted ethnic minority states along Burma’s borders, where most Christians live, Compass met the displaced civilians and rebels from the KNLA at an IDP camp on a hill surrounded by landmines. The 3,000 people in this camp live in a forest area that the Burma army has unofficially designated as a “Black Zone,” an area entirely under the control of rebels.

Government troops stationed not too far from the hill can shoot-on-sight not only at Karen rebels but also civilians.

“I have no idea about the reforms being introduced in ‘Burma Proper,’ said 59-year-old Pohla Win, a lay leader of a Baptist church in the camp. “I have just heard about it on BBC Burmese radio.”
Win was seated on the floor of his house, made of bamboo and dry leaves, overlooking the Salween River where Karen children were swimming.

“I and my family will be killed on the way if we attempt to go back to our village,” he said.

Win said he fled his village in 1985 after Burmese troops launched an offensive in the area. But he arrived in this camp 18 years later, running from one village to another, walking on terrain where landmines had been laid by both the military and the rebels. Most of the families here had similar stories of how they reached the camp.

There is relative peace in the state after a tentative agreement was reached between the KNU and the government in January.

“Government check-posts are now less strict, and there are fewer clashes between troops and Karen soldiers,” said Paw of the Karen Women Organization. But there is “absolutely no change” in Black Zones, she added.

In February, more than 1,100 new refugees, about 450 of them Christian, arrived at the seven refugee camps in Thailand, “which shows there were clashes between the troops and Karen soldiers after the January’s peace agreement,” said Tu of the Karen Refugee Committee. This is in addition to the existing 74,000 registered and 53,000 unregistered refugees in those camps.

The Karen are among six other non-Burman ethnic groups – including Karenni, Kachin, Chin, Mon and Shan – that do not see their land as part of Burma. During British rule, which ended in 1948, the states where ethnic people lived were collectively known as “Frontier Areas” and were administered separately by the British, as opposed to “Burma Proper,” which was, and is, home to ethnic Burmans, mostly Buddhist.

After independence – while ethnic minority leaders were discussing with their Burman counterparts conditions under which they could join the new Union of Burma – Frontier Areas were presumed to be part of the Union under the leadership of Prime Minister U Nu, a Burman nationalist. Civil wars erupted and continue today.

Burmese President Sein is from the Union Solidarity and Development Party, which won the majority of the seats in parliament in November 2010 elections, which were seen as rigged. A source close to the government said the split between moderates and hardliners in the military was real, and that the hardliners were perhaps trying to send a signal to the president that the military “old guard” is still in power.

The constitution of Burma gives more power to the military than the civilian president and reserves one-fourth of seats for military officials in legislative bodies at all levels.

The possibility of a full-fledged war cannot be ruled out even if it is against the will of President Sein. Ethnic armed groups say they are prepared to take on the military, which could lead to an unprecedented civilian toll.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Under new rules announced recently, the Vatican will more closely oversee the operations of Caritas Internationalis, a global confederation of 162 national Catholic charities. The decision comes after the Vatican last year vetoed the re-election of the organization’s then-secretary general, Lesley-Anne Knight, complaining of a lack of coordination with Vatican officials.

The new rules issued by the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, will require all Caritas Internationalis officials make a formal promise of fidelity to church teachings and leaders.

The organization is now under the supervision of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”, which oversees the Catholic Church’s charitable activities, while the pope is given the right to appoint three of its board members. Bishop Bernard Hebda of Gaylord, Mich., has been chosen as one of the Vatican-appointed board members.

From now on, all Caritas Internationalis statements – particularly “any text with doctrinal or moral content or orientations” – and activities will have to be authorized in advance by the Vatican, except in case of “grave humanitarian emergencies.”

“Cor Unum” will also appoint an ecclesiastical assistant tasked with promoting the “Catholic identity” of Caritas Internationalis, and the Vatican’s Secretariat of State will closely supervise the confederation’s contacts with foreign governments.

The new rules will not directly affect Catholic Relief Services, the official aid agency of the U.S. Catholic bishops. But Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the pontifical council, explained in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s semiofficial newspaper, that bishops could be “inspired” by the new rules to revise the statutes of national Catholic charities.

The Vatican move is part of a more general drive to promote Catholic identity in Catholic aid operations at all levels. Critics have complained that Catholic charities operate often like secular nongovernmental organizations and partner with groups that sometimes don’t share Catholic values, including the church’s opposition to birth control.

In a message addressed to the confederation’s general assembly last May, Pope Benedict XVI warned that without an explicit reference to God, aid work risked “falling prey to harmful ideologies.” He also warned that, as Caritas Internationalis shared the church’s mission, the Holy See was entitled to exercise oversight of its operations.

According to Caritas Internationalis secretary general, Michel Roy, the new rules should be seen as a step to “integrate” the organization’s operations within the Holy See and will reinforce Catholic advocacy on behalf of the poor, “because we will be able to speak in the name of the Church.”

LEM/AMB END SPECIALE

Mitt Romney may or may not become the first Mormon to move into the White House next year, but a new study shows that Mormonism is moving into more parts of the country than any other religious group, making it the fastest-growing faith in more than half of U.S. states.

Michael Patrick and Eduardo Martins, both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, observe Temple Square from an observation deck in Salt Lake City/Photo by Jerilee Bennett

The 2012 Religious Congregations and Membership Study, released Tuesday, shows that the mainline Protestants and Catholics who dominated the 20th century are literally losing ground to the rapid rise of Mormons and, increasingly, Muslims.

The study is conducted once every 10 years and can track Americans’ religious affiliation down to the county level, from the largest (Los Angeles County, where Mormons grew 55 percent while Catholics shrank by 7 percent) to the smallest (Loving County, Texas, which is home to 80 people and one nondenominational evangelical church).

Romney’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reported 2 million new adherents and new congregations in 295 counties where they didn’t exist a decade ago, making them the fastest-growing group in the U.S. Mormons were the fastest-growing group in 26 states, expanding beyond their historic home in Utah to the heart of the Bible Belt and as far away as Maine.

Muslims came in second, with growth of 1 million adherents in 197 new counties, to a total of about 2.6 million. Overall, non-Christian groups grew by 32 percent over the past decade.

“Mosques have multiplied at a growth rate of about 50 percent,” said Dale Jones, a researcher with the Church of the Nazarene who worked on the study as part of the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies.

“They have more religious centers, and simply moving into the suburbs puts you closer to where a lot of your folks are living.” While other studies tally total membership, beliefs or worship attendance, the RCMS study counts the actual number of people who are affiliated with U.S. congregations — or, as Jones put it, the people who are “involved enough to the point where they know to count you.”

The study found that while upwards of 80 percent of Americans claim to be Christians, only about 49 percent are affiliated with a local congregation. And that, Jones said, should concern church leaders. “In some ways, our chickens have come home to roost,” Jones said.

“Churches have talked about needing to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ – what you hear is, ‘I need a relationship, I need to be born again,’ but not, ‘I need to be involved in a congregation.’ Guess what? That’s where we are.”

Overall, the survey identified nearly 350,000 religious congregations in the United States, from Albanian Orthodox to Zoroastrian.

Those churches, temples and mosques are the spiritual home for 150.6 million Americans, and researchers say they were able to capture 90 percent of all U.S. congregations.

Like most surveys, the RCMS study relies mainly on self-reported data from churches and denominations.

Some, including several historically black churches, failed to submit information on new numbers. Researchers were able to reach only one-third of U.S. mosques and had to estimate the rest.

The survey did not track growing numbers of secular or religiously unaffiliated Americans – estimated at about 16 percent of the country, according to other studies – because they do not belong to a local congregation. Jan Shipps, a respected non-Mormon scholar of Mormonism who’s now retired from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, said Mormons’ “astonishing” spread into new counties is likely due to church leaders’ decision to split large wards (congregations) into separate smaller wards on opposite sides of a county line.

“The way they organize themselves makes for more congregations,” she said. “They don’t have big huge congregations like the independent churches.”

The study also tracked the growth of nondenominational and independent evangelical churches, which combined represent the nation’s third-largest Christian group, at about 12.2 million adherents across 35,000 congregations.

Catholics, while losing about 5 percent of adherents in the past years, nonetheless remain the nation’s largest religious group, at about 59 million.

The Southern Baptist Convention came in second, at 19.8 million, but its 50,816 congregations made it the group with the most churches. The rapid growth among American Muslims likely has several explanations, researchers said: growth in the suburbs, an increased willingness by U.S. Muslims to stand and be counted, and more mosques being built to serve more worshippers.

Imam Muhammad Musri, president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, saw growth explode by a whopping 473 percent in and around Orlando’s Orange County, according to the RCMS study, and he thinks the growth is actually double the 10,000 new Muslims reported by the study.

He said Muslim growth has been fueled by a wave of post-9/11 converts, American-born children of immigrants having kids of their own, and jobs in the booming medical industry.

In central Florida, he said, Muslims are just following everyone else in search of “better weather, cheaper prices, cheaper homes.” “I doubt in the next decade we will grow as much,” he said

. “It’s like a new product when it’s first introduced, there’s lots of interest. But now we’re more of a known quantity and we’re not going to be opening as many new mosques as we were in the last decade.”

Find out how your county’s religious makeup has changed in the past 10 years here.

Map of Predominant Religious Groups Courtesy of 2012 US Religion Census

Map of Evangelicals (Blue) vs Mainline Protestants (Yellow) Courtesy of 2012 US Religion Census

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Under new rules announced on Wednesday, the Vatican will more closely oversee the operations of Caritas Internationalis, a global confederation of 162 national Catholic charities. The decision comes after the Vatican last year vetoed the re-election of the organization’s then-secretary general, Lesley-Anne Knight, complaining of a lack of coordination with Vatican officials.

The new rules issued by the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, will require all Caritas Internationalis officials make a formal promise of fidelity to church teachings and leaders.

The organization is now under the supervision of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”, which oversees the Catholic Church’s charitable activities, while the pope is given the right to appoint three of its board members. Bishop Bernard Hebda of Gaylord, Mich., has been chosen as one of the Vatican-appointed board members.

From now on, all Caritas Internationalis statements – particularly “any text with doctrinal or moral content or orientations” – and activities will have to be authorized in advance by the Vatican, except in case of “grave humanitarian emergencies.”

“Cor Unum” will also appoint an ecclesiastical assistant tasked with promoting the “Catholic identity” of Caritas Internationalis, and the Vatican’s Secretariat of State will closely supervise the confederation’s contacts with foreign governments.

The new rules will not directly affect Catholic Relief Services, the official aid agency of the U.S. Catholic bishops. But Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the pontifical council, explained in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s semiofficial newspaper, that bishops could be “inspired” by the new rules to revise the statutes of national Catholic charities.

The Vatican move is part of a more general drive to promote Catholic identity in Catholic aid operations at all levels. Critics have complained that Catholic charities operate often like secular nongovernmental organizations and partner with groups that sometimes don’t share Catholic values, including the church’s opposition to birth control.

In a message addressed to the confederation’s general assembly last May, Pope Benedict XVI warned that without an explicit reference to God, aid work risked “falling prey to harmful ideologies.” He also warned that, as Caritas Internationalis shared the church’s mission, the Holy See was entitled to exercise oversight of its operations.

According to Caritas Internationalis secretary general, Michel Roy, the new rules should be seen as a step to “integrate” the organization’s operations within the Holy See and will reinforce Catholic advocacy on behalf of the poor, “because we will be able to speak in the name of the Church.”

(RNS) The predominantly white United Methodist Church and five historically black denominations — after more than a decade of discussions — have entered a full communion agreement.

With an overwhelming vote Monday (April 30) at the UMC General Conference, the leaders of the denominations agreed to recognize each other’s churches, share sacraments and affirm their clergy and ministries.

Members of the First Grace United Methodist Church choir sing praises on a Sunday morning. The church is a post-Katrina merger of the predominantly white First Methodist Church and mostly black Grace United Methodist Church. Religion News Service photo by Matthew Hinton/The Times-Picayune

The move comes a dozen years after the UMC held a repentance ceremony and apologized to African-Americans for racist policies that led to the creation of separate African-American churches. Some historic black denominations date to the 1700s, started by founders who no longer wanted to be relegated to the balconies of Methodist congregations.

Christian Methodist Episcopal Church Senior Bishop Thomas Hoyt Jr., a longtime ecumenist, was among the leaders celebrating the agreement this week, United Methodist News Service reported.

“To be in full communion is to be related to one of the great churches of American society and the world,” he said.

United Methodist Bishop Alfred Norris cautioned against considering the new relationship as his larger denomination overwhelming the smaller black church groups.

“In this case,” he said, “the big fish and the little fish will be swimming together.”

The other denominations, which preceded the United Methodist Church in agreeing to full communion, are the African Methodist Episcopal Church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, African Union Methodist Protestant Church, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and Union American Methodist Episcopal Church.

NAIROBI, Kenya, April 30 (CDN) — A grenade explosion yesterday killed a 27-year-old university student at a church in Nairobi and injured 16 people, sources said.

Kelvin Walumba was killed after a man pretending to be a worshipper at God’s House of Miracles International Church in the Ngara area of Nairobi threw three grenades as the service was concluding; only one of the grenades exploded.

A security guard said the assailant, who after running out into the street fired three pistol shots into the air, appeared to be of Somali origin.

Islamic extremists from al Shabaab rebels in Somalia have embarked on a series of attacks in Kenya after the Kenyan military invaded Somali territory last fall in an attempt to quell al Shabaab violence at Kenyan tourist destinations.

Speculation that the attack stemmed from a land dispute appeared to be untrue, as the dispute with the church was resolved in court last year, a church leader told Compass.

Another church security guard said that the assailant who arrived at the service was easily noticed because he sat in an area usually reserved for the church music team.

“As the worship was going on, he looked uncomfortable and always looked down,” said the guard, whose name was withheld for security reasons. “He threw three hand grenades and only one exploded. He took off, and he fired in the air three gunshots.”

Church leaders said four members of the church are in critical condition: Leonida Mbogo, Julia Mumbi, Ezekiel Muthini and Shalom Koronge. Mbogo sustained serious injuries to her leg, which was broken.

Joshua Mulinge, the senior pastor of the 500-member church, which has four pastors, was traveling in Zambia at the time of the blast. The preacher for the day was pastor Josephine Mwangale, who sustained slight injuries.

A Sunday school teacher said one of her students, a boy identified only as Jessy, was receiving hospital treatment for injuries and is in stable condition.

A choir member from the church today told Compass said she had just come back to the site to see the aftermath of the attack.

“Last night I did not sleep,” she said.

Commissioner of Police Eric Kiraithe reportedly said that some worshippers tried to pursue the assailant but he managed to get away. Kalonzo Musyoka, the vice president of Kenya, reportedly condemned the attack, saying worship places must be respected and that such an action was unacceptable. He termed it an act of terrorism.

The director of the Criminal Investigations Department, Ndegwa Muhoro, reportedly said that investigations had begun.

The explosion comes a week after the U.S. Embassy in Kenya issued a possible terror attack warning. It also comes less than a month after similar explosion took place in Mtwapa, claiming one life and injuring more than 30.

(RNS) Evangelicals prefer Narnia, Catholics have a wanderlust for Wonderland, and mainline Protestants are split between hitching a ride to Hogwarts, Narnia or Neverland.

Ben Barnes, center, plays Prince Caspian in "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.'' From left, Georgie Henley, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell and Skandar Keynes play the four Pevensie children, who return to Narnia after 1,300 years. Photo courtesy Murray Close/Disney Enterprises and Walden Media.

Those are the results from a unique poll by the television show “60 Minutes” and Vanity Fair magazine. The survey asked 1,000 Americans what fantasy land they’d most like to visit (Washington, D.C., excluded).

Evangelicals showed a clear preference for Narnia, the fantastical world of talking beasts entered through a enchanted wardrobe in C.S. Lewis’ series “The Chronicles of Narnia.”

Lewis, an Anglican, topped the list for 28 percent of evangelicals. Both his fiction — commonly interpreted as Christian allegories — and also his nonfiction have become touchstones in contemporary evangelicalism.

Just 8 percent of evangelicals said they would like to visit Hogwarts, the school of witchcraft and wizardry from the Harry Potter series.

Alice’s Wonderland was many Catholics’ cup of tea, with 21 percent saying they’d like to take a trip down the rabbit hole. Peter Pan’s Neverland (18 percent), Hogwarts (18 percent) and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth (16 percent) weren’t far behind.

Mainline Protestants were similarly split between Neverland (19 percent), Narnia (18 percent) and Hogwarts (18 percent).

Among those listed as “other” religions, Hogwarts was the clear favorite (31 percent). And Middle Earth led the way for those who professed no religious affiliation (23 percent).

The survey, conducted in late 2010 and recently highlighted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, includes a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.