Update on 06-14-2003 at 11:41

big pedophile settlement, OK mayor at Billy gram event, 10 commandment riot,
dropped bible blasphemy.. Pot Church.

State Attorneys General Ask Supreme Court To Reverse Pledge Case
Oklahoma City
Attorneys general from all 50 states want the Supreme Court to ratify the Pledge of Allegiance.
They're asking the high court to reverse an appellate decision that says reciting the Pledge in public schools is unconstitutional because of its reference to God.

Meeting in Oklahoma City with the National Association of Attorneys General, Idaho's top law enforcement official says the states aren't trying to break new legal ground. He says earlier Supreme Court rulings said the Pledge does not endorse a particular religious belief, and the states want those rulings affirmed.

Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson says, if allowed to stand, the ruling could lead to the removal of the words "In God We Trust" from coins and currency and forbid the singing of "God Bless America."

Kentucky Clergy Sex Abuse Settlement
Louisville, Kentucky
One of the largest civil actions against the Roman Catholic church has come to a close with the Archdiocese of Louisville agreeing to pay a total of nearly 26 million dollars to 243 people who accused priests and employees of child sexual abuse.

The plaintiffs' attorney called the settlement one of the largest to come out of an archdiocese's coffers.

For more than a year, the archdiocese has faced a sex-abuse scandal in which dozens of its priests and several other employees were accused.

The archdiocese will also require training for all employees and volunteers on sexual-abuse awareness. "Safe touch" training will be offered to children beginning in kindergarten.

Catholic Church Facing More Costly Settlements
Undated
The Louisville church abuse settlement of 25-point-7 million dollars involved 243 people -- just a fraction the claims against the Roman Catholic Church nationwide.

Mark Chopko, general counsel for the US Conference of Bishops, says in the last year about a thousand people have come forward with new allegations across the country.

More than 500 abuse claims are pending in the Archdiocese of Boston alone. In California, where state lawmakers have abolished the time limit on abuse lawsuits for this year only, hundreds of new claims are expected.

And Patrick Shiltz, dean of the University of St. Thomas School of Law, who's defended the church in dozens of abuse cases says "If the Archdiocese of Boston breaks the bank to pay for whatever cases are pending now, tomorrow another lawyer could file another 50 cases."

No Prosecution For Ohio Ten Commandments Protesters
West Union, Ohio
A southwest Ohio school district has dropped trespassing citations against 21 protesters who interfered with workers removing Ten Commandments tablets from school grounds.

A federal magistrate had decided the 800-pound tablets violated separation of church and state, and they were removed on Monday.

The monuments are in temporary storage while residents consider other ways to promote the commandments and a federal court hears their appeal.

Residents have offered to hang a banner with the Ten Commandments on property next to one of the schools.

And a business has offered to display one of the granite tablets in a front window, and another has offered a billboard for the cause.

South Carolina Bishop Against Election Of Openly Gay Bishop
Columbia, South Carolina
A South Carolina Episcopalian official says the election of the church's first openly gay bishop "short-circuits" the church's centuries-long struggle with same-sex relationships.

The Right Reverend Dorsey Henderson, bishop of the Diocese of Upper South Carolina, says the election of the Reverend Canon Gene Robinson of New Hampshire comes at a time when the Episcopal Church is still struggling to come to an agreement on the issues of same-sex relationships and gay clergy.

Before he can be consecrated as a bishop, the election must be approved at the denomination's General Convention in Minneapolis next month, where there is expected to be heated debate.

Pakistani Cleric Arrested In Blasphemy Case
Multan, Pakistan
Police in Pakistan have arrested an Islamic prayer leader on blasphemy charges after a group of visiting preachers complained that he threw two copies of the Quran, Islam's holy book, into the street along with the rest of their belongings.

The man admitted throwing the luggage into the street, but said he had no idea there were any copies of the Quran inside.

It is forbidden in Islam to destroy or desecrate copies of the Muslim holy book, or throw it in anger.

Blasphemy is punishable by death in Pakistan.

The law has come under criticism by international and Pakistani human rights groups, who say it can easily be abused to settle personal disputes and that the burden of proof is on those accused.

College Offers Church-Based Adult Classes
Camden, New Jersey
Returning to school can be an anxiety-raising experience for adults, but a New Jersey college has come up with a way to reduce the jitters for some.

Camden County College has begun offering classes in the most soothing of places: neighborhood churches.

The college held high school equivalency, adult basic education and English as a second language classes at three Camden churches this year.

The graduation ceremony for the first students to complete the program was held last (Wednesday) night.

The college expects to add more churches this fall.

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Church Leader Lauds "Holy Herb" Objects To Police Raid
Auburn, Washington
The Reverend Lee Phillips believes that his church requires him to share what he calls the "holy herb" marijuana with his congregation for spiritual and physical healing.

The Seattle-area pastor contends police had no right to raid his house, which doubles as a branch of the Religion of Jesus Church, and confiscate marijuana plants and related equipment and take his wife to jail overnight.

Lori Phillips has a doctor's note to use marijuana legally for medicinal purposes but police argue she doesn't have permission to have over 200 plants.

The couple's church is registered with Washington state as a nonprofit organization called The Center for Healing and Spiritual Renewal. Phillips is registered in Hawaii as an ordained cannabis sacrament minister.

06-11-2003 at 06:17:20

fund theft, moslem-xtain in africa, church fire case, Israel charges.

Rabbis Blast Israeli Government
Jerusalem
Rabbis living in settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are denouncing Israel's removal of several settlement outposts as a "crime" and a "wretched and contemptible decision."

This prompted accusations the militant rabbis were rekindling the violent political climate that preceded Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination by an ultranationalist Jew in 1995.

Current Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a hard-liner in his own right, has come under criticism from hawks in recent days for conditionally accepting a US backed peace plan that envisions a Palestinian state and for dismantling ten uninhabited settlement outposts since Monday afternoon.

Two Killed. Mosques Burned In Nigeria Religious Clashes
Lagos, Nigeria
Nigerian police say Christians and Muslims armed with knives, machetes and cans of gasoline killed two people and burned five places of worship during rioting earlier this week.

Police say the fighting began when a Muslim market seller stabbed a Christian woman to death with a dagger following a commercial dispute.

Then mobs of angry Christian youths in the majority-Christian town retaliated by burning five mosques and numerous cars and houses belonging to Muslims. According a police spokesman, "The irate youths simply went berserk"'

One man was confirmed killed and scores injured by the Christian mob.

Mutual suspicions between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria have deepened with the application of strict Islamic law in the past three years.

DUKE DIVINITY TO COORDINATE LILLY-FUNDED PASTORAL EXCELLENCE PROGRAM

(Durham, North Carolina) _- Duke University's Divinity School will coordinate a 57 million dollar effort to support the work of church pastors.

The school's Pulpit and Pew research project has received an additional three-point-one million dollars from the Lilly Endowment to manage the program which has projects in 26 states.

Duke University Divinity School associate dean Janice Virtue says there are a variety of projects.

Some target those new to ministry or specializing in urban ministry.

Another aims to break down the barriers of pastoral isolation.

Church Vs. City Daycare Dispute A Federal Case
Cheyenne, Wyoming
An attorney for a Cheyenne, Wyoming, church says city officials had the wrong idea in refusing to let the church have a daycare center.

Grace United Methodist Church has filed a federal lawsuit in what some say could be a nationwide test of the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The trial's underway in US District Court in Cheyenne.

The suit claims the city violated the act by rejecting a variance in zoning laws that would allow the daycare center.

A trial began Monday in US District Court in Cheyenne.

The church's attorney says Grace United planned to start a small daycare -- not the large, commercial operation that city officials feared.

A homeowners association has sided with the city in the case, saying the daycare would violate neighborhood covenants.

Church Loses Pastor, Half Its Membership In Wreck
Prattville, Alabama
The presiding elder of a Prattville, Alabama, church says the congregation will survive despite a weekend accident that claimed about half of it's active members along with the pastor.

Pleasant Hill A-M-E Church has stood on a quiet Prattville road for seven decades, maintaining in recent years a congregation of about 17 people, eight of them active.

In all, six people died while returning from a missionary meeting. The van they were riding in crossed the median on I-65 and struck a pickup truck head-on.

Investigators aren't sure what caused the wreck.

Church-Based Scam Suspected
Woodward, Oklahoma
A police detective suspects money being collected by members of a central Oklahoma church may not be going to help the state's homeless.

Sergeant Greg Cunningham of the Nicoma Park police department says the Deeper Life Christian Church in Woodward is scamming people, and that the money goes to Tampa, Florida, where church representatives were convicted several years ago for food stamp fraud and fencing stolen property.

The church opened a House of David Help Center in Nicoma Park about two years ago.

Church member Keith Epps says money collected is sent to Deeper Life Christian Church Bishop M-B Jefferson in Tampa. From there, he says the funds are distributed to 37 church facilities across the nation, including Oklahoma.

No one soliciting funds for the church has been identified with any criminal activity, but Cunningham questions the motives of church members.

Verdict Overturned In Church Arson
Spokane, Washington
A church does not ordinarily qualify as a place used in interstate commerce, so burning one is not automatically a federal offense.

That was the ruling this week of a federal appellate panel in the case of a fire that damaged a Spokane, Washington-area church in 1999.

In ruling that church arson is better left to state prosecution, a three-judge appellate panel ordered that the guilty plea of the defendant be vacated and that the criminal indictment against him be dismissed.

He'd already served a two-year sentence and is on supervised release according to his attorney, who said the case should not have risen to the level of a federal charge.

The case involved a congregation of a little-known belief system founded in Indonesia in 1947 involving a combination of several of the world's religions.