U.S. Catholic bishops have issued general guidelines saying clergy and lay ministers who distribute communion wafers "should be encouraged to wash their hands before Mass begins,  or even to use an alcohol based anti-bacterial solution before and after distributing Holy Communion."

"They should instruct people who feel ill not to receive from the cup," containing wine which Catholics believe becomes the blood of Jesus Christ during Mass.

And while the bishops' Committee on divine Worship said it does not see the need for widespread changes in liturgy, some churches have already made then.

In Texas where border communities have been hit by flu cases Bishop Raymundo Pena of the Diocese of Brownsville has asked priests to offer only bread to communicants, give communion in the hand and not on the tongue and ask parishioners not to hold hands during recitation of the Lord's Prayer or to shake hands at the sign of peace during Mass.

"They may bow to their neighbor or place their hands on each other's shoulders," he suggested in a memo.

The archbishop of San Antonio, Jose Gomez, made a similar request of his flock.

The Archdiocee of New York says it has asked pastors to tell those worried about shaking hands during Mass that "there are other ways to offer the sign of peace, including a wave, a nod of the head or some other gesture. Handshakes are not mandated."

The Archdiocese of Chicago  has told pastors who minister to its the 2.3 million Catholics that they may caution church-goers about drinking wine from the cup or shaking hands during mass if they think it is appropriate.

My colleague Ed Stoddard in Dallas reports that the Southern Baptist of Texas Convention, part of the largest U.S. Protestant church, had checked with several congregations in Fort Worth and Houston and none was cancelling Sunday services though they will if local authorities ask them to do so.

But it is a differnt scene in Mexico where the new strain of flu first appeared, as correspondent Michael Scott O'Boyle reports:

"Sunday Masses in Mexico City and the densely populated surrounding valley have been suspended, with a rare simulcast of Mass from the Basicilica de Guadalupe by the two national TV channels. Sparsely attended daily Masses have still been allowed  in the capital, and churches remain open to the public.

"On a national level bishops are asking that priests distribute communion by hand and congregations pass on the peace offering, but Masses are not being unifromly suspended -- only in certain communities where there have been signs of the outbreak, said Fr. Jesus Aguilar from the Mexico City archdiocese.

"A huge national youth conference this weekend, aimed at fanning anti-abortion movements as certain areas of the country move to legalize abortions ... had to be cancelled. Even Mexico's cult of Saint Death is heeding the government calls, cancelling its celebrations that take place on the first of every month before street altars reared to the skeletal saint, the most famous of which is off the Tepito district, the capital's biggest black market den."

(Photo:A man wears a surgical mask as he prays at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City. REUTERS/Jorge Dan, April 28, 2009, MEXICO)

Ben Radford, head of the company that put the game together, said in a news release it is designed for two to five players who act as "gods" and ...

"Try try to take over the world and make everyone on Earth worship him or her. As a god, you can try to convert other gods’ followers, promising them things like Afterlife, Prosperity, and Miracles. Or you can kill them off with plagues, locusts, earthquakes, floods, and other Acts of Gods.

"Watch out, though, because bad things can happen to good gods—one of your vicars is caught with a prostitute? Too bad, you lose a sect!

"Players can pit Christians against Muslims and Hindus against Jews, or be the mascot, a machine-gun-toting Buddha. Players may choose to be any god from Jesus to Moses, from Cthulu to Zeus, from the Cult of Oprah to the Almighty Dollar. (And yes, there is a Muslim figure.) Though the theme includes religious battles, it is really a satire with an underlying message of peace, encouraging people to think about the tragedy of killing others just because they have different beliefs."

It costs about $40, and German, French, Spanish and Portuguese versions are available in preparation for the European launch. Information is available at http://www.PlayingGods.com. Radford says the gods seem to be smiling anyway -- he's selling about 10 games a day.

The outpouring of contributions usually prompted by festive goodwill and end-of-the-year giving geared to next year's income tax calculations is feeling the pinch from the global financial meltdown. The shortfalls are startling.

(Photo: Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Chicago, 10 April, 2008/John Gress)

"The giving patterns we're witnessing suggest that churches, alone, will receive some $3 billion to $5 billion less than expected during this fourth quarter. The average church can expect to see its revenues dip about 4 percent to 6 percent lower than would have been expected without the economic turmoil. We anticipate that other non-profit organizations will be hit even harder."

That grim news comes from George Barna, whose California-based Barna Group looks at trends and patterns among worshippers and church goers. He based it on a survey of 1,203 adults in the United States done in November.

Barna says most churches and non-profit groups operate in the red for most of any calendar year, expecting to gain a third or more of their annual income in the final three months of the year. But his survey found that one in every five households has cut back on giving to churches or other religious centers. Within that group, 22 percent have stopped giving completely.

(Photo: Atlanta Masjid of al-Islam, 25 Feb 2007/Tami Chappell)

The cutbacks come at a time when social needs, ranging from food and clothing to financial support for the needy, have risen dramatically. They also have the potential to pinch the flow of contributions from the United States to poverty-stricken destinations around the globe.

But some faith leaders in the United States believe global poverty and health concerns need not get pushed aside by the financial crisis, as long as the faithful are reminded of their obligations in the context of their beliefs.

"When times are tough, people tend to be more aware. We have within the framework of faith tradition a sense that when you are in need your spiritual reward for giving increases," said Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, director of outreach for the Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center. "Our ancestors gave even though poverty was their lot -- and God increased his blessings upon them."

He and several other faith leaders spoke at a briefing organized by ONE, the global advocacy agency founded by U2 singer Bono that has launched an effort to unite Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu congregations to raise awareness about poverty among themselves and among U.S. political figures as a new leadership takes over in Washington.

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, told the same briefing there was a growing grassroots consciousness about global poverty and a growing momentum for dealing with it. Helping the poor and unfortunate, he said, "is the most common repeated theme of ancient scripture."

The economic slide is a global one. Is the giving picture likely to be as dire outside the United States?

(Photo: B'nai Jeshurun synagogue in New York, 25 Jan 2006/Keith Bedford)

Indeed Islam is well represented in the top five countries where religion is valued in life -- with Tanzania, Jordan, Pakistan and Nigeria following Indonesia.

At the bottom of the chart was France, where only 10 percent saw religion as very important and 60 percent said they never pray.

Indeed the wealthier, more developed nations in the world seem to care less about religion. Does that means circumstances trump faith? Or does it say more about the kind of faith involved? The Pew report drew few conclusions on that front but did say that Muslims consistently rated religion as central to their lives. By one estimate every fourth person on the planet is a Muslim, many living in some of its poorest quarters.

One anomaly in the new report involves the United States -- and it may help explain to puzzled outsiders why faith is often wrapped in the the flag when it comes to politics and elections. In the list of countries rating the importance of religion, America, wealth not withstanding, lands about in the middle -- with 55 percent saying religion is very important. That compares, for example, to 13 percent in Japan, 18 percent in Britain and 22 percent in Germany. In addition, 33 percent of Americans say they pray at least once a day, and only 11 percent say they never do.

That's the way leaders of the U.S. Episcopal Church see it. There will be no grand pronouncements made or resolutions voted on, they say. The traditional Western parliamentary idea that produces winners and losers on debated issues has been scrapped for face-to-face meetings. Some of them have been baptized "Indaba groups," which Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has described as a Zulu term denoting "a meeting for purposeful discussion among equals."

The Rev. Ian Douglas, a professor of World Christianity at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts who helped plan the meeting, recently told reporters at a briefing:

"I appreciate that it's going to be a hard job for the media because there isn't a focal point of up-down decison making, and that (much) of what's really happening ... is going to be happening in very small, very close one-on-one relationships and deep conversation.

"I  don't envy your job. It's going to be difficult to get 'the story' out of Lambeth unless you want to tell the story that as leaders come together to be better equipped in their service to God's mission in the wider world,  not only is the Anglican Communion strengthened but God's purposes are better fulfilled in the wider world. It's a tough story to tell but I think it's a story."

The 1998 Lambeth Conference did produce news -- a resolution known as Lambeth 1:10 that said homosexual practice is incompatible with scripture. That pronouncement became a major part of the splintering now going on in the worldwide church after the American branch in 2003 installed the first the first bishop known to be in an openly gay relationship in more than four centuries of Anglican history -- Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

Robinson was not invited to this summer's meeting at Canterbury though he plans a fringe presence -- after he weds his long-time partner in June.

The news at Lambeth '08 then may be more about who doesn't come. Already 280 conservative bishops from Africa, Latin America and Asia have said they will attend a break-away summit in Jerusalem in June to "prepare for an Anglican future in which the Gospel is uncompromised and Christ-centered mission a top priority." They expect about 1,000 conservative Anglican leaders to attend.

Bishops from Uganda, Kenya and Australia have said they plan to boycott Lambeth, to which more than 800 bishops have been invited. Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, a leader among the traditionalists, has said he may also skip Lambeth.

Douglas, in the briefing mentioned earlier, said the hope is that the bishops who attend the meeting in Jerusalem will also go to Lambeth. There is, he said, "no fear or concern" that the Jerusalem summit is an exclusionary Lambeth alternative.

Much of this reflects Anglicanism's structure where federation trumps hierarchy. The Episcopal News Service noted at one point that there is no complete agreement on when any resolution passed by a Lambeth Conference becomes official church teaching. The Lambeth meetings, which date to the 19th century, do not have specific authority to require compliance with their resolutions, it said.

Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, who joined Douglas at the briefing, also has a long-term view. One of the first Lambeth Conferences well over a century ago, she said, was called "to deal with issues like bishops teaching things that other bishops found uncomfortable, and bishops wandering into other bishops' territories and how do to we transfer clergy from one part of the communion to another.

"And we still haven't sorted that out. The gathering will continue to wrestle with some of the challenges of living together in a compex, diverse and sometimes challenging family. That is God's gift to use and we celebrate it," she said at the briefing (view webcast here).

It also reflects Anglicanism's diversity, with half of its 77 million members now in Africa, Asia and Latin America, many with conservative views on issues that go deeper than just those involving gays. In terms of numbers, the bishops organizing the Jerusalem meeting claim to represent 17 countries and 35 million followers.

The road from Jerusalem to Canterbury will be closely watched.

Now a window has been opened on faith and religion in a country where six decades of Communist philosophy and rule might seem to have pushed those subjects into obscurity.

In a recent report the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has analyzed available surveys, some a few years old, and concluded that 31 percent of the Chinese population considers religion to be very or somewhat important in their lives, with only 11 percent rating it as meaningless. Even the exact starting time of the Summer Olympics is rooted in Confucianism and Chinese folk religions,  the report adds, where the numeral 8 is revered for its luck and power. The games will start on the 8th day of the 8th month of '08 at precisely 8 minutes and 8 seonds past 8 o'clock.

This does not mean that religious affiliation is high in China. Only one in five adults has an active connection, the report says, with one of the country's five major religions -- Buddhism (by far the largest single group), Protestantism, Catholicism, Islam and Taoism. That compares to 8 in every 10 adults in the United States who claim a religious affiliation.

But a recent report from East China Normal University in Shanghai appearing in state-approved media said that about 300 million Chinese over 16 -- slghtly less than a third of the population in that age group -- are religious, perhaps indicating the government has given recognition to the depth of religious sentiment.

The question is whether China's modernization brought about by its economic engine will bring religion into society in a bigger way. The report notes that Hu Jintao, general secretary of the country's Communist Party, earlier this year told the Chinese Politburo the leadedrship should try to "closely unite religious figures and believers ... to build an all-around ... prosperous society while quickening the pace toward the modernization of socialism."

Photo credits: Reuters/Bobby Yip/David Gray

While journalists reported that prominent Catholic politicians who support abortion rights stepped up to receive the Eucharist during Masses in Washington and New York (here's our story and blog post), the development was little more than a footnote in the wave of coverage that washed over the visit. It was notable, however, in view of a controversy that began in 2004 when some U.S. bishops said they would deny Communion to John Kerry, then the Democratic presidential nominee, because he supported abortion rights

But during the U.S. papal Masses, not only did Kerry receive Communion but so did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani and Senators Edward Kennedy and Christopher Dodd. The conservative columnist Robert Novak wrote in the Washington Post on Monday that this "reflected disobedience to Benedict by the archbishops of New York and Washington" and did not indicate any softening of the pope's anti-abortion position.

"The effect was to dull messages of faith, obligation and compassion conveyed by Benedict," Novak wrote. "In his Yankee Stadium homily, he talked of 'authority' and 'obedience' -- acknowledging these are not easy words to speak nowadays. They surely are not for four former presidential candidates and two princes of the church, represending Catholics who defy heir faith's doctrine on abortion."

On the day Novak's column appeared, one of those two princes -- New York's Cardinal Edward Egan -- posted a statement on the archdiocese website saying Giuliani had violated an "understanding" he had with him not to receive Communion because of his views on abortion rights and that he -- the cardinal -- deeply regretted it had happened. What Egan did not mention is that Giuliani has also been married three times -- his first marriage was annulled but the second ended in divorce, which should bar him from the sacrament according to church law. Some bloggers have criticised him for this and Beliefnet's David Gibson wondered if he ignored the divorce issue because so many Catholics are getting divorced these days but remain faithful and want to take Communion.

In reply, Giuliani's spokeswoman said he is willing to meet with Egan but that his faith "is a deeply personal matter and should remain confidential."

None of the public figures involved received Communion directly from the pope, but from other clergy as the Masses. But before becoming Pope, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was reported as saying he backed denying communion to Kerry. His statement was more nuanced than that, but it has been presented in the U.S. (mostly by conservative bishops) as a refusal.

The issue of public figures and the sacrament has not surfaced in this year's presidential nomination derby, probably because none of the remaining candidates is Catholic. But it simmers still in some places, notably St. Louis, where Archbishop Raymond Burke has raised it in various ways. When he headed a Wisconsin diocese before taking the St. Louis post, Burke said Communion should be denied some state lawmakers there who supported abortion rights. More recently he suggested Communion might be denied to basketball coach Rick Majerus at St. Louis University -- a Catholic institution -- who attended a rally for Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and said he was "personally" pro-choice.

Should Giuliani not have come forward for Communion? Or are he and the cardinal making a political football out of this? And why do you think Egan avoided the divorce issue?

"Because of the bishop's lack of cooperation, consultation, accountability and transparency, it is the judgment of a great number of the presbyterate that he has lost his moral authority to lead and govern our diocese," 46 priests -- representing about 60 percent of those regularly assigned to parish work in the diocese -- said in a statement issued on March 12. He should resign, they added, "for his own good, for the good of the diocese and for the good of the presbyterate."

The priests said the problems they've had with their bishop were only exacerbated by a revelation earlier this year that he had used restricted funds to buy conference room furniture, vestments and other items for use in the diocesan cathedral.

Braxton issued a public apology for that in January, saying it was a misunderstanding and that he had replenished the funds from private donations. At the time he said there had been "confusion, mistrust misunderstanding, loss of confidence and even anger" and he promised a serious effort going forward on issues involving the stewardship of diocesan resources.

The priests are not the bishop's only critics. In February, 2008, the U.S. regional superior of a women's religious order called the Adorers of the Blood of Christ told the U.S. papal nuncio, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, that there was "grave distress among people in the diocese."

Sister Jan Renz -- whose order has a center in the diocese -- said in her letter: "The climate of secrecy that surrounds committee meetings and actions within the diocese must end. Outside skilled facilitation appears absolutely necessary if there is to be a movement toward healing," according to a report published in the Belleville News-Democrat newspaper.

"This is highly, highly unusual," remarked Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit who once edited that order's magazine America and is now a senior fellow at the Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center. He told Reuters that in general there has been a feeling that bishops appointed before the papacy of the late John Paul II were closer to their priests than those who came later. He also said he does not buy the idea that the newer bishops act more like chief financial officers than pastors of a flock. They have to be both, he said, or face the financial ruin of what's been entrusted to them.

Another priest and long-time observer of U.S. Catholicism, who asked not to be quoted by name, said that while tensions between priests and bishops have increased in recent years, the Belleville situation mostly involves the personality of the bishop involved.

Braxton, whose diocese covers 128 parishes in southern Illinois, has not publicly responded to the call for his resignation.

A judge in Virginia is expected to issue a ruling shortly in a case he has been hearing since November involving 11 traditionalist congregations in that state that have left the Episcopal Church over orthodoxy issues, including the American-based church's acceptance of an openly gay bishop.
 
Among the 11 are the Falls Church and Truro Church congregations, which have affiliated with the Anglican Church of Nigeria, led by Archbishop Peter Akinola. The congregations want to keep their property they said is worth at least $25 million combined. In colonial times, Washington and his father both served on the vestry at Truro.
 
The 2.4-million-member Episcopal Church claims that all church property belongs to it, and that when a congregation switches allegiance, the property is merely "abandoned." The Virginia dispute is neither the first nor will it be the last, and the issue of who owns what has never been definitively settled in court.
 
The issue now before the judge is whether the Virginia churches are entitled to keep their property under a law written in the divisive era of the U.S. Civil War. The statute says any "church or religious society" that "divides" remains under the control of the majority, as does any property entrusted to it.
 
The law was adopted in response to numerous church splits during the 19th century before, during and after the Civil War, according to information supplied by the dissident Virginia group.
 
Both Methodists and Presbyterians successfully invoked the statute immediately after its adoption in 1867, the group said, adding that "Virginia has a long history of deferring to local control of church property, and the ... statute says that the majority of the church is entitled to its property when a group of congregations divide from their former denomination and form a new one."
 
According to Bishop Martyn Minns, a leader of the orthodox dissidents, the judge in Fairfax County, Virginia, Circuit Court has indicated he will rule either that the law can apply to the 11 churches in this case, or it may not because it would raise issues involving the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of church-state separation since the national church is involved.
 
Under any scenario, Minns told his followers recently, "this will be only one of a number of issues on which (the judge) will ultimately rule." With appeals, the case will go one for some time.
 
The church could face an even bigger dispute in California where the entire diocese of San Joachim recently voted to bolt. Such cases will take years to resolve. 

-Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Archbishop Akinoa installs Rev. Martyn Minns)

Bringing back painful memories is deliberate. The Episcopal News Service noted in announcing the exhibit that the church's General Convention of 1991 urged Episcopalians to conduct "a wide-ranging examination of persistent institutional racism and patterns of forgetting that had overtaken the legacy of the post civil rights period in church and society."

"The Episcopal Church treated African Americans as a problem: Culturally and socially separated and inferior but by baptism, full and equal members of the community. The Church tried to mend this breach by ministering to black Americans separately, consecrating bishops for 'colored work,' funding black colleges, establishing black congregations and operating a special office for 'Negro work.' In short, the Episcopal church fully embraced the American 'separate but equal' construct of race relations..," the exhibit states.

But if some churches were also a silent partner in perpetuating racism, they also became the fulcrum for change, igniting fires for freedom in the black churches in the South during the 1960s. The new exhibit tells that story as well.