Financial Peace course to be offered
Financial Peace University, a new class at First United Methodist Church, 2917 Aspen Drive, will take place Wednesdays from April 2 to May 28.
Dinner will start at 5:15 p.m., and the class will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Child care will be provided to people who RSVP. Member kits are $105 per couple.
To reserve a place, call 247-4213.
Married Iowa man will be Catholic priest
DAVENPORT, Iowa – An Iowa man will remain married when he’s ordained this summer as a priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport.
Chris Young, who has been married 29 years, will join the Catholic clergy because of a 1980 dispensation from Pope John Paul II, according to the Quad-City Times. The pastoral provision, applies to former clergy of the Episcopal Church.
The 53-year-old Young will be one of about 100 men in the U.S. who became Catholic priests through such a process.
Young was a lifelong Episcopalian until eight years ago and had served as priest at Christ Episcopal Church in Moline, Ill. – but says he was drawn to “unequivocally belong to the church that our Lord himself had founded.”
Young said he’ll practice celibacy upon becoming a Catholic priest. His wife, Jody Young, said it’s an unusual change, but one she accepts.
Charity reverses decision to hire gays
NEW YORK – A prominent evangelical charity is reversing a policy change to hire Christians in same-sex marriages.
The humanitarian relief agency World Vision said in a letter to supporters Wednesday the nonprofit had made a mistake by changing its policy for the United States. The aid group’s leaders said they were broken-hearted over the pain the decision had caused.
Agency officials had said Monday they would now hire Christians in same-sex marriages to avoid a divisive fight that would hurt their work. But the announcement sparked a social-media firestorm. Critics said they would no longer give money to the agency, while supporters increased their donations.
World Vision is a $1-billion-a-year agency based in Washington state providing disaster relief and supports economic development.
University, legislators to talk intelligent design
MUNCIE, Ind. – Ball State University’s president is planning to meet with four conservative Indiana legislators who have questioned her decision to prohibit the teaching of intelligent design in a science course.
Ball State President Jo Ann Gora is inviting the lawmakers to the Muncie campus after their letter this month about whether the school had violated the religious and academic freedoms of the professor involved.
The Star Press reports Gora wrote to the legislators she felt it would be more productive to talk in person.
The inquiry is from three Republican state senators and a Republican House member. They say they might seek legislative action over the treatment of the physics professor who faced complaints of teaching creationism.
Pope starts new era with Pentecostals
The video, recorded on an iPhone, lasts less than eight minutes. The message is simple: We’re brothers despite our differences.
Yet, religious leaders say this informal greeting from Pope Francis has reset relations between the Roman Catholic Church and one of its fiercest competitors around the world: Pentecostals.
Recorded by a clergy friend Francis had invited to Rome, the message was directed to the spirit-filled Christians whose popular movements have for decades been draining parishioners from the Catholic Church, especially in Latin America.
Catholics often compared Pentecostal groups to cults and accused them of overly aggressive, unethical proselytizing. But Francis, saying he was speaking from the heart, said in the video made in January he yearned for an end to their separation and invited them to pray with him for unity.
Herald Staff & Associated Press
