Vatican: Pope to retain liturgical reforms

Pope Benedict XVI doesn’t want to roll back the modernizing liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council, a Vatican official says.

The pope last year removed restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass, a rite that was all but swept away by the Second Vatican Council. But Monsignor Guido Marini told Vatican radio that Benedict only wants to maintain continuity with Roman Catholic tradition.

“This may also require, in some cases, the recovery of precious and important elements that along the way have been lost or forgotten,” Marini said in a Jan. 19 interview.

On Jan. 13, the pontiff celebrated Mass in the Sistine Chapel using the original main altar, facing away from worshippers during parts of the prayer. Under the modernizing reforms, clergy generally celebrate Mass facing the altar.

Marini said special conditions of the church allowed the stance, which he said was in line with Vatican II, according to Catholic News Service.

Baptist, Jewish congregations gather for joint service

Two very different congregations came together last Sunday in Baltimore for a joint service to honor the birth of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Baltimore Hebrew Congregation held a communal celebration with the members of First Mount Olive Free Will Baptist Church, who have been meeting for Sunday services at the temple because their own church in West Baltimore was ruined by fire in July.

In recent years, local Reform synagogues and African-American churches have held joint activities around the King holiday to foster understanding between African-Americans and Jews.

First Mount Olive’s Bishop Oscar Brown says plans to rebuild are continuing. He hopes architectural drawings will be completed in a few weeks.

Church is latest to split from Pittsburgh Presbytery

Members of the largest church in the Pittsburgh Presbyterian district have voted to leave the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for a more biblically conservative denomination.

Members of the Memorial Park Presbyterian Church in McCandless Township voted 664-25 in favor of the move last weekend. The church has 1,675 members. Leaders said the number of voters reflects typical Sunday attendance. The congregation plans to join the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

Like other mainline Protestant groups, Presbyterians have been debating for decades how they should interpret Scripture on salvation, truth, homosexuality and other issues.

More than two dozen of the nearly 11,000 congregations in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have voted to leave the national church since the denomination’s national assembly in 2006.

Malaysia separates men, women in supermarkets

Malaysia’s only state run by the Islamic opposition party will more strictly enforce separate lines for men and women at supermarkets, an official says.

Authorities in the northern state of Kelantan — governed by the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party — will fine supermarkets and shops if they let men and women use the same lines at checkout counters, said party spokesman Anual Bakri Haron.

Chief Minister Nik Aziz Nik Mat has called for stricter enforcement “to safeguard the ladies” from being harassed and to avoid close proximity between opposite sexes while lining up to buy groceries, Anual said.

Every state in Malaysia besides Kelantan is ruled by the National Front coalition, which is made up of various parties representing Malaysia’s different ethnic groups.

The Islamic opposition party, which has ruled Kelantan for more than 17 years, imposed the separate lineup rule as part of its agenda to promote Islamic values. In recent years, however, people ignored the regulation, and there was little enforcement.