Anglicans name first woman bishop in British Isles

By Belinda Goldsmith

LONDON | Fri Sep 20, 2013 2:56pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Anglicans named the first woman bishop in the British Isles on Friday, a move analysts said would increase pressure on some other parts of the world's third-largest Christian grouping that reserve the top job for men.

The Rev Pat Storey said she was "excited and daunted" to be chosen as the new Bishop of Meath and Kildare, part of the Church of Ireland which includes the British province of Northern Ireland.

Anglican leaders and worshippers in Ireland, Scotland and Wales have all voted to allow women to become bishops.

The Church of England is the only part to keep the men-only rule in the Isles - a geographic term including the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.

"It is a big deal and I was so taken aback to be asked," Storey told Reuters. "It is an important move for the Church and I knew it would happen at the right time. It seems now is the right time."

The announcement would add to already intense pressure on the Church of England to follow suit, said Nick Spencer from the Theos religion think tank in London.

"It does indicate the direction of travel," he told Reuters, adding that it would also encourage other senior female clerics in the 80-million strong Anglican Communion - the world's third largest Christian body after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

"It will seem like a significant and long-awaited step for them," Spencer added.

An effort to allow women bishops in England was defeated by conservative members last year. Anglican leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, wants to speed up plans to allow women bishops in England.

Asked about the announcement on Friday, a spokesman for the Church of England said a steering group would be presenting a draft measure "setting out the next step on women to become bishops under legislation" at the church's synod in November.

Its law-making body voted in favor of women bishops in July but it is unlikely final approval will come before November 2015. Opposition from traditionalists remains.

Women already serve as Anglican bishops in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States, but Anglican churches in many developing countries oppose any female clergy and are working together to campaign against such reforms.

Storey, rector of St Augustine's, Londonderry, Northern Ireland since 2004, is married to the Reverend Earl Storey and has two adult children. Her new diocese is in the Republic of Ireland.

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Kentucky woman ordained as priest in defiance of Roman Catholic Church

1 of 6. Rosemarie Smead, a 70-year-old Kentucky woman, sings with the audience during a Celebration of Ordination at St. Andrew's United Church of Christ in Louisville, Kentucky April 27, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/John Sommers II

By Mary Wisniewski

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky | Mon Apr 29, 2013 12:50pm EDT

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (Reuters) - In an emotional ceremony filled with tears and applause, a 70-year-old Kentucky woman was ordained a priest on Saturday as part of a dissident group operating outside of official Roman Catholic Church authority.

Rosemarie Smead is one of about 150 women around the world who have decided not to wait for the Roman Catholic Church to lift its ban on women priests, but to be ordained and start their own congregations.

In an interview before the ceremony, Smead said she is not worried about being excommunicated from the Church - the fate of other women ordained outside of Vatican law.

"It has no sting for me," said Smead, a petite, gray-haired former Carmelite nun with a ready hug for strangers. "It is a Medieval bullying stick the bishops used to keep control over people and to keep the voices of women silent. I am way beyond letting octogenarian men tell us how to live our lives."

The ordination of women as priests, along with the issues of married priests and birth control, represents one of the big divides between U.S. Catholics and the Vatican hierarchy. Seventy percent of U.S. Catholics believe that women should be allowed to be priests, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll earlier this year.

The former pope, Benedict XVI, reaffirmed the Catholic Church's ban on women priests and warned that he would not tolerate disobedience by clerics on fundamental teachings. Male priests have been stripped of their holy orders for participating in ordination ceremonies for women.

In a statement last week, Louisville Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz called the planned ceremony by the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests a "simulated ordination" in opposition to Catholic teaching.

"The simulation of a sacrament carries very serious penal sanctions in Church law, and Catholics should not support or participate in Saturday's event," Kurtz said.

The Catholic Church teaches that it has no authority to allow women to be priests because Jesus Christ chose only men as his apostles. Proponents of a female priesthood said Jesus was acting only according to the customs of his time.

They also note that he chose women, like Mary Magdalene, as disciples, and that the early Church had women priests, deacons and bishops.

The ceremony, held at St. Andrew United Church of Christ in Louisville, was attended by about 200 men and women. Many identified themselves to a Reuters reporter as Catholics, but some declined to give their names or their churches.

'NEW ERA OF INCLUSIVITY'

The modern woman priest movement started in Austria in 2002, when seven women were ordained by the Danube River by an independent Catholic bishop. Other women were later ordained as bishops, who went on to ordain more women priests and deacons.

"As a woman priest, Rosemarie is leading, not leaving the Catholic Church, into a new era of inclusivity," said Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan during her sermon Saturday. "As the Irish writer James Joyce reminded us, the word 'Catholic' means 'Here comes everybody!'"

Smead had to leave the rigorous Carmelite life due to health reasons, and earned a bachelor's degree in theology and a doctorate in counseling psychology. She taught at Indiana University for 26 years, and works as a couples and family therapist.

During the ordination ceremony, Smead wept openly as nearly everyone in the audience came up and laid their hands on her head in blessing. Some whispered, "Thanks for doing this for us."

During the communion service, Smead and other woman priests lifted the plates and cups containing the sacramental bread and wine to bless them.

A woman in the audience murmured, "Girl, lift those plates. I've been waiting a long time for this."

One of those attending the service was Stewart Pawley, 32, of Louisville, who said he was raised Catholic and now only attends on Christmas and Easter. But he said he would attend services with Smead when she starts to offer them in Louisville.

"People like me know it's something the Catholic Church will have to do," said Pawley.

(Editing by Tim Gaynor and Mohammad Zargham)

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Could 'mystery woman' shed light on UK sex scandal?

By Costas Pitas

LONDON | Wed May 1, 2013 9:40am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - She has dark eyes, full lips and short hair in one of the favorite styles of London in the "swinging 60s" but who is she?

And could she help shed light on the infamous Profumo scandal, the heady tale of espionage, sex and politics that held Britain spellbound in the early 1960s and helped bring down the government of the time.

Britain's National Portrait Gallery is appealing for help in identifying a woman who was sketched by one of the scandal's key figures, Stephen Ward, on the back of a picture of the woman at the center of the Profumo affair, showgirl Christine Keeler.

"This drawing is of me by Stephen Ward," wrote Keeler in a 1975 note. "I don't know who the girl on the back is - she is somebody we just picked up at a bus-stop."

The gallery believes the mystery woman may have been present at the first meeting in 1961 between Keeler and John Profumo, the then minister for war.

Against a backdrop of hedonistic parties and naked swimming sessions in the pool of an English stately home, the two embarked on a brief affair that ended in scandal and disgrace.

Not only was Profumo married, it was widely alleged that Keeler had also been the girlfriend of the Soviet naval attache in London, Yevgeny Ivanov.

To have the war minister's name linked to such a figure at the height of the Cold War was political dynamite. Profumo lied about the affair in parliament and was eventually forced to resign in 1963, leaving then Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to cope with the damaging repercussions.

Macmillan also resigned in 1963, citing poor health.

Keeler later said in a book that she and Ward - a society osteopath who effectively acted as a party organizer for the aristocracy - picked up the mystery woman at the bus stop near London airport.

"She seemed so nice that we invited her to the party at Stephen's cottage," she wrote.

That cottage was on the estate of Lord Astor's stately home, Cliveden, where Profumo first cast eyes on the 19-year-old Keeler swimming naked in the pool and where Ivanov was also a party guest.

The portrait gallery's assistant curator Clare Freestone, who found the new drawing while organizing a display marking the 50th anniversary of the scandal, believes the woman's story could be fascinating.

"If this is the girl on the reverse, she would have been witness to the first meeting between Keeler, Profumo and Ivanov," she said in a statement.

Terence Pepper, the gallery's curator of photographs, told Reuters: "There are often cases of someone who never said anything at the time but is prepared to talk later on."

Keeler, now 71, has not commented on reports of the mystery woman.

(Reporting By Costas Pitas, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

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California woman accused of planting poisoned juice at Starbucks

By Laila Kearney

SAN FRANCISCO, April 30 | Tue Apr 30, 2013 6:35pm EDT

SAN FRANCISCO, April 30 (Reuters) - A northern California woman has been arrested on suspicion of spiking orange juice bottles with a deadly dose of rubbing alcohol and stocking the bottles at a Starbucks coffee shop, law enforcement officials said on Tuesday.

Ramineh Behbehanian, 50, was arrested at her San Jose home on Monday night and booked into the Santa Clara County Jail on charges of attempted murder and poisoning, San Jose Police Sergeant Jason Dwyer said.

Behbehanian is accused of carrying two bottles of tainted juice into a Starbucks outlet in San Jose on Monday, pulling them from her bag and placing them in the display case of a cooler stocked with various beverages.

A customer saw the woman and what appeared to be her suspicious behavior and alerted the store's employees, but police say Behbehanian fled the shop when she overheard the conversation between the customer and employees. Another Starbucks patron followed Behbehanian outside and recorded the woman's license plate as she drove away, Dwyer said.

San Jose police and firefighters were called to the coffee shop, which was quickly evacuated. Hazardous materials inspectors tested the contents of the two bottles in question and found they contained a mixture of orange juice and isopropyl alcohol, or rubbing alcohol.

"According to the fire department, both of the bottles contained a lethal dose of alcohol," Dwyer said.

The store closed early to aid in the investigation, and all of the bottled drinks in the display case were destroyed, Starbucks spokesman Zack Hutson said. All nearby Starbucks stores also were directed to check the seals on beverage bottles in their inventory as a precaution, but no evidence of additional tampering was found, he added.

"We're immensely grateful to the vigilant customer who did the right thing by immediately alerting our store partners after witnessing the suspicious behavior," Hutson said.

Dwyer said a motive for the alleged tampering was under investigation. He said he could not release additional details about the case.

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California woman accused of planting poisoned juice at Starbucks

By Laila Kearney

SAN FRANCISCO, April 30 | Tue Apr 30, 2013 6:35pm EDT

SAN FRANCISCO, April 30 (Reuters) - A northern California woman has been arrested on suspicion of spiking orange juice bottles with a deadly dose of rubbing alcohol and stocking the bottles at a Starbucks coffee shop, law enforcement officials said on Tuesday.

Ramineh Behbehanian, 50, was arrested at her San Jose home on Monday night and booked into the Santa Clara County Jail on charges of attempted murder and poisoning, San Jose Police Sergeant Jason Dwyer said.

Behbehanian is accused of carrying two bottles of tainted juice into a Starbucks outlet in San Jose on Monday, pulling them from her bag and placing them in the display case of a cooler stocked with various beverages.

A customer saw the woman and what appeared to be her suspicious behavior and alerted the store's employees, but police say Behbehanian fled the shop when she overheard the conversation between the customer and employees. Another Starbucks patron followed Behbehanian outside and recorded the woman's license plate as she drove away, Dwyer said.

San Jose police and firefighters were called to the coffee shop, which was quickly evacuated. Hazardous materials inspectors tested the contents of the two bottles in question and found they contained a mixture of orange juice and isopropyl alcohol, or rubbing alcohol.

"According to the fire department, both of the bottles contained a lethal dose of alcohol," Dwyer said.

The store closed early to aid in the investigation, and all of the bottled drinks in the display case were destroyed, Starbucks spokesman Zack Hutson said. All nearby Starbucks stores also were directed to check the seals on beverage bottles in their inventory as a precaution, but no evidence of additional tampering was found, he added.

"We're immensely grateful to the vigilant customer who did the right thing by immediately alerting our store partners after witnessing the suspicious behavior," Hutson said.

Dwyer said a motive for the alleged tampering was under investigation. He said he could not release additional details about the case.

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