Church signs along the road

Donald Seitz had suffered through a long day during a bad week at his office on Nashville's famous Music Row.

On his way home from a business call, he drove past the Greater Pleasant View Baptist Church in Brentwood, Tenn. As usual, the no-tech sign out front offered a folksy thought for the week. This one caught his eye.

"He who kneels before God can stand before anyone," it said, in black, movable letters inserted by hand into slots on a plain white background.

Seitz pulled over and got out of his car to study the sign.

"It's all about timing," he said. "I've driven past thousands of church signs in my life, but this was the right sign on the right day. It got me. That's the thing about these signs. They grab you when you least expect it. They move you, somehow."

Before long, the president of Redbird Music crossed the line between intrigued and somewhat obsessed.

Along with his wife and their young son, he packed their car full of camera equipment and "lots of sippy cups" and hit the road. His goal was to find as many of these old-fashioned signs as possible -- the kind that say things like "Coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous," "Exercise daily, walk with the Lord," "God answers knee mail" and "Give God what is right, not what is left."

They spread their trips over three years and Seitz stopped keeping track of the miles after they passed the 20,000 mark. The result was "The Great American Book of Church Signs," which contains 100 photographs taken in nearly 40 states. The pilgrimage, he said, was like reading "one long American sermon."

Seitz did have questions. He wondered if these signs are still common at rural churches, but rarely used by city megachurches. Also, do some denominations embrace them, while others they are too simplistic? Would he find a red-church vs. blue-church pattern?

Many of his preconceptions were based on his experiences living and driving in the Bible Belt, especially two-lane roads in the Southeast.

"This book could have been done in Tennessee, alone. In fact, I think I could have done a whole book in Nashville," said Seitz, laughing. "In this part of the world, you can throw a rock in just about any direction and hit four or five churches that have these signs. ...

"Church signs are more common in some places than others, but if you keep looking you'll find them at all kinds of churches all over the country."

Thus, the Harmony Hill Church of God in Fayetteville, Tenn., proclaimed, "Faith is a journey, not a destination." But Seitz also found a sign that said, "Love God with all of your heart, then do whatever you want" in front of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, New York.

The Tompkinsville (Ken.) Church of Christ's sign warned rural drivers that, "A dam holds water back. It's not my last name. God." On the other side of the doctrinal aisle, the sign at the South Church Unitarian Universalist sanctuary in Portsmouth, N.H., announced -- with typically broad-minded sentiments -- that, "True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess."

Seitz said he was surprised that he saw very few signs that included political themes, although it was easy to read between the lines of one that said, "The Ten Commandments are still posted here." It was

also easy to interpret another marquee that stressed, "God is not a Republican or a Democrat."

This is not advanced theology. The message on a typical sign is only eight words long and is the product of a volunteer's clever imagination, research in old church bulletins or, in the digital age, a quick search on the World Wide Web. Most combine a chuckle with a moral message that strives to appeal to strangers as well as members.

After all of his travels, Seitz decided that the archetypal church-sign message was this one: "Life is fragile. Handle with prayer."

"It's succinct, it has that little pun in there and it's powerful, if you think about it for a minute," he said. "That's the essence of a good church sign message. That's what you're trying to do -- get people to stop and think for a minute."

When journalists crash rites

The sanctuary was dark, except for candles near the altar, and it was quiet, other than the priest's prayers and hushed responses from the pews.

It was time for another execution in a North Carolina prison and, on this night more than two decades ago, I was kneeling with others opposed to the death penalty -- not covering the rite as a Charlotte Observer reporter.

What I failed to realize was that other journalists would crash our vigil.

The television crew entered just before midnight. The cameraman clanked down the center aisle and, before reaching the altar, turned to shoot from behind the pulpit. His shoulder-mounted lights almost blinded people in the front rows.

Please consider this scene through the eyes of the angry, frustrated worshippers.

Would church members, if asked in advance, have approved what happened during our service? No way. But would we have been willing to discuss finding a way for reporters to cover the vigil without wrecking it? Of course we would.

Here's the key question: Was there a way to cover the news in this liturgy without convincing the participants that these journalists just didn't care? Could the broadcasters have sat silently, making recordings of the prayers to mix with images of the candles, sanctuary and worshipers that were filmed later?

It's important for journalists to ask these questions. However, I think it's crucial that clergy and laypeople think about these issues, too.

Memories of that Charlotte night in flashed through my mind recently as I read media protocols written by leaders of some historic, conservative Episcopal parishes in Northern Virginia that are trying to leave the Episcopal Church because of longstanding disputes over church doctrine and sexual morality.

Days before a key round of voting, parish leaders stated: "Please note that leaders of The Falls Church ? will prohibit any journalist who is not a regular worshiper from filming, researching or seeking to interview clergy or congregants about their votes on church property or inside a church facility. Journalists seeking to interview clergy or congregants off church property are asked to respect their individual wishes about dealings with the media."

Wait, what did the word "researching" mean?

This worried me as a reporter who has, for several decades, tried to cover the complicated global fights among Anglicans. To be blunt, I worried that these church leaders would end up barring veteran religion reporters -- professionals whose faces they recognized -- from entering these services, while admitting less-experienced, and therefore anonymous, journalists.

The good news is that these churches soon changed the ground rules after listening to the concerns of journalists. Media-savvy parish members made it clear they were not hiding and that they knew journalists needed some form of access.

There are lessons to be learned from these events.

One of the most crucial elements of journalism is the ability to hear words and then quote them accurately. This requires access. There are times when the sermons, prayers and scriptures included in worship services are vital elements of regional, national and global news stories.

Leaders of churches, temples and mosques must ask: How can reporters hear, record and report these words if they are not allowed polite access? How can they ?get? the religion in these stories if they are prevented from reporting the content of public events? Talking to people in the parking lot will not get you this theological content, other than through second-hand reports.

At the same time, there is no need for rude journalists to invade services and disturb the faithful. There is no need to badger worshipers who don't want to talk.

But if journalists -- including religion-beat professionals -- want to listen, it's in the long-range interests of honest, candid religious leaders to let them listen. Then journalists can leave the sanctuaries and talk to people who freely agree to talk.

It doesn't make sense to lock reporters out of newsworthy services. Sometimes, we have to be there because we have work to do. And part of that work involves finding a way to capture the words and images of the stories we need to tell. At the same time, it's wrong for journalists to wreck the very rites that we are trying to cover.

Perhaps it's time for leaders on both sides of this tense divide to show each other some respect.

Oprah and her American faith

Faithful members of Oprah Winfrey's TV flock know what's happening when guests start talking and their leader keeps saying "Amen," "Preach it" or even, "Sister, I understand the whole God connection!"

The host wants the guest to start "testifying," a confessional process in which believers look for God's healing hand in life's hard lessons. Winfrey learned all about "testifying" as a girl back in the Faith United Mississippi Baptist Church, where jealous peers often called her "Miss Jesus."

But here's the irony, noted journalist Marcia Nelson, author of "The Gospel According to Oprah." Winfrey has become a billionaire and one of world's most powerful women by baring her soul and urging millions of others to follow her example, resulting in what some critics call the "Oprahfication" of America. However, it's almost impossible to answer this simple question: What does Oprah believe?

"She sounds like a person who was raised in a Baptist church," said Nelson, who spent months digging into Winfrey's beliefs on suffering, gratitude, generosity, forgiveness and other spiritual topics.

"Still, it's hard to put a label on Oprah because she refuses to let people do that to her. ... You'd have to say that she looks a lot more like a Protestant than she does a Catholic, but what does that mean? It's hard to say what a person needs to believe these days to be called a 'Protestant.' "

Winfrey retains the ability to slip smoothly into the "mother tongue" she learned as a child in black churches, noted Nelson. For a few years as an adult, she attended the Trinity United Church of Christ, a progressive congregation in Chicago known as Sen. Barack Obama's home church. Then, during her "Remember Your Spirit" period in the 1990s, conservatives criticized her ties to Marianne Williamson ("A Return to Love") and other "New Age" writers who blurred the lines between Christianity and other faiths.

The key is that Winfrey has been a trailblazer who symbolizes many contemporary religious trends.

* Many Americans, said Nelson, are drawn to a "practical, how-to, self-help, just-do-it" approach to faith and personal growth that meshes smoothly with the parade of counselors, doctors, writers and ministers -- of every conceivable faith -- featured on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." It's crucial that the host looks straight into the camera and says: "This works."

Thus, noted Nelson, Winfrey has "been roundly criticized for making the spiritual too psychological, too therapeutic, too soft, too easy, too self-centered. The gospel according to Oprah doesn't appear to require some kind of doctrinal commitment or a community to ensure that the life-changing 'Aha!' moment of decision is more than a new year's resolution that is quickly made in isolation and broken two weeks later."

* The public loves complex, conflicted celebrities and Winfrey is the spiritual superstar. She quietly supports humble projects near home, yet courts publicity by flying off to start gigantic projects around the world -- such as the new $40-million Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy near Johannesburg.

She tells women to love themselves the way they are, but keeps offering weight-loss tips. She urges viewers to give to others, but also pamper themselves. Winfrey says women should embrace their maturity, but shows them how to look 10 years younger. She advises women on private moral dilemmas, but fiercely guards her own privacy.

* One of the fastest growing segments of the population consists of people who call themselves "spiritual," but not "religious," noted Nelson. Winfrey clicks with media-driven, postmodern believers who stress the importance of personal experience and storytelling over the authority of religious institutions and doctrines. Meanwhile, many churches are trying to shed old names and labels, calling themselves "community churches" and adopting other post-denominational names.

The bottom line, said Nelson, is that for generations Americans were able to rally around a kind of tame, "nominal" Judeo-Christian faith that let them affirm a few common traditions and many old-fashioned values. But this has become harder after waves of immigration from the Middle East, Asia, Africa and elsewhere.

American is becoming more pluralistic on faith issues and that has always been just fine with Winfrey. She is all about spirituality, not doctrine. If she has a creed she keeps it hidden.

"Oprah's clothes may bear labels, but her faith does not," noted Nelson. "I don't know what her personal beliefs are."

Going in religion-news circles

Journalists may not know the precise meaning of the word "theodicy," but, year after year, they know a good "theodicy" story when they see one. The American Heritage Dictionary defines this term as a "vindication of God's goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil." Wikipedia calls it a "branch of theology ... that attempts to reconcile

the existence of evil in the world with the assumption of a benevolent God."

There were three "theodicy" events in 2005, so the Religion Newswriters Association combined them into one item in its top-10 story list. What linked Hurricane Katrina, the Southeast Asia tsunami and another earthquake in Pakistan? Each time, journalists asked the timeless question: What role did God play in these disasters?

Last year, it was the schoolhouse massacre of five Amish girls in Bart Township, Pa. The stunning words of forgiveness offered by the families of the victims added yet another layer of drama to the story.

"Every year there is going to be some great tragedy or disaster and that causes people to ask, 'Where was God?' These events may not seem like religion stories, but they almost always turn into religion stories because of the way people respond to them," said Richard N. Ostling, who retired last year after three decades on the religion beat, first with Time and then with the Associated Press.

"This tells us something important -- that it's hard to draw clean lines between what is religion news and what is not. ... Religious faith is part of how people think and how they live. This affects all kinds of things."

This is true in Iran and in Israel. It's true on Sunday mornings in American suburbs and during riots in the suburbs of France. It's true on the border between India and Pakistan and numerous other fault lines around the world.

Religion is a factor when people go to worship or when they decline to do so. For many, faith plays a role when they vote and when they volunteer to help others. Sadly, religion often plays a pivotal role when people go to war.

Thus, noted Ostling, events on this beat often seem to go in circles, with certain themes and conflicts appearing year after year, world without end -- amen.

This is frustrating for editors, who struggle to understand why religious believers "keep getting so upset about what seem to be the same old stories," he said.

For example, mainline Protestants have been fighting for decades over hot-button issues linked to ancient doctrines about marriage, gender and sex. More often than not, this leads to headlines about another round of changes in the U.S. Episcopal Church. One of the major stories of 2006 was the election of the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori -- an articulate feminist from the tiny Diocese of Nevada -- as the denomination's first female presiding bishop.

"This was an important story," noted Ostling. "But was there anything all that surprising about it? Not really." Meanwhile, the bigger story -- a chain reaction among parishes leaving the denomination -- is "probably harder to cover because it is spread all over the country," he said.

The fall of the Rev. Ted Haggard as president of the National Association of Evangelicals was a big story in 2006, but the typical news year always includes at least one sexy scandal of this kind.

The list goes on. Every election year will include a wave of reports about the degree to which religious issues did or did not drive Republicans, and increasingly Democrats, to the polls.

There are annual stories that pit science against religion and Hollywood against people in pews. Can journalists separate politics and faith in the Middle East? Are clashes between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Iraq about religious faith, political power or some combination of the two? What will the pope say that upsets people this year? Which church-state case split the U.S. Supreme Court this time around?

"The problem is that it's hard to know if any one event in this stream of events is the definitive one, the truly landmark event," said Ostling. "At some point, things change and they stay changed."

But journalists have to be patient, he said, because "people are looking for answers to the big questions and they don't change what they believe overnight."

Was Ahmadinejad story left behind?

Imagine the following event in your mind's eye.

President George W. Bush is addressing the United Nations amid global tensions about nuclear weapons. He closes with evangelical language that expresses his yearning for the triumphant second coming of Jesus Christ and prays that this apocalyptic event will unify the world -- sooner rather than later.

Do you think the speech would cause a media storm? Do you think journalists would dissect his mysterious words, along with his theology? Would this be considered one of the year's most controversial religion-news events?

Bush, of course, never delivered an address of this kind. However, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did say the following as he ended his dramatic Sept. 20th United Nations speech.

"I emphatically declare that today's world, more than ever before, longs for just and righteous people with love for all humanity; and above all longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet," he said, referring to a Shiite doctrine about a coming apocalypse.

"O, Almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirsts for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and make us among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause."

If these references to "the perfect human being" do not sound familiar, there is a reason for that. This section of his address received little media attention. Thus, it isn't surprising that the Iranian leader's end times vision was not selected as one of the top 10 stories in the Religion Newswriters Association's 2006 poll. In fact, it didn't appear in the top 20 events.

Instead, the top story selected by the religion-news specialists was the deadly violence ignited by the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in periodicals in Denmark and a few other European nations. Boycotts led to protests and then to destruction and, in Nigeria, Muslims and Christians died in the riots.

Clearly, mainstream journalists still struggle with the complicated religious beliefs that loom behind today's headlines. Offensive cartoons in the West are a huge story. But mysterious words in the East -- even offensive words -- do not draw nearly as much ink.

So what was Iran's outspoken leader saying?

"Ahmadinejad is calling upon God to bring about the coming of the 12th Imam ? who heralds the Apocalypse," noted pundit Andrew Sullivan. "He is also saying that he will 'strive for his return.' It is the most terrifying statement any president of any nation has made to the U.N. We have a dictator on the brink of nukes, striving to accelerate the Apocalypse. ... Paradise beckons."

Meanwhile, here is the rest of the RNA top 10 list:

(2) Pope Benedict XVI angers Muslims by quoting an ancient text linking Islam and violence. He quickly apologizes and later pays a diplomatic visit to Turkey.

(3) Episcopal leaders elect a female presiding bishop who favors rites to bless same-sex unions and supported the consecration of a noncelibate gay bishop. Thus, seven Episcopal dioceses refuse to recognize the leadership of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. Some of America's most prominent parishes vote to align with Third World bishops and the Diocese of San Joaquin becomes takes the initial steps to secede from the Episcopal Church.

(4) Ted Haggard resigns as National Association of Evangelicals president and is dismissed as pastor of the massive New Life Church in Colorado Springs after allegations of gay sex and drug use.

(5) Candidates backed by the Religious Right suffer key fall-election defeats, while Democrats take steps to reach out to churchgoers, especially Catholics.

(6) Religious voices grow louder for peace in Iraq. However, sectarian conflicts between Sunni and Shiite Muslims increase. Elsewhere, an Israeli incursion in Lebanon follows new Hezbollah attacks, touching off another round of combat.

(7) The schoolhouse shooting deaths of five Amish girls in Bart Township, Pa., draws global attention to Amish beliefs about grace and forgiveness.

(8) "The Da Vinci Code" movie calls new attention to Dan Brown's novel, which says traditional Christianity is a fraud. Churches are divided over whether to boycott or hold discussion groups. The plot argues that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and they had a child.

(8 -- tie) Same sex-marriage bans pass in seven of eight states during mid-term elections. Arizona becomes the first state to defeat a ban.

(10) Bush vetoes a bill calling for expanded stem-cell research, pleasing religious conservatives and the disappointing liberals.

Into the Anglican wilds

All it took the other day was hearing pop star Olivia Newton-John's

recording of the "Ave Maria" for Father Paul Zahl to feel that old,

familiar tug at his heartstrings.

Then came the voices in his head asking those nagging questions that many

weary Episcopalians have pondered in recent decades: "Why keep fighting?

Why not join the Roman Catholic Church?"

Every now and then, Zahl feels another urge to "swim the Tiber." This is

somewhat problematic because he is dean of the Trinity School for

Ministry in Ambridge, Pa., a post that makes him a leader among

Evangelicals in the embattled Episcopal Church and a strategic voice in

the broadly Protestant, low-church wing of the global Anglican Communion.

"I could become a Roman Catholic in a heartbeat," said Zahl. "But the

minute I say that, I stop and think about it and I know all the reasons

that I am an Evangelical and why my spiritual home is in Anglicanism. ...

But that doesn't mean that I don't understand why so many people --

people I love and respect -- have fled to Rome and why many more will

follow them."

Many Episcopalians, stressed Zahl, are seeking what he called a "truly

objective form of church life" that provides authoritative answers to the

moral and doctrinal questions that have -- for at least a quarter century

-- caused bitter conflict and declining statistics in the American branch

of Anglicanism. Their complaints run much deeper than mere discontent

over the 2003 consecration of a noncelibate homosexual as the Episcopal

bishop in New Hampshire.

But if they want that kind of church structure they are going to have to

join that kind of church, he said. The Anglican approach, built on a

unique blend of compromises between Protestantism and Catholicism, will

never be enough.

"Anglicanism can only give you an ersatz form of that kind of church,"

said Zahl, a Harvard man whose graduate work took him to England and

Germany. "If you want the kind of authority that comes with Roman

Catholicism then you should run, not walk, to enter the Church of Rome. ...

That's where you have to go to find it. You either become a Catholic or

you simply stop asking the big questions about ecclesiastical structure.

You move on."

This will be a painful step for some Episcopalians to take, in an age

when newspapers are full of reports about legal and theological cracks in

the foundations of the mother Church of England and its bickering

relatives around the world.

The big news on this side of the Atlantic Ocean is that eight

congregations in Northern Virginia -- including two of America's most

historic parishes -- have voted to leave the Episcopal Church to join a

new missionary effort tied to the conservative, rapidly growing Anglican

Church of Nigeria.

Meanwhile, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams faces a revolt in his

own backyard, with Evangelical leaders saying they will revolt if he does

not allow them to answer to conservative bishops, rather than to

liberals. And then there was that Sunday Times report claiming that Pope

Benedict XVI has asked officials in his Congregation for the Doctrine of

the Faith to research ways to reach out to disaffected Anglicans.

The temptation, according to Zahl, is for Episcopalians caught in these

conflicts to assume there is "some church body out there, some

supervising entity or person, which, when we find it, will be seen

definitely to be 'The One.' The question of 'Whither?' is based on the

idea that there is, at this point in time, a verifiable protecting safe

place."

Instead, those committed to Anglicanism must embrace another image of the

Christian life found in scripture, argued Zahl, in a missive to

supporters of his seminary. While it will be hard, they should see

themselves as the "wandering people of God" who must spend a long time in

the wilderness as they "seek the city which is to come."

It will be hard to find clarity and unity during the years ahead, he said.

"I hold out exactly no hope of a safe haven in the Church of England,"

said Zahl. "If you have any hope of finding safe answers for the big

questions of church identity within Anglicanism, then you are going to

need to be patient because that is not going to happen anytime soon."

Let Hanukkah be Hanukkah

The candelabra should have eight candles in a straight line with a separate holder -- usually high and in the middle -- for the "servant" candle that is used to light the others.

The purpose of Hanukkah menorahs is to publicize the miracle at the heart of the "Festival of Lights," when tradition says a one-day supply of pure oil burned for eight days after Jewish rebels liberated the temple from their Greek oppressors. Thus, most families place their menorahs in front windows facing a street.

So far, so good.

The lighting of the first candle should be at sundown on the first night of the eight-day season, which begins on Friday (Dec. 15) this year. Hanukkah candles should burn at least 30 minutes and it's forbidden to use their light for any purpose other than viewing or meditating.

Blessings are recited before the first candle is lit, starting with: "Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us by His commandments, and has commanded us to kindle the lights of Hanukkah." Each night, another candle is added -- with eight burning at the end of the season.

That's it. That's what Jews are supposed to do during Hanukkah. They're supposed to light the candles and give thanks to God.

It's all about lights shining in darkness.

"This is a simple holiday with a simple message and it isn't supposed to be all that complicated," said Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, the largest umbrella group for Orthodox Jews in North America.

"You come home from work, you light the candles, you say the blessings and then you sit down with your kids and play games with dreidels. ... It's pretty small stuff compared with all of the emotions of Passover."

Some Jewish families will sing Hanukkah songs and fry some potato pancakes called "latkes," homemade donuts or other festive foods using hot oil -- a key symbol in the season. Many parents give their children small gifts each night, such as coins or chocolates wrapped in gold foil to resemble coins.

This is where, for many, the Hanukkah bandwagon starts to get out of control. As the Jewish Outreach Institute Hanukkah website bluntly states: "Hanukkah is the most widely celebrated American Jewish holiday, possibly because it is a fun, child-centered occasion."

Everyone knows why Hanukkah keeps getting bigger and bigger, said Weinreb, who also has worked as a psychologist specializing in family issues.

"How can a Jewish kid growing up in America or anywhere else in the Western world not get swept up, to one degree or another, in the whole business of Christmas? The music is everywhere and the decorations are everywhere. Many of your school friends are having parties and they're all excited about the gifts they're going to get," he said.

"From a Jewish perspective, all of this is a rabbi's worst nightmare. You want to find a way to say, 'That's not us.' But, in the end, many people lose control."

Before you know it, someone else's Christmas tree turns into a holiday tree and, finally, into something called a Hanukkah bush.

The end result is ironic, to say the least. Hanukkah is supposed to be a humble holiday about the need for Jews to resist compromising their beliefs in order to assimilate into a dominant culture. However, for many families it has become the biggest event on the Jewish calendar -- because it is so close to the all-powerful cultural earthquake that some people still call "Christmas."

Those old-fashioned notions about giving children a few modest Hanukkah gifts have evolved into expectations of a nightly procession of toys, clothing and electronic goodies. And, in many of America's 2.5 million households with one Jewish parent and one Christian parent, the rites of the shopping mall have been blended to create the pop-culture reality called "Chrismukkah."

All of this is easy to understand and hard to resist.

"One gift a night for eight nights is just commercialism, pure and simple. That has more to do with Toys 'R' Us than it does with Judaism," said Weinreb. "Hanukkah is not the Jewish Christmas and we all know that. Hanukkah is what it is. We just need to do what we are supposed to do and let the holiday take care of itself."

Old sins in confession

St. Peter Damian was a man with a mission.

The church reformer was appalled by the sexual immorality of his fellow clergy and their superiors, who often refused to warn the faithful and allowed the guilty to go unpunished. He condemned all sexual immorality, but especially the priests who abused boys after hearing their confessions.

Damian poured his concerns into a volume called the Book of Gomorrah, which ended with an appeal to Pope Leo IX for reform.

The year was 1051. The pope praised Damian, but declined to take decisive action. A later pope tried to suppress the book.

"Anyone who thinks the problems the church has today are new just doesn't know history," said psychotherapist A.W. Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine monk who has served as an expert witness in more than 200 cases of clergy sexual abuse. "There has always been a temptation to try to protect the image of the church, which usually means covering up scandals involving priests and bishops."

Another wave of nasty headlines hit this week, when the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to a $60-million settlement with 45 victims. Plaintiffs continue to demand that Cardinal Roger M. Mahony release the records of the priests, including those left in ministry after parishioners complained about inappropriate behavior with minors.

Meanwhile, the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram won a 19-month legal battle to obtain court records that included personnel files of seven priests in the Fort Worth diocese. In at least one case, church investigators decided a priest had sexually exploited an 18-year-old boy who came to him for confession.

Outsiders may struggle to understand how easy it is for corrupt priests to turn the privacy of the Sacrament of Penance into an opportunity to solicit sexual relationships with vulnerable women, men and children, said Sipe, co-author, with Father Thomas Doyle and former priest Patrick Wall, of the book "Sex, Priests and Secret Codes." Counselors of all kinds face similar, but not the same, temptations.

"The priest makes contact in the confessional. He hears the most intimate, personal problems of his people, problems that are often of a sexual nature," said Sipe. "It's easy for him to perceive that he is dealing with a troubled boy, a troubled girl or troubled men and women. Believe me, you hear literally everything in confession.

"So a bad priest can listen and listen and then, when the timing is right, he says, 'Why don't you come see me and we can talk this over face to face. I want to help.' "

Everything that happens in the Sacrament of Penance is secret. The priest is never, under any conditions, supposed to divulge what someone says in confession.

Penitents are not covered by the same holy obligation, but, according to Sipe, Doyle and Wall, they can get caught in a "canonical Catch-22" because the priest's status makes the relationship so unbalanced. Many victims are intimidated by the priest's power to pronounce and withhold absolution of sins. They also know that if they accuse a priest, they could be accused of false denunciation and excommunicated.

This was especially true "in the old days, the '50s and '60s, when Catholics were so conditioned to go to confession," said Doyle. "People lined up week after week and this created a zone of secrecy that the priest controlled. It gave bad priests a lot of room in which to operate."

However, the number of American Catholics going to confession has plummeted in recent decades. The good news is that this has eliminated some opportunities for a few bad priests to find victims. The bad news is that this decline -- whatever the cause -- has weakened the spiritual, sacramental bonds between all the good priests and the people they serve.

It's rare today, said Doyle, for Catholics to maintain an ongoing relationship with someone they consider to be their "spiritual father" in the faith.

"If anything positive has come out of these recent changes, it is that bad priests know that they simply cannot get away with some of the things they used to be able to get away with," he said. "Catholics are just being more careful and they are much more likely to speak out if they sense that something is going wrong. Some of that old trust has been lost."

Walking in Joseph's sandals

Anyone who has looked at Christmas cards knows where to find Joseph in a typical manger scene.

Just look for the humble, gray-haired man standing near the edge of the heavenly glow that surrounds Mary and the Christ child. In ancient Nativity icons, St. Joseph the Betrothed usually appears huddled in the foreground while Satan, in disguise, tempts him to doubt and despair.

Joseph is a major character in this drama, yet he remains a mystery. While filming the movie called "The Nativity Story," actor Oscar Isaac visited the Vatican and studied a tapestry of the manger scene. He kept asking himself the question actors always ask when trying to play historical figures: "What was he thinking?"

"That's the thing," said Isaac, during press events before the film's Dec. 1 release. "Joseph didn't know what to expect. I was having trouble as an actor, saying, 'How can I play that I am going to have the Son of God? I don't know what that means. It doesn't make any sense.'

"Then I realized that this was exactly what Joseph was going through."

For decades, Mary has received lots of screen time in traditional Hollywood movies dealing with the life of Jesus. New Line Cinema's attempt to create a new biblical epic is unique in that Joseph receives as much attention as Mary. Joseph's trials, doubts and decisions drive the plot.

The problem is that biblical accounts offer little information about St. Joseph, other than his standing as a "just man" from the House of David who lived in Nazareth. He is an important figure in the Nativity narratives and he was alive when Jesus was 12 and the family visited Jerusalem. According to early church traditions, Joseph was a widower who already had children -- who are mentioned in the New Testament as brothers and sisters of Jesus.

Joseph was older than Mary, but it's hard to know much more than that, said screenwriter Mike Rich.

"In the research that I did ... I quickly found that if you talked to 12 theologians about Joseph then you'll probably get 12 different stories," said Rich. "The age range that I was given in my research was everything from 25 to 90. ... I don't think there would have been a wrong decision, because of the disparity in all the viewpoints. So we just decided to go younger."

The 27-year-old Isaac, meanwhile, turned to a volume of history entitled "The Life and Times of Jesus Messiah" for clues into his character's background. Joseph is a Jewish carpenter betrothed to a girl who says an angel has told her she will give birth to the Son of God. What does that mean? Will people in Nazareth stone her? Will Mary die while giving birth? Will this be a normal child? Will legions of angels show up and begin an apocalyptic war with the Romans?

It's crucial to remember that an angel visited Mary, while Joseph had a dream reassuring him that she was telling the truth. It's safe to assume that most men -- when asked to risk life, limb and reputation -- would prefer to talk to an angel face to face, rather than rely on a mere dream, said Isaac.

"Just because God came to him in a dream didn't mean that he wasn't thinking, 'I hope that I didn't make that up. I hope that I heard God correctly,' " he said. "I think that he constantly, even up until the end, is grappling with his feelings."

The whole story changes if Joseph rebels, noted Isaac, who is Guatemalan by birth, but grew up in a multi-ethnic evangelical Protestant family in Miami. It's easy to assume that God would have found some other way. But someone had to take claim the responsibility of protecting Mary and helping raise Jesus.

Joseph is a pivotal figure, yet a humble saint who rarely receives much attention.

"There is this very interesting psychological character study here," noted Isaac. "How does a man share the woman he loves with God? That's what he has to do. He loves God with all of his heart and he loves this woman, selflessly. ... He can't just live in this little house that he's building in Nazareth. He has to, literally, share this woman. How do you wrap your mind around that as a man?"