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Cardinal questions priest discipline policy

NEW YORK - An influential U.S. Roman Catholic theologian says the discipline policy American bishops adopted in response to the clergy sex abuse crisis ignores priests' due-process rights and should be changed.

In an article in the June 21 edition of the Jesuit magazine America, Cardinal Avery Dulles said the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People violated Catholic belief in redemption.

The plan bars clergy from any church work after one offense and, because of delays at the Vatican, can leave some waiting for years to learn whether they will be forced out of the priesthood altogether.

"In their effort to protect children, to restore public confidence in the church as an institution and to protect the church from liability suits, the bishops opted for an extreme response," Dulles wrote.

His comments came on the eve of the bishops' spring retreat, which starts Monday in Colorado, and as church leaders are poised to review the plan they enacted two years ago at the height of the molestation scandal.

DENVER - Colorado's law protecting rape victims is constitutionally valid and will be applied in deciding what evidence is admissible in the sexual assault trial of basketball star Kobe Bryant, the judge in the case ruled Thursday.

The decision was a setback to Bryant's defense lawyers, who argued that the law violated their client's rights. But it also was not too surprising because trial judges rarely throw out laws that have been through the mill of appeals court review, as Colorado's rape law has many times since its enactment in the mid 1970s. The law is intended to protect rape victims from having their pasts used against them.

ATLANTA - Paschal's Restaurant, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other black leaders met over soul food to plan demonstrations during the civil rights movement, has been saved from demolition.

Instead, the downtown restaurant will stand as a monument to the civil rights leaders' efforts, state Rep. Tyrone Brooks announced Thursday.

Clark Atlanta University, a historically black school, bought the site in 1996 and had planned to demolish it to make way for a new dormitory. The black community vehemently protested.

WASHINGTON - The State Department acknowledged Thursday it was wrong in reporting terrorism declined worldwide last year, a finding used to boost one of President Bush's chief foreign policy claims - success in countering terror.

Instead, the number of incidents and the toll in victims increased sharply, the department said. Statements by senior administration officials claiming success were based "on the facts as we had them at the time. The facts that we had were wrong," department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

The April report said attacks had declined last year to 190, down from 198 in 2002 and 346 in 2001. The 2003 figure would have been the lowest level in 34 years and a 45 percent drop since 2001, Bush's first year as president. The department is working to determine the correct figures.

ALBANY, N.Y. - A judge Thursday dismissed criminal charges against a small-town mayor for marrying gay couples, saying the state failed to show it has a legitimate interest in banning same-sex weddings.

New Paltz Town Court Justice Jonathan Katz also ruled that prosecutors failed to prove the law New Paltz Mayor Jason West was charged with violating was constitutional.

West had faced the possibility of fines or up to a year in jail for presiding at the weddings of more than two dozen same-sex couples.