Clinton’s Win Selected as Top Religion Story : Journalism: Nationwide poll of reporters picks the election of two Southern Baptists in list of 1992 events.

The top religion story of 1992 as assessed by religion reporters was the November victory of two Southern Baptists, President-elect Bill Clinton and Vice President-elect Al Gore Jr.

Their victory, after a campaign that dealt partly with family values, was the first time both posts went to members of the Southern Baptist denomination. However, Clinton and Gore differed with its stands condemning abortion and homosexual behavior.

Also linked to the No. 1 story was the religious right’s backing of the defeated incumbents, President Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle. But religious conservatives made significant gains in state and local contests.

Surveyed for the poll were members of the Religion Newswriters Assn., made up of about 200 specialists who cover religion for newspapers, press services and news magazines.

Bill Thorkelson of Minneapolis, who conducts the annual survey, said that other than the religious aspects of the presidential campaign, most of the top stories involved “women, sex and disasters.”

Chosen as No. 2 was the Church of England’s strenuously debated decision to ordain women, raising threats of rupture in that church.

About half of the 30 national or regional churches of the 70-million-member Anglican Communion have authorized women priests, including the Episcopal Church in the United States.

The third-ranked story was the refusal of U.S. Roman Catholic bishops to adopt a pastoral teaching letter on women after working on it for nine years. Its final draft reflected traditional Vatican views excluding women from ordination.

In rejecting the document, bishops called for further dialogue.

Ranked fourth were allegations of sexual misconduct by clergy, including numerous cases of Catholic priests molesting youngsters as detailed in a book by Jason Berry. The incidents have resulted in several multimillion-dollar damage suits.

A former Catholic priest, James Porter, figured in more than 100 pedophilia cases across several states, and is involved in a number of civil and criminal lawsuits. Sexual misconduct with young males led Wallace Frey, vice president of the Episcopal House of Deputies, to resign from the ministry.

Catholic bishops and several Protestant denominations tightened rules for dealing with the problem.

Ranked fifth was the fighting in former Yugoslavia that stemmed from bitter antagonisms among mostly Eastern Orthodox Serbs, mostly Catholic Croats and heavily Muslim Bosnians.

Although the fighting was not over religion but national dominance, there were religious overtones.

The other top stories, ranked in descending order, were:

* The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that prayers at public school graduation ceremonies violate the Constitution’s 1st Amendment barring the establishment of religion.

* Churches marked the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in America with repentance for wrongdoings against natives. Pope John Paul II called some of the early explorers’ actions “excesses” during anniversary services in the Dominican Republic.

* An outpouring of relief from religious groups went to victims of famine in Africa, warfare in former Yugoslavia, hurricanes in Florida and Louisiana and riots in Los Angeles.

* The United Methodist Church upheld its 20-year-old stance that homosexual practices are “incompatible with Christian teaching,” and that gays are barred from the ordained ministry.

The church reaffirmed its conditional acceptance of abortion and allowed agencies to continue membership in the National Coalition for Abortion Rights.

* Southern Baptists continued to splinter, with several key missionary executives quitting the Foreign Mission Board, now controlled by fundamentalist trustees.

The board’s longtime president, the Rev. R. Keith Parks, left to head a new mission agency of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, formed by moderates. It gained increased financial strength.

* Galileo was “rehabilitated” by Pope John Paul II more than 300 years after the astronomer and physicist was condemned by the church’s Inquisition and forced to recant his discoveries.

* The Vatican approved a new universal catechism for the Roman Catholic Church, reaffirming traditional tenets of faith but identifying a range of new sins that are products of modern-day society.

* Protecting the natural environment became a concern of many religious bodies, influenced in part by United Nations conference about it in Rio de Janeiro.

* Financial pressures squeezed many denominations and their regional units, bringing cutbacks in services, staff reductions and wage freezes.

* An influx of emigrants from eastern Europe led to violent protests and attacks by neo-Nazis and others in Germany, but church groups rallied support for the newcomers. U.S. religious groups urged an open door for Haitian refugees.