Campus Ministry Council denied a student-led earth-based religious group approval for a charter for the second time.

Pursuers of All Things Holy and Sacred is a pagan group that recognizes the divine nature of the earth, environment, humanity and their relationship with each other.

“PATHS will definitely re-apply to the council as many times as it takes,” said PATHS spokeswoman Amy Dominguez. “We will continue to be a spiritual community for each other despite our unrecognized status.”

The ministry council meets the first Tuesday of each month and has rejected the group’s request for an official organizational charter twice.

“PATHS bylaws and constitutional points were unclear when they were first presented,” said Betty McHone, administrative assistant to the chaplain. The council requested a re-write and a later meeting to re-evaluate endorsement.

At the seacond meeting, the council again voted to not approve PATHS as an official campus ministry.

“We need to learn a lot more about this different religion before we can make a confident decision,” said Justin Coleman, Wesley Foundation assistant director and council committee member.

The council’s official reason for turning PATHS down was “the exclusivity of membership as stated in by-laws relative to the closed nature of meetings and rituals,” as stated in an email sent to Dominguez.

Once every year a new group will come before the council before it can request an official charter from the Student Senate organizations committee. The chaplain must approve all worship-based religious groups before they move on to the council. Groups must meet certain criteria such as having a local, regional or national group to which they are accountable, supplying a mission statement, membership recruitment procedures and at least 10 full-time SMU students interested in membership.

The council has one representative from each campus ministry of the Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Christian and Baha’i faiths. Each organization gets one vote for the students and one for the campus minister.

Council members said the council’s vote about PATHS was in no way unanimous and that many were very hesitant to deny approval. A few groups were considering approval and some that were adamantly against it.

“Being a pagan group did play into it,” Coleman said.

Many council members were concerned that PATHS would be more of a distraction than beneficial to the campus.

Currently SMU is deciding whether to define what it will allow to be a campus ministry. The chaplain’s office is concerned that the approval of PATHS would lead to the organization of more extreme faiths.

PATHS was started in February 2000, and began meeting in fall 2000 with the chaplain’s office. This summer they completed a mission statement and a constitution.

PATHS currently has 18 official members and meets at 6 p.m. Wednesdays in the Women’s Center. They are not officially tied to any local group, but are sponsored by a national organization called Circle Sanctuary.

Members of PATHS are all pagans and include Wiccans and other earth-based religions. This diversity was one of the points the council was unclear about.

Amy Dominguez said the group is obviously very disappointed with the council’s decision but is not giving up.

“PATHS plans to use the rest of this semester to meet individually with each member of the council, in order to have more personal interaction and to answer any questions that may have clouded the issues,” Dominguez said.

PATHS members are also working on a small handbook of basic information about paganism. They will supply each member of the council with this handbook, as well as give copies to the chaplain’s office for public use.

PATHS promotes awareness and tolerance through educational and religious functions, including lectures, workshops and religious ceremonies.a