Iran rejects death penalty for Muslims who convert: CEN 7.03.09 p 6. July 6, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Iran, Persecution.add a comment
A legislative committee of the Iranian parliament, the Majlis, has rejected a bill brought by the government of President Mahmoud Amadinejad mandating the death penalty for apostates from Islam.
Citing a statement released by the Iranian Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported by the BBC’s Persian language service on June 23, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) stated that Ali Shahrokhi of the Majlis’ Legal and Judicial Committee had toned down the bill.
Stoning apostates was not in the interests of the regime, Mr. Shahroki said. He told IRNA that “Islam has set a strict set of conditions for the implementation of punishments such as stoning, that they can rarely be proven. Hence the legal and judicial commission members concluded that some of these laws are unnecessary to mention.”
Islam’s five major schools of jurisprudence, the Madh’hab, call for the death penalty for those who leave Islam for another faith. However Islamic law distinguishes between apostasy of an adult and a child. The ‘Umdat as-Salik wa ‘Uddat an-Nasik (Reliance of the Traveler and Tools of the Worshipper), of the Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence as practiced by the Al-Azhar in Cairo rejects the death penalty for child apostates, as does the Hidayah, the Hanafi code that guides Muslim jurisprudence in India and Pakistan.
The proposed “Bill for Islamic Penal Law” would have been the first imposition of Shariah law on apostates codified in modern civil law. It would have divided apostates into two categories: parental and innate. Innate apostates were those whose parents were Muslim, made a profession of Islam—the Shahada-as an adult and then left the faith, while parental apostates were those born in non-Muslim families and converted to Islam as an adult, and then left the faith.
Article 225-7 stated the “Punishment for an innate apostate is death,” while Article 225-8 allowed a parental apostate three days to recant their apostasy. If they continued in their unbelief, “the death penalty would be carried out.” Women apostates were spared the death penalty, but would have been jailed until they recanted.
The revised Islamic Penal Law will now be returned to the Majlis for a second reading, and if passed sent to the country’s Council of Guardians for final review.
CSW’s Alexa Papadouris said they welcomed “this positive development in the progression of the Islamic Penal Code Bill. However, until the Islamic Penal Code Bill is finalized by the Iranian Parliament and Guardian Council, there is still a danger that the judicial committee’s revisions may not be taken into account.”
She urged the world community to continue pressing the Iranian government “to ensure that the final text of the bill does not include any punishment for apostasy.”
In December 2004, the Prince of Wales convened a meeting of Muslim and Christian leaders at Clarence House to address the death penalty for converts. The Bishops of London and Rochester, the Archbishop of Kaduna, an Orthodox bishop and the director of the Barnabas Fund met with representatives of the London-based Al-Khoei Foundation, the Islamic Society of Britain, and Dr. Zaki Badawi of the Muslim College in London.
Prince Charles’ efforts proved unsuccessful however as the Muslim delegation said non-Muslims should not speak publicly about Islam’s apostasy laws.
Decommissioning is welcomed: CEN 7.03.09 p 6. July 5, 2009
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Archbishop Alan Harper of Armagh
The Church of Ireland has welcomed the pledge given by loyalist paramilitaries to lay down their arms. On June 19, the Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. Alan Harper said he looked forward to “the complete decommissioning” of the loyalist paramilitary arms caches. This would “represent a further and extremely welcome step towards confidence building and the normalisation of society in Northern Ireland.”
Last week the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) announced that it had fully disarmed, while the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) said that it had begun surrendering its weapons to independent disarmament officials.
In a statement released June 27 to the Belfast media, the UFV said its commanders had destroyed its entire arsenal in the presence of Northern Ireland’s disarmament chief, retired Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain, and independent observers from the Unionist and Republican communities.
The UVF statement said it had “completed the process of rendering ordnance totally and irreversibly beyond use.”
The UDA also announced on Saturday that it had begun to disarm. “By carrying out this act we are helping to build a new and better Northern Ireland where conflict is a thing of the past,” the UDA said.
The UVG launched its war against Republicans in Ulster in 1966, and was joined by the UDA in 1971 in its battles against the IRA during the “Troubles”. However, Catholic civilians took the brunt of the group’s assault, with over 1000 people killed until a ceasefire was declared in 1994.
Dr. Harper said he recognized that “on the part of the leadership of the paramilitary groups full decommissioning has been a challenging outcome to deliver; therefore, I commend those within loyalism who have argued consistently for decommissioning over a considerable period. Now full energy and commitment can be devoted to community development and the enhancement of the lives of people in loyalist areas free from the dark shadow of the gun.”
Speaking on Radio Ulster on June 29, the Bishop of Down and Dromore urged Protestants to accept their share of the blame for Northern Ireland’s sectarian violence. Unionists had come to see themselves as victims in violence in the Troubles, Dr. Harold Miller said. Speaking on Sunday Sequence, he said: “We feel as a Protestant community that we were the status quo, we were doing things in an honourable kind of way, and along came terrorists and difficult people who upset the whole apple cart.
“I think there is an inclination to say: ‘these were the baddies and we were the goodies’,” Dr. Miller said, urging Protestants to repent and apologise for the role their community played in the violence.
Egypt told to protect persecuted Christians: CEN 7.03.09 p 6. July 5, 2009
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A US government agency has issued a strongly worded protest condemning the mistreatment of Coptic Christians in Egypt. On June 26 the Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released a statement of concern over reports of attacks on Copts in the village of Ezbet Boshra-East.
“This latest incident is another example of the upsurge of violence against Coptic Christians we have seen in the past few years,” said Felice Gaer, chairman of the USCIRF. “The Commission has long expressed concern that the Egyptian government does not do enough to protect Christians and their property in Egypt, nor does the government adequately bring perpetrators of such violence to justice.”
The USCIFR said that on June 21, Muslim villagers looted and attacked private homes and a building used for Christian gatherings and religious services in a rural village in Egypt’s Nile Valley.
Infuriated by the presence of Copts from Cairo visiting the village priest, Muslim villagers began to riot while police allegedly took no action until after the violence had subsided. The US government stated that the inaction by the police in the face of anti-Christian violence repeated an “established pattern that security services do not adequately protect Christian citizens in many localities.”
One of the US’s largest foreign aid recipients, the Egyptian government was asked by the USCIRF to “ensure that all places of worship are subject to the same transparent, non-discriminatory, and efficient regulations regarding construction and maintenance.”
“If the Egyptian government would pass and implement such a law, it may help in stemming some of the violence targeting Christians who are forced to convert private homes and buildings into churches because they cannot get permission to build an appropriate place of worship,” Mrs. Gaer said.
An independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government commission whose members are appointed by the President and leaders of Congress, the USCIRF’s mandate is to “review the facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom internationally and to make policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State and Congress,” its website states.
Past statements of concern by the USCIRF have received diplomatic notice, but little action by the Egyptian government, as its recommendations are not binding upon the US State Department.
Tanzania drops plans to impose VAT on churches and mosques: CEN 7.03.09 p 6. July 5, 2009
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Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa of Dar es Salaam
The government of Tanzania has rescinded plans to impose a VAT on purchases made by religious institutions following marathon talks with the country’s religious leaders. The government’s u-turn in the spat over VAT came days before a vote in Parliament on the government’s 2009-2010 budget forestalling a political showdown in the East African nation.
After talks with the Primate of Tanzania, Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa of Dar es Salaam and other Christian and Muslim leaders, Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda on June 17 announced the government would lift the proposed VAT charges on church-run education, health care and development services.
“The President has blessed the decision to expunge the proposal,” the prime minister told a press conference in Dar es Salaam. Existing VAT exemptions would remain in place provided church leaders saw that their institutions complied with the spirit of the tax laws, he said.
Last month the government announced it would lift VAT exemptions on religious institutions on all purchases save for those directly related to worship, such as church or mosque construction and upkeep.
Finance Minister Mustafa Mkulo said some religious institutions had abused their tax exempt status and had cost the government over £200 million last year. Church tax exemptions equaled 3.5 percent of GDP in 2008, Mr. Mkulo said, while they comprised only 1 percent of GDP in Kenya and 0.4 percent of GDP in Uganda. This was evidence, he said, that some church institutions were abusing their VAT duty free status.
“Tax exemption reduces government efforts in providing social services and infrastructure development, which are important in providing better social services to all citizens,” he said.
The Christian Council of Tanganyika is warning that the move to impose taxes on religious institutions will lose it votes in the general election slated for October 2010.
Archbishop Mokiwa, the deputy chairperson of the Christian Council of Tanzania, (CCT) said it was wrong to tax churches while the government gave VAT exemptions to foreign mining firms to encourage overseas investment. He warned that unless the government rescinded the VAT scheme, it would likely see the displeasure of the 10 million members of the CCT reflected in the polls at the Sept 2010 general elections.
Talks between the government and Archbishop Mokiwa, along with other Christian and Muslim leaders, led to an agreement that religious leaders would use their best efforts to see that the system was not abused.
The church VAT scheme had also proven to be a political liability for the prime minister’s government, as opposition MPs had seized on the issue in seeking to defeat the government’s budget for the coming fiscal year.
Southern Cone ‘is growing’: CEN 7.03.09 p 5. July 5, 2009
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The Rt. Rev. Robinson Cavalcanti
La Iglesia Anglicana del Cono Sur has grown by “leaps and bounds” over the past decade the Bishop of Bolivia, the Rt. Rev. Frank Lyons told delegates to the founding convocation of the ACNA in Fort Worth last week, with many dioceses doubling in size.
Bishop Lyons reported that at the March 28 meeting of the South American House of Bishops in Asuncion, the province authorized the creation of four auxiliary bishops for the Diocese of Chile, three auxiliary bishops for the Diocese of Peru, one suffragan bishop for the Diocese of Uruguay, and one suffragan bishop for the Diocese of Northern Argentina.
The Anglican Church has experienced rapid growth on the ground as well. When the Rt. Rev. William Godfrey was translated to Peru in April 1998, the diocese consisted of two expatriate priests, four Peruvian priests, and one Peruvian deacon serving nine congregations.
As of June 2009, the Diocese of Peru consists of 41 congregations serviced by 24 priests, 8 deacons and 23 lay ministers, while the diocese’s two theological colleges are training 60 seminarians.
The Bishop of Recife, the Rt. Rev. Robinson Cavalcanti told the ACNA his diocese had also prospered in recent years. In 2005 the bishop and 40 of his priests were deposed by the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil for contumacy. In the four years since he was expelled from the IEAB, the Diocese of Recife had doubled in size.
He noted that nine congregations in Southern Brazil had also petitioned to be received from the IEAB to the Diocese of Recife. “They said, if you can support churches in America, certainly you can support us.”
Bishop Iker dismisses legal threat: CEN 7.03.09 p 5. July 5, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Church of England Newspaper, Fort Worth, La Iglesia Anglicana del Cono Sur de America.add a comment
The Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone has rejected assertions made by lawyers representing the Episcopal Church that the clergy of the Anglican Church in North America are un-Anglican.
In a June 30 letter to the clergy of the Diocese of Fort Worth, Bishop Gregory Venables reminded them that the Alexandria primates meeting had affirmed the Anglican bona fides of the American breakaway dioceses and clergy.
While it would “take some time before the institutional structures catch up to the realities of the present day situation in the Communion,” the Diocese of Fort Worth and clergy of Fort Worth remained in “good standing and favor with me” and the Southern Cone. Your “orders and ministries are secure in the Lord and as Anglicans,” he said.
The February 2009 Primates Meeting had reached a “clear agreement” that the breakaway dioceses, their bishops and clergy are “fully members of the Anglican Communion. Any other assertions are,” in the view of the primates of the Anglican Communion, “completely unfounded,” he said.
Bishop Venables’ salvo comes in the wake of a broadside from a lawyer representing the loyalist faction of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, and a letter from the Provision bishop of the diocese, Bishop Edwin Gulick of Kentucky. Last week, Bishop Gulick wrote to the Fort Worth clergy, stating he would depose unless they acceded to his authority.
A second letter from attorney Jonathan Nelson to the clergy and wardens of Fort Worth’s parishes asked them to turn over their property to the national Episcopal Church of face litigation.
On June 30, Bishop Iker told his clergy to ignore the demand letters, as they were “now in the hands of our attorneys.”
“We are no longer members of [the Episcopal Church] and are not subject to their discipline,” he said.
Bishop Iker further noted that under the Episcopal Church’s canon law, Bishop Gulick had no authority to act in Fort Worth. The special convention called by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori on Feb 7, 2009 was not lawfully organized, he said, adding that “there was no quorum present at the February 7, 2009, meeting, because less than one-third of all clergy and lay delegates of the Diocese entitled to seat was present for the meeting.”
Any actions arising from the loyalists’ special convention were “null and void,” under canon and Texas civil law, he said—a point disputed by Bishop Gulick and the loyalist faction. The Tarrant County, Texas courts are studying the preliminary pleadings in the dispute, and a decision is not expected until next year.
ACNA warned on Islam threat: CEN 7.03.09 p 5. July 5, 2009
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The Rev Canon Julian Dobbs
Delegates to the 2009 ACNA convocation in Bedford, Texas last week were warned not to be lulled into complacency by the siren song dialogue with “moderate Islam.”
Canon Julian Dobbs, the canon missioner for the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) told the June 22-25 meeting that “so-called moderate Islam” was a myth.
The American variety of “moderate Islam” was “no more moderate than the militant Islam of Saudi Arabia or Indonesia,” Canon Dobbs said. Quoting the founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), he explained that “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant.”
“Don’t be misled or misguided, the peace Islam offers is not the peace of sitting around the camp fire singing [songs]. Islam’s peace is the implementation of Sharia Law and the global submission to Islamic ideology,” he argued.
Canon Dobbs stated that in the West, a “resurgent Islam” sought to “infiltrate the Church and win the loyalty and trust of large numbers of church-goers.” Some had responded by conversion, he said, “attracted by the apparent order and simplicity of the Islamic faith.”
However, “Under Islamic sharia law, women are oppressed, sometimes beaten and abused. Converts to Christianity and other faith are severely persecuted.” Canon Dobbs urged the delegates to support the work of the Barnabas Fund, asking them to pressure the government to speak out against Islamic apostasy laws.
He added that “a lonely and yet courageous voice” calling the Church to arms to the threat of “resurgent Islam” had been the Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola. Canon Dobbs urged the ACNA to head Archbishop Akinola’s words: “The Christian Church must wake up to its prophetic role and remind all that it has a message that will change the world.”
Claiming the full backing of Archbishop Duncan of the ACNA, Canon Dobbs urged the delegates not to let “polite multi-faith conversations” become a substitute for the “proclamation of the historic Christian message.”
Muslims were in “many ways just like us,” searching for the divine. The opportunities for the evangelization of Muslims had never been greater he said, and it was imperative for the church to reach out to them, as “God’s love was not meant to exclude a fifth of the world’s population who are Muslim.”
At this “juncture in history” more Muslims were “coming to faith in Jesus Christ than at any other time in history of the Christian Church,” Canon Dobbs said. He urged the ACNA to “engage, educate and faithfully proclaim the gospel to all the world, including the world of Islam.”
Bishop accused of forgery: CEN 7.03.09 p 7. July 4, 2009
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A Bishop of the Church of South India (CSI) has been accused of forging a birth certificate—moving his date of birth a year forward so as to avoid mandatory retirement.
On June 29 lay leaders of the Diocese of Karnataka South staged a protest outside the office of the Rt. Rev. Devaraj Bangera in Mangalore. According to church sources the bishop was born on June 29, 1945 in Kasargod—making him 64 years of age on Monday. Indian canon law requires bishops to retire by their 65th birthday.
However, the protesters—members of the Protestant Christian Association—charge that the bishop was born on June 29, 1944. The bishop’s 1945 birth certificate produced in support of his claim to be only 64 is a forgery, the protesters claim.
They claim that a formal inquiry to the Kasargod municipal government under India’s Right to Information Act 2005 finds no 1945 birth certificate issued in the name of the bishop. However, municipal records do show that an individual with the same name as the bishop was born in Kasargod on June 29, 1944, the Times of India reports.
The bishop’s birthday spat is part of a long running dispute over the administration of the diocese located on southwestern India’s Malabar Coast between the bishop and lay leaders.
Archbishop criticises Zuma: CEN 7.03.09 p 7. July 3, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Church of England Newspaper, Politics.1 comment so far
The Archbishop of Cape Town has called for South Africa’s political leaders to move on from the victim mindset of the apartheid-era, and respond to the country’s current needs rather than its past injustices.
“We do not deny our past, but we are not its prisoners. We live in a context where the bondage is over, and God’s comfort has been made real to us,” Archbishop Thabo Makgoba said June 26 at the Annual Naught for your Comfort Award ceremony held at Sophiatown’s Christ the King Church.
“It is our turn to be channels of his comfort,” he said, urging South Africa’s leadership to move beyond their “comfort zone” and address the needs of the present.
Archbishop Makgoba also responded to claims made by President Jacob Zuma last week at an ANC rally in Mpumalanga that the ANC “will rule until the Son of Man comes”.
“He must come back while we are still in power,” President Zuma said.
While President Zuma has the right to hope South African voters will choose an ANC government “until Jesus comes again,”, his prediction that that ANC would rule South Africa forever was “unfortunate, anachronistic, and potentially dangerous,” Archbishop Makgoba said.
The president was within his rights under South Africa’s guarantees of freedom of religion to claim Jesus for the ANC, but “to speak of ruling ‘until the end of time as we know it’ was a political, rather than religious matter,” he said.
One-party rule had brought “enormous poverty and suffering” to Africa, the Archbishop said reflected a “1960s or ‘70’s view of our continent,” that ignored the democratic advances made in the past thirty years expressed in the African Union’s declaration on democracy, political, economic and corporate governance.
“And, finally, the president’s predictions of unending ANC rule are potentially dangerous,” he said. “They might encourage those who have a strong stake in — and economic motives for — prolonging ANC rule indefinitely, and tempt them to take unconstitutional action to preserve it.”
Archbishop Makgoba called for social justice for the new South Africa that went beyond the political slogans of past generations. “Many of us grew up with one big simple question, for the church and for the country, to which there was one big simple answer – the end of apartheid. Now, in both politics and faith, we have to deal with complicated and diverse issues, with no big simple answers – and we are not used to the new mindset this requires. You might even say, it takes us outside our comfort zone.”
“For democratic life is messy,” the archbishop said.
“But, for us who are new to it, it can be confusing, and unsettling, as the tides of politics ebb and flow, and personalities and politicians come and go. And often devout and deep-thinking Christians are divided on all manner of issues from the death penalty through to the best way to tackle poverty. But we should not be discouraged. God can work in this democratic world as easily as in the bad old days – for nowhere is outside God’s comfort zone,” he said.
Cuba fails again to elect a bishop: CEN 7.03.09 p 7. July 3, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Cuba.1 comment so far
Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper.
A special meeting of the Diocese of Cuba’s synod was unable to elect a bishop last week, making it the fourth time the synod has been unable to elect a bishop for the Caribbean island.
Delegates to the June 19-20 deadlocked after ten rounds of voting with the Rev. Emilio Martin, the Rev. Ivan Gonzalez and the Rev. José Angel Guiterrez unable to garner the requisite two thirds majorities from the lay and clergy delegates. Internal divisions within the diocese have prevented the election of a bishop for 20 years.
A one-time member of the American church, the diocese withdrew from the Episcopal Church in 1967 in the wake of the political dissension between the US and Cuba. A Metropolitan Council composed of the Archbishops of Canada and the West Indies and the US Presiding Bishop have exercised jurisdiction over the diocese.
In 2003 the US General Convention voted to re-admit Cuba to the US Church, but the Cuban diocesan synod narrowly rejected the invitation.
In January 2004, the Metropolitan Council appointed the former Dean of Havana’s Holy Trinity Cathedral, Bishop Miguel Tamayo of Uruguay, to serve as interim bishop of the diocese, and in 2007 two suffragan bishops were appointed by the Metropolitan Council to help bridge the theological and political divide within the diocese.
The Ven. Michael Pollesel, general secretary of the Anglican Church of Canada, who was appointed to oversee the election on behalf of the Metropolitan Council, told the Anglican Journal the diocese still remained divided into two camps. “I guess one would be considered more moderate and middle of the road, the other might be considered a little more traditional,” he said.
The matter has now been referred back to the Metropolitan Council for further action.
Vero Beach minister who had adulterous affair is defrocked: Press Journal 7.02.09 July 2, 2009
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Read it all in the Vero Beach Press Journal
VERO BEACH — A prominent Vero Beach minister has been defrocked after an investigation concluded he had engaged in “conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy” for having carried on an adulterous affair for two decades.
On June 29, the congregation of Christ Church in Vero Beach was informed their former minister, the Rev. D. Lorne Coyle, had been deposed by Bishop John Guernsey and no longer had the “right to exercise the office of priest and the authority” of a minister.
On Feb 1, Coyle stunned members of the independent congregation, which meets in the former Indian River County Tax Assessor’s Office in Majestic Plaza off U.S. 1 in Vero Beach, by saying he was resigning as their senior minister and admitted to having committed adultery.
In 2007, Coyle, who had been the rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Vero Beach for 15 years, led the majority of its members out of the Diocese of Central Florida in protest to the national Episcopal Church’s departure from traditional moral teachings. Coyle’s abrupt resignation on morals charges rocked the conservative congregation, causing some to speculate it would collapse.
However, the Rev. Bob Stull, Christ Church’s interim rector, said Thursday, “despite the sadness and concern” the church was “carrying on” and had not been sunk by the affair.
We are “weathering the storm”, Stull said, crediting the “lay leaders of the parish” for holding the congregation together. “It’s not just the leadership of the clergy, but the people” who have allowed Christ Church to continue to prosper, he said.
Christ Church is one of 700 founding congregations of 100,000 former Episcopalians in the United States and Canada that last month formed the Anglican Church in North America.
In his June 29 letter to the congregation, Guernsey said Coyle “engaged in an adulterous relationship, which began very early in his ordained ministry and continued for many years.” In 1991, the affair was discovered and the bishop of Rhode Island disciplined Coyle, but allowed him to remain a priest.
However, Guernsey writes Coyle “resumed the adulterous relationship” after moving to Vero Beach, finally ending the affair in 2000.
Because he already had been pardoned for one offense, “this repeated offense was particularly serious,” Guernsey said, and had led to his permanent removal from the ministry.
Guernsey said Thursday he was saddened by the affair, but declined otherwise to comment, stating his letter to the congregation would be his final word on the matter.
Coyle expressed his “remorse for the many people” he had hurt by his actions in a statement released jointly with his wife, Jane, after he was deposed on June 29. He conceded as he had already been “disciplined by the Church and given a new start, my misconduct was therefore particularly grievous.”
While “I privately repented of this sin, I kept it hidden from my wife, my bishop” and his congregation, and offered his apologies for betraying their trust.
Ghana allows women priests: CEN 6.26.09 p 6. July 1, 2009
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The Most Rev. Justice Akrofi, Primate of West Africa and Archbishop of Accra
The Diocese of Accra has voted to permit the ordination of women to the priesthood at its 20th triennial synod on June 20.
While legislation permitting women priests was adopted by the Church of the Province of West Africa in 2000, only Liberia and The Gambia have passed enabling legislation and ordained women clergy.
In his closing address to the Synod, the Primate of West Africa and Archbishop of Accra, Dr. Justice Ofei Akrofi said that after ten years of debate, “women will now be ordained as members of the priesthood.”
Women had been accepted for clergy training in Ghana’s seminaries, Dr. Akrofi said, and a cadre of trained capable women clergy-in-waiting were ready for ordination. The diocese had yet to determine what role they would play in the life of the diocese, however.
Of the 38 Provinces of the Anglican Communion, 8 do not ordain women: Central Africa, Jerusalem and the Middle East, Melanesia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, South East Asia, and Tanzania; 2 ordain women to the diaconate only, Congo and the Southern Cone; including the Church of England 24 provinces ordain women to the priesthood: Bangladesh, Brazil, Burundi, Central America, Hong Kong, North India, South India, Indian Ocean, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, Scotland, Southern Africa, the Sudan, Uganda, Wales, West Africa, and the West Indies; while 4 provinces have consecrated women bishops: the Episcopal Church, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Women clergy have stood for election as bishops in Southern Africa, while the extra-provincial Church of Ceylon ordained its first woman priest in 2006, and the extra-provincial Diocese of Cuba consecrated a women bishop in 2007.
Sudan church leader to chair electoral group: CEN 6.26.09 p 6. July 1, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church of the Sudan.1 comment so far
The Archbishop of Juba Daniel Deng writes that the long time provincial secretary of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan (ECS), Canon Enock Tombe, has been given a year’s leave of absence to take up the post of chairman of the Eastern Equatoria High Elections Committee.
The June 16 appointment of Canon Tombe was “a national honour to the ECS,” Archbishop Deng wrote as “one of our leading clergymen has been chosen” by the government “for this most prestigious appointment.” The current ECS Personnel Secretary, Mr. John Augustino Lumori, has been appointed Acting Provincial Secretary through 2010, the archbishop said.
The Jan 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which formally ended the 21-year civil war between the Khartoum government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), called for national elections in July 2009, and a referendum on South Sudan independence to be held by 2011.
In April the Sudan’s nine-man electoral commission postponed the first national elections in 20 years for the national president and parliament, the South Sudan president and parliament, state governors and state assemblies to Feb 2010, saying more time was needed to create the infrastructure to oversee the voting.
However a June 16 report presented to the UN Human Rights Council questioned whether Sudan’s elections would be free and fair. UN investigator Sima Samar stated that “reports of arbitrary arrests, detention, as well as allegations of ill-treatment and torture of human rights defenders and humanitarian workers by security forces, in particular by the National Intelligence and Security Services” were being lodged with the UN mission in Sudan.
“In view of the upcoming elections in Feb 2010, it is imperative that restrictions on freedom of expression, association and assembly be removed to create a conducive environment for free and fair elections,” Samar told the Council.
The Sudan’s representative to the Human Rights Council dismissed the charges, saying the investigator’s report failed to “give a true picture of human rights” in the Sudan.
Archbishop’s Sudan peace plea: CEN 6.26.09 p 7. June 30, 2009
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Writing in support of the June 18 “Sudan Day of Action” organized by Baroness Cox and the Sudan Action Group, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams has called upon Khartoum government and the former rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement to act swiftly to implement all of the terms of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
“I saw the first benefits of peace myself when I visited Sudan in February 2006, just one year after the signing of the agreement,” Dr. Williams said.
“The CPA brought new hope to Southern Sudan after long and destructive conflict. Families could be reunited after long years of separation. New development opportunities opened up such as the church’s widespread programmes of teacher training and classroom building. For the first time, Southern Sudan had the opportunity to establish its own government as an autonomous region within the country.”
However the delay in implementing all of the terms of the CPA has “threatened the sustainability of this peace,” Dr. Williams warned. “There is now an urgency for both parties to the agreement and the international community which helped to broker and support it to demonstrate their renewed commitment to implement the agreement fully.”
He called upon the treaty partners to complete the disarmament and address the “widespread problems of insecurity,” rebuild South Sudan’s devastated infrastructure of roads, settle the on-going disputes over disputed border territories, and move swiftly to hold free and fair elections.
Dr. Williams also urged the international community not to be sidetracked by the “continuing horrors” of Darfur. “We need to recognize that unless the commitments around the CPA are honoured there is no chance of settling the conflict in Darfur,” he said.“I therefore urge a renewal of commitment and a readiness to work for measurable results as soon as possible,” the archbishop said.
Indian bishop wins court case: CEN 6.26.09 p 6. June 30, 2009
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An Indian appeals court has overruled the Moderator of the Church of South India (CSI), and ordered the church to permit the Bishop of Madras, Dr. V. Devasagayam, to serve until he reaches the retirement age of 65.
On June 19 the court dismissed a lawsuit brought by lay members of the diocese seeking the early retirement of the bishop. In May the Madras Supreme Court asked the Standing Committee of the CSI to advise it on the pertinent canon law governing the tenure of bishops.
In a response filed on June 8, the Moderator of the CSI, Dr. John Gladstone said the church supported the lay petition and had dismissed the bishop. However, in his opinion, Justice K. Chandru said Bishop Devasagayam was entitled to serve as bishop until he reached the age of 65.
The court held that the CSI was a voluntary association under Indian law and was governed by its by-laws, or canons. Actions taken outside the parameters of the canons were ultra vires, or without legal foundation. No group or individual within the CSI could curtail, annul, amend or modify the canons, except in accordance with the terms of canon law.
The CSI’s decision to remove the bishop as a “manifest illegality”, the court held, as the diocese was bound to act “strictly as per the rules.”
The church was free to seek to remove the bishop for cause, under the procedures set down by canon law the judge said, but could not construe the plain language of a retirement age of 65 against its natural meaning to serve a short political goal.
Bishop–Prayers needed amid Honduras turmoil: TLC 6.30.09 June 30, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Honduras, Living Church.add a comment
First published in The Living Church magazine.
The Bishop of Honduras has written to the House of Bishops, asking their prayers for his country after Sunday’s ouster of President Mel Zelaya.
“So far, the entire clergy, lay leadership and our families are all well,” the Rt. Rev. Lloyd Allen wrote on June 29 in an e-mail to the House of Bishops.
The Rev. Canon Kathleen Pennybacker, the Diocese of Central Florida’s canon to Honduras, told the Central Florida Episcopalian that Bishop Allen and the diocese’s mission groups in Honduras that she contacted were carrying on with their work but trying to avoid nonessential travel, and trips to the capital, Tegucigalpa.
“We knew this was coming,” Canon Pennybacker said. “Everyone was prepared, and it’s pretty quiet right now, but we don’t know how it will all develop.”
Bishop Allen reported “political tension” in Honduras centered around President Zelaya’s plans to hold a “non-binding referendum which opponents said would open the gate for him to rewrite the constitution to run for re-election despite a one-term limit.”
“I predict that you will be hearing a lot more about all that has happened,” Bishop Allen said. “A month ago the country was shaken by a 7.1 earthquake and now this. What next, and how much longer can this impoverished country survive?”
He added that the events of recent days would set the country “back in time, which will take us many years to recover and regain confidence in international eyes.”
Bishop Allen called upon The Episcopal Church “to keep this diocese and the Honduran people highly in prayers. I really don’t know what the future will bring. The Honduran delegation is ready to participate with you all at General Convention. However, if the course of actions does not improve in the next few days, I may have to reconsider.”
Cuba fails to elect a bishop: TLC 6.30.09 June 30, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Cuba, Living Church.add a comment
First published in The Living Church magazine.
The Diocese of Cuba failed to elect a bishop for the fourth time in 20 years when a special meeting of diocesan convention in Havana split along faction lines.
None of the three candidates on the ballot received the requisite two-thirds majority from the lay and clergy delegates, and the voting was halted after 10 ballots. Four candidates were nominated to succeed the Rt. Rev. Jorge Perera, who retired in 2003.
One candidate withdrew before the voting balloting began, leaving the Rev. Emilio Martin, the Rev. Ivan Gonzalez, and the Rev. José Angel Gutierrez on the ballot. While Fr. Martin received a majority of votes cast, he did not receive a plurality. When successive ballots returned the same results, and none of the candidates withdrew, voting was suspended.
The Ven. Michael Pollesel, general secretary of the Anglican Church of Canada, who oversaw the election, told the Anglican Journal the diocese appeared to be divided into two camps. “I guess one would be considered more moderate and middle of the road. The other might be considered a little more traditional,” he said.
A one-time member of The Episcopal Church, the diocese withdrew in 1967 in the wake of the political tensions between the U.S. and Cuba. A Metropolitan Council comprised of the archbishops of Canada and the West Indies and the American Presiding Bishop has since exercised jurisdiction over the diocese.
A special convention to elect a successor to Bishop Perera in 2003 split along factional lines, and in 2004 the Metropolitan Council asked the Bishop of Uruguay, the Rt. Rev. Miguel Tamayo, to serve for three years as interim bishop. A native of Cuba and former dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral, Havana, Bishop Tamayo was reappointed interim bishop in 2006 to a second three- year term.
In a bid to break the logjam, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Archbishop Fred Hiltz of Canada appointed two bishops suffragan from the two factions. In 2007, the two primates consecrated the Rev. Nerva Cot as Bishop Suffragan of Western Cuba and the Rev. Ulises Aguero as Bishop Suffragan of Eastern Cuba.
The failed election will be referred back to the Metropolitan Council for further action.
Nuns on the run from Episcopal Church liberalism: CEN 6.26.09 p 7. June 29, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Mission Societies/Religious Orders, The Episcopal Church.add a comment
The American branch of the Anglican women’s religious order, the All Saints Sisters of the Poor, has announced that all but one of its members have quit the Episcopal Church and on Sept 3 will be received into the Roman Catholic by the Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore.
Founded in 1851 in London, the mother house of the English order is located in Oxford. However in the Nineteenth century the order had over 400 members spread across houses in India, South Africa, Scotland and the United States. In 1872 the Sisters were invited by the rector of Mount Calvary Episcopal Church in Baltimore to open a house in Catonsville, Maryland to work with the poor.
According to its website, the All Saints Sisters of the Poor are a “traditional religious community, living under the evangelical vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.” Speaking to the Living Church magazine, the superior of the order Mother Christina said the 12 sisters in the US had come to believe that this discipline was not welcome in the Episcopal Church.
“We tried to be faithful in The Episcopal Church as we understand scriptures, but we seem to be drifting farther and farther apart,” she said. “For the past two years in particular we felt as if we were no longer making a difference in this church. We felt as if we no longer belong.”
Mother Christina added that the order had found it hard to attract new members as many of those drawn to lives of religious devotion and service to the poor within the discipline of the order were dissuaded from joining due to the reputation of the national Episcopal Church.
Religious orders in the Episcopal Church are free from diocesan ecclesial supervision and hold their property independent of the national church, the Episcopal Church’s canons state, making it unlikely the national church will try to seize the nuns’ 80-acre convent.
Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper.
More Australia dioceses see falls in investments: CEN 6.26.09 p 7. June 29, 2009
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Brisbane and Melbourne have joined the Diocese of Sydney in reporting significant declines in the value of their investment portfolio due to the downturn of the global capital markets.
The value of investments held by the Diocese of Melbourne has fallen by over half, from £1.2 million at year’s end in 2007 to £446,000 today, the diocese reported. Over the same period the Diocese of Sydney’s portfolio value fell from £100 million to £50 million.
On June 20, the Archbishop of Brisbane Dr Phillip Aspinall told his diocesan synod “all is not rosy on the financial front,” and that the diocese continues to face significant financial challenges.
“We have been hit particularly in 2009 and will be in 2010 by the global financial situation and the significant reduction in interest and investment income,” he said, noting “interest rates have fallen to a third of what they were and my understanding is there has been a similar fall on other investments so that puts pressure on our diocesan budget.”
The Brisbane synod also adopted a motion asking Dr. Aspinall to voluntarily waive the legal defence of the statute of limitations in cases arising from clergy sexual abuse of children. The motion asked the “archbishop in council to continue its ethical lead by undertaking negotiations with the diocesan insurers to establish a protocol for dealing with claims by victims of child sexual abuse when the diocese considers it appropriate not to invoke the time limitations defence, but without losing indemnity from the insurers”.
Claims arising from clergy abuse of children have led to multi-million dollar payouts to victims from the Diocese Adelaide. The original motion presented to synod asked the diocese to waive unilaterally the statute of limitations defence, however it was noted the diocesan insurers managed the church’s litigation in this area, and a case by case basis was the best way forward in the circumstances.
Ofwat attacked over refusal to stop rain water tax bills: CEN 6.26.09 p 5. June 28, 2009
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Ofwat’s claims that the Church of England’s £15 million bill for surface water run-off charges is justified by pleas to save the environment are nonsense, the Second Church Estates Commission Sir Stuart Bell (Middlesborough) (Lab) told Parliament last week.
Speaking in response to a question from Ann McIntosh (Vale of York) (Con) on June 18 on the financial impact the new rate scheme would have on the Church of England, Sir Stuart stated surface water charges by area will cost “at least £5 million and a further £10 million for highways drainage contributions.”
The Church Commissioners had been pressing the government and Ofwat—the Water Services Regulation Authority—to review these charges, and though they had “heard some encouraging noises” in response, we had hoped “for something more tangible and, from the Church’s point of view, for a broad, permanent exemption,” he said.
A member of the House Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op), told the House the junior minister at DEFRA, Huw Irranca-Davies had assured the committee on June 17 that Ofwat had “not only a brief but a duty to ensure that charging systems are fair and avoid creating hardship.” He urged the Church Commissioners to “make strong representations to ensure that Ofwat delivers” on its promises.
Sir Stuart responded that “our difficulty appears to be that water companies” had adopted a pricing scheme that charged churches as “if they were big businesses. We are seeking to argue that that cannot be morally or ethically right and that it is not a balanced approach.”
He added that the government had responded, “but whether they do so sufficiently and significantly is another matter.”
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire) (Con), however, rose to protest the government’s inaction, and urged the Second Church Estates Commission to “redouble his efforts.”
A member of General Synod, Sir Patrick told the House he had been corresponding with Ofwat’s chairman, Philip Fletcher, on this issue. “Although charming and courteous, he has not delivered as he should have.” He turned to Sir Stuart and asked whether it was not “extraordinary that the body set up to protect the public is creating this appalling problem.”
Sir Stuart responded that Ofwat was not responding in an entirely straight forward manner to the Church’s concerns. Ofwat was “misdirecting itself on these issues” by claiming the “new charging regime is an ecologically sound policy. Let me say that the Church takes environmental issues seriously, and that we do not necessarily accept that argument.”
Sir Stuart added that he had already pressed the government to “intervene robustly” and stated he would be “happy to repeat that request.”
Creation of second Anglican church for conservative Episcopalians draws praise from Vero Beach people: Press Journal 6.27.09 page B5 June 27, 2009
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VERO BEACH — The creation of a second Anglican church in America for conservative Episcopalians angered by the liberal drift of their denomination has drawn high praise from the members of a Vero Beach church who attended the new denomination’s founding convocation in Texas this week.
“I’ve been waiting 30 years for this moment,” said Judy Stull of Christ Church in Vero Beach, one of ten members of the church’s delegation to the Anglican Church in North America founding convocation held June 22-25 at St. Vincent’s Cathedral in Bedford, Texas.
Formed in 2007 after the clergy and a majority of the members of Trinity Episcopal Church in Vero Beach withdrew from the Diocese of Central Florida, the new church meets in the former Indian River County Tax Assessor’s Office in Majestic Plaza off U.S. 1 in Vero Beach. The 500-member church is one of 700 congregations comprising 100,000 former Episcopalians in the U.S. and Canada that make up the ACNA.
Led by the former Bishop of Pittsburgh, Robert Duncan, the ACNA was created by conservative Episcopalians following a 30-year fight within the 2 million member church over the interpretation of Scripture, which began with disputes over the ordination of women but has since focused on homosexuality.
Not all conservative Episcopalians have joined the new group. The Episcopal Bishop of Central Florida, the Rt. Rev. John W. Howe has urged conservatives to hold fast, arguing that it is possible to be “both Episcopalian and Anglican,” and has vowed work toward reforming the Episcopal Church from within.
The interim rector of Christ Church, the Rev. Bob Stull, said he was “overjoyed” by the creation of the new group, which hopes to become the second American province alongside the Episcopal Church of the 80 million member Anglican Communion.
Christ Church members Ed and Martha Barrett said the meeting had delivered a “powerful” and “positive” message of hope for the future. A point made by Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker, who with his diocese, pulled out of the Episcopal Church last year. .
The four days in Texas were “significant” for Episcopalians as it marked “the beginning of the recovery of confidence in Anglicanism as a biblical, missionary church,” he said Wednesday.
The convocation’s three main speakers each urged the 800 delegates and guests to Bedford to put the past fights with the Episcopal Church behind them. The break with the Episcopal Church was now complete, Archbishop Duncan said. “There is no one here who will go back.”
Read it all in the Vero Beach Press Journal.
Bishop dismisses claims of church investigation: CEN 6.26.09 p 5. June 26, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper.add a comment
The Bishop of The Murray has dismissed claims that an Episcopal Standards Commission has been convened by the Anglican Church of Australia to investigate charges leveled against him of conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy.
The Rt. Rev. Ross Davies stated there is “no formal inquiry and there are no formal allegations against me. I have asked for particulars; none have been provided.”
An April 2, The Church of England Newspaper reported a investigation had been initiated by the Archbishop of Adelaide, Dr. Jeffrey Driver, after he stated he could “confirm” that “an investigation is underway” of Bishop Davies.
Dr. Driver stated that he had been asked by The Murray’s diocesan council “to consider ways to assist in resolving issues raised in that Diocese related to the Bishop. A preliminary investigation will take place in the first instance to enable me and those advising me to understand the issues and determine how best to proceed.”
However on May 28, Bishop Davies released a statement castigating Dr. Driver, writing the archbishop had “no authority to intermeddle in the affairs” of the diocese “without my permission.”
“He hasn’t asked for it and I haven’t given it,” Bishop Davies said. “I am gravely concerned about the Constitution propriety of what is happening and what I see as a lack of due process and natural justice.”
On Sept 22, Bishop Davies returned to work after a year’s sick leave taken in the wake of charges that he failed to appropriately respond to allegations that his archdeacon had engaged in sexual misconduct.
An internal church report in 2005 found that the allegations against Archdeacon Peter Coote were “credible”, however, Bishop Davies is alleged to have taken no action other than refer him to a therapist. A initial inquiry found insufficient evidence to bring the bishop before the church’s Episcopal Standards Commission for conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy.
“I have not committed any breaches of the Laws of the Anglican Church,” Bishop Davies said last week, adding that he was disappointed with Dr. Driver. “In essence, the Archbishop has appointed someone to go fishing in The Murray to see if a case can be mounted against me,” the bishop said.
Terry Waite backs statement in support of Aung San Suu Kyi: CEN 6.24.09 June 26, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Myanmar, Church of England Newspaper.1 comment so far
Terry Waite
First published in The Church of England Newspaper
Terry Waite, Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie’s Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs, has joined over 100 former political prisoners in endorsing a statement calling for the release of Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Ky and for the UN to impose an arms embargo on the military junta ruling the country.
Currently in her 14th year of house arrest, Madame Suu Kyi is being tried for violating the terms of her jailing for permitting a disturbed American man to swim across a lake to visit her house in Rangoon in early May. The imprisoned Burmese leader faces an additional five years confinement if found guilty of the charge.
The statement endorsed by 107 former political prisoners, including former Czech president Vaclav Havel, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia Anwar Ibrahim, Ingrid Betancourt of Colombia, the former president of South Korea Kim Dae-jung, and Yuri Orlov, nuclear physicist and onetime Soviet dissident signed the 64-word statement to Madame Suu Kyi to mark her 64th birthday on June 19.
“The continued denial of your freedom unacceptably attacks the human rights of all 2,156 political prisoners in Myanmar. As those also incarcerated for our political beliefs, we share the world’s outrage. We call on the United Nations Security Council to press the Myanmar Government to immediately release all political prisoners, and to restrict the weapons that strengthen its hand through a global arms embargo.”
Shao Jiang a Chinese student leader and democracy activist stated, that “As a survivor of Tiananmen Square, I know the true value of democracy and freedom. The international community, including the United Nations Security Council, needs to take strong action to ensure the immediate release of all political prisoners in Burma. Citizens around the world, let’s unite and bring down the dictators!”
Prime Minister Gordon Brown also recorded a strongly worded message of support for Madame Suu Kyi, stating her detention was an “intolerable injustice.” The prime minister said he hoped that the democracy activist’s coming birthday would be the “last you spend without your freedom.”
Pastor Rick Warren at the ACNA June 26, 2009
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The Rev. Rick Warren at the ACNA founding convocation in Bedford, Texas on June 23, 2009. First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America June 25, 2009
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'AUTHENTICALLY ORTHODOX': Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America said the Orthodox and the Anglican Church in North America share a common apostolic heritage and morality. He announced June 24 the OCA is abandoning relations and dialogue with the Episcopal Church in favor the ACNA.
This photo with the caption printed above was first printed in The Living Church on 6.24.09.
OCA Synod ‘Enthusiastic’ About Dialogue with ACNA: TLC 6.24.09 June 25, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Living Church, Orthodox Church in America.add a comment
First printed in The Living Church
If Anglicans foreswear Calvinism, female priests, and the filioque clause, the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) would be ready to begin a dialogue leading to the possible recognition of Anglican orders and full Eucharistic fellowship.
In a June 24 address, His Beatitude Jonah, the Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada of the OCA, said the Orthodox and the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) shared a common apostolic heritage and shared morality. He also announced that his church had switched ecumenical ties, abandoning all relations and dialogue with The Episcopal Church in favor of the ACNA.
“We can come together as the bastion and bulwark of an authentically orthodox church,” the archbishop said. “We can come together to bear witness to the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as handed over by the fathers.”
Metropolitan Jonah told the ACNA assembly the OCA’s synod of bishops was “enthusiastic about the opportunities” dialogue would bring. His offer of a dialogue on full communion was made only on behalf of the OCA, he said. He added that he was traveling from Fort Worth to New York for a meeting of the Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA), the umbrella group of all Orthodox churches in the Americas. The SCOBA bishops were “anxious to hear of my report on this meeting,” he said
The Presiding Bishop’s Deputy for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, the Rt. Rev. C. Christopher Epting, told The Living Church he was not aware of the OCA’s plans, but said the announcement was not unexpected.
“We’ve not had formal ecumenical relations with the OCA since I joined the Presiding Bishop’s Office” in 2001, he said. Bishop Epting said he had sought to foster dialogue with the Orthodox churches in America based on the Anglican-Orthodox agreed statement, The Triune Faith. However, the Orthodox had not responded.
The archbishop, 49, told the assembly that he had been raised as an Episcopalian at St James by the Sea Church, La Jolla, Calif., but as a college student came to Orthodoxy through a study of the Tractarians in search of the true church.
“The goal of my life is to live and actualize, to participate in as fully as I can, the full integrity of the Catholic Church, the full integrity of the Orthodox Church,” he said.
There have been relations between Anglicans and the Russian Orthodox Church since the Elizabethan settlement, he noted, and said 100 years ago that “that relationship became extremely strong” in the United States under the leadership of Metropolitan Tikhon.
“St. Tikhon had a vision of unity … that vision of unity resulted in the time of the proclamation by about half of the Orthodox churches of the validation of the Anglican orders,” he said. However, “it fell apart on the Anglican side with the affirmation of a protestant identity more than a catholic identity. This shattered the unity. We need to pick up where they left off.”
To complete the work of St. Tikhon, who hoped The Episcopal Church could be “declared a fellow Orthodox church,” he proposed a dialogue whose goal was a “unity in faith” where it “can be celebrated together in the sacrament of the Eucharist.” To get there, “there are some issues we have to resolve,” he said.
“One hundred years ago, St. Tikhon came to the Anglican Church with arms wide open. I am the successor of St Tikhon. I occupy the place, the throne, that St. Tikhon held as the leader of the OCA. Our arms are wide open,” he said to a standing ovation from the delegates.
In response to the Metropolitan’s address, the dean of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary, the Very Rev. Chad Hatfield, said that “in times of crisis Anglicanism by nature always turn east.” It is a “time for a huge opportunity, let’s not miss it.”
Reactions from the ACNA delegates broke along party lines. One Fort Worth delegate said there was hardly anything the OCA had proposed that Anglo-Catholics could not accept. However, an AMiA delegate was less sanguine, saying rejecting Calvinism was tantamount to rejecting Anglicanism.
Turning back on women’s orders was also problematic for many of the evangelical delegates, and is a point of contention within the new province.
Archbishop Duncan and Metropolitan Jonah June 24, 2009
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Metropolitan Jonah and Archbishop Robert Duncan on the podium during the ACNA's founding convocation on June 23, 2009
OCA To End Relations with TEC, Forge Ties to ACNA: TLC 6.24.09 June 24, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Living Church, Orthodox Church in America.add a comment
First printed in The Living Church.
His Beatitude, the Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) announced recently that his church has ended its ecumenical relations with The Episcopal Church, and will establish instead formal ecumenical relations with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).
Metropolitan Jonah of the OCA made the announcement June 24 at a plenary session of the ACNA’s founding convocation at St Vincent’s Cathedral, Bedford, Texas.
An autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, the OCA was established by eight Russian monks in 1794 on Kodiak Island, Alaska. Known as the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in America, it was granted autocephaly, or autonomy, by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1970. The OCA has 700 congregations, monasteries and communities spread across the United States and Canada.
Metropolitan Jonah, 49, was reared in The Episcopal Church, but joined the OCA while a student at the University of California, San Diego, in 1978. He was elected metropolitan last year as a reform candidate, 11 days after he was consecrated Bishop of Fort Worth.
Asked what the OCA’s stance toward ecumenism might be under his tenure, Metropolitan Jonah said, “If the matter concerns The Episcopal Church USA, then this dialogue has stopped.
“We engage in dialogue with Episcopalian traditionalists, many of whom embrace the Orthodox faith,” Jonah told a Moscow-based weblog. “And I personally, and our entire synod, give great attention to bringing these people into the fold of the Orthodox Church in America.”
New US Province is formed: CEN 6.24.09 June 24, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Church of England Newspaper.add a comment
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Anglican Communion’s 39th Province-in-waiting was formed this week, as the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) held its founding convocation at St. Vincent’s Cathedral in Bedford, Texas.
God, history, and provinces representing the overwhelming majority of the members of the Anglican Communion were on the side of the ACNA, Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan told the 234 delegates drawn from the ACNA’s 28 founding jurisdictions including four former dioceses of the Episcopal Church, representing some 700 congregations and 100,000 Anglicans in the US and Canada.
The break with the Episcopal Church was now complete, Bishop Duncan said. “There is no one here who will go back.”
Delegates attending the June 22-25 convocation formally adopted the ACNA’s Constitution and Canons and were also addressed by Bishop Duncan—who was elected archbishop on June 21 by a meeting of the ACNA’s House of Bishops—and California megachurch pastor Rick Warren, and Metropolitan Jonah, the head of the Orthodox Church in America.
Archbishop Duncan lauded the comprehensiveness and unity of the new province, which bridged the traditional theological divide between High and Low churchmen, Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals, in addition to the modern question of the ordination of women.
It was a “miracle” that those who “believe the ordination of women” was a “grave error” along with those “who see it as a being justified by Scripture” can “work together towards mission,” he said.
The themes of martyrdom and mission were central to the new archbishop’s vision. The ACNA served to win souls for Christ, while also providing a haven for those “who are harassed because of him.” He also urged the province to take up the “battle cry” of muscular Christianity as its own—“No cross, no crown.”
The future for the new province was bright, he argued. “We are proud to be part of the great reformation of the Christian church” now taking place as there was “an ever growing stream of North American Protestantism that has embraced” a foundational view of Scripture, while “at the same time Pentecostals and Evangelicals are moving towards Tradition.”
The ACNA was the outworking of this movement of the Spirit within North American Anglicanism, he argued, as the “whole world is looking here to Bedford.”
“Our adversary, the devil, is also interested in what is happening here,” he said, for a “reformed Anglican Church in North America is one of the enemy’s greatest concerns,” and he will “try to draw us into old ways and old fights.”
“It is essential that we stand together” and “move on,” Archbishop Duncan said.
California evangelist Rick Warren built upon Archbishop Duncan’s comments on the second day of the convocation, also telling the ACNA to let go of the hurts of the past and focus on the future.
Referring to the lawsuits over parish property and the recent spate of California decisions in favor of the Episcopal Church, Pastor Warren said “you may lose your steeple, but you won’t lose your people,” and urged the ACNA to make making relationships not location the “glue” holding the church together.
In his first speech since he offered the invocation at the inauguration of President Barack Obama in January, Pastor Warren gave the ACNA his full support, telling the delegates his “heart was full for you.”
For the ACNA to prosper and grow, it now had to put aside the past and focus on evangelism. “A great commitment to the great commandment and the great commission will grow a great Communion,” Pastor Warren said.
The work of building the new province lay with the parish priest, he said, urging them to be faithful their ministries and eschew politics and secular temptations. “If God has called you to serve in a local church, as a parish priest, lay leader, staff member, don’t you ever step down to become the president of the United States, or anything else, because nothing matters more,” he said.
This commitment to faith first, should be kept in mind when contemplating litigation over parish properties, he added. “Christ did not die for property,” he said. “God’s agenda is that he is building a family” of believers.
To do this he told the ACNA must model its ministry on the Trinity. “Get the Father’s perspective, follow the Son’s pattern, and appropriate the spirit’s power,” he said, but do not use the tools and weapons of this world. “I have no interest in politics,” Pastor Warren said, adding that if “you can change hearts through politics, I would have been a politician.”
“Jesus did not die for America, he died for Americans,” he said, urging the ACNA not to make the mistake of asking God to bless what it wanted to do, but to be patient and ask for God’s blessings that will allow it to be faithful to his word.
During its two afternoon business sessions, delegates ratified the ACNA’s constitution and canons offering only minor changes to drafts first published in December. “We have done the work dear brothers and sisters. The Anglican Church in North America has been constituted,” Archbishop Duncan said at the close of business on June 22.
The Book of Common Prayer and the Articles of Religion served as the theological bases for the canons, which were designed to permit structural flexibility while assuring confessional unity as expressed in questions of Faith and order. The new province permits women priests, but not bishops—but allows dioceses to opt out of women clergy, vests the ownership of parish property with the congregation and church wardens, requires a clergyman wishing to remarry after a divorce to seek a licence from his bishop, and adopted a strong stance against abortion on demand.
At the close of the business sessions, the Bishop of Okigwe-North in the Church of Nigeria, the Rt. Rev. Alfred Nwaizuzu rose to congratulate the delegates. He noted that his province had been criticized for its intervention in the United States in recent years, but today “Archbishop Akinola is happy.” For “today it is America solving the problem.”
The convocation continues through June 25, with presentations by Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America—who is expected to welcome the ACNA as its dialogue partner with Anglicans in the US, presentations on church planting, and the formal ceremony of installation for the new primate, Archbishop Duncan.
ACNA speakers table, June 23 2009 June 24, 2009
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His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah of the OCA, Archbishop Robert Duncan of the ACNA, Pastor Rick Warren, and the Very Rev. Ryan Reed, Dean of St Vincent’s Cathedral, Bedford, Texas, on the dias of the founding convocation of the ACNA on June 23.
Pastor Rick Warren speaking to the ACNA on June 23: TLC June 24, 2009
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Pastor Rick Warren speaking to the ACNA, June 23, 2009
First published in The Living Church
Evangelist Encourages ACNA Assembly: TLC 6.23.09 June 24, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Living Church.2 comments
First published in The Living Church.
Evangelist and mega-church pastor Rick Warren told the founding convocation of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) to focus its energies on mission and evangelism, and let go of the entanglements of the past.
“You may lose your steeple, but you won’t lose your people,” Pastor Warren told delegates and guests of the ACNA assembly June 23 in a tent on the precincts of St. Vincent’s Cathedral in Bedford, Texas. He serves as senior minister of the 25,000-member Saddleback Community Church, a four-campus congregation he founded in southern California.
Pastor Warren told the ACNA his “heart was full for you” and that the ACNA’s work was of “extreme importance” for the reformation of the wider Christian church. It should not be “reactionary,” Pastor Warren said, but forward thinking, going out to “build disciples” one by one.
“A great commitment to the great commandment and the great commission will grow a great communion,” Pastor Warren said. The work of building this new church lay with the parish priest, he said. He urged priests to be faithful to their ministries and to eschew politics and secular temptations.
“If God has called you to serve in a local church, as a parish priest, lay leader, staff member, don’t you ever step down to become the president of the United States, or anything else, because nothing matters more,” he said.
This commitment to faith first should be kept in mind when contemplating litigation over parish properties, he added. Harking back to comments he made during the “Hope and a Future Conference” in Pittsburgh for Anglican traditionalists in 2005, Pastor Warren said the church “has never been a building,” noting that his congregation used 79 different locations in its first 13 years.
“Christ did not die for property,” he said. “God’s agenda is that he is building a family” of believers.
The Rt. Rev. David Bane, Bishop of Southern Virginia from 1998 to 2006, told The Living Church he was moved by Pastor Warren’s address. “So much of what he said is what we have always believed,” Bishop Bane said.
Bishop Duncan…Break with TEC Now Complete: TLC 6.22.09 June 24, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
First published in The Living Church.
Telling delegates the break with the Episcopal Church is now complete, Bishop Robert Duncan opened the Inaugural Assembly of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) June 22 at St. Vincent’s Cathedral in Bedford, Texas.
The ACNA’s archbishop-designate stressed the themes of martyrdom and mission in his opening address to the assembly. He said St. Alban’s Day, the feast of the first British martyr, had been specifically chosen for the start of the assembly session. He also urged delegates to take up the battle cry of “muscular Christianity”: “No cross, no crown.”
Bishop Duncan recounted the birth pangs of the new province, concluding that the break with the Episcopal Church was absolute.
“How is it that a once great tradition has lost its moorings?,” he asked. “We compromised, we were silent, we looked away. No more!
“There is no one here who will go back.”
Asserting that “what is ahead of us is what really counts,” Bishop Duncan said “we are proud to be part of the great reformation of the Christian church” now taking place.
“There is an ever-growing stream of North American Protestantism that has embraced” a foundational view of scripture, he said, while “at the same time Pentecostals and Evangelicals are moving towards tradition.”
While internally divided over the issue of women’s ordination, Bishop Duncan told delegates it is a “miracle” that those who believe the ordination of women was a “grave error” can “work together toward mission” with those who see it as a being justified by scripture.
Questions over pro-gay cash to support ‘Indaba’: CEN 6.19.09 p 6. June 24, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Consultative Council, Church of England Newspaper, Human Sexuality --- The gay issue.add a comment
Questions have been raised by a conservative American church pressure group over the impartiality of the Anglican Consultative Council’s “Continuing Indaba Process” following disclosures that the funding for the project came from a single American Episcopal priest linked to pro-gay activist organizations.
During the May meeting of ACC-14 in Jamaica, the ACC announced that it had been given a $1.5 million grant to continue the Listening Process on human sexuality. Delegates were told the grant, the largest in the ACC’s history, was made by the Satcher Health Leadership Institute of the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.
However, when pressed by a reporter for the American Anglican Council (AAC) in Kingston, the ACC conceded the Satcher Institute was a conduit for a gift made by the Rev. Marta Weeks, a retired Episcopal priest and philanthropist in Miami, Florida.
Long active in social justice issues, Mrs. Weeks endorsed the Jan 200 Religious Declaration on Sexuality, Morality, Justice and Healing that called for the “full inclusion of women and sexual minorities in congregational life, including their ordination and the blessing of same sex unions” as well as “a faith-based commitment to sexual and reproductive rights, including access to voluntary contraception, abortion, and HIV/STD prevention and treatment.”
Mrs. Weeks told the AAC that she had been approached by the Satcher Institute to fund the programme, and had agreed due to her long standing relationships with the Institute’s Center for Excellence for Sexual Health
According to public records the primary funder of the Center for Excellence for Sexual Health is the Ford Foundation, which gave Morehouse a $3 million grant to to start the programme. The Ford Foundation, the ACC charges, is a well known combatant in the US’s culture wars, and has denounced traditionalist Christian views on sexual morality.
In a 2005 paper the Ford Foundation warned that “conservative and fundamentalist forces” were using “sexuality to attack progressive sectors that work on reproductive health, women’s rights, girls’ education and other issues. Often using religion to justify their actions, these groups see sexuality and sexual rights-particularly women’s control of their own sexuality and LGBT rights-as a tremendous threat to the status quo that they want to maintain (or a former order they are seeking to restore).”
The AAC questioned the propriety of the ACC accepting funds from left wing advocacy groups, who have a vested interest in a particular outcome. “It’s like letting [brewer] Anheiser-Busch fund an AA programme,” a spokesman told The Church of England Newspaper. “It just doesn’t pass the smell test.”
A spokesman for the Satcher Institute stated that “no strings” had been attached to the grant give to the ACC, save that it use the money for the purposes described in its grant application.
More bishops deposed in USA: CEN 6.19.09 p 6. June 24, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, House of Bishops.add a comment
US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has deposed two more retired American bishops, announcing on June 12 that she had accepted the voluntary renunciation of ministry of the retired Bishop of Quincy the Rt. Rev. Edward MacBurney and the retired Bishop of Southern Virginia the Rt Rev. David Bane.
However, the two bishops have stated they have not renounced their orders, but were being accepted into the House of Bishops of the Province of the Southern Cone under Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables.
A press release from the presiding bishop’s office said the two bishops were “being removed from ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church ‘for causes which do not affect (their) moral character,’ ” the release said, citing the words of the church’s voluntary renunciation canon.” The release noted this action did not purport to defrock the two bishops and would not affect their ecclesial standing in other provinces of the Anglican Communion.
Bishop Jefferts Schori’s use of the voluntary renunciation canon has come under sharp criticism from canonical scholars such as the Anglican Communion Institute (ACI), who have argued the canons do not permit the presiding bishop to act in the way she has.
However, the Presiding Bishop said her decision had the “full support of her Council of Advice” of bishops.
Bishop Bane presently serves as an honorary assistant bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh under Bishop Robert Duncan, while Bishop MacBurney is retired from active ministry.
Since her election in 2006, Bishop Jefferts Schori has overseen the departure of 13 US bishops—four of whom were received into the Roman Catholic Church and nine to Anglican provinces in the Global South.
ACNA gathers for its formal launch in Texas: CEN 6.19.09 p 6. June 24, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Church of England Newspaper.add a comment
The third province movement in North America will take legal and physical form next week at the inaugural convocation of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) at St. Vincent’s Cathedral in Bedford, Texas.
Some 232 delegates along with approximately 750 other participants are expected to endorse the constitution and canons of the ACNA, creating a new Anglican province in the United States and Canada.
“This is a new Province. It is not a new Church,” said Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, the archbishop-designate of the ACNA. “Our hope” is that the ACNA “is the re-constitution of a faithful—that is biblical, missionary and united—Church in Anglican form.”
While the ACNA will not automatically be seated at the Anglican Consultative Council as the Communion’s 39th province, representatives from over a dozen Anglican provinces, representing two thirds of the active membership of the Anglican Communion are expected to endorse the new group—recognizing its legitimacy.
The new province will gather together much of the disparate Anglican diasporas in North America, reuniting groups such as the Reformed Episcopal Church—which quit the Episcopal Church during the High Church/Low Church battles of the Nineteenth century, with breakaway congregations and dioceses that have left the Episcopal Church over the past decade.
The new province will be formed into 28 dioceses and ministry clusters. With over 700 congregations and an average Sunday attendance of over 100,000 the ACNA is larger than 13 of the Communion’s 38 provinces, including the Church in Wales.
Meeting from June 22 to 25, the ACNA will hold several “up and down” votes on the new provinces canons. Bishop Duncan stated six principles “stand out” in the new canons: confessional unity, expressed in matters of Faith and Order; subsidiarity in administration; a missionary focus; flexibility; disciplinary reforms; and collegial accountability.
“Constitution and Canons are not meant to be exciting, only a framework,” Bishop Duncan said. “What is exciting is the rebirth of the biblical, missionary and united Anglicanism in North America for which so many have prayed for so long and that the proposed constitution and canons represent.”
Plenary speakers scheduled to address the meeting include the Rev. Rick Warren, the pastor of California’s Saddleback Church, and Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America.
ACNA Opens Inaugural Assembly: TLC 6.22.09 June 24, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Living Church.add a comment
First published in The Living Church.
The Inaugural Assembly of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) attracted more than 900 attendees to St. Vincent’s Cathedral, Bedford, Texas. This week, the gathering will formally create an Anglican church with 28 dioceses and dioceses-in-formation, more than 700 congregations and 100,000 members, according to the organization’s website.
“Though the journey took its toll, we know that we have been delivered, and have found that deliverance very sweet indeed,” said Bishop Robert Duncan, archbishop-designate for the ACNA, addressing delegates, attendees, and other guests during the assembly’s opening worship service. “Our God is up to something very big, both with us and with others. The Father truly is drawing his children together again in a surprising and sovereign move of the Holy Spirit. He is again re-forming his Church.”
ACNA announced that more than 35 Anglican and ecumenical guests from around the world, including the primates or official delegations from eight Anglican provinces, are observing or participating in the assembly. The Rt. Rev. Santosh Marray, retired bishop of the Seychelles in the Province of the Indian Ocean, is attending as the official pastoral visitor of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
Los Angeles wins court case over property: CEN 6.19.09 p 6. June 19, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Los Angeles, Property Litigation.add a comment
A California appeals court has ruled in favor of the Diocese of Los Angeles, holding that the congregation of St. Luke’s Church in La Crescenta could not take its property with it when it quit the diocese.
On June 9 the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal upheld a 2007 lower court decision which ruled against the congregation, which in 2006 had quit the Episcopal Church for the Church of Uganda.
“The long history of the Episcopal Church in La Crescenta will continue with new leadership and the potential for sustained growth, and as an open source of full inclusion for all humanity,” Los Angeles Bishop Jon Bruno told the Episcopal News Service after the decision was released.
On June 11, the Rev. Rob Holman, rector of the breakaway congregation stated his congregation had “shed many tears at the thought of being deprived of our house of worship for these past 85 years.”
“That the Bishop of Los Angeles would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in the courts to wrest all, down to even the small wooden processional cross from the hands of our youngest acolytes, is unfathomable to the Christian heart,” he said.
The appellate court’s action in the St Luke’s case will not affect any other California church lawsuit, however, as it was issued as an unreported decision—meaning the court will not publish its ruling, preventing other courts or litigants from relying upon it for precedential value.
The court stated that it based its decision upon the Jan 5, 2009 decision by the California Supreme Court in the case of St James’ Newport Beach—a case currently under appeal before the US Supreme Court and returned to the lower courts for trial in Orange County, California.
In its decision, the Court said the congregation’s reliance upon the 1981 Barker case that found in favor of breakaway Episcopal congregations on the theory of neutral principles of law, was ill-advised.
The Barker case was distinguishable “largely due to the passage of time” as it was decided before the creation of the current crop of canons that seek to vest trusteeship of parish property with the diocese and the national church and because the “appellate court in Barker did not mention any of the general church’s canons. Accordingly, that decision does not control a dispute that, here, arose 25 years after the high court decision” and adoption of the new property canons.
Canonical expert A.S. Haley told The Church of England Newspaper that in the current legal climate “it’s always dangerous, these days, to rely on what has gone before”. The best strategy for a parish to follow nowadays is never to concede any facts, but to make [the Episcopal Church] prove every jot and tittle of its claims,” he observed.
Anger over abuse fall-out: CEN 6.19.09 p 6. June 19, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Church of England Newspaper, Church of Ireland.add a comment
The Church of Ireland’s Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross has condemned the moves by pressure groups to use the findings of the Ryan Report on child abuse in Roman Catholic-run institutions to advance their own special interests and political campaigns.
In the first public statement on the Ryan Report by an Anglican cleric in Ireland, Bishop Paul Bolton told his diocesan synod the needs of the victims of abuse should take precedence. “They must be the centre of all our concerns and efforts,” he said on June 13.
The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA), also known as the Ryan Report after the commission’s chair Justice Seán Ryan examined the extent and effect of child abuse after 1936 in Reformatory and Industrial Schools operated by Roman Catholic religious orders and funded and supervised by the Irish Department of Education.
Released to the public on May 20, the report said it heard credible testimony of abuse of children by priests, brothers and nuns, and that some church officials covered up the crimes of pedophiles serving in the church, shielding them from arrest and prosecution through a “culture of self-serving secrecy.”
The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Seán Brady said he was “profoundly sorry and deeply ashamed that children suffered in such awful ways in these institutions. This report makes it clear that great wrong and hurt were caused to some of the most vulnerable children in our society. It documents a shameful catalogue of cruelty: neglect, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, perpetrated against children.”
Bishop Colton told the Cork Synod the findings of the Ryan Report revealed a “national trauma.” However, some groups had sought to use the report for their own ends, he noted.
“Some people in Ireland have used this report as a springboard towards a secularising agenda,’’ he said, while “others have called unthinkingly for the withdrawal of all churches from their modern-day engagement with education in a country, which, according to the last census, is still manifestly religious in its affiliation.”
“Still others use an old-fashioned and distorted republicanism and link what happened with injustices in the pre-independence era,” he said while some commentators “expose the limitations of their own understanding of the modern, pluralist Ireland by speaking as if, even now in 2009, there is only one Christian denomination or religious grouping in this State.’’
Bishop Colton stated that “in the aftermath of the report, people who were abused should be the priority of this nation, its institutions and of all of us.”
“What I would say is that this shame must prompt us all in every church and in every institution in society to take a good hard look at ourselves, and to ask what abuses or inhuman injustices we are responsible for perpetuating or exacerbating today,” he told synod.
Boys ‘most likely to be victims of abuse’: CEN 6.19.09 p 5. June 19, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper.add a comment
Boys aged between 10 and 15 years of age are the most frequently targeted victims of clergy sexual abuse, a report presented on June 13 to the Standing Committee of the Anglican Church of Australia’s General Synod has found
Prepared by Professor Patrick Parkinson and Professor Kim Oates of the University of Sydney the “Study of Reported Child Sexual Abuse in the Anglican Church” examined 191 cases of abuse reported to diocesan officials between 1990 and 2008 from 17 of the church’s 23 dioceses—three rural dioceses declined to participate in the study while three others reported no incidents of abuse.
The study was commissioned by the 2004 General Synod and sought to identify the “characteristics of accused persons” and their victims and the circumstances of the offence, as well as “ascertain patterns of abuse in relation to similarities or differences in gender and age of the child complainants,” in order to “inform the Church on what steps could be taken towards better prevention of sexual abuse within church communities.”
Archbishop Philip Aspinall of Brisbane stated, that “while this report is aimed at strengthening our child protection protocols as we look to the future, it also reminds us of the tragic events of the past and of the pain which still exists. We reiterate our apology, our sorrow and our deep regret for abuse which has occurred.”
“The Australian Church has been developing processes which include screening of those working with children and young people, a code of conduct and safe ministry training. The General Synod commissioned this report to ensure the Church continues to be proactive in the important matter of child protection.”
The study found that unlike patterns of abuse in the general population but closely akin to patterns of abuse documented in studies of Roman Catholic clergy in the United States who had committed child abuse, three quarters of the victims were boys aged 10 to 15 at the time of the abuse. Boys were also less likely to speak out promptly about the abuse than girls, with the average delay between the abuse and the complaint being 23 years, the study found.
The study also found that most of the accused were either clergy or were involved in some form of voluntary or paid youth work. Of those accused of abuse, 27 men accounted for 43 percent of all cases—a total of 135 clergy and church workers were accused of abuse: 133 men and 2 women.
Over half of those accused were adjudged guilty of the crime, while a third were acquitted due to insufficient evidence. The remainder either died before the investigations were carried out, while only 2 percent of the accusations were deemed false.
In explaining the disproportionately high rate of abused boys to girls, the study speculated that child abuse was often a crime of opportunity, and that boys were more likely to be in situations where they were alone with their abusers as compared to girls.
“The report contains a series of recommendations, ranging from a review of the education measures in place in dioceses through to a more coordinated national and uniform approach for the selection and accreditation of leaders of youth groups,” Dr. Aspinall said.
“While the Anglican Church has made very real progress over recent years in the area of child protection, the recommendations in this report will provide an important focus and impetus to our continued efforts in this area. It may well be that they are of assistance to other churches as well,” he said.
Communists say there may be a God: CEN 6.19.09 p 5. June 18, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Chicago, Church of England Newspaper, Politics.2 comments
THERE MAY be a God after all, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) declared this week, after its Central Committee established a Religion Commission to create a united front with religious progressives against the forces of imperialism and market capitalism.
Writing in the party newspaper, the People’s Weekly World, the chairman of the Religion Commission, Tim Yeager, said the party sought to “reach out to religious people and communities, to find ways of improving our coalition work with them, and to welcome people of faith into the party.”
The CPUSA invited “questions and responses from people who would like to dialogue with us on matters pertaining to religion, Marxism and the struggle for more peaceful, just and secure world,” Mr Yeager said.
An attorney and union organizer for the United Auto Workers in Chicago, Mr Yeager is also an Episcopalian and a member of the Diocese of Chicago’s Peace and Justice Committee, and chairman of the Chicago chapter of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship.
Being a fervent Marxist did not require one to be an atheist, Mr Yeager said, nor did the party require its cadres to be atheists. He noted that in some countries the relations between Communists and the church had been “marked by conflict” but in the United States “our party has been proud to work” with “men and women of faith,” he said. “Marxist parties and religious progressives have worked together against repressive regimes and imperialist intervention.”
A spokesman for the Diocese of Chicago told The Church of England Newspaper the “Peace and Justice Committee of our diocese has no relationship or role with the Communist Party USA or its newly formed Religion Commission.”
Colorado dispute is settled as breakaway group quits: CEN 6.12.09 p 7. June 16, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Colorado, Property Litigation.add a comment
A dispute over the ownership of the Diocese of Colorado’s largest congregation was settled last week after two years of litigation, with the congregation of Grace and St Stephen’s Episcopal Church agreeing to vacate its £10 property, while the diocese has agreed not to seek reimbursement for the millions spent in legal fees to recover the church’s assets.
On March 24 a Colorado Springs judge ruled that trusteeship of Grace and St Stephen’s resided with the diocese, not the parish vestry. “We are very pleased with the court’s ruling which awarded the property to the Episcopal Church, but it is clearly time to relinquish our remaining claims and bring peace to our respective communities,” said Bishop Robert J. O’Neill on June 2.
The breakaway congregations, now called St. George’s Anglican Church agreed “that it will not appeal the court’s decision … (and) both sides agreed to the dismissal of all remaining claims, including damages, with each side to pay its own costs and attorneys’ fees,” Bishop O’Neill said.
On June 3, St. George’s gave a statement to The Church of England Newspaper saying it was also “pleased” with the settlement as it “relieved our staff and vestry members of the burden and expense of defending against [£3] million in unjustified claims brought against them personally by the Diocese of Colorado and the Episcopal Church.
“The settlement reached also means that all the costs associated with maintaining the property of Grace Church and St. Stephens, including payment of the [£1.5 million] mortgage, belong to the Episcopal congregation and the Diocese of Colorado.
In a marathon session of negotiations to settle the diocese’s claims for legal fees and to decided whether the congregation would appeal the March court ruling, the Rev. Donald Armstrong, rector of the breakaway group, and his lawyers were placed in one room, while the bishop and his lawyers were seated in a second room. A negotiator, former Colorado State Supreme Court Justice William Neighbors, shuttled between the two helping them negotiate the deal that ended the dispute.
‘Buddhist’ Bishop failing to win American consent: CEN 6.12.09 p 7. June 16, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Northern Michigan.add a comment
The election of the “Buddhist Bishop” of Northern Michigan will be rejected by the Episcopal Church, a survey of the standing committees of the 111 domestic and overseas dioceses of the Episcopal Church conducted by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.
Frank Lockwood, religion editor of the Democrat-Gazette on June 4 reported that a survey of the church’s 111 diocesan standing committees found that a majority, 56, had refused to give their consent to the election of the Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester.
On April 24 The Church of England Newspaper reported that early returns from the US House of Bishops found that Dr. Forrester had been unable to hold together the left-liberal bloc of bishops that backed Gene Robinson’s 2003 election as Bishop of New Hampshire. An unofficial tally kept by CEN finds the gap has widened against Dr. Forrester in the last six weeks among the bishops as well, with only 14 of the churches 102 bishops voting to affirm his election while 39 have voted “no”—and the rest not having reported on their vote.
However, an official rejection of Dr. Forrester’s election cannot be made until the close of the official 120-day consent period mandated by canon law. If the bishop-elect and his allies were able to convince some of the “no” votes to switch their votes by the mid-July deadline, Dr. Forrester could squeak through.
Should Dr. Forrester’s election be rejected, it will mark the first time in 77 years that a diocesan bishop has been refused consent. In 1932, the Dean of Arkansas the Very Rev. John Williamson was refused consent for election as Bishop of Arkansas by the House of Bishops after protests were lodged that black clergy and lay delegates had been disenfranchised during the election.
Concerns over Dr. Forrester’s theological and liturgical innovations appear to have prompted the “no” votes. All of the American church’ remaining conservative bishops and dioceses have rejected Dr. Forrester’s election, but liberal stalwarts like Los Angeles have also voted “no”.
Dr. Paul Marshall, the liberal leaning Bishop of Bethlehem and a onetime professor of liturgy at Yale explained his no vote by stating “as a Church we are increasingly a laughing-stock … because we do not consistently proclaim a solid core, words as simple as ‘all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,’ yet ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.”
Conservative church leaders outside the US have also questioned the election of Dr. Forrester. “I don’t really see what there is left to say,” the Bishop of Durham, Dr. NT Wright wrote. “The unique incarnation, saving death, bodily resurrection and universal lordship of Jesus are basic to Christian faith and to question that means you are disqualified from being an upholder of that faith in any official capacity in the church. That such a man should be considered even a possibility for a bishop is quite simply extraordinary.”
Dr. J.I. Packer was equally scathing in his remarks, telling the Democrat-Gazette, “this gentleman, apparently, doesn’t believe the creeds. … The doctrine of redemption through the incarnation and atoning work and resurrection and heavenly reign at present and future return of the second person of the Godhead: That is Christianity. Take that away and you have destroyed the Christian religion. Period. That’s what Christianity is about.”
Anger over Rwandan plan to regulate religions: CEN 6.12.09 p 6. June 16, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Rwanda, Church of England Newspaper, Politics.1 comment so far
Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda is spearheading a drive by the country’s Christian and Muslim leaders to defeat a bill introduced by the government that regulates the formation and finances of the country’s churches and mosques.
Requiring new churches to have at least 100 members and for its ministers or muftis to have an academic degree would have a chilling effect on religious freedom, Archbishop Kolini wrote in a letter to the country’s local government minister Musoni Protais.
On April 16, Protais tabled the Religious Denominations Bill before the Chamber of Deputies. The Bill asks the government to regulate the formation of new religious organizations, and require existing groups to submit to government supervised audits of their finances.
It sets out “procedures for creating such organizations or religious denominations, requirements, and rights and obligations owed to them in their daily activities,” a summary report printed on the website of the Rwandan parliament said.
Archbishop Kolini told Kigali’s New Times that Rwanda’s churches believed the proposed regulations were onerous. By imposing academic tests upon the organizers of new churches, the “freedom of worship is dishonoured,” he said.
Supporters of the Bill argued that the plethora of new African indigenous churches—some of which ignored local zoning laws and engaged in dubious business practices required a firm governmental hand.
However,” you cannot handle churches the same way you handle associations and NGOs. We are different,” Archbishop Kolini told the New Times. “I think if this law is passed, it is likely to cause tension,” he noted.
Budget cuts hits African efforts to combat Aids: CEN 6.12.09 p 6. June 16, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Church of England Newspaper, Health/HIV-AIDS.add a comment
Budget cuts by Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID) have led to a curtailment of HIV/AIDS outreach work in the Diocese of Namibia, Bishop Nathaniel Nakwatumbah told his diocesan synod in Windhoek on May 29.
Bishop Nakwatumbah urged the clergy and lay delegates to redouble local efforts in combating the spread of the disease, but warned that cutbacks by the British and American governments would lead to a reduced diocesan presence in the fight.
The Anglican Church of Southern Africa’s Siyafundisa programme has reached almost 850,000 young people between the ages of 10 to 24. It teaches abstinence until marriage, faithfulness within marriage and monogamous partnerships. But it has been cut back due to the end of support from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Siyakha programme, which had been funded by the DfID, was also being scaled back. Siyakha built upon the Siyafundisa programme and sought to strengthen understanding among church and community leaders of HIV and AIDS and reduce the stigma and marginalization surrounding the illness.
Siyakha developed models of care for orphaned and vulnerable children, taught counseling skills, created pilot programmes for voluntary counseling and testing services run by churches in areas not served by the government, and developed HIV/AIDS workplace policies, programmes and materials for church employees, clergy and lay leaders.
The loss of British and American money was a “high setback in our effort to help our people,” the bishop said. “We need to pray that another donor be found to help us pick up the fallen sphere on HIV/AIDS,” he said in his charge to the diocese.
Anglican chief on WCC shortlist: CEN 6.14.09 June 14, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Consultative Council, Church of England Newspaper, WCC.add a comment
| The Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council is on a shortlist of six candidates for the post of Secretary General of the World Council of Churches (WCC).
On May 28 Ecumenical News International reported that Canon Kenneth Kearon was among the six candidates vying to succeed Dr Samuel Kobia of Kenya. On June 5 the WCC stated it had not “officially released any names of candidates and does not confirm the accuracy of the ENI list.” Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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African clergy go on strike as Archbishop sacked: CEN 6.12.09 p 6. June 13, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Roman Catholic Church, Syncretism.add a comment
The Roman Catholic clergy of the Central Africa Republic (CAR) staged a one day strike last week to protest the removal by the Vatican of the Archbishop of Bangui, Msgr. Paulin Pomodimo, for violating his vow of chastity.
Appointed to oversee the country’s nine Roman Catholic dioceses in 2003, the 54 year old archbishop resigned on May 27 after he was found by the Vatican to possess “a moral attitude which is not always in conformity with his commitments to follow Christ in chastity, poverty and obedience.” The archbishop’s resignation follows that of the former president of CAR’s episcopal conference, Bishop François-Xavier Yombandje of Bossangoa, who stepped down on May 16 after a Vatican fact finding mission faulted him for having a common law wife.
Meeting at Bangui’s cathedral, the CAR clergy voted to strike in protest to a “lack of consultation” over the appointment of a new archbishop, prompting the closing of all parishes and the suspension of all religious services and sacramental acts.
In March the Rev. Robert Sarah, secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, toured the CAR and issued a scathing report on clergy discipline. The French language Bangui newspaper, Le Confident on May 20 published extracts of a letter written by Cardinal Ivan Dias, the Prefect for the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples to the CAR bishops stating that numerous “bad things” had been done to the Body of Christ through the clergy’s “poor and scandalous comportment.”
The cardinal’s letter said it was “pointless” to deny the accusations of widespread unchastity, nor was there a need to judge the motives or circumstances behind the “evil that has been committed.” Bishops, priests and religious in the CAR had “in one way or another” been accomplices in the scandal and each “shall assume his own culpability proportionally to his own responsibility,” Le Confident reported.
A majority of Roman Catholic parish priests in the CAR have common law wives, local news agency i.media reported and Archbishop Pomodimo and Bishop Yombandje were “reportedly suspected of frequenting women and having children.”
Clergy spokesman Fr. Mathurin Paze Lekissan said the strike was called off after one day to avoid “depriving Christians of the divine word and the body of Christ.”
The CIA World Factbook estimates the former French colony’s religious demography to be 25 percent Roman Catholic, 25 percent Protestant Christian, 15 percent Muslim and 35 percent animist. Anglican evangelists from the Congo are active among the tribe’s along the country’s southern and eastern borders, but no national church has yet been formed. Bangui however is home to Francophone Africa’s only higher Protestant school of theological education the Faculté de Théologie Évangélique de Bangui—a school supported by a number of overseas Anglican mission partners.
Sydney’s investments plummet in recession: CEN 6.12.09 p 5. June 13, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper, Development/Economics/Govt Finances.add a comment
The value of the Diocese of Sydney’s investments have fallen by more than half this past year due to the collapse of the global financial markets, Archbishop Peter Jensen reports in a parochial letter distributed to the diocese on June 7.
The global financial crisis has taken a heavy toll across the communion, with many dioceses in the United States, Canada, and Australia reporting significant declines in investment and parochial income.
“We have suffered very significant losses to our diocesan capital,” Dr. Jensen reported due to the leveraged investment strategy used by the diocese. “For several years now we have borrowed money to increase the amount invested,” he said, noting this had realized high returns in past years, and had permitted a “special” £10 million “distribution to help purchase land and build new churches” in 2007.
However, when the market moved against the diocese, by year’s end the leveraged strategy had “accentuated our losses. As a result, our investments have fallen by more than half and the distribution of money from our investments has been cut by 50%. Ministries which depend on this funding will be severely impacted.”
Diocesan finances were now “stable,” with no debt and much of the diocese investment funds now held as cash. “But the losses remain,” he said, and would result in a restructuring of operations.
Last week the Episcopal Diocese of Washington also reported that it would be cutting its £2.4 million budget by £250,000 due to a projected shortfall of contributions from its 93 congregations. A spokesman stated the diocese would begin staff cuts to cover the shortfall as well as reduce its contribution to the national church’s coffers by £80,000.
Declining revenues and an aging church membership have strained most of the Episcopal Church’s dioceses. A March report released by the State of the Church committee for July’s General Convention estimated that 68 percent of the church’s dioceses were experiencing financial difficulties.
‘Time is running out for Middle East peace’: CEN 6.12.09 p 5. June 13, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Israel, The Episcopal Church.2 comments
Time is running out for a peaceful two-state solution to the crisis in Israel and Palestine, an open letter to US President Barack Obama endorsed by over 50 American Christian leaders warns.
Representatives from the Protestant, Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, including US Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori have applauded President Obama’s plan to make peace in the Holy Land a top priority, and endorsed the proposals made in the presidents Cairo speech to the Muslim world last week. But while the world awaits a diplomatically negotiated settlement, the Palestinian Christian community is in danger of being wiped out, they said.
“In the birthplace of our faith, one of the world’s oldest Christian communities is dwindling rapidly, and with them the possibility of a day when three thriving faith communities live in shared peace in Jerusalem,” the June 4 letter said. And unless action is taken soon, “Christians in the Holy Land may cease to exist as a viable community.”
Actions by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government had had dire consequences for the Christian minority. “Continued settlement growth and expansion are rapidly diminishing any possibility for the creation of a viable Palestinian state,” the letter said.
At the same time, “targeting of Israeli civilians through ongoing rocket fire and the insistent rejection by some of Israel’s right to exist reinforces the destructive status quo. These actions, along with the route of the separation barrier, movement restrictions and continued home demolitions, serve to undermine Palestinians and Israelis alike who seek peace. As hope dims, the threat of violence grows and hardliners are strengthened.”
Church leaders urged the Obama administration to act swiftly as the present “window of opportunity” was “rapidly closing” for peace in the Middle East. They urged the president to “present proposals that go beyond the mere principle of two states and lay out a just and equitable solution that provides dignity, security and sovereignty for both peoples.”
Call to make former Tanzanian President a saint: CEN 6.12.09 p 5. June 13, 2009
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The President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni has endorsed the campaign to declare the late President of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere (pictured), a saint.
Speaking to pilgrims at the Roman Catholic Martyr’s Shrine in Namugongo on June 2, President Museveni said Nyerere, known as Mwalimu or “teacher” to the people of Tanzania was “blessed with extraordinary wisdom and compassion for the oppressed. He loved freedom and unity for all people, and he was a fearless freedom fighter.”
“He was like the Ugandan martyrs who stood for truth against sin; even at the expense of their lives. I join those who are praying for the canonisation of Mwalimu as a saint. He was not only a freedom fighter, he was also a man of God,” local press reports stated.
On Jan 26, 2006 the Roman Catholic Bishop of Musoma, Tanzania forwarded a request to canonize Nyerere to the Vatican, which that year accorded him the title “Servant of God.”
A convert to Christianity while a student at a rural mission school, Nyerere was the first president of Tanganyika (later called Tanzania after the merger with Zanzibar), and held office from 1961 to 1985.
Educated at the University of Edinburgh, Nyerere sought to blend socialism with African communalism. In 1967 he issued the Arusha declaration which began a voluntary collectivization of Tanzanian agriculture under the Ujamaa or “familyhood” campaign. Nyerere’s “third way,” between Western capitalism and Soviet communism won him admirers among the left.
One of his admirers was the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. During a courtesy call paid to the President of Tanzania on Feb 16, 2007, Dr. Williams said that Tanzania had been for him a symbol of hope during his younger days as “Tanzania stood and stands for what can be achieved through democratic development.”
Impatient with the slow pace of voluntary collectivization, in 1973 Nyerere began forced collectivization, uprooting traditional villages to form Ujamaa communities. By 1976 Tanzanian agriculture had declined from being one of Africa’s largest agricultural exporters to its largest food importer. Between 1965 and 1989 Tanzania’s economy declined an average of .2 percent per year, making it the second poorest country in the world, the World Bank reported, while neighboring Kenya, which followed free market principles saw its GDP grow 2 percent per year during the same period, and by the end of the 1980’s had a per capita income three times greater than Tanzania.
