Australians are first to take up Pope’s offer: CEN 2.17.10 p 8. February 25, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper, Ecclesiology, Roman Catholic Church, Traditional Anglican Communion.comments closed
The Rt Rev David Robarts
Pope Benedict XVI’s offer of an enclave for disaffected Anglican traditionalists has been taken up by Forward in Faith-Australia (FiFA), which has voted to begin work on creating a “Personal Ordinariate” for Australia.
On Feb 13, a special general meeting for the members of the Anglo-Catholic group held at All Saints Kooyong in Melbourne unanimously adopted four resolutions backing the move to Rome.
It empowered its National Council “to foster by every means the establishing of an Ordinariate in Australia”; welcomed the appoint of the Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne Peter Elliott as the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference’s envoy, endorsed the formation of a working group to “set in train the processes necessary” to establish the Ordinariate; and invited Catholic minded Anglicans to join them in their quest for corporate reunion with Rome.
In an open letter to those wishing to explore reunion, Bishop Elliott stated that he had been reared in the Anglo-Catholic movement. His father was an Anglican priest and it was while he was a student at St. Stephen’s House in Oxford that he was “reconciled to Rome” in 1968.
In explaining the pastoral provision, Bishop Elliott wrote “the Pastor of the nations is reaching out to give you a special place within the Catholic Church. United in communion, but not absorbed – that sums up the unique and privileged status former Anglicans will enjoy in their Ordinariates.”
“Catholics in full communion with the Successor of St Peter, you will be gathered in distinctive communities that preserve elements of Anglican worship, spirituality and culture that are compatible with Catholic faith and morals. Each Ordinariate will be an autonomous structure, like a diocese, but something between a Personal Prelature (as in Opus Dei, purely spiritual jurisdiction), or a Military Ordinariate (for the Armed Forces).”
“In some ways, the Ordinariate will even be similar to a Rite” like the Eastern Catholic Churches, he said, as the Ordinariate will have its own liturgical “use”.
Bishop Elliott said there was no “hidden agenda here, no popish trap.” By entering the Catholic fold “you will lose nothing – but you will regain an inheritance stolen from us four centuries ago.”
The vote by FiFA is the first move by a group within the Anglican Communion to take up the Pope’s offer. The National Chairman of FiFA, Bishop David Robarts told the Telegraph that those who did not believe in same-sex partnerships or allowing women to be ordained as bishops had no place in the “broader Anglican spectrum.”
“We’re not shifting the furniture, we’re simply saying that we have been faithful Anglicans upholding what Anglicans have always believed and we’re not wanting to change anything, but we have been marginalised by people who want to introduce innovations,” he said.
Submitting to Rome, he argued, would preserve FiFA’s Anglican heritage.
Finland rejects gay marriage: CEN 2.17.10 p 8. February 25, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Finland, Human Sexuality --- The gay issue.comments closed
Archbishop Jukka Paarma of Finland
The Bishops of the Church of Finland have rejected gay church marriages.
Following a two-day meeting in Helsinki, on Feb 10 the bishops released a statement saying that formal blessings of same-sex partnerships will not be permitted in the country’s Lutheran state churches.
Pastors may provide pastoral and prayer support for homosexual couples, but may not offer wedding-like ceremonies, the Finnish bishops said.
Last week’s decision was a compromise, Archbishop Jukka Paarma told reporters. A partner of the Church of England through the Porvoo agreements, the Finnish state church had not “taken a clear stand on these matters, but now we have,” the archbishop explained.
Gays may be members of the church, and the church will permit, on a case by case basis, gay clergy to officiate. Clergy may also pray for gay couples using the words of the Finnish prayer book.
However, the prayers may not be taken from the marriage service or nuptial blessing, no exchange of rings or other wedding-like rituals are permitted, and no parish or minister will be obligated to perform the gay-friendly prayers, the archbishop said.
Same-sex blessings have divided the Nordic churches and have led to broken relationships with the orthodox churches of the region. The Church of Sweden last year permitted gay marriage in churches, while the Baltic Lutheran churches—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—have followed the Russian Orthodox Church’s line and declared such innovations as heretical.
Church welcomes N Ireland deal: CEN 2.19.10 p 6. February 25, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Ireland, Politics.comments closed
The Church of Ireland has welcomed the deal struck last week by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein to save Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government.
On Feb 5 First Minister Peter Robinson (DUP) and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness (Sinn Fein) announced they had reached an agreement following two weeks of round the clock negotiations at Hillsborough Castle, Co Down.
The deal provides for policing and justice powers to be devolved from Westminster to the Stormont Assembly by April 12, while a timetable to establish an oversight board for loyalist parades has been established.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown welcomed the accord saying “this is the last chapter of a long and troubled story and the beginning of a new chapter after decades of violence, years of talks, weeks of stalemate,” while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, ‘”today, Northern Ireland has taken another important step toward a full and lasting peace.
The Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, the Rt. Rev. Ken Good applauded agreement stating it was a “breakthrough” that could “release a logjam that has held back decision making in other areas of political life.”
The Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. Alan Harper concurred, stating that Northern Ireland had been “yearning for a settlement” of its political divisions.
“The commitment of the political parties to bring the talks to a fruitful conclusion is to be praised and welcomed. The fact that issues to do with parading and the Irish language also featured in the talks should be seen as offering additional confidence to both traditions in our society,” he said.
The next step, Dr. Harper said, was for a united Executive and Northern Ireland Assembly to address the economic situation in Ulster, especially the plight of small businesses, and be “bold in working together for the well being of all the people of Northern Ireland.”
Hong Kong faces £15 million tax bill: CEN 2.12.10 p 8. February 21, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui.comments closed
The Diocese of Hong Kong has been hit with a £15 million tax bill after a court ruled that its profits from the development of church land were not part of the church’s charitable activities.
The Jan 27 ruling comes as a blow to the diocese, which now must pay taxes on the future income from its property ventures, and will likely impact the Anglican Consultative Council, which had received grants from Hong Kong to support its operations.
In 1998 the diocese formed a joint venture with Cheung Kong Holdings to develop St Christopher’s Orphanage located in Tai Po in Hong Kong’s New Territories into luxury condominiums. The sale of the land generated a profit of £37 million, while the Sheng Kung Hui Foundation, which manages church properties, earned £55 million on the sale.
High Court Justice Anselmo Reyes rejected the argument proffered by church counsel Anthony Neoh that neither the diocese nor its trust arm was empowered to engage in business.
In his opinion Judge Reyes wrote the existence of a prohibition against business activities in the diocese’s charter did not by itself “preclude an investigation into fact or falsify the [tax authority’s] conclusion.”
“Read in context, all that the [Inland Revenue] was saying is that the church and the foundation had a laudable motive of using as much of the income generated from the old lots as possible in their charitable activities.”
“That does not mean that, at the end of the day, all the income generated was expended on charitable activities,” Judge Reyes said, “nor does it say anything about how much of the income generated was actually used in charitable activities.”
In its original ruling the Inland Revenue Department said the diocese had not provided for an accounting of the profits, and noted that one of the conditions for tax exempt treatment of the profits was that they not be “expended substantially outside Hong Kong.” At ACC-14 in Kingston in 2009, ACC General Secretary Kenneth Kearon reported an “extraordinary gift” from the Hong Kong Anglican Church, which forgave a £500,000 loan that it had extended in 2005 towards the refurbishment of the offices of the ACC at St. Andrew’s House in London.
Attorneys for the diocese are reviewing the ruling and no decision has been made on an appeal at this time, a spokesman said.
Archbishop warns of second Holocaust: CEN 2.12.10 p 8. February 20, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Abortion/Euthanasia/Biotechnology, Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that abortion, euthanasia, terrorism, and racial, religious and ethnic persecution have the potential to create a second holocaust in Europe, in a statement marking National Holocaust Day.
“Hope without memory is like memory without hope,” Dr. Rowan Williams said on Jan 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, citing an aphorism of Sir Elie Wiesel.
Weisel was knighted in 2006 as a “public sign of the importance of the living memory that survivors of the Holocaust are for present day humanity. Our 2010 commemoration of the Holocaust has at its heart the survivors of the Shoah, the unique human beings who are the primary source for our continued attention, our understanding and our need to continue to work at the lessons in a world that seems not yet to have learned them,” Dr. Williams said.
The Holocaust generation was passing away, he said, with only 5000 Jewish and other survivors of the camps alive today. “But tragically there are also many hundreds of thousands of people in this and other countries who are survivors of the many other genocidal events of the 20th and 21st centuries, including those atrocities that have taken place, like the Holocaust, on European soil,” he said.
Dr Williams urged Anglicans to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive, while also keeping watch for those “signs at home and abroad of those attitudes in ourselves and in others which were the harbingers of the Holocaust. These include the dehumanising rhetoric which seeks to separate ‘us’ from ‘them’ and then to project all that is negative on to the other, on to ‘them’.”
We also need to guard against “every expression of ungenerous feeling towards people in need,” such as “refugees and asylum seekers,” Dr. Williams said, while being alert to the “signs of a casual attitude to the value of human lives, whether by acts of terrorism or more subtly, in relation to disability, or the beginning or end of life.”
He urged the world not to forget the sufferings of the victims of the Holocaust.
“Will their legacy be a world in which such things no longer happen because we and our children have learned the lessons and acted on them? Or will their generation, with all its suffering, its tenacity and its offering of hope pass from us like a nightmare best forgotten?” he asked.
Police charge retired priest with 45 counts of child abuse: CEN 2.12.10 p 8. February 20, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Central New York, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Pennsylvania police have arrested an 82-year old retired priest, charging him with 45 counts of child abuse. The Feb 5 arrest of Ralph Johnson comes five years after his successor reported allegations made by parishioners against the former rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Owego, New York to the Bishop of Central New York.
In May 2006, Johnson voluntarily renounced his ministry but declined to admit any wrongdoing following the Rev. David Bollinger’s report to the diocese. For reporting the abuse, Fr. Bollinger states he was disciplined by Bishop Gladstone “Skip” Adams III, whom he charged sought to cover up the abuse.
“I believe I have been inhibited as a punishment for trying to seek the truth about Johnson’s alleged pedophile activities when I received an affidavit from one of 16 victims of my parish charging the former parish priest with sexual abuse,” Fr. Bollinger said at the time.
Bishop Adams retaliated by launching an audit of the parish finances and brought the priest before an ecclesiastical court on charges of making “false statements and financial misconduct” Fr. Bollinger told The Church of England Newspaper.
A diocesan trial court, however, exonerated Fr. Bollinger of all charges in 2007 and ended the bishop’s inhibition of the priest. However, the “bishop has not been satisfied with the judgment” of the diocesan court and referred the charges to the New York Attorney General’s Office which is continuing to investigate the allegations of financial misconduct, he said.
Bishop Adams declined to respond to questions from CEN about Mr. Johnson’s case, but he told a local newspaper the diocese had fully cooperated with the police.
The victim contacted Fr. Bollinger a month ago to say he was pressing his case, and “finally the state police listened,” he said. It is “my hope that justice will be served and the victims helped,” he said.
Church row over sackings: CEN 2.12.10 p 8. February 19, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, The Episcopal Church.comments closed
In a cost cutting move the Episcopal Church Center in New York has canceled its cleaning contract with a unionized maintenance company, choosing a cheaper non-union competitor.
The decision has prompted outrage and ridicule from the left and right within the church, and negative coverage in the New York press, which charged the church with hypocrisy for calling for other companies to use unionized labor, but declining to take its own advice.
One traditionalist bishop told The Church of England Newspaper the union busting was symbolic of the national church’s priorities. “Millions are spent on lawyers by 815” [the church center’s nickname based upon its address of 815 Second Avenue] while “nine cleaners are fired to save a few thousand dollars,” he said.
Last week the New York Daily News reported on the travails of the fired porters who learned they no longer had jobs when they reported to work on Dec 30. “We believe that the Episcopal Church would not want to create more poverty in this world, so we are hopeful that the church will do everything in its power to help us regain our jobs,” a letter to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori signed by Max Fullner and Raymond Hines, who worked at the church for 42 years, Ives Jean Pierre, 39 years, and Ahmed Alsaidy, 27 years, among others, said.
“The way they were just suddenly terminated after all those years of service speaks volumes to the injustice done to them,” the Daily News said.
On Feb 4 Service Employees International Union local 32BJ organized a picket of the National Church Center, protesting the “unlawful termination” of the porters.
Liberal deputies to the church’s General Convention were outraged by the union busting, noting that at its July General Convention some deputies took part in a protest aimed at the Walt Disney Corporation for its anti-labor practices.
The General Convention in 2006 adopted a resolution entitled “Support Worker Unions and a Living Wage” that supported the “the right of workers to form a union” and committed the church to “contract solely with union hotels in its meetings, or to obtain confirmation that local prevailing ‘living wages’ are paid by all hotels the Church uses.”
Conservatives were angered by what they saw as an example of the church’s hypocrisy for mandating all churches provide health care benefits to its lay staff, calling it an issue of moral justice, while refusing to apply the same moral standards to its own business practices in Manhattan.
“It needs to be clear that looking for a new contract is a normal business procedure,” church spokesman Neva Rae Fox, told the Daily News. However the Daily News editorialized that “a church is not supposed to be a business,” lambasting what it said was the church’s unfairness.
“Budget constraints have prompted The Episcopal Church to review all contracts and to implement cost-cutting measures where possible,” the church center’s chief operating officer said in a statement released to the press.
Bishop’s charge to Bahamas parliament: CEN 2.12.10 p 6. February 19, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of the West Indies, Politics.comments closed
The Bishop of the Bahamas has urged members of the Caribbean nation’s’ parliament to put their trust in the Lord, rather than in the works of men, as they are responsible to both God and the electorate in carrying out the just functions of government.
Speaking at the annual parliamentary church service held at St. George’s Anglican Church in Nassau, the Rt. Rev. Laish Boyd told the Prime Minister, cabinet and members of the House of Assembly the “power” of their offices lay outside themselves, and ultimately rested in God.
“It is outside of yourselves because you represent the people of this jurisdiction and there is a God who created you, who will sustain you and who helps you,” Bishop Boyd said.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,” the bishop said, citing Proverbs 3:5-6. “Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.”
“We are called to trust in God to hold onto what we cannot yet see or what has not yet materialized because in our human state we cannot see or know everything. There are some things we must hold by belief, conviction or trust,” said Bishop Boyd.
Organized by the Bahamas Christian Council, the annual service brings the government in contact with the leaders of the islands’ religious communities.
In reviewing the government’s legislative agenda, the Rev. Patrick Paul, President of the Bahamas Christian Council, stated that “crime and particularly violent crime, against persons and property continues to rise and we must find ways to work together and bring this to an abatement,” the Bahamas press service reported.
Capital punishment for murder has been reinstated by the Bahamian government. However, the Anglican Church in the West Indies has voiced strong opposition to the restoration of capital punishment. In his Oct 21 synod address, Bishop Boyd said hanging was “not a deterrent to crime.”
“The disregard for human life and a perverted value system which allows a person to maim or to kill another in a dispute, are realities that capital punishment cannot ever address, even though a hanging may satisfy the desire for retribution,” he said.
Anger over Kenya Sharia law proposal: CEN 2.12.10 p 6. February 19, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Kenya, Church of England Newspaper, Islam.comments closed
Granting Sharia law a special place in its new constitution will lead to break up of the country, the National Council of Churches of Kenya warned last week. At a Feb 1 press conference in Nairobi, Canon Peter Karanja, said that unless the proposal for a parallel Sharia court system for Muslims was removed from the current draft of the country’s new constitution, Kenya’s Christian Churches would urge its members to vote against ratification.
“It is possible to think Christians are being sensational, but if you look ahead at the next 50 years, 100 years, or couple of centuries, when none of us is working on a new constitution, or the full impact of these decision is experienced, people will look back and ask: Were Christians so naïve to allow this to happen?” Canon Karanja told reporters.
The NCCK statement charged the Muslim community with seeking to create an “Islamic state within a state. This is a state with its own Sharia compliant banking system; its own Sharia compliant insurance; its own Halaal bureau of standards; and is now pressing for its own judicial system.”
The “entrenchment of one religion in the constitution is a risk that we should not take,” they said.
The church leaders also objected to a provision in the draft constitution that would allows “persons professing Muslim religion” an exemption from the protections of the Bill of Rights.
“The Bill of Rights in our constitution is what defines who a Kenyan is. No Kenyan should be denied their rights whatsoever,” they said.
If the “draft constitution presented at the referendum does not reflect these cardinal principles, we the Christian Church in Kenya shall have no option but to reject it in total and vote NO,” the church leaders said.
Muslim leaders countered that the Sharia or Kadhi Court system had been in place since independence, and that the current system of laws was based on non-Muslim principles. “The current constitution and the draft are largely based on British Common Law, which borrows from Judeo-Christian laws and traditions,” Ibrahim Isaac of the International Da’awah Resource Centre told journalists on Feb 2.
The Muslim view was: “No Kadhi courts. No constitution,” he said.
Kunonga “will be curbed”: CEN 2.05.10 p 8. February 13, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.comments closed
The Zimbabwean government will intervene in the battle over church property in Harare, state ministers promised last month, in the wake of the Christmas shuttering of the diocese’s churches by Dr. Nolbert Kunonga.
Co-Minister of Home Affairs Giles Mutsekwa pledged to end police support for the schismatic bishop and his violent campaign to evict Anglicans loyal to the Church of the Province of Central Africa and its Bishop of Harare, Dr. Chad Gandiya, from their churches.
The minister’s assurances come amidst a renewed campaign of violence and intimidation to break Anglicans loyal to the province. Dr Kunonga has been relentless in pursuing his claims for the diocese’s property. On Jan 30 baton-wielding police broke up a crèche operated by Karoi Anglican Church, forcing 60 under-fives to vacate the school as their parents were supporters of Dr. Gandiya, the Zim Online news service reported.
On Jan 31, Dr. Gandiya led a service outside the city’s St. Mary’s Cathedral in Africa Unity Square for an estimated 4000 worshippers to protest the campaign of intimidation.
Dr. Gandiya told the crowd the “custodians of the law are the ones denying us access, threatening to arrest us or use teargas to force us out,” according to wire services reports. Police threats would not deter Anglicans from gathering to worship, he said, even if forced to do so on the grass outside their churches.
However, “we support our government in spite of all that is playing on; we are not fighting government,” he told reporters after the service, noting he had invited President Robert Mugabe to attend the service.
The Zimbabwe Standard reported on Jan 24 that Mr. Mutsekwa said will ask senior police officials to explain their conduct and direct them to comply with the law.
However, sources in Harare fear the minister’s intervention will not resolve the dispute. The breakaway bishop has also tied his cause to the fortunes of President Mugabe, and has sought to paint his opponents as either tools of British imperial interests or supporters of the opposition, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.
Last April, Mr. Mutsekwa, a member of the MDC and his ZANU-PF counterpart, Home Affairs Co-Minister Kembo Mohadi, summoned Dr. Kunonga and Dr. Bakare to a meeting at government house to resolve the dispute between the two groups.
In 2008 a court order granted both Dr. Kunonga and Dr. Bakare joint use of diocesan properties, pending the final adjudication of the dispute over their ownership. However, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), with the backing of leading elements of the ZANU-PF regime refused to honour the order, and have used force to bar Anglicans from worshipping in Harare’s churches.
The creation of a coalition MDC – ZANU-PF government formed in February 2009, however, saw a withdrawal of support from Dr. Kunonga by the ZRP, as the bishop’s allies in the government lost control of the security services, and on Palm Sunday 2009, the ZRP ordered the Kunonga faction to share the church buildings, allowing both groups to hold services.
However the collapse of the coalition government has seen Dr. Kunonga reassert his power, and by Christmas he had succeeded with the support of the ZRP in shuttering the diocese’s churches.
“Remember, I issued a statement after our meeting last year but it appears nothing changed much so we will be meeting again,” Mr. Mutsekwa said.
“We are aware and concerned about what is happening,” he told the Standard and “I will be meeting with the Officer Commanding Harare Province to find out why this is still happening and also give him a directive to stop it.”
Bishop to be chaplain to the Mothers’ Union: CEN 2.05.10 p 8. February 13, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Mission Societies/Religious Orders.comments closed
The Archbishop of Canterbury has appointed the Church of Ireland’s Bishop of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh as chaplain to the Mothers’ Union. Bishop Ken Clarke succeeds the Bishop of Bedford, the Rt. Rev. Richard Inwood, and will serve as the central chaplain to the 3.6 million-member worldwide Anglican’s women group.
As the Mothers’ Union central chaplain, the evangelical Irish bishop will work with the organization’s leadership team as a link to the wider Anglican Communion, reflecting the churches’ thinking to the charity and representing the Mothers’ Union to the wider church, President Rosemary Kempsell said.
“I have much to learn and I aim to give my best. I believe Mothers Union has a vital contribution to make in the transformation of relationships in the church, in marriages, in families and in communities,” Bishop Clarke said.
The Mothers’ Union’s “aim of demonstrating the Christian faith in action is a personal passion,” he said.
“I come from a part of the world where we have seen the emptiness of just words. Jesus both taught and modelled the dynamic partnership of Gospel words and loving actions. I look forward to serving as Chaplain in a worldwide fellowship which has a Christian foundation, a clear purpose, and transformation in its veins.” Bishop Clarke said.
He will be installed in office on Feb 12 at the close of the worldwide council meeting in Derbyshire.
Pope Benedict says controversial offer to traditionalist Anglicans was not a hostile act: CEN 2.05.10 p 6. February 12, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Roman Catholic Church, Traditional Anglican Communion.comments closed
Pope Benedict XVI has defended his decision to invite traditionalist Anglicans to join the Roman Catholic Church, telling the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) last month that this unity in faith was the “ultimate aim” of ecumenism.
The invitation has sparked concern, however, from Queen Elizabeth II, who according to a report in the Sunday Telegraph sent the Lord Chamberlain to meet with the Archbishop of Westminster to discuss the Apostolic Constitution.
In his Jan 15 meeting with the CDF, Benedict stated the church should pursue unity with Anglicans but on Rome’s terms. Unity is “first and foremost unity of faith, upheld by the sacred tradition of which Peter’s Successor is the primary custodian and defender,” he said.
“The Bishop of Rome,” he explained, “must constantly proclaim” that “Jesus is Lord,” for the pontiff’s “potestas docendi” requires “obedience to the faith, so that the Truth that is Christ may continue to shine forth in all its grandeur, … and that there may be a single flock gathered around a single Shepherd”.
He thanked the CDF for its work towards “the full integration of groups and individuals of former Anglican faithful into the life of the Catholic Church, in accordance with the provisions of the Apostolic Constitution ‘Anglicanorum coetibus’. The faithful adherence of these groups to the truth received from Christ and presented in the Magisterium of the Church is in no way contrary to the ecumenical movement,” he said, “rather, it reveals the ultimate aim thereof, which is the realisation of the full and visible communion of the disciples of the Lord.”
On Jan 17 the head of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) Archbishop John Hepworth also thanked the CDF, saying it would undertake a “process of discernment” towards reunion. This process can “neither be hurried nor lightly undertaken,” he said, adding that the bishops of the TAC would give their formal answer after Easter.
However, a Jan 30 report in the Sunday Telegraph stated the Queen sent the senior official of the Royal Household to the Archbishop of Westminster to explain the Apostolic Constitution.
Archbishop Nichols is said to have assured the Lord Chamberlain, the Lord Peel, in their November meeting that the invitation had been extended in response to requests from TAC and traditionalist Anglicans for a place within the Roman Catholic Church and was not a hostile or aggressive act towards the Church of England.
The meeting gave Archbishop Nichols the “opportunity to correct some of the misunderstandings about the Apostolic Constitution created by misreporting in the media,” a spokesman said.
Lambeth Palace and Buckingham Palace declined comment on the meeting.
Jesuit award for Archbishop: CEN 2.05.10 p 6. February 12, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
The Archbishop of Canterbury was in New York last week, delivering lectures, receiving awards, and meeting with leaders of the Episcopal Church and the United Nations to discuss the problems of war, poverty and natural disasters.
On Jan 25 Dr. Rowan Williams was awarded the Campion prize by the Jesuit weekly magazine, America. Named for the Roman Catholic “martyr of the English Reformation” who “stirred Elizabethan England with his daring missionary efforts” to return England to Catholicism by “the great power of his pen,” the magazine’s website explained, the Archbishop of Canterbury was a worthy recipient of this award.
While Dr. Williams has not yet been drawn and quartered for his faith, like Edmund Campion the archbishop is known for his “faith, chivalry and unusual literary talent,” the Jesuit magazine said.
In his acceptance speech, Dr. Williams reflected on Pope John Paul II’s concept of “martyrial ecumenism.” “From the moment when St. Paul recognized in Jesus the face of his victims, it has been a deep dimension of Christian holiness to be able to go to one’s brothers and sisters in repentance and receive, from those you have offended or excluded, the grace of God’s welcome.”
“When our churches learn to celebrate, fully and gladly, each other’s martyrs, as they have begun to do, then that moment of Paul’s conversion comes alive again,” he said.
Americans arrested in Haiti deny they were kidnapping orphaned children: CEN 2.05.10 p 6. February 12, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Haiti.comments closed
Ten Americans have been arrested in Haiti charged with kidnapping 33 children. The Americans, members of two Southern Baptist churches in Idaho, were arrested in Port-au-Prince over the weekend, charged with trafficking children when they attempted to take them out of the country in the aftermath of the Jan 12 earthquake to safety in the Dominican Republic.
In a statement released to the press Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said, “We did not arrest Americans, we arrested kidnappers.” The ten were scheduled for a Feb 1 hearing before a magistrate in the ruined capital of Port-au-Prince, but as of Feb 2, no word has been received whether the hearing was held.
The arrests of the ten Americans comes amidst growing tensions between Haiti and the US governments, and mounting criticism within Haiti over the failure of its government to respond to the disaster that has over one hundred thousand dead and millions homeless.
Initial reports from Haiti suggest that naïveté played a central role in the affair. Last year, members of Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, founded a charitable organization to care for Haitian orphans called, New Life Children’s Refuge.
After the earthquake struck five members from Central Valley Baptist Church led by charity’s director, Laura Silsby and three volunteers from Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls, along with two other helpers, flew to the Dominican Republic to set up a temporary orphanage.
Working with a local pastor Jean Sanbil of Sharing Jesus Ministries, who managed the charity’s Haitian orphanage, the team attempted to evacuate 33 children under their care. Clint Henry, pastor of Central Valley Baptist, told the Associated Press “they were at the border Friday night and were told they needed one more piece of paperwork.”
“They returned to Port-Au-Prince to get that paperwork and that’s when they were detained,” he said.
The leader of the volunteer team, Laura Silsby from Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, was quoted in video reports posted on CNN and The New York Times websites Feb. 1 as describing their Christian motives in traveling to Haiti to aid orphans after the Jan. 12 earthquake.
In an interview broadcast by CNN Laura Silsby defended her actions. “We believe that we have been charged very falsely with trafficking, which of course that is the furthest possible extreme, because, I mean, our hearts here -– we literally all gave up, you know, everything we had, I mean, income, used of our own funds to come here and help these children and by no means are any part of that horrendous practice.”
The children had no identity documents, Silsby said. This was “probably a misunderstanding on my part, but I did not really understand that that would really need to be required.”
Haitian Justice Minister Paul Denis countered that “we may be weakened, but without laws the Haitian state would cease to exist.”
The chief of the National Judicial Police, Frantz Thermilus told the New York Times “what surprises me is that these people would never do something like this in their own country. We must make clear they cannot do such things in ours.”
No charges have been filed against the detained Americans, however the show of national pride by the Haitian government comes amidst mounting frustration from within the country over its performance in the aftermath of the earthquake.
Church bonus plan: CEN 2.05.10 p 5. February 12, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
The Church Commissioners and the Church of England Pensions Board will hold the line and not emulate the City of London in handing out yearend bonuses to its staff, the Second Church Estates Commissioner told Parliament last month.
On Jan 18, the member for North Norfolk, Norman Lamb (Lib. Dem.) asked Sir Stuart Bell, “how much the Church of England pension funds paid in bonuses to staff in each of the last three financial years.”
Sir Stuart responded that “Neither the Church of England Pensions Board, which is responsible for clergy pensions earned on service after Jan 1, 1998 as well as pension schemes for lay employees of Church organizations, nor the Church Commissioners, responsible for pre-1998 clergy pensions, have paid staff bonuses in the last three financial years.”
Bankers’ bonuses are expected to rise by 50 per cent to £6 billion by the end of 2009, the Centre for Economics & Business Research Ltd reported. On Jan 28 Treasury spokesman Lord Myners told the House of Lords he would ask the directors of Britain’s banks to comply with government recommendations that bonuses bear some relationship to the risk and profitability of the banks.
“It seems extraordinary that, over 10 years, an investor in UK banks will not have had a positive return at all,” Lord Myners said, noting that during this period “the traders and senior executives of these banks have earned huge amounts. This is a distortion of the consequences of trade to the employees, away from the owners. The owners need to be more concerned and the pension funds need to ask their fund managers, ‘What are you doing to stop this process?’,” he said.
The Bishop of Chester asked the government whether it was confident that “those banks in which the Government have a very large shareholding have entirely complied” with the bonus guidelines.
Lord Myners responded that “decisions about bonuses at Lloyds Banking Group and RBS have not been made,” but he was “much encouraged” by the Royal Bank of Scotland’s decision not to recommend bonuses beyond those “absolutely necessary to protect the bank, and in so doing protect the value of the taxpayer’s investment in his bank.”
The City’s ‘bonus culture’ has come under attack from political and union leaders as well as financiers. In 2008 Mervyn King, the Bank of England Governor noted banks have “designed compensation packages which provide incentives that are not in the long run in the interests of the bank themselves.”
The Bishop of Winchester last year expressed concern over the bonus culture of London’s banks. “It is a complete mystery to me why anyone should be paid a ‘bonus’ for doing well the job that they are paid to do – and still more so when those who receive bonuses are mostly paid more than the rest of us already! The train-driver who gets me and hundreds of others safely to Waterloo tomorrow won’t get a bonus for doing so; nor is any bonus coming to anyone who receives a salary or a stipend from the Cathedral, the Diocese or the Church Commissioners for performing well what we are appointed to do.”
However, in a speech at St Martin in the Fields on Nov 3, the chief executive of Barclays PLC John Varley stated the multi-million pound City bonuses were well deserved. “Talent is highly mobile,” Varley said. “If we fail to pay or are constrained from paying competitive rates then that talent will move to another employer.”
“I was side lined” says Bishop of Egypt as he quits top body: CEN 2.05.10 p 6. February 11, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Uncategorized.comments closed
The President Bishop of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East has quit the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council, stating he has no faith in its integrity.
In a withering critique released on Jan 30, the Bishop of Egypt Dr. Mouneer Anis said that after having served for three years on the Standing Committee he had come to the belief that his continued presence had “no value whatsoever and my voice is like a useless cry in the wilderness.”
The Bishop of Egypt’s defection comes as a blow to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, who had counted on Dr. Anis as one of his few remaining allies among the global south coalition of primates.
Dr. Williams had attempted to dissuade Dr. Anis from quitting the standing committee after Dr. Anis gave voice to his concerns following its December meeting. He pleaded with Dr. Anis to stand fast, sources close to the Egyptian bishop told The Church of England Newspaper, arguing the Anglican Covenant would soon answer his concerns.
However, Dr. Anis’ Jan 30 letter branding the processes and structures Dr. Williams set in place as flawed, comes as a public rebuke to the archbishop, which further isolates Canterbury from the non-Western primates of the Communion.
In his five page letter, Dr. Anis stated the Standing Committee was usurping authority not properly granted to it. It had “continually questioned the authority of the other Instruments of Communion, especially the Primates Meeting and the Lambeth Conference,” and had ignored the recommendations of the Windsor Report and the Primates’ 2005 and 2007 meetings concerning the Episcopal Church. It engaged in a pointless tartuffery that offered “no effective challenge to the ongoing revisions” of the US Church.
Dr. Anis noted that while there were “many good aspects” to the Covenant, he had a number of reservations about its utility in resolving the issues before the Communion. He also objected to the twisting of the “Listening Process” mentioned in Lambeth Resolution 1.10 from a call to “minister pastorally and sensitively” to those with a homosexual orientation, to pro-gay agitprop.
“It seems as if the aim of the Listening Process is to convince traditional Anglicans, especially in the Global South, that homosexual practice is acceptable,” he said.
Dr. Anis also had grave reservations about the staff of the Anglican Consultative Council’s London office. The non-Western Anglican world had no “sense of ownership” of its work and agenda, he said. This would only change if the “provinces feel that they own the ACO, and it is not an office in the UK that tries to run the Communion in its own Western way.”
Despite his misgivings over the structures and the new roles for the instruments of unity imposed on the Anglican Communion in the past few years, Dr. Anis was optimistic about the future, noting that those churches that upheld the “traditional Anglican faith are growing very fast.”
American ACC delegate Dr. Ian Douglas, the bishop-elect of the Connecticut told CEN he was “saddened that Bishop Mouneer has chosen to resign from the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion. I respect Bishop Mouneer and I have found him to be a faithful friend and brother in Christ in the many different ways we have worked alongside each other over the years. I will miss his contributions to the Standing Committee and we will be less without him.”
On Feb 1 Dr Williams released a statement saying “Bishop Mouneer has made an important contribution to the work of the Standing Committee, for which I am deeply grateful. I regret his decision to stand down but will continue to welcome his active engagement with the life of the Communion and the challenges we face together.”
Originally elected to the West Asia seat on the primates’ standing committee at the 2007 Primates Meeting in Dar es Salaam, Dr. Anis’ resignation should give the seat to the alternate elected for West Asia at that meeting: Bishop Alexander Malik, the Moderator of the Church of Pakistan. However Bishop Malik has since stepped down as Moderator leaving the seat vacant until a successor is elected at the next primates meeting.
New Bishop for the North West Frontier of Pakistan: CEN 2.05.10 p 8. February 11, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Pakistan.comments closed
The Church of Pakistan has elected a new bishop for the troubled North West Frontier. The Rev. Humphrey Peters was elected last month to succeed the Rt. Rev. Mano Ramulsah, who retired at Christmas.
A long time lay leader in the Church of Pakistan, Bishop-elect Peters was ordained to the diaconate on July 5, 2009 by Letters Dimissory of the Bishop of Peshawar by the Bishop of Buckingham in St Mary’s, Aylesbury, and to the priesthood last fall by Bishop Ramulshah.
The former General Secretary of the Church of Pakistan, Bishop-elect Peters has also served as the church’s delegate to the Anglican Consultative Council. His election comes amidst a rising tide of physical persecution for Christians in Pakistan at the hands of Muslim extremists, and state facilited legal attacks through the country’s Blasphemy Laws, which critics say are used by unscrupulous Muslims to attack business and social rivals in the Christian community.
Last month, the Pakistan National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) reported that a Christian shopkeeper was sentenced to life imprisonment and fined £750 for desecrating the Koran.
The general secretary of the NCJP Peter Jacob told the Compass Direct News service that Imran Masih (22) of Faisalabad was convicted of the crime of desecrating the Koran and insulting Islam on Jan 11.
He had been accused by a rival shopkeeper, a member of a Islamist militant group, of burning pages of the Koran. Masih denied the charge saying he had been burning old shop records. Compass Direct reported that Masih’s family said the charges were fabricated by the rival shopkeeper to put Masih out of business.
Section 295-B of Pakistan’s legal code governing the desecration of the Koran carries a sentence of life imprisonment, while blaspheming Mohammad under Section 295-C carries the death sentence. A single witness is sufficient under the code to warrant the imprisonment under the Blasphemy Laws.
Civil liberties and religious groups have urged Pakistan to reform its Blasphemy Laws, and government leaders have promised to reform the laws, but no action has taken place so far.
Bishop of Benin released unharmed after kidnapping ordeal: CEN 2.05.10 p 8. February 11, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Nigeria, Crime.comments closed
The Bishop of Benin has been released unharmed after being held for four days by kidnappers.
On Jan 28 the Rt. Rev. Peter Imasuen, along with a local politician Joel Oliha who had been abducted on Jan 15, were released. On Jan 24, Bishop Imasuen was kidnapped at his home in Benin City, the capital of Nigeria’s Edo State in Southern Nigeria.
Bishop Imasuen was abducted by armed gunmen who followed home after Sunday services at St Matthew’s Cathedral. As his car entered the walled compound of Bishopscourt, his official residence, the bandits forced their way inside, overpowering a watchman. The bishop was bundled into a car by gunmen and driven away. A ransom of 50 million Nigerian naira, approximately £200,000, was subsequently demanded for his release.
A church spokesman declined to state if a ransom was paid to secure the bishop’s release. At a news briefing on Jan 29, a diocesan spokesman responded to questions about the ransom by saying “maybe God paid the ransom.”
The Nigerian government has discouraged ransom payments believing it serves as an incentive for further abductions in the crime-plagued Delta region.
Speculation in Edo State, however, centers around a criminal gang as having masterminded the abduction, dismissing suggestions the seizure was related to sectarian divisions in the North or to the region’s separatist movement.
Honour for Sydney churchman: CEN 2.05.10 p 8. February 11, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
The deputy chancellor of the Diocese of Sydney, Robert Tong, has been appointed a member of the Order of Australia for services to the Anglican Church. The award was announced on Jan 26 in the Australia Day honours list.
One of the Communion’s leading canon lawyers, Mr. Tong is a past delegate to the Anglican Consultative Council, a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Panel of Reference, and has served on the Sydney diocesan synod since 1966. Past chairman of the Anglican Church League, he is chairman of the Anglican Church Trust, and was one of the key figures in drafting the constitution and canons of the Anglican Church in North America.
Established by the Queen in 1975, the civil and military branches of the Order of Australia weres created to accord “recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service.” Prior to the institution of the order, Australians were awarded British honours upon the recommendation of their government for meritorious service.
Mr. Tong stated he was “happy” to receive the award, but noted there were many deserving people who had served the church whose services went unrecognized, but were nonetheless essential for its life and witness.
“Like many other Anglican Christians, my starting point is to encourage gospel ministry. Our ministry may not be at the front line. It involves working with people, programmes and policy and the question I ask is – will this help build God’s kingdom? Thousands of people work tirelessly behind the scenes in our diocese and this honour is recognition of them as well,” he told Anglican Media Sydney.
Row over condoms is settled: CEN 1.29.10 p 7. February 10, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Tanzania, Church of England Newspaper, Health/HIV-AIDS.comments closed
A schism caused by divisions over the morality of using condoms to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDs has been healed in the Diocese of Mount Kilimanjaro, the Anglican Church of Tanzania reports.
The split between St James Parish in Arusha and its Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Simon Makundi, mirrors a wider fight within the province over the morality of condom use. The Roman Catholic Church and a number of leading Muslim clerics have long opposed government health programmes that promoted condom use, arguing it promoted promiscuity and immorality. After initially backing the use of condoms to halt the spread of the disease, the Anglican Church of Tanzania reversed course.
In 2001, Bishop Makundi along with several other Tanzanian bishops and the church’s HIV/AIDs ministries endorsed condom use as a prophylactic against disease, and in 2002 the Tanzanian delegation to the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA) AIDs summit in Nairobi stated their church had “openly discussed the efficacy of condom use and endorsed such use in order to save lives.”
St. James Parish in Arusha denounced this change in policy as immoral, and when the bishop attempted to visit the congregation he was ejected.
In 2004, the dispute was brought to a special meeting of the House of Bishops, which agreed to accept jurisdiction over the parish until the controversy was settled. According to the Arusha Times, Bishop Simon Chiwanga of the Mpwapwa Diocese, the former chairman of the Anglican Consultative Council, told the parish Bishop Makundi had recanted his earlier statements on condom use.
Bishop Chiwanga told the congregation that the use of condoms as a prophylactic against disease was immoral, and contrary to the stance of the Anglican Church of Tanzania. However, the parish refused to accept Bishop Makundi’s oversight, saying they had no confidence in his leadership.
The Anglican Church in Tanzania that year also launched an HIV/AIDS control project that required clergy to take an HIV test and two years later came out against government plans to introduce sex education in the national primary school curriculum, joining with the Catholic Church in successfully forcing the Education Ministry to withdraw the programme until it passed muster with the churches.
However, several years of quiet mediation between the parties by provincial leaders and the bishop’s climb down over condoms appears to have resolved the dispute, as last week the parish acknowledged the jurisdiction of Bishop Makundi.
Canadian Diocese of British Colombia is on verge of extinction: CEN 1.29.10 p 8. February 10, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
The Diocese of British Columbia is “one generation away from extinction” a report prepared by a diocesan task force has warned. To save itself, the report prepared by the Diocesan Transformation Team recommended the diocese shutter 19 of its 52 congregations, and pursue a programme of transformational ministry.
Five of the redundant churches would be renamed and recreated as “hub churches” to serve the areas affected by parish closures, the Jan 25 report said.
“We have the choice at this time to be able to make the choice for a transformational change, focused on mission and where we’re going, rather than dwindling,” Bishop James Cowan told a press conference announcing the release of the report.
The recommendations will go to the March meeting of the diocesan synod for action.
“I would not say we are yet a church in crisis,” Bishop Cowan explained. “We are a church that is saying a crisis could come if we don’t act.”
In October Bishop Cowan told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation he believed the diocese would pull out of its decline if it focused on social justice issues. The September 2009 issue of the diocesan newspaper reported that average Sunday attendance had fallen from 4,955 people to 3,856 people, and the average congregation had fallen from 95 members in 2007 to 82 members in 2008. Only four of the diocese’s congregations showed a budget surplus and a growth rate in excess of 2 per cent.
Bishop Cowan was optimistic about the future however, telling the CBC the reorganization was an opportunity of reaching “out in social justice areas as well as in areas of spirituality and connection with the culture in which we live.”
Bishop urges clergy to do private gay blessings: CEN 1.29.10 p 8. February 10, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Human Sexuality --- The gay issue, Kentucky.comments closed
The Bishop of Kentucky has directed his clergy to affirm the moral goodness and integrity of the homosexual lifestyle, but has stopped short of authorizing public rites for same-sex blessings.
On Jan 22 Bishop Ted Gulick wrote to his clergy, permitting private rites for same-sex blessings. Bishop Gulick, who is scheduled to retire this year, stated that in light of the 2009 Episcopal Church’s General Convention resolutions ending the moratoriums on gay bishops and blessings “the clergy are obligated to offer pastoral care and support to individual gay and lesbian parishioners.”
This pastoral care includes offering homosexuals “care and support that nurtures their covenant partnerships” he said.
As Kentucky law did not permit gay marriage and same-sex marriage rites had yet to be included in the Book of Common Prayer, the bishop stated he would not authorize public rites for same-sex blessings.
However, “if the conscience of the ordained minister allows, private liturgies of blessing and support and public services of the Eucharist in thanksgiving for the covenanted, lifelong, monogamous realities of these committed relationships can be held in the churches of our diocese,” Bishop Gulick wrote.
It would be prudent to wait until a majority of Episcopalians supported gay marriage before such rites were placed “front and center in our liturgical life, since our liturgical life is our bottom line of theological belief. In other words, the altars of our church are to be ‘issue free zones’,” the bishop explained.
Conservative leaders in the US were quick to denounce Bishop Gulick’s letter obligating the clergy to support the gay agenda, arguing that he had turned the tables on traditional sexual morals and that what was once considered sin was now considered a virtue in Kentucky.
“The Christian Church needs leaders who communicate honestly and clearly,” Bishop David Anderson of the American Anglican Council told The Church of England Newspaper, noting the Kentucky statement was disingenuous.
“Claiming that it is ok to have a same sex blessing as long as it is in private and behind closed doors displays a gross misunderstanding of Church tradition, the nature of sacraments, the Book of Common Prayer and Christianity in general,” Bishop Anderson said.
Diocese of Cuba gets a Bishop after 10 years of deadlock in voting: CEN 1.29.10 p 8. February 10, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Cuba.comments closed
The Archbishops of Canada and the West Indies and the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church have appointed a bishop for the Diocese of Cuba.
The Rev. Griselda Delgado del Carpio received top marks for her essays from questions set by Archbishop Fred Hiltz, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Bishop Errol Brooks—the acting primate of the West Indies and was named bishop coadjutor by the three primates, who act as the autonomous diocese’s Metropolitan Council.
In June 2009 the Cuban diocesan synod was unable to elect a bishop after delegates deadlocked after ten rounds of voting, making it the fifth time in the past 10 years its synod has been unable to choose a bishop for the Caribbean island. The failed ballot placed the election in the hands of the Metropolitan Council.
A one-time member of the Episcopal Church, the diocese withdrew in the wake of the political dissension between the US and Cuba. In 2003 the US General Convention voted to re-admit Cuba 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 and in 2007 two suffragan bishops were appointed by the Metropolitan Council to help bridge the theological and political divisions within the diocese.
“The Council found Griselda’s submission to be particularly thorough. We believe she has a good grasp of the nature of episcope,” Archbishop Hiltz told the Anglican Journal.
“We believe she has a lot of insight into the history of the Church’s witness in Cuban society. It is clear that she is mission-minded and will lead the church in the spirit of compassionate and courageous discipleship.”
One of the first two women ordained to the priesthood in Cuba in 1986, Delgado is rector of the Church of Santa Maria Virgen in Itabo, Matanzas province and will be consecrated at the close of the diocesan synod on Feb 7 at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Havana.
West Indies ditches Hymns Ancient & Modern for Reggae: CEN 1.29.10 p 8. February 9, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of the West Indies, Hymnody/Liturgy.comments closed
The West Indies will discontinue Hymns Ancient and Modern as the official hymnal of the Anglican Church in the Caribbean.
The Archbishop of the West Indies, Dr. John Holder of Barbados said the province was retiring Hymns Ancient and Modern in favor of a locally produced hymnal that was incorporated regional music including reggae. However, he said a number of traditional hymns would be incorporated in the new edition.
Since the release of the first edition in 1861, an estimated 165 million copies of Hymns Ancient and Modern have been sold. With the decision to discontinue its use by the West Indies, Hong Kong remains the only province of the Anglican Communion to use the 1922 standard edition. In 1980 a new hymnal Common Praise, was released by its publishers for use by the Church of England to replace the 1983 new standard edition of the hymnal.
In 2007 the province released a draft hymnal with works by Bob Marley’s “One Love” and a reggae version of Psalm 27 composed by Peter Tosh.
West Indian congregations had been having unofficially using reggae, calypso and mento (a precursor of ska and reggae popular in the 1950’s) music for over 25 years. The compilers of the new hymnal were careful to use “correct theology” in its selection of popular local music, Canon Ernle Gordon of Kingston told the Jamaica Observer, making “certain that the words relate to the Bible and to our own Anglican interpretation of it.”
Church loses $70m on property deal: CEN 1.29.10 p 7. February 9, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
The Church of England has lost $70 million speculating in the New York real estate market.
In 2006 the Church Commissioners invested $70 million in a project managed by Tishman Speyer Properties to purchase Stuyvesant Town, a 56-building, 11,000-unit property in lower Manhattan. The decline in New York real estate values, sluggish cash flows, along with a court decision that blocked their attempt to raise rents this week forced it to turn over the property to its creditors in lieu of foreclosure.
The Stuyvesant Town project was the largest residential real estate deal in U.S. history and was financed by equity investments of $500 million by the California Public Employees Retirement System, $250 million by the Florida State Board of Administration and the Church of England.
Tishman Speyer Properties purchased the complex for $5.4 billion, which is now thought to be worth $1.8 billion.
A spokesman for the Church Commissioners said: “Stuyvesant Town, New York, offered the Church Commissioners the opportunity to invest in a large residential complex in a major international city, with Tishman Speyer, a respected world class manager, and with strong international partners. In doing so we believed that the investment would provide strong financial returns and investment diversification.”
“The Commissioners undertook detailed due diligence in conjunction with external professional advisers and the fund manager, including an assessment of the identified investment risks. However, the investment was affected by the sharp fall in residential property values, and a legal ruling that many apartment rents would continue to be regulated regardless of value or the income of residents.
“The Commissioners are looking carefully at the lessons to be learnt from the loss, as well as from the impact of the financial crisis generally,” the spokesman said.
He noted the New York “loss comes against a background of the Commissioners’ property portfolio outperforming its peer group by an average of 4.6 per cent every year over the last 10 years, and returning an average of 12.1 per cent each year.”
African bishops head to Uganda for summit: CEN 1.29.10 p 7. February 9, 2010
Posted by geoconger in CAPA, Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of Uganda.comments closed
Uganda will play host to the second All-Africa Bishops Conference this year, the conference organizing committee announced last week.
Over 500 bishops from Cape Town to Cairo as well as observers from Lambeth Palace and non-African churches are expected to attend the Aug 23-28 meeting at the Imperial Resort Beach Hotel in Entebbe, organizing committee chairman Edward Gaamuwa said.
The focus of the meeting will be on building Africa’s civil social infrastructure: supporting good government, anti-corruption drives, poverty alleviation, and building peace and forging reconciliation across the continent, Mr. Gaamuwa said. The theme of the conference will be “Securing our future; Unlocking our potential.”
The first All-Africa bishops’ conference was held in Lagos in 2004 with the theme “Africa has come of age.” The intervening six years have seen major shifts in the African church. One speaker from the 2004 conference, Dr. Nolbert Kunonga of Harare, will not be invited to this year’s gathering, while key leaders have since retired—including the host of the 2004 conference Archbishop Peter Akinola.
The meeting also comes at a low point in relations between Dr. Rowan Williams and the African churches. At Lambeth 2008 a majority of African bishops boycotted the Conference with 209 of the continent’s 324 diocesan bishops staying away.
Bishops from every African province but Uganda registered for Lambeth including the Church of Nigeria. The Rt. Rev. Cyril Okorocha of Owerri, however, pulled out of the meeting at the last minute after having faxed in a confirmation of his attendance on July 19. The only Nigerian actually at Lambeth was a Roman Catholic archbishop, part of the 7 man team from the Vatican.
One Rwandan bishop was present, and Kenya had 17 bishops registered for Lambeth. However, only five of the Kenyan bishops were present for Lambeth and one left after the bishops’ retreat.
While the meeting is not expected to focus on pan-Anglican politics, a leading African bishop told The Church of England Newspaper the divisions that led to the boycott of Lambeth 2008 have not been resolved.
Bishop pleads for Nigerian peace: CEN 1.29.10 p 7. February 9, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Nigeria, Terrorism.comments closed
The violent cycle of sectarian violence must be broken for peace to come to Nigeria, the Bishop of Jos wrote last week, following the latest outbreak of communal violence.
In an email sent to supporters on Jan 20, the Rt. Rev. Ben Kwashi said that if “peace is to take root” Christians and Muslims must learn to live together. He asked for “prayers specifically for God to cause restraint and avert retaliation and senseless destruction of property in the state.”
Bishop Kwashi feared the violence was premeditated noting that “over the last two months, there has been concern over widespread rumours of plans to bomb the homes Christian leaders and to kill senior members of Christian churches.”
Violence erupted on Jan 17 in the predominantly Christian Nassarawa Gwom district of Jos with mobs of young men armed with guns, bows and arrows and machetes spreading terror, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported.
Aid agencies estimate the number of dead at 400, while over 18,000 people have been displaced the Nigerian Red Cross reported.
HRW called upon the Nigerian federal government to intervene. “This is not the first outbreak of deadly violence in Jos, but the government has shockingly failed to hold anyone accountable,” said HRW’s Corinne Dufka. “Enough is enough. Nigeria’s leaders need to tackle the vicious cycle of violence bred by this impunity.”
On Jan 21 Vice President Goodluck Jonathan sent in the army and established a curfew in the city, bringing the current outbreak of fighting to an end.
Bishop is kidnapped by Nigerian bandits: CEN 1.29.10 p 7. February 8, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Nigeria, Crime.comments closed
The Bishop of Benin has been abducted and held for ransom by bandits. On Jan 24 the Rt. Rev. Peter Imasuen was kidnapped at his home in Benin City, the capital of Nigeria’s Edo State in Southern Nigeria.
According to press reports, the bishop was followed home after Sunday services at St Matthew’s Cathedral. As his car entered the walled compound of Bishopscourt, his official residence, the bandits forced their way inside, overpowering a watchman. The bishop was bundled into a car by gunmen and driven away.
The Nigerian Tribune reports that a ransom of 50 million Nigerian naira, approximately £200,000.
The Niger Delta region of Southern Nigeria has been plagued in recent years by criminal gangs that have specialized in seizing foreign oil workers and wealthy Nigerians for ransom. In the last year, a retired army general and the wife of a senior government minister were abducted along with a number of wealthy individuals.
The Church of Nigeria has declined to comment on the abduction at this time.
Fraudsters jump on Haiti earthquake disaster: CEN 1.22.10 p 6. February 8, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Crime, Haiti.comments closed
Last week’s Haitian earthquake is being exploited by cyber-criminals to defraud potential donors, the internet security firm Symatec reports. On Jan 14, a Symantec Malware Data Analyst, Mathew Nisbet, posted a warning on the company’s website warning that spammers were seeking to cash in on the earthquake.
Nisbet stated that spammers have been sending out false emails soliciting funds for well-known charities. A modified version of the ‘419’ advance fee fraud— a confidence trick commonly associated with Nigerian banking schemes where the victim is induced to advance sums of money in hope of realizing a significant gain—is being used to defraud donors.
One email, Symantec reported as having seen, claims to come from the British Red Cross. “They have used the correct postal address, and there is indeed a British Red Cross appeal for donations to help the victims of this disaster, but the BRC do not use Western Union for donations. Also, the email address supplied for contact is not one belonging to the BRC. Any money sent using the instructions in this email would not help anyone in Haiti, it would end up in the pockets of a cyber-criminal,” Symantec said.
The day after the earthquake, Websense Security Labs ThreatSeeker Network reported that among the among the first ten searches returned by Google on terms relating to the Haiti earthquake were links leading to rogue websites. Several hundred have already appeared claiming to support the Red Cross donations or provide Haiti earthquake relief information.
On Jan 13 the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a statement asking internet users who had received appeals for assistance to “apply a critical eye and do their due diligence before responding to those requests. Past tragedies and natural disasters have prompted individuals with criminal intent to solicit contributions purportedly for a charitable organization and/or a good cause.”
The FBI recommended potential donors not respond to unsolicited emails, to be wary of individuals claiming to be earthquake survivors or government officials seeking assistance, to verify the legitimacy of non-profit organizations based upon independent research rather than the organizations own statements, and to be cautious of emails claiming to show pictures of the disaster as the attached filed may contain viruses.
Donors should “make contributions directly to known organizations rather than relying on others to make the donation on your behalf,” warning individuals not to give out personal or financial information to those soliciting contributions.
“Providing such information may compromise your identity and make you vulnerable to identity theft,” the American law enforcement agency said.
Church leaders urge prayer for Haiti survivors: CEN 1.22.10 p 7. February 8, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Disaster Relief, Haiti.comments closed
Church leaders across the Anglican Communion have joined the Archbishop of Canterbury in calling for prayer and support for the people of Haiti in the wake of the Jan 12 earthquake that devastated the Caribbean republic.
“I am profoundly shocked and concerned to hear about the devastating earthquake in Haiti,” Dr. Rowan Williams said on Jan 14.
“As the news comes through, we are learning more about the tragic loss of life, injury suffered and terrible damage to the country. We stand alongside all the people in Haiti affected by this terrible disaster in prayer, thought and action as the situation unfolds. We pray for the rescue of those still trapped and look towards the rebuilding of lives and communities.”
On Jan 12 at 4:53 pm, a magnitude 7 earthquake rocked the capital of Port-au-Prince. It was quickly followed by two aftershocks registering 5.9 and 5.5 on the Richter magnitude scale.
The Red Cross reports that as many as 3 million people may have been affected by the quake, while initial estimates of the dead from 30,000 to 300,000. The quake’s epicenter was 10 miles outside the capital and is reported to have leveled much of the city. Aftershocks continue to rock the Caribbean, with a 6.2 magnitude earthquake recorded on Jan 19 with its epicenter 32 miles south of Grand Cayman Island.
Power and telephone service has been disrupted across most of the country making it difficult to assess the full extent of the damage. Haiti’s endemic political turmoil, poverty, and the four hurricanes that decimated the country in 2008, have also left it ill-equipped to respond to the disaster.
The Archbishop of Cape Town was the first to respond to the disaster, writing to Bishop Jean-Zaché Duracin of Haiti on Jan 13 assuring him of his church’s “urgent and heartfelt prayers at this traumatic time.
Archbishop Thabo Makgoba said he hoped aid would quickly come to the island. “We particularly look to countries such as the United States of America to show the love of a neighbour in helping you not only materially, but in restoring dignity to those who are suffering devastation, and in supporting the long-term rebuilding of both infrastructure and human society.”
In a statement distributed for distribution on Jan 31 to the congregations of the Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori wrote “the world has been turned upside down, as the bones of the earth have shifted underneath Haiti. We are reminded of life’s fragility and unpredictability as we watch the news reports and see the devastation of human lives.”
The Episcopal Diocese of Haiti is “among the largest in our church. Before this disaster, the diocese counted between 100,000 and 120,000 members in 169 congregations served by just 37 clergy,” she said The diocese served more than 80,000 children in 254 diocesan educational institutions, from preschool to college and sponsored Haiti’s only philharmonic orchestra and its only schools for disabled children and nursing, the presiding bishop said.
Much of this work had been destroyed, she noted, as the “earthquake flattened the cathedral and its surrounding buildings, including schools and a convent; it destroyed the bishop’s home and the diocesan offices. One of the diocese’s institutions of higher education is gone. As I write this in mid-January, we don’t know the condition of other institutions.”
Reconstruction will take years, she said, but the Episcopal Church, “all of it– will be vital in that effort.”
Canadian Archbishop Fred Hiltz asked for prayers for the people of Haiti, “as they struggle with such devastation and grief.”
Writing on Jan 13, he also asked Canadians to support the charitable relief efforts underway, appealing “in the name of Christ in his compassion for all who suffer” to “generously to increase our support for relief efforts.”
The Church of Ireland’s Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. Alan Harper stated his “heart goes out to the survivors, both those suffering injuries and the bereaved. I pray for the success of the international response to the disaster and I encourage all those who feel able to do so to contribute financially to assist the people of Haiti at this terrible time.”
The Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, Bishop David Chillingworth of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane said his church held “hold in prayer all the victims of the devastating earthquake in Haiti – the families of those who have been killed in this tragedy, the thousands of people whose homes and livelihoods have been destroyed, and all the rescue and aid workers, medical staff and volunteers.”
He backed the Christian Aid Haiti appeal, urging support for the victims of the earthquake.
The Archbishop of the West Indies on Jan 17 called on the Caribbean to support Haiti. Dr John Holder urged West Indians to be faithful to “strong Caribbean spirit and let us respond to Haiti,” urging Barbadians to donate cash to support a field hospital being established by CARICOM.
In his Jan 14 statement, Dr. Williams stated “in this time of catastrophic loss and destruction, I urge the public to hold the people of Haiti in their prayers, and to give generously and urgently to funding appeals set up for relief work.”
New rioting leaves dozens dead: CEN 1.22.10 p 7 February 8, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Nigeria, Terrorism.comments closed
A new round of sectarian violence in Jos in Nigeria’s Plateau State has left over two dozen dead, and driven almost 3000 people from their homes, the Nigerian Red Cross reports.
On Sunday, Jan 17, a Muslim mob attacked worshippers leaving St. Michael’s Anglican Church in Nasawara Gwom, Plateau State Police Commissioner Greg Anyating reported. The violence quickly spread, leaving hundreds injured and homeless.
In Feb 2008, sectarian riots in Jos left 133 dead. The United Nations’ IRIN news service stated initial reports of the dead stand at 26, with over 300 injured, including 102 admitted to area hospitals with gunshot wounds.
Awwalu Mohammed, head of Nigeria Red Cross (NRC) in Jos told IRIN his organization had set up “five makeshift camps in police barracks, mosques and churches, sheltering 2,800 displaced people.”
“These people don’t have enough food and water,” he said. “They have lost their homes…so they couldn’t salvage anything from their belongings. They are in urgent need of clothing and blankets to protect them from the cold, especially children who are more vulnerable to the unfriendly harmattan [desert winds].”
The Daily Tribune reports that police have arrested 35 people, and that a dusk to dawn curfew has been imposed.
Book Review: How an ecstatic moment failed: Washington Times 2.03.10 February 3, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Academic writing & book reviews, Washington Times.comments closed
Days of Fire and Glory
First printed in The Washington Times.
DAYS OF FIRE AND GLORY: THE RISE AND FALL OF A CHARISMATIC COMMUNITY
By Julia Duin
Crossland Press, $24.95, 336 pages Reviewed by George Conger
Gin was the “quickest way out of Manchester,” the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawn observed in “The Age of Revolution.” Flight from the difficult and dreary often found its wings in alcohol or narcotics, while ecstatic religion could also provide the opiate that relieved the pains of life.
It has been ever thus. Religious movements that release the believer from his trials through connection with the divine can be found in most faiths: Sufism in Islam, the Hasidic movement in Judaism and Pentecostalism in modern Christianity are but a few examples. Some ecstatic movements flower under the guidance of a charismatic leader then fade upon his passing.
But from its roots in working-class Los Angeles 100 years ago, Pentecostalism has flourished in Africa, South America and in parts of Asia. It has become the fastest-growing segment of American religious life – even moving into the political spotlight with Sarah Palin and the 2008 presidential race.
In the early 1960s, the Christian charismatic renewal movement of signs and wonders made the jump into the “mainline” – and Julia Duin, religion editor of The Washington Times, deftly chronicles its meteoric rise and collapse in the Episcopal Church, focusing on the saga of the Rev. Graham Pulkingham and Houston’s Church of the Redeemer.
Ms. Duin’s “Days of Fire and Glory: The Rise and Fall of a Charismatic Community” is both a frightening and fascinating look at the glory days of the renewal movement that, at its height, gave meaning to the lives of thousands, but eventually collapsed in a welter of sexual, financial and theological misconduct – or to use that wonderful but seldom used word: heresy.
Two decades in the making, and based upon 182 face-to-face interviews and an intimate knowledge of the people and passions at play, Ms. Duin’s book is a cautionary tale. For those touched by the charismatic renewal, it will reawaken memories of the passion and enthusiasm of the heady days when it seemed the power of God was made manifest.
It is also a frightening book, as it illustrates the denial of some seekers of Augustine’s opening declaration in the “Confessions”:
“You have made us, O Lord, for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” “Days of Fire and Glory” demonstrates that communion with God is not enough for some, as the desire to be god is just as powerful.
In 1963, the 37-year-old Graham Pulkingham, a polished and ambitious Episcopal priest, uprooted his wife and children from a comfortable suburban life in Austin, Texas, to take over a fading church on the east side of Houston. Intent on addressing the social ills of a mixed-race urban neigh-borhood, he launched himself into a year’s enlightened social work in the community, which proved a failure.
At low ebb, Pulkingham received a revelation from God to go to New York, where he was “baptized in the Spirit” through the prayers of David Wilkerson, author of “The Cross and the Switchblade.”
Pulkingham returned to Houston a changed man and began a ministry of signs and wonders – speaking in tongues, offering healings and other manifestations of the divine. He saw his congregation come alive, becoming one of the first “mega-churches.” Redeemer also launched itself into the communal-living movement, seeking to replicate the base communities described in the Book of Acts, and it soon created dozens of extended Christian households encompassing more than 400 people.
Redeemer became a media sensation, and was featured in books, newspapers and a 1972 CBS News one-hour special that attracted even more curious baby-boomer Christians from across the country, eager to see what they believed was the dawn of a new age of Christianity – a return to the early days of the faith, where the miraculous was the norm.
But by 1980, the project had collapsed from within. In the mid-’70s, Pulkingham turned over the leadership of the church to a cadre of elders, who implemented an authoritarian, collectivist policy with disastrous pastoral and per-sonal results, while he attempted to clone his Christian communities in Britain.
Pulkingham’s theology also began to change as he moved away from the beliefs of his early charismatic days, now placing the primacy of the collective over all relationships – including those of husband and wife and parent and child. He continued to pursue the experience of ecstatic worship, but the anchor of the Bible had been severed. What God told him was no longer to be tested against Scripture, the Pentecostal norm, but was tested against his own experience and opinions.
During his baptism in the spirit in New York, Pulkingham confessed and repented of a secret homosexual life. By the mid-’70s, his secret life had returned, and he began to seduce secretly some of his male followers.
Pulkingham began to teach that all goods should be held in common. There would be no need of any scriptures or an institutional church, as the Holy Spirit would guide all hearts. “Fay ce que voudres.” (“Do whatever you will.”) The church, like the state for Karl Marx, would wither away, leading to a property-free reign of universal earthly bliss.
However, the old magic and new teachings no longer seemed to work for Pulkingham at Redeemer, and by 1982, he was forced to move on. He took over an ailing Episcopal congregation near Pittsburgh, and sought to create a new religious community based on his collectivist principles.
But his past caught up with him when the wife of one of his lovers went public about his adulteries and homosexuality. In disgrace and facing dismissal from the ministry, Pulkingham died of a heart attack in 1993.
Julia Duin writes both as an insider and as a dispassionate chronicler of the rise and fall of Graham Pulkingham. A reporter at the Houston Chronicle in the mid-1980s, she also attended Redeemer after Pulkingham left, and was the reporter whose investigation led to his downfall and public disgrace.
The way out of Houston for the poor, oppressed and spiritually lost for a few bright years could be found at Redeemer. But as Pulkingham and his charismatic movement moved away from its biblical anchor, it became another example of what happens when the enlightened get it into their heads that they can throw out the past, and build a new society.
Ms. Duin’s chronicle of Graham Pulkingham and the Redeemer is a superb tale of how a movement that started out with the intentions of building a spiritual kingdom on earth, was corrupted by sex, money and the pursuit of power.
George Conger is an Episcopal priest and chief correspondent of the Church of England Newspaper in London.
Church of Ireland welcomes UDA decision to decomission their illegal weapons: CEN 1.22.10 p 6. February 3, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Ireland, Terrorism.comments closed
General John de Chastelain
The Church of Ireland has applauded the Ulster Defence Association’s (UDA) destruction of its illegal weapons stockpile, saying the decommissioning was a “major step” in building a peaceful Ireland.
At a Jan 6 press conference in Belfast, independent monitors Lord Eames and Sir George Quigley reported they, along with retired Canadian General John de Chastelain, had witnessed the destruction of the sectarian group’s arms caches. The former Archbishop of Armagh and the retired head of the Northern Ireland civil service stated they were “very pleased to have the opportunity to be present at such a significant moment in the course of Northern Ireland’s steady progress towards what can be a far better future for everyone.”
After forty years of sectarian violence and fifteen years after the UDA’s first ceasefire, Northern Ireland’s largest loyalist paramilitary group stated it had come to the place in the peace process where “violence is no longer a viable option and where weaponry is a thing of the past.”
The bishops of the Northern Province of the Church of Ireland also welcomed the decommissioning saying it marked a “major step towards building a peaceful, stable and just society”.
“It is our hope that the removal of the means to paramilitary violence will be received positively by all and give confidence to our politically elected representatives. It is important for all strands of our community to find productive ways of expressing their political and cultural aspirations with respect for everyone.”
“We respect the integrity and judgement of Lord Eames and Sir George Quigley in the independent eye-witnessing process and of General John de Chastelain’s confirmation of it,” the bishops said.
General de Chastelain, the head of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD), confirmed the UDA had disarmed, reporting that firearms, ammunition, and explosives had been destroyed in a “major act of decommissioning.” The weapons Lord Eames and Sir George witnessed being destroyed he said “constitute the totality” of the UDA’s weapons stockpile.
Buckfast Abbey chided over ale role: CEN 1.22.10 p 6. February 3, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Popular Culture, Scottish Episcopal Church.comments closed
The Bishop of Aberdeen & Orkney has denounced the Benedictine monks of Buckfast Abbey for contributing to Scotland’s rising rate of crime and social degradation.
In an interview broadcast on Jan 18 by BBC One Scotland, Dr. Robert Gillies challenged the makers of Buckfast Tonic Wine to take responsibility for their actions.
Buckfast has a “very high caffeine content. That means when too much is drunk the effect can cause a high level of over-excited anger. The combination of alcohol with caffeine stimulant is a powerful cocktail and in the case of Buckfast Tonic Wine is a major factor behind many a violent scene in Scotland’s towns and cities,” the bishop said.
“It saddens me that a Christian organisation is supporting a product that contributes to the misery to our nation. I very much doubt if St Benedict, the founder of the monastic rule of life to which the monks of Buckfast Abbey are committed, would approve,” Dr. Gillies said.
While sales of Buckfast or “Buckie” account for only 0.5 per cent of alcohol sales in Scotland, the fortified wine has become associated with youth crime. BBC Scotland Investigates reported that Buckfast was mentioned in 5,638 crime reports in the Strathclyde area of Scotland from 2006-2009.
A 15 proof fortified wine, with eight times the caffeine in one bottle as compared with a can of Coca Cola, Buckfast has attracted opprobrium from government leaders, concerned with its links to violent youth crime. In 2006 Andy Kerr, the Scottish Executive’s Health Minister stated Buckfast was an “irresponsible drink in its own right” and a contributor to anti-social behavior, while First Minister Jack McConnell stated that Buckfast had become a “badge of pride amongst those who are involved in antisocial behaviour.”
Bishop Gillies told the BBC, “What sort of moral double-take is there that these monks can be so closely associated with that product and knowingly aware of the social damage as well as the medical damage it is doing to the kids who take it in such vast volumes?”
The monks of Buckfast Abbey in Devon and their distributors have denied their product is harmful, arguing that the vast majority of consumers of the beverage were law abiding, and that they were not responsible for the excesses committed by a few.
Speaking on behalf of the bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church on Nov 5, Dr. Gillies backed the Scottish Government’s proposed bill to regulate the sale and consumption of alcohol. “If our nation and each of us within it is to have a healthy future then the nettle that is alcohol misuse must be grasped,” he said, backing the call for a rise in prices, a ban on “irresponsible promotions,” restricting the supermarket sales of alcohol, introducing a “social responsibility fee” and raising the drinking age to 21.
Scotland needed a “real, lasting, social and cultural change” in its attitude towards alcohol, he said. Alcohol abuse, anti-social behavior, social and cultural degradation, “none of this helps make Scotland an attractive place,” Dr. Gillies said.
Dean is elected new Bishop of Glasgow: CEN 1.22.10 p 6. February 3, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Scottish Episcopal Church, Women Priests.comments closed
The Dean of Glasgow has been elected Bishop of Glasgow & Galloway in the Scottish Episcopal Church in a closely watched election on Jan 16 which saw the first female candidate for the Anglican episcopate in Britain.
The Very Rev. Gregor Duncan, rector of St. Ninian’s Church, Pollokshields and Dean of the diocese, was elected from a slate of three candidates to succeed Dr. Idris Jones, the former Primus of the Scottish Church.
Dr. Duncan stated he was “deeply honoured to be given this responsibility by the electors of the Diocese and am committed wholly to this new office.”
Educated at Glasgow University and Oriel College, Oxford, Dr. Duncan received a PhD from Cambridge and trained for the ministry at Ripon College, Cuddesdon. Ordained to the diaconate in 1983 and the priesthood in 1984, he served his curacy in Rutland at the Benefice of Oakham, Hambleton, Egleton, Braunston and Brooke, returning to Scotland in 1987 as Chaplain to the Edinburgh Theological College. From 1989 to 1999 he served as rector of St Columba’s Largs, and in 1999 became rector of St Ninian’s.
Among the three candidates was Dr Alison Peden, the first woman to stand for election to the episcopate since the Scottish Episcopal Church permitted women bishops in 2003. Ordained eight years ago after an academic career, Dr. Peden is rector of Holy Trinity Church in Stirling and a canon of St Ninian’s Cathedral, Perth.
Bishop David Chillingworth, the Primus of the SEC told the Scotsman Canon Peden’s nomination reflected the “strength of women in the Scottish Episcopal Church” and predicted the church would soon elect a women bishop.
Sources in the SEC tell The Church of England Newspaper the diocesan nominating committee agreed to honour the moratorium on the election of gay clergy to the episcopate, passing over the candidacy of the Very Rev Kelvin Holdsworth, the Provost of St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow.
On March 23, 2009 Bishop Jones said the Scottish College of Bishops would refrain from authorizing rites for the blessing of same-sex unions and not permit the consecration of a non-celibate gay bishop.
The bishops said “that, for the time being, all who have responsibility within the process of the election of any new diocesan bishop should seek to act within the spirit of the requested moratorium.”
Action on Sudan urged: CEN 1.22.10 p 5. February 3, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church of the Sudan, Politics.comments closed
Gordon Brown greeting Archbishop Daniel Deng at 10 Downing Street
Britain and the United States must intervene in the Sudan to prevent a return of civil war, Dr. Daniel Deng, the Archbishop of Juba and Primate of the Sudan told Prime Minister Gordon Brown at a meeting at 10 Downing Street on Jan 11.
Accompanied by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams and other church leaders, Dr. Deng met with the prime minister and Foreign Secretary David Miliband to ask that Britain honour its pledge to help implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended two decades of civil war between the Arab north and African south in 2005.
However the Foreign Office appears reluctant to act. On Jan 6 the FCO’s Minister for Africa Baroness Kinnock and DFID Minister Gareth Thomas announced a £54 million aid package for the Sudan, and called for all parties in the Sudan to support the CPA.
The CPA “ended Africa’s longest-running civil war,” Baroness Kinnock said. “It has been through many challenges but remains intact and has prevented a return to major conflict. But now is a critical time.”
“There are three months until nationwide elections and one year until the referendum on self-determination for Southern Sudan. Sudan needs leadership from both parties to overcome the challenges ahead and realise a peaceful future for the people of Sudan, both in the period up to the referendum and for the years after, regardless of the outcome. There has been encouraging progress in recent weeks. The UK will continue working with both parties to build on this,” she said.
However, in a press conference at Lambeth Palace held before his meeting with the prime minister, Dr. Deng said the Western countries that had helped broker the CPA must act: “the time for talk is over, it is time for action.”
“Britain, the US, Norway must get involved,” he said, or “one night Sudan will slip back to war,” which would destabilize East Africa.
“Since 1955 the people of the South and Darfu have been marginalized” by the Khartoum government. The CPA has failed to end the marginalization, Dr. Deng said, leaving in place the conditions that led to war.
Dr. Williams said there was a “danger of sleepwalking into a situation of real nightmare in Sudan.”
The “peace agreement has been almost meaningless,” he said, noting that “injustice” and “intolerable deprivation” was the lot of most Sudanese.
The Archbishop of Canterbury said that he hoped that by meeting with the prime minister, he and Dr. Deng would “bring that pressure onto the table at Downing Street” for international action to save Sudan from civil war.
On Dec 22, the National Congress Party (NCP) government headed by President Omar al-Bashir pushed through the National Assembly a South Sudan referendum bill with terms unacceptable to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). On Dec 20, the NCP dominated National Assembly adopted a revised National Security Act over the objections of the SPLM, which protested the absence of parliamentary oversight and accountability for the security services.
“Once again the NCP has violated agreements it made with the SPLM, its supposed partner in the peace process,” said Leonard Leo of the US State Departments Commission on International Religious Freedom. “These violations are threatening to derail the CPA which provides the only existing roadmap to peace in Sudan and it is now hanging by a thread.”
