Church protests over Korean river projects: The Church of England Newspaper, May 30, 2010 May 31, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Korea, Church of England Newspaper, Environment.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A massive government works programme to re-engineer South Korea’s rivers has drawn protests from the country’s Christian and Buddhist leaders.
The government’s plan to tame nature has brought together the country’s Christians and Buddhists in an unusual coalition to stop the project. The National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK), the Anglican Church of Korea, the Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea, Won Buddhist officials, and the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism’s committee on the environment have banded together to protest the government’s plans, holding rallies and inter-faith prayer services to raise public awareness of the dangers the development poses to the environment.
Korean President Lee Myung-bak — the former CEO of Hyundai Construction—has proposed a “Green New Deal” public works project to jump start the economy and generate 340,000 jobs. The Green New Deal seeks to develop solar, wind, and tidal power, increase production of hybrid vehicles, expand public transport and the nation’s rail network, and institute a national tree-planting campaign.
The centerpiece of the Green New Deal, however, is the Four Rivers Restoration Project. With an estimated price tag of 22.2 trillion won (£12.5 billion) the government plans on developing Korea’s four major river systems; the Han, Nakdong, Geum, and Youngsan.
The goal of the programme is to prevent water shortages, control flooding, and create an “eco-friendly” space for tourism and development. It plans to construct 16 new dams, rebuild 87 old dams, reinforce 209 miles of riverbanks, and dredge 570 million cubic meters of sediment from 428 river miles. On 14 minor tributaries the government will build five new dams and refurbish nine old ones, and encase 151 miles of riverbank in concrete.
On April 26 the Catholic Church held a “Life and Peace Mass to Urge an End to the Four Major Rivers Restoration Project” at Seoul’s Myeong-dong Cathedral and on May 24, Christians joined Buddhists for a joint prayer meeting at Silleuk Temple in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, issuing a joint declaration calling for an end to the project. Prayer services have also been held at the Anglican Cathedral of St. Mary the Virgin and St. Nicholas in central Seoul to raise public awareness.
South Korea’s countryside is one of the most developed in the world. Over the past twenty five years the government has built 18,000 dams, and only the Dong river is free of any artificial barrier. A number of projects have proven to have had long term deleterious effects upon the environment.
The Saemangeum reclamation project on the west coast of the Korean peninsula was built over the estuaries of two rivers and a large tidal flat. The development wiped out a habitat critical to the survival of migratory birds on the Australasian flyway. Bureaucratic wrangling over how to develop the Saemangeum has left the landfill, some six times the size of Manhattan, vacant.
The Rev. Yang Jae-seong of the Christian Environmental Solidarity Movement told the Hankyoreh newspaper the united religious front against the project “stems from the fact that the proper role of religion is to preserve and save life.”
“All of the destruction of life and the development that we have witnessed over the years requires much in the way of repentance,” Mr. Yang said, “but the religious sector has stepped forward because it can no longer stand by and watch the forceful push for the development of the four rivers.”
Mary Glasspool consecrated in Los Angeles: The Church of England Newspaper, May 21, 2010 p 1. May 29, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Los Angeles.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has consecrated the Episcopal Church’s second ‘gay’ bishop, Canon Mary Glasspool, as suffragan bishop of Los Angeles.
In a colorful three-hour ceremony that incorporated traditional Episcopal symbols and liturgy with shamanism and a mosaic of ethnic and cultural motifs, Bishop Jefferts Schori consecrated Canon Glasspool and the Rev. Diane Jardin Bruce on May 15. The two will be the Diocese of Los Angeles first women bishops, and Canon Glasspool will be the Episcopal Church’s first ‘lesbian’ bishop.
Held in the 13,500 seat Long Beach Arena, the consecrations coincided with the nearby 27th annual Long Beach Pride Festival, a gay and lesbian community event. Invitations to the 70,000-member Diocese of Los Angeles welcomed all comers, saying 6,700 seats would be set up for the service. The Episcopal News Service reports 3000 people attended the gathering.
The service began with representatives from local Indian tribes welcoming the congregation. They offered a shaman blessing and burnt white sage and a smudge pot to purify the participants in the ceremony.
Other performances included hip-hop dancing, a mariachi band, Japanese taiko drumming, Korean drummers, the University of California Riverside bagpipers and a Chinese American praise band. The Gospel procession was led by a deacon beating an African drum.
In his homily, the Bishop of Los Angeles, the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno lauded the “two magnificent women” and reminded the congregation that “there are no outcasts” in the Episcopal Church.
“We are a mixed batch, but we are stronger because we are all of those things. We are stronger because we respect the dignity of every human being, that we stand for their right to stand up and be the people of God. It doesn’t matter what their physical ability is, it doesn’t matter who they are, what race, what country they come from, what sexuality they have. It matters that they are people of God,” he said.
In an oblique criticism of conservative Anglican objections, Bishop Bruno stated that “We, as bishops of this church, are called to be exemplars of Jesus’ presence in this world. We are called to teach people and bring them to a place of self understanding so that they do not, out of fear or anxiety or fear of change, become ideological idolaters of the past.”
Thirty bishops attended the ceremony and seven served as co-consecrators of Bishop Glasspool alongside Bishops Jefferts Schori and Bruno: the Bishop of Ohio Mark Hollingsworth, the Bishop of Long Island Lawrence Provenzano, the Bishop of Maryland Eugene Sutton, the retired Bishop of Maryland Robert Ilhoff, the Suffragan Bishop of Maryland, John Rabb, the retired Bishop of Los Angeles Frederick Borsch and the retired Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts Barbara Harris.
Bishop Bruno told the congregation “I don’t think there was one person in the place that was more nervous than I was about objections. But we didn’t have any objections today from anybody who was an Episcopalian.”
He added that there were “people outside and inside who came here because they don’t understand the inclusive nature of the Episcopal Church.”
Unlike the 2003 consecration ceremony for the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire, conservative Episcopalians did not rise to dissent to the consecration of Canon Glasspool, a partnered ‘gay’ priest. A handful of protestors from the Westboro Baptist Church—a Kansas based independent church known for picketing at public events and funerals related to gay people as well as the US military—demonstrated outside the arena, while a man and boy attempted to interrupt the service.
After the procession was finished, a man seated towards the front of the arena rose and waved a placard condemning homosexuality and abortion. As he was escorted from the building, he called upon the participants to “repent.”
A young boy then stood up and held aloft a Bible, shouting, “repent!” Both were escorted from the building, and no other objections marred the ceremony.
Montreal diocese opposes government plans to ban the veil: The Church of England Newspaper, May 21, 2010 p 6. May 28, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Church of England Newspaper, Islam.comments closed
Bishop Barry Clarke of Montreal
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Anglican Diocese of Montreal has denounced a bill tabled before the Quebec provincial assembly that will ban the niqab—the veil worn by Muslim women that hides all but the eyes.
On March 24, Quebec Justice Minister Kathleen Weil tabled Bill 94 that would require all those who wear full veils to remove them if they hold government employment, or do business or receive services from state officials.
Premier Jean Charest told a news conference in Quebec City that the proposed law balanced individual liberties with the values of Quebec society, and conformed with the country’s human rights charter.
“This is a symbol of affirmation and respect — first of all, for ourselves, and also for those to whom we open our arms,” Mr Charest said, and was “not about making our home less welcoming, but about stressing the values that unite us.”
Womens’ groups and political leaders in Francophone Canada have denounced the niqab as a symbol of an anti-democratic ideology and misogynistic gender relations, and is akin to laws under consideration in France and Belgium to ban the niqab — or any face cover — when offering or and receiving public services in the courts, hospitals, post offices, employment agencies, schools, and licencing agencies.
However, the May issue of the Montreal Anglican reported the Diocesan Council by a strong majority adopted a resolution offered by Canon Alan Perry, the rector of St Barnabas Church in Pierrefonds and the diocesan ecumenical officer, expressing “grave concern” about Bill 94
“This is not about Muslim rights,” Canon Perry said, “it’s about human rights, under (Quebec and Canadian) Charter rights.”
Canon Perry argued that a resolution banning the niqab ran counter to the call of the 1998 Lambeth Conference to support Muslim rights in countries where Islam is a minority faith, (Resolution II.4.c.ii) as well as the Canadian church’s belief in a baptismal vow to strive for “peace and justice.”
“Having the right to make choices means having the right to make choices other people find uncomfortable,” he told the Montreal Anglican, adding that the resolution was not about “advocating the wearing of the niqab. It is about the right to do so.”
Bishop Barry Clarke endorsed the resolution writing to his clergy that Bill 94 eroded religious freedoms guaranteed by Canada’s human rights charter as well as unfairly targeted women—men do not weal veils in Islam.
However Bill 94 has overwhelming support among québécois, who have not been shy in the past in asserting French cultural values for the province. Opinion polls find the bill has the support of over 95 per cent of voters and is backed by all factions in the assembly.
The National Post quoted Quebec immigration minister Yolande James as stating the veil was un-Canadian. “If you want to integrate into Quebec society, here are our values. We want to see your face,” she said.
Archbishop offers prayers following Tripoli plane crash: The Church of England Newspaper, May 21, 2010 p 7. May 28, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Church of England Newspaper, Disaster Relief.comments closed
Archbishop Makgoba
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Archbishop of Cape Town has offered his condolences and has opened its churches to the families of those killed in last week’s crash of a Libyan Afriqiyah Airways plane in Tripoli.
The Airbus A330-200 carrying 93 passengers and 11 crew in transit from Johannesburg to Europe crashed on its approach to Tripoli. An 8-year-old Dutch boy, Ruben van Assouw, was the only survivor.
The dead included 58 Dutch, thirteen South African, two Libyan, two Austrian, one German, one French, one Zimbabwean and two British passengers; the nationalities of the other passengers have not yet been identified. All eleven crew members were Libyan.
The plane was approaching Tripoli after a nine hour flight from Johannesburg, when it crashed at 6:00 a.m. local time. The flight data recorder has been recovered and is being reviewed to determine the cause of the accident.
On May 12, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town stated the church offered its prayers for those “who lost their lives” especially as we “consider the shocking and brutal way in which they died.”
“We do not know the cause of the crash – and even if we did, it would not alter the way that our hearts weep within us. We call for the relevant aviation authorities to determine and declare the cause soon, so that others can learn from this tragedy,” he said.
Yet, “we thank God for the sole survivor. In his survival, we see that even in this dark cloud of death, there is this ray of hope. I pray that God, as we know him in Jesus Christ, will be for all those affected a source of hope, strength, and comfort,” Archbishop Makgoba said.
The Communion waits upon Dr. Williams to speak about Mary Glasspool: The Church of England Newspaper, May 24, 2010 p 7. May 27, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Human Sexuality --- The gay issue, Los Angeles.comments closed
Dr. Rowan Williams
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The consecration of a lesbian bishop in Los Angeles has drawn a quick response from partisans of left and right in the US, but little comment from church leaders across the Communion.
On May 15 US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori consecrated the Rt. Rev. Mary Glasspool as suffragan bishop of Los Angeles. Following Canon Glasspool’s election in December, the Archbishop of Canterbury said the election of a lesbian bishop “raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole.”
In his video address to the Singapore South to South Encounter last month Dr. Williams said he was “in discussion with a number of people around the world about what consequences might follow from [the Glasspool election], and how we express the sense that most Anglicans will want to express, that this decision cannot speak for our common mind.”
A spokesman for Lambeth Palace last week told The Church of England Newspaper that Dr. Williams would not comment again, but would likely speak after the consecration.
Sources close to the archbishop tell CEN that Dr. Williams will likely consult with the House of Bishops this week during their meeting in York before he makes a formal response, so as to make sure the bishops are on board before he acts.
The Archbishop of York has also been silent over the Glasspool consecration, but in an interview with Radio New Zealand, Dr. John Sentamu said that “the difficulty I have got with the Episcopal Church is that while we are in the [listening] process, they have decided to go ahead” with the consecration of gay bishops.
However, Dr. Sentamu dismissed suggestions the Communion would fall apart, stating on March 13 the Anglican tradition of “scripture, tradition and reason” coupled with “experience” would see the church through the crisis. “Once you have got these four strands working together” the church can accommodate diverse opinion, he said.
Liberal activists in the US have applauded the Glasspool consecration. Los Angeles priest, the Rev. Susan Russell, commented that at the service she “sang out of hope that the steps we took Saturday in the Diocese of Los Angeles would be a beacon of light and life to all who are looking for signs of God’s love, peace, justice and compassion.”
Conservative activists have been less sanguine. The Rev. Todd Wetzel of Anglicans United saw the Glasspool consecration as evidence the Episcopal Church was walking away from the Anglican Communion. “While the public rhetoric of the Episcopal Church continually affirmed their care and consideration for the rest of the Communion, the actions of this insular body made those statements empty sentiment,” he said.
However, political scientist and journalist Walter Russell Meade saw the Glasspool consecration as the “beginning of the end of the Episcopal Church as we have known it.”
While Meade places himself on the liberal wing of the theological spectrum, he commented that it was “impossible to avoid the reflection that the Episcopal church is unilaterally imposing its own vision of the church on a worldwide communion.”
“Even if the mind of the church ultimately comes round to the Episcopal view of homosexuality, the Episcopal church has made a profound and historic error in attempting to force this choice on the Anglican Communion as a whole,” Meade argued.
The leadership of the Episcopal Church “in the last generation has frittered away its moral and political authority and capital,” he said, and its “inability to respond creatively to the challenges” facing it today was “accelerating its decline.”
Australian church commission calls for more immigrants, fewer babies: The Church of England Newspaper, May 21, 2010 p 6. May 27, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper, Immigration.comments closed
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Australia needs fewer babies but more immigrants a discussion paper prepared by the Anglican Church of Australia’s Public Affairs Commission (PAC) for debate at the September meeting of General Synod has suggested.
The PAC argued that it was a Christian’s duty to consume less, spend less, and have fewer children. “Consumption and population need to be addressed, and very sensitively, given the benefits received by rich nations from their use of global resources,” the paper said, warning that “unless we take account of the needs of future life on Earth, there is a case that we break the eighth commandment – ‘Thou shalt not steal’,” the PAC paper said.
However, fewer children will likely result in lower standards of living and higher taxes for future generations of Australians, statistics released in the government’s 2010 Intergenerational Report show.
The Anglican Church’s foray into demographic predictions comes amidst the “big Australia” debate initiated by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last year over the country’s optimum population. In a television interview in October, the prime minister was asked to comment on statistics released by the Treasury’s 2010 Intergenerational Report that predicted the population would rise from 22 million in 2010 to 39.5 million by 2050. The Treasury’s 2007 report had estimated a population rise from 21 million to 28.5 million in fifty years.
Asked to comment on the “60 per cent increase in Australia’s population over the next four decades,” the prime minister said “I actually believe in a big Australia. I make no apology for that. I actually think it’s good news that our population is growing.
”Contrast that with many countries in Europe where in fact it’s heading in the reverse direction. I think it’s good for us; it’s good for our national security long term; it’s good in terms of what we can sustain as a nation,” Mr. Rudd said.
In January, the prime minister clarified his remarks stating the figure of 35.9 million was “simply a projection of what is happening now with fertility on the one hand, and the average of migration actually for the last 40 years – if you project ahead, that’s where it lands you.”
Mr. Rudd added that it was the “responsible course of government policy” to prepare for this rise, and last month appointed Tony Burke as Australia’s first Population Minister. The opposition has responded to the “big Australia” plan by calling for a cut in immigration, estimated at between 180,000 and 300,000 per year.
The PAC paper takes issue with both sides of the political debate, calling for the elimination of the baby bonus—a government grant in aid for new mothers–while urging a relaxation of immigration restrictions.
“These population increases will be taking place in a finite world that has not yet been able to agree on reducing greenhouse gas emissions enough to avoid potentially catastrophic temperature increase and climate change,” the paper said, alleging that Australia would see widespread ecological degradation with a 60 per cent population rise.
“Out of care for the whole Creation, particularly the poorest of humanity and the life forms who cannot speak for themselves, it is not responsible to stand by and remain silent,” the paper said.
Christians should make “personal and corporate sacrifices for the common good of all Creation,” while the government should scrap the Baby Bonus which “provides an incentive specifically and primarily to increase Australia’s population.”
The PAC paper urged the government to increase certain categories of immigration. “Compared with total immigration, humanitarian migration into Australia has been very small – about 14,000 per year, but of these only about 4000 to 6000 were refugees by the United Nations’ definition. There is scope for Australia to respond more generously in humanitarian immigration,” it concluded.
The Treasury’s 2010 Intergenerational Report projected the number of children to increase by 45 per cent and the number of working adults to increase by 44 per cent. However, the number of older people, 65 to 84 will double, and number of those over 85 will quadruple.
Unless there is a greater increase in the number of children or working immigrants, the social care net established by the government will face severe economic pressures, the Treasury report stated.
“In 1970, there were 7.5 people of working age to support every person aged 65 and over. By 2010 this has fallen to an estimated 5 people of working age for every person aged 65 and over. By 2050 the number is projected to decline to 2.7 people of working age to support every person aged 65 and over,” the report said.
The last bishop in China to retire: The Church of England Newspaper, May 21, 2010 p 8. May 26, 2010
Posted by geoconger in China, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria and Bishop KH Ting
The last Anglican bishop in China, the Rt. Rev. K.H. Ting, has stepped down as president of Nanjing Union Theological Seminary, and at age 95, has retired from active church service.
At its March meeting the board of trustees accepted Bishop Ting’s resignation, and named him honorary president of the China’s national Protestant seminary.
Established in 1952 by the Chinese Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), the seminary has had a single president during its 57 year history. The Rev. Gao Feng, President of the China Christian Council (CCC) has been named the institution’s new president.
Bishop Ting Kuang-hsun is the chairman emeritus of the TSPM and president emeritus of the CCC—the state backed organizations that oversee the Protestant Church in China. Bishop Ting continues to serve as vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and as a member of the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature.
Educated at Shanghai’s Saint John’s University, Bishop Ting was ordained in 1942 in Shanghai and served with the YMCA in China. In 1946 he moved to Canada to serve as missions secretary of the Canadian Student Christian Movement. In 1948 he moved to Geneva to serve with the World Student Christian Federation, returning to China in 1951.
From1951-1953 he served as General Manager of the Shanghai-based Chinese Christian Literature Society, and in 1953 became president of Nanjing Union Theological Seminary. In 1955 was consecrated as Bishop of Zhejiang of the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui, the Anglican Church in China.
The last meeting of the Chinese House of Bishops and General Synod was held in Shanghai in 1956, and shortly thereafter the church was merged by the Communist government with China’s other protestant denominations to form the China Christian Council. Bishop Ting remained an Anglican bishop, but his church had been effectively dissolved.
Jailed during the Cultural Revolution, Bishop Ting returned to national prominence in the 1970’s in the wake of the liberalizations following Mao’s death. A controversial figure among Chinese Christians, Bishop Ting has been accused of being an apologist for the government in its persecution of the “House Church movement”, but is also credited with keeping the church alive during a period of severe persecution.
A statement released by the seminary through the Amity Foundation stated that at in “light of Bishop K. H. Ting’s advanced years, his own repeated requests and the wishes of his family, the Board accepted his resignation as president of Nanjing Union Theological Seminary, a position he has held since the Seminary’s founding in 1952. High tribute was paid to Bishop Ting for his devoted service to theological education in China, and he was requested to serve as honorary president of the seminary.”
Torres Strait petitions for Personal Ordinariate from Rome: The Church of England Newspaper, May 21, 2010 p 8. May 26, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper, Traditional Anglican Communion.Tags: Anglicanorum Coetibus
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- The Rt. Rev. Tolowa Nona of the Torres Strait
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Church of the Torres Strait, a breakaway group from the Anglican Church of Australia, has announced that it will petition Pope Benedict XVI for the creation of a personal ordinariate under the provisions of the Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus.
At a meeting of the church’s synod on Badu Island in the Torres Strait, between Australia and New Guinea, the Rt. Rev. Tolowa Nona announced that the move to come under Roman Catholic control had been adopted by unanimous consent.
The Church of the Torres Strait, which ministers to islanders and indigenous Anglicans in Northern Queensland, is a province of the Traditional Anglican Communion, and is distinct from TAC’s Anglican Catholic Church in Australia.
Originally a part of the Anglican Church of Australia, the Church of the Torres Strait was formed in December 1997 when the Torres Strait Regional Anglican Council voted to quit the Diocese of North Queensland for the Traditional Anglican Communion.
Formed in 1915 when the London Mission Society (LMS) turned over its congregations to the Anglican Church, the Torres Straits were the center of the Anglican Diocese of Carpentaria based on Thursday Island.
In September 1995, the Diocese of Carpentaria voted to become absorbed within the diocese of North Queensland, as part of the absorption process the final synod of the diocese enacted an ‘Islander Bishop Church Law’, which provided for the election of a regional Bishop of Torres Strait who would live on Thursday Island.
It was agreed by the Carpentaria synod that the bishop would be “chosen by the clergy and laity of the Torres Strait region, according to Torres Strait culture and custom and recommended to the Bishop of North Queensland for appointment.”
The merger agreement provided for a Torres Strait Regional Conference whose members would be residents of Torres Strait, and a ‘Torres Strait Regional Council’ with authority for local administration.
In 1996 North Queensland elected a new Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Clyde Wood, and affirmed the Diocese of Carpentaria’s call for an indigenous suffragan for the Torres Strait. In 1997 the Torres Strait Regional Conference was unable to decide among a slate of nominees, and Bishop Wood was asked to select the new bishop.
Bishop Wood chose a priest, the Rev. Morrison Ted Mosby, an islander priest, who was not on the Conference’s list of nominees. The conference objected to the selection, citing Mosby’s support for the ordination of women and his Pentecostal-influenced churchmanship—traits that the Anglo-Catholic diocese found highly objectionable.
The senior Torres Strait clergyman, the Rev. Gayai Hankin, warden of the Theological College on Moa Island and former dean of the cathedral wrote to the clergy of the Diocese of North Queensland on Dec 4, 1997, “We feel betrayed by the hierarchy … The scandal of disunity has been created … Time after time over the last months our senior clergy, other clergy, Regional Council and Regional Conference, all virtually unanimously, warned our leaders the appointment was made in the wrong way to the wrong man … we feel our culture, our church history, the importance to us of our faith and the importance of the office of bishop, not only to Anglicans but to all Torres Strait Islanders has been ignored.”
After Bishop Wood declined to back down from his choice, 16 of the 18 clergy in the Torres Strait and a majority of its members, quit the diocese. In April 1998, Fr. Hankin was consecrated bishop and the church accepted in to the Traditional Anglican Communion.
The vote last week by the Torres Strait synod effectively ends the 100-year Anglican presence in the region.
Zambian church rejects donor pressure to back gay rights: The Church of England Newspaper, May 14, 2010 p 6 May 22, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of Central Africa.comments closed
The Rt. Rev. Robert Mumbi of Luapulu at Lambeth 2008
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Pressure from overseas governments and NGOs to drop the “Christian Nation” clause in Zambia’s constitution, has drawn sharp protest from church leaders in the Central African country.
The former Executive Director of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia, Bishop Paul Mususu, told the Times of Zambia last week that it was wrong for foreigners to dictate the terms of the constitution and promote a secular state that would support gay rights.
“It is not proper for us to get rid of what we have cherished over the years. We shall be sinking so low if we allow things like homosexuality and pornography in the name of freedom of expression,” Bishop Mususu said.
Sweden and a number of NGOs working in Zambia have urged lawmakers to adopt a secular constitution and Bill of Rights that would grant civil protections to homosexuals. The preamble to the 1996 Constitution of Zambia “declare(s) the Republic a Christian nation while upholding the right of every person to enjoy that person’s freedom of conscience or religion.”
Bishop Mususu warned Zambian political leaders not to abandon their beliefs in return for Western cash, urging civil society leaders to “promote our culture as a country and strengthen our values. We must not support wrong things just because we are getting a dollar or people are supporting our project.” The president of the Zambia Anglican Council
Bishop Robert Mumbi of Luapulu stated the homosexual lifestyle that was being promoted by the West violated Christian beliefs and African values. Traditional morality was under the twin assault in Zambia of Western pressure and the breakdown of society through the country’s rapid urbanization. “The world is not static and the more urbanized we become, the more secular we shall be,” Bishop Mumbi said.
However, God’s truth was unchanging and the integrity of the Anglican Church in Zambia was not for sale. The church would not take Western cash to support its development projects if required to endorse the campaign to mainstream homosexuality, the bishop said.
Sweden has provided financial support for the country’s nascent gay movement. Ambassador Marie-Andersson de Frutos said “as a donor country, we offer moral support to such groups of people and we hope countries like Zambia would recognise them and allow them to enjoy their rights.”
No surrender to Dr. Kunonga says Harare bishop: The Church of England Newspaper, May 14, 2010 p 6. May 22, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.comments closed
Dr. Kunonga
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Dr. Nolbert Kunonga has called upon the Diocese of Harare to concede defeat and join his breakaway Anglican Church of Zimbabwe.
On May 7, the government-backed Harare Herald published a statement by the controversial former bishop saying that in light of the Supreme Court decision finding that he was the lawful Bishop of Harare, Anglicans should put aside their quarrels and unite under him.
“I humbly call on Anglicans in this diocese to now reflect on the issues that have occurred in the church since 2007 and use this opportunity to focus on the future. This is an opportunity for all Anglicans from the different persuasions in the diocese to come together as one,” he said.
Dr. Kunonga told the Herald that he would reopen the churches of the diocese to all Anglicans—they have been closed by the police on the instructions of Dr. Kunonga since Christmas—providing an accommodation could be reached.
“Where differences still remain, let the differences be dealt with internally, as a family,” he said.
“I will be communicating with those I have differences with, with the hope that if we see issues in the same way, we will forge ahead with fortitude,” Dr Kunonga’s statement to the Herald said.
However, the Bishop of Harare, Dr. Chad Gandiya said that he had not been contacted by Dr. Kunonga, nor was he of a mind to concede.
Speaking the Sunday Times of South Africa, Dr. Gandiya—the Bishop of Harare elected by the Church of the Province of Central Africa—said the diocese’s attorneys would contest last week’s court decision.
“We are puzzled and baffled by the court decision, but our lawyers are handling it,” he said, noting that the diocese would “launch a constitutional challenge. Something must certainly be done,” he said, noting the underlying dispute was still before the Harare High Court, awaiting adjudication.
Dr. Gandiya was not impressed by Dr. Kunonga’s offer of an olive branch. “The dispute is not between me and Kunonga but between him and the province, which excommunicated him over their sharp differences,” Dr. Gandiya said.
Drink-driving bishop resigns: The Church of England Newspaper, May 14, 2010 p 6. May 22, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Melanesia, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Archbishop David Vunagi of Melanesia
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Melanesian bishop convicted of drink-driving in March, has resigned. Last week the Archbishop of Melanesia, the Most Rev. David Vunagi said that after meeting with the House of Bishops on May 5, the Rt. Rev. Charles Koete handed in his resignation as Bishop of the Central Solomon Islands.
In March the Tulagi magistrate’s court fined Bishop Koete £25 and bound him over to keep the peace after he pled guilty to driving while under the influence of alcohol and driving without a licence.
On Jan 1, Bishop Koete drove his diocesan-owned vehicle in the sea after missing a curve in the road. The bishop had been hosting a New Year’s Day party at his home, and had left the party to restock the bar. No one was injured in the crash, which occurred as the bishop was returning to the party with more beer.
On April 14, Archbishop Vunagi said he had given Bishop Koete formal notice that he would be brought up on charges of conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy.
Rather than contest the charge, Bishop Koete gave the House of Bishops a letter submitting a request to take early retirement, effective May 31, 2010.
The bishop was contrite, writing “I apologise to you, the Church of Melanesia, the Anglican Communion and all Christian people. It is my prayer that we shall continue to work together in peace and harmony.”
In a statement released to the media, Archbishop Vunagi said the House of Bishops had granted Bishop Koete’s request. He added “I wish to sincerely thank Bishop Charles for choosing to take the honourable way to request for an early retirement other than allowing the processes of the Church to make a decision for him.”
Church leaders divided over death penalty for convicted Bombay terrorist: The Church of England Newspaper, May 14, 2010 p 7. May 21, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of North India, Terrorism.comments closed
Mohammad Ajmal Kasab entering the Bombay CST station on Nov 26, 2008
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The death sentence handed down to the lone surviving gunman from the November 2008 Bombay massacre has divided church leaders in India.
Anglican leaders have applauded the May 6 decision by Judge ML Tahiliyani that Mohammad Ajmal Kasab be hanged for his part in the terror attack on the city, while Catholic leaders have urged the court to sentence him to life in prison.
On Nov 26, 2008 Kasab and nine other gunmen launched a commando-style raid upon Bombay, killing at least 173 people and wounding over 300 over the course of three days. The 22-year-old Pakistani national was the lone gunman to survive the attack and was captured by the police on the first day of the assault.
On May 3 Judge Tahiliyani found Kasab guilty of multiple counts of murder and terrorism after a two-week trail. Kasab was captured on video surveillance cameras killing 50 people at Bombay’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) railway station. During the trial, Indian television broadcast film footage presented by the prosecution of Kasab grinning as he fired an AK47 assault rifle into the packed train station.
Kasab had engaged in an act of “exceptional depravity” where “children were killed, women were killed,” the judge said. The railway station attack was the single bloodiest episode in the 60-hour siege that saw attacks on two hotels, a Jewish prayer centre and a backpacker’s bar.
Kasab “should be hanged by the neck until dead,” Judge Tahaliyani ruled, as punishment for murder; abetting and conspiracy to murder; waging war against the State; and violating India’s unlawful activities laws.
Judge Tahaliyani dismissed the defence’s claim that Kasab has been brainwashed by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist group that planned the attack. The defendant “voluntarily offered himself as a Mujahidin,” the judge said, and must suffer the consequences of his actions.
The General Secretary of the Church of North India, the Rev Enos Das Pradhan said: “We welcome the judgment. It is a message to everybody that the rule of law prevails.”
Without deterrence, there “will be no discipline, no rule of law,” he said.
However, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Indian Bishops’ Commission for Justice Peace and Development, Capuchin Fr Nithiya Sagayam said the Roman Catholic Church was opposed to the death penalty.
Rather than be hanged, Kasab should “be guided and improved,” Fr Sagayam told the UCAN news agency. “Capital punishment does not solve any problem. It will only make things worse,” and will not stop terrorism, he said.
However, SM Krishna, India’s Foreign Minister, said: “The sentence sends out a message to those who want to wage war against India,” while Home Minister P Chidambaram said the “judgment itself is a message to Pakistan that they should not export terrorism to India”.
Kasab’s sentence automatically goes to India’s Supreme Court for review. If his sentence is upheld, he may petition the Indian president to grant him clemency.
Archbishop of Polynesia elected: The Church of England Newspaper, May 14, 2010 p 6. May 21, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand & Polynesia, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Archbishop Winston Halapua of Polynesia
The Diocese of Polynesia has elected a native of Tonga, the Rt. Rev. Winston Halapua to serve as its next Archbishop.
On May 12, the General Synod of the Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia meeting in Gisborne, New Zealand announced it had affirmed the decision of the diocese’s electoral synod held in Fiji. On April 29 the Diocese of Polynesia met in Suva to elect a successor to Archbishop Jabez Bryce, who died on Feb 11. The results of the balloting were forwarded to the church’s archbishops, who will then polled the 120 members of synod, seeking their approval for the election
Bishop Halapua, 64, currently serves as one of three suffragan bishops of the far-flung diocese that covers Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, the Cook Islands and the Polynesian population resident in New Zealand and is based in Auckland. Appointed suffragan bishop in 2005, Bishop Halapua served as a teacher and seminary dean before his consecration.
Seen as a liberal within Polynesia church circles, Bishop Halapua’s election marks a move closer to the positions held by New Zealand church on the issues facing the Communion today. With his election, Archbishop Halapua becomes one of the co-primates of the province, along with Archbishop David Moxon of New Zealand and Archbishop Brown Turei of Aotearoa.
Bishop Dorai arrested: The Church of England Newspaper, May 14, 2010 p 7. May 21, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of South India, Corruption.comments closed
The Rt. Rev. Manickam Dorai, Bishop in Coimbatore
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Indian bishop who was suspended last month pending the outcome of a criminal investigation into his stewardship of diocesan finances, has been arrested on a charge of menacing a priest.
On May 8, a bench warrant was issued for the arrest of the Rt Rev Manickam Dorai, Bishop of Coimbatore. The bishop had been ordered to appear in court to respond to charges that he had threatened the Rev S Raviraj of Gudalur in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu. Mr Raviraj filed a complaint with the police, claiming the bishop threatened to harm him.
It is not known whether the altercation between the bishop and his priest is related to the investigation into the allegation of misappropriation funds.
The bishop was granted bail on May 10 by the court and ordered to appear on June 16. However, after he was released from prison Bishop Dorai was admitted to hospital complaining of chest pains, and is currently under medical care.
Last month the Executive Committee of the Church of South India (CSI) placed Bishop Dorai on a two-month leave of absence, pending an investigation by church auditors of the Diocese’s accounts. Bishop Dorai, two of his brothers and the former diocesan secretary along with 27 others were accused of stealing over £335,000 from diocesan coffers. Sources in the CSI tell The Church of England Newspaper the investigation is on-going.
Corruption charges brought against the Moderator of the CSI: The Church of England Newspaper, May 14, 2010 p 7. May 21, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of South India, Corruption.comments closed
The Rt Rev S. Vasantha Kumar, Bishop in Karnataka Central
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The head of the Church of South India is under investigation by police in Bangalore for allegedly stealing £6,000 from two church schools under his care.
On May 4 a magistrate’s court instructed the police to investigate allegations that the Rt Rev Suputhrappa Vasantha Kumar, Bishop in the Karnataka Central Diocese and Moderator of the CSI, had diverted funds belonging to Bishop Cotton Boys School and Bishop Cotton Girls School in Bangalore to his private bank account.
Last month, Mr I Sounderraj of St Peter’s Church in Kolar Gold Fields lodged a private complaint against the Bishop with the court, alleging the Bishop and his wife had stolen over 400,000 rupees since 2002 through falsifying school documents and bank records from the two schools.
On May 6, Bishop Vasantha Kumar convened a meeting of the Diocese’s education commission and ordered the headmasters of the Bishop Cotton Boys and Girls Schools be transferred from their posts. Both head teachers protested their reassignment, while the Bangalore Mirror speculated the “Bishop is initiating action against the principals to prevent them from handing over sensitive documents to the Cubbon Park police and spilling the beans about him.”
However, on May 8 the Diocesan education secretary, the Rev John Milton, said the two principals were not being singled out as 17 headmasters had been reassigned by the Diocese to new posts at the May 6 meeting.
The Mirror said that it was a common practice for the two schools to contribute funds to the bishop’s discretionary account each year. However, the funds given to the bishop by the school are alleged to have gone into the Bishop’s private account. Once known as the “Eton of the East,” Bishop Cotton Boys School was founded in 1865 by the Rev ST Pettigrew as a boarding school for Europeans and Anglo-Indians and remains one of India’s premier “public” schools.
The Diocese has denied the allegations of wrongdoing, and the police have declined to comment on their ongoing investigation.
California cases return to state supreme court: The Church of England Newspaper, May 14, 2010 p 6. May 19, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Los Angeles, Property Litigation.comments closed
St James Newport Beach
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Los Angeles and the breakaway parish of St James Newport Beach are headed back to the California Supreme Court, following a petition by the parish to overturn the latest appellate court ruling in the six year old case.
On March 26, the Fourth Appellate Court of Appeals in California ruled the congregation was not entitled to present a defence to the Diocese of Los Angeles’ allegations that it was the true owner of the multi-million dollar parish properties. On a split 2 to 1 decision, the Court of Appeals ruled that the wording of the Supreme Court’s first decision precluded further litigation over the property—even though the parish had not yet been permitted to offer a defence.
The dissenting judge in the case, the Hon. Richard Fybel stated in a dissenting opinion that his colleagues’ decision in favour of the diocese was “unprecedented and without any basis in law.”
The decision by the court to impose a sentence before a trial was conducted was “revolutionary,” adding that “I can write with certainty that this is the only case in the history of California where entry of judgment has been ordered upon overruling” a defendant’s challenge to the legal sufficiency of a plaintiff’s pleading.
He stated the ruling was so outrageous that it “can best be resolved by a grant of review” by the state’s highest court. Judge Fybel’s colleagues on the bench stated “we have no doubt, of course, that if we are incorrect in relying on the plain language of the Supreme Court’s opinion in granting the general church’s petition for writ of mandate, the high court will correct our error.”
St. James’s lead attorney, Eric Sohlgren, told The Church of England Newspaper the March decision was a “grave injustice,” whose implications for the rule of law were “staggering.”
In a statement released on May 4, Mr. Sohlgren said St James would ask the state’s highest court to “correct the injustice of the majority’s opinion.”
“Imagine being hauled into court as a defendant in a lawsuit, and being able to quickly end the case on the ground that the plaintiff has not alleged that anything you did is unlawful. That victory is short-lived, however, because the appellate courts reinstate the allegations in the lawsuit. Just when you are looking forward to defending yourself with evidence and witnesses, you are told by a court that you lose, and you must turn your property over to the plaintiff. Incredibly, that is what has happened to St. James,” he said.
The Diocese of Los Angeles has argued that as a matter of law, the trust imposed by General Convention on all parish property in favour of the national church and dioceses, gives it absolute control over the church’s lands and buildings.
However, St James will argue, should it be allowed to present evidence in its defence, the diocese waived all property claims in its property in a letter to the parish when it began a fundraising campaign to expand the church.
The Canon to the Ordinary of the Diocese of Los Angeles, D. Bruce MacPherson, now the Bishop of Western Louisiana, testified “the purpose of the conversations between the Diocese and St. James was for St. James to hold title to its property in its own name free of any trust . . . [as] part of an agreement in order for St. James to secure substantial donations for its building program.”
Appeals to the California Supreme Court are not granted by right, but the sharp dispute between the judges at the Court of Appeals makes a grant of review likely.
Greed has destroyed British banking, Irish archbishop tells General Synod: The Church of England Newspaper, May 14, 2010 May 19, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Ireland, Development/Economics/Govt Finances.comments closed
The Archbishops of Dublin and Armagh
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Banks that abuse the social contact and put short term greed above long term social and economic stability should lose their licences, the Archbishop of Armagh told the opening session of the Church of Ireland’s General Synod last week.
Meeting at Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin on May 6, Dr. Alan Harper called for stricter regulation and supervision of the financial industry and for a return to probity and morality and banking. He warned that Britain and Ireland’s high street banks had become “morally compromised by association with the culture of investment banking”.
Dr. Harper told the General Synod that banks were a vital sector of the economy. “We need them to act morally, consistently and responsibly for the greater good of society. We need to be able to trust them, including trusting in their objectivity and reliability.”
If they abuse that trust and “do not perform in a socially responsible fashion” their “banking licenses should be revoked,” the archbishop said.
“We cannot allow hard working people to be driven to the point of suicide by institutions parts of which those same desperate and distraught people actually own,” he said.
What was now required was “a reassertion of the key understanding that the first obligation of the retail banks is to the customer and that the true interests of shareholders are best-served by implementing customer satisfaction”, he said. “Part of that banking obligation to the customer involves ensuring that credit is available to keep business alive for, without business, wealth-creation ceases and employment collapses.”
The effects of the restriction in bank lending had been “disastrous” for small businesses bringing many close to collapse. “Punitive rates of interest” were being “demanded; banks are reducing overdraft facilities; asset-rich but cash-poor businesses are being starved of the cash required to enable them to trade, yet these same small and medium sized businesses are the backbone of the local economy,” he said.
It might have been expected that with “liquidity having been pumped into the banks to enable them to begin lending again in the real economy, viable business and industry would have found their liquidity requirements readily met by banks anxious to ensure the future for their clients.”
This had not been the case, Dr. Harper said, as the banking industry appeared not to have learned anything from the near collapse of the financial markets last year.
To bring sanity to the financial system, “we require a completely new banking morality that takes full account of the social obligations of financial institutions and that insulates ordinary people and businesses from exposure to the risks of investment banking,” Dr. Harper said.
Battle over American seat on the ACC looms: The Church of England Newspaper, May 14, 2010 p 7. May 16, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Consultative Council, Church of England Newspaper, Connecticut.comments closed
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, Bishop Ian Douglas, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the April 17 consecration of Bishop Douglas in Hartford
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A battle is looming over the composition of the Anglican Consultative Council’s (ACC) Standing Committee with conservative leaders urging the chairman of the ACC declare the seat of American delegate Dr. Ian Douglas vacant.
The fight over Dr. Douglas’ seat comes in the wake of sharp criticism of the integrity of the ACC’s staff and hostility towards the usurpation of powers by the Standing Committee voiced by Global South Anglican leaders attending last month’s Singapore encounter.
While the fight over Dr. Douglas’ seat may not have the emotional intensity as the consecration on May 15 of Mary Glasspool as Suffragan Bishop of Los Angeles, moderates within the Global South leadership tell The Church of England Newspaper the continued malleability of the rules of the Anglican game in favour of the US may well prove too much.
A professor of missiology at the Episcopal Divinity School, a clergy delegate to ACC-14, and deputy from Massachusetts to the Episcopal Church’s General Convention, Dr. Douglas has served on a number of pan-Anglican commissions including the Lambeth 2008 organizing committee. One of the rising stars of the Episcopal Church and widely acknowledged as its most articulate spokesman at ACC-14 in Kingston, the ACC delegates elected the first-time American clergy delegate to an open seat on the Standing Committee at the meeting.
Last December Dr. Douglas was elected Bishop of Connecticut and on April 17 was consecrated by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. The move from priest to bishop, however, has raised questions as to Dr. Douglas’ eligibility to keep his clergy seat at the ACC.
On Feb 19 the Episcopal News Service reported the Episcopal Church had postponed appointing a successor to Bishop Roskam until its June 16-18 meeting. It quoted Executive Council member Rosalie Ballentine as saying the delay in voting would allow the council to consider “all possible names who would be eligible for nomination,” including Dr. Douglas. ENS stated that “Douglas is currently the clerical member of the delegation. In May, he attended the first ACC meeting of his three-meeting term.”
Asked whether he would have to step down from the ACC’s Standing Committee due to his change in status from priest to bishop, Dr. Douglas told CEN he would remain in place.
“Election to the Standing Committee by the ACC is irrespective of orders. Therefore, if I am elected the episcopal ACC member from TEC by the Executive Council in June, then I remain on the Standing Committee,” he said.
However conservatives have pushed for ACC chairman, Bishop James Tengatenga to replace Dr. Douglas, arguing that under the bylaws of the ACC a church cannot have two episcopal delegates. They state that upon his consecration as a bishop, Dr. Douglas ceased to be a clerical member of the ACC.
Under the three tier membership structure currently in place, churches of the largest class, including the Episcopal Church, send a lay, clergy and episcopal delegate to the ACC. The ACC constitution requires the clergy member be either a priest or deacon. While the Episcopal Church will appoint a successor to Bishop Roskam in June, under the ACC’s rules she remains the episcopal delegate until the start of the next ACC meeting. If appointed by the US Executive Council, Dr. Douglas’ term as an episcopal delegate would start at the opening of the next ACC meeting.
On April 14, ACC secretary general Canon Kenneth Kearon told CEN Bishop Douglas would continue to serve on the standing committee.
“With respect to Prof. Ian Douglas’s changed order of ministry, the issue of duration of membership of the Standing Committee was dealt with in Resolution 28 of ACC-4. This states that members hold their position until such time as their successors take their place, or they retire for any other reason,” he wrote.
However, conservative critics of the ACC not that clause 4d of its Constitution states that members lose their seat when they change status: “Bishops and other clerical members shall cease to be members on retirement from ecclesiastical office.”
Article 2f of the ACC bylaws also requires members of the Standing Committee to be members of the ACC. However, they are “subject to earlier termination in the event that such elected member shall for any reason cease to be a member of the Council.”
Asked to explain the contradiction of Resolution 4:28 and the section 2f of the ACC’s bylaws which requires those who lose their seats to give up their standing committee membership, Canon Kearon’s spokesman said the ACC secretary general would seek advice.
In their April 23 communiqué, Anglican leaders attending the Fourth Global South to South Encounter in Singapore chastised the London staff of the ACC and urged Dr. Williams to reform the communion’s failed structures. “There is a need to review the entire Anglican Communion structure,” they said, “especially the Instruments of Communion and the Anglican Communion office.”
Allowing the American church to keep its seat on the Standing Committee, in what they see as a violation of the ACC’s rules, will likely further alienate the churches of the developing world from London, and harden opinions that the Communion’s structures are corrupt, Global South leaders tell CEN.
Baker plan for the Episcopal Church: The Church of England Newspaper, May 7, 2010 p 7. May 16, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Human Sexuality --- The gay issue, The Episcopal Church.comments closed
The Hon. James A. Baker, III
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A former American Secretary of State has written an open letter to the Episcopal Church urging its liberal and conservative members to declare a cease fire in the war over homosexuality.
Writing in the Spring issue of the Virginia Theological Seminary magazine, James A. Baker III urged Episcopalians to “agree to disagree” on the “contentious issues of sexuality.”
Mr. Baker served as Chief of Staff to President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1985 and as Secretary of the Treasury from 1985 to 1988 during President Reagan’s second term. Mr. Baker served as Secretary of State from 1989 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush and has been a lifelong member of St Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas.
Mr. Baker stated that he claimed “no expertise” in the polity of the Episcopal Church, and began with the assumption the church was “tolerant of differing opinions” and permitted “great latitude for decision making” at the parish and diocesan levels. Most lay Episcopalians were tired of the conflict, he said, and looked forward to the day when the church would “no longer frequent the national news” because of its divisions over human sexuality.
“Some issues can be so vigorously contested that resolution is unreachable, at least for a while,” he said, adding that “to try to force resolution prematurely—so that one side is victorious and the other is defeated—yields no resolution at all. That is a recipe for continuing conflict and increasing anger.”
The Episcopal Church had reached the point that “for the foreseeable future,” the disputes over gay bishops and blessings would not be resolved. “Squabbling over church assets is the wrong way to resolve this impasse,” he said, noting that the “predictable result of continuing the battle will be public conflict without end.”
Baker’s plan would be to allow congregations to “agree to disagree, with each side expressing respect for the good faith of the other.” Each parish would be allowed to decide by a majority of votes by its members the “position it would take on these issues of sexuality.”
“Bishops in exercising oversight of the parishes in their dioceses on issues of sexuality would do so in keeping with that particular parish’s most recent vote,” he said.
To get to this point, Mr. Baker asked the bishops of the church to exercise “gracious restraint” until legislative safeguards could be put into effect that would protect those holding divergent views.
The former Secretary of State conceded that “those on the extreme sides of the debate” would not agree with this approach, but “now is not the time to allow these issues of sexuality to further splinter the church.”
Unless a truce is arranged, the church would continue hemorrhaging members, he said. “We can allow the gales of acrimony to blow us into further disarray. Or, we can accept this difficult challenge, harness those same winds, and chart a unified direction for the church that we all love, no matter which side of the debate we take,” Mr. Baker said.
Zimbabwe Supreme Court upholds Dr. Kunonga as Bishop of Harare: The Church of England Newspaper, May 7, 2010 p 8. May 14, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.comments closed
Dr. Nolbert Kunonga
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Zimbabwe Supreme Court has handed down an order that effectively declares Dr. Nolbert Kunonga to be the lawful bishop of Harare.
On May 2, Deputy Chief Justice Luke Malaba ruled the Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA) had not followed proper legal procedures in appealing a July 2009 decision by High Court Justice Ben Hlatshwayo which recognized Dr. Kunonga as the Bishop of Harare.
The effect of the ruling is unclear. While Justice Hlatshwayo ruled in favour of Dr. Kunonga in July 2009, Judge President Rita Makarau held last year the two sides should share the properties pending a final disposition of the dispute. This view was upheld on March 3, 2010 on appeal by Justice Chinembiri Bhunu.
Dr. Kunonga and the CPCA’s Bishop of Harare, Dr. Chad Gandiya, are agreed that Dr. Kunonga leads a separate entity, the Anglican Church of Zimbabwe. (ACZ). However, the effect of the Supreme Court ruling is to confirm Dr. Kunonga as the CPCA Bishop of Harare, and it is in this capacity as CPCA Bishop, not in his new role as archbishop of the ACZ, that allows the breakaway bishop to control the diocese’s property.
However, Justice Malaba stated in his opinion that fairness or the underlying ecclesiastical dispute was not at issue. The question before the court was whether the attorneys for the province had filed a proper petition for appeal.
According to extracts from the ruling published in the state-controlled Harare Herald, Justice Malaba held the CPCA had not provided a bond for the costs of the appeal within the prescribed time and had failed to ask for a waiver of this requirement. The court had no recourse but to quash the province’s appeal, he said.
In his view the CPCA’s appeal was a legal stratagem designed to suspend the lower court’s order while it consecrated a new bishop for the diocese, thereby presenting the court with a fait accompli.
“When a party abuses the legal process in this way, he should not expect protection from the court when the other party seeks redress of his conduct,” the judge said.
“Without an application for condonation [a request for forgiveness from the court for omitting a required pleading] it proceeded to claim relief as if non-compliance with rules of court was an inconsequential matter.”
“One cannot consider absolving the [CPCA] from the consequences of lack of diligence committed by its legal practitioners, when there is no suggestion in its papers that the ‘oversight’ was that of a legal practitioner,” Justice Malaba ruled.
The attorney for the CPCA, Happious Zhou, told Newsreel his client was reviewing the ruling and would likely file a new petition, asking the court to clarify who was the lawful Bishop of Harare.
Kenyan church says ‘no’ to new constitution: The Church of England Newspaper, May 7, 2010 p 8. May 14, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Kenya, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Archbishop Eliud Wabukala
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Anglican Church of Kenya (AKC) has rejected the country’s draft constitution, encouraging its members to vote against ratification in this summer’s nationwide referendum.
The AKC now joins the Catholic Church and the National Council of Churches of Kenya in opposing the revised constitution endorsed by Parliament and the Cabinet of President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
However, the Church will not take an active role in the coming political battle. Clergy and churchgoers may participate in the ‘no’ campaign as individuals, but as an institution, the Church will not fund nor take part in what is expected to be a contentious campaign.
On April 29 the Church’s House of Bishops released a statement following an all-day meeting at All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi. The bishops said the government’s decision to refuse to consider any amendments to the draft had forced the Church to act.
“We therefore say ‘no’ to the proposed constitution as it is unless amendments are effected before the referendum,” the bishops said in a statement read to the press by Archbishop Eliud Wabukala.
The Archbishop said the exemption for Muslims from the Bill of Rights, the institutionalization of Kadhi courts governed by Sharia law with the justice system, and the permissive stance on abortion was unacceptable to the Church.
Archbishop Wabukala urged government leaders to adopt a neutral position on the constitution. It was the view of the Kenyan bishops that the “President and the Prime Minister should not be taking sides for Yes or No but should be spearheading national healing and reconciliation,” he said.
The Archbishop added that the bishops were “appalled by the decision and declaration by the Cabinet that no amendments can and will be made prior to the referendum. The declarations are therefore in our opinion misplaced, unconstitutional and an attempt to dictate on the outcome of the referendum”.
After Parliament endorsed the draft constitution last month, the Catholic Church immediately came out against the bill. However, Archbishop Wabukala said the Anglican Church would hold off taking a formal position until after a church-wide consultation had been held to gauge the views of its members.
Last month the Archbishop stated he was inclined to support the draft, arguing that its offending provisions could be removed by amendments passed by Parliament. However, he stated this was his private view and not the view of the Church.
Former Archbishop David Gitari came out in favour of the draft, the Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation reported. “The draft constitution is democratic and guarantees justice, end of corruption and impunity therefore we cannot be neutral on this matter,” Dr Gitari said, and was better than the current post-independence constitution.
However, former Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi urged rejection of the draft, saying as a matter of conscience he could not support the abortion and Kadhi court clauses. “There is need for truth to prevail in the country in this time when Kenyans are at crossroads over the constitutional dispensation,” he told the KBC, adding that Kenyans “needed to be fully educated on the constitution because it will affect their lives but they are now being influenced without hindsight of the contents.”
The head of the ACK’s advocacy group, Bishop Beneah Salala of Mumias, told the Sunday Nation that the Church would not fund the ‘no’ campaign. “As a bishop, I will never ask Christians to tithe and give their money to fund the No campaign. We don’t want to antagonise Kenyans,” he said.
In his sermon at All Saints Cathedral on May 2, Archbishop Wabukala said he feared the forthcoming campaign would be short on substance and long on emotion. It was a “difficult time” in the nation’s history, he said, but urged Kenyans to “use the next one month to read the document and pray.”
However, as a Christian, he had a duty to speak out against clauses in the draft that were contrary to Christian teaching, the archbishop said.
ACNA reports 15% growth in number of congregations in its first year: The Church of England Newspaper, May 7, 2010 p 6. May 14, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
The Most Rev. Robert Duncan
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Predictions of the death of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) appear to have been premature, as the leaders of the third Anglican province-in-waiting in North America report that in its first year of operations it has added 106 congregations.
Archbishop Robert Duncan, the Bishop of Pittsburgh and leader of ACNA, last week reported that since the Church’s founding convocation in June 2009, 106 new churches have either been planted or joined the ACNA, bringing its total number of congregations to 809 comprising an estimated 100,000 Anglicans in the United States and Canada.
“When we began in June of 2009, I issued a challenge that we plant 1,000 new churches in the five years of my service as your Archbishop. It is wonderful to see how much progress has already been made,” Archbishop Duncan said.
In Virginia, the Convocation of Anglican Churches in North America (CANA) reported on April 12 that it had added one congregation and three missions to its membership.
The Rev Patrick Ware, the founding pastor of Winchester Anglican Church, stated his congregation was planted in response to local needs and he hoped it would “spread the Gospel” in its corner of the state.
“We are excited about the growth we’re seeing in the Anglican District of Virginia and welcome this congregation and these mission fellowships,” spokesman Jim Oakes said. “We look forward to partnering with them to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ throughout the state of Virginia and beyond.”
The Anglican Mission in America’s (AMiA) new congregation in Addison, Texas, meets in a restaurant on Sunday mornings, but since its start in October draws 100 to 120 to its services.
“We just want to do church for the sake of others. We really feel we have a calling for those who are broken, those who are lost and those who are looking for a place where they can walk through life together and grow in faith with other believers,” said the Rev Jed Roseberry, Restoration Church’s founding priest.
Both Winchester and Restoration were plants, or churches sponsored by existing congregations — The Falls Church in Falls Church, Virginia and Christ Church in Plano, Texas — two of the largest congregations in the Episcopal Church before their secessions, that are drawing the ‘un-churched’ into their fellowships. However, other congregations are being formed by disaffected Anglicans who have quit the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church in Canada.
The Church of the Epiphany in Hamilton, Ontario, led by the Victoria Hedelius, opened its doors on January 31 and was formed by separatists from the Diocese of Niagara’s Church of the Holy Trinity. “We left everything behind, and we started fresh,” Mrs Hedelius said.
Meeting in the chapel of St John’s United Church, the new congregation has weathered well its exit from the Anglican Church of Canada. “We stepped out naked, and he has clothed us… All you have to do is take the first step, and he guides you on to the next,” she explained.
Mrs Hedelius said that being “part of this movement of God’s Spirit in our church is exciting. It’s humbling, it’s such a blessing.
Bishop Bennison launches his final appeal: The Church of England Newspaper, May 7, 2010 p 7. May 13, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Church of England Newspaper, Pennsylvania.comments closed
The Rt. Rev. Charles E. Bennison, Jr.
A nine-judge panel of bishops heard the appeal of the Bishop of Pennsylvania this week, who in 2008 was found guilty of misconduct and ordered deposed from the ordained ministry.
On May 4, attorneys for Bishop Charles E. Bennison, Jr., and the Episcopal Church were granted two hours each to present their case before the court meeting at Trinity Church in Wilmington, Delaware.
In 2008 Bishop Bennison was convicted of charges of conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy for covering up the sexual abuse 35 years ago of a teenage girl by his then 24-year old brother, who was serving as his youth minister at St. Mark’s Church in Upland, California.
In February 2009 the Trial Court ordered the bishop be deposed from the ordained ministry, but in April attorneys for the bishop filed a motion to dismiss the charges saying newly uncovered evidence—letters between the ‘victim’ and Bishop Bennison’s brother—showed the affair had been consensual and that Bishop Bennison had been deceived by the pair.
Testimony offered by the victim at the bishop’s trial, was found to have been at variance with the documents produced by the bishop. The bishop’s trial was further plagued by the refusal of the Diocese of Los Angeles to cooperate with the court and provide evidence the bishop’s attorneys believed would prove to exonerate their client, and by the lapses of memory of retired bishops who had knowledge of the affair.
James Pabarue, attorney for Bishop Bennison, told the Court of Review for the Trial of a Bishop, the sentence handed down by the Trial Court was too harsh, that the statute of limitations prevented the case from being tried, and that a miscarriage of justice had been committed in the trial through the suppression of exculpatory evidence.
The Church Attorney Lawrence White argued the court should honour the sentence handed down by the Trial Court, which held the contradiction in testimony offered at trial and the evidence produced by the bishop was irrelevant. “Whether or not the minor thought at the time that she wanted the relationship to continue is irrelevant to the existence of [the bishop’s] duty to protect the minor and his failure to fulfill that duty,” the Trial Court held.
Bishop Bennison “has made and perpetuated serious and grievous mistakes for which he should be held responsible,” Mr. White said, arguing the bishop “doesn’t belong in the company of the spiritual leaders of the church.”
“I came here today optimistic, and I remain optimistic about this court reversing the judgment and the sentence of the last court,” Bishop Bennison told the Associated Press after the hearing.
The Court of Review may uphold the sentence, substitute a lesser sentence, or order a new trial. The decision will be taken by eight members of the Court, as the Bishop of Delaware; the Rt. Rev. Wayne Wright—a friend of Bishop Bennison—declared an interest and did not hear the case. A decision is not expected for several weeks.
Church of England opens second Istanbul parish: The Church of England Newspaper, May 7, 2010 p 6. May 13, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Bishop David Hamid and Fr. Engin Yildirim at the inauguration of the Church of the Resurrection in Istanbul.
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe has opened a second parish in Istanbul. Over four years in the making, the Church of the Resurrection, Pera was inaugurated on April 25 by Rt. Rev. David Hamid, suffragan bishop in Europe.
Support for a second Anglican parish in Istanbul has not been universal, however. In 2007 the parish council and chaplain, the Rev. Canon Ian Sherwood of the Istanbul Anglican Chaplaincy protested the planned ordination of the Rev. Engin Yildirim—a Turkish Muslim convert to Christianity—warning the act would be seen as a provocation by the Islamist government in Turkey.
Canon Sherwood told The Church of England Newspaper the diocese’s latest actions were “eccentric but well-meaning,” but were “widely regarded as unhelpful to the overall mission of the Church.”
However in his report of the festivities last week, Bishop Hamid stated that a congregation of over 90 welcomed the new church “formed from the growing together of two Turkish speaking congregations, one already part of the diocese in Europe, and another coming from an independent protestant tradition.” The parish held its first Annual General Meeting on April 17 electing a Church Council and wardens and Mr. Yildirim was appointed priest-in-charge.
“The Anglican Church offers a place where Turkish Christians can find a home that is rooted in the tradition of the Undivided Church while open to a genuine Turkish expression of Christianity,” Bishop Hamid wrote.
Using the Book of Common Prayer translated into Turkish, the congregations seeks to embrace “its Anglican vocation to ecumenism, and understands its role as a bridge church between the ancient Churches in Turkey, such as the Orthodox, Armenian and Syrian churches, and the new free evangelical congregations which have emerged recent years,” the bishop said.
Canon Sherwood stated that since the time of Rose Macaulay’s Towers of Trebizond (1956), “romantic high church bishops have dreamt of setting up Turkish congregations.”
In Macaulay’s tale, Fr Hugh Chantry-Pigg “struts out across Turkey with a portable altar to evangelise the Turk. This latest experiment derives” from these sorts of dreams, Canon Sherwood said.
The existing Anglican chaplaincy “already warmly embraces Turkish ministries and Christians, as well reaching out to the English language community and caring for thousands of homeless refugees over the years. Bishop Hamid inaugurated this new project with absolutely no advice from the local church. Nor did he at any stage directly inform the local Anglican church council or community that he would inaugurate this latest project,” Canon Sherwood said.
However, Bishop Hamid noted that “Turkish-speaking Christians are a small minority in the country and many groups have tended to split apart from one another. The union of two congregations is therefore significant and marks a maturing in the life of the indigenous Turkish Church.”
Orthodox Anglicans must act now to survive, Sydney Archbishop says: The Church of England Newspaper, May 7, 2010 p 8. May 12, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON, Global South.comments closed
The Archbishop of Sydney
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Anglican Communion has passed its tipping point, the Archbishop of Sydney said last week, as the Global South coalition within the Anglican Communion has come to believe that the reform of the communion will no longer be led from London.
Writing in response to the Fourth Global South to South Encounter in Singapore, on April 28 Dr. Peter Jensen said he was not surprised the meeting had not garnered much of a reaction. The statement from Singapore “simply confirms the obvious. The crisis moment has now passed,” he said.
He explained that many Anglican provinces had “given up” on the US and Canadian “official” churches “and regard themselves as being out of communion with them. They renew the call for repentance but can see that, failing something like the Great Awakening, it will not occur.”
The gathering was also “unresponsive” to Dr. Williams’ plea for patience, he said. “I don’t think that what [Dr. Williams] said was obscure. It just seemed to be from another age, another world. His plea for patience misjudged the situation by several years and his talk of the Anglican covenant was not where the actual conference was at.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury “seemed to suggest that the consecration of a partnered lesbian Bishop will create a crisis. In fact the crisis itself has passed. We are now on the further side of the critical moment; the decisions have all been made; we are already living with the consequences,” he said.
Dr. Jensen noted the Encounter endorsed an Anglican Covenant, but were concerned with the current draft’s lack of disciplinary authority and the “monitoring power to the Standing Committee when it should belong to the Primates.”
He noted the “very appearance of the body called ‘The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion’ was the cause of much private comment,” in Singapore.
“Even if it is a totally innocent development, it seems to fit with the frequent experience of the Global South that they are neither consulted nor listened to and that the deck is always stacked against them,” he said, adding that there was “now a very considerable breakdown in trust” within the communion.
The communiqué’s praise for Archbishops Mouneer Anis, Henry Orombi and Ian Ernest in their “determination no longer to attend meetings with representatives of the North Americans is a further indication that the crisis point has been passed and that we are now in the era of consequences.”
“Right action demands that we understand our own times accurately,” Dr. Jensen said, and at present the communion is in “the post-crisis phase, we need to know what such a moment requires. Action in this phase is no less demanding. One thing is for sure: those who wait and do nothing will be playing into the hands of ideologues who have had such a triumph in the west,” he said.
The remaining orthodox in the “churches in the west” must act now, “if they wish to survive,” the archbishop said.
Bishop Robinson’s advice to the Pope: ‘copy the Episcopal Church’: The Church of England Newspaper, May 7, 2010 p 7. May 12, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Church of England Newspaper, New Hampshire, Roman Catholic Church.comments closed
The Rt Rev V Gene Robinson
First Printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire has taken Pope Benedict XVI to task for linking the Roman Catholic Church’s abuse scandal to homosexuality amongst the clergy.
In an open letter published in the Washington Post on May 2, the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson told Benedict: “Yours is a problem of abuse, not sexual orientation.”
Bishop Robinson was the first publicly-professed partnered gay priest consecrated as a bishop in the Anglican Communion. This action in 2003 has led to the break-up of the fellowship of the Anglican Communion, with a majority of provinces severing or declaring some form of impaired relations with the Episcopal Church, or recognizing the break-away Anglican Church in North America as the true Anglican presence in the US.
Bishop Robinson said he did not “presume to instruct” the pope, but offered the “benefit of my experience” in the Episcopal Church as an example of how an institution might put in place mechanisms to eliminate child abuse.
The Pope’s letter to the faithful in Ireland and his meeting in Malta with victims of abuse were a “good start” for the Catholic Church. “I hope the future will bring more truth-telling, which will make your church a better, safer place,” Bishop Robinson said.
However Bishop Robinson and the Catholic Church do not hold to the same “truths” concerning human sexuality.
The blame for the scandal within the Catholic Church should not be laid “at the feet of gay priests” Bishop Robinson said. “As a gay man, I know the pain and the verbal and physical violence that can come from the thoroughly debunked myth connecting homosexuality and the abuse of children.”
“Every reputable scientific study shows that homosexuals are no more or less likely to be child abusers than heterosexuals,” Bishop Robinson asserted.
Speaking in response to papers offered in March on Human Sexuality to the US House of Bishops meeting in Texas, Bishop Robinson stated the church should move beyond the stale categories of hetero- and homo-sexuality. It was time to move beyond speaking of “GLBT” (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered) orientations for there “are so many other letters in the alphabet,” and “there are so many other sexualities to be explored.
Bishop Robinson’s remarks come in response to the statement made last month by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone during a press conference in Chile, which linked the abuse crisis to homosexuality.
“Many psychologists, many psychiatrists have demonstrated that there is no relationship between celibacy and pedophilia but many others have demonstrated, I was told recently, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia,” the cardinal said.
“That is the truth, this is the problem,” Cardinal Bertone said.
The abuse scandal has spawned an outpouring of editorial opinion in the US press against the Catholic Church and Pope Benedict, with New York Times syndicated columnist Maureen Dowd accusing Benedict of moral complicity in the crimes.
“The sin-crazed “Rottweiler” was so consumed with sexual mores — issuing constant instructions on chastity, contraception, abortion — that he didn’t make time for curbing sexual abuse by priests who were supposed to pray with, not prey on, their young charges,” she said.
Catholic loyalists have responded robustly to the charges in the religious press and the Wall Street Journal, taking to task the New York Times and other liberal newspapers for sloppy reporting and anti-Catholic bias.
However, the former Bishop of Newark, Jack Spong, dismissed the charge of media bias as “face-saving defensiveness” by the church’s supporters.
What bias there was in the press was a righteous indignation “against a systematic cover-up on every level of the Catholic hierarchy.”
“It is not an anti-Catholic bias but a universal revulsion against this behavior across the world that finds expression in media coverage,” Bishop Spong wrote in a syndicated column, arguing that for the Catholic Church to “pretend that they are somehow the victims of an anti-Catholic bias in the media is simply one more aspect of their unwillingness to see the depth of the problem.”
US bishop comes home from Rome: The Church of England Newspaper, May 7, 2010 p 6. May 9, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Albany, Church of England Newspaper, Ecclesiology, Roman Catholic Church.comments closed
The Rt. Rev. Daniel Herzog
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A former American bishop, who quit the Episcopal Church for the Roman Catholic Church in 2007, has been restored to the ordained ministry of the Episcopal Church.
However, the method used to restore the Rt Rev Daniel Herzog of Albany does not conform to church law, legal scholars note, and was accomplished by a questionable canonical legerdemain that leaves his current status in doubt.
On April 30, Bishop Herzog was received back into the Episcopal Church. US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori stated she had “issued an order” reinstating the Anglo-Catholic leader and was “delighted at his return to ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church.”
The news of Bishop Herzog’s return was made public earlier that day by Albany Bishop William Love at a diocesan clergy retreat in Greenwich, New York. “Though he has never really been absent from our common life, I want to formally welcome Bishop Dan and [his wife] Carol back to the full communion of the Diocese and the wider Church,” Bishop Love said.
“During the past three years, they have continued to support the work of the Diocese and to participate in a non-ordained capacity. His restored role will be of help in carrying out the work of the Church, and I will be asking him to assist in this Diocese under my direction as is true of any retired bishop,” Bishop Love said in a statement released by the diocese.
Bishop Herzog said he wished to thank Bishop Love and Bishop Jefferts Schori for their “kindness and pastoral solicitude. Carol and I are grateful for the continuing opportunity to serve our Lord and His church in the Diocese of Albany. My only plan is to assist in any way Bishop Bill directs. We are honoured to resume a fuller place among the clergy and laity of the Diocese.”
Four Episcopal Bishops in recent years have left the Episcopal Church for the Roman Catholic Church. In March 2007, Bishop Herzog renounced his orders in the Episcopal Church under the terms of Canon III.12.7 and entered the Roman Catholic Church as a layman.
In September 2007 the Bishop of the Rio Grande, the Rt Rev Jeffrey Steenson resigned his see to enter the Catholic Church, while Bishop John Lipscomb of Southwest Florida who took early retirement due to ill health, announced in November 2007 he would be joining the Catholic Church. Both bishops were subsequently ordained in 2009 as Catholic priests.
In 1994 the former Bishop of Fort Worth, the Rt Rev Clarence Pope announced he was joining the Roman Catholic Church. Received into the Roman Catholic Church by Boston Cardinal Bernard Law, Bishop Pope applied for ordination as a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Baton Rouge but was refused. He returned to the Episcopal Church in 1995, but left for Rome a second time in 2007.
While conservatives have welcomed the return of Bishop Herzog to Anglicanism, canon lawyer Allen Haley noted that while Canon III.12.7 allows a bishop to renounce his orders in the Church, “it does not provide a means for him to be reinstated upon his “rescinding” his earlier renunciation.”
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori does not have the power to “retract” her acceptance of Bishop Herzog’s previous resignation and to rewrite the canons to “suit a desired outcome,” he said.
This “latest manoeuvre of the Presiding Bishop,” Mr Haley said, “sets one more precedent for failing to follow the canons. As a result, the Episcopal Church (USA) is now a Church with one sole gatekeeper, who decides which bishops shall leave, which shall stay, and which shall be allowed to return.”
No confidence motion to be tabled at Ballarat synod against Bishop Michael Hough: The Church of England Newspaper, May 7, 2010 May 7, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
The Rt Rev Michael Hough
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Supporters and opponents of the Bishop of Ballarat have taken to South Australia’s newspapers to press their case in advance of the June 19 diocesan synod.
The Adelaide Courier reported on April 30 that opponents of Bishop Michael Hough will bring a petition to next month’s synod seeking his dismissal.
Synod member Euan Thompson told the Courier there was “widespread belief” that the bishop’s leadership had failed. “He should just put us out of our misery and go.”
Supporters of the embattled bishop responded on May 4. Mrs Patricia McFadyen stated “Mr Thompson is not authorised to speak on behalf of all the laity, nor is he authorised to take up a petition. His remarks reflect his own personal opinion and are likely to decrease numbers attending church.”
An Episcopal Standards Commission was convened last year to investigate complaints of misconduct lodged by diocesan clergy against the bishop. At the 2009 Synod, Michael Shand QC, chancellor of the Dioceses of Ballarat and Melbourne reported that 13 priests, along with a number of lay leaders and retired clergy had requested the investigation.
The rural Australian diocese northwest of Melbourne is one of Australia’s smallest, with 22 congregations and 2000 active members.
In 2008 the bishop and dissident clergy signed a confidentiality agreement before entering into mediation talks on Dec 2-3 in Melbourne. The talks proved unsuccessful, Mr Shand later told the diocesan council, as did the private ministrations of the Primate of Australia, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall of Brisbane.
However, members of the diocese told The Church of England Newspaper the disputes centered round the bishop’s “prickly” management style and his pastoral skills. The bishop was charged under the catch-all category of conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy: “conduct, whenever occurring, which would be disgraceful if committed by a member of the clergy, and which at the present time is productive, or if known publicly would be productive, of scandal or evil report.”
Under canon law, a resolution of no confidence in the bishop passed by the diocesan synod could not force Bishop Hough’s removal. To remove the bishop against his will, the Episcopal Standards Commission would have to find the allegations against the bishop credible, and bring them before a tribunal for trial. If found guilty the bishop could be dismissed from office.
The Episcopal Standards Commission is not permitted to comment on on-going investigations. However, church leaders are understood to be concerned about the costs of a trial, which could exceed £375,000, roughly one third of the national church’s cash reserves.
Bishop’s Zimbabwe appeal: The Church of England Newspaper, May 6, 2010 May 7, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.comments closed
The Bishop of Harare, Dr Chad Gandiya
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The persecution of Anglicans at the hands of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) has intensified in recent weeks, the Bishop of Harare, Dr Chad Gandiya, reported on April 28, with the police breaking up worship services at the orders of breakaway bishop Dr Nolbert Kunonga.
Writing in NewZimbabwe.com, Dr Gandiya reported the situation was grim, but Anglicans would not be cowed by police persecution. He said the government had requested Vice President John Nkomo along with two Cabinet ministers to mediate the dispute between Dr Kunonga and the Diocese of Harare.
But Dr Gandiya stated that “we continue to be amazed that while these talks have begun and Cabinet’s wish and message to us to worship in peace, the very opposite is happening. Our experience over the last two weeks is that the persecution seems to have intensified. Police are openly telling our people to attend Dr Kunonga’s services only, and continue to prohibit them from worshipping in their churches.”
The bishop said he was “baffled” by the behaviour of the police. His questions for an explanation of their conduct had so far been met with silence, he said.
“Who will police the police? Have they officially become a law unto themselves? To whom can we turn for help? Who will listen to our plight?” the bishop asked.
He cited several incidents of police misconduct. On April 11 the ZRP went to “St Mark’s Church, Ruwa, and drove our members away from both the church and church premises. When the congregation decided to meet at the priest’s house, the police prohibited them from doing so.”
The vicar of St Mark’s then received a text message from a priest loyal to Dr Kunonga warning “what [the police] did at St Faith’s Church (Budiriro) will happen” to you. At St Faith’s, the ZRP used tear-gas to clear the church during Sunday services and attacked a meeting of the Mothers’ Union held outside the church.
“This is further proof that Dr Kunonga’s priests are working in cahoots with the police,” the bishop said, adding that “our Cathedral congregation was told by the police not to meet anywhere near the Cathedral next week, or else they will face the wrath of law enforcement.”
At St. Alban’s Church, Chiweshe, Dr Gandiya reported that when he arrived to lead a Confirmation Service, he found the door’s welded shut. “We only managed to remove a pin on one of the hinges but could not go in. As a result, we had our service in the open air.”
However, the police arrested six people, including two priests, and charged them with breaking into the church. “No charges were brought against them but we reported the damage that was caused to our church building by the welding of doors, and other devices used to prevent us from going in,” the bishop said.
Despite the legal and physical obstacles being placed in the way of Anglicans in Harare, Dr Gandiya said his people had not lost heart. Anglicans were meeting in borrowed churches and “in the open air” and the “we don’t lose heart in spite of all the challenges we are facing.”
Don’t change “don’t ask, don’t tell” chaplains say: The Church of England Newspaper, May 5, 2010 May 6, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Human Sexuality --- The gay issue, Politics.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
President Barack Obama’s call for the US military to end its ban on homosexuals serving in the armed forces will decimate the ranks of the chaplain corps, 42 retired senior Army, Navy and Air Force chaplains declared last week in an open letter to the president.
“If the government normalizes homosexual relations in the armed forces, many (if not most) chaplains will confront a profoundly difficult moral choice, whether they are to obey God or to obey men,” the April 28 letter said.
Ending the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy (DADT) will curtail religious freedom and affect military readiness by marginalizing those with “deeply held” religious beliefs, the letter signed by the retired Protestant chaplains from the Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Reformed and Anglican traditions—including the Anglican Church in North America.
“Making orthodox Christians — both chaplains and servicemen — into second-class Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, or Marines whose sincerely held religious beliefs are comparable to racism cannot help recruitment or retention,” they argued.
In his January State of the Union Address, President Obama said he would ask Congress to end the ban on gays in the military. In testimony before Congress on Feb 2, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said he personally supported ending DADT.
The Pentagon has begun a study of the effects of repealing the ban, and on April 30 Secretary of Defence Robert Gates wrote to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) saying he “strongly opposed any legislation that seeks to change this policy prior to the completion of this vital assessment process.”
The Pentagon working group reviewing the implications of repealing DADT has until December to submit its report. DADT was enacted by President Clinton in 1993 after Congress passed a law that same year banning homosexuals from serving in the military. Though it bars gays from serving in the military, it also bars the military from asking service members their sexual orientation.
Changing DADT, the retired officers said, would muzzle chaplains, dictating what they could say in sermons and in counselling sessions. If the policy was changed, chaplains who did not support the normalization of homosexuality could be dismissed from the service or “run the risk of career-ending accusations of insubordination and discrimination,” the letter said.
The Rt Rev David Bena, the former suffragan Bishop of Albany and currently a Bishop of the Church of Nigeria’s Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) said that during his service as an Air Force chaplain “no one ever tried to muzzle me, not even when I worked as Public Relations Officer for the Chief of Air Force Chaplains.”
In the US armed forces, the chaplain serves as an “adviser to the commander on spiritual, moral, and ethical issues. Therefore, for a commander to muzzle him is to shut off input from a chief source.”
Bishop Bena told The Church of England Newspaper that he believed that while DADT “skirts the issue of homosexuals in the military, it does allow the services to have integrity in managing the force, and allows order and discipline in the ranks.”
He explained that “sexual fraternization on duty is a punishable offence. That includes heterosexual as well as homosexual relations. Many military members live in close quarters – sharing shower and bathroom facilities, sleeping in close proximity to many others.”
“To add the burden that it is somehow ‘okay’ to have sex with a fellow soldier in quarters adds greatly to the pressure of military life. Doing away with DADT opens the door to a decline in morale and an increase in anarchy,” the bishop said.
Key government appointment for Mozambique bishop: The Church of England Newspaper, April 30, 2010 May 4, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Church of England Newspaper, Politics.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Bishop Dinis Sengulane of Maputo
The Anglican Bishop of Maputo, the Rt. Rev. Dinis Singulane, has been appointed to Mozambique’s Council of State to serve as a non-partisan advisor to President Armando Guebuza.
On Oct 28, 2009 President Guebuza, leader of the FRELIMO party (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique) was a re-elected to a second five year term of office in a hard fought campaign against Afonzo Dhlakama of the RENAMO party (Resistência Nacional Moçambicana).
Political analysts hailed the appointment of Bishop Singulane and other church leaders to the Council of State, seeing it as a an attempt by the president to bring into government advisors free from the political and military battles of the past twenty five years that have all but destroyed the economy of the once prosperous Portuguese colony.
A 2004 amendment to the country’s 1990 constitution created the Council of State as an advisory body akin to the Privy Council. The President must consult the Council but its advice is not binding upon him.
Over 900,000 died and five million people were displaced following independence in the civil war between FRELIMO and RENAMO. The country’s first multi-party elections were held in 1994, but it was not until the December 2004 General Elections that all the country’s political groups fought their differences out at the ballot box.
Following court challenges by RENAMO, the National Electoral Commission (CNE) declared Guebuza the winner of the October election, and FRELIMO was awarded 191 seats in the 250 seat legislature, with RENAMO taking 51 and other parties winning 8.
Last week President Guebuza appointed Bishop Singulane, along with Cardinal Alexander dos Santos of Maputo, and Sheikh Ali Abdurazaraque Salimo of the Islamic Congress of Mozambique, along with former Prime Minister Luisa Diogo. President Guebeza also appointed a nominee from FRELIMO and RENAMO to the Council of State.
The Bible is the hope for Africa’s future, archbishop says: The Church of England Newspaper, April 29, 2010 May 3, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Biblical Interpretation, Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of West Africa.comments closed
Archbishop Justice Akrofi of West Africa
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Africa will not rise from poverty until its peoples take the message of the Gospel to heart, the Archbishop of West Africa said in the keynote address to the African Bible Society meeting in Accra, Ghana last week.
And for this to happen, Africa needed more Bibles, Archbishop Justice Akrofi told the delegates from 30 denominations drawn from 12 African nations at the start of the four day conference on April 15. While the world was awash in print with over 300,000 new books published each year, only one book, the Bible, was capable of transforming the world, he said.
“The Bible has been a transformer and a unifying force bringing people of different races and colour” together into a “mutual respect”, the archbishop said. And it was only when these conditions were fulfilled, would Africa rise from poverty.
Archbishop Akrofi, the Bishop of Accra and President of the Bible Society of Ghana urged church leaders to return to the Bible as their guide. “Our fellowship has transcended denominations, the Bible and the Christian faith has promoted tolerance for peoples of other faiths as all humanity derives its existence from the one God,” he said.
While economic aid and development assistance from the West was welcome, by itself it would not transform Africa, he said. The continent was blessed with “vast human and natural resources,” but tribalism and ethnic strife had retarded the continent’s growth.
However, it was an exciting time to be a Christian in Africa, as the faith was growing rapidly across the continent and because “Christians were change agents”, there was hope for Africa’s future, the archbishop said.
David Hammond, Africa Area Secretary for the Bible Society told the conference the Bible Society was seeking to distribute Bibles across the continent. The message of the Bible, he said, would transform Africa and was the only lasting way to put a stop to Africa’s endemic corruption, wars and social evils.
Church and state showdown in Kenya over Shariah Law: The Church of England Newspaper, April 28, 2010 May 2, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Kenya, Church of England Newspaper, Islam.comments closed
Archbishop Eliud Wabukala
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Kenya’s government has rejected pleas from church leaders to amend the country’s proposed constitution, and will take it directly to the people for approval in a national referendum.
The April 27 decision by Kenya’s Cabinet sets the government on a collision course with the country’s churches and opposition leaders, who have voiced strong protests to the special exemptions given to Muslims who will be allowed to use a parallel Sharia law Kadhi court system and the document’s weak language on abortion.
Catholic leaders have promised to mobilize their members to vote no on the referendum. On Easter Sunday Archbishop Eliud Wabukala said no formal decision had been made by the Anglican Church on the draft constitution. “All our bishops are taking the debate to the grassroots this month. At the end of it they will be back with their findings, after which the church will give its directive.”
Following a meeting of the cabinet at State House in Nairobi, the government’s press office released a statement saying, “after the review the Cabinet concluded that it was practically impossible at this stage to amend the Constitution of Kenya or Constitution Review Act in order to accommodate concerns expressed by Christian Church leaders and others. Consequently, the Cabinet agreed to support the draft constitution in its current form.”
The government did hold out the possibility of a future compromise or amendment saying it would seek to “accommodate the concerns of the Christian Churches on the issue of abortion and right to life”.
The National Council of Churches of Kenya has objected to Article 26 which states, “abortion is not permitted unless, in the opinion of a trained health professional, there is need for emergency treatment, or the life or health of the mother is in danger, or if permitted by any other law.”
They have also protested the provision under Articles 169 & 170 for Muslim-only courts, which would have jurisdiction over issues of family law, inheritance and other issues of “personal status” for Muslims. They have also objected to Article 24(4) which would exempt Muslims from the protections of the Bill of Rights.
While Kadhi courts have been in existence since British colonial rule, the exemptions and special rules for Muslims under the new constitution has elicited protests that Islam has been given a privileged place under law.
Islam in Kenya has also changed over the past twenty five years adopting a more hard-line stance under the influence of Saudi-trained imams and Saudi-financed madrassas. On April 26 Reuters reported that Islamic clerics in northeastern Kenya have called upon the government to ban football broadcasts on state television, as soccer-mania was luring young Muslims away from Islam.
The referendum has not yet been scheduled, but is expected to take place by August.
South to South Encounter opens in Singapore: The Church of England Newspaper, April 23, 2010 p 7. May 1, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Global South.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Archbishop of Nigeria has urged Anglicans in the developing world to declare their doctrinal and economic independence from the West.
Archbishop Nicholas Okoh of Nigeria told the Fourth South to South Global Encounter not to compromise their faith in return for handouts from the West.
Approximately 120 church leaders from 20 provinces along with bishops and clergy leaders from the US, New Zealand, Australia and Canada have gathered at Singapore’s St. Andrew’s Cathedral for the five day gathering that seeks to foster closer ties among the Anglican churches in the developing world—while also forging a united front in the Communion’s bitter doctrinal wars.
The former Archbishop of Nigeria Peter Akinola opened the programme with a homily on the conference’s theme “The Gospel of Jesus – a covenant for the people, and a light for the nations.” He told the congregation he hoped the Encounter would spur action from its participants, and not serve merely as a forum for the creation of protest statements.
In the opening plenary session Archbishop Okoh built upon the theme of self-sufficiency. “It is not God’s will that we remain perpetually dependent on the handouts from the sacrifice and self-denial offerings of other people,” he told the gathering, adding that this was especially true when “strong strings” were “attached to buy loyalty or compromise on critical issues of faith.”
The churches of Africa, Asia, Oceania and South and Central America should work in “equal partnership in the fellowship of the gospel with those who are sincere, and who live according to the truth of the Gospel,” he said.
“Grants, donations, gifts and any form of assistance given rather patronizingly should be rejected. We must relate and negotiate from the point of strength rather than a beggarly position,” the new Nigerian archbishop said.
He also denounced US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jeffert Schori’s denial of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. Pluralism has been an adversary of the church from the very beginning, he said and the cross was foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block for the Jews.
But the creeds, the Articles of Religion and the Scriptures “all uphold the deity and uniqueness of Jesus, the Christ. To deny these fundamentals is to abandon the way; it is apostasy; it is ‘another gospel’, which is condemned in scripture.”
The first full day of the Encounter opened with an address on the nature of Covenant as found in Isaiah, by the Archbishop of South East Asia John Chew, followed by talks on the structure and place of the Global South fellowship within the Anglican Communion by the President Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East, Dr. Mouneer Anis of Egypt, and the Primate of Rwanda, Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini of Kigali.
In the second plenary session, Archbishop Chew examined the covenant relationship between Israel and God, and its fulfillment in Christ. Dr. Anis outlined the “ecclesial deficit” facing the communion. However the Global South would not be the ones to break up the communion, he said. “We are not forming a new Communion, because we are the Communion.”
Archbishop Kolini recounted the numerous meetings, committees, papers and communiqués issued over the past decade in response to the innovations of doctrine and discipline by the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada. He closed his remarks by expressing his weariness, noting “we do not need another resolution from this gathering. We need to act in accordance with what we know the Lord has said to us.”
A videotaped presentation from the Archbishop of Canterbury calling for patience and no precipitous action from the meeting closed the morning session.
Leaders from the different deputations paid a courtesy call on the President of Singapore during the afternoon, and a closed executive session was held in the evening. The 15 primates attending the gathering met with Archbishop Jeffrey Driver of Adelaide, Bishop Richard Ellena of Nelson (New Zealand), Bishop John W. Howe of Central Florida, Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina, and Archbishop Robert Duncan of the ACNA and the other “Western Associates” present to discuss the situation in the Episcopal Church.
A number of primates pressed the Americans to explain why there were two delegations: one of bishops from the Anglican Church in North America, and the other from Bishops of the Episcopal Church who are part of the conservative Communion Partners coalition.
Archbishop Duncan and Bishop Howe gave a summary of recent church history in the US, and Bishop Howe noted that while it traditionalists were facing hard times in the Episcopal Church, there position had not yet become untenable.
The Communion Partners group of bishops and dioceses disputed US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s contention that only the General Convention could adopt the Anglican Covenant. Bishop Howe told the gathering that the polity of the Episcopal Church gave that authority to the dioceses.
The Communion Partner dioceses would adopt the Covenant and seek to forge closer ties with the wider Communion, and would not sacrifice their doctrinal principles in the face of pressure from the present majority in the US church, he explained.
The conference concludes on April 23.
New archbishop for Central America: The Church of England Newspaper, April 23, 2010 p 6. May 1, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, La Iglesia Anglicana de la Region Central de America.comments closed
Archbishop Armando Guerra of Central America
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
La Iglesia Anglicana de la Region Central de America (IARCA)—the Anglican church in Central America—elected a new primate last week at its April 15-17 synod in Panama City.
The Bishop of Guatemala, the Rt. Rev. Armando Guerra was elected to a four year term of office as primate and will succeed Bishop Martín Barahona of El Salvador, who has served as primate for the past eight years. Archbishop Guerra will be installed on June 12 at the cathedral in Guatemala City.
Bishop Guerra’s election was welcomed by members of the Global South coalition meeting in Singapore, seeing in the Bishop of Guatemala a kindred spirit on the theological and doctrinal issues dividing the Communion. One bishop told The Church of England Newspaper the new archbishop was a “humble” and prayerful leader who would pursue the mission of building up the church across Central America.
“Thank you for this support. It is an extremely difficult task, beginning a new era in a new place,” Archbishop-elect Guerra told the synod, according to a press statement released by the province.
Elected Bishop of Guatemala in 1982, Archbishop Guerra (60) has overseen a rapid expansion of his diocese and is presently assisted by two suffragan bishops, Virgilio Arreaza and Enrique Lanfiesta, in overseeing the diocese.
The Panama City synod also elected Bishop Julio Murray of Panama vice president of the House of Bishops and elected Bishop Héctor Monterroso of Costa Rica as provincial secretary.
In 2004 Bishop Guerra and the Diocese of Guatemala standing committee denounced the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, and chastised Archbishop Barahona for taking part in his consecration.
The Diocese of Guatemala stated it “hereby disassociates herself from the action of the Primate of IARCA, specifically in his participation in the consecration of Gene Robinson, recognizing that such a wanton act willfully causes a certain degree of impairment within IARCA.”
However, the diocese would agree to disagree with its primate and would “uphold the ecclesiastic unity” of the province.
Bishop to be investigated for misconduct, following drink-driving conviction: The Church of England Newspaper, April 23, 2010 p 8. May 1, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Melanesia, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Bishop Charles Koete
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Church of Melanesia has instituted disciplinary proceedings against the Bishop of the Central Solomon Islands following his conviction for drink-driving.
In a statement published by the Solomon Star on April 15, the church’s primate Archbishop David Vunagi said that upon the advice of the provincial chancellor “disciplinary proceeding against Bishop Charles Koete” had been instituted.
Last month the Tulagi magistrate’s court fined Bishop Koete £25 and bound him over to keep the peace after he pled guilty to driving while under the influence of alcohol and driving without a licence.
On Jan 1, Bishop Koete drove his diocesan-owned vehicle into the sea after missing a curve in the road. The bishop had been hosting a New Year’s Day party at his home, and had left the party to restock the bar. No one was injured in the crash, which occurred as the bishop was returning to the party with more beer.
On April 14, Archbishop Vunagi said he had given Bishop Koete formal notice that he would be brought up on charges of conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy. Under Title C of the church’s disciplinary canons, the bishop must offer a written explanation of his conduct, and if the archbishop finds there is a prima facie case against him, the matter will be forwarded to the House of Bishops for trial.
Bishop Koete has been asked to reply to the charges by April 16. Archbishop Vunagi stated he would “then need to have another private discussion with him and depending on the outcome of our discussion, the matter will then be referred to the Council of Bishops.”
The bishop has disputed the facts alleged in the prosecutor’s statement, but conceded he had plead guilty to the charge.
No action is expected, however, until Archbishop Vunagi’s return from Singapore, where he will be attending the Global South conference at St. Andrew’s Cathedral from April 19-23.
“Since disciplinary proceeding has already been initiated, we must all allow that process to take its course,” the archbishop said.
