Middle East approves women priests: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 25, 2011 p 7. February 28, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & the Middle East, Women Priests.comments closed
Bishop Michael Lewis
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East has authorized a local option for women priests.
On Feb 7 the Bishop in Cyprus and the Gulf, the Rt. Rev. Michael Lewis, told a meeting of his diocesan synod in Larnaca the province had approved his request to ordain women priests for the diocese.
On Jan 15, 2010 Bishop Lewis ordained Catherine Mary Dawkins to the diaconate at Christ Church, Aden, to serve as deacon and assistant chaplain with her husband the Rev. Nigel Dawkins. The decision to approve a local option for women priests will now allow Bishop Lewis to ordain her to the priesthood in June. While Cyprus and the Gulf had given permission to officiate to women priests ordained outside of the diocese, provincial canons have forbidden their ordination.
“This is something that Synod has wanted to see for some time, and I am delighted to announce this new opportunity,” Bishop Lewis said. “The diocese is currently advertising for a chaplain for south east Cyprus, and it will be good to be able to invite applications from a full range of candidates.”
The decision will not affect the Dioceses in Iran, Jerusalem and Egypt, which do not ordain women to the priesthood.
Of the 38 Provinces of the Anglican Communion, 7 do not ordain women: Central Africa, Melanesia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, South East Asia, and Tanzania.
Two provinces ordain women to the diaconate only, Congo and the Southern Cone while 26 provinces and the extra-provincial Church of Ceylon ordain women to the priesthood: Bangladesh, Brazil, Burundi, Central America, England, Hong Kong, North India, South India, Indian Ocean, Ireland, Japan, Jerusalem & the Middle East, Kenya, Korea, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, Scotland, Southern Africa, the Sudan, Uganda, Wales, West Africa, and the West Indies. Four provinces have consecrated women bishops: the Episcopal Church, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as has the extra-provincial diocese of Cuba.
Fears for Christians in North Africa: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 25, 2011 p 7. February 27, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & the Middle East, Terrorism.comments closed
Fr Marek Rybinski
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Bishop of Egypt and North Africa has offered his condolences to the Catholic Church in North Africa following the murder of a Polish missionary priest in Tunisia.
On February 18, Archbishop Mouneer Anis wrote to Archbishop Ghaleb Badr of Algiers offering his prayers and support after he learned of the “tragic death of Fr Marek Rybinski of La Manouba, in Tunisia. He was found dead and decapitated this afternoon.”
The Area Bishop for North Africa, the Rt Rev Bill Musk, who also serves as rector of St George’s Anglican Church in Tunis, attended the funeral mass of the murdered priest, whom he called a “lovely priest and much loved in the school community where he served.”
In a statement released on February 20, the Interior Ministry vowed to punish those responsible for the “odious crime” which it said appeared to be the work of a “group of extremist terrorist fascists.”
Slitting the throats of their victims has been a hallmark of Islamic terrorist activities from the 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl to the January 7, 2011 murder of 36-year-old Asha Mberwa, a mother of four murdered in Somalia for having converted to Christianity.
The sanction Islamist terrorists take for killing comes from Surah 47:4 of the Koran, which says, “Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; at length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly (on them): thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: until the war lays down its burdens. Thus (are ye commanded).”
Secular autocrats have been toppled from power in recent weeks in Tunisia and Egypt, while Libya, Algeria, Bahrain and Jordan have seen anti-government protests. The possibility that Islamic militant groups like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt will gain power has Christian leaders in the Middle East worried that the attacks born by Christians in Iraq following the collapse of Saddam Hussein will soon be visited upon them.
However, Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahdha, or Renaissance Party, which had been banned under the former regime of President Ben Ali denounced the murders. Party leader Rached Ghannouchi, who returned to Tunisia last month from exile in London, denounced the killing and an attack on Tunis’ Grand Synagogue, urging “vigilance in order to ward off anything that could spark anarchy in our country.”
Archbishop Anis called upon Christians across Egypt and North African to turn their hearts toward God in prayer. “We hold on to the promise of Christ who said that the ‘gates of hell will not prevail’,” he said and asked “May the Lord protect his church.”
Primates Standing Committee elected: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 25, 2011 p 7. February 26, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Primates Meeting 2011.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Anglican Communion News Service has released the results of the elections to the Primates Standing Committee.
The primates attending the Dublin meeting of primates elected one representative and one alternate for five geographical regions. While no formal rules have been established to order the primates meeting and its powers are unclear, the recent custom has been that only those primates present at the meeting vote, and each primate only votes for those in his region. Elections for representative and alternate are held separately.
On Feb 15 ACNS reported that the Primate of the Sudan, Archbishop Daniel Deng was elected for Africa and the Primate of Burundi, Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi was elected alternate.
The Africa region includes: Burundi, Central Africa, Congo, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Southern Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and West Africa.
For the Americas, the Primate of the Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was elected, and Archbishop John Holder of the West Indies elected as alternate. The Americas region includes: Brazil, Canada, Central America, the USA, Mexico, the Southern Cone and the West Indies.
For Europe, the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, Bishop David Chillingworth was elected and the Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. Alan Harper elected as alternate. Europe includes: England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
For the Middle East and West Asia, the Moderator of the Church of Pakistan, Bishop Samuel Azariah was elected, and the Moderator of the Church of Bangladesh, Bishop Paul Sarker was elected as alternate. The West Asia region includes: Bangladesh, Jerusalem and the Middle East, North India, South India and Pakistan.
For Asia, Archbishop Paul Kwong of Hong Kong was elected, and Archbishop Winston Halapua of Polynesia was elected as alternate. The Asia region includes: Aotearoa, New Zealand & Polynesia, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Melanesia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Southeast Asia.
ACNS reported that “each Primate serves for a period of three years, and thereafter until the next Primates’ Meeting. Also membership ceases when a member ceases to be a Primate.”
Harare murder a warning to Anglicans: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 25, 2011 p 7. February 25, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.comments closed
Dr. Nolbert Kunonga
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The church property dispute in Harare took a sinister turn last week after an Anglican lay leader was tortured and murdered allegedly as a warning to opponents of breakaway bishop, Dr. Nolbert Kunonga. “My people are going to be killed for the simple reason that they belong to a certain denomination,” Harare Bishop Chad Gandiya told a Feb 19 press conference.
On the night of Feb 17/18 unknown assailants attacked 89-year old Jessica Mandeya in her home in Fusire village in Murewa. “They raped her, cut her mouth and pierced her thighs with an iron rod then latter killed her,” a source in Zimbabwe said in an email to The Church of England Newspaper.
The Archbishop of York condemned the murder telling CEN he remained “concerned at the apparent intimidation and persecution of those attending churches in Zimbabwe.”
“Whilst the details of Mrs Mandeya’s death remain unclear, I continue to pray for peace, justice and freedom for the people of Zimbabwe. The suffering being faced by many on a daily basis is totally unjust and should not be allowed to persist,” Dr. John Sentamu said.”
Bishop Gandiya denied the killing was related the on-going political dispute between the ruling ZANU-PF party and its junior coalition partner the MDC. He confirmed to CEN that Mrs. Mandeya, a sub-deacon in her local Anglican church, had been tortured and murdered, allegedly in connection with the dispute between the Diocese of Harare and breakaway Bishop Nolbert Kunonga.
“One of our church members was murdered last week in Murewa for reasons believed to be infighting in the church,” Bishop Gandiya told the Harare press conference, adding that “our church members should know we are now endangered species.”
In an interview broadcast on Feb 21, Bishop Gandiya told SW Radio Africa that Anglican leaders in Zimbabwe were in danger. “One of my fellow bishops was approached by two people who told him that they had come to kill him and that the mission is to kill all the Anglican bishops; and that is why I said we are an endangered species because from that conversation with my colleagues we are all to be killed.”
“All he was told was this had something to do with the church and that we were stumbling blocks to Dr. Kunonga’s ambition of running the whole Anglican church in Zimbabwe,” Bishop Gandiya said.
A staunch ally of Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe, Bishop Kunonga has flouted court orders, with police support, that called upon the rival parties to share church properties until final adjudication was reached over their ownership by the country’s Supreme Court.
“We are witnessing the police taking sides with the Kunonga camp and preventing our church members to use church properties and facilities despite having some High Court judgments that we should be co-existing,” Bishop Gandiya said.
On Jan 30 the archbishops attending the Dublin primates meeting released a statement condemning the violence in Harare. “We believe that the appalling situation experienced by members of the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe seriously infringes their right to justice, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and personal security under the law guaranteed by the constitution of Zimbabwe and the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights.”
They called upon President Mugabe to “use all the power and authority of your office to put an end to these abuses forthwith,” adding that this “unmerited, unjust, and unlawful persecution” served only to damage “further the good name and reputation of the Republic of Zimbabwe and results in untold and unnecessary additional suffering for many thousands of people.”
Church leaders chide EU over its failure to condemn persecution: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 24 2011 February 24, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, EU, Persecution.comments closed
Baroness Ashton
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
European church leaders, including the Bishop of Guildford, have condemned the EU’s weak stance on the persecution of Christians and have called upon the EU’s Foreign Ministers to make a firm statement condemning violence and promoting religious liberty.
A communiqué issued by a joint meeting of the Conference of European Churches (CEC) and the Roman Catholic Council of European Episcopal Conferences (CCEE) held from Feb 17-20 in Belgrade stated “religious freedom is a right and a value that every democratic society should be open to promoting and safeguarding.”
“In this spirit the members of the joint committee chose to draft and send a letter to Baroness Catherine Ashton, high representative for foreign affairs and security policy of the European Union, asking that the issue of protection of religious freedom and Christian people in the world is tabled at the meeting of foreign ministers of the European Union” on Feb 21.
At their Jan 31 meeting, the EU Foreign Ministers were unable to adopt a joint declaration condemning religious persecution. AFP reported a split arose after the UK and the Nordic countries objected to mentioning the persecution of Christians in fear that it would offend Muslim sensitivities.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters the proposed statement “didn’t include any mention of Christians, as if we were talking of something else, so I asked the text to be withdrawn.” Poland and France joined Italy in rejecting the “secularist position,” the AFP reported.
The CEC-CCEE bishops’ statement condemned the EU’s pusillanimity, saying the “reference to the persecution of Christians” must not be “forgotten or buried by abstract and fruitless policies.”
“Western countries where specific relations with areas where persecution exists should show their concrete commitment in protecting all those who are persecuted due to their faith, whichever that faith may be,” said the statement endorsed by the leaders of the two groups, including CEC vice-chairman Bishop Christopher Hill of Guildford.
However, the statement released this week at the close of the EU foreign minister’s Feb 21 meeting stated “the Council expresses its profound concern about the increasing number of acts of religious intolerance and discrimination … against Christians and their places of worship, Muslim pilgrims and other religious communities, which it firmly condemns.”
“Freedom of religion or belief is a universal human right which needs to be protected everywhere and for everyone,” the EU said and it was the “primary duty of States to protect their citizens, including persons belonging to religious minorities, as well as all people living in their jurisdiction, and safeguard their rights.”
‘Corporate Social Responsibility” in Africa is a farce, Archbishop charges: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 18, 2011 p 8. February 24, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Tanzania, Church of England Newspaper, Environment.comments closed
Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The claims of ‘corporate social responsibility’ made by multi-national mining firms in Africa are untrue, the Archbishop of Tanzania said last week at a fringe meeting held during the 17th Investing in African Mining Indaba in Cape Town.
Speaking to a reporter from the South African Independent on Feb 9, Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa said multi-national mining firms were despoiling the land and disrupting the culture of Africa. He urged African governments to put the needs of their people before tax revenues.
The archbishop’s remarks followed a presentation on Corporate Social Responsibility at the Mining Indaba—a trade show for Africa’s major mining and metals corporations. Speakers at the forum from the mining and banking industries spoke of the social and economic programmes their corporations provided to the native populations.
However, the mining companies were “still misbehaving,” the archbishop said.
“The use of chemicals in the extraction process has terrible effects on the environment, rivers are ruined, people are dying… but they claim to be working with the community, building clinics and schools… Yes they do build schools and clinics but they are substandard, unlike the ones they build for their own employees,” the archbishop said
In 2008 Archbishop Mokiwa spearheaded a drive in Tanzania to change the country’s tax laws governing multi-national mining corporations, and urged the government to revoke mining concessions that had been let through bribery and false dealings.
The mining companies “know how to corrupt the system,” the archbishop said. It will take time for multi-nationals to change their business practices as “they are making so much money it is hard for them to hear what we are saying.”
A 2008 report underwritten by Christian Aid and Norwegian Church Aid for the Tanzanian Council of Churches found the Tanzanian government was mismanaging its mining contracts with foreign multi-nationals.
“Tanzania is one of the ten poorest countries in the world. At the same time, Tanzania possesses around 45 million ounces of gold, which at the current gold price means this country is sitting on a fortune of up to $39bn,’’ said the report entitled, “A Golden Opportunity – How Tanzania is Failing to Benefit from Gold Mining.”
However, the gold is being “extracted at a rate of over 1.6m ounces a year, meaning that they may last 28 years,” requiring the government to enact major policy changes in the royalties, and in developing plans for restoring the land once the ore has played out.
Christchurch devastated by earthquake: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 22, 2011 February 23, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand & Polynesia, Church of England Newspaper, Disaster Relief.comments closed
Christchurch Cathedral after this week's earthquake
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A 6.3-magnitude earthquake has rocked the city of Christchurch on New Zealand’s South Island, causing extensive damage, toppling the spire of the city’s Anglican cathedral.
The extent of the injuries and possible death toll remains unknown, but video reports show extensive damage to the city and injured residents outside their homes and businesses. The quake hit at 12:51 pm NZDT on Feb 22: 11:51 pm GMT on Feb 21 according to a report from the Research Institute of Geological and Nuclear Science of New Zealand.
The city has since been rocked by two major aftershocks, Radio New Zealand reports. On Sept 3, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit Christchurch, causing £900 million in damage. Over 100,000 homes were damaged in the earthquake, but there were no fatalities in the September earthquake.
The Archbishops and Standing Committee of the General Synod of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia have issued a statement from their meeting in Rotorua after news of the earthquake was broadcast.
They confirmed that the spire and portions of Christchurch Cathedral had collapsed and that there have been “multiple fatalities, many casualties, extensive damage, evacuation and major trauma to thousands of people.”
“We reach out in this prayer to the people of the city of Christchurch and the wider Canterbury region, asking the God of all the earth to give everyone the strength and endurance that they need to survive and to recover,” the church leaders said.
“We pray also for all those who are involved now so dramatically in civil defence activities, hospital services and community organization as people begin to try and process what has happened and to work out the way ahead,” said the statement signed by Archbishops David Moxon, Brown Turei and Winston Halapua, and the Standing Committee of General Synod.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has written to the Bishop of Christchurch, the Rt Rev Victoria Matthews, offering his prayers in the aftermath of the earthquake in New Zealand.
In his letter, Dr Williams said: “We are all thinking of you constantly in the wake of yesterday’s terrible news, and our prayers are with you. The devastation of the Cathedral is dreadful, but, as you have said yourself, it is only a sign of the real human tragedy, whose scale is so serious. We thank God that you and your people are there to offer strength and comfort to all those caught up in the personal suffering this has brought.
We hope that the rescue operations are going forward without obstacles and that the toll of casualties will not grow higher. I know that the people of Canterbury in particular, with their historic associations with Christ Church, will be sharing very specially in prayer for you all.”
Anglicans and Catholics divide over Easter Sunday trading: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 18, 2011 p 7. February 23, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper, Politics, Popular Culture.comments closed
Bishop Philip Huggins
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Church leaders in Melbourne have divided over the Victoria state government’s plan to lift the ban on Easter Sunday trading, with the Anglicans urging the government to hold fast while the Catholics have backed the bid to relax the ban.
“Easter Sunday is a holy day which would only be impoverished by the sheer banality of longer shopping hours, rendering more difficult the family life of staff and small business owners,” Bishop Philip Huggins of the Northwest Region of the Diocese of Melbourne said on Feb 9.
“We all need times, whether we are Christian or not, when we can just take a breath. Life for many of us is so frenetic and pressured that we must cherish days put aside for leisure, reflection or celebration. Our society does not need more busy shopping days,” said Bishop Huggins, the chairman of the Melbourne Anglican Social Responsibilities Committee.
However, Melbourne Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart said he favoured allowing some shops to open. “We believe this can be harmonised with some availability for trading as occurs on other Sundays of the year,” he said.
However, the question of Easter Sunday trading was a spiritual issue, not an economic one, Bishop Huggins said. “Easter Sunday is so very beautiful, woven into the fabric of our society; it is a celebration of hope and love, made vivid and powerful in the Risen Jesus.”
“It is a holy day of depth and wonder. Nothing needs to be added to it,” the bishop said.
Calls by retailers to lift the trading ban have grown in recent years and the state’s chamber of commerce argued that lifting the ban would be good for business. ”Retail is the only sector subject to these trading restrictions. A commonsense approach would be to enable retail businesses to decide for themselves whether they wish to open,” said Wayne Kayler-Thomson, the CEO of the Victorian Employment Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
God wants you to vote for the African National Congress: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 18, 2011 p 8. February 22, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Church of England Newspaper, Politics.comments closed
South African President Jacob Zuma
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Vote for the African National Congress (ANC) and go to heaven, South African President Jacob Zuma told a political rally last week in the run up to the 2011 municipal elections.
Faced with 24 per cent unemployment and a sagging economy, the ruling African National Congress is expected to fare poorly in the national municipal elections which will be held sometime between March and June of this year. The opposition Democratic Alliance is expected to consolidate its hold in the Western Cape Province and may pick up the Northern Cape Province. Port Elizabeth, Pretoria and Johannesburg are in play as well may join Cape Town in forming non-ANC coalition governments.
In a speech to in Mthatha in the Eastern Cape Province, President Zuma stated that when you “vote for the ANC, you are also choosing to go to heaven.”
“When you don’t vote for the ANC you should know that you are choosing that man who carries a fork, who cooks people,” the president said in Zulu to the rally..
“When you are carrying an ANC membership card, you are blessed. When you get up there, there are different cards used but when you have an ANC card, you will be let through to go to heaven,” he added.
A spokesman for the Democratic Alliance denounced the president’s remarks as “offensive,” saying President Zuma’s words were “incendiary and dangerous, in that they seek to mobilise along religious lines, and sow seeds of division in our communities.”
ANC party spokesman Jackson Mthembu said the president’s words should not be taken literally. He told the South African Daily Mail the speech had been “figurative and metaphoric. We are, therefore, in agreement with the president that not voting for the ANC is tantamount to throwing your vote in hell.”
Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town responded that action, not talk, was what was needed from political leaders.
“Let us change the discourse,” the archbishop said.
“We are approaching municipal elections and once again we are hearing words and words and more words. At the same time we see very little action which shows that the poor are being cared for and that service delivery is evident in many parts of our country. “
Jesus told Peter to “feed my lambs” Archbishop Makgoba noted, adding this “instruction is to serve and not run to eschatology (concerns about the end of time).”
“The command is to love oneself as you would want others to love you and not to have all interest focused on self and family but rather on your neighbours who are without even the most basic services,” he said.
Pakistani politican murdered over his call for repeal of Blasphemy Laws: The Church of England Newspaper, Jan 7, 2011 p 5. February 22, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Pakistan, Terrorism.comments closed
Murdered Punjabi Governor Salman Taseer
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A leading opponent of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws has been assassinated. On Jan 4 the Governor of the Punjab Salman Taseer was shot to death by one of his bodyguards during a visit to an upscale shopping mall outside of Islamabad.
The murder of Salman Taseer is likely to further weaken the government of President Asif Ali Zardari and the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and set back the movement to reform the country’s blasphemy laws.
A moderate within the ruling PPP, Mr Taseer had been an outspoken opponent of the Taliban and had campaigned for the release of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to death in November. He had been minister for industry and production under former military ruler Pervez Musharraf from 2007 to 2008, and was appointed Governor of the Punjab in 2008.
Pakistan has come under strong overseas political pressure to reform its blasphemy laws, with much international attention focused on the case of Mrs. Bibi. President Zardari and Prime Minister Galani face the difficult task of satisfying the demands of the international community and moderates within the government that they pardon the imprisoned mother of five, and of Muslim leaders who have called for her execution.
Promises made last month to reform the Blasphemy Laws have since been shelved as the PPP seeks to find a coalition partner among the Muslim parties, who have opposed any changes in the law. On Jan 2 the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) quit the cabinet and joined the opposition, while the country’s largest religious based political party the Jumiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) left the government last month after one of its leaders was sacked as Religion Minister by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
In a statement released by Interior Minister Reham Malik, the government reported that Mr. Taseer had been shot by one of his security guards, identified as Mumtaz Qadri.
“He confessed that he killed the governor himself because he had called the blasphemy law a black law,” Mr. Malik said, adding that Qadri “has confessed his crime and surrendered his gun to police after the attack.”
Pakistani human rights activist Group Captain Cecil Chaudhry condemned the killing. “This shooting is tragic and should never have happened.”
Christian Solidarity Worldwide’s Chief Executive, Mervyn Thomas, said Taseer’s “death is a tragic reminder of the extreme danger faced by all those who stand for justice in opposition to the blasphemy laws in Pakistan, whether politicians, journalists, lawyers or activists. How many more lives must be destroyed before this legislation is repealed?”
Settlements and appeals in Canadian church property cases: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 18, 2011 p 6. February 21, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Church of England Newspaper, Property Litigation.comments closed
St John's Shaughnessy in Vancouver
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Diocese of Ottawa and the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) have negotiated a settlement in their dispute over the property of two congregations that quit the diocese for the breakaway Anglican group.
Last week the diocese and ANiC announced that the Ottawa parishes of St Alban the Martyr and St. George’s would leave the diocese with the parish assets divided between the parties. St. George’s would retain its property but St Alban’s would turn its building over to the diocese, while both parishes would change their names.
In 2008 the two congregations quit the diocese in response to the innovations of doctrine and discipline practiced by the Anglican Church of Canada. and
“We are deeply grateful to God for this settlement,” said the rector St Alban’s, the Rev George Sinclair.
“When the Diocese of Ottawa sued our two parishes and personally sued the rectors and elected leaders of the parishes, it seemed the matter would inevitably be decided by the court,” Mr. Sinclair said.
But now “we are looking forward to not having to deal with this issue any longer. We see ourselves as giving up the building for the cause of Christ.”
The Rev. David Crawley, the rector of St George’s noted that “while each party had to compromise, we are grateful to have reached an agreed upon division of assets in order to avoid the further cost and acrimony of litigation.”
The settlement of the Ottawa cases is the first negotiated settlement in Canada of the property disputes arising from the secession of congregations to the conservative Anglican Network in Canada.
No settlement in the New Westminster cases appears likely, as the case now proceeds to Canada’s Supreme Court for adjudication. On Jan 14 the parish trustees of four Vancouver area congregations filed an application for leave to appeal the November ruling of the British Columbia Court of Appeals decision awarding control of the buildings to the Diocese of New Westminster.
The Trustees will argue the Appeals Court was correct in holding that the churches were held in trust for the purpose of Anglican ministry, but erred in defining Anglican ministry as being the sole province of the Anglican Church of Canada.
“The Court of Appeal acknowledged that the awarding of these properties to the Diocese of New Westminster could well mean that the churches would have “vastly reduced or non-existent congregations””, said Cheryl Chang, ANiC’s special counsel.
“But this result actually serves to defeat the religious purpose and results in the trust property being empty or underused. The evidence at trial showed the awarding of the properties to the ANiC congregations would mean that the original purposes of Anglican Ministry would continue to be fulfilled in those church properties. In contrast, the Diocese is in a process of closing and selling churches,” Ms Chang said.
Bishop Michael Ingham of New Westminster told his diocesan newspaper that he was “saddened” by the appeal, saying it was a “costly and divisive” decision that would “consume even more of the time, energy and money that should be used for the mission of the Church.”
No action on gay blessings in Southern Africa: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 18, 2011 p 8. February 20, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Church of England Newspaper, Marriage.comments closed
The Southern African House of Bishops
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Southern African House of Bishops has deferred taking action on adopting guidelines for the blessing of same-sex unions, citing legal difficulties and theological divisions within its ranks.
Meeting from Feb 7-12 at the Mariannhill Conference Centre in the Diocese of Natal, the bishops released a pastoral letter at the close of their meeting confirming they were at an impasse.
They noted that Archbishop Thabo Makgoba had “taken a lead in bringing concerns to us from the dioceses in the Western Cape with regard to the pastoral care of persons who have entered into civil unions or are considering doing so.”
However, they noted this was “not a matter of legitimising same-sex unions but of care for worshippers who are already in them,” the bishops said, adding that “our Church does not consider any relationship to be marriage unless it is the historic relationship of a man and a woman uniting, ideally for life.”
At their Sept 2010 meeting, the bishops reviewed a draft document entitled “Pastoral Guidelines in Response to Civil Unions” and asked the church’s 25 dioceses to review the protocols for discussion at the bishops’ Feb 2011 meeting. At the close of their Sept 2010 meeting the bishops said they were “acutely aware of the need to act pastorally and prudently on this sensitive matter,” but were also “committed to remaining within the accepted teachings of our Church on marriage and the ongoing dialogue within the Anglican Communion.”
In the letter released at the close of their meeting last week, the bishops stated they did not “regard sexuality as a church-dividing issue” and would “draw upon our experience of holding together by the grace of Christ in a time of acute tension and disagreement.”
However, the bishops said they were not able to give their approval to the draft document at this time. “It is difficult to give blanket guidelines because the position is starkly at variance in the legal systems of the seven countries where we work.”
“We continue to work on creating guidelines in several areas of difficulty raised by the issue of civil unions. A draft for discussion in dioceses is in development. However, we note that guidelines in other areas could also be useful – such as supporting and acknowledging those who choose celibate singleness in their Christian discipleship, whether pending future marriage or for life,” the bishops said.
Last week’s pastoral letter builds upon letters released at the close of the 2004 and 2007 meetings. Following the April 2004 session, the bishops stated the Southern African Church was “committed” to Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference and to the Primates’ call “not to solemnise same-sex marriages but to continue in dialogue on this and related issues.”
In a statement released at the close of their Sept 2007 meeting, the bishops reaffirmed Lambeth Resolution 1.10, but stated that they did not “believe sexual orientation” was a “barrier to leadership within the church. However, maintaining as we do, that Christian marriage is a lifelong union between one man and one woman, we hold that clergy unable to commit to another in a Christian marriage partnership are called to a life of celibacy.”
The 2007 statement followed a request to the bishops by the Cape Town synod for “pastoral guidelines for ministering to those who are in committed same-sex relationships.”
The year before the South African Parliament voted to allow same-sex couples to “solemnize and register a voluntary union by way of either a marriage or a civil partnership,” after the South Africa’s Constitutional Court Appeal held the common-law definition of marriage should be changed from a “union between a man and a woman” to a “union between two persons.”
Toronto gay blessings do not breach the moratoria on gay blessings, ACC rules: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 18, 2011. February 19, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Anglican Consultative Council, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Bishop Linda Nicholls at Lambeth 2008
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The appointment of advocates of same-sex blessings to the Anglican Communion’s ARCIC team does not violate the Archbishop of Canterbury’s ban on participation in ecumenical dialogue of those who propagate views contrary to the church’s teachings on human sexuality.
On Feb 4, ACNS reported that ten Anglicans, including an American priest working in the UK and the suffragan bishop of Toronto had been appointed to the ecumenical dialogue commission which is scheduled to meet this May in Italy.
While conservatives have not disputed the intellectual merits of Canon Mark McIntosh of the Diocese of Chicago or suffragan Bishop Linda Nicholls of Toronto, their appointment by the ACC has prompted criticism for undoing the strictures put into place by Dr. Rowan Williams last year against the participation of members of provinces in breach of the communion’s moratoria on gay bishops and blessings.
It also serves to further erode the credibility of the ACC staff, which has been under sharp criticism from leaders of the Global South and Gafcon movement, and makes the possibility of a rapprochement within the communion less likely.
In his Pentecost letter of May 28, 2010, Dr. Rowan Williams stated that members of provinces that were in breach of the moratoria would no longer participate in the communion’s ecumenical dialogues.
“Provinces that have formally, through their Synod or House of Bishops, adopted policies that breach any of the moratoria requested by the Instruments of Communion and recently reaffirmed by the Standing Committee and the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order should not be participants in the ecumenical dialogues in which the Communion is formally engaged,” Dr. Williams wrote.
In a June 7, 2010 press conference during the Canadian General Synod in Halifax, ACC secretary general Canon Kenneth Kearon explained the decision to remove Americans from the dialogue commissions. That church’s consecration of Bishop Mary Glasspool in Los Angeles “meant that gracious restraint was not being exercised.”
By consecrating a ‘gay’ bishop, it was “clear that The Episcopal Church does not share the faith and order of the vast majority of the Anglican Communion as expressed through the Instruments of Communion time and time again,” Canon Kearon said.
“If they don’t share the faith and order, then they shouldn’t represent the Communion on faith and order questions” and in ecumenical dialogues, the ACC secretary general explained, adding that it was “at the very minimum to be honouring to our ecumenical partners so that they know who they are in conversation with,” Canon Kearon said.
Canon McIntosh, who served as canon theologian to US Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold and was co-author of the Episcopal Church’s apologia for gay bishops and blessings to the 2005 ACC meeting, did not count as an American as he now held a position at an English university, the ACC said.
Bishop Linda Nicholls of Toronto was not barred either, ACC spokesman Jan Butter said, as “Canada has not formally breached the moratoria. It was made clear at the time that it was the members of those Churches that had who would be asked to serve as consultants” and not participants in the dialogues.
However, Bishop Nicholls endorsed the plan put forward by the Diocese of Toronto’s House of Bishops last year that formally instituted rites for the blessing of same-sex unions.
It was “quite clear” the Toronto College of Bishops “made a decision not to abide by the moratorium on same sex blessings. Further, the College has decided that a diocese is at liberty to move ahead unilaterally in this matter,” Dr. Murray Henderson of the Diocese of Toronto, vice-chairman of the Anglican Communion Alliance in Canada, told The Church of England Newspaper.
“I regard this as a grave action endangering the catholic faith and order of the church,” he said, noting the Toronto bishops were “acting on the disputed assumption that the Provinces are now merely a loose federation of independent churches.”
“I very much doubt that Canon Kearon, speaking as he does for the Archbishop of Canterbury, has reversed his policy of not allowing members of churches which move beyond the common faith and order of the Communion to serve on international commissions such as ARCIC. It is therefore puzzling and disheartening that a member of the Diocese of Toronto has been so appointed,” Dr. Henderson said.
Second Canadian-African bishops meeting set for this week: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 18, 2011 p 6. February 19, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
2010 meeting of Canadian and African bishops in London
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Ten African and ten Western Anglican bishops are scheduled to meet in Dar es Salaam next week for the second annual Western and African Bishops’ conference.
Organized by the Anglican Church of Canada in response to Resolution 12 of the Anglican Consultative Council’s 13th meeting in Nottingham in 2005, which encouraged “listening” to the disparate voices and beliefs on homosexuality across the Anglican Communion, the first meeting was held Feb 24-26, 2010 at the ACC’s offices in London.
The first meeting brought together five Canadian bishops from dioceses that have adopted or are in the process of drawing up same-sex blessings with six bishops drawn from the African church’s progressive wing. The bishops were paired in discussion groups and at the end of the conference released a statement commending their experience of “holy listening.”
The bishops said in 2010 that “in spite of differences, we strongly affirm our commitment to each other as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ and as members in the Anglican Communion. As we continue to learn about each other’s mission contexts, cultures, values and languages, each of us grows in deeper mutual understanding of theological and ethical positions — both our own and those of our partners.”
Dialogue was not about “trying to make someone change their position, but is about working together better to understand the fullness of our stories, affirmations and commitments,” they said.
“To do so requires that we meet, that we converse, that we commit to this holy listening and honest, respectful speech with openness and prayerful thanksgiving for the gift that is the other,” they said, arguing that this was “the gift of communion we share in Christ: that we are one, in his body.”
Participants in the first gathering included the bishops of Niagara, New Westminster, Ontario, Ottawa and Toronto, and the bishops of Botswana, Central Tanganyika, Mombasa, Southern Malawi, Tanga and the suffragan bishop of Cape Town.
The 2011 meeting will be expanded to ten aside, with American, Australian and English bishops added to the team, along with an equal number of African bishops. The Bishop of New Westminster, the Rt. Rev. Michael Ingham will be paired with the chairman of the ACC, Bishop James Tengatenga and are scheduled to make a presentation on human sexuality to the meeting.
Fraud allegations levelled against ex-Deputy Moderator of the CSI: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 18, 2011 p 7. February 19, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of South India, Crime.comments closed
Bishop Christopher Asir
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
An Indian court has ordered the Tamil Nadu police to investigate the Church of South India’s former Deputy Moderator for fraud.
On Jan 28, Justice V. Kuruppiah of the Madras High Court signed an order directing the state’s CID to investigate the Rt. Rev. Christopher Asir, the Bishop in Madurai-Ramnad, for his alleged role in defrauding the diocese by selling church land at below market prices in return for a kickback from the buyer.
On Aug 2, Mr. Christopher Salmond, a lay member of the diocese, filed a complaint with the police over the sale of land given to the diocese by an American missionary society upon the creation of the Church of South India in 1947.
Mr. Salmond alleged the land had been given to the diocese with the legal stipulation that it not be sold and could be used only for mission purposes, however, Bishop Asir allegedly sold the land in collusion with Pauline Sathyamurthy, the former treasurer of the CSI who is currently being sought by police in connection with the theft of funds donated by Episcopal Relief and Development to assist survivors of the 2004 tsunami. He further alleged the bishop had committed five other instances of “conspiracy, cheating and forgery” in defrauding the church.
The case was brought to the Madras High Court in December after the police failed to take action on the allegations. After a review of the evidence, Justice Kuruppiah ordered the police to investigate the allegations brought by Mr. Salmond.
The Anglican Communion after Dublin: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 18, 2011 p 11-12 February 18, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON, La Iglesia Anglicana del Cono Sur de America.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The divisions within the Anglican Communion are theological, not political, and can be resolved only through an appeal to providence and Scripture, the chairman of the Gafcon Primates Council meeting, Bishop Gregory Venables has said.
In an interview recorded by AnglicanTV and broadcast on February 5, Bishop Venables outlined the Gafcon group of Churches’ disquiet with the innovations made by the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, appeals to diversity, conversation or political compromise to fix the Anglican Communion will not save it, if the Gospel is not preached.
ATV: What’s the most important issue going on in the Anglican Communion today?
GV: The vast majority of Anglican leaders worldwide, together with Anglicans in general, want to get on with preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ: the fact that there is a message of hope, and love and forgiveness and new life in Jesus Christ.
But we’ve hit a problem. And the problem is that within what we call the Anglican Communion there is a significant group, which unfortunately seems to dominate much of the public life of our church, which is suppressing the truth.
The reason why we feel this urgency is because it is clearer than ever, even within our own Church, that we are under the wrath of God. Now that is not something that people like to talk about very much, and it’s not a very pleasant subject, but it is an important one.
Back in the 1960s when I was a teenager, I remember Archbishop Michael Ramsey saying that the one place where we could all engage with God and identify God at that time, within the world situation, was under his judgment. And that was a shocking thing to say, but it was true.
He was saying that because of our behaviour, because of the fact that in the West we turned our back on God, the one place where we can identify the presence of God in our lives and our society in the world we’re living in is where we see his judgement. And this is true about the wrath of God.
And we’re under the wrath of God and we need to preach the gospel into that situation.
Although we’ve received the truth, although we know about God, although we know about this Gospel, people have chosen to go down the path of the pride of human wisdom … of seeking to find answers that are satisfactory to our own self-sufficiency and self-satisfaction … to go down the path of delighting in wickedness. Doing the things that God has forbidden, yet thinking that they are good and wonderful and lovely.
We’ve become darkened in our thinking. And you can see it in the situation with which the Anglican Communion has been grappling for the past 15 years. You can see that many have become darkened in their understanding. Paul says they become foolish and that’s why there’s no dialogue.
We are talking from completely different perspectives. In some cases it’s because the blindness and the ignorance, which is there if we’ve never known God personally. But sometimes, sadly, it’s because people have turned their back on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And that’s far worse.
We have this urgency of preaching the Gospel. Of saying that there is a way out. But the way out is not in human wisdom, it is not in human self-sufficiency. It is in the Gospel of Jesus Christ which he has revealed to us. God has spoken and we cannot block our ears and pretend we haven’t heard it. And that is a situation which has to be addressed.
ATV: Is the Anglican Communion under God’s judgment?
GV. I believe we are under God’s judgement —- having received a revelation of truth which we are suppressing, as Paul writes in Romans chapter 1. Many of us believe that.
It’s not something we feel happy about. We feel devastated and we all share in the guilt. But we can’t go on as if nothing has happened. The gospel has to be preached.
ATV: What are your thoughts on the Dublin Primates’ Meeting?
GV: A large number of Primates just simply didn’t want to go because of the lack of trust and because the certainty that it was not going to go anywhere. What’s happened is that a small group is undoubtedly pushing a false gospel, a gospel which does not proclaim the need for salvation, which does not proclaim that Jesus is the one and only path back to God.
The sad thing is that although we spent years trying to get this thing right as a Communion, suddenly that crisis is put on one side. Suddenly the urgency has gone and we’re told no, that all we have to do is sit and talk.
If my house is on fire, I am not just going to sit and talk to my family, we’re going to get up and we’re going to something about it.
ATV: Is it true the Primates have no authority any more?
GV: That was coming. You could see it coming. You could see it coming by the fact that in spite of everything that has been said, suddenly now that all goes into some dusty file somewhere. Suddenly we have no authority, apart from this little standing committee of Primates —- and only time will tell with what’s going to happen with that.
If that proves to be a little centralised group of authority, then we have moved away from the very spirit of Anglicanism —- which is about teamwork, which is about bishops being first among equals, which is about us listening together to the voice of God and discerning the voice of God together.
Nowhere in the New Testament do you find one or two people making decisions. It is always the body discerning God’s voice together. It seemed right to us and the Holy Spirit. We’ve come to the very place where we were told for years we couldn’t go. We were told there is no authority and now suddenly there is, and that’s very, very, concerning.
ATV: Are we moving away from a Canterbury-led Communion?
GV: We never had to go to Canterbury to get to Jesus. There never was a centre of the church in one place. That was very, very, clear from the beginning … for the first few hundred years of the church until 1065, when the authority was centred on the Bishop of Rome after the Great Schism.
But up until then we never located authority in one place. There were always patriarchs, but never one who was in charge of everything except at the moment of presiding in council. While Canterbury is a wonderful part of our history and although there is tremendous amount of affection … a tremendous amount of respect for the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury, (and the same is true of the persons we been thinking about over recent years including Archbishop Rowan at the present moment, there is tremendous respect and love for him and for the people who were there before him) we cannot allow one person and a small group around that person to assume authority over the Anglican Communion. That was never within Anglicanism and it should never be within Anglicanism because it’s not in Scripture.
ATV: Would you support the calling of an Anglican Church council?
GV: I think if somehow that as a whole body we could come to the conclusion that it would be good to call together a council of the Church, to come to some resolution about the present crisis, that would be a good thing to do. But it would have to be a joint decision made by the whole of the Anglican Communion and with the whole of the Anglican Communion being represented.
At the moment it’s very clear that we have slipped into a Western, almost colonialist leadership. We have to ask the question if this have been the other way round, if this sinful behaviour had been promoted and sought to be lifted up as something God approves of in a part of the world that did not have the money and the power and the place that the United States has [how would it have been received?] It would be very interesting to see what would happen after everything unfolded.
ATV: Has the Primates’ Meeting been changed forever?
GV: The fact that such a large number didn’t go and made it very clear that they weren’t interested in going says that it’s gone. But it wasn’t just because things weren’t dealt with now.
We sought to deal with them constantly and it hadn’t gone anywhere. Things go on and people are still going on as if nothing has happened. And there is the terrible silence. The silence which now is so loud, as we heard it in the Dublin meeting.
ATV: Who controls the agenda for a Primates’ Meeting?
GV: The agenda turns up. There were moments, because I was attending Primates’ Meetings, I was elected Primate in 2001, so between then and last year when I was attending meetings, there were times when we were given very important papers just a few moments before we were told to consider them.
That can’t be. We have to know what’s on the agenda and more than that we have to control what’s on the agenda. It has to be a joint decision, not another decision made by a small group that has been selected by a group of people that were not selected to make that decision by the Anglican Communion.
ATV: Do you think the Global South if it had its own resources, would call its own Primates’ Meeting?
GV: So long as we remain submitted to God and seeking to do what God wants, God will provide us with everything we want.
Believe me, the vast majority of the Anglican Communion are in love with God the Father, are in love with Jesus Christ the son, in love with the Holy Spirit and want to get on with the will of God and do what he wants. To be dependent on him —- that is a wonderful place to be, but it has given us an enormous responsibility.
The answer is not to move out, to form another Communion or go to another Church —- although we respect those who have done it. Anglicanism has got a lot of life left because it’s something God has created. There’s an awful lot to be done yet and we can come through this.
But we will not come through this situation sitting in meetings where we consistently and apparently deliberately refuse to engage with the very crisis which has broken us up.
ATV: What is the hope for the Communion?
GV: The Global South and Gafcon are planning very important activities in the coming days. The reason why so many did not attend [the Dublin meeting] is because there are other things that need to be done. The reasons why they chose not to go were not simple reasons. They were reasons that were expressed very clearly, both verbally and in writing.
It was quite incorrect to present the absence of some people as being secondary matters. That was not the case. People made it very clear that they were not going … [however] there’s a lot going on and there will be a lot to be involved in the coming.
We are not ashamed of the Gospel. If we’re not ashamed of it we have to proclaim it, which is the principal activity in the Anglican Church worldwide. We just have to get on with it and that is what both the global South and Gafcon together are planning on doing: working together, working in unity, working in love and working in collegial community to do what God wants us to do.
ATV: Have you been in touch with Bishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt?
GV: It’s a desperate situation. It’s a part of the anarchy going on in the world. It’s true here in Latin America. It’s true now in Europe. It’s true in North America. It’s true in other parts of the world.
We are in a situation of anarchy because we are first of all in ignorance and blindness. Not living the way God wants us to. But even worse in the case of those of us who have received the Christian revelation of truth in Jesus Christ — we are living in a rebellious way, suppressing the truth which is our only hope of salvation.
So it is no surprise and it’s not getting any better until there is repentance and people turning back to this wonderful loving God. A God who loves us so much that he’s not going to let us live in darkness.
He is going to insist and insist and insist until people turn back to him.
Romanian witch tax introduced: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 18, 2011 p 7. February 18, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Romanian Orthodox, Wicca/Druidism.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Romanian witches have threatened to hex their government after the Senate passed a bill imposing fines on psychics, soothsayers, tarot card readers, fortunetellers and witches if their prognostications do not come true.
The bill, which must be approved by the lower house of the Romanian Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, follows the implementation of a new tax and labour code which regulates “witches”. Tarot card readings, curses, blessings and other forms of ‘witchcraft for pay’ as of Jan 1 are subject to 16 per cent VAT, and its practitioners must make mandatory contributions on their earnings to the country’s health and pension programmes.
While devotees of Wicca in Western European and the US see their beliefs as distinct from Christianity, in Romania witchcraft is viewed as a folk custom not in conflict with the tenets of the Orthodox Church. The church however, has traditionally condemned witchcraft, while its practice was banned during the Communist era.
However, the ban on witchcraft was unevenly enforced, as Elena Ceausescu, the wife of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausesecu, retained a witch on her staff. Following the downfall of the Ceausescu regime, vrajitoares, or witches, enjoyed a renaissance, and by 2006 there were an estimated 4000 professional witches working in Romania: almost exclusively female and of Roma or “gypsy” heritage.
Proposals to tax witchcraft were first broached in 2001, and in 2002 the government banned witches from advertising on television. Following Romania’s entry into the European Union in 2007 many witches registered as “alternative health care providers” under the EU’s “shared competence” regulations, making some fees eligible for government reimbursement.
The collapse of the Romanian economy, however, has pressed the government to find new sources of revenue, and in September 2010 the witch’s VAT law was passed. The first reading of the law was defeated in the Senate however, after a number of legislators changed their vote at the last minute in response to a campaign of curses and hexes launched by the witches.
However, the ruling Democratic Liberal Party was able to push the law through in a reform of the labour code, prompting a number of witches to dump mandrake roots into the Danube on Jan 6, before a national television audience, and pronouncing curses upon the government.
The proposed bill which would impose fines on false predictions has further angered Romania’s witches. “They can’t condemn witches, they should condemn the cards,” Queen Witch Bratara Buzea told the Associated Press.
Political commentators, however, see the anti-witchcraft campaign as a ploy by the government to build popular support. Attacks on witches, and by implications the Gypsy population, appeal to nationalist elements in the country, while an attack on the perceived wealth of witches enjoys popular support in the country’s tabloid press.
“The government doesn’t have real solutions, so it invents problems,” Romanian political commentator Stelian Tanese said. “This is the government that this country deserves.”
Nigerian archbishop in Lambeth meeting with Dr Williams: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 18, 2011 p 6. February 17, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England Newspaper, Church of Nigeria.comments closed
Archbishop Nicholas Okoh of Nigeria
The head of the Anglican Communion’s largest province will meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury this week at Lambeth Palace.
Archbishop Nicholas Okoh of Nigeria is scheduled to meet with Dr. Williams on Feb 17, and will also meet with officials from the Nigerian High Commission and Nigerian expatriates during a three day pastoral visit to the UK
A spokesman for Archbishop Okoh said this week’s visit will be his first to London since his election as primate. A trip set for December 2010 was postponed due to inclement weather. The trip will also provide an opportunity for Dr. Rowan Williams to mend fences with the Nigerian Church, which along with a majority of the African church has become estranged from Lambeth over the past three years.
Regaining the trust of the estranged members of the Anglican Communion would be a “long task” and would be “difficult”, Dr. Williams said at the closing press conference of the Dublin primates meeting last month. However, that is the “task we’ve been given, it’s part of the gift of living in the Church” and “part of the cross we carry.”
The Anglican Communion was faced with a “critical situation,” Dr. Williams said. “Nobody would deny that. But that critical situation has not ended the relationships, often very cordial and very constructive, between Churches within the Communion.”
The archbishop noted he had recently met with Archbishop Eliud Wabukala of Kenya, who did not attend the primates meeting, taking part in “a very long and detailed conversation on a variety of matters.”
In a statement released at the start of the meeting, the Anglican Communion News Service stated that 7 primates had absented themselves from the meeting due to “recent developments in the Episcopal Church,” while 8 others were not able to attend “because of health reasons, others for personal reasons and a few because of issues in their Provinces, such as the referendum in Sudan.”
Archbishop Wabukala’s absence was explained as due to a diary conflict.
However, Kenyan leaders tell The Church of England Newspaper this explanation for Archbishop Wabukala’s absence by the ACC staff was not entirely straight forward. The reason there was a diary conflict, a Kenya bishop told CEN, was because Archbishop Wabukala had already told Dr. Williams last autumn he was not going to Dublin if Bishop Jefferts Schori was present at the meeting. Archbishop Wabukala adjusted his schedule, removing the primates meeting from his calendar after Dr Williams issued the invitation to the US presiding bishop.
Archbishop petitions court to join Australian abuse case: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 11, 2011 p 8. February 17, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Archbishop Phillip Aspinall of Brisbane
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia has petitioned for permission to be joined as a defendant in a case before the New South Wales Supreme Court over the operations of the church’s Professional Standards Board.
Last week Archbishop Phillip Aspinall of Brisbane asked the court that he join Newcastle Bishop Brian Farran and the members of the diocesan Professional Standards Board as a defendant in a suit brought by two priests found guilty of misconduct.
On Dec 15, the Professional Standards Board held that the former Dean of New Castle, the Very Rev. Graeme Lawrence and his partner—church organist Gregory Goyette—had engaged in sexual relations with a 17 year old boy at a church camp in 1984. A second priest, the Rev. Graeme Sturt was found to have observed the incident, but did not report the abuse.
The board recommended Dean Lawrence and Mr. Sturt be defrocked and Mr. Goyette prevented from working in the church. The two clergyman responded by filing suit against the board, saying its proceedings were arbitrary and capricious.
In his pleading, Dr. Aspinall told the court he wished to be joined in the proceedings as its outcome would impact the operations of Professional Standards Boards across the Anglican Church of Australia. A finding that the board’s proceedings were flawed has the potential to force the church to re-write its clergy disciplinary code in order to comply with civil law.
A decision on the archbishop’s petition is expected by March, and the court has scheduled five days of oral argument in May.
US Presiding Bishop joins Obama administration: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 11, 2011 p 8. February 16, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, The Episcopal Church.comments closed
Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
US President Barack Obama has named the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, to his Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Bishop Jefferts Schori was one of 11 new members appointed to the council, which “brings together religious and secular leaders as well as scholars and experts in fields related to the work of faith-based and neighborhood organizations in order to make recommendations to the government on how to improve partnerships,” a White House press release said.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to be of service to the larger community in this way,” Bishop Jefferts Schori said, noting the “ability to build partnerships between civic and religious bodies can only expand our capacity to heal a broken world.”
The president said he was “pleased to announce that these experienced and committed individuals have agreed to join this administration, and I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead.”
The announcement was made on Feb 4, the day after President Obama kicked off a campaign to bolster his weak standing among conservative Christians. Long plagued by rumors about his religious beliefs the president told the National Prayer Breakfast that as a young man in Chicago after university, he “came to know Jesus Christ for myself and embrace him as my lord and savior” and that as president, he asks “the Lord” every day to make him “an instrument of his will.”
However, political critics have charged the president with finding his faith at an opportune moment as he prepares for reelection in 2012. Unlike former President George Bush who spoke openly and often of his Christian principles, President Obama omitted mentioning his conversion experience in his two autobiographies and gives religion in general only a passing mention.
Foreign Secretary: ‘No plans to change the Act of Settlement’: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 11, 2011 p 8. February 16, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Negotiating changes to the Act of Settlement with members of the Commonwealth is not a priority for the coalition government, the Foreign Secretary told Parliament last week.
During the course of questioning about Britain’s relationships with the Commonwealth of Feb 1 in the House of Commons, the member for Rhondda, Mr. Chris Bryant, (Lab.) stated the “previous Government had started negotiations and discussions about the Act of Settlement with other Commonwealth countries that share our monarch as their Head of State.”
Mr. Bryant asked whether the foreign secretary agreed that its “provisions that mean that no Catholic or anyone who does not subscribe to the Church of England can become monarch are outdated, as are the rules on male primogeniture? Will he pursue those conversations with those countries?”
Mr. Hague answered that he recognized the “force of the arguments about something that was originally set out more than 300 years ago,” but this was not a priority for the coalition government.
“Among the issues of Middle East peace, the Iranian nuclear programme and so on, I have not yet put that at the top of my list to negotiate with other Governments, but it is a legitimate issue for the long term, on which all the Commonwealth Governments with the Queen as Head of State would have to be consulted and agree,” he said.
Enacted by Parliament in 1701, the Act requires the sovereign to “join in communion with the Church of England” and settled the throne on the Protestant descendants of Sophia of Hanover—a granddaughter of Charles I, and to exclude the Roman Catholic Stuarts from the throne.
The Act states that all who “shall or may take or inherit the said Crown” may not be “reconciled to, or shall hold communion with, the See or Church of Rome, or shall profess the popish religion, or shall marry a papist.”
In 2001 Prime Minister Tony Blair raised the issue of repealing the Act of Settlement but did not take the matter forward. In March 2008 Justice Minister Jack Straw told the House of Commons that he understood the Act “is seen as something which is antiquated,” while Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the House of Commons that “most people recognise the need for change. Change can only be brought about by not just the UK but all realms where Her Majesty is Queen making a decision to change.”
However, the Labour government took no action and Mr. Brown did not raise the issue during the 2009 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key reported at the time.
Altering the Act of Succession must be approved by the governments where the Queen is the constitutional monarch and sovereign: Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, St Christopher and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Tuvalu.
Mr. Bryant raised the question of repealing the Act on July 1 last year in a question to the Cabinet Office minister Mark Harper. The minister replied the coalition government believed the Act was “part of the backbone of our constitution, and tinkering with it lightly without thinking through all the changes would have unforeseen consequences.”
Last month Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper rebuffed a request from Labour MP Keith Vaz to take up the issue. A spokesman for the Canadian prime minister said “this issue is not a priority for the government or for Canadians without further elaboration on the merits or drawbacks of the proposed reforms.”
West Indies adopts Anglican Covenant: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 11, 2011 p 7. February 15, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Covenant, Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of the West Indies.comments closed
Archbishop John Holder of Barbados
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Primate of the West Indies, Archbishop John Holder of Barbados, reports his province has formally adopted the Anglican Covenant.
In a statement released via the Anglican Communion News Service during the Dublin primates meeting on Jan 30, Archbishop Holder stated his province saw the Covenant as a “workable document that can help the Anglican Communion to move forward while still addressing issues that face its member Churches.”
“For some, the document is only being seen in the light of sexuality issues. That’s a restrictive view. It is a document that can help us to function in relation to the many issues that will arise in the Communion. Today it’s human sexuality, tomorrow it will be something else.”
“Our understanding is that it is not an exclusive document; it does not exclude, but rather it helps to lead people to reflect on their role as Anglicans, and identify their responsibilities as members of the Communion,” the archbishop said.
The 2009 West Indian General Synod, under the presidency of former West Indian Archbishop Drexel Gomez endorsed the covenant. The Church of England Newspaper reported last year that the Nov 16-20, 2010 joint meeting of the West Indian House of Bishops in Trinidad and provincial standing committee was expected to ratify the covenant on behalf of the province.
The province gave its formal notice of acceptance of the covenant to the ACC last month.
The Anglican Covenant was not “punitive,” he said. “It invites the members of the Communion to follow a different way, to remember their responsibilities to other members of the wider community, to respect where others are in their journey.”
While some churches saw the covenant as a “threat to their independence”, the West Indian Church saw it as a mark of the communion’s interdependence, “as an enabler on the journey for communion,” Archbishop Holder said.
ARCIC III set: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 11, 2011 p 7 February 14, 2011
Posted by geoconger in ARCIC, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Vatican and the Anglican Communion will restart their stalled ecumenical dialogue, with the first round of ARCIC III, the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission, set to begin this year.
On Feb 4 the Anglican Communion News Service and the Vatican Information Service reported that the first ARCIC III meeting would take place from May 17-27 in Bose, Italy. It has been tasked to consider “fundamental questions regarding the ‘Church as Communion – Local and Universal’, and ‘How in communion the Local and Universal Church comes to discern right ethical teaching’.”
Archbishop David Moxon of New Zealand will be the chairman of the Anglican team which includes: Dr. Paula Gooder and Canon Nicholas Sagovsky of the Church of England, Dr. Peter Sedgwick of the Church in Wales, Dr. Michael Poon of Singapore, Dr. Charles Sherlock of Melbourne, Bishop Christopher Hill of Guildford, Suffragan Bishop Nkosinathi Ndwandwe of Natal, South Africa, Suffragan Bishop Linda Nicholls of Toronto, and Dr. Mark McIntosh, an American priest currently teaching at the University of Durham.
Following their Nov 21, 2009 meeting at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI and Archbishop Rowan Williams pledged to reinvigorate the moribund talks. While the bureaucratic machinery has been in place, the Vatican had warned Anglicans they must put their ecclesiological house in order before any further meaningful steps toward dialogue could take place.
At the 2008 Lambeth Conference Cardinal Ivan Dias, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Cardinal Walter Kasper chastised the Anglican Communion for its disorder and lack of theological seriousness.
Cardinal Dias, prefect for the Congregation of the Evangelisation of Peoples, speculated the Anglican Communion was suffering from “spiritual Alzheimer’s”, and was in danger of forgetting its apostolic roots as it followed the spirit of the age in determining doctrine and discipline.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, urged Anglicans to embark on a new “Oxford Movement” to revitalize the church, but he also warned that moves by the Church of England to introduce women bishops and its laxity over gay clergy had effectively ended the quest for Roman recognition of the validity of Anglican orders.
Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster said there was little point in pursuing theological dialogue when Anglicans failed to live up to their side of the agreements. “If we are to make progress through dialogue we must be able to reach a solemn and binding agreement with our dialogue partners. And we want to see a deepening not a lessening of communion in their own ecclesial life,” Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor said.
Anglicans must decide who they are and what they believe before any meaningful dialogue can take place, he argued as “these discussions are about the degree of unity in faith necessary for Christians to be in communion, not least so that they may be able to offer the Gospel confidently to the world. Our future dialogue will not be easy until such fundamental matters are resolved, with greater clarity.”
Writing in the Catholic Herald this week, William Oddie observed that the “trouble with ARCIC” has been that on the “Catholic side of the table” you have group which represents “a more or less coherent view, being members of a Church which has established means of knowing and declaring what it believes.”
However, “on the Anglican side of the table” you have a group “the divisions between whom are just as fundamental as, and sometimes a lot more fundamental than, those between any one of them and the Catholic representatives they faced: they all represented only themselves,” he noted.
Lama says he’s no spy: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 11, 2011 p 8. February 13, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Buddhism, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
The Karmapa Lama
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Karmapa Lama has denied allegations that he is a Chinese spy.
On Feb 1, the office of Tibet’s third highest ranking religious leader, Ogyen Trinley Dorjee, released a statement “categorically denying” press speculation that cash found at the lama’s Dharamsala monastary came from the Chinese government.
The “allegations being leveled against His Holiness the Karmapa and his administration are grossly speculative and without any foundation in the truth whatsoever,” the statement said.
In the two-day search of the lama’s monastery last month, police found approximately £750,000 in cash. The Karmapa Lama was questioned by police for several hours over the source of the undeclared funds and over his ties to China, and his accountant was arrested. Unnamed government sources in the Indian police have told the press thelama is suspected of being an agent of influence for the Chinese government.
The Karmapa Lama is the spiritual leader of one of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, ranking only behind the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. As head of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, the Karmapa is believed by devotees to be a living Buddha.
The lama’s aides confirmed that approximately one million US dollars was “taken by the authorities from the Monastery. This sum represents unsolicited donations that have been made by the followers of His Holiness the Karmapa from around the world to enable the substantial social and spiritual programmes of the Karma Kagyu order.”
The reason why the cash had not been deposited in banks was due to Indian banking laws. “Our administration has sought to acquire clearance since 2002 to deposit cash donations under the Foreign Currencies Regulation Act of India. Until the necessary permissions are granted, the Monastery diligently recorded and stored the currency on its own premises. We are currently in the process of providing this evidence to the authorities,” the statement said.
The lama’s aides explained the Chinese cash as having come from “devoted” followers in Tibet and China “who make offerings in the Yuan. The Yuan found constitutes less than 10% of the cash in question, which included currency from over 20 countries,” the statement said.
Speculation the Karmapa Lama maintained “links with arms of the Chinese Government to counteract the Free Tibet Movement” was false, they said. The Dalai Lama’s statement that the accusations were false “furnished the final word on this issue,” the Karmapa Lama’s office said.
Archbishop of Dublin elected: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 11, 2011 p 8. February 13, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Ireland.comments closed
Archbishop Michael Jackson of Dublin
First published in the The Church of England Newspaper.
An electoral college convened at Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin has elected a new Primate of Ireland. On Feb 2 the Bishop of Clogher, the Rt. Rev. Michael Jackson was elected Archbishop of Dublin and Glendalough in succession to Dr. John Neill.
The Primate of All Ireland and metropolitan of the Church of Ireland’s northern province, Archbishop Alan Harper of Armagh, welcomed the election of his fellow northern bishop as metropolitan of the southern province. Dr. Harper said he was “delighted” with the choice and looked forward to “continuing the collaboration and the deepening of ecumenical renewal as well as warm personal relationships which had flourished during the time of the outgoing Archbishop Dr John Neill.”
Born in Lurgan, Co Armagh, Bishop Jackson was educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, Trinity College, Dublin, St John’s College, Cambridge and Christ Church, Oxford.
Ordained in 1987, he served his curacy in the Diocese of Dublin and from 1989 to 1997 was chaplain at Christ Church, Oxford. Between 1997 and 2002 he served at St Fin Barre’s in Cork, becoming Dean of Cork before being elected Bishop of Clogher in 2002. Dr. Jackson has been active in the Church of Ireland’s ecumenical and inter-faith work, and has served the Anglican Communion as co-chairman of the Anglican-Jewish Commission. Like the Church of England, the Church of Ireland has two provinces, each with a Metropolitan Archbishop. The senior, the Archbishop of Armagh, is styled the Primate of All-Ireland, while his junior is the Archbishop of Dublin and Glendalough and Primate of Ireland.
Ugandan murder condemned by Dr Williams: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 11, 2011 p 8. February 11, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England Newspaper, Civil Rights, Crime.comments closed
Dr. Rowan Williams
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has condemned the murder of a gay activist in Uganda, denouncing a defunct tabloid for stoking a climate of hatred against homosexuals.
However, his intervention in the David Kato affair has proven to be politically parlous. It has angered conservatives, distressed by Dr. Rowan Williams’ quickness to find homophobia in an unsolved murder, and liberals, annoyed by his defence of Archbishop Henry Orombi and the Church of Uganda from charges they contributed to a climate of hatred against homosexuals in the East African nation.
On Jan 28, Dr. Williams released a statement condemning the “brutal murder” of David Kato and “for all who live in fear for their lives.”
“Whatever the precise circumstances of his death,” David Kato “lived under the threat of violence and death,” the archbishop wrote, adding that “no one should have to live in such fear because of the bigotry of others.”
He went on to say that this murder should spur the British government to give safety to “LGBT asylum seekers” and to “address those attitudes of mind which endanger the lives of men and women belonging to sexual minorities.”
Asked why Dr. Williams chose to comment on the murder of the gay activist, and not the recent murder of the Anglican mission worker in Jerusalem by Hamas, a Lambeth Palace spokesman told The Church of England Newspaper the “archbishop tends to condemn all violence and persecution when he comments on a particular murder or massacre, otherwise he would be sadly commenting most days.”
Activists ranging from the Bishop of New Hampshire, gay pressure groups in the US and UK, to left wing television commentators denounced the Kato murder and the ‘homophobic’ climate in Uganda. US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori stated Kato’s “murder deprives his people of a significant and effective voice, and we pray that the world may learn from his gentle and quiet witness, and begin to receive a heart of flesh in place of a heart of stone.”
In expanding upon his statement on Jan 30, Dr. Williams said “words have results”.
“You cannot go around sharing information about the identity of proposed lesbian and gay persons and urging people to ostracise them or worse ‘Hang Them’ as in the headlines of one of the Ugandan newspapers.”
“You cannot do that without taking responsibility for the consequences. Language which demonises gays and lesbians has consequences,” the archbishop said.
Dr. Williams was nonplussed, however, when a journalist asked whether the Archbishop of Uganda was morally responsible for the murder, and whether his absence from Dublin was symbolic of his church’s harsh tone towards homosexuals.
The archbishop rejected the assertion stating Archbishop Orombi along with other Anglican leaders had endorsed a statement “deploring and condemning all violence and language about homosexual persons.”
The Ugandan church practiced an “exclusion from ministry on grounds of behaviour, not orientation”. However, the Rolling Stone newspaper, a “rotten, disgraceful Ugandan publication” which had named Kato as a gay activist on its front page, was responsible as, “effectively, his murder had been called for,” the Dr. Williams said.
Dr. Williams’ comments about orientation and behavior, along with his defence of the Archbishop of Uganda attracted the ire of American liberals, prompting one member of the Church’s executive council to write a harsh letter of complaint to the archbishop about his attitude towards gays and lesbians.
Conservative bloggers were distressed by Dr. Williams’ assumption that homophobia was behind the Ugandan murder and accused liberals of taking an opportunistic swipe against the African church., without waiting for the police to comment. Comparisons to the archbishop’s 2007 ill-fated foray into the waters of Nigerian newspaper reporting, condemning an Anglican bishop for uttering anti-gay remarks without first having ascertained their veracity (they were untrue), resurfaced on conservative websites.
Police reports from Uganda indicate Dr. Williams may have been premature in ascribing a motive for the attack. On Feb 3 the Inspector General of Uganda’s police, Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura reported the death of David Kato had nothing to do with homosexual prejudice.
Nsuba Enock, who had been living with Mr. Kato at the time of his death had confessed to his murder and robbery. The motive for the murder was financial. “He claimed the deceased convinced him to play sex with him in the night after making him drunk from a nearby pub,” Maj. Gen. Kayihura reported, adding that Enock claimed to have been “provoked to hit the victim because he was demanding to play sex with him that afternoon and yet he was not interested in the same.”
The government press statement noted that the investigations “show no indications” that Mr. Kato’s activism was a “contributing factor to his death.”
Drexel Gomez marks 50 years of ministry: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 11, 2011 p 8. February 11, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of the West Indies.comments closed
Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The former Archbishop of the West Indies has celebrated the 50th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. Well wishers greeted Archbishop Drexel Gomez at the close of the special service on Feb 1 at Christ Church Cathedral in Nassau, thanking him for his services to the church in the Caribbean and to the wider Anglican Communion.
Born in Nassau, Archbishop Gomez was educated at Codrington College in Barbados and went on to become the principal of the theological college. Elected Bishop of Barbados at the age of 36, he was subsequently translated to Nassau and elected Archbishop of the West Indies in 1999.
Archbishop Gomez played a central role in the Communion’s deliberations over the past twenty five years. In addition to attending the 1978, 1988, 1998 and 2008 Lambeth Conferences, he served as chairman of the Inter Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations (IASCER) and chairman of the Covenant Design Group, which produced The Anglican Covenant.
The archbishop also played a leading part in rallying conservative opposition to the innovations of doctrine and discipline taking place in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada.
Under his leadership the Province of the West Indies broke with the Episcopal Church and set in place a theological litmus test for Episcopal missionaries who wished to serve in the Caribbean. Archbishop Gomez was also one of the chief consecrators of the Rt. Rev. Bill Atwood of the Ekklesia Society for service in the United States under the authority of the Church of Kenya.
However, the West Indian primate consistently championed the Anglican Covenant as the way forward for the Communion through its divisions, repeatedly telling audiences in the UK and US that the “Covenant was the only game in town.”
In his final appearance on the international Anglican stage at the 2009 ACC meeting, Archbishop Gomez urged the delegates to endorse the Covenant. However, his advice was not taken and the covenant process was subsequently thrown into disarray when the meeting declined to endorse the full document.
ARCIC appointment does not violate American ban, ACC says: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 11, 2011 p 7. February 10, 2011
Posted by geoconger in ARCIC, Church of England Newspaper, The Episcopal Church.comments closed
Prof. Mark McIntosh
The appointment of an American priest to the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) does not mean that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s ban on members of churches in violation of the Windsor Report serving on ecumenical dialogue committees has been lifted, the staff of the Anglican Consultative Council reports, as the new commission member is not American enough to trigger the ban.
The appointment to the ARCIC III team of one of the author’s the Episcopal Church’s apologia for gay ‘bishops and blessings’ has caused disquiet among conservatives. It is also likely to set back Dr. Rowan Williams’ hopes for regaining the trust of the majority faction within the Communion, who hold a jaundiced view of the probity of the ACC staff.
On Feb 4, ACNS reported that ten Anglicans, including an American priest working in the UK and the suffragan bishop of Toronto had been appointed to the ecumenical dialogue commission which is scheduled to meet this May in Italy.
However, in his Pentecost letter of May 28, 2010, Dr. Rowan Williams stated that members of provinces that were in breach of the three moratoria on gay bishops and blessings and cross-border encroachments of provincial boundaries would no longer participate in the formal ecumenical dialogues in which the Anglican Communion was engaged
“Provinces that have formally, through their Synod or House of Bishops, adopted policies that breach any of the moratoria requested by the Instruments of Communion and recently reaffirmed by the Standing Committee and the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order should not be participants in the ecumenical dialogues in which the Communion is formally engaged,” Dr. Williams wrote.
Five Americans were subsequently removed from the Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist and Old Catholic dialogue commissions, while Dr. Katherine Grieb of the Virginia Theological Seminary was demoted from membership in the Anglican UFO commission to consultant status.
Canada was spared demotion as its primate had assured the ACC that it had taken no “formal” steps to permit gay blessings even though a number of dioceses, including Toronto, have adopted the practice. Bishop Tito Zavala of Chile was also demoted to observer status on the UFO commission, although the ACC staff made its decision before a reply could be given by the province’s standing commission on its violations of the moratoria.
A spokesman for Lambeth Palace told The Church of England Newspaper the chairman of the new ARCIC team, Archbishop David Moxon of New Zealand, was appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, while the members of the team were selected by ACC Secretary General Canon Kenneth Kearon in consultation with Archbishop Moxon.
Among those appointed by Canon Kearon was a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, Prof. Mark McIntosh, who in 2009 was appointed Van Mildert Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham.
A spokesman for the ACC told CEN “Canon Prof McIntosh is a canon residentiary of Durham and is licensed as a priest in the Church of England. So he is not prevented from being a member of ARCIC.”
This explanation has rung false with critics of the ACC, who note that some Americans appear to be more American than others. Canon Phil Ashey, who was barred from taking his seat as a delegate from Uganda at the ACC meeting in Jamaica on the grounds that although he was a bona fida priest of the Church of Uganda he was an American and former Episcopal priest, stated he was disappointed by the news, saying this was “further evidence” that the ACC, Canon Kearon and “ultimately the Archbishop of Canterbury make up the rules as they go along and then choose whether or not to abide by them.”
“This appointment undermines the ARCIC talks. Mark Macintosh from The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago comes from a church that has broken communion with the majority of the Anglican Communion and Anglican teaching, and willfully, repeatedly violated the very faith once delivered for which the Roman Catholic Church stands,” he said.
While he did post-graduate work in the UK, Dr. McIntosh was born and educated in the United States, and was ordained a priest in the Diocese of Chicago by former Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold. In 2005, Dr. McIntosh was one of the co-authors of a paper presented to the ACC meeting in Nottingham, entitled “To Set Our Hope on Christ” that defended the Episcopal Church’s innovations of doctrine and discipline over homosexuality.
Espionage accusations leveled against Buddhist leader: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 4, 2011 February 8, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Buddhism, Church of England Newspaper, Politics.comments closed
The 17th Karmapa Lama
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
India is in the midst of a media frenzy over speculation that the third highest Tibetan Buddhist leader, the Karmapa Lama, is a Chinese spy.
Speaking to reporters last week in Bangalore, the Dalai Lama defended his likely successor as political leader of Tibet in exile, saying he was “an important lama, a spiritual leader. People from different parts of the world including many Chinese, come to seek his blessing and offer money.”
However, the 25 year-old Lama, Ogyen Trinley Dorjee, had been unwise, the Dalai Lama conceded, saying the cash discovered by police “should have been deposited in a bank and not kept in cash at the monastery.”
In the two-day search of the Karmapa’s Gyuto Tantric monastery in Dharamsala last month, police found approximately £500,000 in cash in half a dozen currencies, including 110 million Chinese yuan—in wads of notes with consecutive serial numbers. The Karmapa Lama was questioned by police for several hours over the source of the undeclared funds and over his ties to China, and his accountant was arrested.
Citing unnamed government sources, the Indian press has reported the Lama is suspected of being an agent of influence for the Chinese government.
The Karmapa Lama is the spiritual leader of one of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, ranking only behind the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. As head of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, the Karmapa is believed by devotees to be a living Buddha. He is also the first high lama to be recognised by China’s communist government.
The search for the 17th Karmapa Lama began in 1981 when the 16th Lama died. In 1992 the Dalia Lama had a vision of where the new high lama could be found, and a search team sent to Eastern Tibet found the 7-year old boy, a nomad’s son. The Dalai Lama gave his blessing to the selection and on June 27, 1992 the Chinese government endorsed Ogyen Trinley Dorjee as the 17th Karmapa Lama.
In December 1999, the Karmapa Lama escaped from Tibet to India, crossing the Himalayas by foot. Some Tibetan Buddhists believed the boy’s winter flight across the mountains was suspicious and suspected he had been sent to India by the Chinese government. A rival group anointed another monk, Trinley Thaye Dorje, as the 17th Karmapa Lama.
Indian police, intelligence services and tax authorities are currently investigating the affair. However, the Lama’s aides have denied any wrong doing. The cash had been “received for charitable purposes from local and international disciples from many different countries wishing to support His Holiness’ various charitable activities. Any suggestion that these offerings were to be used for illegal purposes in libelous,” the statement said.
“The allegations being leveled against the Karmapa and his administration are grossly speculative and without foundation in the truth,” the Lama’s aides said, and they “categorically deny having any link whatsoever with any arm of the Chinese government.”
Parliament warned local govt cuts a threat to youth programmes: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 4, 2011 p 6. February 8, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Youth/Children.comments closed
Mark Pritchard MP
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Local government spending cuts will have a deleterious effect on Church-sponsored youth work, the Second Church Estates Commissioner told Parliament last month.
On Jan 18, the member for The Wrekin, Mark Pritchard (Cons), the deputy chairman of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee, asked Second Church Estates Commission Tony Baldy what recent discussions the Church Commissioners had had with “local authorities on Church-sponsored youth groups.”
In a written statement, Mr. Baldry responded there was “still a desire to work in partnership” with local government to provide services to young people, “but most recent conversations” have focused on how budget cuts “will impact on projects undertaken by the Church and other voluntary sector organizations.”
The Lincolnshire County Council was seeking a 60 per cent cut to the “youth budget of children’s services and there are similar stories from across the country,” Mr. Baldry said. The Church of England’s concern was “not only for young people within it but also those in the wider community.”
The Second Church Estates Commissioner highlighted the extent of youth services provided by the Church, noting the Church of England currently provided activities “outside church” for over 439,900 children and young people.”
In addition, “approximately 440,000 children and young people up to the age of 25 [were] attending church-based activities and youth groups which are staffed by 116,000 volunteers and an additional 4,900 employed adults,” Mr. Baldry said.
Cardinal Kasper receives Lambeth honour: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 4, 2011 p 6. February 7, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England Newspaper, Roman Catholic Church.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has awarded the former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christina Unity a ‘Lambeth Cross’ for his services towards the cause of Christian unity.
Dr. Rowan Williams presented the award on Jan 20 at a dinner hosted by the Nikean Club in London to Cardinal Walter Kasper, who thanked the archbishop and the Church of England. He singled out the Church of England’s assistance with Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the UK last year, saying the pope had been well received by “Her Majesty the Queen, by [Dr. Williams], by the government and especially by the people, both Anglicans and Catholics.”
In his after dinner address, Cardinal Kasper stated that ecumenism was not “dead,” but “is lively and it is engaging in a new and hopeful phase of its history.”
Church unity is “not an end in itself,” he said, but “helps to fulfill the mission of the Church to spread the Gospel and its values in a world which needs it so much in order to come to more justice, freedom and peace.”
Europe was in particular need of the Gospel, he said. Although it had a “rich cultural inheritance” it was also in the grip of a “confusing spiritual disorientation [that] needs new spiritual guidance and new evangelization.”
“We can do it only together and we should try to do it as much we can together,” Cardinal Kasper said.
Bishop called to testify before NSW Supreme Court: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 4, 2011 p 6. February 6, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Newcastle Bishop Brian Farran
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Bishop of Newcastle, Australia has been summoned to give evidence before the New South Wales Supreme Court in the civil review of a diocesan disciplinary hearing which found three men, including the retired Dean of Newcastle Graeme Lawrence, guilty of sexual abuse.
Papers were served last week on the diocese, ordering Bishop Brian Farran to appear for questioning on Feb 3. However, the bishop is currently out of the country and the diocese is expected to ask for a postponement.
On Dec 15, the Professional Standards Board held that Dean Lawrence and his partner—church organist Gregory Goyette—had engaged in sexual relations with a 17 year old boy at a church camp in 1984. A second priest, the Rev. Graeme Sturt was found to have observed the incident, but did not report the abuse.
The board recommended Dean Lawrence and Mr. Sturt be defrocked and Mr. Goyette prevented from working in the church.
Bishop Farran, board president Colin Elliott and two other board members were named in the suit, which claims their decision was “affected by actual bias” against the accused and that they prejudged the allegations against them.
The suit also alleges the priests were denied procedural due process and that the standards board had held itself out as a court competent to judge the accused, when it lacked the powers of a court or the ability to gather and hear evidence.
The diocese has responded in its pleading that the Supreme Court does not have “supervisory jurisdiction” over ecclesiastical affairs and is barred from adjudicating the priests’ claims.
A spokesman for the diocese denied the charges of bias leveled by the accused, telling the Australian Broadcasting Corporation “proceedings against the former Dean and his partner have nothing to do with their sexual orientation.”
‘Red mass’ marks end of legal links to London: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 4, 2011 p 7. February 6, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of the West Indies, Politics.comments closed
Chief Justice Samuel Awich of Belize
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Belize marked the end of the appellate jurisdiction of the Privy Council in London over the courts of the West Indian nation last month at the annual ‘red mass’ for the judiciary and the country’s lawyers before the opening session of the Supreme Court.
The legal fraternity gathered at St John’s Anglican Cathedral on Jan 18 for a service led by the Rt. Rev. Philip Wright who urged the courts to continue to work with the church as being the twin guides of justice and “moral authority” for the nation.
“We have all heard the many mothers and families on the evening news and calling in on the talk shows, crying out for justice, ‘We want justice!’ And in the next breath they ask, ‘Where is the church?’,” the bishop said.
“I take no offense when they do this. God help us when they stop caring about what the church thinks, and when they find they have no alternative but to take justice into their own hands without recourse to the law.”
Bishop Wright went on to say that the church and the courts must work together, as “grave harm comes to society when these institutions fail.”
Following the ceremony, the legal fraternity processed from the cathedral to the law courts to hear speeches from government and judicial leaders. Chief Justice Samuel Awich noted that this term would see appellate jurisdiction transferred from the Privy Council in London to the Caribbean Court of Justice in Port-of-Spain. Holding on to the Privy Council was a “nostalgia for the past, rather than logic and good sense,” he said, adding that Belize had now received its “judicial independence” from its former colonial master.
Attorney General B.Q. Pitts told the assembly, “now we are the owners and responsible for our own justice system and its further and future development according to our needs and circumstances.”
The Privy Council had been out of touch, he said. “An obvious example of this is the fact that a great number of Belizeans do not believe that punishments for crimes of violence reflects the general view in Belize,” but the Supreme Court had to follow the guideline of the Privy Council.
The Privy Council had effectively banned the imposition of the death penalty in the Caribbean, a move which had registered strong political protest—but received the backing of the region’s Anglican bishops.
However, the Caribbean’s judicial independence was not entirely voluntary. The chief justice noted that in 2007 the Lord Chancellor in England “made it known to the Commonwealth Caribbean nations that appeals from the Caribbean took too much of the time of Privy Council judges, and without the Caribbean nations paying for it. One might say that Belize departed from the Privy Council before being forced to leave,” Justice Awich said.
Arrests made in CMJ murder in Jerusalem: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 4, 2011 p 8. February 5, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & the Middle East, Mission Societies/Religious Orders, Terrorism.comments closed
Kristine Luken
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Kristine Luken, the CMJ staffer stabbed to death while hiking in a forest outside Jerusalem, was murdered because her attackers thought she was a Jew, Israeli police report.
Last week the Israeli police announced that two Palestinian men had confessed to the Dec 18 stabbing of Ms. Luken and her friend and fellow CMJ staffer, Kay Wilson. Four other Palestinians from the West Bank also have been arrested, accused of providing logistical support to the killers.
According to indictment, the alleged killers, Kifah Ghneimat and Iyad Fatafa, were part of a gang responsible for a series of violent crimes committed over the past two years. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told ABC News the gang’s “activity had an initial criminal orientation,” but took a political turn following the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
On Jan 19, 2010 al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas military commander reputed to be a liaison between Hamas and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was killed in his hotel room at the five-star al-Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai. Suspicion initially fell on Israel, and Hamas claimed the killing was an Israeli government sanctioned assassination. However, at the time of his death, al-Mabhouh was wanted by the Israeli, Egyptian and Jordanian governments and the murder remains unsolved.
The murder of Kistine Luken was in “revenge” for the al-Mabhouh assassination, Mr. Rosenfeld said.
According to the indictment, the two Palestinians “decided to enter Israel illegally in order to kill Jews.”
They chanced upon Luken and Wilson, who were hiking through a forest southwest of Jerusalem, and attacked them. Wilson “tried to convince them they were not Jewish, in order to convince them not to hurt them,” the indictment read, but one of the attackers grabbed a Star of David necklace worn by Wilson, shouting in Arabic, “What’s this?” and proceeded to stab the two women.
Stabbed 12 times, Kaye Wilson feigned death. After her attackers fled, she was able to make her way to a parking lot where a passerby found her and alerted the police. Kristine Luken, however, bled to death.
The alleged killers were arrested within 48 hours of the attack, the police spokesman said, but held in secret while other members of the gang were sought.
The rector of Christ Church, Jerusalem, the Rev. David Pileggi, said the Anglican community was “relieved at the capture” of the alleged killers.
However the arrests do not “end our grief, nor does it bring healing,” he said. “We look for that consolation in God’s presence amongst us and in the hope of the resurrection,” Mr. Pileggi said.
China to “guide” Christians into state church: The Church of England Newspaper Feb 4, 2011 p 6. February 5, 2011
Posted by geoconger in China, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Bishop David Urquhart of Birmingham and Elder Fu Xiawe
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Chinese government has announced plans to “guide” Protestant Christians worshiping at unregistered “house churches” towards worshiping in the state approved China Christian Council/Three Self Patriotic Movement.
In its agenda for the coming year published on Jan 24, China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) said bringing all Protestants into the fold of the CCC/TSPM would help the activities of Protestant churches proceed in a normal and orderly way. However, details of how this guiding would take place have not been revealed, the Peking-based People’s Daily reported.
SARA stated it would also work to “educate” China’s Catholics on the principle of self-governance in church affairs, “guiding” Catholic churches in China to independently select and consecrate bishops, rather than defer to the Vatican.
The agenda said the SARA will strengthen regulation of foreign nationals’ group religious activities in China and resist foreign infiltration under the pretext of religion.
The number of Christians in China is unknown. Official statistics published by SARA in 2006 reported 10 million Protestants and 4 million Catholics in China. The numbers were revised last year following a survey by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) which gave the total of Protestant Christians as 23.05 million. The government survey reported that 70 per cent of Protestant Christians worshiped in “registered churches” of the CCC/TSPM while 30 per cent worshiped in “house churches.
However, in a 2007 briefing for Community Party cadres, SARA director Yie Xiaowen reported there were 110 million Protestants and 20 million Catholics in China at the close of 2006. In 1949 there were an estimated 750,000 Chinese Protestants, many of whom subsequently fled to Taiwan and Hong Kong following the defeat of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces.
According to China Aid, a Texas-based human rights group, the number of Christians in China has increased 100-fold since 1949. Current estimates range from 80 million to 130 million active members.
Bringing China’s Christians under state control has been a priority for the government and a number of Catholic bishops and Protestant pastors have been jailed by the government for failing to register with the state. While religious freedom is guaranteed by China’s state constitution, religious activities may be conducted only at registered religious sites such as Buddhist monasteries, Taoist temples, mosques and churches.
Anglican groups have worked to strengthen formal ties with the official CCC/TSPM as well as encourage the burgeoning house church movement. In December the Bishop of Birmingham, the Rt. Rev. David Urquhart paid an official call on Elder Fu Xianwei, Chairman of the National Committee of the TSPM. Elder Fu “extended his gratitude to The Church of England for supporting the Chinese Protestant Churches for so many years, meanwhile, also conveyed the greetings to the Archbishop of Canterbury on behalf of CCC/TSPM,” a Chinese press statement reported.
The Rev Gao Feng, President of the CCC said China welcomed future visits from the Archbishop of Canterbury that would “deepen the friendship” and further “cooperation through mutual communication” between the Church of England and the Chinese state church.
In October, the bishops of the Anglican Church of Korea traveled to Peking to meet with the leaders of the TSPM/CCC and on Dec 27 members of the faculty of Trinity Theological Seminary in Singapore met with the TSPM/CCC leadership to discuss questions of common interest and concern.
Two way traffic between Canterbury and Rome, Church Commissioners report: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 4, 2011 p 7. February 4, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Roman Catholic Church.comments closed
Anne McIntosh MP
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
At least 14 Roman Catholic priests have attempted to join the Church of England in the past five years, the Second Church Estates Commissioner told Parliament last month.
In response to a question concerning the pension liabilities of former Roman Catholic priests who had entered the ministry of the Church of England submitted by the member for Thirsk and Malton, Anne McIntosh, (Cons.), on Jan 18 the Second Church Estates Commission Mr. Tony Baldry said there was no pension liability as the Church Commissioners were responsible only for pensions earned by Church of England clergy before 1998.
He went on to say that there was no exact figure on the number of ex-Roman Catholic clergy serving in the Church of England.
Mr. Baldry said that the “figures held centrally by the Ministry Division of the Archbishop’s Council show that in the period 2005-10 the division’s candidate’s panel dealt with 14 former Roman Catholic priests seeking ordination in the Church of England, of whom 11 were accepted for ministry.”
However, as there is “discretion at diocesan level over the requirements for acceptance into ministry, not all cases are centrally recorded, meaning the national figure is likely to be higher,” Mr. Baldry said.
Church call for sex education in primary schools: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 4, 2011 February 4, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of the West Indies, Education, Youth/Children.comments closed
Bishop Calvin Bess of Trinidad (left) Archbishop John Holder of the West Indies (right)
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Anglican Church has joined in National Parent Teachers Association (NPTA) of Trinidad in calling for sex education classes for under-12s.
On Jan 20, the Rt. Rev. Calvin Bess, Bishop of Trinidad said the education minister’s statement last week to the island’s senate that seven primary schools students were compelled to suspend their schooling after they became pregnant was troubling.
Notwithstanding the moral issues at play of children having children, “this state of affairs” was “most regrettable as it will impact on those students’ academic career, and ultimately their future,” the bishop said.
The Anglican Church in the West Indies welcomed plans to combat teen pregnancy, “even if it means introducing some measure of sex education in the school system,” he said.
Trinidad & Tobago follows the British education system, with children enrolled in either state or church-affiliated primary schools from age 5 to 12, and in secondary schools until aged 16. At the end of their primary school education, children sit for the Secondary Entrance Assessment exams, which govern where they will be educated for secondary school. After completing secondary school, children sit for their CSEC (Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate) examinations, akin to the GCE O levels, and those with high scores may continue in school for two further years and sit for their A level exams. The free and compulsory education system has given the island one of the highest literacy rates in the world, exceeding 98 per cent.
The president of Trinidad’s NPTA, Zena Ramatali, last week urged the government to introduce Health and Family Life education programmes as “young people are being bombarded with sexual encounters and teenage pregnancy at an early age.”
However, Bishop Bess said the church believed it was important to have the right programmes in place. A poorly designed curriculum could “produce opposite effects than those which were intended,” prompting children to experiment with sex.
Young people “need to understand that their body is something sacred and that it was a gift from God, so it must be carefully looked after and not abused,” the bishop said.
Dublin primates meeting marks an ‘end to the communion as we know it’: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 4, 2011 p 1. February 3, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Primates Meeting 2011.comments closed
The primates in Dublin
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A meeting of the leaders of 23 of the Communion’s 38 provinces has produced a draft agreement diminishing the primates’ role as an instrument of unity for the Anglican Communion. The primates meeting is to be restructured into a pan-Anglican fellowship for conversation, with a goal of “acknowledging diversity and giving space for difference” within the church, according to a ‘working document’ released at the close of the Jan 24-30 meeting in Dublin.
The reforms put forward by Dr. Williams and the Dublin primates have abandoned the calls for discipline and good order made by the primates since the 1997 Jerusalem meeting, conceding there is not political will to take action against the Episcopal Church. It also follows upon the revamping of the Lambeth Conference as a teaching instrument for bishops in 2008, the controversial 2009 ACC meeting that torpedoed the Anglican Covenant process, and the creation in questionable circumstances of an all powerful Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion last year.
Dr. Williams has now effectively gathered the authority once held by other instruments of the communion into his own hands, and into those of a London-based bureaucracy.
The bulk of the meeting was spent in preparing the working document on the purpose and authority of the primates meeting and their standing committee. “By God’s grace we strive to express,” the document states, “unity in diversity which is the Spirit’s work among the churches of the communion and the community of primates.”
The Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church told a press conference at the close of the meeting, “what we have been doing is rebuilding our relationships,” seeking to come together as a “communion of independent churches.”
The Dublin primates prepared public and private letters on a range of issues: gender-based violence, the persecution of Christians in Pakistan, political instability on the Korean peninsula, Zimbabwe, political instability in Egypt, government travel restrictions imposed by Israel on the Bishop in Jerusalem, and the independence referendum in the Sudan.
Letters on problems of climate change, Haiti and the murder of a gay rights activist in Uganda were also released by the gathering. Members of the primates standing committee were also elected, though their names were not made public.
Dr. Williams acknowledged the absence of 15 primates, noting a candle had been lit for them in the conference centre chapel. However, no “meeting can allow itself to be shaped wholly by the people who are not there,” he said.
“The fact remains that two-thirds of the body of primates was present and something like three -quarters, possibly a little more, expressed their willingness to be present but were unable for one reason or another. That means that two-thirds of the primates at least wish to continue to meet and wish to continue the conversations they’ve begun,” Dr. Williams said.
A spokesman for the Gafcon movement told The Church of England Newspaper that it was unlikely the primates affiliated with the conservative reform movement would comment on the meeting. Each archbishop made his own decision whether or not to attend, the spokesman explained, and there is no common response yet to what took place in Dublin.
A senior Global South leader told CEN, the Dublin meeting was “irrelevant” to several of the absent primates. “It doesn’t mean a thing to them,” he noted.
As Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Williams’ sole power lay in his ability to call meetings of the church. Lambeth and now Dublin has shown he has lost this “moral authority” as his invitations now go unanswered, the bishop noted. Dr. Williams cannot now claim that he speaks for a majority of Anglicans, he said.
The former Dean of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, Dr. Phillip Turner of the Anglican Communion Institute told CEN he was disappointed by the reports produced by the meeting. “Here we have reports on both the function and the organization of the Primates meeting that neither locate as an aspect of ecclesiology the office and role of a primate within a communion of churches nor speak of how the meeting and its standing committee are to address a province or diocese within the communion whose actions other Provinces do not recognize as in accord with scripture.”
“These reports are theologically vacuous,” Dean Turner said. “Sadly, they only display the fact that this Instrument has become dysfunctional. It has become dysfunctional because neither the Primates as a group nor the Primate who is primus inter pares were willing and able to address the actions” of the North American churches.
The “fabric” of the communion remains torn “because of a failure in leadership,” he said, noting that the “communion as we have known it is gone.”
In its place the Dublin primates have adopted an ecclesiology where “we are all friendly and we do good works, but we need not share commonly recognized forms of belief and practice,” Dean Turner said.
Senior US military chaplain joins ACNA: The Church of England Newspaper, Feb 4 2011, p 8. February 3, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Chaplain (Maj. Gen.) John B. Ellington, Jr., of the ACNA
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The senior serving chaplain of the US National Guard was ordained a priest in the Anglican Church in North America last week at a ceremony in suburban Virginia.
Maj. Gen. John B. Ellington, Jr., was one of three priests ordained by Bishop Martyn Minns on Jan 15 at The Falls Church in Falls Church, Virginia. The new priest becomes the ranking Anglican priest serving in the US military.
Organized in 2007, the Deanery for Chaplains of the ACNA is led by Bishop Derek Jones and has 100 clergy serving in the US military, Bureau of Prisons, Veterans Administration and in the health care industry.
This is a “joyous occasion” for the ACNA, Archbishop Robert Duncan said. “We are blessed to bear witness to the Chaplaincies’ continued growth, and we look forward to the way in which Christ will work through our newly ordained chaplains.”
One of four ‘two-star’ chaplain flag officers, (Major Generals and a Rear Admiral), serving in the US military, Maj. Gen. Ellington oversees the 2,200 Army and Air Force National Guard Chaplain Corps personnel and is the primary advisor on religious, ethical, moral, and morale issues to the 450,000 members of the National Guard and to the National Guard Bureau.
Ordained in 1975 in the Christian Church-Disciples of Christ, Maj. Gen. Ellington served as a parish minister at Indian Lake Community Church in Russells Point, Ohio before he was commissioned in the Air National Guard in 1979.
“Chaplain Ellington’s movement to the Anglican Church comes after more than 40 years of significant active ministry,” Bishop Jones said, adding “Chaplain Ellington is just one of many experienced chaplains who have journeyed on a ‘Canterbury Trail’ to the historic church and Anglican Faith.”
The number of ACNA chaplains has almost doubled over the past year Bishop Jones told The Church of England Newspaper, with many coming from other Protestant denominations. “For many” of the new chaplains, the Anglican option for ministry in the United States was blocked because “the only option for them was the Episcopal Church.
With the creation of the ACNA “these chaplains realized an orthodox option was now available and began making applications,” he noted, adding that the “training and education” of the those from outside the Anglican tradition takes from six months to a year.
A number of chaplains have also come from the Episcopal Church he said, and “there are many chaplains with the Episcopal Church who have inquired about transferring, but we have encouraged them to hang tight” for now.
The reception process for Episcopal priests depends on the individual’s circumstances, Bishop Jones said, and is based on their “home diocese, current maturity within rank, grade, and seniority structures, and the chaplain’s ability to ‘weather the storm’ should they become identified as wanting to move to an orthodox communion.”
He added that he had advised a number of Episcopal clergy “to be patient so that they may remain supportive of their bishop, many of whom are under the crosshairs [of the national church hierarchy]” for their traditionalist views.
Zanzibar episcopal election cancelled: The Church of England Newspaper, Jan 28, 2011. February 2, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Tanzania, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Tanzanian Chief Justice Augustino Ramadhani
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Internal tensions have derailed the election of a Bishop of Zanzibar, sources in Tanzania tell The Church of England Newspaper.
Vacant since the death of Bishop Deogras Toto in 2006, the Diocese of Zanzibar had been scheduled to elect a new bishop in November 2010 from a list of three local candidates. Since the death of Bishop Toto retired Archbishop Donald Mtetemela and Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa have exercised episcopal oversight for the diocese.
The original delay in electing a new bishop sources tell CEN was due to the canonical requirements that a bishop be at least 40 years of age and hold a diploma in theology—a hurdle the local clergy could not jump in 2006. However the latest delay the Guardian newspaper of Dar es Salaam reports came after one of the diocese’s senior lay leaders and the registrar of the Anglican Church of Tanzania, the Chief Justice of Tanzania Augustino Ramadhani, declined to give his support to any of the candidates.
Diocesan secretary Nuhu Salanya said he was unaware of the Judge’s views, but said the election had been postponed due to “misunderstandings” between the diocese and the church’s national offices in Dodoma.
Bishops back ‘Save England’s Forests” campaign: The Church of England Newspaper, Jan 28, 2011 p 5. February 2, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Environment.comments closed
The Rt. Rev. Michael Perham, Bishop of Gloucester
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Leaders of the Church of England have given their support to the “Save England’s Forests” campaign, endorsing an open letter printed in The Sunday Telegraph calling for the government to halt the sale of state owned woodlands.
In October, the coalition announced plans to sell of 15 per cent of the 620,000 acres owned by the Forestry Commission in England. The sale of timber and land in the New Forest, the Forest of Dean and Sherwood Forest, could generate upwards of £100 million in revenue.
However, on Jan 23 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, actress Dame Judi Dench, Lord Rees the astronomer royal, pop singer Annie Lennox, explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes and approximately 100 public figures called the sale “unconscionable” and “ill-conceived”.
“We, who love and use the English forests, believe that such a sale would be misjudged and shortsighted,” the letter said.
“It is our national heritage,” they stated, adding that it was “unconscionable that future generations will not be able to enjoy the guarantee of a public forest estate. They called upon the government to “suspend any significant sales, until the public has been fully consulted.”
The president of Save England’s Forests, Rachel Johnson stated the “great and the good” who signed the letter “stand as the mouthpiece of the nation. Our message, in no uncertain terms, is that the Government cannot rush through legislation that will change our English countryside forever.”
The Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt. Rev. Michael Perham, one of the signatories of The Sunday Telegraph letter, said the proposal to sell of parts of the Forest of Dean, which lies within his diocese “saddens me greatly.”
He noted the proposed law would alter the character of the Forest communities and make it “vulnerable to any plans for sale or development.”
“I am concerned that this Bill will retract the acknowledgement of the unique nature of the Forest of Dean, established in the early 1980s,” he said.
In 1981 Parliament limited the powers of the Forestry Commission to sell land in the Forest of Dean, the bishop said. “The current Public Bodies Bill proposes to remove this exemption, undermining the importance of special situation of this area of Gloucestershire,” he said.
The Bishop of Guilford would present an amendment to the Public Bodies Bill to the House of Lords on Jan 25, Bishop Perham said, that would preserve the historic character of the Forest of Dean.
Archbishops: Do not allow criminals to escape justice by appeals to tribe!: The Church of England Newspaper, Jan 28, 2011 p 8. February 1, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Kenya, Church of England Newspaper, Crime.comments closed
Archbishop Eliud Wabukala of Kenya
Tribal and ethnic tensions must not derail the pursuit of justice and truth, church leaders in Kenya declared last month.
Speaking at All Saints’ Cathedral in Nairobi on Christmas Day, Archbishop Eliud Wabukala urged Kenyans not to view life through the prism of ethnicity, while his Roman Catholic counterpart Cardinal John Njue urged politicians to be “agents of peace and not the other way round.”
On Dec 15, International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo brought an indictment against six prominent Kenyans. Former higher education minister William Ruto, Minister for Industrialization Henry Kosgey and radio broadcaster Joshua Sang were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and ethnic cleansing against supporters of President Mwai Kibaki.
In a separate indictment Moreno Ocampo charged Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Cabinet Secretary Francis Muthaura and former police commissioner Maj. Gen. Mohammed Hussein Ali with committing crimes against humanity upon the supporters of Prime Minister Raila Odinga in the post-election violence.
The 2007 general election sparked a sharp clash between supporters of President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga. Over 1000 people were killed in tribal and political clashes and tens of thousands were driven from their homes.
In his Christmas sermon delivered at the Holy Family Basilica, Cardinal Njue said the uncertain political climate required political leaders from all parties to eschew violence and tribal passions. “This is not time for hatred,” he said.
Archbishop Wabukala lamented the tendency of some Kenyans to protect members of their own tribe. Politicians accused of corruption were defending themselves with appeals for tribal support, he said.
Archbishop condemns bankers’ bonus culture as ‘immoral’: The Church of England Newspaper, Jan 28, 2011 p 6. February 1, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church in Wales, Church of England Newspaper, Popular Culture.comments closed
The Archbishop of Wales, Dr. Barry Morgan
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Archbishop of Wales has called on bankers and businessmen to adopt a moral code governing their professional conduct.
In a speech delivered on Jan 12 to the Profession Wales Group, Dr. Barry Morgan said the current climate of bankers’ bonuses was “immoral” and urged those taking a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree to adopt a code of conduct akin to the Hippocratic Oath taken by physicians.
The international financial crisis, the bankers’ bonus culture and the MPs’ expense scandal were evidence of the moral decline of the business professions, he argued. Ethical behavior was seen by some in industry as being contrary to good business practice, yet without the standards of trust and behavior the capitalist system would collapse, he said.
“To talk about ethics means talking about how we should live our lives and the kind of people we ought to be and the way we would like our communities to function. In the context of business this used to be regarded as irrelevant, pious or even weak. It was not seen as ‘businesslike’ in a world where competition ruled and financial growth was the only marker of success,” Dr. Morgan said.
Government regulation would not fix the problem, however, as the issue was at heart one of morality rather than economics. He urged business to adopt a code of conduct proposed by professors at Harvard’s Business School.
“The MBA Oath is something worth considering because in the end conventional regulation cannot cure moral blindness or rule out greed,” Dr. Morgan said.
Top executives should set an example for their staff, he argued, calling upon British industry to foster a “culture, customs, traditions and an ethos where people are valued.”
“If we separate economic life from longer term goals for humans and fail to ask the questions of what life is for, and assume that the profit motive is paramount, then we will not be seeking the wellbeing of all, especially the most vulnerable and our society will unravel. Shared wellbeing and how we achieve it are the most crucial questions that our country and world faces,” the archbishop said.
