Lawsuit charges US Presiding Bishop knowingly ordained a paedophile: The Church of England Newspaper, June 29, 2011 June 29, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Church of England Newspaper, The Episcopal Church.comments closed
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church has declined to respond to questions concerning her ordination to the priesthood of a paedophile. Her silence has prompted questions from liberals and conservatives in the church about what she knew of the Rev. Bede Parry’s confessed abuse of boys, and when she knew it.
Last week Fr. Parry resigned as an assistant priest on the staff of All Saints Episcopal Church in Las Vegas. On June 23 he was named as a sexual predator in a lawsuit filed by a Missouri man against Conception Abbey, a Roman Catholic monastery and seminary in Missouri.
Fr. Parry admitted he had abused the victim in 1987 in an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Kansas City Star, but told both newspapers he had not reoffended since that time.
The lawsuit, filed in Nodaway County Circuit Court in Missouri, alleges that Parry joined the Benedictine order in 1973, leaving the abbey from 1979 to 1982 to study at St. John’s University School of Theology in Collegeville, Minnesota. Upon his return to the abbey, Br. Parry was appointed secretary to the abbot and director of the choir. In 1983 he was ordained to the priesthood.
The lawsuit contends that between 1973 and 1979, Br. Parry confessed to abusing three boys, and in 1981 confessed to having had sexual contact with a student at St. John’s. Br. Parry allegedly confessed his actions to his ecclesial superiors at Conception Abbey and St John’s College, but was permitted to remain in the order if he underwent psychological counseling.
The 1987 abuse case was the fifth reported to the abbey, the lawsuit said. After learning of their son’s abuse at the hands of Fr. Parry, the parents of the choir boy demanded the abbot, Fr. Jerome Hanus, take action.
Fr. Hanus, who now serves as Archbishop of Dubuque, Iowa, told the parents Fr. Parry had had a “mental breakdown” and would undergo psychiatric counseling. The abbey sent Parry to church-run clinic for abusers at the Servants of the Paraclete in New Mexico. After he completed his stay, he was suspended for three years and forbidden to return to the abbey. Fr. Parry found work in the Southwest at Lutheran and Catholic parishes as a music director.
In 2000, the lawsuit states, Fr. Parry underwent psychological testing after he applied for admission to another monastery. “The results of this testing revealed that Fr. Parry was a sexual abuser who had the proclivity to reoffend with minors,” the lawsuit stated, adding this information was shared with the abbey, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas and the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada.
Fr. Parry acknowledged the truth of these allegations, but said the Episcopal Diocese had not been informed of his history in 2000, when he began working as music director at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Las Vegas.
However, he told the Episcopal Bishop of Nevada, the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori of the 1987 incident when he applied to be received as priest in the Episcopal Church in 2002.
In an interview with The Star, Fr. Parry stated the allegations in the lawsuit were true. “When I left Conception Abbey in ’87, it was for sexual misconduct,” he said. “But that was all that was ever said or known.”
After serving as music director for two years at All Saints, Parry said he noticed “they needed clergy, and I felt called. I talked to the bishop, and she accepted me. And I told her at the time that there was an incident of sexual misconduct at Conception Abbey in ’87. The Episcopal Church doesn’t have a ‘one strike and you’re out’ policy, so it didn’t seem like I was any particular threat. She said she’d have to check the canons, and she did.”
On June 23, members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, held a rally outside of All Saints Church to demand the Episcopal Church “come clean about why they hired [Parry] despite clear ‘red flags’ in his past,” and to “aggressively seek out others he hurt and prod them to call police and prosecutors.”
“The reason that this is so horrific is that the Episcopal Church authorities knew about Father Parry’s history, and yet they still allowed him to come and work here,” SNAP president Barbara Blaine told reporters.
Joelle Casteix, the western regional director of SNAP asked church officials not to “split hairs, make excuses, and be silent.”
“Shepherds have a duty to protect [their] flock, help law enforcement, warn unsuspecting families and work hard to find and help others who’ve been wounded,” she said.
Asked to comment on the allegations, a spokesman for the Presiding Bishop told The Church of England Newspaper, “We do not comment on lawsuits or allegations” and referred questions to the Diocese of Nevada. The Diocese of Nevada did not respond to questions as of our going to press.
In comments on the initial press accounts of the lawsuit printed on the liberal church blog, Episcopal Café, hitherto stalwart supporters of the Presiding Bishop urged her to explain her actions.
The Bishop of Bethlehem, (Pennsylvania), the Rt. Rev. Paul Marshall, was not surprised by the church’s response. When lawyers for the national church “threaten and cajole diocesan bishops not to reveal multiple sex-abuse cover-ups at the highest level lest former leaders be embarrassed, what can we expect?” he wrote on the Episcopal Café website.
“On paper, we are a one-strike church, but in reality, too many people are walked. [The national church] refused comment on this story with principled-sounding obfuscation, which essentially tells it all, doesn’t it?” Bishop Marshall said.
Say ‘no’ to Sharia law, say bishops: The Church of England Newspaper, June 24, 2011 p 8. June 29, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Islam.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Church leaders in the US and UK have called upon their governments to take a stand against Sharia law,
On June 9 the former Bishop of Rochester urged the government to support legislation outlawing the use of Sharia law in Britain when it conflicts with English law, while an American bishop has written to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voicing his dismay over NATO negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Bishop-elect Julian Dobbs of the Anglican Church in North America, and founder of the Church and Islam Project, told Mrs. Clinton that too many people were willing to ignore the implications of Sharia law and believe that Islam is a religion of peace.
“If negotiating peace with the Taliban is now part of US strategy in Afghanistan, I petition you to urgently consider the plight of Christians who are currently the target of inexcusable and indefensible atrocities perpetrated by the Taliban, all in accordance with the US sponsored constitution of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan,” wrote Mr. Dobbs on June 18.
The ACNA leader denounced US complicity in the persecution of Christians by the Afghan Government of Hamid Karzai. “In an increasingly virulent campaign to win ‘hearts and minds’ by proving their loyalty to Islam,” the Karzai government was now targeting Christian converts.
While NATO forces “protected their capital and outlying provinces against revitalized Taliban incursions, the Karzai regime continued arresting native Afghan Christians; holding many of them behind bars today facing possible execution for ‘apostasy’,” Mr. Dobbs wrote, noting that “an outpouring of indignation and protest on this issue from those who enjoy religious liberty in the West is long overdue.”
On June 9, Bishop Michael Nazir Ali told the House of Lords Sharia law had no place in Britain, as it “inherently unequal in its treatment of men and women.”
Speaking in support of the Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill introduced on June 7 by Baroness Cox, Bishop Nazir Ali said that while Britons enjoyed freedom of religion, “at the same time we have a very long tradition of people being equal under the law.”
The bishop noted that the ‘problem” with Sharia was that it was “is inherently unequal for certain kinds of people. Muslims and non-Muslims are treated unequally. Similarly, men and women are treated unequally.
‘So if Sharia is recognised in any way in terms of the public law in this country, that introduces a principle of contradiction in the body of the law which will cause problems for the country and for people who will suffer, particularly women,” he said.
Claims that allowing Sharia law to be enforced in family law cases would upend Western jurisprudence. “Bigamy is still a crime in this country. Would it then be only a crime for some, or for all? Equality before the law is immediately compromised,” the bishop said, adding that in divorce, child custody, and inheritance issues, secular law treats the parties equally while in Sharia law the “man’s position remains dominant.”
Bishop Nazir Ali told the House “we need to make sure that people have free access to the courts and equal protection from the state, as far as their fundamental rights are concerned.”
Sudan ablaze, diocese reports: The Church of England Newspaper, June 24, 2011 p 9. June 29, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church of the Sudan, Persecution.comments closed
Sudan Archbishop Daniel Deng and Bishop Abraham Nhial of Aweil in 2009
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Soldiers loyal to the Islamist government in Khartoum have burned the town of Abyei in Sudan’s South Kordofan state, driving its inhabitants into the bush at the height of the rainy season.
In an email sent to the Anglican Church in North America, the secretary of the Diocese of Aweil, the Rev Stephen Muo on 17 June reported the “whole town was completely set on fire.”
“All the civilians are now down on the streets and in bushes, with no food, no shelters, no water and no medical assistant. [The] majority are still under the trees with children, sick people and elderly people. Aweil Diocese is left with no choice but raise the voice of voiceless for relief assistant,” Mr Muo said.
Fighting erupted last month after northern troops loyal to Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir wrested control of the town of Abyei from troops of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) of southern leader Salva Kiir. The battle has spread across the surrounding South Kordofan State and forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee south from the fighting.
The BBC reported on 14 June that Mr Bashir and Mr Kiir had agreed to a deal brokered by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former South African President Thabo Mbeki and Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to pull their troops back from the disputed region. The deal will also see Ethiopian troops under UN command deployed to Abyei, which will become a demilitarised zone, to help mediate the deal.
However, heavy fighting is continuing across South Kordofan state.
Last week Dr Rowan Williams released a statement deploring the “mounting level of aggression and bloodshed” in South Sudan.
“Numerous villages have been bombed. More than 53,000 people have been driven from their homes. The new Anglican cathedral in Kadugli has been burned down,” the Archbishop reported, adding Kadugli had also been “overrun by the army, and heavy force is being used by government troops to subdue militias in the area, with dire results for local people. Many brutal killings are being reported.”
Dr Williams urged a multi-national response to the crisis and urged Prime Minister David Cameron’s government “which has declared its commitment to a peaceful future for Sudan,” to “play an important part” in ending the conflict.
The Diocese of Aweil has asked for “for urgent support for the civilians who are now lying on the ground without medical attention, shelters, food and water.”
Bishop Abraham Nhial of Aweil asked Christians to “remember in your prayers and advocacy for our brothers and sisters of Abyei who are still missing, those in the bush, and those on the streets in Southern Sudan towns. As always, your prayers are needed for the people of Abyei and the world.”
Kunonga in hospital grab: The Church of England Newspaper, June 24, 2011 p 8 June 28, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Property Litigation, Zimbabwe.comments closed
Dr. Nolbert Kunonga
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Bishop of Masvingo writes from Zimbabwe that Dr Nolbert Kunonga has expanded his depredations beyond Harare and has tried to take control of a diocesan mission hospital in the southeast of the Central African nation.
In an email to the Central African bishops and supporters in the West, Bishop Godfrey Tawonezvi said the breakaway Bishop of Harare “continues to destabilize” the mission hospital in Daramombe “in an effort to forcibly take control of the institution.”
Dr Kunonga’s invasion of the Diocese of Masvingo comes amidst heightened uncertainty in the bitter dispute. On 2 June, Bishop Chad Gandiya of Harare also sent an email to supporters reporting that 16 Anglicans had been arrested by the police after protesting against the invasion of the Rev Julius Zimbudzana’s home by supporters of the breakaway bishop. Several priests were jailed overnight on trumped-up charges, Bishop Gandiya said.
The security forces continue to support the breakaway bishop — a vocal supporter of Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe — while other factions in the regime appear to be distancing themselves from Dr Kunonga. Unsympathetic reports of the breakaway bishop’s actions have begun to appear in the state press, backed by editorials calling for an end to the dispute.
In his email, Bishop Tawonezvi reported that a nurse on the staff of the Daramombe hospital informed the director in April that she recognized Dr Kunonga as the rightful owner of the church facility, and that Dr Kunonga had appointed her head nurse. The Ministry of Health then transferred the nurse to another facility.
On 31 May, “the Bishop, Priest in Charge, and clinic staff had a meeting at the clinic to discuss some administrative issues.” Bishop Tawonezvi wrote and then spoke to the Kunonga nurse, telling her that “her services were no longer required at Daramombe mission. Our conversation with her did not even last a minute.”
The next day the priest in charge of the hospital and the head nurse were arrested by the police and charged with having made an “indecent assault” upon the Kunonga nurse. Bishop Tawonezvi was summoned to the police station on 3 June to answer questions about the alleged assault. Last week the Ministry of Health rescinded its transfer order and sent the Kunonga nurse back to Daramombe.
“Kunonga and his thugs always resort to lies and criminal activities” Bishop Tawonezvi said.
“We will continue to resist efforts by Kunonga to take over Daramombe mission. We are grateful for your prayers,” the bishop’s email said.
Deposed bishop joins Roman Catholic Church: The Church of England Newspaper, June 24, 2011 p 6. June 28, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Anglican Ordinariate, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Ross Davies
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The former Bishop of The Murray has been received into the Roman Catholic Church. However, Ross Davies said he would not avail himself of Pope Benedict XVI’s offer of an Anglican Ordinariate and will remain a layman.
Last December Archbishop Phillip Aspinall deposed Bishop Davies from the ordained ministry, after a tribunal found the former bishop guilty of misconduct and recommended he be removed from the episcopate.
Mr Davies had resigned as Bishop of The Murray in South Australia on 24 September, 2010, one day before a tribunal met to hear nine counts of misconduct laid against him by the Archbishop of Adelaide and Bishop of Willochra. He was adjudged to have subverted the Professional Standards processes by failing to respond to allegations of sexual misconduct made against his archdeacon.
The tribunal found Mr Davies had displayed a lack of commitment to the Anglican Church and acted at times in an abusive manner “inconsistent with his pastoral role as a Bishop of the Diocese.”
This week Mr Davies told The Australian he had been received into the Roman Catholic Church three days after he resigned as bishop, on 27 September, 2010, by Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson.
“I think I am the only Anglican bishop in Australia to join the Catholic Church so far,” Mr Davies said.
However, the former Bishop of Ballarat, the Rt Rev David Silk, who upon retirement became honorary assistant bishop of Exeter, was one of five English bishops who joined the Ordinariate last year.
Six other bishops have so far entered the Ordinariate: the Bishop of Fulham, the Rt Rev John Broadhurst; the Bishop of Richborough, the Rt Rev Keith Newton; the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, the Rt Rev Andrew Burnham; and retired bishops the Rt Rev Edwin Barnes of Richborough, the Rt Rev Raphael Kajiwara of Yokohama, and the Rt Rev Robert Mercer CR of Matabeleland.
Rebuilding begins in Japan following March tsunami: The Church of England Newspaper, June 24, 2011 p 6. June 27, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Disaster Relief, Nippon Sei Ko Kai.comments closed
Archbishop Nathaniel Uematsu
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Anglican Church in Japan has launched its “Let’s walk together” programme to support victims of the Eastern Japan earthquake that has left over 30,000 missing or dead.
Led by the Primate of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai (NSKK), Archbishop Nathaniel Uematsu, and Bishop Jun Nakamura of Tokyo, the aid campaign initially focused on assisting Japanese Anglicans and those in greatest hardship: the “elderly, children, those with disabilities, foreign residents, low-income people, refugees” affected by the 11 March tsunami and earthquake.
Archbishop Uematsu reported the March earthquake was the “strongest earthquake in the country’s history. The resulting enormous tsunami wrought unprecedented death and destruction up and down the coast, particularly in the prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, and Ibaraki.”
“Current figures show roughly 30,000 people dead or missing. Many have lost family and friends, homes and savings. Many still have no choice but to stay in emergency shelters. Moreover, this cataclysmic event seriously damaged the Fukushima nuclear plant, resulting in radioactive pollution which has forced not a few people to leave the familiar surroundings of their homes.”
Immediately after the earthquake, the NSKK began its disaster relief efforts, focusing on emergency assistance. The Japanese government, however, was quickly able to restore basic services and “we stopped collecting supplies on 15 April, and sent the final shipments to the Diocese of Tohoku” in Sendai.
The next stage of disaster relief assistance has now begun, the Archbishop said, with its efforts focused on rebuilding churches, institutions and homes destroyed by the earthquake.
Archbishop Uematsu asked the wider Anglican Communion to help in the rebuilding of Eastern Japan, saying “we humbly ask for your understanding and support, and especially your prayers for the success of this undertaking.”
Ghost marriages split Sudanese diocese: The Church of England Newspaper, June 24, 2011 p 9. June 27, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church of the Sudan, Secession, Syncretism.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Tribal jealousies and theological tensions have split the Episcopal Church of the Sudan’s Diocese of Bor. On June 13, the day after Archbishop Daniel Deng consecrated Bishop Ruben Akurdit Ngong, supporters of his defeated rival in the May 14 election announced they were quitting the Episcopal Church to form the Lutheran Church of Sudan.
In a letter given to the new bishop, five dissident clergymen protested the lack of spiritual and physical development in the diocese. The five also denounced the diocese’s toleration of “Ghost marriages”, saying the Nuer tribal custom was incompatible with Christian teaching.
A form of levirate marriage, Ghost marriages among the Nuer tribe occur when a married male dies before he is able to produce a son. Tribal custom dictates that an unmarried male relative of the deceased stand in as husband until a male heir is born. No formal marriage ceremony is contracted, and the dead husband continues to be regarded as the head of the family—and any issue from the ghost marriage are recognized as being the children of the deceased.
Once a male heir is born, the ghost marriage ends and the man is freed to start his own family—but remains obligated to provide for the deceased’s family.
Anthropologists believe the custom serves economic and religious ends for Nuer. The dead man’s wealth remain within his own family and his widow is protected from economic hardship.
The Nuer also believe that unless a man produces a male heir, his ghost will haunt his family bringing misfortune if no son was produced in his name.
The Episcopal Church of the Sudan has seen several schisms over the past 25 years. In 1986 the first Primate of the Sudan, Archbishop Elinana Ja’bi Ngalamu, refused to step down when he reached the age of mandatory retirement. The House of Bishops subsequently elected a new primate, Archbishop Benjamin Wani Yugusuk, but quickly split with bishops dividing on tribal lines in support of the two primates.
Archbishop George Carey was able to resolve the schism in 1992 and reconcile the two factions. However, in December 2003, two deposed bishops led by the former Bishop of Rumbeck, the Rt. Rev. Gabriel Roric Jur formed the Reformed Episcopal Church of the Sudan (RECS). In 2004 the RECS split and five of its bishops led by Bishop John Machar Thon of Duk Diocese formed the Anglican Church of the Sudan (ACS).
A further schism within the ACS occurred when the ACS Bishop of Rumbek Abraham Mayom Athian broke away to form his own Anglican Church of Sudan in Rumbek. The newly styled Archbishop Mayon has consecrated at least ten bishops for his church, sources in Sudan tell The Church of England Newspaper.
This month’s schism in Bor is notable in that instead of forming a fifth Anglican Church in South Sudan, the dissidents are forming the country’s first Lutheran Church.
Canadian Supreme Court denies ANiC appeal: The Church of England Newspaper, June 24, 2011 p 6. June 26, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Anglican Church of North America, Church of England Newspaper, Property Litigation.comments closed
St John's Shaughnessy in Vancouver
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Four Vancouver area parishes of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) have announced they will vacate their properties.
The trustees of Canada’s largest Anglican parish — St John’s, Shaughnessy, along with St Matthew’s, Abbotsford, Good Shepherd, Vancouver, and St Matthias & St Luke’s, Vancouver, will turn their buildings over to the Diocese of New Westminster in light of the 16 June decision by the Supreme Court of Canada to deny them leave to appeal a lower court ruling in favour of the diocese.
The court’s decision not to hear their appeal was “extremely disappointing,” said Cheryl Chang, a former Trustee of St John’s, Shaughnessy, and Special Counsel to ANiC. “We were hoping for a better result when we sought help from the courts. However, we always said that given a choice, we would choose our faith over our properties, and we have been willing to make that sacrifice if called upon by the courts to do so.”
Bishop Michael Ingham of New Westminster stated he was pleased the lawsuit for control of the properties had finally finished. “The money, time and energy taken up by this long and unnecessary conflict can now be directed back to the real work of the Church,” he said, adding it was “now time to move forward.”
The Bishop assured the breakaway congregations they could continue to worship in the buildings. “However, the clergy who have left the Anglican Church of Canada must now leave their pulpits. I will work with these congregations to find suitable and mutually acceptable leaders, so that the mission of the Church may continue in these places,” Bishop Ingham said.
In 2008, the four parishes voted to quit the Diocese and join ANiC in response to the innovations of doctrine and discipline, chiefly surrounding issues of human sexuality, introduced by Bishop Ingham.
Litigation commences for control of the $20 million parish properties and last November the British Columbia Court of Appeal upheld a 2009 decision awarding the properties to the Diocese. It also affirmed the trial court’s ruling that a $2.2 million bequest belonged to ANiC. In January 2011 the four parishes sought leave to appeal the ruling with the Supreme Court of Canada.
Mrs Chang told The Church of England Newspaper their faith had been sorely tested, “particularly in the early years as we grappled with the decisions regarding litigation. However, I believe it strengthened us as Christians and as congregations. It made us walk by faith, pray more, and choose to be willing to suffer and sacrifice.”
The lawsuit had been worth fighting she said. “I pray this will help to advance the gospel in Canada,” Mrs Chang told CEN, and “although I can’t speak for everyone, I certainly hope and believe that it has not soured the ANiC family.”
Punish smugglers not immigrants, archbishop says: The Church of England Newspaper, June 24, 2011 p 8 June 26, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper, Immigration.comments closed
Archbishop Phillip Aspinall
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia has urged a rethink of his country’s illegal alien policies—urging the government to show greater compassion to asylum seekers while cracking down on people smugglers.
“It cannot be morally permissible to inflict suffering on asylum seekers in order to stop people smuggling,” Dr Phillip Aspinall told the Brisbane Synod on June 18. “That cannot be the correct approach.”
He urged a rethink of current government policies. While he supported screening would be immigrants in their country of origin, once they arrived in Australia—by whatever means—they should be treated humanely.
Australian must treat “with compassion the people who arrive on our shores in line with human decency and our international obligations,” the archbishop said, but the government should also be aggressive in “undermining the corrosive business of people smuggling.”
“That might involve putting more effort and resources in processing asylum seekers properly in overseas countries before they get into the hands of people smugglers in the first place,” he said.
However, the long term solution to Australia’s illegal immigrant problem lay in building up the economies and political institutions of the migrants’ home countries.
“If we invested time and energy and people and thought into helping those refugees and asylum seekers in the places they’re fleeing from, I think that would be an investment that would pay returns,” Dr. Aspinall said.
Immigration is a contentious issue in Australia, with the leading political parties divided over who should be allowed to enter the country and in what numbers.
Anglican Report with George Conger and Kevin Kallsen from Long Beach, CA broadcast June 25, 2011 June 26, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Anglican Church of Tanzania, Anglican Consultative Council, Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England, Interviews/Citations, The Episcopal Church.comments closed
Church politics behind archbishop’s arrest warrant: The Church of England Newspaper, June 24, 2011 p 9. June 25, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Tanzania, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa of Tanzania
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A Tanzanian court has issued an arrest warrant for Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa, the Primate of the Anglican Church of Tanzania (ACT).
On 13 June the High Court in Arusha issued a bench warrant for Dr Mokiwa for contempt of court, after prosecutors claimed the Archbishop ignored a court order blocking the consecration of the Bishop of Mount Kilimanjaro. However, sources in Tanzania tell The Church of England Newspaper the conflict in Mount Kilimanjaro has more to do with money and the Anglican Communion’s political wars than with canon law.
As of 20 June the Archbishop had not yet been served by police with the warrant, and had left Arusha for Dar es Salaam. He has told supporters in the West he would not surrender himself to the magistrate until he is formally served with the warrant by police.
Last week Justice Kakusulo Sambo issued the bench warrant after prosecutors alleged the Archbishop was in contempt of court for consecrating Bishop Stanley Hotay to the episcopate on 12 June. Last month Justice Sambo issued an order blocking the consecration of a new bishop for the Diocese of Mount Kilimanjaro pending adjudication of the claim that Bishop Hotay’s 15 April consecration was defective. The Diocese of Mount Kilimanjaro has been divided for over a decade, with a number of parishes refusing to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the former bishop, Simon Makundi. The ACT hoped the election of a new bishop would reunite the diocese, which was divided over Bishop Makundi’s support of the use of condoms as a prophylactic against HIV/AIDS — a stance rejected by the wider church and the dissident congregations.
Supporters of the unsuccessful candidate for election — who had the backing of Bishop Makundi — have alleged the new bishop has not yet reached his 40th birthday and is thereby barred by canon law from being made a bishop. The rift also reflects the wider political divisions within the Tanzania church.
On 7 December, 2006, the ACT House of Bishops adopted a resolution stating “henceforth we are not in communion, namely, communio in sacris, with: i. Bishops who consecrate homosexuals to the episcopate and those Bishops who ordain such persons to the priesthood and the deaconate or license them to minister in their dioceses; ii. Bishops who permit the blessing of same-sex unions in their dioceses; iii. Gay priests and deacons; and iv. Priests who bless same-sex unions.”
The bishops also proclaimed a “state of the severely impaired communion” with the Episcopal Church and declared “that henceforth the Anglican Church of Tanzania shall not knowingly accept financial and material aid from Dioceses, parishes, Bishops, priests, individuals and institutions in the Episcopal Church (USA) that condone homosexual practice or bless same sex-unions.”
However, not all of the Tanzanian bishops have honoured this stance, with Central Tanganyika and other dioceses continuing to receive financial support from liberal dioceses and institutions. The split has also seen the Western-financed dioceses campaign to block the re-election of Archbishop Mokiwa as primate of the ACT.
They have also sought to embarrass the Archbishop, a member of the Gafcon primates’ council, his supporters tell CEN and in February invited a group of liberal Canadian and American bishops to Dar es Salaam — Archbishop Mokiwa’s see city — for a conversation on human sexuality. The majority of the ACT House of Bishops, including Archbishop Mokiwa, were unaware of the meeting until shortly before it began.
In a statement given to The Citizen newspaper of Dar es Salaam, the general secretary of the ACT, Dr Dickson Chilongani said the consecration service, which was attended by local police leaders in Arusha and Bishop Tim Stevens of Leicester, did not violate the injunction. The consecration of Bishop Hotay was to episcopal office, but did not confer jurisdiction upon the new bishop. “What we did was to consecrate him as a new bishop… as of now he does not belong to any diocese,” said Dr Chilongani.
“Our liturgy on those occasions is clear that you first consecrate someone and then install him… we only consecrated him,” he explained.
Christchurch cathedral is falling down: The Church of England Newspaper, June 24, 2011 p 6. June 25, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand & Polynesia, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Christchurch Cathedral's Rose Window, destroyed in last week's earthquake
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Christchurch Cathedral in New Zealand may have to be demolished, Bishop Victoria Matthews reports. The 13 June magnitude 6.0 earthquake toppled the 130-year-old cathedral’s west wall and shattered its stained glass Rose Window.
The cathedral’s spire collapsed in the 22 February, 2011 earthquake and the latest tremor has rendered the building structurally unsafe.
“We know some of it will have to come down because of the damage, but whether we have to take the whole thing down is still a live question,” Bishop Matthews told the Christchurch Press.
The city’s 1905 Catholic Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament was also badly damaged in last week’s earthquake after arches supporting its surviving copper-clad dome were undermined. Surveyors will have to determine whether it too must come down, a cathedral spokesman said.
The two cathedrals lay in the central business district “red zone,” the epicenter of the February earthquake. The Canterbury region of New Zealand’s South Island has been hit by a series of major earthquakes over the last nine months. On 4 September, 2010 a magnitude 7.0 quake struck east of the city and on 22 February, 2011 a 6.3 earthquake rocked the city’s central business district killing 181.
Islamists call off Bible ban threat: The Church of England Newspaper, June 24, 2011 p 8. June 25, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Pakistan, Persecution.comments closed
Sami ul-Haq
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Christian rights groups have praised the decision by an Islamic political party to back down from its threat to petition the Pakistan Supreme Court to ban the Bible under the provisions of the country’s blasphemy laws.
On 13 June, Sami ul-Haq, leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI-S), told reporters he had censured a lieutenant for demanding the ban.
In a 30 May press conference in Lahore, a top leader of the JUI-S, Abdul Rauf Farooqui, told a press conference that lawyers for his party were preparing a petition asking the Supreme Court to ban the Bible as passages from Genesis, Exodus, I Kings, 2 Samuel, and the Gospel of Matthew were “immoral” and “pornographic.”
Passages from the Old Testament, including Genesis 19:33-36’s portrayal of the drunkenness of Lot and his daughters; the story of David and Bathsheba from 2 Samuel, and Jesus’ rebuke of Peter from Matthew 26 “strongly offend Muslims, who hold all prophets and holy books in high esteem as part of religious belief and never even think of committing any blasphemy against them,” Mr Farooqui said.
The Church of Pakistan’s Bishop of Lahore, the Rt Rev Alexander Malik denounced Farooqui’s petition. Banning the Bible would violate the religious freedoms guaranteed by Pakistan’s constitution, the Bishop said, and would serve only to inflame sectarian tensions.
However, Sami ul-Haq last week told reporters he had reprimanded Farooqui for his comments. “We believe in religious solidarity; I enquired with the person who demanded banning the Holy Bible. All Muslims are obliged to respect Divine books but this also goes for the followers of other religions”, he said.
Called the “Father of the Taliban” by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington DC think tank, ul-Haq is the director and chancellor of Pakistan’s Darul uloom Haqqania madrassa. The Islamist seminary educated many of the top Taliban leaders, including its fugitive chief, Mullah Omar and is widely believed to have served as the “launching pad for the Taliban movement in the early 1990s” the Jamestown Foundation reports.
Release International, which had led protests against the Bible ban in the West, welcomed the news. But its chairman, Andy Dipper said the “call to ban the Bible in the first place reveals just how precarious the situation has become for Pakistan’s Christian minority.”
“Intolerance towards non-Muslims appears to be intensifying – reflected in the assassinations of senior figures calling for the reform of the blasphemy laws. Moderate Muslims often say there must be no coercion in religion. Pakistan’s Islamic extremists must take that message to heart,” Mr Dipper said.
“Intolerance towards non-Muslims appears to be intensifying – reflected in the assassinations of senior figures calling for the reform of the blasphemy laws. Moderate Muslims often say there must be no coercion in religion. Pakistan’s Islamic extremists must take that message to heart,” Mr. Dipper said.
Iceland bishop denies abuse cover-up: The Church of England Newspaper, June 24, 2011 p 6. June 24, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Church of England Newspaper, Church of Iceland.comments closed
The Rt. Rev. Ólafur Skúlason, former Bishop of Iceland
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Bishop of Iceland has rebuffed calls that he step down following the release of an internal report sharply critical of his handling of a clergy sexual abuse case. Bishop Karl Sigurbjörnsson’s inaction in response to accusations of rape leveled against his predecessor Bishop Ólafur Skúlason, was tantamount to a “conspiracy of silence,” the Church of Iceland’s Investigative Commission found.
Bishop Sigurbjörnsson apologized for his part in the scandal, and for the church’s dilatory response, but argued there was no intent to cover up or excuse misconduct. He urged the June 14 special meeting of synod to put recriminations aside as the Church of Iceland, a full communion partner with the Church of England under the Porvoo Agreement, did not know how to handle abuse claims in the 1990’s.
“Now we have to look at our work in honesty and mark a new and clear policy,” the bishop told the Icelandic television network RUV on June 14.
In 1996 three women accused Bishop Skúlason of rape. The Church of Iceland Council and the Deans’ Society rejected the accusations and issued statements of support for their bishop. In 1997 Bishop Skúlason resigned as bishop and Bishop Sigurbjörnsson was elected head of the state Lutheran church, which numbers 79.18 per cent of the Icelandic nation as registered members.
A year after Bishop Skúlason’s death in 2008, his daughter wrote to Bishop Sigurbjörnsson stating she had been molested by her father when she was a teenager. She asked to meet with the Church Council—the Icelandic church’s governing body led by the bishop—to discuss her case. However, the bishop did not respond to her letter for over a year and the commission found her letter had been held back from the bishop’s official register of correspondence for several months.
The investigation committee said the bishop should have reacted sooner to the allegations of abuse and called for the introduction of sexual abuse guidelines covering clergy misconduct.
The June 14 synod meeting passed a resolution supporting their bishop, but the chairman of the meeting told Icelandic television that the fall meeting of synod would likely take up changes to the structures of the church, including removing the bishop as chairman of the church council in favor of an elected lay man or woman.
The Rev. Sigrídur Gudmarsdóttir, the vicar of Grafarholtsprestakall, released a statement after the meeting calling upon the bishop to resign She told the Morgunbladid the bishop should put the interests of the church over his career.
“The Bishop of Iceland should recognize that it will serve the church better if someone else is to take over his duties. The longer he remains in office, the more damage it will cause the church,” Mrs. Gudmarsdóttir said.
A Christian martyr every 5 minutes: The Church of England Newspaper, June 17, 2011 p 1. June 22, 2011
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Indonesian Christian girls martyred in 2005
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Christians are dying for their faith at the rate of one every five minutes, Italian sociologist Massimo Introvigne told an EU Conference in Hungary last week.
In a panel discussion on religious persecution, Dr. Introvigne, a representative of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) on Combating Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians, urged the global community not to be silent over the persecution of Christians.
“If these figures are not cried out to the world, if this massacre is not stopped,” he said, “if it is not recognized that the persecution against Christians is the first worldwide emergency with regard to religious discrimination and violence, dialogue between religions will only produce wonderful symposia but no concrete results.”
Dr. Introvigne’s remarks came at the Conference on the Christian-Jewish-Muslim Interfaith Dialogue organized by the European Union Hungarian Presidency at the Royal Castle of Gödöllo on June 2-3.
The January 2011 issue of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research reported the number of Christian martyrs per year peaked at around 160,000 in the year 2000, but since the cessation of hostilities in the Sudan it had fallen to around 100,000 per year.
A second source cited by the Italian sociologist, The Price of Freedom Denied, published by sociologists Brian J. Grim and Roger Finke, estimated the number of Christian martyrs per year was higher, ranging from 130,000 and 160,000.
His estimate of 105,000 Christian martyrs in 2011, “between 287 and 288 martyrs per day: twelve per hour, or one every five minutes,” was a conservative estimate that could be adjusted up or down. “At any rate, figures are horribly high. This is the situation I wanted to alert the audience to in Gödöllo,” he said.
Dr. Introvigne told The Church of England Newspaper “there is always a delicate balance between raising awareness and upsetting countries which can persecute Christians ever more.”
However he added “that in Europe the risk is not to speak enough about the issue, not to speak too much.”
Corruption a cancer for Uganda, archbishop declares: The Church of England Newspaper, June 17, 2011 p 8. June 22, 2011
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Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Primate of the Church of Uganda has called upon President Yoweri Museveni to crack down on government corruption.
Speaking on June 5 at the consecration of the Rt. Rev. Patrick Tugume as bishop of North Kigezi at Emmanuel Cathedral in Rukungiri in southwest Uganda, Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi said the diversion of public money into the pockets of corrupt officials held the East African nation back in developing its full economic potential.
“Your Excellency, there is need for you to put stringent measures on supervising government money that is allocated for community development but end up being swindled on its way from Kampala. There is need for serious disciplinary action against the corrupt officials who swindle public funds,” the archbishop told President Museveni, who was guest of honour at the ceremony.
While Uganda’s economy has expanded at an average rate close to 9 per cent over the past five years, and has reduced tariff barriers and disincentives to foreign investment, corruption is perceived as widespread. Uganda ranks 130th out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2009.
In a report on the Ugandan business climate, the Heritage Foundation in Washington observed that the “will to combat corruption at the highest levels of government has been questioned, and bureaucratic apathy contributes to perceptions of corruption.”
Corruption was also the theme of Archbishop Orombi’s speech on June 1 to the Uganda Joint Christian Council, the country’s umbrella organization for Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
Elected chairman of the group in succession to Orthodox Church leader Metropolitan Jonah Lwanga, Archbishop Orombi expressed his hope that one day the change in governments would be as seamless and uncomplicated in Uganda as the change in leadership of the UJCC. He also asked the assembled church leaders to redouble their efforts in tackling corruption at all levels in society, arguing it was a cancer that was eating away at the heart of society.
Church warnings of vigilante violence in Nigeria: The Church of England Newspaper, June 17, 2011 p 8. June 22, 2011
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The Bishop on the Niger, the Rt. Rev. Owens Nwokolo
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Church leaders in Nigeria have urged the government to act swiftly in combating terror attacks on Christians.
The murder campaign in the North waged by Islamist sect Boko Haram, also known as the Nigerian Taliban, could ignite a sectarian war in the South with Christians seeking revenge against Muslims, the Anglican Bishop of Awka warned.
Last week, the fundamentalist sect bombed a Roman Catholic Church and a police station in Maiduguri, killing eleven people, while on June 7 a Church of Christ in Nigeria pastor, the Rev. David Usman, and his church secretary were gunned down by members of the cult. Last week’s murder follows a 2009 attack on Mr. Usman’s church by Boko Haram militants, who burned it to the ground and killed several members of the congregation.
Boko Aram, which is a Hausa phrase meaning “non-Islamic education is a sin,” is a militant Islamist group founded in 2002 in Maiduguri by Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf. In 2004 the group began an armed struggle against the government that culminated in a pitched battle with the security forces in July 2009 that left over 700 people dead. After the revolt, the police reported Yusuf had died in custody while resisting arrest.
Boko Haram regrouped after the death of its leader and has renewed its guerrilla campaign against the government and Nigerian Christians.
In an address last week to his diocesan synod, the Bishop on the Niger, the Rt Rev. Owens Nwokolo warned of the danger of Christian vigilantes in the South exacting revenge on Muslims in reprisal.
Bishop Nwokolo demanded the government stop using Christians as a buffer for the group’s murderous activities, keeping the army in its barracks while allowing Boko Haram to focus its wrath on the soft target of Christians.
“Enough is enough,” the bishop said, warning that patience was wearing thin.
On June 10, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said he would consider opening talks with the radical Muslim group to end the bloodshed.
“No government wants to kill the citizens of that country. Whether they are carrying weapons against the state or not, they are citizens,” President Jonathan said in response to a question during a briefing with journalists in New York. “The best option is you negotiate to make sure they don’t do that.”
He added the violence was not religiously motivated, as Boko Haram was waging war on all who had adopted Western education and values. “It has nothing to do with Christians and Muslims,” the president said.
Photo: Anglican.TV June 22, 2011
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Kevin Kalsen of Anglican.TV filming Archbishop Duncan's presidential address to the ACNA council on June 21
Photo: ACNA Council Meeting, Long Beach, CA June 21 2011 June 21, 2011
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Opening session of the ACNA Council Meeting at the Westin Hotel in Long Beach, CA, June 21, 2011. Archbishop Duncan in the chair
Tuam doom and gloom: The Church of England Newspaper, June 17, 2011 p 7. June 21, 2011
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Archdeacon Gary Hastings of Tuam addressing the Irish General Synod
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Archdeacon of Tuam has issued a blunt warning to General Synod of the Church of Ireland that unless the church moves left and embraces a social justice, relevance and diversity agenda, it is faced with extinction.
In the Commission on Ministry’s report to last month’s General Synod, the committee chairman, the Ven. Gary Hastings, stated that while “metaphors of cancer and the Titanic may be too dramatic” to describe the condition of the Church of Ireland, the church was nonetheless facing a crisis.
“It’s more a matter of slow, quiet, respectable deflation, a gentle haemorrhaging allowing us to drift off to sleep in the damp but hallowed halls of elder glory. If it is a crisis, it is a crisis in slow motion,” he said.
Demographic and cultural trends were working against the church, he said, producing a state of affairs akin to the United States, “where churches and faiths are in a ‘commercial’ context where every religious grouping has an equal place in a competitive market, and is obliged to sell itself and its beliefs as best it can.”
The “result of all this” for the Church of Ireland was that “that numbers in our churches are going down, North and South, and young people are no longer attending.”
Within 20 years, he said, “many small rural churches will either have gone, or be on their last legs” with young people departing after confirmation not to “return later in life with their own children as was once the case.”
Some “specialized” urban churches will survive by offering niche services,“but others are as doomed as any small rural parish.”
To address these challenges the church must overhaul all levels of management “staffing, finance, pensions, income, the grouping and structuring of parishes and dioceses” to meet the coming changes.
On the “religious side” Archdeacon Hastings said, some “will wish to continue to be what they are, the way they always were” while others will “pull sharply to the right, to a more narrowly defined and exclusive theology.”
However, Archdeacon Hastings’ prescription to avoid collapse was for Irish churches “to engage with the culture round them constructively and to vocalise the gospel in a stimulating and relevant way.”
He hoped the Church of Ireland’s “majority will keep its collective head and attempt to achieve a living, breathing, flexible institution” that would be “broad-minded, broad-based, inclusive, outward-looking, and happy to engage with the culture round them constructively.”
The Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. Alan Harper told the Synod: “In the compass of three pithy pages, the Archdeacon of Tuam has sounded the death knell of the Church of Ireland as we know it. Certainly the prognosis he describes sounds terminal. “
“Startlingly, the archdeacon ends his piece by denying that all is doom and gloom,” Dr. Harper noted, adding there was “quite clearly a period of catharsis ahead of us.”
“Catharsis is purgation,” the archbishop observed. “In Aristotle’s “Poetics” it is a purification of the emotions through some vicarious experience.” The archdeacon’s report was a purgative, a “wake up and smell the coffee moment and it is to the General Synod that the wake up call is initially directed,” he said.
The Church of Ireland needed reform, and the work of reform must begin with General Synod, the archbishop said.
Islamists win third term in Turkish elections: The Church of England Newspaper, June 17, 2011 p 8. June 21, 2011
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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party, the AKP, has a third four year term following general elections in Turkey on June 12. The Islamist-backed AKP won approximately 50 per cent of the votes cast, giving it 326 of the 550 seats in parliament—31 seats short of the majority needed to overturn the secular constitution instituted in the 1920’s by Kemal Atatürk.
The consolidation of power by the Islamist AKP is ”overwhelmingly bad,” observed Barry Rubin, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. The AKP “will be in power for four more years, infiltrating institutions, producing a new constitution, intimidating opponents, altering Turkish foreign policy, and shifting public opinion” against the West “to dislike Americans and Jews more.”
However, the AKP’s failure to increase its margin has disappointed its supporters. As Jürgen Gottschlich of Der Spiegel notes, this AKP victory “almost seems like a defeat.”
On the eve of the vote, the suffragan bishop in Europe, the Rt. Rev. David Hamid released a pastoral letter to the Church of England’s congregations in Turkey, noting Sunday’s vote would be an “important election”
He observed, that “some of the questions facing the country such as its duty of care for minorities, the future integration into the EU, the continuing development of a foreign policy that may be a bridge between East and West, are certainly of interest to us all in Europe.”
Bishop Hamid added that he had also seen reports on Turkey’s “internal debate about changes to the present set of constitutional checks and balances” and on press freedoms.
The bishop asked Anglicans in Europe to pray for the people of Turkey as they cast their votes. “We are aware of the growing importance of Turkey in today’s world,” Bishop Hamid said, “and of the challenges that any government will face in continuing to build a flourishing, modern society.”
The world has noted the contrast between the stability of Turkey on the one hand and the struggles of its Arab neighbours on the other. We pray for a deepening role for Turkey as a beacon of democracy, tolerance and economic growth which benefits all its citizens.”
Ballarat bishop battle ends: The Church of England Newspaper, June 17, 2011 p 8. June 21, 2011
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Bishop Garry Weatherill of Ballarat
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Australia and New Zealand have seen changes in several top clergy posts over the last week. Elections for an assistant bishop for Auckland were held, the curtain has finally come down on the saga of the battling bishop of Ballarat, while Australia’s first senior female cathedral dean has resigned after a dispute with her bishop.
On June 9 the Rt. Rev. Garry Weatherill, Bishop of Willochra in South Australia was named Bishop of Ballarat. In a statement issued upon his appointment, Bishop Weatherill acknowledged the diocese had “been through a dark time, but I hope and pray that together we can be authentic disciples and apostles of Jesus and continue to build on all the good of previous years.”
On June 19, 2010 Bishop Michael Hough of Ballarat told his diocesan synod he would step down as bishop at year’s end, and would begin an immediate sick leave. The bishop of the rural diocese west of Melbourne had been under investigation by the Episcopal Standards Commission since July 2009, facing allegations of bullying his clergy. The Ballarat dispute, which had seen the diocese shrink by almost half, ended on a dramatic note. In his final sermon on Dec 19, Bishop Hough attacked his critics, likening them to the “evil one.”
To make sure the congregation understood him, the bishop placed a ceramic chalice in a bag, placed it on the altar, and then smashed it with a hammer. The act symbolized the destruction wrought by his enemies, Bishop Hough said. The bishop sacked the interim vicar-general of the diocese, appointing a supporter to the post. His emailed announcement came at 10:03 in the evening, one hour and fifty-seven minutes before he left office.
The following day, Archbishop Philip Freier of Melbourne, the Metropolitan of the province, sent his own email to the clergy, effectively countermanding Bishop Hough’s last act. Bishop Weatherill has served as Bishop of Willochra for ten years and will assume office in November.
The Dean of Adelaide, Dr. Sarah Macneil, told the congregation of St. Peter’s Cathedral on June 5 she was resigning as she could “no longer work with integrity at diocesan level.” A onetime member of the Australian diplomatic corps, Dr. Macneil declined to elaborate on the reason she was resigning less than two years after her appointment as South Australia’s first female Dean – and the first woman to be appointed to the post in an Australian capital city.
In a statement given to the Adelaide Advertiser, Archbishop Jeffrey Driver confirmed the dean was leaving the diocese. “Whether in her role as acting administrator in my absence, serving as a Governor of St Peters College, or building relationships while working on many projects, Sarah has served the Anglican Diocese of Adelaide with grace and enthusiasm,” the archbishop said.
On June 11, the Diocese of Auckland held a special session of synod to elect an assistant bishop for the diocese. The name of the individual elected by the synod will now be passed to the church’s house of bishops. Once a majority give their assent, the name of the new bishop will be announced.
Casino outreach to problem gamblers questioned by archbishop: The Church of England Newspaper, June 17. 2011 p 9. June 19, 2011
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A publicity photo of the Las Vegas act, the Flying Elvi
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Holding a responsible gambling forum at a casino was an unseemly way to address problem gambling, the Archbishop of Melbourne said last week, after Crown Casino hosted a week long programme to help problem gamblers. However, the casino charged Dr. Philip Freier with speaking out of ignorance, saying he knew nothing of the casino’s social outreach work.
On June 1, the Herald Sun newspaper reported on the forum, and highlighted the work of the casino’s chaplain, Anglican minister the Rev. James Grant.
Mr. Grant stated that problem gambling was not the fault of the casino industry, but arose from the belief in fate held by many gamblers. He was quoted as saying that “an increasing number of patrons believe that luck is on their side, that they have a God-given right to win today.”
“In our society luck has become a new secular deity,” Mr. Grant told the Herald Sun, adding that “we are people who believe that it is possible to get something for nothing, that our lives are in the grip of fate rather than our own responsibility. None of this is Crown’s doing.”
While Mr. Grant appears to be the only Anglican chaplain with a casino cure, his position is not unique. In Las Vegas the Riviera Hotel and Casino employed a full time chaplain on its staff for over 20 years. The Rev. Charles Bolin, who died in September 2010 while serving as a reserve chaplain with the US Air Force, provided pastoral and spiritual support to the casino’s 2000 employees and held Sunday services in the Crazy Girls showroom for tourists.
Until his death, Mr. Bolin ministered to the Vegas strip’s card dealers and cocktail waitresses, gamblers and prostitutes, held Bible studies for topless dancers and prayed backstage and offered pastoral council to performers ranging from Johnny Cash to the Flying Elvises.
In its literature, Crown Casino states that it too offers chaplaincy services to those of “all religious beliefs and traditions. The Chaplaincy Support Service enables people to seek guidance and peace in their own way and aims to be relevant to the particular problems and life situations of the individual.”
Dr Freier responded that the “choice of a gambling venue for a high-profile event in Responsible Gambling Awareness Week can easily send a confusing signal.”
In 2009 the Melbourne archbishop led the charge to block Good Friday gambling at race courses and has long spoken out against the social ills gambling produces. “From the State Government to community organisations that operate gaming machines to a large venue like Crown casino, it is hard to see how those who profit from gambling have any interest in persuading people away from a reliance on gambling,” Dr. Freier said.
However, a spokesman for the casino told the Herald Sun Dr. Freier was ignorant of the good work the casino did for its problem gamblers.
If Dr. Freier “had any real interest in assisting people who have problems with gambling he should realise that it takes more effort than simply standing on the sidelines and slinging mud at something he knows nothing about,” said casino spokesman Gary O’Neil said.
“I am not aware the archbishop has stirred himself even slightly to try to find out the good and effective work that is being done,” the spokesman said.
However, in March the Australian Churches Gambling Taskforce was launched to address the estimated $4.7 billion social cost of problem gambling.
Statistics compiled by church social service agencies have found that up to 30 per cent of those who gamble regularly have problems with gambling—a ratio of harm that called out for tighter government regulation the task force told government leaders.
Windward Islands diocese ordains first women deacon: The Church of England Newspaper, June 17, 2011 p 9. June 19, 2011
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First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Diocese of the Windward Islands in the West Indies has ordained its first women deacon.
On June 11, Eleanor Glasgow, Director of Lay Ministries of the Anglican Church in Grenada, was ordained to the diaconate at the St George Cathedral Church in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
The 1997 Eames Monitoring Group report on the status of women clergy in the Anglican Communion, reported that while the Church of the Province of the West Indies had authorized women deacons and priests, two dioceses: Guyana and the Windward Island rejected the innovation.
In 2000 the Windward Island diocesan synod gave its assent to the ordination of women, but no female clergy were ordained until this past weekend. The traditionally Anglo-Catholic Diocese of the Windward Islands is comprised of the islands of St. Lucia, Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines. Guyana remains the sole West Indian diocese that does not permit women clergy.
Speaking to the Nation newspaper of Barbados, Deacon Glasgow stated “that by my answering the call and being accepted as a woman, that the door is now open for other women who believe they are so called to come forward,”
“Why should a woman be denied if she has been called?”, the new deacon asked.
US Middle East policy naïve, bishop charges: The Church of England Newspaper, June 17, 2011 p 7. June 18, 2011
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First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The former Bishop of Rochester has roundly condemned US President Barack Obama’s May 19 speech on the Middle East, calling it naïve and insubstantial.
In an article printed on the website of the National Review, a conservative American political magazine, Bishop Michael Nazir Ali stated the president’s euphonious phrases on ‘hope’ and ‘change’ for peace in the Middle East were lovely to hear, but amounted to little more than “sugar coating.”
To Dr. Nazir Ali’s ears, the speech was not written for an American audience, but to assuage Muslim opinion. “Some scholars have written about the dhimmi mentality, i.e., a subservient attitude developed towards Muslim rulers by Christian, Jewish, and other communities that were allowed to survive, but under heavy restrictions, in the Muslim world. It has sometimes been held that the West’s response to events in the Muslim world betrays a similar mentality, brought about by fear. Was the president’s speech an example of this?,” he asked.
The president’s optimism that the death of Osama bin Laden would see the “end of radical Islam” was unduly optimistic, and “extremist Islamism is now so decentralized” the death of the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks “will have little effect.” Bin Laden’s death “may in fact lead to his becoming an icon or a martyr in exactly the way that the president does not wish.”
The president’s description of the revolts across North Africa and the Middle East as mostly “non-violent” would not be shared by Egyptian Christians “whose churches have been burned, whose young people have been killed, and whose women have been abducted,” the bishop said.
The benefits of democracy, touted by President Obama as one of the new growths of the ‘Arab Spring’ would likely see a tyranny of the majority. “Unless there is a strong charter of liberty that safeguards the rights of women and non-Muslim communities, democracy on its own may prove chimerical,” he said.
Bishop Nazir Ali welcomed the “president’s claim that America’s current policy in the region is not to support despotic regimes that deny people their fundamental freedoms,” but noted this “rhetoric sounded a little hollow in the absence of any reference in the speech to Saudi Arabia, a country which continues to deny its citizens religious freedom and freedom of movement, and to deny equality of opportunity to women.”
What was missing from the speech, the bishop said, was any statement that liberty was not a gift from the state, but a gift from God. “I would have welcomed an acknowledgment from the president of the Biblical basis of the idea, expressed in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, that women and men are endowed with certain inalienable rights by their Creator.”
“This is the true basis for any struggle to have human equality affirmed and respected,” Bishop Nazir Ali said.
South American synod to consider Uruguay’s request to secede: The Church of England Newspaper, June 17, 2011 p 9. June 18, 2011
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A special session of the general synod of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone will be held in November in Asunción, Paraguay to respond to the Nov 12, 2010 vote by the Diocese of Uruguay to quit the province and seek alternative metropolitan oversight.
In a statement released on behalf of the province by the Bishop of Bolivia on June 12, the Rt. Rev. Frank Lyons reported the May 16-18 provincial executive council meeting agreed to bring forward by two years the next meeting of synod to respond to the diocese’s request.
In September 2010, the South American synod rejected a proposal put forward by the Diocese of Uruguay to allow dioceses to have a local option on women clergy. While the resolution was passed in the lay and episcopal orders of synod, it failed to garner majority support from the clergy order.
Uruguay’s diocesan synod responded the following month, endorsing a resolution asking for a transfer out of the province within the year.
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Bishop Lyons reported the Southern Cone’s Provincial Executive Council sought to respond this request and “hold an extraordinary Synod next November with the request of Uruguay as its subject and allowing the Province to pastorally accompany the diocese.”
In other business, the executive council appointed the suffragan bishop of Northern Argentina to the post of diocesan bishop of Northern Argentina. The Rt. Rev. Nicholas Drayson had served as associate vicar of Beverly Minister for eight years before taking up the suffragan post in the Argentine Chaco in 2008.
Bishop Drayson, who had served as a missionary translator to the Charote people in Northern Argentina before returning to the UK in 2000, succeeds Bishop Gregory Venables, who had been the Interim Bishop in charge of the Diocese of Northern Argentina.
Shooting bin Laden does not serve the cause of justice, bishop says: The Church of England Newspaper, June 17, 2011 p 5. June 17, 2011
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Bishop Anthony Priddis of Hereford
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Bringing a criminal to trial to answer for his crimes is a surer way of giving justice to his victims than arbitrary punishment, the Bishop of Hereford said this week.
In a note published June 5 on his diocesan website, Bishop Anthony Priddis expressed disquiet with the shooting of Osama bin Laden, contrasting it unfavorably with last month’s arrest of Serbian war criminal Ratko Mladic. There “may have been very good reasons” why bin Laden “could not have been arrested and put on trial for his crimes, but we are not told them in any clear or persuasive way,” the bishop said.
On May 1, US Navy SEAL commandos raided the al-Qaeda leader’s compound in Pakistan, killing bin Laden in a gun battle. The White House was quick to offer details of the raid, but in the days that followed was forced to retreat from claims made by White House Counterterrorism advisor John Brennan that bin Laden had been “engaged in a firefight with those that entered” and “hiding behind women who were put in front of him as a shield” appear to be false.
White House spokesman Jay Carney on May 3 said bin Laden’s wife “rushed the U.S. assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed. Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed.” CIA Director Leon Panetta later said that while the U.S. would have taken bin Laden into custody if he had surrendered, “I don’t think he had a lot of time to say anything.” Mr. Carney attributed the misstatements to the administration’s “great haste” in sharing information on the raid.
Bishop Priddis argued that it was important to maintain the rule of law, even for war criminals. “Putting someone on trial matters because the truth matters,” he said.
“Trial is not about revenge but about justice. Those who perpetrate crimes of any kind not only are responsible for their actions but must be held accountable for those actions. Also, they need to accept the legal and just consequences of what they have done.”
“This is vital not only for law and order in a free society and within our world, but also crucial for the memory of the dead, and for their families, friends and the rest of us. If people are to be able to fully come to terms with the horrors, trauma and evil done to them or their loved ones, then the truth must become known and the perpetrators held accountable,” the bishop said.
For the victim to heal, the “criminal needs to be caught and brought to justice,” he said, noting that this was what was meant when Jesus said the ‘truth shall set you free’. “Without the truth being known, it is far harder for the victims of all crimes, especially the most extreme, to come to terms with what has happened, if ever they can. The truth needs to be revealed, told, heard, listened to and learnt from,” Bishop Priddis said.
Disappearing data challenge for Presiding Bishop: The Church of England Newspaper, June 17, 2011 p 7. June 16, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, The Episcopal Church.comments closed
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A flap over the ethics of editing the on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia has erupted in the Episcopal Church, with conservative bloggers crying foul after staffers at the Episcopal Church’s national offices in New York deleted unflattering information from the biography of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.
On March 17, blogger Mary Ailes, author of the popular “Baby Blue” website, reported that a “section of the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church’s bio on Wikipedia has gone missing.”
The expunged biographical details concerned the Presiding Bishop’s claim, published by the national church in summary biographies of candidates standing for election as presiding bishop in 2007, that she had served as “Dean of the Good Samaritan School of Theology in Corvallis, Oregon, from 1994–2000.”
Ms. Ailes further reported the redaction had been made by church staffer who stated “I work in the Communication Office at the Episcopal Church Center. Edits made per Bishop Jefferts Schori’s suggestion.”
Critics charged the new presiding bishop had not been entirely straight forward about her career, and after her election, Bishop Jefferts Schori conceded she had perhaps been unclear in her description of the post, as the Good Samaritan School of Theology was not an accredited seminary or theological college but the adult education programme at the parish where she served as an assistant priest.
The story was quickly picked up by other conservative bloggers led by ‘Virtueonline’, who expressed joy at the presiding bishop’s discomfort over the “puffery” in her resume.
A spokesman for the presiding bishop told The Church of England Newspaper the redaction was a “non-story.”
“There was incorrect information and it was corrected. There is no attempt to hide or mislead, just to be accurate,” the spokesman said.
However, James Coder, author of the ‘Viderunt Omnes’ blog argues the real issue at play was the culture of historical revisionism rampant among the upper echelons of the Episcopal Church.
Mr. Coder notes that in 2007 correct but unflattering information about Pennsylvania Bishop Charles Bennison was redacted from Wikipedia. “This is the second time TEC is implicated in serious Wikipedia manipulation,” he said, adding that the “ongoing cover-up, and the original story warrant a good deal of discussion in the Anglican world about our political culture, and how a falsity of this magnitude in a Primatial election too so long to escape our attention.”
Speculation on conservative blog sites continues as to whether this additional information on her resume gave the presiding bishop her one-vote victory in 2007 over Bishop Henry Parsley of Alabama. However, Bishop Jefferts Schori’s margin of victory came with the support of at least four conservative bishops, including one sitting diocesan bishop who has since been deposed by the presiding bishop.
Following the election, four conservative bishops told CEN they had voted for Bishop Jefferts Schori as they wanted to precipitate a crisis and elect, from their perspective, the “worst possible candidate”. One retired bishop explained his vote as being “strategic” as he wanted to see the Episcopal “house of cards” collapse.
Arrest warrant issued for the Archbishop of Tanzania: The Church of England Newspaper, June 15, 2011 June 16, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Tanzania, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A Tanzanian court has issued an arrest warrant for Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa, the Primate of the Anglican Church of Tanzania (ACT).
On June 13 the High Court in Arusha issued a bench warrant for Dr. Mokiwa for contempt of court, after prosecutors claimed the archbishop ignored a court order blocking the consecration of the Bishop of Mount Kilimanjaro.
Sources in Tanzania report that as of June 14 the archbishop had not yet been served by police with the warrant.
On Monday, the High Court in Arusha issued an arrest warrant for the ACT head for allegedly defying a court order not to consecrate Stanley Hotay as the new Bishop for Mount Kilimanjaro. Justice Kakusulo Sambo issued the warrant after the prosecution claimed the archbishop acted in contempt of court by consecrating Bishop Hotay on Sunday, while the court sorted out the claims of lay leaders opposed to the election.
On April 15, the Mount Kilimanjaro synod elected the Rev. Stanley Hotay as the third bishop of the diocese that covers the Kilimanjaro, Arusha and Manyara regions. The election of a new bishop ended a 10-year split within the diocese between the former bishop Simon Makundi and his clergy that mirrored a wider fight within the province over the morality of condom use. The election of the new bishop, church leaders hoped, would end the dispute.
However, a petition was filed in April with the High Court in Arusha, asking the court to set aside the election. The petitioners charged the new bishop had allegedly misstated his age. The court issued an injunction blocking the installation of a new Anglican bishop pending adjudication.
The consecration of Bishop Hotay, however, did not violate the court order, the General Secretary of the ACT told The Citizen newspaper of Dar es Salaam. Dr Dickson Chilongani said the consecration service, which was attended by local police leaders in Arusha and Bishop Tim Stevens of Leicester, was to episcopal office, but did not confer jurisdiction upon the new bishop.
“What we did was to consecrate him as a new bishop… as of now he does not belong to any diocese,” said Dr Chilongani.
“Our liturgy on those occasions is clear that you first consecrate someone and then install him… we only consecrated him.”
Church call for ceasefire in the Sudan: The Church of England Newspaper, June 10, 2011 p 7. June 15, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church of the Sudan.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Anglican and Catholic leaders in the Sudan have called for an immediate ceasefire in the disputed Abyei region, after clashes between troops of the Khartoum government and the nascent South Sudan regime erupted last month.
On 21 May, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) under the control of the Khartoum government seized Abyei town in South Central Sudan from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). The UN’s World Food Programme reports tens of thousands of refugees have fled the fighting.
The International Organization for Migration told the IRIN news service the extent of the crisis is unclear. “Tracking and assessing the displaced population has been difficult because many people are still on the move or are hiding in the bush. The continued heavy rainfall has made some roads impassable and this has impeded access to areas where IDPs may be sheltering.”
The oil-rich Abyei region straddles the border between Sudan and the newly independent South Sudan. A referendum to determine the state’s permanent status has been delayed, causing friction between North and South.
On May 31, the Anglican Primate of the Sudan, Archbishop Daniel Deng of Juba, and the Roman Catholic Metropolitan of South Sudan, Archbishop Paolino Lukudu Loro released a statement or regret that the “region of Abyei is back to war. On behalf of all the Christians across the country, we categorically denounce the recent fighting that took place in Abyei town, as thousands of men, women and children were forced again to a mass exodus as witnessed during the decade-long civil war.
“These same civilians have been displaced several times because of belligerence between” the SAF and SPLA, the statement said, adding that while political difficulties over the future of the region remained, there was “no excuse for endangering the lives of innocent people, mindless destruction of homes and livelihoods.”
“As the Church, through the voice of God and moral conscience of the nation, we are very concerned about the violence which has claimed many innocent lives in Abyei and rendered many people homeless at the time when the hope of our people is growing high for the independence and the birth of our God given nation,” they said.
“We call for immediate action” to “break the deadlock and to initiate negotiations and peace talks once again,” the archbishops said.
Second American parish joins the Ordinariate: The Church of England Newspaper, June 15, 2011 June 15, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ordinariate, Church of England Newspaper, Washington.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A second Maryland parish has voted to accept Pope Benedict XVI’s invitation to join the Roman Catholic Church through the Anglican Ordinariate.
On 6 June, the Episcopal Diocese of Washington announced that St Luke’s Church in Bladensburg, Maryland, would enter the Roman Catholic Church with the “prayerful support of Bishop John Bryson Chane of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Catholic Archbishop of Washington.”
On 24 October, 2010, the congregation of Mount Calvary Church in Baltimore became the first American parish to announce its intention to join the Anglican Ordinariate once it was formed.
Cardinal Wuerl, who will assume jurisdiction over the congregation of approximately 100 parishioners until the American branch of the Ordinariate is formed, stated that the Roman Catholic Church welcomed the congregation “into our family of faith.”
He added the Pope’s offer of an Anglican enclave in the Catholic Church provided “a path to unity, one that recognizes our shared beliefs on matters of faith while also recognizing and respecting the liturgical heritage of the Anglican Church.”
Bishop Chane noted the “transition” had been “achieved in a spirit of pastoral sensitivity and mutual respect.”
“Christians move from one church to another with far greater frequency than in the past, sometimes as individuals, sometimes as groups. I was glad to be able to meet the spiritual needs of the people and priest of St Luke’s in a way that respects the tradition and polity of both of our Churches.”
The congregation and the diocese have entered into a lease purchase agreement for the church property, and the former rector, the Rev Mark Lewis, has begun the process towards reception and ordination as a Roman Catholic priest.
“I am deeply grateful to Cardinal Wuerl and to Bishop Chane for their support throughout this discernment. We look forward to continuing to worship in the Anglican tradition, while at the same time being in full communion with the Holy See of Peter,” Mr Lewis said.
England’s oldest active clergyman honoured: The Church of England Newspaper, June 14, 2011 June 14, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Canon John Clayton with the priest in charge of Bramhope, the Rev. Janice Smith
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Church of England’s oldest active clergyman, the Rev. Canon John Clayton, will be honoured this Sunday on the occasion of his 100th birthday by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds.
Bishop John Packer will preside at the special service on June 12 at St Giles Bramhope for Canon Clayton, who continues to preach once a month at evensong as well as leading a monthly service of Holy Communion on Thursday mornings at the parish.
“It is always a delight to be at Bramhope and to meet John Clayton,” Bishop Packer said. “His pastoral concern and prayerful leading of worship remain an example to all of us, and this will be a fitting celebration of lifelong service to his Lord.”
Canon Clayton was ordained at Wakefield Cathedral on Trinity Sunday, 1935, after studying at Leeds University and Wells Theological College. He served his first curacy at St John the Evangelist, Dewsbury Moor before he went on to Halifax Parish Church as senior curate. For 10 years he was Vicar of Lupset, Wakefield and later was Vicar of St James Bradford, and then Vicar of Otley until his retirement in 1976. He was also a member of the Church Assembly for 13 years and Rural Dean of Calverley being installed as an honorary Canon of Bradford Cathedral in 1967.
Third earthquake hits Christchurch: The Church of England Newspaper, June 14, 2011 June 14, 2011
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A photo from the parish website of St John's Latimer Square after the Feb earthquake
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Christchurch has been rocked by a third major earthquake in nine months. On June 13 at 14:40 local time (2:40 GMT) a magnitude 6.0 earthquake, with an epicenter eight miles north east of the city’s center damaged several buildings and injured a number of people.
No fatalities have been reported in this latest earthquake, but the Fire Service reported rescuing two people trapped in St John’s Anglican Church in Latimer Square—a church badly damaged in the February 2011 earthquake.
The tremors, which began at 13:00 and culminated in the 14:40 earthquake forced the evacuation of Police headquarters, as well as the offices of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, the center of operations for recovery from the February disaster.
Two people are in Christchurch Hospital with serious injuries, while 44 others were treated and discharged, said a spokesman for the Canterbury District Health Board. A number of buildings in the city’s central business district have been damaged, with some collapsing, including empty buildings scheduled for demolition in the wake of the February quake.
The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority reports extensive damage in the eastern suburbs and on the hills suburbs of Sumner and Redcliffs. The Canterbury region of New Zealand’s South Island has been hit by a series of major earthquakes over the last nine months. On September 4, 2010 a magnitude 7.0 quake struck east of the city and on Feb 22, 2011 a 6.3 earthquake rocked the city’s central business district killing 181.
Canadian diocese calls it quits: The Church of England Newspaper, June 10, 2011 p 7. June 14, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Bishop Thomas Corston of Moosonee
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Diocese of Moosonee synod has voted to dissolve the diocese. Delegates to the June 3-5 diocesan synod in Timmins, Ontario unanimously adopted a resolution directing its officers to begin talks with the Province of Ontario to dissolve the diocese and create a mission area to oversee its 26 parishes.
“Nothing will change immediately,” Bishop Thomas Corston told the synod. “We are simply preparing a way forward for our diocese when it becomes clear that we need to make the jump.”
The Anglican Church of Canada’s Council of the North last year announced that its grant in aid for the diocese would be cut from $249,000 to $125,000 per year. The diocese responded by selling a number of diocesan properties, including the bishop’s home. However, declining revenues and fewer Anglicans in the pews was leading inexorably to bankruptcy, the bishop said.
The synod considered three options: do nothing, prepare for dissolution, or transfer the southern deaneries to the Dioceses of Algoma and Quebec, leaving a purely Cree Indian and Inuit diocese in the north around Hudson’s Bay.
However, Bishop Corston said “we don’t know the response that we will get from others—Algoma, Quebec, Council of the North, Provincial Synod, or General Synod—so we have to keep our options open and flexible to respond to reality as it comes into being over the next few years.”
“If the General Synod money supply [for the diocese] collapses after the General Synod session in 2013 – then we need to be in a position to act quickly,” the bishop said.
It the money supply “improves dramatically, which seems most unlikely, but is a remotely possible, then we are keeping open the ‘stay as we are option’ – but only if the General Synod can provide the funding for this on a long-term and stable basis,” the bishop said.
A downturn in the mining and paper industries has hurt the diocese. “Much of the forest industry has shut down in the area. There’s no pulp and paper industry anymore,” Bishop Corston told the Anglican Journal in April.
Bishop Corston, who was elected bishop in July 2010, spoke of his sadness at the decline of the diocese. Moosonee “started in 1872 as an indigenous diocese through the Hudson’s Bay Company, and as industries moved into northern Ontario, northern Quebec the church grew along with them,” he said.
However, the diocese has been in decline for the past 50 years. When he was a boy in the early 1960’s the diocese employed 60 full-time clergy. When he was ordained in 1975 there were 30 full-time clergy, and when he was consecrated in 2010 there were only a dozen full-time clergy for the 350,000 square mile diocese, the bishop said.
If the Ontario Provincial Synod agrees to allow the neighboring dioceses to take on oversight of the 26 parishes, the request will be forwarded to the 2013 meeting of General Synod for final action, and a motion to dissolve will be put to the diocesan synod.
Islamists call for Bible ban in Pakistan: The Church of England Newspaper, June 10, 2011 p 6. June 14, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Pakistan, Persecution.comments closed
Bishop Alexander Malik of Lahore
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
An Islamist political party has asked Pakistan’s Supreme Court to ban the Bible under the provisions of that country’s Blasphemy Laws, arguing the Christian Scriptures defame the moral reputation of the Patriarchs and Jesus.
In a May 30 press conference in Lahore, a leader of the Sami ul Haq faction of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI-S) Maulana Abdul Rauf Farooqi, said certain passages from Genesis, Exodus, I Kings, 2 Samuel, and the Gospel of Matthew were “immoral” and “pornographic.”
These passages “strongly offend Muslims, who hold all prophets and holy books in high esteem as part of religious belief and never even think of committing any blasphemy against them,” Mr. Farooqui said.
The Islamist leader’s objections focused on Genesis 19:33-36, the drunkenness of Lot and his daughters; Genesis 29:23 ff, Laban’s tricking Jacob by exchanging Leah for Rachel on the night of their wedding; Genesis 38:18, Judah and Tamar; Exodus 32:2-6, Aaron’s fashioning of the golden calf at Sinai; I Kings 13:2-29, Jeroboam and the prophets; 2 Samuel 11:2–27, David and Bathsheba; 2 Samuel 13:1–22 the rape of Tamar by Amnon; Matthew 16:23, Jesus’ rebuke of Peter … “Get thee behind me Satan”; and Matthew 26:14–47, the Last Supper.
A member of Pakistan’s senate, Farooqi has been tied to the Taliban by the Pakistani press and is also the chancellor of the Darul Uloom Haqqania, a Deobandi Islamic seminary that has trained a number of Taliban leaders.
The JUI-S’s protestations are not solely prurient, but are tied to the recent flap over the burning of the Koran by Florida pastor Terry Jones. “Our lawyers are preparing to ask the court to ban the book,” Farooqui said, adding the JUI-S “will not follow in the footsteps of Terry Jones and burn the holy book.”
Church leaders in Pakistan tell The Church of England Newspaper they do not expect the courts to affirm the petition, but worry this latest anti-Christian move is the start of a new round of persecution by fanatics.
The Church of Pakistan’s Bishop of Lahore, the Rt. Rev. Alexander Malik denounced Faqooqui’s petition. Banning the Bible would violate the religious freedoms guaranteed by Pakistan’s constitution, the bishop said, and would serve only to inflame sectarian tensions.
Christian human rights activist, Bruce Bhatti, told the Minorities Concern of Pakistan, “It is a dangerous move, and this demand is based on hate. It is totally against the human values and will further promote religious intolerance in the country where Christians have been persecuted because of their faith.”
Anglicans back birth control bill in the Philippines: The Church of England Newspaper, June 10, 2011 p 6. June 13, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Abortion/Euthanasia/Biotechnology, Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church of the Philippines.comments closed
Prime Bishop Edward Malecdan of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines (ACNS photo)
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Episcopal Church in the Philippines (ECP) has given its support to the government’s Reproductive Health Bill, arguing that the use of contraceptives for birth control does not violate Christian moral teachings.
Government funding for birth control has led to a political showdown between the country’s powerful Roman Catholic Church and the government of President Benigno Aquino. On Jan 30 the Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines released a pastoral letter condemning House Bill No. 5043, the Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2008 pending before Congress.
“Far from being simply a Catholic issue, the RH bill is a major attack on authentic human values and on Filipino cultural values regarding human life that all of us have cherished since time immemorial,” the bishops said.
“Placing artificial obstacles to prevent human life from being formed and being born most certainly contradicts this fundamental truth of human life,” they argued. The government’s claim that the RH bill would protect life was false, the bishops argued, as it failed to protect the health “of the sacred human life that is being formed or born.”
However, in a pastoral letter dated April 1, the Prime Bishop of the ECP, the Most Rev. Edward Malecdan noted the 1958 Lambeth Conference affirmed the morality of contraception and stated that family planning was among the prudential choices given by God to man.
“Humanity was made in the image of God,” the prime bishop noted, and “we were made stewards of God’s creation and given wisdom and discernment which we exercise in determining how best all of creation and human society shall be ruled.”
The RH bill was not solely about government funding of birth control, Bishop Malecdan said. It also speaks to the “State’s commitment to ‘uphold and promote responsible parenthood’ and the ‘right of the people’, particularly women” to participate in the formulation of government health policies.
“It is in this spirit that we support the need for a Reproductive Health Bill,” Bishop Malecdan said.
On June 4, the synod of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Luzon gave its support to the bill. Bishop Renato Abibico told the diocese “we need the bill so there will be an oversight on maternal health issues,” noting the RH bill was “pro-life and pro-women and -children, not anti-life as propagated by those against it. “
The synod resolution declared the Episcopal Church “recognizes the need for family planning and responsible parenthood as a stewardship to uphold the sanctity of life” and resolved to educate its members on issues pertaining to dignity of life.
First women priest ordained in the Middle East: The Church of England Newspaper, June 10, 2011 p 7. June 13, 2011
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The Rev. Catherine Dawkins, Bishop Michael Lewis, and the Rev. Nigel Dawkins at the June 5 ordination of Mrs. Dawkins to the priesthood at St. Christopher's Cathedral in Bahrain
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The first woman priest of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East was ordained this week at St Christopher’s Cathedral in Bahrain.
On June 5, the Bishop of Cyprus and the Gulf, the Rt. Rev. Michael Lewis ordained the Rev. Catherine Mary Dawkins to the priesthood. On January 15, 2010 Mrs. Dawkins was ordained a deacon by Bishop Lewis and she served her cure as deacon and assistant chaplain at Christ Church, Aden, with her husband, the Rev. Nigel Dawkins—chaplain at Aden.
At a meeting of the province’s house of bishops late last year, the bishops agreed to allow each diocese the local option of ordaining women priests. Jerusalem, Iran and Egypt do not permit women priests, while Cyprus and the Gulf had given permission to officiate to women priests ordained outside of the diocese.
Mrs. Dawkins met her husband while she was training for the ministry in England, and came out to Aden two years ago after her marriage. Last month the Dawkins accepted new posts in Dubai: the Rev Nigel will serve as senior chaplain at the Mission to Seafarers, while the Rev. Catherine will take up the post of chaplain at Christ Church in Jebel Ali.
The Dean of St. Christopher’s Cathedral, the Very Rev. Christopher Butt told the Gulf Daily News Mrs. Dawkins’ ordination held a special significance for the church in Bahrain.
“We are privileged to host this big occasion, not because it is just a Bahraini event but it holds significance for the whole of the region and this diocese, and it is a joy to be involved in this process,” Dean Butt said.
“It is a sign of recognition in the wider church that women have a final role in the ministry of the church and not a secondary. It is also recognition of the gifts and special insights that women bring into the ministry in a powerful way,” the dean said.
Ignore climate change skeptics, say church leaders: The Church of England Newspaper, June 10, 2011 p 6. June 11, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Environment.comments closed
Lord Turnbull
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Religious leaders have urged Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard to hold fast in the face of mounting criticism of her government’s proposed “carbon tax” to help stop global warming.
Last week, 28 members of the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC) coalition called upon the prime minister, giving her their support for federal legislation to combat climate through a programme of carbon emission credits.
However, the political and scientific consensus that saw 193 nations and the European Union endorse the Kyoto protocols in 1997 appears to have collapsed, with the US, China and many developing nations pulling back from the accord. The coalition government in Britain’s green agenda has also come under fire, with senior figures questioning the underlining assumptions surrounding climate change.
On June 2, the ARRCC urged the Australian government not to buckle under pressure from industry. “Climate change is not only a scientific, environmental, economic and political issue – it is also a profoundly moral and spiritual one,” the organization’s website argued.
A member of the ARRCC delegation, retired Bishop George Browning of Canberra and Goulburn, the current chairman of the Anglican Consultative Council’s Environmental Network, said “our generation has been given humanity’s last chance to avert a climate emergency. Our grandchildren will just have to bear with the results of what we decide to do now.”
The bishop lambasted climate change skeptics on May 27, saying “the naysayers are holding Australia back from taking responsible action with their fear-mongering and misinformation. Not only can we act, we must act.”
While calls for action to combat climate change enjoyed a considerable vogue in recent years, the claims of global warming alarmists have met with sustained scientific and political attack with the momentum of the movement now stalled in most industrial countries. In a paper released last week, the World Bank reported the global market for trading in carbon permits had collapsed, raising questions over the feasibility of the Australian federal government’s plans to shift to an emissions trading scheme.
In the UK, support for carbon taxes and other government ‘green’ programmes was questioned on May 16 by Lord Turnbull, the former Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service, who urged MPs and ministers to consider more carefully the rising costs and economic risks of Britain’s unilateral climate policies.
In a sharp critique of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that provides the basis for government thinking on climate change, Lord Turnbull questioned its scientific rigour. “Ministers would be well advised not to place such heavy bets on just one rather alarmist source of advice,” Lord Turnbull said.
The “UK’s unilateral climate targets” pose a “serious threat” to “British business and the economy, particularly at a time of considerable economic fragility,” Lord Turnbull said, urging the government to rethink its green agenda.
Central Africa clarifies provincial position on homosexuality: The Church of England Newspaper, June 10, 2011 June 10, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of Central Africa, Human Sexuality --- The gay issue.comments closed
Archbishop Albert Chama
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Homosexual relations are a sin, the Archbishop of the Church of the Province of Central Africa said last week, releasing a statement clarifying the province’s stand on the issue dividing the Anglican Communion.
Archbishop Albert Chama also said that his church’s continued interaction with those portions of the Anglican Communion that have sought to normalize same-sex relations should not be construed to mean the Central African church had endorsed the innovation.
Homosexuality has been a divisive political and ecclesial issue in Central Africa. The former bishop of Harare, Dr. Nolbert Kunonga has charged the province with being ‘soft’ on homosexuality, and has used the controversies within the Anglican Communion to his advantage in the property disputes with the province. In neighboring Zambia and Malawi, western NGO’s and overseas governments have also pressed for the reform of sodomy laws criminalizing “unnatural vice.”
However, the pressure to reform Central African criminal and civil codes to bring it in line with modern European sensibilities has been heavy handed at times, and has caused a backlash by church and government leaders resentful of the encroachment upon their national sovereignties.
Central Africa has also come under pressure from other Anglican African provinces for its decision to keep open its links to the American Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada, and for an explanation of the unofficial statement released by one bishop on behalf of the entire province after the All-Africa bishops meeting in Entebbe that chastised the wider African church for its break with the Episcopal Church.
In his June 4 statement, Archbishop Chama stated he wanted to make the province’s stance on homosexual conduct clear, and that the province did not condone homosexuality.
Central Africa had also “made it very clear even to churches around the world that we interact with, that if there are any members or priests that practice homosexuality, they should keep them away from us,” he said.
There would be no change in church teaching on this issue, the archbishop said, according to the Lusaka Times.
Recife’s Robinson Cavalcanti to retire: The Church of England Newspaper, June 9, 2011. June 9, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil, Church of England Newspaper, La Iglesia Anglicana del Cono Sur de America, Pastoral Visitor programme.comments closed
Bishop Robinson Cavalcanti of Recife
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Anglican Bishop of Recife, the Rt. Rev. Robinson Cavalcanti, has called for the election of a bishop-coadjutor.
Speaking on the occasion of Recife’s 35th anniversary as free-standing diocese on May 20, Bishop Cavalcanti said that he will retire on his 70th birthday in June 2014. He called for the election of a coadjutor bishop in 2013 “to make an orderly transition without prejudice to the normal activities of the diocese.”
Since it broke from the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil (IEAB) in 2005, the diocese has seen significant growth and “has more than doubled its number of congregations, clergy and members” a diocesan spokesman said earlier this year. As of the start of 2011, the diocese stated it had 5,102 members in 47 congregations with 61 ordained clergy, and a “presence in 9 Brazilian states.”
Deposed along with his clergy of Recife by the IEAB for contumacy, the 2005 legal action has not been recognized by a majority of the wider Anglican Communion, and the Archbishop of Canterbury has long attempted to mediate the dispute. Dr. Williams told a press conference at the close of the 2009 Primates Meeting he had sent emissaries to the two sides and hoped “this would lead to an eventual reconciliation.”
However, Bishop Cavalcanti last year told CEN this was an unrealistic hope. Forcing the two into one institutional body would compel “people of two different religions to live formally together,” he said.
The stagnation of the IEAB has led Recife to expand outside of its diocesan boundaries and it now has “a presence in 9 Brazilian states,” the diocese said.
To oversee this growth, the diocese is organizing four archdeaconries and will elect two suffragan bishops later this year. The diocese has asked for the prayers of the wider church in support of its mission to bring the Gospel to Brazil and “hopes to count on the support of orthodox Anglicans throughout the world” in its work.
Abuse arrest of London priest: The Church of England Newspaper, June 10, 2011 p 7. June 9, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Church of England, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
An East London clergyman has been arrested on suspicion of corrupting the morals of a child.
On May 23 Scotland Yard detectives arrested the Rev. Christopher Hanson, vicar of the Church of the Ascension, Victoria Docks, London in the Diocese of Chelmsford for crimes allegedly committed while he served as team vicar in the Benefice of Langley Marish near Slough. In 2008 Mr. Hanson left Langely Marish after 11 years of service to take up his current post.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police stated the 63 year old vicar had “been arrested on suspicion of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity as part of an investigation being carried out by Thames Valley Police.”
The “investigation was launched” by Thames Valley Police, “following an allegation of an historic offence committed in the east Berkshire area,” the spokesman said.
The Bishop of Chelmsford has suspended Mr. Hanson from his clerical duties, but the action as been taken “without prejudice,” a diocesan spokesman said, as the “Church of England follows established policies and procedures and training programmes in child protection.”
The diocese was “holding all those who may be affected by the situation in our prayers and are providing pastoral care” to Mr. Hanson and his parish.
Mr. Hanson has been released on bail until June 29, when he will appear before a magistrate.
ARCIC III underway: The Church of England Newspaper, June 3, 2011 p 7. June 8, 2011
Posted by geoconger in ARCIC, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
ARCIC III participants in Bose, Italy. (ACNS photo)
Finding common ground on ethics and an understanding of the doctrine of the church were among the key goals laid down by the first meeting of ARCIC III, the third phase of the Anglican – Roman Catholic International Commission, held May 17-27 in Bose, Italy.
Established in 1966 in response to the Second Vatican Council and as a result of the visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey to Pope Paul VI in Rome, the original ecumenical imperative behind ARCIC has faded, with the two churches increasingly diverging on questions of ethics, order and morals.
Tensions over the ordination of women and homosexuals by some Anglican churches, and the inability of the Anglican team to honour the accords reached, along with the establishment by Benedict in 2009 of a new ecclesial structure for Anglicans who wish to enter Catholic communion en masse, have strained relations.
The internal Anglican reception of ARCIC III has also been gravely weakened. The appointment of members of the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada to the team by the secretary general of the Anglican Consultative Council violated assurances made by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the communion, leading to a jaundiced reception to whatever arises from the talks.
According to the communiqué, eighteen Roman Catholic and Anglican theologians, under the joint lead of Archbishop David Moxon of New Zealand and Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham, set the parameters of their dialogue in their “rootedness in Christ through the Paschal Mystery.”
“This focus on Jesus Christ, human and divine, gives the Commission a creative way to view the relationship between the local and universal in communion,” the said.
“The Commission will seek to develop a theological understanding of the human person, human society, and the new life of grace in Christ. This will provide a basis from which to explore how right ethical teaching is determined at universal and local levels,” the communiqué said.
Drawing upon Scripture, tradition and reason, ARCIC III will also “elucidate how our two Communions approach moral decision making, and how areas of tension for Anglicans and Roman Catholics might be resolved by learning from the other.”
Bishop of Brechin elected: The Church of England Newspaper, June 3, 2011 p 7. June 8, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Scottish Episcopal Church.comments closed
Bishop-elect Nigel Peyton of Brechin
First published in the Church of England Newspaper.
The Archdeacon of Newark, the Ven. Nigel Peyton has been elected Bishop of the Diocese of Brechin in the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC)
On May 18, the Brechin electoral synod chose Dr. Peyton from a short list of five candidates that included Dr Alison Peden, rector of Holy Trinity Church, Stirling, who sought election as the first women bishop for the SEC.
Upon learning of his selection, Dr. Peyton stated he was “honoured to have been elected and look forward to returning to serve in the diocese where my ministry began”
The Primus of the SEC, Bishop David Chillingworth offered his congratulations, saying the SEC “will be delighted to welcome him to leadership in the Diocese of Brechin and to share in the life of the College of Bishops.”
The see became vacant in Oct 2010 following the early retirement of Bishop John Mantle, who died in November 2010.
Educated at Edinburgh University, Dr. Peyton received an STM degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York, and a Ph.D. from Lancaster University and trained for the ministry at Edinburgh Theological College. Dr. Peyton served in the SEC until 1985 when he accepted parochial cures in the Diocese of Southwell, and was appointed Archdeacon of Newark in 1999. He was a member of General Synod from 1995 to 2010 and a Director of the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group from 2005.
The new bishop’s consecration will take place in St. Paul’s Cathedral in Dundee at a date to be announced.
Archbishop of Canterbury presses Sri Lanka government on human rights reforms: The Church of England Newspaper, June 3, 2011 p 9. June 8, 2011
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The Archbishop of Canterbury with Sri Lankan Deputy Foreign Minister Neomal Perera (left) and High Commissioner PM Azma (right) at Lambeth Palace on May 12
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, has pressed the government of Sri Lanka to address “issues of human rights” in the South Asian nation at a meeting with the country’s Deputy Foreign Minister and High Commissioner at Lambeth Palace on May 12.
Dr. Williams discussed the Sri Lankan government’s response to the April 11 UN report that accused the army and rebel forces of committing war crimes in the closing days of the war. The archbishop spoke of the “profound and urgent need for an equitable, inclusive and sustainable political settlement in the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s internal conflict” with Foreign Minister Neomal Perera and Acting High Commission P.M. Amza, a statement issued at the close of the meeting said.
The archbishop also “stressed the importance of avoiding any culture of impunity with respect to human rights violations, and of transparency” of the reconstruction and reconciliation programmes for the devastated regions. Dr. Williams is metropolitan of the Church of Ceylon and oversees the dioceses of Colombo and Kurunagala.
Christ Church Aden ‘holding on’ amidst Yemani civil war: The Church of England Newspaper, June 3, 2011 p 9. June 7, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & the Middle East.comments closed
Christ Church, Aden
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Heavy fighting in Yemen has not closed the Anglican Church in Aden, Bishop Michael Lewis reports.
Clashes between government forces and separatist tribesmen in the north and gunmen affiliated with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in the south, coupled with pro-democracy riots across the country have left over 320 dead since the start of anti-government demonstrations in February.
On May 25 Reuters reported 40 people had been killed in the capital city of Sanaa in fighting between troops loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and followers of Sadiq al-Ahmar, the chief of Yemen’s powerful Hashed tribe, while government troops were also engaged in fierce fighting in the southern town of Zinjibar with members of AQAP. The BBC has also reported that 50 pro-democracy demonstrators were killed and over one hundred arrested on May 30 in the southern city of Taiz.
Western embassies have evacuated all non-essential personnel from their embassies in the southern Arabian republic and last week Foreign Secretary William Hague urged President Saleh to stand down “as soon as possible.” “It is in the interest of his own country and his own interest now for there to a be a transition of power,” Mr. Hague told SkyNews.
In an email to The Church of England Newspaper, the Bishop of Cyprus and the Gulf, the Rt. Rev. Michael Lewis said that despite the fighting, “the work continues at Christ Church Aden:” the former British garrison church built in 1863.
“During recent troubled weeks the chaplaincy’s Ras Morbat clinic, with its general medical and eye departments, has carried on offering its services, despite a reduction in numbers of patients because of the deteriorating security situation in the country,” the bishop said, adding that the church hospital’s staff “are committed to the work of Christ Church” and are “largely Yemeni and Muslim.” The fighting has left the church without a resident chaplain, however.
The chaplain of Aden, the Rev Nigel Dawkins, “had previously accepted appointment as Senior Chaplain, Mission to Seafarers, in the United Arab Emirates from 1 July. Until then he is managing the work from Dubai, while his wife, the Rev Catherine Dawkins, will continue to oversee the finances and fundraising activities of Christ Church,” the bishop said.
Bishop Lewis said the situation will be reviewed by the Council of Reference for Christ Church Aden, which is a mission project of the Anglican Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf, which is scheduled to meet in London on June 2.
Irish bishops appoint new Bishop of Clogher: The Church of England Newspaper, June 3, 2011 p 7. June 7, 2011
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Bishop-elect John McDowell of Clogher
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The House of Bishops of the Church of Ireland has appointed a new bishop for the Diocese of Clogher. On May 30 the bishops selected the Rev. John McDowell, Rector of St Mark’s Dundela in the Diocese of Down and Dromore in succession to Dr. Michael Jackson following his translation to Dublin.
The appointment fell to the House of Bishops after the Episcopal Electoral College for Clogher was unable to appoint a candidate on May 4. With the appointment of Bishop-elect McDowell, all but one of the bishops in the Church of Ireland’s Northern Province of Armagh will have been appointed, and not elected by their diocesan electoral colleges. A spokesman for the Church of Ireland said the sole exception was the Bishop of Kilmore, Elphin & Ardagh, the Rt. Rev. Ken Clarke, who was “elected by Electoral College rather than the House of Bishops in 2000.”
Following the appointment of Mr. McDowell, the Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. Alan Harper said he was “delighted” with the choice. The new bishop has “been an outstanding Rector in his current parish and also a very highly regarded Clerical Honorary Secretary of the General Synod. John McDowell brings many gifts that will benefit the Diocese of Clogher. Gifts that are pastoral, administrative and intellectual. His new Diocese can be assured that their new Bishop will maintain the best traditions of the Church of Ireland with an openness to that broad spectrum which is characteristic of this Province of the Anglican Communion.”
Mr. McDowell said he as “very conscious of the privilege of being elected a bishop” and his “first task will be to get to know the clergy and people of the diocese of Clogher.”
Born in Belfast in 1956, Mr. McDowell attended Annadale Grammar School, Queen’s University, the London School of Economics, and Trinity College Dublin. Before studying for the priesthood, he worked in the aerospace industry and as a lobbyist for the Confederation of British Industry.
Ordained in 1996, he has been curate in Antrim, rector of Ballyrashane and Kildollagh, and in 2002 was appointed to his current post. A date for his consecration has not yet been announced.
Chinese Church leaders conclude African tour in Cape Town: The Church of England Newspaper, June 3, 2011 p 9. June 6, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Southern Africa, China, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Archbishop Thabo Makgoba and Wang Zuo'an in Cape Town
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Archbishop of Cape Town has played host to a delegation from China’s Ministry of State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA) on a four day visit to South Africa.
The head of SARA, Mr. Wang Zuo’an, accompanied by a ten member delegation from China and Archbishop John Chew of Singapore, met with Archbishop Thabo Makgoba and other church and state leaders in Cape Town and Johannesburg from May 20-24.
The purpose of the meeting was “two fold” Archbishop Makgoba explained: “to reflect on models of church and the role of the church within local communities; as well as the church’s relationship with the state and how that is conducted.”
The South African visit by the Chinese delegation follows upon their meeting with the leader of the Gafcon movement in Nairobi on May 14, Archbishop Eliud Wabukala, and is the final leg of their tour through Africa organized by the Global South coalition of Anglican provinces. It also coincides with the larger Chinese diplomatic offensive underway in Africa to foster relations with the continent’s political and religious leaders.
At the close of the South African meeting, Mr. Wang stated that “China is going through massive change and we are keen to learn from our friends in South Africa where you have experienced amazing changes yourselves. We are looking for good role-models.”
The delegation met with government leaders in Johannesburg to discuss church-state relations and toured Soweto. In Cape Town the delegation attended the May 22 installation of the Very Rev Michael Weeder as Rector of the Cathedral Parish of St George the Martyr, met with Cabinet Minister Trevor Manual, visited an HIV/AIDs clinic and a number of local ministries, and concluded with a tour of the Bible Society of South Africa, which now prints 90 per cent of its bibles in China.
Archbishop John Chew of Singapore said “enormous changes have already taken place in China. We have been building a relationship with the Chinese state for about twenty years and are seeing the fruit thereof. A few years ago they permitted the establishment of a printing press in Nanjing. The press has already printed about 53 million bibles in Chinese languages.”
Episcopal elections in the Sudan: The Church of England Newspaper, June 3, 2011 p 8. June 6, 2011
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Bishop-elect Stephen Dokolo of Lui
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A special meeting of the Synod of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan has elected bishops for the Dioceses of Lui and Bor. At the May 14 meeting at All Saints Cathedral in Juba, the Rev. Ruben Akurdit Ngong was elected Bishop of Bor, and the Rev. Stephen Dokolo was elected as Bishop of Lui.
Under the canons of the ECS, each of the church’s 32 dioceses sends a lay, clergy and episcopal delegate to the election, while the diocese under consideration is allotted 10 delegates—three clergy, three lay and four diocesan officers.
Bishop-elect Ngong was born in May 1956 in Palek Village, Bor County and is married to Rachael Nyaluak, and they have four children. He was educated at Bishop Gwynne College, Uganda Makarere University and Nairobi Pan Africa Christian College and is currently the Provost of Bor Cathedral.
Bishop-elect Dokolo is a graduate of Eden Theological Seminary in the United States, and has served as Lui Diocesan Secretary for the past two years. His consecration has been scheduled for June 26 in Lui.
Bishop denies corruption allegations over hospital sale: The Church of England Newspaper, June 3, 2011 p 8. June 5, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of South India, Corruption.comments closed
Bishop P.J. Lawrence celebrating the St Werbergh's deal in Nandyal
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Bishop in Nandyal has denied accusations leveled by the General Secretary of the Church of South India that he had abused his authority by granting a 40 year lease on a church hospital.
In a spirited exchange of letters, Bishop P.J. Lawrence said he was “shocked” by the rush to judgment made by the General Secretary, while the General Secretary Mr. M.M. Philip said he was “really shocked” the bishop would have signed the deal without the approval of the Synod.
On March 31, the CCC, a lay led advocacy group that has led the charge against corruption in the Church of South India, released a statement implicating Bishop Lawrence in a sweetheart deal that “virtually gifted” St. Werburgh’s Hospital to a foreign controlled “private limited company.”
Bishop Lawrence was accused of granting a 30 year lease on the hospital, built in 1931 by the SPG and valued at £8.5 million, in exchange for payments of “15 per cent of net surplus” from the operations or a minimum of Rs 25,000 (£350) per year.
The CCC claimed that “no payments to the CSI are likely to materialize” from the deal as “sole control over accounting” was given to the firm acquiring the hospital, which also had the right to deduct from its payments “any outstanding liabilities” at the time of the takeover.
On April 8, Mr. Philip wrote Bishop Lawrence stated he was surprised by the deal and ordered the bishop to “cancel the agreement.”
The bishop replied on April 22. St. Wergurgh’s was a “dying mission hospital” that was a drain on the limited resources available to his “poor rural diocese,” he said, adding that he had emailed a copy of the proposed lease to the CSI headquarters in Madras in September. Having had no reply, he “took it for granted there is no objection from the CSI Synod.”
The bishop stated he was willing to re-negotiate the deal if the CSI Synod was unhappy with the terms Bishop Lawrence was able to obtain, but “there was no question of cancelling the agreement.”
Bishop Lawrence also denounced the tone and tenor of General Secretary’s letter. “Your one unilateral letter has destroyed my unblemished reputation of 40 years ordained ministry and five years of episcopal ministry,” he said.
In a letter dated April 27 in reply, Mr. Philip said he was “very sorry for the inconvenience” caused by the dispute, but held fast in his demand the bishop cancel the agreement, or produce new terms acceptable to the CSI’s property management committee.
In a statement released on May 7, the CCC urged the CSI synod not to be swayed by the bishop’s blandishments as there was “a more sinister design involved than meets the eye.”
Court blocks Uganda episcopal election: The Church of England Newspaper, June 3, 2011 p 8. June 5, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of Uganda.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A civil magistrate in Northern Uganda has issued an injunction blocking the election of a bishop for the Diocese of West Lango. On May 24 Magistrate Everest Palodi of Lira granted a petition brought by lay members of the diocese seeking a halt to proceedings pending an explanation from the Church of Uganda’s House of Bishops as to why two previous nominees had been rejected by the church.
On May 19, 2010 the Diocese of West Lango held its first meeting of synod. Carved out of the western half of the Diocese of Lango, the synod nominated two priests: Rev. Canon Milton Oto Olima and Rev. Alfred Acur, for election by the House of Bishops.
However, the House of Bishops declined to select either candidate and requested the diocesan synod submit two new names for consideration.
The magistrate ruled the request by the petitioners was reasonable, and issued an injunction blocking the synod for meeting to select to new nominees. However, Mr. Palodi said he was uncomfortable adjudicating the dispute as the church should not bring its disputes before a civil magistrate.
“If you are bringing the church to court, it is reality disappointing. We go to church for spiritual redress, so for them to come here is political sickness, social sickness and spiritual sickness,” the magistrate said, urging the two sides to come to a quick accommodation.
