Bishop appointed chief justice of the Seminole Indian Nation: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 26, 2011 p 6. August 31, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Fort Worth.Tags: Seminole Nation, William Wantland
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The Rt. Rev. William Wantland, (second from left) being sworn in as Chief Justice of the Seminole Nation
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Diocese of Fort Worth reports that its assisting bishop, the Rt Rev William Wantland, has been named the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Seminole Nation.
On 8 August, 2011, Bishop Wantland and two other justices took the oath of office for the American Indian tribal court which was formerly reinstated last year.
The Seminoles of Oklahoma are descendents of the Indian tribes expelled from Florida in the 1830s. The Seminole were recognized as an independent Indian Nation in 1856 by the US government after their resettlement West of the Mississippi.
In 1907 the US Congress removed all restrictions on white settlement in Indian Territory. During the reorganization Congress reduced the autonomy of the Five Civilized Tribes: the Cherokee, Chikasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole (so-called due to their successful integration into American society and adoption of Western culture). Indian tribal courts were abolished and the chief of each tribe was henceforth appointed by the Federal Government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs.
A member of the Tusekia Harjo Band of the Seminole Nation, Bishop Wantland trained as a lawyer and as an Episcopal priest, and was a member of the committee that drafted the tribe’s constitution of 1969, which restored its right to elect its own chief. “However, there was no provision for a court system,” under the new constitution the bishop said, “because the Bureau of Indian Affairs said we could not have courts.”
Bishop Wantland was appointed Attorney General of the Seminole nation in 1969 and served until 1977, while also serving as a priest in Oklahoma. Elected Bishop of the Diocese of Eau Claire in 1980, he led the Anglo-Catholic diocese in Wisconsin for 19 years and upon retirement served a year as Bishop of the Missionary Diocese of Navajoland.
In 1993 Congress passed legislation supporting tribal courts. At first, the Seminole “utilized the Code of Federal Regulations Court of Indian Offences, a Federal Court authorised to handle limited kinds of cases, but not internal or tribal constitutional matters. I have served as the Magistrate of this CFR Court for the past five years,” the bishop said.
“In 2008, the Seminole Nation adopted an amendment to the Constitution providing for a tribal court system, with a District Court and a Supreme Court. We finally got Federal approval of our Amendment in 2010. We had been working on law codes and a structure for a court system for the past four years.”
The court system will formally take over all judicial operations on 1 October, 2011, the bishop said.
Archbishop backs a secular South Sudan: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 26, 2011 p 7. August 30, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church of the Sudan, Islam.Tags: Daniel Deng, Salva Kiir
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Archbishop Daniel Deng
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Primate of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan has called upon Muslim leaders in South Sudan to set aside sectarian concerns and work towards building a free and tolerant nation.
Speaking at a dinner held by President Salva Kiir of South Sudan at the State House in Juba on 20 August for Muslim leaders in Africa’s newest nation, Archbishop Daniel Deng called upon Christians and Muslims to work together for the common good.
Fighting between the Arab Muslim north and the African Christian/animist south has been constant since Sudan gained its independence in 1956. Two civil wars left millions dead and displaced in the south, but culminated in a 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement which led to the Republic of South Sudan’s independence on 9 July, 2011.
A major source of dissension between North and South during the civil war had been the imposition of Sharia law upon the south by the Khartoum government. The new republic has adopted a secular constitution and civil code, removing Islam from its court system.
In his keynote address, Archbishop Deng called upon President Kiir to create a national religious council which would facilitate dialogue and foster cooperation between the faiths. Interfaith dialogue would also serve to stabilise the new nation, removing religious passions from the political sphere.
President Kiir called for the South Sudanese Muslim community to organize themselves in the wake of the break with Khartoum, and to build relations with the Christian majority.
“Here in South Sudan there is no difference between Christians and Muslims. In our new nation we need unity and development; we have not left you (Muslims) out,” President Kiir said, according to an extract of his speech printed in the Sudan Times.
“Discrimination, marginalisation and many things happened during the war, but it will not happen again in the new South Sudan, whether you are red, white or black, this is our country, you cannot discriminate against me because of my colour. Any South Sudanese has the right to stay here,” the President said.
He also gave his “blessings for the establishment of the South Sudan Religion Council” as proposed by Archbishop Deng, saying he welcomed such a move.
The President also disputed a claim made by the Akhir Lahza newspaper in Khartoum that had been reprinted across the region that claimed that a son by his fourth wife, John Salva Kiir, had converted to Islam on Independence Day. President Kiir noted this was untrue as he has had neither a fourth wife nor a son called John.
Chelmsford vicar dies after being cleared of abuse: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 25, 2011 August 30, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Church of England, Church of England Newspaper.Tags: Christopher Hanson
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First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
An East London clergyman arrested in May on suspicion of corrupting the morals of a child has died. The Rev. Christopher Hanson, vicar of the Church of the Ascension, Victoria Docks in the Diocese of Chelmsford died on Aug 21 at Newham General Hospital. He was 63.
Scotland Yard detectives arrested Mr. Hanson 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 Mr. Hanson 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.”
However last week the police ended their investigation and declined to prosecute the case.
A spokesman for Chelmsford Diocese said: “We were very sorry to hear that the Rev Chris Hanson died in hospital on Sunday. We are holding his family and parish in our thoughts and prayers.”
Chinese Protestant leader jailed for two years by govt order: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 26, 2011 August 29, 2011
Posted by geoconger in China, Church of England Newspaper.Tags: Chinese House Church Alliance, Shi Enhao
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Shi Enhao
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A Chinese Christian leader has been ordered jailed by the police for two years of “reeducation through labour,” the China Aid Association (CAA) reports.
The jailing of Pastor Shi Enhao, deputy leader of the Chinese House Church Alliance (CHCA), comes amidst a growing government crackdown on China’s rapidly growing Christian community.
On May 31, police raided Shi’s church in Suqian City, in Eastern China. The police ordered the evangelical congregation to cease worship and confiscated the church’s musical instruments, choir robes, and bank accounts. Shi and other church officials were detained, and on June 1 they searched his home, threatening his wife, Zhu Guangyun, and their four adult children, the CAA reported.
While other church leaders were released within a few days, police kept Shi in custody, first sentencing him to 12 days administrative custody. On June 21 he was placed in criminal detention and charged with “illegal meetings and illegal organising of venues for religious meetings.” No trial was held and Pastor Shi was jailed by administrative order.
Under Chinese law, Protestant churches are required to register with and be administered by the government’s Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM). However, members of China’s House Church movement have refused to submit to the TSPM, accusing the agency of censoring sermons, controlling the appointment of ministers and propounding liberal theology.
Court loss for Ontario parish in property fight: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 25, 2011 August 28, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Church of England Newspaper, Property Litigation.Tags: ANiC, Cheryl Chang, Huron
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First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
An Ontario Court has ruled in favour of the Diocese of Huron in its dispute with the congregation of St Aidan’s Church in Windsor over the trusteeship of the parish property.
On 15 August, the court held that under Canadian law a parish and congregation have the same legal meaning, and were interchangeable words The Ontario Superior Court has decided that the property and assets of St Aidan’s in Windsor, Ontario, are held in trust for a St Aidan’s “parish” within the Diocese of Huron of the Anglican Church of Canada.
In his decision, Justice David Little held that the words “parish” and “congregation” were interchangeable terms that meant “distinct separate unit, rather than a compilation of its congregants at any one time”, and that as such the legal entity who controlled the property were not the people in the pews but “St Aidan’s Parish of the Diocese of Huron.”
In 2008 the congregation quit the Anglican Church of Canada and joined the Anglican Network in Canada, due to the innovations of doctrine and discipline permitted recently in the Canadian Church, including same-sex marriages.
Cheryl Chang, Special Counsel to ANiC said, “While we are extremely disappointed with this decision, we are not surprised, given previous decisions in the Canadian courts. From our perspective, nothing has changed. The church is the people or the ‘congregation’, despite the judge’s interpretation of that word and the ANiC congregation of St Aidan’s will continue to worship and carry out their mission and ministry regardless of location.”
In a letter to the congregation, the rector of St Aidan’s, the Rev Tom Carmen, said “within hours of the court’s decision being released, the Diocese of Huron had changed the locks on the building and demanded that we come to remove all personal belongings.”
“We were astounded by this unnecessarily hasty and harsh action, especially since they have little need for the building for their tiny group. Nevertheless, we have been blessed to experience the outpouring of love by the Christian community here in Windsor,” Mr Carmen said, noting other churches had made “generous offers of assistance – including facilities for our congregation to worship in.”
In a statement released by the Diocese, Bishop Robert Bennett said his “first reaction was to call the diocese to prayer for both those faithful Anglicans who continued as members of St Aidan’s, Diocese of Huron; and also for those who found they could no longer stay within the diocesan family.
“It is now time to move on to that place where the Holy Spirit leads. We intend to re-mission St Aidan’s in the very place where it has proudly witnessed to the Gospel since 1923.
“My hope is that the disaffected members of St Aidan’s will also find that good place where God leads. St Aidan’s will continue to warmly welcome all who strive to follow the way of Jesus within the diocesan family of Huron,” the Bishop said.
An appeal has been filed by the parish as has a request for a stay of execution of the judgment, allowing the congregation to return to the church pending a final court ruling.
Anglican Unscripted for Aug 26, 2011 August 28, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican.TV.Tags: All African Bishops Conference, economy, Lockerbie bombing, National Cathedral, Primates Meeting, Steve Jobs
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Kevin and George discuss this day in History, the East Coast Quake, and Steve Jobs. In their final story this week they also show off their Economic Genius. Alan Haley delves into the history of the National Cathedral and reveals to Anglican Unscripted who really owns the property and if it is covered by the Dennis Canon.
Archbishop Malango to mediate Malawi crisis: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 26, 2011 p 7. August 27, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of Central Africa, Politics.Tags: Bernard Malango, Bingu wa Mutharika, Malawi
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Archbishop Bernard Malango
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The former Primate of Central Africa has been appointed chairman by the Malawi government of the mediation team tasked with finding an amicable solution to the country’s political crisis.
However, opposition leaders and the media have questioned the independence and effectiveness of the Presidential Contact and Dialogue Group (PCDG), noting that its members were all linked to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and were government stooges.
On 13 August President Bingu wa Mutharika named Archbishop Bernard Malango as chairman of the (PCDG), which has been charged with acting as a “platform for contact and dialogue between government” and opposition groups.
The PCDG will “mediate, guide and propose ways of amicably solving any disputes and suggest how the people of Malawi can be united” with the “view to safeguard the peace, security and stability of Malawi.”
The committee was formed after weeks of political and social turmoil in the Central African nation. The protests took a violent turn on 20 July after a 20-point of concern petition was presented to the government by civil rights groups. Civil rights groups demanded the president declare his wealth, address foreign currency and fuel shortages that have all but shut down the economy, and restore diplomatic relations with Britain.
Street protests ensued on 20-21 July, and the security forces used live ammunition to disperse anti-government demonstrations, killing at least 18. The United States has frozen $350 million in foreign aid to Malawi, and the UK cut off its financial support of the impoverished nation after its high commissioner was expelled in May.
The PCDG and opposition leaders held a preliminary meeting on 16 August, facilitated by UN officials, to set guidelines for the talks.
According to a joint communiqué released after the meeting, “mutual respect, transparency, confidentiality and integrity were some of the shared values that emerged” from the talks. “Both parties recognized that dialogue must be pursued for the common good of Malawi,” the statement said.
The negotiators also agreed to permit a public vigil “within a period of four weeks,” allowing the opposition the opportunity of making a public statement of their concerns.
However, the Malawi press took a jaundiced view of the talks. A Nyasa Times editorial stated that while Archbishop Malango and the members of the PCDG were “well meaning and generally good people, this committee is doomed to fail even before it starts working.
It argued that the Malango committee was controlled by the president, who was politically “deaf.”
The president “subscribes to the out-dated philosophy that flexibility and a predisposition to compromise is a sign of weakness or a sell-out,” it said.
President Mutharika was in a weak political position, and the mass demonstrations were “here to stay for the remainder” of his term. The “creation of these useless committees is just another attempt to buy time, favours and sympathy,” the newspaper argued.
Mugabe meeting for Archbishop Williams: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 26, 2011, p 7. August 25, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Property Litigation, Zimbabwe.Tags: Chad Gandiya, Nolbert Kunonga, Robert Mugabe
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First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Archbishop of Canterbury will travel to Harare in October and will seek a meeting with Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe to plead the case for the country’s persecuted Anglicans.
Dr Williams will also visit Malawi and Zambia during his tour of the Church of the Province of Central Africa, and is expected to offer moral encouragement to the Church. President Mugabe’s office has not decided whether the country’s leader since independence will meet with Dr Williams — who has been a harsh critic of the regime.
A spokesman for Lambeth Palace confirmed “the Archbishop is visiting Zimbabwe as part of a wider trip, which will also see him visit Malawi and Zambia,” but noted the itinerary had yet to be finalised.
The Anglican Bishop of Harare, Dr Chad Gandiya has been locked in a long-running dispute with the former Bishop of Harare, Dr Nolbert Kunonga, over the ownership of the Diocese’s properties. While the courts initially ordered the parties to share church premises pending a final adjudication of the dispute, the security services have thrown their support behind Dr Kunonga and evicted Anglicans loyal to Bishop Gandiya from church properties.
Earlier this month the country’s Supreme Court handed down an order permitting the issue of ownership of church properties to be adjudicated by the courts, but held that trusteeship of the Church’s buildings would reside with Dr Kunonga until a final order is handed down.
Zimbabwe has been an on-going issue for Dr Williams since he took office as Archbishop of Canterbury — and in 2005 was the topic of the sole interview he has granted to The Church of England Newspaper since his move to Lambeth.
In 2007 Dr Williams pressed Dr Kunonga to distance himself from the Mugabe regime during a meeting with the renegade bishop in South Africa and on 7 December, 2008 the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, called for armed intervention to end the regime.
While the Archbishop of Canterbury has spoken often about the situation in Zimbabwe, he has so far declined to take any further action — apart from not inviting Dr Kunonga to the 2008 Lambeth Conference.
After Anglicans were locked out of their churches during Christmas, Dr Williams and Dr Sentamu on 27 December, 2009 released a statement saying they condemned “unequivocally any move to deny people their basic right to worship.”
The “unprovoked intimidation of worshippers by the police is completely unacceptable and indicative of the continued and persistent oppression by state instruments of those perceived to be in opposition” to the regime of strongman Robert Mugabe the Archbishops said.
On 3 February, 2009 the primates of the Anglican Communion called upon the African Union to take steps to end the crisis “due directly to the deteriorating socio-political and economic situation in Zimbabwe.”
The regime showed a “total disregard for life” and was responsible for the “systematic kidnap, torture and killing of the Zimbabwean people” they said, and asked Dr Williams to appoint a representative to Zimbabwe on behalf of the Communion, “to exercise a ministry of presence and to show solidarity with the Zimbabwean people.” In 1985 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie appointed the Rt Rev Keith Sutton, Bishop of Lichfield, as his envoy to South Africa to support the anti-apartheid campaign.
However, Dr Williams has so far declined to act upon the Primates’ request.
Damages paid in New Westminster case: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 24, 2011 August 25, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Anglican Church of North America, Church of England Newspaper, Property Litigation.Tags: ANiC, Don Harvey, Michael Ingham, New Westminster
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The Rt. Rev. Don Harvey
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Diocese of New Westminster reports that on July 29 it received payment of $155,000 (£96,000) in legal costs from the representatives of the vestry and clergy of four breakaway congregations that quit the diocese, eventually joining the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).
The payment of court costs marks the final chapter in the dispute between Canada’s largest Anglican parish, St John’s, Shaughnessy, which along with St Matthew’s, Abbotsford, Good Shepherd, Vancouver, and St Matthias & St Luke’s, Vancouver quit the Diocese of New Westminster.
In 2008, the four parishes voted to withdraw and join the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) in response to the innovations of doctrine and discipline, chiefly surrounding issues of human sexuality, introduced by New Westminster Bishop Michael 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. On June 16 the Supreme Court denied the parishes leave to appeal closing the door to further litigation.
A statement released by the diocese noted: “in the Canadian court system, costs are generally awarded to the party that has been substantially successful, with those costs paid by the opposing litigants, but costs are awarded according to a variety of scales at each level and often the costs are a moderate percentage of the actual costs incurred.”
“The desire of the bishop and diocese is to put this era of legal wrangling behind us as much as possible and move forward with ministry. As a result, the costs were negotiated by counsel for both parties without going through the further potentially costly legal process of assessment in the fall of 2011,” the diocesan statement read.
In a pastoral letter released after the Supreme Court decision was published, Bishop Don Harvey of ANiC wrote, “when the history of our Church is written, the date of June 16th will receive very special mention. It was on that day, nine years ago that a relatively few members of the Synod of New Westminster made the fateful decision that they no longer were able to remain in a church that was showing itself unfaithful to the Word of God. They felt that as precious as unity was, it still came secondary to truth and that the time had come to put their strong faith into action.”
Bishop Harvey commended the congregations for their faithfulness, and noted that while the decision was disappointing, “it will become obvious that God has been in control throughout, not that we ever doubted it, and that this is yet another step in our mission to restore the Anglican Church in our land to be faithful to the Word of God as expressed in Holy Scripture and its historic formularies.”
Qaddafi ousted: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 24, 2011 August 24, 2011
Posted by geoconger in British Foreign Policy, Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & the Middle East.Tags: David Cameron, Libya, Muammar Qaddafi, Tripoli
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First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
Two days after rebel troops breached the defense perimeter around Tripoli, the situation in the Libyan capital remains uncertain, with Christ the King Anglican Church reporting attacks against the city’s Catholic Church and sporadic violence.
The four decade rule of Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qaddafi appears to have come to an end on Aug 21 after rebel troops entered the city after encountering what was reported as only light resistance from the Khamis brigade commanded by one of Qaddafi’s sons.
Col. Qaddafi’s whereabouts remain unknown, and rebel troops have surrounded the Bab al-Azizya—the presidential compound. Western television networks have broadcast anti-Qaddafi celebrations in the city’s Green Square, and on Aug 22 the rebel coalition’s Transitional National Council chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil reported that two of the Libyan leader’s sons, including heir-apparent Saif al-Islam had been captured.
However, on Aug 23 Saif al-Islam surprised foreign journalists when he visited their hotel in the heart of the city, disputing claims he was a prisoner of the rebels. The regime continues to control the national television network and pro-Qaddafi military units remained in control of pockets of the city.
US President Barack Obama welcomed the collapse of the Qaddafi regime, saying his government would “continue to stay in close coordination with the TNC. We will continue to insist that the basic rights of the Libyan people are respected.”
On Aug 22, Prime Minister David Cameron stated “the latest information is that the vast majority of Tripoli is now controlled by free Libyan fighters, although fighting continues – and some of it is extremely fierce.”
Qaddafi’s “regime is falling apart and in full retreat,” Mr. Cameron said, adding “our task now is to do all we can to support the will of the Libyan people, which is for an effective transition to a free, democratic and inclusive Libya.”
While Libya appears to be free of the Qaddafi regime, foreign policy experts are not optimistic the new regime will be democratic or inclusive. Jonathan Schanzer of Washington’s Foundation for the Defense of Democracy predicted a “bigger battle” may be on the horizon.
“Qaddafi exploited tribal hatreds in Libya for four decades. He also robbed the country of any semblance of civil society. Now, after months of fighting, the country is awash with weapons. There should also be concerns about the ideology that will ultimately characterize the new Libya, when the guns have gone quiet. Qaddafi’s Green Book, a bizarre amalgam of socialism and Islam, was the ideology he imposed on Libya. Nobody there ever embraced it, but other ideologies were effectively banned. With Qaddafi’s ouster, we open Pandora’s Box,” Mr. Schanzer said.
In an email from the worn torn city to the Bishop of Egypt, the Rev. Hamdy Doud, an associate vicar of Christ the King Church in Tripoli, wrote: “At last, things are getting better” and internet communications have been restored.
“We praise the Lord for our safety here in Tripoli in such difficult situation,” Mr. Doud wrote.
“Now all people here are so glad of experiencing improvements and developments. But we still need to pray for the current transitional time to witness safe consequences of development. The Catholic Church was stolen by force last night, but we thank God that nobody was hurt. For the time being it is not safe to move around, and it will take us some time, but we are glad of having some relief,” he wrote.
The prime minister stated Britain was ready to assist with the transition to democracy. “We have a strong mission already in Benghazi consisting of Foreign Office, military and aid specialists, and we will establish a British diplomatic presence in Tripoli as soon as it is safe and practical to do so.
“Six months ago this country took the difficult decision to commit our military to support the people of Libya,” Mr. Cameron said.
“I said at the time that this action was necessary, legal and right – and I still believe that today.
“It was necessary because Qaddafi was going to slaughter his own people – and that massacre of thousands of innocent people was averted.
“Legal, because we secured a Resolution from the United Nations, and have always acted according to that Resolution. “
“And right, because the Libyan people deserve to shape their own future, just as the people of Egypt and Tunisia are now doing,” the prime minister said.
Washington hit by earthquake: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 23, 2011 August 23, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Washington.Tags: earthquake, Washington National Cathedral
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The pinnacles atop Washington's National Cathedral central tower were damaged in Tuesday's earthquake. Photo tweeted by Jennifer Walker
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
A 5.8 magnitude earthquake has rocked the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, shaking buildings from Georgia to Massachusetts. The Pentagon and other government offices in Washington were evacuated following the earthquake, while the central tower of Washington’s National Cathedral has been badly damaged.
According to the US Geological Survey, the quake struck at 17:51:04 UTC (1:51 pm local time) on Tuesday, Aug 23. The epicenter of the quake was located near Mineral, Virginia, approximately 84 miles south west of Washington, DC.
Reports of the earthquake quickly appeared on the internet. The Pentagon, Washington’s public monuments and parts of the Capitol were evacuated. Three of the four pinnacles on the central tower of Washington’s National Cathedral have been damaged, according to reports tweeted by onlookers. The cathedrals flying buttresses have cracked in several places, and one tweet reports the central tower is leaning to one side.
The cathedral’s website reports the building has been evacuated and closed to visitors pending a structural examination.
Office workers from afar afield as New York City, Columbus, Ohio, and Atlanta, Georgia evacuated high rise buildings when the quake hit. Airports across the east coast have closed, however no injuries or deaths have been reported so far.
Tuesday’s earthquake comes as the Eastern Seaboard prepares for the landfall of Hurricane Irene, a category 3 storm that has lashed the Bahamas and is expected to make landfall on the US mainland on Aug 25.
Anglican clergy under siege in Harare: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 19, 2011, p 7. August 23, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.Tags: Chad Gandiya, Nolbert Kunonga
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Bishop Chad Gandiya
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Bishop of Harare writes from Zimbabwe that breakaway bishop Nolbert Kunonga begun evicting Anglican clergy from their homes.
In an Aug 15 email to supporters Bishop Chad Gandiya wrote “all our priests who were still in parish rectories have received stamped latest court judgement delivered by Kunonga’s people and in one incident they were in the company of the police. They told our priests to move out.”
The diocese and the local congregations are “busy finding alternative accommodation” for the evicted clergy, he said, adding “this is not going to be easy at all. It will disrupt their family life and ministry. I have been busy this evening getting in touch with my priests who are affected and encouraging them.”
Dr. Kunonga’s men also went to the province’s seminary “Bishop Gaul college and served the same papers to our principal Friar Joshua. They padlocked the library before they left.”
“I am very concerned about the college because our ordinands are coming back next week for their first semester and we had a full college this year. The college is not a diocese of Harare institution but belongs to all five dioceses and indeed to the province. Our registrar is going to try and bring that to the attention of the authorities later on this morning. I am concerned about our library too. If we lose the books we have that will take us back many years,” he said.
The latest move by Dr. Kunonga comes a week after the Chief Justice of the Zimbabwe Supreme Court handed down an interim order affirming a 2009 lower court decision that “gave the custodianship of the diocesan properties to Dr. Kunonga,” Bishop Gandiya said.
“To our surprise and that of everyone else, thirteen months after his promise to give judgement, the Chief Justice has now reinstated our appeal but upheld [the] Hlatshwayo judgement on the custodianship of the properties,” the bishop wrote on Aug 5.
In July 2009, High Court Justice Ben Hlatshwayo issued an order recognizing Dr. Kunonga as the Bishop of Harare and gave him custody of church properties, effectively overturning an order by Judge Rita Makarau which held the two sides should share the properties pending a final disposition of the dispute.
Justice Hlatshwayo’s order was stayed on March 3, 2010 when Justice Chinembiri Bhunu confirmed Judge Makarau’s earlier opinion.
However, on May 2, 2010 Deputy Chief Justice Luke Malaba ruled the Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA) had not followed proper legal procedures in appealing Justice Hlatshwayo’s order. Justice Malaba wrote the fairness of the underlying ecclesiastical dispute was not at issue. The question before the court was whether the attorneys for the province had filed a proper petition for appeal.
Justice Malaba held the CPCA had not provided a bond for the costs of the appeal within the prescribed time and had failed to ask for a waiver of this requirement. The court had no recourse but to quash the province’s appeal, he said.
In last week’s ruling, the Supreme Court reinstated the province’s appeal, but affirmed in part Justice Hlatshwayo’s order giving control of the property to Dr. Kunonga.
Bishop Gandiya asked whether it was a “coincidence that this judgement is given only about a week after Dr. Kunonga had stated very clearly on national television that he was going to take all church properties?”
Dr Kunonga has been “abusing church members and misusing church properties with the support of some in the Zimbabwe Republic Police and nobody stopped him. We thought that the laws of the land would stop him but now we see the law legitimising his impunity. We have tried to engage various responsible authorities but to no avail.”
Bishop Gandiya added that Dr Kunonga was now “claiming ownership of properties that do not belong to him. This is day light robbery now with the support of the law. We continue to hope for the time when reason will prevail to the glory of God.”
“Please continue to pray for us,” the bishop wrote. “My main concern is the safety of my priests and their families. Pray that our efforts to engage the authorities succeed.”
British teen drinking ‘spawning a violent and promiscuous generation’: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 19, 2011 p 7. August 22, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Youth/Children.Tags: alcohol abuse
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First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Binge drinking among teenage girls has become a serious public health problem for the UK and a source of public disorder, a report compiled by the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University has concluded. It warned that Britain’s alcohol culture was spawning a violent and promiscuous generation with 30 per cent of teenagers bingeing at least weekly.
The study of over 11,000 15 and 16-year-old teenagers in the North West found that 88 per cent of teen girls had consumed alcohol, as compared to 80 per cent of boys. “Compared to European neighbours, 15 and 16-year-olds [British teens] are far more likely to drink alcohol and do so more frequently,” the report found.
“We estimate that 65.9 per cent of 15 and 16-year-olds drink at least monthly and that their total overall consumption is 83,943,726 units,” the report said, noting “this is equivalent to 44.2 bottles of wine (117 pints of beer) per year for every 15 and 16-year-old.”
More than half of those who drank alcohol consumed more than ten units a week, and 7 per cent had more than 40 units, and of these “39 per cent of females and 42 per cent of males had been involved in violence.’
“Such drinking can place girls in situations where they are too drunk to properly consider whether they wish to have sex or take the appropriate precautions to prevent pregnancy and sexually-transmitted infections, the report said.
“The consequences of this are both immediate – such as poor school performance and violence – and long-term, such as alcohol-related health problems in later life and pregnancy,” the study concluded.
In a pastoral letter published in parish magazines in June in the Diocese of Lichfield, the Rt Rev Geoffrey Annas, the Bishop of Stafford commented that alcohol abuse had become “one of the major sins of our time.”
“I am not advocating a temperance revival,” Bishop Annas said. “Jesus drank wine and I see alcohol as a gift to enjoy. But I am calling for a more responsible use of this gift.”
“When I hear of older people afraid to go out at night because of drunken rampages; when I have to tread carefully in the street to avoid the pools of vomit; when I am told by young people going away from home for the first time that every single event of Freshers’ Week at their university is focused on pub crawls; when I see ‘reality’ shows on the TV that glorify drunken and degrading obscenity as the ‘Brits’ (both male and female) go on holiday in Europe, and when I join the Night Church or Street Pastors and see beautiful but vulnerable young people become more depressed or aggressive as the night wears on, then I think that Church and Society together need to speak out,” he wrote.
“There has been a seismic shift in attitudes towards smoking – we need the same in our approach to alcohol,” the bishop said.
Anglican Unscripted, Aug 19, 2011 August 21, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican.TV, Hymnody/Liturgy, Wicca/Druidism, Zimbabwe.Tags: gay marriage
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Anglican Unscripted for August 19th, 2011 | AnglicanTV Ministries
http://anglican.tv/content/anglican-unscripted-august-19th-2011
This week’s Anglican Unscripted is our best yet. Kevin and George discuss our wicked church history from 499 years ago. They also discuss the latest news on the Anglican Liturgy and TECs hope in making changes to the sacrament of marriage. Plus an exclusive on Zimbabwe.
Christian Dalits rally in India: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 19, 2011 p 6. August 21, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of North India, Civil Rights.Tags: Congress Party, Dalits, Scheduled Castes
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First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Christians have joined forces to protest the Congress Party-led government’s refusal to include Christian and Muslim Dalits among those given favored treatment under India’s Scheduled Caste programme.
On Aug 10, Christians across India were encouraged to observe “Black Day” by wearing a black badge to protest government discrimination against Christians.
At a Black Day rally held at the Church of North India’s offices in Delhi, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Delhi Vincent said “this is a day of mourning as our fellow Christians have been suffering for the last six decades,” Archbishop Vincent Concessao of Delhi told the gathering.
Christians had always protested peacefully, he told the rally. “We don’t burn buses or throw shoes at people,” he said, but “perhaps our protests are not forceful enough. But as Christians we have to adhere to our principles and hope for success”.
The General Secretary of the Church of North India Alwan Masih told the gathering Christians must come together to wield their political muscle to fight for equal rights. “I am hopeful that justice will be done for Dalit Christians,” Mr. Masih said.
An amendment to India’s Constitution in 1950 set aside preferences in government jobs, schools and created welfare schemes for untouchables, or Dalits—the members of India’s lowest caste who traditionally had been the victims of caste discrimination. The Scheduled Caste law has since been amended to allow Sikh and Buddhist Dalits to qualify for benefits, but has not been opened to Christians or Muslims.
Under the law, a Hindu Dalit who converts to Christianity loses his Scheduled Caste assistance.
On July 28 over a thousand Christians participated in a two-day hunger strike, followed by a march on parliament to protest the government’s refusal to open the Scheduled Castes to Christians.
“Ours is protest that has resulted from hunger for justice…hunger for human rights and for equality,” the Rev. Roger Gaikwad of the National Council of Churches India told the rally, according the UCA news. “We will follow the path of great leaders like Gandhi” in pursuing non-violent confrontation with the government, he said.
Mr. Masih told the rally that Christians were being “pushed against the wall” by government instransigence.
“Our government believes in inclusive development, but its failure in being even-handed” shows this promise to be false, he said
Former NZ Governor General, Archbishop Paul Reeves dead at 78: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 19, 2011 p 6. August 21, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand & Polynesia, Church of England Newspaper.Tags: Sir Paul Reeves
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First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The former primate of the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, Archbishop Paul Reeves, has died. On Aug 14 the archbishop’s family released a statement that the former primate and Governor General of New Zealand had died of cancer in Auckland. He was 78.
Of Maori descent, Archbishop Reeves was ordained deacon in 1958 in New Zealand and studied at St Peter’s College, Oxford from 1959 to 1961. Ordained to the priesthood in 1960, he served as an assistant curate at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford, and as curate at Kirkley St Peter from 1961 to 1963 and at St Mary the Virgin in Lewisham from 1963-1964.
Returning to New Zealand in 1964, he served as Vicar of Okato St Paul from 1964 to 1966, as lecturer in Church History at St John’s College in Auckland from 1966-1969, and as Director of Education for the Diocese of Auckland from 1969 to 1971 before being elected Bishop of Waiapu in 1971.
In 1979 he was translated to Auckland, and was elected Archbishop and Primate of New Zealand in 1980; retiring as bishop and primate in 1985. He later served as the Anglican Observer to the United Nations from 1990 to 1993.
Upon his retirement from church office, New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange recommended Archbishop Reeves be appointed Governor General of New Zealand, and was appointed by the Queen as the 15th Governor General of the country on Nov 22, 1985. He as made a Knight Bachelor in the 1985 honours list and was awarded the GCMG in 1985 and GVCO in 1986.
As Governor General, Sir Paul clashed with Prime Minister Lange over his government’s moves away from the socialist policies of his predecessors and after his retirement from public office backed the campaign to make New Zealand a republic.
The current prime minister, John Key released a statement noting Sir Paul’s life was “one spent giving … His contribution was enormous and New Zealand is a poorer place for his passing.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams said: “Sir Paul was one of the great statesmen of the Anglican Communion, and someone whom I was most happy to count as a personal friend. My heart goes out to his family as they mourn his passing, and we give thanks to God for the life and work of Sir Paul.”
The Archbishop of York will attend the state funeral scheduled for Aug 18 in Auckland.
Bishop of Lahore: ‘Pakistan falling short of Jinnah’s vision’: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 19, 2011 p 6. August 19, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Pakistan.Tags: Alexander Malik, Diocese of Lahore, Muhammad Ali Jinnah
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Muhammad Ali Jinnah
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Pakistan has failed to live up to the ideals of its founding president, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Bishop of Lahore said last week in a statement marking the country’s Minorities Day.
On Aug 10 Bishop Alexander Malik released a statement saying it was wrong to equate the Christians of Pakistan with Europeans or Americans, or to claim Christians were ‘fifth columnists’ of the West.
He also reminded his compatriots of the five ideals that lay behind the founding of Pakistan as expressed by Muhammad Ali Jinnah in 1947 had yet to be fulfilled. In a speech delivered on Aug 11, 1947 to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan following his election as the first president, Muhammad Ali Jinnah said “the first duty of a government is to maintain law and order, so that the life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by the State.”
The second responsibility of government was to combat “bribery and corruption. That really is a poison. We must put that down with an iron hand,” President Jinnah said.
“Black-marketing is another curse,” the president said, as is this “great evil, the evil of nepotism and jobbery.”
The fifth principal, the bishop said was of freedom of religion. “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.”
These ideals had yet to be fulfilled in Pakistan, Bishop Malik said. The state should respect the grievances and concerns of religious minorities and should combat the prejudices of the Muslim majority against the Christian minority.
“All minorities deserve fair representation in public policies and decision making bodies both levels at federal and provincial,” the bishop said, according to an account printed in the Nation newspaper.
Anglican Liturgical group rejects American push for gay blessings: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 17, 2011 p 5. August 18, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Communion, Church of England Newspaper, Hymnody/Liturgy.Tags: gay marriage, International Anglican Liturgical Consultation
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The Rt. Rev. Frank Lyons
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A push by the Episcopal Church to bring same-sex marriage into the theological mainstream was repulsed last week by delegates attending the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation (IALC) in Canterbury.
The IALC was not persuaded by the theological or liturgical arguments—including a mock same-sex blessing ceremony–offered by the Episcopal Church delegation on the merits of same-sex blessings and declined to include the US’s views in its final report on marriage.
Gathered at the Canterbury Cathedral Lodge 56 delegates representing 19 of the Anglican Communion’s provinces met from Aug 1-6 to continue work on “Rites Relating to Marriage: A Working Interim Document”.
According to a statement released on behalf of the IALC by the Anglican Communion News Service, the marriage studies examined the “theology of marriage,” the “cultural contexts of marriage,” and the “shape and elements of the ritual.”
The ACNS reported that “one session was set aside from the regular work of the IALC in response to a formal request from the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music of The Episcopal Church (USA) – TEC – so that representatives from that Standing Commission could hear from IALC members in response to that Province’s exploratory theological rationale and liturgical principles for the development of rites for the blessing of committed same gender relationships.”
Members of the IALC present at the meeting told The Church of England Newspaper the US delegation led by Prof. Ruth Meyers of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific and Bishop Thomas Ely of Vermont offered a theological rationale for same-sex blessings and offered a sample of one rite, with two female members of the US delegation serving as the spouses. After the ceremony the American team solicited comments from the gathered IALC, but asked for the return of the service leaflet as the rite remained a work in process and was not ready for publication.
While some members of the IALC, including its new chairman, Canadian-member the Rev. Dr. Eileen Scully, were generally supportive of the US view, the majority were not. One participant told CEN the objections fell in two general groups: those who believed the concept of same-sex blessings was un-Biblical, and those who were perturbed by the “aggressive” push by the US team to seize control of a study process on rites for traditional marriage to include their own agenda.
The Bishop of Bolivia, the Rt. Rev. Frank Lyons explained the “theme of blessings for same sex partners was not in the purview of the IALC which is preparing a forthcoming study based upon marriage between a man and a woman.”
He added the current marriage rite project was an “an excellent work that raises important questions for local development of rites for marriage and also a range of other moments important to the sustaining of this estate. It would be a shame to dismiss it out of hand based on misinformation,” he said in a statement given to CEN.
He noted that it was “impossible to deal with TEC’s theological rationale because they have already reached their conclusions on this and removed it from discussion a priori. As there is no biblical warrant for it, only controversial discussion could take place in an Anglican setting anyway. When the issue came up in plenary it was dealt with as cultural innovation, not a theological issue.”
“With the theological rationale dismissed, the task presented to the working group by TEC was to evaluate the rite as liturgy. This elicited a mountain of criticism and important suggestions in various small groups, such as comments concerning the rite’s basic purpose and its structural presentation,” Bishop Lyons said.
The bishop told CEN it was “good to have the demonstration. It clarified exactly what [the US was] doing and how they were going about it.”
“It needs to be clear that this was not an approval of what they were doing either,” he said, adding that “if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it must be a duck …so the close relationship to a marriage was not lost on anyone, despite protestations to the contrary.”
However, Prof. Meyers told CEN the “conversation about the work in TEC was separate from the overall focus of the Consultation. Hence the theological principles that are undergirding the work in TEC are not part of the IALC report on marriage.”
The Inter Anglican Liturgical Consultation is a “self-organising body within the Communion, interested in matters of liturgy,” a spokesman from the Anglican Consultative Council explained.
“As such it is akin to a network of the Communion in that while it reports to the Instruments and to the Standing Committee on occasion, it doesn’t receive a mandate from the Instruments, nor does it receive financial support. It appoints its own steering committee, and can invite whoever it wishes to participate in its conferences and meetings,” ACC spokesman Jan Butters said.
Govt incompetence exacerbating East African famine, Archbishop charges: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 12, 2011 p 5. August 17, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Kenya, Church of England Newspaper.Tags: famine
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Archbishop Eliud Wabukala
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Starvation in East Africa was a result of drought compounded by government incompetence, the Archbishop of Kenya said last week.
The United Nations Food & Agricultural Organization reports that over 11 million people, including 2.3 million children under the age of 5, are in urgent need of food and water in the horn of Africa: Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Eritrea and Kenya following two years of drought that has left over 10,000 dead.
The situation is particularly acute in Somalia, the UN’s refugee agency reported, where 3.7 million people are facing food shortages. Almost 300,000 people live in two provinces in Somalia that have now been declared famine areas. However, the pro-al Qaeda Islamist group al-Shabab has refused access to allow Western aid agencies in the worst hit regions, but has permitted relief from Muslim countries to be distributed in the territory they control.
In an account of a speech given in Bungoma last week printed by the Nairobi Standard, Kenyan Archbishop Eliud Wabukala chastised the government, saying the food shortages in Northern and Eastern Kenya were the “result of government’s failure to plan.”
Drought was a cyclical occurrence in the Horn of Africa, the archbishop said, arguing the government should have had plans in place to deal with threat.
“Government knew from forecasts the drought would be severe and ought to have planned adequately how to deal with the food situation to save those people now starving but leaders did nothing. They have again let Kenyans down letting the situation deteriorate into massive human suffering” the archbishop said.
On Aug 3, the Anglican Church of Kenya released a pastoral letter stating the country was facing two “major challenges”: the drought and the “inconsistent manner of the constitutional implementation process.”
While the rains had failed in Eastern Kenya, the drought had been exacerbated by the government’s “structural failures.”
There are regions of Kenya that “currently have plenty of food e.g. Nyandarua, Western Kenya, Trans Nzoia and Uasin Gishu. What mechanisms are in place to ensure that this food is harvested, preserved, put in strategic reserves and distributed as needed,” the church asked.
“Food insecurity is ultimately a security concern, as a hungry person is an angry person,” the church said.
Sudan guilty of ‘ethnic cleansing’, bishop tells Congress: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 12, 2011 p 7. August 17, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church of the Sudan, Persecution.Tags: Andudu Adam Elnail, South Kordufan
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First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Bishop of Kadugli has appealed to the United Nations to send a fact-finding mission to Sudan’s Southern Kordufan State to investigate war crimes committed by the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) against residents of the border region.
Speaking in New York on 5 August, the Rt Rev Andudu Adam Elnail reported that his offices had been burned and his house sprayed with bullets. “Many people have been killed. They are culling people from house-to-house,” killing Christians, supporters of the new South Sudan government and members of the Nuba tribe.
The Bishop said he had also heard reports of mass graves in Kadugli as well. “There is a lot of killing going on and we consider this is ethnic cleansing, so that is why we are calling on the UN and the Security Council to consider what is going on in Sudan,” the Bishop said.
The previous day Bishop Elnail testified before a congressional hearing in Washington investigating the violence in South Kordofan. “The Nuba people fear that we will be forgotten, that the world will stand idly by while mass killings continue without redress,” Bishop Elnail told the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights.
“Our hope,” Bishop Elnail said, “is that the United States will lead the international community in taking prompt, effective action to protect tens of thousands of displaced people, including an untold number of civilians being killed house-to-house and bombed by their own government.”
“I hear almost every day new reports from the Nuba Mountains of the Sudan Armed Forces indiscriminately bombing civilians, including children and women and old people, in places not known to be near military installations. I see photos of the people maimed and killed in these bombing raids,” the Bishop said.
“To me, these people are not numbers and statistics. They are my neighbours, my friends, local business leaders, and members of my congregation.”
Lying along the border between North and South Sudan, the oil-rich region of South Kordofan lost almost half its population, an estimated 500,000 people, during the second Sudan civil war of 1990-2005. Promises by the Khartoum government to permit a referendum on whether the region would join South Sudan or remain under the control of the Khartoum government have not been honoured.
Brad Phillips, Sudan country director for Voice of the Martyrs, said the Khartoum government was seeking to “Arabize” the region — killing or expelling the Nuba from their ancestral homes.
Bishop Elnail urged the US government to use its influence to stop the depredations of the Khartoum regime.
“The United States cannot begin to consider normalizing ties with Sudan, and should not de-list Sudan as a sponsor of terrorism or approve this outlaw nation’s access to international financing and debt relief,” the Bishop told Congress. “Those individuals and groups most responsible for the mass atrocities should be designated and sanctioned.”
Indian church leaders call for calm in the wake of terror attacks: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 12, 2011 p 6. August 17, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of North India, Terrorism.Tags: Indian Mujahideen
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First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Church leaders in India have condemned last month’s terror bombings in Bombay that killed 26 and injured 130 people.
On 13 July, three bombs exploded within 15 minutes of each other at the Zaveri Bazaar in South Bombay, the Opera House in the centre of the city, and near a bus stand in the Dadar district in the heart of Bombay. The blasts occurred two days after the fifth anniversary of the railway station blasts that killed 200 people and injured 700. In 2008 Islamist terrorists from Pakistan attacked a train station, hotel and other crowded areas killing 164 people.
“We strongly condemn the inhuman and dastardly attack,” said Alwan Masih, general secretary of the Church of North India (CNI). “It is highly unfortunate that we could not prevent the attack despite our vast resources. What is more painful is that this was a serial blast.”
“These forces engaged in inhuman actions must not divide and destroy our unity,” Mr Masih said. “They do not belong to any civil society. So it is very crucial that we react maturely.”
Since 1993, more than 700 people have been killed in terror attacks by foreign and domestic jihadi groups in Bombay, India’s commercial capital. Initial reports suggest the Indian Mujahideen (IM) may be behind last month’s attack. A home-grown terror group comprised of Indian Muslims, IM came to the notice of the security services in 2007 after it claimed responsibility for bombings in several Northern Indian cities.
NZ dean pleads guilty to fraud charges: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 12, 2011 p 7. August 17, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand & Polynesia, Church of England Newspaper, Corruption.Tags: Jonathan Kirkpatrick
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First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The former Dean of Dunedin has announced he will enter a guilty plea to 82 counts of theft from the Auckland University of Technology.
The Rev. Jonathan Kirkpatrick, who was head of the university’s business innovation centre, told reporters after his Aug 4 arraignment that he was “not looking forward to dragging it out” and had admitted the truth of the prosecution’s case.
Court documents alleged Mr. Kirkpatrick began stealing from the university shortly after his appointment in 2002 by generating false invoices from companies he controlled, bilking AUT out of almost £330,000.
The Diocese of Auckland has suspended Mr. Kirkpatrick from his post of Priest in Charge at St Alban’s Church in Balmoral in central Auckland. Further ecclesiastical disciplinary proceedings are expected against the 53 year old priest, who was one of the Anglican Church’s leading gay campaigners in New Zealand.
In a statement issued by university vice-chancellor Derek McCormack, AUT said the thefts “relate to money in the research and development field” and were not from “student fees. Nevertheless, AUT is largely a student and taxpayer-funded organisation and remains accountable to the highest accounting standards.”
The case has been adjourned for two-weeks to permit a full accounting by the university.
Second lawsuit filed in the Bede Parry affair: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 12, 2011 p 6. August 17, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Church of England Newspaper, The Episcopal Church.Tags: abuse, Bede Parry, Katharine Jefferts Schori
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The Rev. Bede Parry
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A second lawsuit has been filed in Missouri in the Bede Parry affair, accusing the former Roman Catholic turned Episcopal priest of abuse, and asserting that Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori knowingly received a confessed child abuser into the Episcopal ministry.
On 21 July a lawsuit was brought by a man identified as John Doe 48 against Conception Abbey in Missouri, alleging that when he was a teenage music student of Fr Parry’s at the abbey in the early 1980s, he was sexually molested by the priest.
Neither Fr Parry nor the Episcopal Church is named in the suit, which seeks damages from the Catholic monastery for failing to supervise Parry, covering up his abuse, and failing to take appropriate action.
However, like the 23 June lawsuit that led to Fr Parry’s resignation as assistant minister at All Saints Episcopal Church in Las Vegas, the new lawsuit states the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada was given a copy of a psychological examination in 2000 that identified Fr Parry as a serial sexual abuser.
The Bishop of Nevada, the Rt Rev Dan Edwards has denied any knowledge of the report writing on his diocesan website last month, “no such report was sent to the Diocese of Nevada and, to this day, we have no knowledge of its existence other than an assertion.”
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has so far declined to respond to questions about what she knew of Fr Parry’s past when she received him in the Episcopal ministry in 2004. In 1987 Fr Parry was the subject of an ecclesiastical proceeding in the Catholic Church that formally suspended his licence to act as a priest. The psychological evaluation conducted in 2000 was undertaken when Fr Parry sought to join a new abbey.
Critics of the Presiding Bishop have charged her with violating the Church’s canons governing the reception of Catholic priests, which required her to have received a certificate from Fr Parry’s abbot or bishop attesting to the fact that his withdrawal from the ministry of the Catholic Church was not due to misconduct.
Croydon vicar arrested on marriage fraud charges: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 12, 2011 p 4 August 16, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Immigration, Marriage.Tags: immigration fraud
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The Rev. Nathan Ntege
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Diocese of Southwark has confirmed that the vicar of St Jude with St Aidan Church in Thornton Heath has been arrested on suspicion of conducting fraudulent marriages.
“A 52-year-old man was arrested at an address in Thornton Heath on the morning of Saturday 4 June in connection with an investigation into sham marriages in south London,” a UK Border Agency spokesman reported.
The diocese stated Mr. Ntege, who was appointed vicar in 2007 of St Jude and St Aidan in the Croydon archeaconry, had been arrested and released on bail, the “terms of which mean that he is not currently able to undertake public ministry until the investigation is complete.”
A native of Uganda, Mr. Ntege is the chaplain of the Luganda Fellowship, a church organization founded in the 1970’s for Luganda-speaking Anglicans resident in greater London. Luganda-language services are held the first two Sundays of the month at St John’s Waterloo and the last two Sundays at St Jude’s.
Mr. Ntege is the second Ugandan clergyman of the Church of England arrested this year on immigration fraud charges. On March 13, the Archdeacon of Rochdale told the congregation of St. Peter’s Church in Newbold, Rochdale, that their Team Vicar, Canon Patrick Magumba, had been arrested and the rectory and church searched by the UK Border Agency in connection with an investigation of sham marriages in the North West.
Last week two East London clergymen, the Rev. Brian Shipsides and the Rev. Elwon John plead not guilty to conspiring to facilitate breaches of immigration law between December 28, 2007 and August 4 last year. The 200 bogus marriages were alleged by the prosecution to have taken place between EU and non-EU citizens who wished to gain right of address in Britain.
Alabama immigration laws spark church ire: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 12, 2011 p 7. August 15, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Immigration.Tags: Diocese of Alabama
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First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Church leaders in Alabama have filed suit in a federal court in a bid to block the implementation of the state’s new immigration law.
On 1 August, the Episcopal Bishop of Alabama, the Rt Rev Henry N Parsley, Jr, along with the Roman Catholic Bishops of Mobile and Birmingham, and the Methodist Bishop of Northern Alabama asked the courts to throw out the new law. “The bishops have reason to fear that administering of religious sacraments, which are central to the Christian faith, to known undocumented persons may be criminalized under this law,” the lawsuit said.
The US Justice Department has also filed suit to block the implementation of the law, which is slated to go into effect on 1 September. “Setting immigration policy and enforcing immigration laws is a national responsibility that cannot be addressed through a patchwork of state immigration laws,” said US Attorney General Eric Holder in a press statement.
“To the extent we find state laws that interfere with the federal government’s enforcement of immigration law, we are prepared to bring suit, as we did in Arizona,” the attorney general said.
The Obama Administration’s policy of not enforcing rigorously American immigration laws has prompted a number of states to set their own immigration policies. The Alabama law forbids illegal aliens from residing in Alabama or holding employment in the state. It also forbids residents from providing shelter or services to illegal aliens and requires schools to report on the residency status of its students.
The bishops’ lawsuit stated that “if enforced, Alabama’s Anti-Immigration Law will make it a crime to follow God’s command to be Good Samaritans.”
It would place churches in the “untenable position of verifying individuals’ immigration documentation” before being able to provide things such as food, clothing, shelter and transportation to those in need,” the lawsuit said.
House Majority Leader Micky Hammon, a co-sponsor of the bill, told reporters, “I am disappointed that these church leaders would seek to shield those who, by their very presence, break our laws.”
“It is important to remember that the operative word in the phrase illegal immigrant is illegal,” Mr Hammon said.
A preliminary hearing on the suit has been set for 24 August before the Federal District Court for Northern Alabama.
Church leaders divide over term limits for president of Nigeria: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 12, 2011 p 6. August 15, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Nigeria.Tags: Goodluck Jonathan, term limits
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Archbishop Joseph Adetiloye
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Church leaders in Nigeria have objected to plans to create term limits for the country’s president and state governors, saying allowing only a single six-year term would make the government less responsive to the needs and opinions of the electorate.
In an interview with the Leadership newspaper, the former Primate of the Church of Nigeria, Archbishop Joseph Abiodun Adetiloye urged President Goodluck Jonathan to drop plans to amend the country’s constitution.
Last month President Jonathan asked MPs to amend the constitution so that future presidents and governors serve a single, six-year term. Aides to the president said the proposal would allow the government to focus on governing the country, and would avoid the violence that surrounds the country’s presidential campaigns.
A statement from the President’s Office published by AFP said: “If the proposed amendment is accepted by the National Assembly, the president assures that he will not in any way be a beneficiary.
Archbishop Adetiloye stated there should be an incentive for political leaders to honour the party political platforms they adopted before elections. Politicians should “fear” the electorate, and have an incentive to govern according to the pledges they made when they ran for office, he said.
Being accountable to the electorate will force political parties to “pile pressure of such elected official to deliver.”
“We thank God now that we are having fairly credible election, so with a renewable tenure, all the political parties we realise that the only way they can dominate a state or the country is by performing well for them to win future elections,” Archbishop Adetiloye said last week.
However, the former Bishop of Akure, the Rt Rev Emmanuel Gbonigi told the Vanguard newspaper that he backed term limits as it would allow politicians to focus on governing rather than campaigning. When a governor is elected, he spends the first six months in office to “settle down,” governs for “another two and half years” and then begins to “strategise for a second term” during his last year in office.
“But if it is six-year single term, he would use one year to settle down and appoint political officers and the next five years to work knowing that there is no second term,” Bishop Gbonigi said.
Anglican Unscripted: Aug 12, 2011 August 13, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican.TV.comments closed
Kevin and George take you back to 2003 and the ultimate challenge for the Anglican Communion. They also discuss the London Riots and Potter-mania. Our guest Bishop this week is Archbishop Duncan who brings Kevin up to speed on the new Ordinal for the Anglican Church in North America.
This week’s Anglican Unscripted episode can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thf776OeX5c
Hungary bans Anglicans: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 12, 2011 p 6. August 12, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper.Tags: Hungary, Institute on Religion and Public Policy
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First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
Hungary has introduced a new law governing the registration of religious groups that critics charge discriminates against minority faiths, and strips St Margaret’s Anglican Church in Budapest of its status as a religious organisation.
On 14 July the Hungarian Parliament adopted “The Right to Freedom of Conscience and Religion and on the Status of Churches, Religions and Religious Communities” Law, by a vote of 254 in favour to 43 opposed.
Introduced on 10 June in Parliament, the proposed legislation would have created three tiers of religious groups, with differing authorities to conduct worship and engage in charitable activities under Hungarian law. Human Rights activists, NGOs and a number of religious leaders objected, arguing, in the words of the Washington think-tank, the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, the bill gave Hungary “a tiered system offering an inferior religious status to minority faiths that violates the right to religious freedom and the right to be free from religious discrimination.”
On 12 July the governing Fidesz party with their coalition allies the Christian Democrats amended the bill, eliminating the tier system and recognising 14 religious organisations as Churches. Hungary’s 348 other faiths and denominations were stripped of their legal status as religious organisations and lost their tax exempt status and entitlements to state subsidies.
The 14 denominations that were allowed to retain their registration were the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches, the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Lutherans, the Calvinists, select Jewish denominations, the Hungarian Unitarians, the Baptists and the Faith Church.
Among those losing recognition were Hungary’s Anglican, Methodist, Pentecostal, Adventist and reform Jewish congregations, the Salvation Army and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu groups.
The Institute on Religion and Public Policy condemned the new law saying it “creates the most burdensome registration system in the entire OSCE region while codifying systematic discrimination of religious minorities. The Religion Law is completely inconsistent with fundamental human rights as it contravenes the principles of equality and non-discrimination.”
A coalition of human rights and democracy activists that opposed the communist regime submitted an open letter to the European Union asking it to intervene. “Never before has a Member State of the EU so blatantly dared to go against the principles of freedom of beliefs, equality before the law, and separation of church from state. These are all established fundamental rights in our common Europe,” the 8 August letter stated.
“In the 1970s, under the Soviet domination over Eastern Europe, all we could do in similar situations was to hold vigils at worship sites that had been shut or demolished.
We fought for a Europe that is united under human rights. Have our hopes been in vain,” they stated, urging the EU to “start an official inquiry into this violation of the rights that are possessed by all Europeans.”
5 years imprisonment for US vicar caught with child pornography: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 12, 2011 p 7.p August 11, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Church of England Newspaper, Northern Michigan.Tags: Mat Metor
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First published in the Church of England Newspaper.
A former clergyman of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan has been sentenced to a term of five years imprisonment for possessing child pornography.
On Aug 3, the US Attorney for the Western District of Michigan, Donald A Davis, announced that Mathew Elliot Metor, 37, of Escanaba, Michigan, would serve 60 months in federal prison. District Judge R. Allan Edgar further ordered Metor to serve ten years of supervised release following his release from prison, and to pay a $100 special assessment.
Mr. Metor was deposed from the ministry of the Episcopal Church on Dec 22, 2010 after he renounced his orders. He had served as vicar of St Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Escanaba and until 2005 was director of the diocesan youth camp.
On July 31, the former Bishop of Northern Michigan, the Rt. Rev. Tom Ray posted a message to the diocesan internet chat board asking for prayers for the former minister.
The bishop noted the sentence of five years was “well below the governmental guidelines” and was likely due to the “letters written on his behalf and because of his remarkably clean and faithful history.”
“Mat was convicted of downloading child pornography without ever paying for it or ever distributing it. He was a voyeur,” the bishop said.
“Mat has grown up among us in this diocese and is so respected in his home community of St. Steven’s, Escanaba that he was called to prepare for ordination to the priesthood. Mat has accepted his sentence graciously and sadly. His attorney and the Federal Judge (an Episcopalian) both argued for and agreed to a considerably reduced sentence. Please remember our brother, Mat, in your continuing prayers,” Bishop Ray wrote.
On March 30, 2011, Metor pled guilty to one count of possessing child pornography. Assistant US Attorney Paul D. Lochner said Metor admitted that he had obtained child pornography by using Frostwire, a peer-to-peer file sharing program, to download images and videos to his computer. Metor had downloaded over 800 images and over 100 videos of child pornography, the US Attorney’s office said.
The arrest and conviction were part of the Justice Department’s Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. The US Attorney thanked local police officials and members of the United States Secret Service for their work in bringing Metor to justice.
Zimbabwean Churches Told to Support Ruling Party—or Else: Christianity Today, Aug 11, 2011 August 10, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Christianity Today, Zimbabwe.Tags: Chad Gandiya, Nolbert Kunonga, Robert Mugabe, ZANU-PF
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First printed in Christianity Today.
Pastors and advocates report that a new wave of persecution is washing over the churches of Zimbabwe as the country prepares for a new round of elections called by President Robert Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF party.
Churches are “being targeted and harassed by security agencies and militias which are controlled by ZANU PF,” said Marlon Zakeyo, the Zimbabwe advocacy coordinator of the World Student Christian Federation in Geneva. They are “in need of active and practical international solidarity and prayer,” he said.
Reports from the Central African nation state that leaders of many of the country’s evangelical, Anglican, Roman Catholic, and African Independent Churches—especially the Zion Christian Church and the VaPostori Apostolic sects—are being pressed into service by the regime to cement its hold on power.
While the former Anglican bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kunonga, has long used his church to back “Zimbabwe’s Moses,” ZANU PF is also alleged to have made a concerted effort to bring the Apostolic churches under its control.
Over the past two years members of the opposition party, MDC, have been expelled from many Apostolic churches, and some pastors have reportedly been killed for refusing to support the regime. TheZimbabwe Briefing, a South Africa-based publication supporting Mugabe’s ouster,reports that some Apostolic leaders aretelling their followers—estimated to number approximately 1 million—that Mugabe is the Archangel Gabriel and God’s anointed ruler for Africa.
Zimbabwe Christian Alliance (ZCA) executive director Useni Sibanda has condemned the political “invasion” of the Apostolic churches, and has urged “church leaders to maintain their credibility by not allowing themselves to be manipulated by politicians.”
ZANU PF spokesman Gadzira Chirumhanzu said it was not possible for church and state to live independent lives. However, he told Christianity Today the party “does not interfere in one’s beliefs; be he Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or whatever.”
“There is no way a church can divorce itself from society, politics, or whatever,” said Chirumhanzu, the party’s director of Science and Technology. “Rules and regulations governing churches, sects, you name it are promulgated in parliament, hence I don’t see how Useni wants to achieve his organization’s objective if it does not participate in politics one way or the other.”
Churches that have opposed the ZANU PF party line have met with violent suppression. On April 20, police stormed an ecumenical prayer service held at the Church of the Nazarene in the Harare suburb of Glen Norah. Organized by evangelical leaders under the theme “Saving Zimbabwe, the Unfinished Journey,” the service commemorated a 2007 prayer service where police shot and killed an opposition leader and jailed over 100 pro-democracy activists.
A video of the April incident shows that after firing tear gas into the church, police drove the congregation from the building, beating those slow to respond with truncheons. Nazarene Pastor Paul Mukome reported that ten worshippers and four pastors were arrested, while the vice-chairman of the Harare MDC was severely beaten.
A Roman Catholic priest told The Tablet, a U.K.-based Catholic publication, that clergy were also subjected to arbitrary arrest and questioning. “There’s no freedom of speech. You preach that people are hungry and the moment you say people are hungry those in authority feel attacked. So you are an enemy,” the unnamed priest said.
Politics was driving this issue, the current Anglican bishop of Harare, Chad Gandiya, said. President Mugabe has “insisted on holding” elections this year. The MDC opposes the push since the country still has not adopted a new constitution.
The political parties were “vying for support and the church is seen as a source” of votes, Gandiya said. “Unfortunately, those that are deemed to be non-cooperative are then harassed. Various members of the president’s party have gone to gatherings of various churches, especially the African Independent Churches, to try to win their support. They don’t seem to have done the same with the mainline churches. One possible reason could be that the mainline churches would not give them the same kind of platform.”
For Anglicans, the fight “in our church is political but dressed in religious clothing,” Gandiya said. “Nothing has changed. We continue to be harassed and prevented from using our church buildings while Dr. Kunonga is assisted by the police in his ambitious expansionist [plans].”
But in the midst of the political infighting, the churches continue to do their “holistic ministry quietly,” he said. “Our population is greatly traumatized and in need of healing. Our people are afraid. Please pray that our leaders take the lead in encouraging people not to engage in violence.”
Paul Mukome, the Nazarene pastor, agreed that prayer is necessary—but his prayer request differed. “The biggest message for Zimbabweans is that the time to pray has come,” he said. “We have to pray harder for our leaders so that they know how to lead through the image of God.”
West Indian church rejects call to decriminalize homosexuality: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 5, 2011 p 5. August 10, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of the West Indies, Marriage.Tags: Belize, Bishop Philip Wright, homosexuality, UNIBAM
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Bishop Philip Wright of Belize
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Anglican Diocese of Belize has joined the country’s other Churches in opposing reform of the Caribbean nation’s sodomy laws.
Bishop Philip Wright of Belize, along with Roman Catholic Bishop Dorick Wright and the president of the Belize Evangelical Association, the Rev Eugene Crawford, have urged the government to stand fast against attempts to decriminalise homosexual conduct.
In May, the Belize Council of Churches stated it would seek to join as interested parties the case of Caleb Orozco and the United Belize Advocacy Movement (UNIBAM) against the Attorney General of Belize. The Orozoco case challenges the constitutionality of Section 53 of the Belize Criminal Code, Chapter 101 which prescribes 10 years imprisonment for “unnatural crime,” defined as “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any person or animal.”
Gay advocacy groups along with the International Commission of Jurists, the Commonwealth Lawyers Association and the Human Dignity Trust are seeking to overturn the law, and have engaged the former Attorney General of Belize and the former British Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, to argue their case in December before the country’s high court.
In May, Anglican and Roman Catholic Bishops and the president of the Evangelical Association criticised the lawsuit as being “heavily influenced by foreign interests who seek to impose a worldview that directly contradicts the supremacy of God as reflected in our laws, challenges our national sovereignty, and threatens our very way of life, not least by targeting our children.”
Decriminalising homosexuality was the thin edge of the wedge that would see homosexual behaviour transformed into a “right” that would inevitably see it promoted as a morally neutral behaviour, the bishops said.
“This homosexual agenda insists upon the promotion of homosexual acts in the schools and society, undermining the rights of parents as primary educators of their children and targeting even grammar school children under the guise of ‘comprehensive’ sexual education programmes that promote sodomy and immoral behaviour. It also demands that same-sex marriage must be recognised, and that no group may object to this agenda on religious or moral grounds,” the bishops said.
“Let us be clear what is at stake here,” they said. “In every country that has granted a new ‘right’ to homosexual behaviour, activists have promoted and steadily expanded this ‘right’ to trump universally recognised rights to religious freedom and expression.
On 26 July, the Belize Council of Churches — representing the majority of denominations in the West Indian country — stated that homosexual practices were sinful and contrary to the natural order.
They stated the arguments put forward by UNIBAM “on sex and sexuality”, on “sexual orientation and behaviour,” on the “concept of the family and on human reproduction” and on the moral good of “same-sex marriage” were “biblically unfounded and theologically unsound.”
The laws of Belize “reflect God’s law,” the Churches said and “all changes in the Constitution of Belize that will not promote the sanctity of human sexual relations as established by God,” should be rejected by the courts, the Churches said.
Bishop presses govt to intervene in Syria: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 5, 2011 p 3. August 9, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper.Tags: Bishop Mike Hill, Syria
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The Archbishop of Canterbury and the President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, during a 2007 meeting in Damascus
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Bishop of Bristol has questioned the government’s hands off policy towards human rights abuses in Syria, and has urged the Foreign Secretary to take a tougher line on the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Writing on his blog on the diocesan website on Aug 1, the Rt. Rev. Mike Hill stated “I can’t be the only person wondering why the West, having rapidly decided that intervention in Libya was a righteous and necessary cause, seem less interested in the wholesale slaughter taking place in Syria.”
The Reuters news agency reports that 84 people have been killed by Syrian troops in the city of Hama after tanks shelled the city on the eve of Ramadan. In 1982 several thousand people were killed in Hama when the Muslim Brotherhood led a revolt against the rule of the President Bashar al-Assad’s father, Haffez al-Assad.
In March the government ordered most foreign journalists out of the country, however, reports out of Syria indicate the government has launched a severe crackdown on dissent in response to the ‘Arab Spring’ that has seen autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia swept from power.
U.S. President Barack Obama said the “horrible” attacks “demonstrate the true character of the Syrian regime,” but still stopped short of directly calling for Assad to step down.
The UN Security Council will due to meet this week to discuss the situation in Syria, but armed intervention akin to NATO’s support for Libya’s rebels has been ruled off the table. “We do want to see additional sanctions,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague told the BBC. “We want to see stronger international pressure all round. Of course, to be effective, that can’t just be pressure from Western nations, that includes from Arab nations, it includes from Turkey.”
However, military action against Syria was “not a remote possibility,” said Mr. Hague.
Bishop Hill stated the Foreign Secretary’s “spirited attempt to justify our inactivity” was unconvincing. “While all this diplomatic wrangling seems to be going nowhere slowly, the Syrian regime sends tanks to quell largely unarmed protesters.”
The bishop noted that his earlier words of “caution” over the Arab Spring appeared to have been borne out. “The Egyptian revolution appears to have stalled; the Libyan rebels, having been recognised by the UK as the ‘legitimate’ government of Libya, contrived to murder their leader allegedly from within, are a cause for concern.”
Bishop Hill stated that what had arisen from the Arab Spring was “a foreign policy mess. We Brits, of all people, should know that an early spring can quickly fizzle out, become protracted and rob us of our summer.”
Police probe of former dean on fraud charges: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 5, 2011 p 5. August 9, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand & Polynesia, Church of England Newspaper.Tags: corruption
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The Rev. Jonathan Kirkpatrick
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The former Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in Dunedin, New Zealand is the subject of a police inquiry and has been accused of diverting funds from the Auckland University of Technology (AUT).
The Rev. Jonathan Kirkpatrick resigned from his post as chief executive of the AUT Business Innovation Centre after more than £250,000 went missing from the school’s accounts. Mr. Kirkpatrick had been serving as priest in charge of St Albans church in Balmoral, but a spokesman for the Diocese of Auckland told the New Zealand Herald the priest no longer exercised “any role of responsibility in the church.”
A well known gay rights activist in the New Zealand church, Mr. Kirkpatrick was the partner of NZ Labour MP Tim Barnett for 18 years and had been a vocal supporter of changing the church’s teachings on morals and marriage.
Last week the University released a statement saying that “as a consequence of AUT’s investigations into the accounting discrepancies, Mr. Jonathan Kirkpatrick has resigned. The matter is now under police investigation.”
The police have confirmed that an investigation is underway, but have declined to comment on their inquiries.
Cardboard cathedral planned for Christchurch: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 5, 2011 p 4. August 8, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand & Polynesia, Church of England Newspaper.Tags: Christchurch earthquake, church architecture
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A model of the cardboard cathedral, (Anglican Taonga photo)
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Diocese of Christchurch has unveiled plans to build a cardboard cathedral as a temporary replacement for its earthquake damaged Victorian-era central church. On July 30 the Dean of Christchurch, the Very Rev. Peter Beck unveiled plans for the 700-seat church which will be constructed of cardboard tubing and recycled paper and serve as a temporary home for the congregation while a new permanent cathedral is built.
Designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, the A-frame building will be made of cardboard tubing and polycarbonate and will have shipping containers for a foundation. Christchurch may get an interim cathedral made of cardboard as soon as February next year. The dean hopes the temporary structure will be completed in time for the first anniversary of the Feb 22 earthquake.
The £2.15 million structure will be portable and has a life-expectancy of 15 years. The location for the cardboard cathedral has yet to be chosen, but Dean Beck hopes it will be located within the heavily damaged central business district and be seen as “offering a sign of hope and confidence and a thing of beauty in the midst of all the desolation.”
Mr. Ban told the gathering cardboard was an ideal building material as it was “readily available, recyclable and surprisingly strong.”
Anglican Unscripted: Aug 5, 2011 episode August 6, 2011
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George Conger and Kevin Kallsen bring you back to the “new media” of the 1980′s in their “On this day in History” segment. They also discuss the use of analogies and their place in a violent world. Alan Haley discusses some specifics from the court case in the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin; and our guest Bishop this week is Bishop Iker from the Diocese of Fort Worth. Bishop Iker brings news from the Fort Worth law suit and the new heat record for DFW.
America dons the victim’s mantle in church wars: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 5, 2011 August 5, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.Tags: Fort Worth, Harare, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Nolbert Kunonga, Robert Mugabe, San Joaquin
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Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The murders, beatings and state-sanctioned violence suffered by Anglicans in Harare under the Mugabe regime are akin to the discomforts faced by Episcopalians loyal to the national Church who reside in dioceses that have departed for the Anglican Church in North America.
This summary of the situation in Harare from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori came in an August 2 report released by the Episcopal News Service (ENS) summarizing her trip to Central Africa. Her remarks are similar to claims made at the Jamaica meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in 2009. However, in Kingston delegates from the Global South rejected the Presiding Bishop’s attempt to cloak the Episcopal Church with the victim’s mantle, arguing in the United States it was the Episcopal Church who was the aggressor in its legal battles.
In its article on the Presiding Bishop’s July 29-31 visit to Zimbabwe, ENS wrote: “A crippled nation at the mercy of tyrannical leaders, Zimbabwe is home to a persecuted yet resilient community of Anglicans who’ve been victimized, intimidated and run out of their own churches by a state-supported renegade bishop and his allies.
“Yet, despite being excluded from all worship spaces in Harare, ‘the Anglican church is growing, filled with joy, and looking outward’,” Presiding Jefferts Schori told ENS.
The article then quoted the Presiding Bishop as having said: “They have experienced the same kind of thing as congregations in Fort Worth and San Joaquin.” The Church’s press office explained the Presiding Bishop was “referring to attempts by former leaders in those places to take ownership of diocesan property and leave loyal Episcopalians without a spiritual home.”
ACNA clergy contacted by CEN in Fort Worth and San Joaquin expressed displeasure with the analogy drawn by the Presiding Bishop, with one priest noting that situation was actually “quite the reverse.”
“We’re the ones [like the Diocese of Harare] with 90 per cent of the people and are the ones defending ourselves against their attempts to drive us out of our church homes.”
A spokeswoman for the Diocese of Fort Worth, Suzanne Gill, earlier this year told CEN the picture painted by the national Church was not true to life as Bishop Jack Iker had sought time and again to find a “gracious” way forward. “People wonder from time to time about a mediated settlement. As you know, this was tried and rebuffed,” she said.
“We still try in vain to get the press to notice that we gave away four parishes in February 2009, or that we have four churches being run by TEC clergy which are owned by the [breakaway diocese]. We even pay the casualty insurance on one of them,” Ms Gill noted.
During the debate on the Anglican Covenant on May 7, 2009 at ACC-14 in Kingston, the Bishop of Peru, the Rt Rev William Godfrey, urged the ACC to take up the question of the property lawsuits in the US. “When good and godly men choose to set aside” the Biblical injunction not to take their disputes to court, “we must ask why.”
The Anglican Communion “must put everything that is a problem on the table” for discussion, Bishop Godfrey said.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori responded that “the reality is that those who have sought to remove property” from the control of the national Episcopal Church were the problem.
Nor was this an American problem alone. “In Harare” Dr Nolbert Kunonga had alienated church property from the province, while “in the Sudan” the Diocese of Khartoum was “trying to get its cathedral back” from a breakaway group.
She added the “[previous] Bishop in Jerusalem,” the Rt Rev Riah Abu al-Assal, “sought to remove property” from the diocese. “When leaders of the Church assert property of the church is personal property and are unwilling to discuss the issue,” national Churches have a “fiduciary and moral duty” to fight.
Bishop Ezekiel Kondo of Khartoum objected to the Presiding Bishop’s remarks and disputed her grasp of events in Khartoum. It was “not a cathedral but a house” that was in dispute, he added.
The Bishop in Iran, the Rev Azad Marshall responded that the Presiding Bishop was “wrong” to link the overseas property disputes in Africa and Israel to those of the Episcopal Church. The Jerusalem dispute was not in any way like the American dispute, he said, adding the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East supported the decision taken by the breakaway American dioceses to leave the Episcopal Church and take their property with them.
Philippine ‘no’ to the Anglican Covenant: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 5, 2011 p 4. August 4, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Covenant, Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church of the Philippines.Tags: Anglican Covenant
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Prime Bishop Edward Malecdan of the Philippines (ACNS photo)
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Bishops of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines have rejected the proposed Anglican Covenant, saying the proposal to centralise authority in London was an “un-Anglican” attempt to “lord it over” the Communion’s national provinces.
Speaking to the 8th Philippine General Synod on 2 May, the Church’s Prime Bishop, the Most Rev Edward Malecdan, argued the best way forward through the crisis of faith and order dividing Anglicans was to keep talking while taking no action that would cause irreparable harm to the fabric of the Communion.
“I think most of us know that there are problems besetting the Communion,” he observed, noting that “one of this is the practice of The Episcopal Church USA, or TEC, in consecrating practicing homosexuals and lesbians to the episcopate. The other is the acceptance of same-sex marriages in both TEC and in the Anglican Church of Canada or ACoC.”
The responses to these breaches of Communion by the US and Canada had led some provinces to call for the isolation of “these two North American Churches. They express in no uncertain terms that the Church in Canada and TEC should be out of the Communion.”
These Churches that have sought to punish TEC and Canada have looked to the “Instruments of Communion,” specifically the Primates’ Meeting “to make that decision, presumably for the whole Communion,” he said.
Bishop Malecdan added there was also a plan to “create a parallel Anglican Communion which would exclude in its membership TEC, ACoC and the Archbishop of Canterbury as an instrument of Communion, such that those who planned this boycotted the Lambeth Conference in 2009 and the Primates’ Meeting I attended in Dublin.
“Associated with this problem is the Anglican Covenant which is supposedly a proposed document to help defuse the tension in the Communion. The document is intended to be the final arbiter in the resolution of conflicts in the Communion and that all member Churches will have to adhere to its provisions.”
Bishop Malecdan stated the Philippine Council of Bishops “noted that the document provides for the creation of a Standing Committee that will be the ‘Supreme Court’ as it were, for the Anglican Communion to lord it over all Anglican Provinces. This, to the Council is very un-Anglican because of the autonomous nature of each Anglican Province. Hence, we are not in favour of the document.”
The Bishop said his impression of the Dublin Primates’ Meeting was one of a Church where “unity and diversity” was “clearly and strongly affirmed.”
“We recognised that Anglicans have many disagreements as a Communion but we still can be agreeable to one another. We can still move towards reconciliation as sisters and brothers as a gift of God to us by persistently talking about our differences. This is the beauty of Anglicanism.
“Unity in diversity which is a recognized uniqueness of the Communion is preserved,” the prime bishop said.
‘Don’t make Burundi an aid orphan’, archbishop tells Parliament: The Church of England Newspaper, July 29, 2011 August 3, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Burundi, Church of England Newspaper, Development/Economics/Govt Finances.Tags: Bernard Ntahoturi, Burundi, Save the Children
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Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi of Burundi
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi of Burundi appeared before the House of Commons’ International Development Committee urging a rethink of the Department for International Development’s (DfID) closure of its aid programme in Burundi.
Cutting support to Burundi would make it an “aid orphan,” the Archbishop said on 5 July, as Western support for Africa has been cut sharply in the wake of the global economic downturn.
Committee chairman, the Rt Hon Malcolm Bruce, the member for Gordon (Lib-Dem) opened the meeting asking if the Archbishop could explain why the British government would end support for Burundi’s poor. “Given the fact that Burundi has absolutely clear developmental needs, right across the spectrum by almost any criteria you care to select, why do you think the UK Government decided that it should bring the programme in Burundi to a close and, at the same time, increase the contribution it is making to all the neighbouring countries?,” Mr Bruce asked.
Archbishop Ntahoturi responded that this “question actually is at the core purpose of our visit.”
The DfID has proposed ending its £12 million in aid to the East African nation. Archbishop Ntahoturi noted that “in Burundi is a lot of money” even though the total “given to Burundi by UK standards was relatively small.” It was nonetheless a necessary component in the democratic and economic redevelopment of the country.
Burundi was one of the “poorest countries” in the East African Community the Archbishop said and was “also coming out of a 15 year war.” “We are still suffering from the impact and consequences of war” that ended two years ago, the Archbishop said.
However the peace was fragile. “I am worried,” the Archbishop said, by what he was hearing from the poor that “people are not at peace. The signs that we see show that, if we are not careful, there might be another war in Burundi, because most of the young people who were demobilised do not have jobs.”
Patrick Watt of Save the Children testified before the committee that Burundi made good use of the funds given by the DfID. “Burundi has scored fairly highly” and its programmes provided “value for money” based upon DfID criteria for aid, Mr Watt said. “It was difficult to see why Burundi was having British aid withdrawn.”
Ending British aid will mean “almost 70,000 students-children who will not be able to go to school. That would mean almost 45,000 women who were helped by the maternity services, who will not be assisted. That will mean that justice, in a country that has been at war, the police and others will not be accompanied and not be helped.”
The member for Watford, Mr Richard Harrington (Cons.) questioned the Archbishop’s figures, asking how the withdrawal of £12 million would cause such chaos. The Archbishop responded that “the World Bank, the UN, the EU, the French, the Belgians and the Luxembourgers have never decided, have not told us, that they will take over from what DfID was doing.”
Sweden has “also withdrawn its aid, and other donors are thinking” of pulling out, the Archbishop said. “When the programmes are cut off, there is a void. That void will affect the wellbeing of the people,” Archbishop Ntahoturi said.
Episcopal Church of the Sudan issues independence day manifesto, The Church of England Newspaper, July 29, 2011 p 5. August 2, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church of the Sudan.Tags: Daniel Deng, Sudan
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First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Episcopal Church of the Sudan has pledged its support to the fledgling Republic of South Sudan, offering its assistance in building the civil institutions necessary for the success of the world’s newest independent state.
On 9 July the House of Bishops of the country’s largest Church released a pastoral letter congratulating the South Sudan government on achieving independence. “We now have a real government,” the bishops said, noting these were “great achievements which must be recognized, celebrated and guarded carefully.”
Independence was not a panacea, however, for all ills. Border disputes with the Khartoum government remain a flashpoint for conflict, while the Lords Resistance Army’s depredations continue in the southwest.
The bishops identified three areas of particular concern for the new country: “Achieving peace and non-violence; Promoting unity by reducing tribalism; and Promoting equitable development through effective decentralisation.”
The first step in building peace was for those “who have taken up arms” to lay down their weapons and “join in the building of the newborn nation.” The second step was to foster respect for the rule of law and equality before the law.
The Church would do its part towards working for “greater justice, peace and reconciliation in South Sudan” by bringing its national presence to the table to help mediate conflicts between the various militia groups and “promote non-violence and peace at community level through its pastoral role in trauma counselling, local-level mediation and the promotion of the Ten Commandments to discourage factionalism and the formation of civil mercenary groups.”
The Church would also do its part to end the curse of tribalism.
“Corruption and nepotism give birth to tribalism. Corruption is more than bribery or embezzlement of funds; it includes abuse of power or authority for private gain. The appointment of people to positions based on family or clan or other ties is also corruption. These trends work against unity and undermine the tenets of the Constitution. We believe that appointments to all positions should be based on merit. Similarly, the misuse or theft of public or church money is also corruption. Fraud, that is the illegal acquisition of money, goods or services, is also considered as corruption. We call on Sudanese people to reject tribalism, nepotism and corruption.”
The Church would also do its part to “fight against poverty, ignorance and disease. We will work with the Government in the provision of services that contribute to fighting and eradicating the above vices.”
However, the bishops encouraged the government to set in place an “economic system that is based on equity which means a fair system that provides equal opportunity for all and protects the poor from being manipulated or exploited by the rich. Enabling the full, equitable and integral development of all our people will be the final proof of value of independence.
“We are all responsible for ensuring that the new Republic of South Sudan is built on a strong foundation,” the bishops said. “If we strive in earnest to adhere to the principle of the Body of Christ, no one and nothing can hold back or hinder the people of the Republic of South Sudan again.”
Akinola says ‘no’ to Sharia banking: The Church of England Newspaper, July 29, 2011 p 5. August 1, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Nigeria.Tags: Nigeria, Peter Akinola, Sharia Law
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First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The former Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola, has added his voice to the chorus of protest over government-regulated Islamic banks in Nigeria.
Injecting religion into the financial sector while the country wrestled with sharp sectarian divisions was a recipe for disaster, the archbishop said on 10 July at a youth festival in Obantoko, and could lead to the “disintegration” of Nigeria.
However, Muslim leaders have attacked the archbishop, questioning his sincerity in condemning Sharia financial laws.
On 13 January, 2011 the Central Bank of Nigeria released an official circular setting the “Framework for the Regulation and Supervision of Institutions Offering Non-Interest Financial Services in Nigeria.”
The new rules authorized Sharia law-compliant banking under the Fiqh al-Muamalat (Islamic rules on transactions). The Sharia banks would be permitted to take non-interest bearing deposits and to issue Islamic mortgages and loans under government licence.
Central Bank Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has denied allegations the new laws broached the line between church and state. Nigerian Muslim leaders have also denounced the criticism of Sharia banking as ignorant, and have objected to the linking of terrorism with Islam.
A statement released on 11 July by the umbrella group the Conference of Islamic Organisations said there was “no link whatsoever” between “Islamic financial institutions and terrorism.”
“We see the attacks against Islamic banking as insincerity and diversionary tactics to heat up the political situation of the country, thereby portraying Islam and Muslims as trouble-makers,” the Muslim group said.
While financial institutions operating on Islamic banking principles can be found in Europe and across the Muslim world, the Nigerian law goes a step further in requiring the new banks be governed by Sharia law. While church leaders have not objected to the creation of private associations that are self-governed by Sharia law, they sharply object to the requirement that the new institutions under state licence be Sharia-compliant.
Archbishop Akinola called on the Church of Nigeria and “all other well-meaning Nigerians to wake up and appreciate the situation.”
“Well-meaning Nigerians must resist all of this by all lawful means and the National Assembly must see the whole thing as an affront” to the Nigerian constitution “which states unambiguously that no particular religion shall be adopted as state religion.”
“Government must take decisive action and promptly cancel everything about the proposed Sharia banking,” the archbishop said, imploring Christians to “rise to defend our faith which is currently on trial” from pro-Muslim government policies and violent Islamist terror attacks.
“We are too comfortable. We must not allow our enemies to win this battle. This is a battle that we must fight and win,” Archbishop Akinola said.
Speaking to the press after last week’s House of Bishops meeting, the current primate of the Church of Nigeria, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh “there is more to Islamic banking than meets the eye.”
The goal of Islamic banking, Archbishop Okoh said, was Islamic evangelism. “In 10 years from now Islamic banking would have grown and matured to what it is intended to be, a religious oppressive instrument and tool for social coercion of the poor to convert to Islam.”
Put people before profit, bishop tells Isle of Man govt: The Church of England Newspaper, July 29, 2011 p 4. August 1, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper.Tags: Arab Spring, Civil Liberties, Diocese of Sodor & Man
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Bishop Robert Paterson
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Bishop of Sodor and Man has pressed the Isle of Man to give precedence to freedom and democracy over banking profits in its relations with overseas governments.
On 12 July Bishop Robert Paterson tabled a question before the Manx legislature, the Tynwald, urging Chief Minister Tony Brown to reconsider the double-taxation treaty signed with Bahrain earlier this year in light of the Gulf state’s violent suppression of human rights.
In a statement given to the BBC last week, Bishop Paterson stated that “a number of people in Bahrain have been treated very badly in recent times and so I thought this is something the Isle of Man government ought to think about again.”
The ‘Arab Spring’ has seen the collapse of authoritarian governments in Egypt and Tunisia, protests in Syria and has spread to Bahrain. February protests calling for the ouster of King Hamad bin al-Khalifa were violently suppressed and martial law declared on 15 March.
On 21 April Foreign Secretary William Hague released a statement voicing concern “at events in Bahrain.”
There continue to be “many credible reports of human rights abuses,” Mr Hague said, and the “arrests of opposition figures, the reports of deaths in custody, allegations of torture and the denial of medical treatment, are extremely troubling.”
Bishop Paterson told the BBC that it while it was “very unlikely I will persuade the Chief Minister to end connections with Bahrain, the point is just simply to say that this is an issue and I hope the government just won’t simply go along the line that says that as long as financially everything is good for the island, then everything is OK — because that is not always the case.”
Following the declaration of martial law, Bishop Paterson pushed for a 90-day delay in ratifying the tax treaty — but was defeated by the government. Last week he submitted a question to the government asking for an explanation for its continued ties to the sheikdom.
On 12 July the chief minister Tony Brown responded the Isle of Man would not void the tax treaty with the Bahrain, though the government was “very responsive to the actions of the international community in general, and the United Kingdom in particular.”
However it would urge King Hamid and his government to “meet all of its human rights obligations and uphold political freedoms, and to carry out investigations into alleged abuses by Bahraini security forces.”
“We welcome the King of Bahrain’s announcement this month to establish an independent commission to look into allegations of human rights abuses, and his commitment to a national dialogue with groups across the country,” Mr Brown said.
